Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2016 10:32:05 GMT -5
I think it does when planting something on a person. Not in a room.
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grumble
GDB Superstar
toxic shithead
Destroyer of Worlds
Posts: 1,619
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Post by grumble on Feb 5, 2016 1:11:42 GMT -5
And when he says use unlatch on people, he's full of shit, even using unlatch on your own bags could result in an epic gank of monstrous proportions on skill fail in RSV. They could have fixed it, it's like the new windows version, let someone else bug-test it.
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Apr 29, 2018 21:30:57 GMT -5
With the code dump do we know what stats matter in backstab?
Seems to me that strength > Agi once maxed...
Same would be for Sap?
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Post by Amos's Boots on Apr 30, 2018 4:36:31 GMT -5
With the code dump do we know what stats matter in backstab? Seems to me that strength > Agi once maxed... Same would be for Sap? Backstab and sap work on fundamentally the same code, just copy-pasted with different damage values stapled in. How it functions:Success is determined by your skill level + your agility, vs. your target's agility. Their skill does not play a part.
Listen and Watch roll to determine if someone catches you in the act, even if they aren't the target.
Damage is determined by the target's maximum HP (speculation draws that you do a percentile ratio depending on how much HP a character has, IE, a backstab on a giant does more HP damage on average), a strength roll, and how you use your weapons. To elaborate on damage determination:Two handed quite literally does double damage, AND it rolls a second time off of strength, for MORE damage ontop of the bonus you get for using twohanded.
One handed is default, you get no bonus or negative modifier for backstabbing like this.
Dual wielding (it does not matter if you're actually wielding a weapon in your offhand, as the code does not differentiate based on this, so if you have ANYTHING in your off-hand, the negative modifier applies) does half-damage, and has a chance to have a second strike (though it says nothing about this in the code).
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 270
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Post by julio on Apr 30, 2018 7:20:38 GMT -5
With the code dump do we know what stats matter in backstab? Seems to me that strength > Agi once maxed... Same would be for Sap? Backstab and sap work on fundamentally the same code, just copy-pasted with different damage values stapled in. How it functions:Success is determined by your skill level + your agility, vs. your target's agility. Their skill does not play a part.
Listen and Watch roll to determine if someone catches you in the act, even if they aren't the target.
Damage is determined by the target's maximum HP (speculation draws that you do a percentile ratio depending on how much HP a character has, IE, a backstab on a giant does more HP damage on average), a strength roll, and how you use your weapons. To elaborate on damage determination:Two handed quite literally does double damage, AND it rolls a second time off of strength, for MORE damage ontop of the bonus you get for using twohanded.
One handed is default, you get no bonus or negative modifier for backstabbing like this.
Dual wielding (it does not matter if you're actually wielding a weapon in your offhand, as the code does not differentiate based on this, so if you have ANYTHING in your off-hand, the negative modifier applies) does half-damage, and has a chance to have a second strike (though it says nothing about this in the code).I knew AGI was part of the code. My theory is, if you have low AGI you'll get more failure at advanced levels to push you over the hump to reach master. Once mastered, you never miss... Right? So a dwarf would give the biggest backstab bang?
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 257
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Post by OT on Apr 30, 2018 10:36:26 GMT -5
To elaborate on damage determination:Two handed quite literally does double damage, AND it rolls a second time off of strength, for MORE damage ontop of the bonus you get for using twohanded.
One handed is default, you get no bonus or negative modifier for backstabbing like this.
