ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So I'm an Alchemist, I have a staff that does fire damage. If I find, for example, a belt that says "Changes damage: +12% Temporal" does that increase my total damage output by 12%, adding a temporal effect? Or does that only increase weapons/skills that do temporal damage by 12%? Meaning it would be useless unless I had a staff or skill that did temporal damage.

It improves all sources of temporal damage you were already dealing by +12%


edit:Also you can use command staff to change the type of damage a staff deals and improves.

Yeah, this message is pretty unclear. :/ It should probably say "Increase damage", even though that gets confusing when the number is negative.

It would also be a lot clearer just by changing the order. If you want to have it very clear: "All your temporal damage: +12%"

It probably uses "Changes damage: ___" because the ___ part can be positive or negative, and can have many different elements.

Changes damage: +10% physical, -5% nature, ...

The word "changes" is vague, probably because they needed a vague word for that. Maybe "modifies" would be clearer? Maybe not. They're synonyms after all.

Note: there is a completely different effect on some weapons that says "Damage conversion: ___". If you hit for 100 damage with a weapon that has 20% fire conversion, you'll do 80 physical and 20 fire. Plus/minus whatever modifiers you have for physical and fire damage, respectively.