Does strength actually effect melee damage?

[someguywithasword]

I can't tell if raising strength effects melee damage. I really wish the game manuel would just spell out the rules (as a table top gamer I'm used to complex systems), but alas I need to scour the internet to see how the systems actually work. The one thing I haven't been able to find so far is how strength effects damage. The stat description says that it will increase damage with melee weapons, but there's no indication of by how much, if at all.
If anyone knows the answer and could fill me in, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Kniescheibe]

It´s weapon dependend. You have these figures in the weapons description like 10/2 this means with a weapons standard 2 W + 1 you will have with strength 12: 2 W +2 with strength 14: 2 W +3 and so on

it directly affects you attack rating (=chance to hit)

[Philippe_at_bay]

Attack Rating = (Courage + Agility + Strength) / 5

[Brother Bart]

I've done a lot of testing of this since posted (good question). Here's what I found from testing and I'm about 70% done the game so it's possible a different weapon will come along.

1.) There are no set rules, the best I can see is each weapon is in a table with columns 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 representing strength. Being so, there is no formula nor set rules. You also don't see this table in the description of the weapon so it's not possible to know beforehand what the extra melee damage will be if you had a strength of 18 vs. say 14 for this weapon or that.

2.) It does display your current strength bonus damage. When you see (2D6 +2) +1 in the description the +1 at the end is the extra melee damage based on strength. Your mages will typically be +0 meaning no strength bonus.

3.) I haven't tested all weapons, but have yet to find one that gets a strength bonus at 12 or 13, 14 in my tests was the start.

4.) To show it's not a formula,
a dagger gets +1 melee damage at str 17 and no more.
a heavy dagger gets +1 at str 16, +2 at 18
a spear gets +1 melee damage at 16 str and no more.
Mascaroon staff gets +1 at 14, +2 at 16, +3 at 18
Bone Mace gets +1 at 14, +2 at 17

Again, I still have to try more weapons but so far I've seen no bonuses for strength under 14. I suspect there is likely to be a weapon that gets a bonus for each strength from 14-18 so +4 melee damage from strength is likely the cap. Strength damage is all over the place, heavy dagger gets 1 at 16 and 2 at 18, bone mace is 1 at 14 and 2 at 17.

[Kniescheibe]

Mate read my answer and no more testing is needed for you ;) I already explained how strength and damage correlate and there is no other correlation

[Ichthyic]

Escrito originalmente por Kniescheibe:

It´s weapon dependend. You have these figures in the weapons description like 10/2 this means with a weapons standard 2 W + 1 you will have with strength 12: 2 W +2 with strength 14: 2 W +3 and so on

it directly affects you attack rating (=chance to hit)

fail. Different weapons have entirely different formulas, and it is NOT in the description.

all the description shows is the bonus you end up with after strength is applied, it doesn't tell you how much, or even if a bonus COULD apply, if your strength is raised.

example: Rondracomb does not get a strength boost at 16 strength, but the Achfawar spear and the neethan axe DO. the ONLY way to find out is by raising your strength with the weapons equipped and see what happens.

so, no, you're entirely incorrect. Brother Bart is correct.

...and before anyone starts thinking something like "Oh, well it must be that swords get boosts on odd numbers and bashers on even."

nope.

pailos (the infantry 2h axe from ch3) does not get a boost at 16, while the neethan axe does, and so does the bone club.

[Kniescheibe]

while you are right that it doesn´t stand in the game you can get the information from internet (TBE rules): for example in German for Pailos:
http://drakensang2.wikia.com/wiki/Pailos there you can see you actually get your first strength bonus at 16 (next on 18) like I told in my initial posting

[Fugbaum]

Kniescheibe is right - only the statement from his first post (that it would show these formulas in the weapon's description) is not correct. Sadly they did not a good job to make this game more accessible for those that do not play The Dark Eye since they are 11 years old...