Dual wielding (it does not matter if you're actually wielding a weapon in your offhand, as the code does not differentiate based on this, so if you have ANYTHING in your off-hand, the negative modifier applies) does half-damage, and has a chance to have a second strike (though it says nothing about this in the code). I strongly doubt this is true. Etwo doesn't give double backstab damage. Think about it for a moment. We know that dual-wield backstab can OHK, and routinely comes very close. If etwo gave double damage, you'd literally always OHK. It just doesn't work that way. The double strength roll may be true, but since the strength bonus is applied after any multipliers, it doesn't amount to a whole lot unless you're a mul or half-giant. It rarely matters whether you backstab for 90 or 94. Strength is nice and all on an assassin, but it's the one combat class that can get away with middling strength because so much of your deadliness comes from the backstab formula itself. You can make a very powerful elf assassin. Dual-wield also doesn't do half damage with a chance to do normal. My experiences suggest that it does normal damage, and possibly a chance for bonus damage if you succeed a dual-wield roll. But that bonus is really hard to judge, it may just be confirmation bias. I did seem to notice an increase in backstab damage when I hit advanced dual-wield but maybe it's from something else. In any case, d-wield usually ends up being better than etwo, especially since you also get two swings on the follow-up round where etwo just gets the one. I'd only consider etwo on a mul or HG. The damage bonus from exceptional human strength isn't very high unless you hit a multiplier location (eg. head, neck) which backstab doesn't do. Often a max backstab will take someone low enough to where one more hit will finish the job, so getting two is a really good deal. But the d-wield backstab damage itself is not way behind etwo. Even if it counts strength twice, I'd still dual-wield for the double follow-up swings and double chance to poison. Contrary to popular belief, I've found that the backstab itself cannot proc poison, so you rely on the follow-up hits to do so. That's a pretty big deal. I've played a few maxed assassins, and dual-wield has always given the best results. You can't trust everything in the codedump, there's lots of bits of broken code and shit that isn't connected to anything. Everything you find in there needs to be weighed against your own experiences. It's got a whole segment about the scaling penalties for stealing from every worn location, suggesting you can steal rings and necklaces and so on, but you simply can't. The code doesn't let you try. If it says somewhere that etwo gives double backstab damage, I expect it's some piece of ancient, disused code that nobody bothered to delete. This is what you want to do to people: You begin moving silently toward your victim.
X spits blood and gurgles as you stab him with your sword.
You stab X very hard on his body.
X's eyes roll back in his head.
X crumples to the ground.
You inflict a grievous wound on X's back with your stab.
If I'd been etwo'ing, I would probably have had to type 'kill x' after he crumpled, incurring a long delay. And if I'd missed the first swing, he'd have a chance to flee. With dual-wield, I was able to fully finish the target off, and even if I'd missed the first follow-up swing, the off-hand attack would have knocked him out.
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punished ppurg
GDB Superstar
Why are we still here? Just to suffer?
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Post by punished ppurg on Apr 30, 2018 12:11:15 GMT -5
Look in the code and find where it validates your assumptions. There's really no excuse aside from technological literacy for you all to start pulling specific lines out of the code and using that instead of your depth of anecdotal evidence.
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 257
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Post by OT on Apr 30, 2018 13:17:14 GMT -5
It's a bunch of spaghetti and some of it isn't in use. In some places it has comments like "this is the old code, currently disabled" while other parts don't have such comments but are still unused. When lines of code conflict wildly with in-game observations, don't blindly trust that the code is right. When it matches what you see when playing the game, it can be trusted.
Here's what it says in the code:
backstab_damage(CHAR_DATA * ch, CHAR_DATA * tar_ch, OBJ_DATA * wielded, int wpos) { int dam;
dam = dice(wielded->obj_flags.value[1], wielded->obj_flags.value[2]) + wielded->obj_flags.value[0];
dam = MAX(1, dam);
if (ch->skills[SKILL_BACKSTAB]) dam *= (2 + (ch->skills[SKILL_BACKSTAB]->learned / 7)); else dam *= 2;
dam += str_app[GET_STR(ch)].todam;
switch (wpos) { case ES: dam = MAX(1, (dam / 2)); break; case ETWO: dam += number(3, MAX(str_app[GET_STR(ch)].todam, 4)); break; case EP: default: break; }
Then right afterwards:
/* damage = maxhps of target(backstab% -10) +/- 1 per size pt difference */
So, which is true? Those look rather conflicting. One says that your damage multiplier is "2+(backstabskill/7)", so just shy of 15x with 90 backstab, plus a bunch of bonuses depending on random shit. The other states that your damage is just "maxhp*(backstab%-10)" (i.e. 80% of maxhp with 90 backstab) plus/minus size difference. They can't both be true. I'm inclined to believe the former, because I've done human-on-human OHKs which shouldn't be possible if the base backstab damage is 80% of target's maxhp.
