i was playing wizardry the other day and came across a conundrum, this could happen on several games GOG has to offer too, so here it is:

you find a dagger that does 10-16 damage.

later you find a staff that does 11-15 damage.

which would you use?

When the differences in damage are so small, just look at other attributes( attack speed, chance of hit, etc.)

I tend to go with type of weapon I prefer, depending upon character. If I'm a warrior, I tend to stick with bladed weapons. If wizard/magic user, for me they're more likely to have a staff.

I would use the staff depending on the game. It can be used for channeling magical attacks or if up close a decent pole weapon with better reach which is always good if you are playing a magic character.

Like mentioned though, check out attributes on each item, highest damage marker is if you get a perfect hit usually. Also check character class preffered weapon, Staffs are usually mages and daggers are thieves and assassin classes

damage times speed of strike is your base measure. However it depends on how often the opponent gets the counter in. If your opponent is around hitting half your health, you need to kill him in one (or at least just before his next heavy blow). If he's slicing away slowly then the maths starts to override it.

If these weapons have NO other attributes (like specific mods / different attack speed or weapon masteries I'll be able to use some items better) I would go with staff. Why? It seems that both items do the same average damage (13) BUT in such case I'm looking at lowest possible damage. If you have bad luck (and it happens sometime) you will deal more damage so you will kill faster.

i went with the staff too. seems to me, that having a higher maximum is better becuase you can do more damage from time to time. maybe that doesn't make sense though... i liked the idea that from time to time you have bad luck and you only do minimum damage, so you'll do better in that situation. who knows though, i think ultimatly, it doens't make much of a difference, and i felt like changing my charecters weapon from something other then a stinking dagger!

In reality a good staff would be far more useful than a dagger. It has better reach and can be used to defend as well as attack. However, it would have less penetration and wouldn't be particularly useful for backstabbing.

It would all depend on whether the character receiving the aforementioned staff or dagger actually knows how to use either weapon. Sure, the base damage is better with the staff, but what good will that be if you keep missing due to a lack of skill in blunt weapons. IIRC, the Wizardry series treats weapons expertise the same as any other stat driven RPG: the better your character(s) are in a certain class of weaponry, the more damage they do with it.