The Sword of Justice and Rodrick's jeweled sword of additional damage?

I know the sword of justice's main draw is that it never breaks (nice for opening doors),
but in terms of average damage to monsters, anybody ever tried to compare them?

Since no one knows, in my next game I'm gonna save before fighting a tough monster and do an average of how many strikes it takes to kill it with each sword.

One advantage to just using the sword of justice is that you need to keep track of it anyway. Use it to save some weight, regardless of whether it does slightly more or slightly less damage.

Last time I played I determined that a Black Sword of Unsurpassed Damage (I think it was) was the best sword. If you have low STR you're probably best off with the Sword of Justice, but you have the STR for it get a better sword.

True, but it only comes really late in the game, and the wind up time is horrendous.

There is no such thing as a black sword of unsurpassed damage.

There is a black sword of great accuracy on level 7 (Shadow Beast's treasure stash)

And it sucks. It's too slow

The best sword, bar none, is the jeweled sword of unsurpassed damage on level 8. But by then, you're finished with the game.

And that assumes you explored Level 8 enough to find the sword before you finished the game. :)

I'd guess it is best to use the jeweled sword from Roderick until you obtain the Sword of Justice, then drop the jeweled sword and just use the Sword of Justice.

I've always wondered, deep in the back of my mind, if maybe the Sword of Justice did less damage if you tried to use it on innocents. :)

I used the Underworld Editor created by krokots - it's linked in a previous thread. The editor lists the weapon stats.

Basically the Sword of Justice seems to have almost identical stats to a vanilla Jeweled Sword. The enchantment would add some damage, but don't know how to quantify that yet.

Jeweled Sword:
Durability: 255
Value: 250
Mass: 2.8
Slash damage:14
Bash damage: 7
Stab damage: 11

Sword of Justice:
Durability: 255
Value: 0
Mass: 3.4
Slash damage:14
Bash damage: 7
Stab damage: 11

I have huge doubts about the effectiveness of the actual enchantments.

I did extensive tests in UW2 of the hand axe of Major Damage vs a regular Axe and the latter was always better.

Maybe the enchantment is a multiplier. You were comparing an inferior weapon to a stronger weapon.

I added some basic info on the available weapons from the game's files and cluebook to the Ultima Wiki:

https://ultima.fandom.com/wiki/Ultima_Underworld_Weapons_and_Armor

Unfortunately nothing on enchantments yet, but maybe someone with more knowledge will add it.

Your table is nonetheless very interesting. I always suspected the Wooden shield was way inferior to the small shield in durability. (It's also easier to repair, if you have the repair skill)

Not surprised that it provides less protection.

But the small shield providing equal protection to the jeweled shield? Hard to believe.

Do you think shields provide an additional "evasion" stat like in the final fantasy games?

Okyay I just tested both swords a bunch of times vs the golem on L6 that bestows the shield of valor.

Mage lv15
22 attack, 24 defense, 30 sword skill

All strikes are slashes (no stabs)

Hits required to defeat the golem:
Sword of justice: 9 hits on average (anything from 7 to 11)
Rodrick's jeweled sword of additional damage: 7 hits on average. (rarely anything other than 6, 7, or 8)

So, Rodrick's sword is better.

If anyone is a curious as I was I have a savegame.

So, it turns out Axe and Mace users are not that penalized by their choice of weapons. (Aside from the fact that you need to solve a long sidequest on L5 to get the equivalent jeweled axe of additional damage)