How well does the Str attribute scale?

[stepout]

Hello,

Just bought this game and had a questions on attributes. I'm making an Insectoid Knight, at 11str he dos 1-2 damage. If I pump 5 points into it to bring him to 16 Str, he does 4-7. That's obviously quite difference, but I'm wondering:

Does it scale? Or is it just useful in the beginning of the game? Will a character with 16 str always do a lot more damage with a strength based weapon than a character with 11 Str? Or is it always just adding 3-6 damage? Any help on how Strength scales is appreciated, thanks!

[Eburt]

Weapon damage all works the same, regardless of what it scales off of (except for firearms, which do not scale).

The formula for average weapon damage is: base weapon average dmg + relevant attribute score - 10

The minimum damage is 50% of that (minimum of 1) and the maximum damage is 150% of that. Note that the damage range shows for a weapon when not equipped is it's base damage range, with the average just being (min + max)/2. The damage roll has a linear probability curve between the min and max damage - that is to say your chance of getting min damage, average damage, max damage (or anywhere in between) are all equal.

In summary, yes - str and dex are both quite important for damage to scale in both the early and late game (depending on what weapons you use, of course).

[stepout]

Thanks!

[minmay]

The formula for average weapon damage is: base weapon average dmg + relevant attribute score - 10

This is wrong.

Let "basePower" be the attack power of the weapon. Let "statBonus" be the relevant stat (str or dex) minus 10.
The basic damage range for an attack is then:
Minimum: floor(basePower/2)+floor(statBonus/2)
Maximum: floor(basePower*1.5)+statBonus
Stats are less effective than base attack power, and odd values of either one contribute less than even values.

It is true that a damage roll is uniformly distributed within this damage range. But calling it the damage roll is misleading, because the result doesn't translate into the damage you will actually do. This is because all non-critical attacks have a 7% chance of "fumbling" and getting their damage roll's result halved. This is not displayed to the player, but I assure you it happens. You can test this quite easily if you do not believe me.
If your attack is a critical, then it won't be a fumble. Backstabs can still fumble.

[Eburt]

That was quite enlightening. Thanks minmay, I appreciate the corrections. I guess I've been over-simplifying things.