Some of the confusion might come from the fact, that the strength bonuses are different for each individual weapon, and NOT dependent on the weapon type/category. F.e. a normal (long)sword comes with a strength-modifier of 11/4, which means, it does (1D6+4)+1 = 6-11 damage at strength 15 and it would do (1D6+4)+2 = 7-12 at strength 19. (Actually, im not sure if you can get attributes over 18 in Blackguards, but you can achieve that in the 4. edition of The Dark Eye, which is the foundation for Blackguard's ruleset.)
A broadsword on the other hand has a strength-modifier of 12/3: It also inflicts (1D6+4)+1 points of damage at strength 15 but you get the next damage bonus at strength 18 already. Both of these weapons fall into the category "swords", but that does not matter in this case.
And some people wonder why TDE never got popular outside of germany...

Btw, you can read most of the rules by clicking the question mark in the top right corner. This part they seem to have forgotten, though.

[Ichthyic]

"Kniescheibe is right "

well, NO. the main point of his initial post was, in fact, entirely wrong.

that you can "look it up on the internet" was not at all the point I was addressing.

"Some of the confusion might come from the fact, that the strength bonuses are different for each individual weapon, and NOT dependent on the weapon type/category"

no kidding. that's EXACTLY what Bart said, and I verified.

thanks for verifying that, again. *rolleyes*

[Kniescheibe]

my main point was the answer of the question: "does strength actually has effect on melee damage" my answer was yes.

[Fugbaum]

Plus, what Bart said was: "There is no formula, nor set rules." This statement is incorrect, as both Kniescheibe and myself tried to explain. (We gave you the formulae for some of the weapons, which all follow a certain rule: Damage is increased by 1 each time your strength exceeds the first number by the amount of the second number.)

And again, if anyone is to blame, its the developers for not making these rules clear and visible for players that don't know the original pen&paper system.

[Ichthyic]

damnit. NO. that is not what happens. when you first get a weapon, and your strength is under ten, it shows the base weapon damage, and then a + "0" after it. there is no way to tell how much strength will increase the damage, all you can tell is at what level it will increase.

a weapon that says: (1d6 +6) means the damage increase will occur at level 16, but there is simply NO way to tell how much that increase will be. some weapons have +2 added, some have +3, others more or less. also, some weapons keep in leveling in damage, others seem to have a cap. Bloodletter doesn't seem to have a cap, for example. while the bone mace does (max +4 damage).

sorry, but the formula from the table game is NOT the same as in this game.

again, different weapons, of the same exact class, have different leveling patterns, there is no consistent formula that applies to weapons of the same class, and you can't tell from looking at a specific weapon what it's pattern will be until you actually gain strength to see.

seriously, I've tested this repeatedly. it's not hard.

[Ichthyic]

"there you can see you actually get your first strength bonus at 16 (next on 18) like I told in my initial posting"

except, as I said, I JUST TESTED THAT IN GAME, and it does NOT get a bonus at 16, but does at 17.

again, you people are simply not listening.

[Fugbaum]

Im getting the feeling we're all saying roughly the same and are just misinterpreting each other. Let me try again:

1) Yes, strength does actually increase your melee damage. For most weapons it has to be pretty high before it has any effect, though.

2) Which strength value you'll need to get one point of bonus damage differs from weapon to weapon, yet in rule books of The Dark Eye and in other games that use the same system (such as Drakensang) they will give you a short formula in each weapon's description. It will say something like 11/4 or 14/3 and if you are familiar with the rules, you'll be able to do the math and know if a character with strength 17 will do more damage then a character with strength 16 and so on.

3) The category of a weapon (swords, spears...) does not matter for strength boni.

4) In Blackguards there seems to be no way of telling what strength bonus you'll get with a particular weapon, other then equipping your character with it - or knowing the rules by heart.

5) I have not compared the stats of every weapon in Blackguards with their entries in "Aventurisches Arsenal" or other The Dark Eye publications, but so far i haven't noticed anything that would have surprised me. This particular rule seems to be the same as in the p&p role play game. (Which is not true for everything in Blackguards.)

[peddroelm]

Google Sheet table with +Melee Damage progression for all weapons
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UIsIJRAj1JGidn6k6wAXhQ6ZomY6uEE0WYnzh1wAlRM/edit?usp=sharing