My guess is one of the following four:

Necro sleep
Bard sleep
Thief blackjack (the generalist, old school one)
Thief inhaled poison

Garotte worked exceptionally well as a svirf. Unfortunately if you're a villager you'll never be able to knock out someone giant sized. But I will say that it was far more successful than normal blackjack or bard song.

They all have their own countermeasures.

For example, a thief or bard is more likely to jo a rager than a Necro or ap.

Basically is someone is using a countermeasure the attack is unlikely to be very effective. But it's generally not possible to be countering all of them at once.

Also bard song doesn't start a fight and can get hidden people to sleep. Thief blackjack works on fighting people as it stops the fight etc.

With no countermeasures I'd have to go with Necro sleep
Tho.

Yes, I meant with no countermeasures and no special benefits other than 100% in the skill. So, assuming the same sizes of victim & target for blackjack, no spellbane for necro sleep, etc.

After reading your response, though, it occurs to me there are probably a lot more factors than I'm considering. Like for the spells & bardsong, the victim's svs and the caster's int have to come into play, right? And probably save vs poison for thief inhale poison. So does that mean thief blackjack is the only one that isn't impacted by the victim's equipment at all?

Specifically headgear.

I may be confusing it with weaponbutt blackjack.

I never heard what aspect of headgear it is. Material? Weight? AC against blunt? Whether it's "whole head" or "just helmet"? Etc.

gr

Deleted.

But I'm too lazy to look. But other players in game have indicated to me that this is the case too - i.e., a helmet vs. crown will be better, but I don't know if there is some hidden flag in code that distinguishes - I'd guess clothing (hat) vs armor.

Still, I always had good success with both blackjack and garrotte if I had a high hit roll. Weaponbutt not so much.

I'd bet that garrotte is most reliable - it has the fewest mitigating factors, plus you can push first to bump up your odds.