I've tried all configurations enough to be confident that etwo doesn't yield significantly bigger backstabs. Certainly not twice as big. It looks to me like etwo adds a bonus of "3 to <str_dmg_bonus> or 4, whichever is greater." Since exceptional human strength is +3 damage, that means etwo just gives 3-4 extra damage to the backstab. If you're a HG, it might be 3-12 or something like that; a more significant difference, but then nobody really plays HG assassins.
The dual-wield part is mysterious. It does suggest that damage is halved, but that doesn't match my experiences at all. Even with the oft-mentioned dual-wield check to add more damage (which is oddly absent in the code), that means a d-wielding backstabber should often do half-damage backstabs. I haven't observed any such thing, even on characters where I maxed backstab while d-wield was still apprentice due to a lack of proper sparring. In those cases, you should be backstabbing for like 40 more often than not, and that's incorrect.
My guess is that the ES calculation is for if you're actually wielding the stabbing weapon in your secondary hand, not your primary. Otherwise the "MAX(1, (dam / 2))" calculation just doesn't work. It can't possibly mean "half damage if you hold something." I'll venture to claim that there's no penalty to dual-wielding, but a penalty if you're only ESing your stabbing weapon and not EPing one. This makes the most sense. I'm prepared to believe that my anecdotal observations about high d-wield skill adding backstab damage are a misconception.
This means that dual-wield is fine, and etwo gives a bonus of three plus your strength bonus to damage or four, whichever is greater. That sounds about right to me. Given the importance of landing at least one follow-up hit after the backstab, I wouldn't advocate etwo unless you found a huge two-handed spear that was labeled as stabbing. Adding 3-4 damage to your backstab very rarely makes any real difference, and if you land both follow-up swings, you've gained that damage right back.
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by OT on Apr 30, 2018 15:20:56 GMT -5
The main thing that puzzles me about the above code for backstab damage is the interaction between weapon dice and backstab's skill-based multiplier. If you have 90 backstab (assassin max), you should have x14.85 damage -- dam *= (2 + (ch->skills[SKILL_BACKSTAB]->learned / 7)) -- but what happens if you roll a 1 on your 1d6 weapon? At face value, this should yield a backstab of like 15-20ish damage, but I have never seen that happen over the course of 3-4 assassins with max backstab. Maybe it rolls the damage individually a number of times corresponding to the multiplier; but then that's weird with fractions. Who the fuck knows. Spaghetti code galore up in this place.
In any case, my observation has been that maxed backstab with a reasonable weapon (i.e. not a skinning knife or something) does somewhere around 60-100 damage. The least I've ever seen it do to a human is from full to "does not look well," and this is from at least fifty backstabs with maxed skill. I've never seen a maxed backstab land for 15-20ish damage. This leads me to suppose that it isn't just (1d6)x15. What sounds more reasonable is 1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6+1d6... fifteen times. And then strength bonus at the end.
Further notes from perusing the code:
- Strength isn't multiplied, so having high strength doesn't do much for backstab. It will help with the follow-up hits, though.
- Your agility is checked against the target's agility by a factor of three. So if your target has 4 less agility than you, you get a +12 chance to land backstab. If they have 6 more, you get -18. This is why HG assassins are a bad idea.
- If the target is listening, they roll 1-(listen_skill) versus your 1-(backstab_skill), and if they come out ahead, you get -25 to your backstab check. Merchants cap listen at 80, so that's a 1-80 roll against your 1-90 backstab.
- You can't raise backstab against vestrics, quirri, rodents, and anything with a coded size value of 4 or less. Don't bother training on sparring dummies or paralyzed individuals, either.
- There appears to be some kind of race-based bonus to backstab damage, but I can't figure out what it is. Do races have a native attack bonus?
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Apr 30, 2018 18:07:35 GMT -5
That's insightful and fucking complicated.
Does anyone have the interpretation of archery vs sling vs crossbow vs blowgun.
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Post by sirra on Apr 30, 2018 18:23:08 GMT -5
Has anyone ever actually seen a full health, average human PC, be OHK'd with backstab? That wasn't subdued, sitting or laying down?
