I did some research into the effects of ability scores and discovered that some of the assumptions tossed about here are incorrect, particularly regarding the +1 every 5 or 10 levels of a score.
Damage bonuses, to-hit bonuses, and armor rating bonuses are each determined by summing two different ability scores. You then get a +1 bonus for every 5 points the combined score has. For example, 10 Str and 10 Spd will give you a +4 damage bonus in melee, but 12 Str and 13 Spd will give you a +5 bonus.
Str + Spd = Melee Damage
Str + Dex = Thrown Weapon Damage
Dex + Con = Bow Damage
Dex + Con = To-Hit (for any weapon attack)
Dex + Spd = Armor Rating
Since the ability scores are combined, that means you can raise both, or you can just raise one, and you'll get the same effect. The list gives bows an advantage as you can raise to-hit and damage at the same time, whereas for melee weapons, you can only raise one or the other. Additionally, Nimbleness will give +6/+6 to bows, but you have to cast Nimbleness AND Ogre Strength to get the same effect for melee.
Weapon skills, of course, still have far more impact than these bonuses, since you get +1/+1 for only 2 points of investment, compared to (at best) +1/+1 for 5 points of investment for Dex on Bows.
From what I can tell -- I could be wrong about this part -- each point of armor rating lowers your enemies' chances of hitting you by a flat 2%. Each point of to-hit you have increases your chances of hitting enemies by a flat 3%.
Extra points on your to-hit rating are pretty much always useful, unlike games with the more tradiitonal +5% per point model, where you sometimes fly above 100% hit rates in the middle of the game and never look back.
I also looked into resistance scores. The resistance bonuses vary in strange ways but appear to more or less stay near +1 per point of Endurance and +1 per point of the other relevant stat (Str for Toxins, Wis for Disease, Int for Elemental, Per for Magical).
...so what does this mean, strategically?
Early on raising Perception and Endurance is still, clearly, by far the best use of your points.
The standard maximizing method allows you to get 40 Perception at level 6. At that point the options diverge a little. Putting another 15 points into Perception over the next 5 levels will get you about 35 more MP by the end of the game. Putting the same 15 points into Dex will get you +3 to hit, +3 to damage with bows, and +3 to armor rating. Putting them in Str will get you +3 to damage with melee, 60 lbs to carry and 5 to your casting weight limit.
After that set of points, Perception bottoms out, providing about half the return, so the last 30 ability points are better spent elsewhere.
Q: If a pure warrior were to put all of his points in Endurance for the entire game, would his very high resistances eventually make him immune or nearly immune to magic?
Effect of ability scores -- research
Yes, they will - and that's what I critize in warrior/mage balance - warrior get's all, nothing can harm him (and even if it does, he regenerates, no need for sleep - he doesn't spend HP to attack).If a pure warrior were to put all of his points in Endurance for the entire game, would his very high resistances eventually make him immune or nearly immune to magic?
Some more maths.
It appears that you can achieve maximum to-hit and armor ratings against every enemy in the game with nearly no investment of skill points OR ability points. I haven't tested this, so there might be some change in mechanics that takes effect at high scores to mess up my math: but I suspect it should work. Armor Rating of 66 should get you maximum dodge rate (2%?) against anyone, and To-Hit of 36 should get max to-hit rate of 98% against anyone.
A book-learned point in Heavy Armor, and two spent points in Alchemy (to reach 15) allows you to obtain an armor score of 57 from belt, boots, cloak, gauntlets, helm, greaves, and chest plate. Throw in 4 from average starting stats (Dex + Con). A single spent point in Shield Use gets you another 5 points from even a light shield. That's 66, without needing to cast any defensive spells. The total weight is 38 pounds, 41 with a shield. So points added to Strength might be convenient but they certainly aren't required.
For to-hit scores: consider +3 for weapon enchantment, +3 for trained and read weapon skill, +6 bless, +10 rings, +5 gauntlets, +3 amulet, and +4 natural Dex and Speed. That gets you to 34. Four spent points (or a Nimbleness) get you to 36. More points (or the Nimbleness) and you can switch out an amulet or ring.
Obviously this is not an effective setup at lower levels when the required equipment is neither available nor affordable. But because you don't have to spend any skill points or stat points to get this setup, you can use the most efficient setup at earlier levels, and just cast spells without the weaker enemies ever getting near you. In the mid-game you can use buffs to make up the difference.
Ah, but what about damage, you say? Weapon skill adds to damage. Well, yes, it does, but not much. If max damage works the way it appears to, you get a random number from 1 to max damage, and add bonus damage to it. So a point of max damage is worth half a point of damage, on average. This means 4 levels of weapon skill increase average damage by 1. However, consider the bonus damage available: +3 weapon enchantment, +6 bless, +12 enchanted spell, +12 enkindled spell, +6 rings and gauntlet. That's +39, with a few more points around if you swap out equipment. All 82 of your skill points will only get you an average +20 damage. A more reasonable 40 skill points, likely what's left after investing in those spells and other useful skills, will get you +10 damage: not a very impressive improvement.
Investing in damage-boosting stats also looks less amazing facing that +40.
