Strength weight
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Generally in Crawl, heavier weapons benefit more from strength than from dexterity, and also tend to require more strength to use properly. 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 is all that really matters when using it. 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.