I've seen it with sapping, but I've never seen a legitimate one hit kill with backstab. I have seen a maxed assassin try it, do like ~30-40 damage, then get disarmed and assfucked by a warrior.
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
Posts: 257
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Post by OT on Apr 30, 2018 19:03:16 GMT -5
I've done it to human NPCs a number of times, and they shouldn't have unusually low stats. I haven't backstabbed so many actual PCs that the sample size is scientifically sound, but I've backstabbed PCs down to where the next melee hit knocks them to unconscious/stunned/mortally. If you're dual-wielding, the off-hand swing then kills them. Maxed backstab does up to about 100 damage, but it can also go as low as 60-70ish. I'd estimate that the usual outcome is to bring the average human target to poor or terrible condition on the backstab itself. If they're unarmed, you're almost guaranteed the instant round of follow-up melee which typically finishes the job.
If you go after people like aides and nobles, you have pretty good odds because these roles don't tend to compel people to go for high hp rolls. Also, backstab does about as much stun damage as hp damage, and people are more likely to have reduced stun from scan/listen/Waying. You can easily backstab someone to unconscious with ~80 damage even if they had 100ish hp. Just activating scan and listen takes your stun down by about 10 points, and then Waying once brings you to the point where the backstab almost certainly knocks you out.
When I say OHK, I mean either a clean all-out instant kill (really rare) or knocking them unconscious/stunned/mortally after which they immediately die to the following round of combat swings. The result is the same either way, the only real difference is that doing so in a lawful area (city streets) will make you wanted if you get the combat swings while a clean instakill won't. The pure holy-grail instakill probably requires a target with really low health (90ish) and a maximum damage roll, but it's certainly doable. It's just that people playing combat characters don't keep such statrolls. Rarely will a warrior or ranger with average endurance stick around long enough to become someone you have a reason to assassinate. I'd always advise against backstabbing an armed person if them getting away is a big problem for you.
If you're trying to assassinate some dude who went up the ranks from Byn runner to sergeant, odds are that he went through several characters to get a statroll worth playing. Don't count on these characters having <100hp. But for sponsored noncombat roles or general socialite softies, you can feel confident backstabbing them. Especially if they're unarmed. That dual-stab on the instant post-backstab round can do as much as 30% extra damage on top of the backstab if it's some untrained, unarmed target. Just don't try on an armed, long-lived warrior who likely has 120+ hp. He'll just disarm and bash you inside the backstab delay. Warriors are the main counter to assassins.
The reason I don't like sap is that even if you knock someone out, you may have to type 'kill guy' two or three times to actually deliver the mantis head which, together with sap's unusually long delay, could end up taking 30+ seconds. That and sap caps at 80 for assassins while backstab caps at 90, so you can't really feel confident that sap will hit. And if you miss, you're severely fucked. The damage multiplier for max (80) sap is only x9 while backstab is x15, so unless you're wielding a huge two-handed maul with an inflated damdice, you may just be better off backstabbing anyway. In today's Armageddon where NPC soldiers sprint around the city like madmen, it's awkward to sap someone unconscious and leave them at 75hp which you then need to finish off with bludgeoning weapons that do reduced hp damage.
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julio
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by julio on Apr 30, 2018 21:00:15 GMT -5
Has anyone ever actually seen a full health, average human PC, be OHK'd with backstab? That wasn't subdued, sitting or laying down? I've seen it with sapping, but I've never seen a legitimate one hit kill with backstab. I have seen a maxed assassin try it, do like ~30-40 damage, then get disarmed and assfucked by a warrior. I was OHK by backstab with my human vivaduian in undertuluk.
