Weapon damage

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Weapon damage is your base weapon damage, multiplied by weapon skill and fighting skill, and your strength bonus depending on the strength weighting of the weapon type. Slaying bonuses and weapon enchantment are added afterwards. Actual damage is randomly rolled, 1dWeaponDamage.

Damage formula

Damage = (1d{(Base damage + Hand-and-half penalty) * Stat modifier}-0.66)* Weapon skill modifier *
* Fighting modifier * Misc modifiers + Weapon bonuses + Stabbing bonus - AC damage reduction

• Base damage:
  • Unarmed combat: 3 + UC (can be changed by some spells, see Unarmed combat)
  • Using a weapon: Base damage of the weapon
• Hand-and-half penalty: -1d(Shield penalty) (see Shields)
• Stat modifier:
  • Stat = STR + (dex_weight/10) * (STR - DEX)/2 (a number between STR and (STR+DEX)/2)
  • If Stat > 11: Multiply by 1 + 1d(Stat - 11)*2/78 (average bonus: +1.3% for every point above 11)
  • If Stat < 11: Multiply by 1 - 1d(9 - Stat)*3/78 (average bonus: -1.9% for every point below 9)
• Weapon skill modifier: Multiply by 1 + (1dSkill)/25 (not applied to unarmed combat; average bonus: +2% for every skill level)
• Fighting modifier: Multiply by 1 + (1dFighting)/30 (average bonus: +1.67% for every skill level in fighting)
• Misc modifiers:
  • Might or Berserk: +1d10
  • If you are starving: -1d5 + 1 (bloodless vampires don't suffer this penalty)
  • Statue form: Multiply by 1.5
• Weapon bonuses:
  • Effective enchantment = Weapon enchantment II + Slaying bonus II
  • If Eff. enchantment > 0: + 1d(1 + Eff. enchantment) - 1
  • If Eff. enchantment < 0: - 1d(1 - Eff. enchantment) + 1
  • If you are a deep dwarf and it is a dwarven weapon: +1d3 - 1
  • If you are a hill orc and it is an orcish weapon: +1d2 - 1 + Beogh bonus (Beogh bonus is up to 1+1d(5.45))
  • If you are a demonspawn and it is a demonic weapon: +1d3 - 1 (demon whips, demon blades, demon tridents)
  • If it is a weapon of speed: Multiply the damage by 0.9
• Stabbing bonus: See stabbing.
• AC damage reduction: See AC.

Some considerations:

• The main contributions to weapon damage are: base damage, weapon skill (+54% at level 27) and fighting skill (+45% at level 27).
• The effect of strength and dexterity is small.
• As you can see, at very low skill levels, the value of base damage and enchantment is approximately the same, but for skilled characters base damage is much more important than enchantment.
• Weapon brands that use multiplicative bonuses, calculate the additional amount of damage as a percentage of the damage described in this page (including AC damage reduction). This additional amount of damage ignores AC, but it can be affected by resistances or vulnerabilities.