Strength weight

Obsolete: This article refers to an aspect of the game which has been removed. It is retained for historical reference only.

Generally in Crawl, heavier weapons benefit more from strength than from dexterity. Strength weighting (abbreviated "str weight") is a game mechanic that determines relatively how much a character's strength and dexterity affect a given weapon's damage output.

A given str weight value can be viewed as a quotient expressed as a percentage; the "amount of effect" that strength has on a weapon, divided by the total amount of effect that strength and dexterity together have on it. So a str weight of 100% (such as with a giant club) implies that strength affects the weapon far more than dexterity does. Conversely, 0% (eg. quick blade) implies that strength has a very small effect on how well a weapon performs.

Almost all weapons fall somewhere in-between the two extremes. The weighted average of strength and dexterity affects both damage potential and to-hit, the former being affected more by strength and the latter being affected more by dexterity. Thus, note that that even 0% and 100% strength weightings don't imply that either stat has no effect: more dexterity always implies better to-hit and more strength always implies higher per-hit damage. A 50% str weight still implies that dexterity has a bigger effect than strength on to-hit, and conversely with strength and damage.

Formulas and source

In the source strength weight fractions are represented by integers from 0 to 10, representing 0% to 100% respectively. In the formulas below, W denotes strength weight as a fraction, ie. W=0.0 for quickblade and W=1.0 for giant club.

Melee

In the 0.12 source, melee damage is calculated a bit differently for monsters and player characters. Player damage potential is based on weapon base damage and, among other things, amplified by a stat value which is taken as a blend between the player's Str and Dex:

Melee damage blended stat = 0.5×Str + 0.5(W×Str + (1-W)Dex)

Stats are blended similiarly for to-hit but conversely to damage calculations, dexterity counts twice as heavily towards to-hit as strength does:

Melee to-hit blended stat = 0.5×Dex + 0.5(W×Str + (1-W)Dex)

Launchers

The code for player-fired missile damage and to hit is even harder to decypher than for melee weapons. Strength and dexterity primarily affect the launcher "speed". "Speed" is a misnomer though: it means the amount of in-game time taken to fire a shot, not the rate at which shots are fired. Roughly:

Turns taken = ( launcher_base_attack_delay_percentile - player_skill×(W×Str + (W-1)×Dex)×4/25 ) / 100

History

• The concept of strength weighting was removed in 0.18.