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Post by sirra on Apr 30, 2018 21:25:20 GMT -5
I've done it to human NPCs a number of times, and they shouldn't have unusually low stats. I haven't backstabbed so many actual PCs that the sample size is scientifically sound, but I've backstabbed PCs down to where the next melee hit knocks them to unconscious/stunned/mortally. If you're dual-wielding, the off-hand swing then kills them. Maxed backstab does up to about 100 damage, but it can also go as low as 60-70ish. I'd estimate that the usual outcome is to bring the average human target to poor or terrible condition on the backstab itself. If they're unarmed, you're almost guaranteed the instant round of follow-up melee which typically finishes the job. If you go after people like aides and nobles, you have pretty good odds because these roles don't tend to compel people to go for high hp rolls. Also, backstab does about as much stun damage as hp damage, and people are more likely to have reduced stun from scan/listen/Waying. You can easily backstab someone to unconscious with ~80 damage even if they had 100ish hp. Just activating scan and listen takes your stun down by about 10 points, and then Waying once brings you to the point where the backstab almost certainly knocks you out. When I say OHK, I mean either a clean all-out instant kill (really rare) or knocking them unconscious/stunned/mortally after which they immediately die to the following round of combat swings. The result is the same either way, the only real difference is that doing so in a lawful area (city streets) will make you wanted if you get the combat swings while a clean instakill won't. The pure holy-grail instakill probably requires a target with really low health (90ish) and a maximum damage roll, but it's certainly doable. It's just that people playing combat characters don't keep such statrolls. Rarely will a warrior or ranger with average endurance stick around long enough to become someone you have a reason to assassinate. I'd always advise against backstabbing an armed person if them getting away is a big problem for you. If you're trying to assassinate some dude who went up the ranks from Byn runner to sergeant, odds are that he went through several characters to get a statroll worth playing. Don't count on these characters having <100hp. But for sponsored noncombat roles or general socialite softies, you can feel confident backstabbing them. Especially if they're unarmed. That dual-stab on the instant post-backstab round can do as much as 30% extra damage on top of the backstab if it's some untrained, unarmed target. Just don't try on an armed, long-lived warrior who likely has 120+ hp. He'll just disarm and bash you inside the backstab delay. Warriors are the main counter to assassins. The reason I don't like sap is that even if you knock someone out, you may have to type 'kill guy' two or three times to actually deliver the mantis head which, together with sap's unusually long delay, could end up taking 30+ seconds. That and sap caps at 80 for assassins while backstab caps at 90, so you can't really feel confident that sap will hit. And if you miss, you're severely fucked. The damage multiplier for max (80) sap is only x9 while backstab is x15, so unless you're wielding a huge two-handed maul with an inflated damdice, you may just be better off backstabbing anyway. In today's Armageddon where NPC soldiers sprint around the city like madmen, it's awkward to sap someone unconscious and leave them at 75hp which you then need to finish off with bludgeoning weapons that do reduced hp damage. Some great insights here. I suppose, speaking as someone who has primarily played rangers/warriors in the past (and all of my 'sneaky' roles have been delves), I've always feared sap much more than backstab. I've seen multiple dwarf and half-giant PCs who could reliably knock armed hostiles out with a single sap, pretty much on clockwork. But I never feared a backstab in any scenario where I had a weapon near to hand. I was always willing to eat the ~30-50ish damage (or so it always seemed to me, but then I spent the vast majority of my Arm existence wearing kuraci camouflage or better regardless of character) and know that I'd be invincible in the following combat rounds. But getting sapped was a real threat. Anyhow. I'd reckon that 90% of my PvP experiences revolved around either charging sneaking desert elves as a mounted ranger, murdering people in the Byn latrines, or shooting muls/magickers with poison arrows.
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OT
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by OT on Apr 30, 2018 21:31:16 GMT -5
The genuine OHK is certainly possible. From my logs:
You begin moving silently toward your victim.
A dirty, muscular human splatters blood on you. A crude bone club clatters to the ground as a dirty, muscular human releases it. A dirty, muscular human crumples to the ground. A dirty, muscular human falls forward, dead, as you plant a razor-sharp, hawk-etched halfsword in his back.
You begin moving silently toward your victim.
You stop watching the north exit. The bald, earth-hued elf splatters blood on you. A sharp, rough-edged chitin shortsword clatters to the ground as the bald, earth-hued elf releases it. The bald, earth-hued elf crumples to the ground. The bald, earth-hued elf makes a strange sound but is suddenly silent, as you plant a recurve-bladed, obsidian thrusting knife in his back.