Very relevantly, this also debunks the "huge advantage" of sword weapons. The impressive-looking base damage of 12 from that 11-pound sword translates to average damage 6.5, while a 2-pound steel kama provides average damage 2. This is less than 10% of the final damage once you're highly buffed, and it's available even to low-strength magic-users who wear shields and gauntlets. The more moderate 6-pound cleaving weapon has average damage 5, only 1.5 points below the huge sword. Bows likewise are no weaker than melee weapons, even with regular arrows. And Demon Oil III's just seem piddly. Okay, an extra 10 damage on average: who cares?
What does this mean?
You may as well start out investing in perception and spells. After level 11 or so you may as well invest in strength, to make the armor-toting more convenient. I guess the remaining skill points can go wherever you like. Heavy mercantile might actually be the quickest route to an easy finish... surprisingly!
It appears that you can achieve maximum to-hit and armor ratings against every enemy in the game with nearly no investment of skill points OR ability points. I haven't tested this, so there might be some change in mechanics that takes effect at high scores to mess up my math: but I suspect it should work. Armor Rating of 66 should get you maximum dodge rate (2%?) against anyone, and To-Hit of 36 should get max to-hit rate of 98% against anyone.
A book-learned point in Heavy Armor, and two spent points in Alchemy (to reach 15) allows you to obtain an armor score of 57 from belt, boots, cloak, gauntlets, helm, greaves, and chest plate. Throw in 4 from average starting stats (Dex + Con). A single spent point in Shield Use gets you another 5 points from even a light shield. That's 66, without needing to cast any defensive spells. The total weight is 38 pounds, 41 with a shield. So points added to Strength might be convenient but they certainly aren't required.
For to-hit scores: consider +3 for weapon enchantment, +3 for trained and read weapon skill, +6 bless, +10 rings, +5 gauntlets, +3 amulet, and +4 natural Dex and Speed. That gets you to 34. Four spent points (or a Nimbleness) get you to 36. More points (or the Nimbleness) and you can switch out an amulet or ring.
Obviously this is not an effective setup at lower levels when the required equipment is neither available nor affordable. But because you don't have to spend any skill points or stat points to get this setup, you can use the most efficient setup at earlier levels, and just cast spells without the weaker enemies ever getting near you. In the mid-game you can use buffs to make up the difference.
Ah, but what about damage, you say? Weapon skill adds to damage. Well, yes, it does, but not much. If max damage works the way it appears to, you get a random number from 1 to max damage, and add bonus damage to it. So a point of max damage is worth half a point of damage, on average. This means 4 levels of weapon skill increase average damage by 1. However, consider the bonus damage available: +3 weapon enchantment, +6 bless, +12 enchanted spell, +12 enkindled spell, +6 rings and gauntlet. That's +39, with a few more points around if you swap out equipment. All 82 of your skill points will only get you an average +20 damage. A more reasonable 40 skill points, likely what's left after investing in those spells and other useful skills, will get you +10 damage: not a very impressive improvement.
Investing in damage-boosting stats also looks less amazing facing that +40.
Very relevantly, this also debunks the "huge advantage" of sword weapons. The impressive-looking base damage of 12 from that 11-pound sword translates to average damage 6.5, while a 2-pound steel kama provides average damage 2. This is less than 10% of the final damage once you're highly buffed, and it's available even to low-strength magic-users who wear shields and gauntlets. The more moderate 6-pound cleaving weapon has average damage 5, only 1.5 points below the huge sword. Bows likewise are no weaker than melee weapons, even with regular arrows. And Demon Oil III's just seem piddly. Okay, an extra 10 damage on average: who cares?
What does this mean?
You may as well start out investing in perception and spells. After level 11 or so you may as well invest in strength, to make the armor-toting more convenient. I guess the remaining skill points can go wherever you like. Heavy mercantile might actually be the quickest route to an easy finish... surprisingly!
![Officer [Silver Rank]](./images/ranks/officer2.png "Officer [Silver Rank]")
Re: Effect of ability scores -- research
I just did some testing on this, because I thought a high Endurance build might be interesting.Slarty wrote:Q: If a pure warrior were to put all of his points in Endurance for the entire game, would his very high resistances eventually make him immune or nearly immune to magic?
There are diminishing returns though.
Take as an example Magick Resist with Perception of 25 and increasing amounts of Endurance.
For End = 20, 40, 60, 80 you get MR of 45, 59, 69 and 77%. (At 80 End the other resists were 73% in this case.)
So Endurance alone won't get you there - any items or other means to further increase magick resist?
(Further update:)
Ok, so Meditation seems to give a straight 1% per point bonus to both magic and elemental resist. Use enough of it (will take 23+) and you can get base 100%+ resist in these. Same is probably doable with survival to pump up the toxin and disease resist if you wanted to.
Plan on using the Zen amulet/Survivalist cloak and you can reduce these by 5.
Plan on using greater protection potions (+20% resists boost for 119 turns) and you can reduce by a big whopping 20.
This allows you to effectively buy some of those attribute points back...
Is it worth it? My guess is maybe not in Book 1... not that many magic attackers, other easy ways to buff elemental resist, and toxins/disease don't worry me all that much. (Also there's a +20% toxin resist amulet floating around).
But is it fun? Oh yes.
