Is it better to use a weapon that does 75 -125 damage or a weapon that does 50 - 150 damage? The average damage is the same and there are no other big differences between those weapons.

I play D:OS right now, but this question is meant for all games were you can find weapons with different damage ranges. Usually I take the one with the highest minimum damage.

It looks like both weapons should average out to be 100 damage given enough attack rolls, so in the end I’d say it depends on the enemies you face. If your enemies can mitigate an average of 80 points of damage, then the higher max damage weapon would be best. But if they have low mitigation under 50 then the higher minimum damage would be best I’d say. So carry both and use as needed based on who you are facing.

Felgar has point here.
Additionally it depends on your play style. Do you want stable numbers or do accept more random numbers?
If a Weapon has exactly 100 Damage it's easier to calculate the results. If the damage spread is larger it becomes more random.


Now something about game theory:

If you have an enemy that needs 400 Damage to go down (let's forget about resistances, critical hits and stuff)
If you are lucky or if you save and reload you can kill him in three hits with the 50-150 Weapon BUT not with the 75-125 Weapon.

You need to know what you want from that weapon? High Damage Total, High Minimum Damage, High Average Damage and then you can calculate the appropriate chances.

I'm not sure how significant it is but the games also mentions that some enemies will take more damage from certain weapon types. The main one seems to be skeletons who take more damage from crushing rather than slashing. So I some circumstances a club with lower damage may be more effective that a sword with higher stats

Haven't played enough to know what those figures are though.

I think it is a question about the probability and distribution.
Example:
Lets say 1/3 over half the range is hit chance 0.2 or two out of ten attempts.
For the 75 to 125 weapon, you hit for 82 OR 118 damage.
For the 50 to 150 weapon, you hit for 67 OR 133 damage.

But since it is random, you could hit 3 times for 133 in a row and kill the enemy. So you have that chance of doing more damage in a short time, but overall it will be the same.

Re: Damage resistances - these are displayed among the enemy info when you Ctrl-hover over their portrait. Resistances require Loremaster 5 to display though, so you may not be able to get that info in the early going.

The reality is it does not matter since both have the same average damage. The resistance of physical damage of the creatures reduces the damage % of the weapon so it does no matter which one you take

Not necessarily. If the weapons deal different physical damage types (piercing/slashing/crushing) then each one will be better against certain opponents.