But this is the more common scenario:
You begin moving silently toward your victim.
The tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak spits blood and gurgles as you stab him with your sword. You stab the tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak very hard on his body. The tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak's eyes roll back in his head. A short stabbing halfspear clatters to the ground as the tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak releases it. The tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak crumples to the ground. You viciously stab the tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak on his back.
In any case, I don't know what's up with sap. Someone with subguild sap shouldn't be able to hit reliably, but I haven't used it much myself. From looking at the code, it appears that the chance to hit is identical to that of backstab when skill levels are similar, but the highest anyone gets sap is 80 while assassin backstab goes to 90. And subguild sap generally caps at journeyman, so like 40ish. There should be no reason that some ranger/thug can consistently KO people with sap, but who the fuck knows what goes on in the code.
According to the code, sap's damage calculation is as follows:
dam = dice(wielded->obj_flags.value[1], wielded->obj_flags.value[2]) + wielded->obj_flags.value[0];
if (ch->skills[SKILL_SAP]) dam *= (1 + (ch->skills[SKILL_SAP]->learned / 10));
dam += str_app[GET_STR(ch)].todam;
if (wpos == ES)
dam = MAX(1, (dam / 2));
else if (wpos == ETWO)
dam += number(3, MAX(str_app[GET_STR(ch)].todam, 4));
The way I interpret it, it rolls your weapon's damage, multiplies it by 1+(sapskill/10), adds your strength bonus, then adds or subtracts some if you're etwoing or were only ESing. Let's say you have exceptional human strength (+3) and are using a bigass fucking maul with like 2d5 damage, and you rolled 7 on the dice. This should give a final damage output of (7x9)+3+(3 or 4), or 69-70. Even if you rolled a perfect 10, it's still just 96-97 stun. And maybe like 4 more for dwarves and 15 more for HGs, assuming the etwo double strength bonus.
I'm not even sure weapons with such high damdice exist. More likely, the difference between a halfsword and a maul is like 1d6 vs. 2d4.
An equivalent perfect backstab with a 1d6 weapon, without the etwo bonus, would yield (6x14.85)+3=92 damage. Now it's looking like you'd actually have to use a vastly better bludgeoning weapon for sap than the backstabber's stabbing weapon in order to match the damage. If you used a bludgeoner without abnormally high damage, the result would be crap.
If you had only 40 sap, the damage would have been pretty unimpressive. People like to say that the thug subguild lets you OHKO people, but the code doesn't show how this is supposed to be possible. If it is, the answer would have to be hidden somewhere outside of the skill's core damage calculations. I feel like if it was so viable, more people would be doing it. I admit I've literally never seen one PC sap another in like 13 years.
Maxed sap's multiplier caps at x9 while backstab gets x14.85. It gets no special strength bonuses or anything else that backstab doesn't get, just the flat strength bonus added at the end and then another "3 to (str_bonus or 4, whichever is greater)" if you etwo. The only defining difference (other than the multiplier) is the fact that you could use any bludgeoning weapon to sap with, including the biggest two-handed maul in the world, while backstab is limited to stabbing weapons which tends to mean daggers, shortswords and small spears. This is surely the reason sap's multiplier is much lower than backstab's. There are some very good bludgeoning weapons out there.
The stun damage bonus of bludgeoning weapons is specifically absent from the sap calculation, with a comment by Tiernan from 2002 about how he removed it because otherwise sap would do way too much damage. The code reveals no reason why sap should be more capable of one-hit knockouts, but there's always the possibility that the victim was at low stun from psionics. The same risk is there with backstab, though, as it does as much stun damage as health. It's common to backstab someone unconscious without bringing their health into the negative.
It's certainly unwise to backstab a skilled and armed warrior or ranger, but the target would have to have some balls to stick around and fight after you've chunked them down to poor/terrible condition. Add the fact that unlike sapping, backstabbing lets you use poisoned weapons, plus the excellent offense vs. humanoids and potential master piercing of an assassin makes it hard to trust that no subsequent swings will land. Assassins are shit defensively but top tier offensively. Suddenly the stab looks like the bigger threat.
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