ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

The game says that the archer's important stats are Dexterity and Strength and the slinger's important stats are Dexterity and Constitution. Dexterity is obviously crucial to a ranged class, but I don't get the Strength and Dexterity. Why is one supposed to be more important to one ranged class and the other to the other ranged class? Neither seems to be related to the actual core competence of shooting things, being solely about survival in the form of better armor or more hp.

The slinger secondary stat is actually Cunning btw, not Constitution.

If you check the object files for bows and sling...you will notice that arrow damage is influenced by strength
while shot/sling damage is influenced by cunning
and of course, both are influenced by dexterity.

One problem is that currently you can't really see the average/expected damage for your ranged attacks, unlike with melee.

I would love to see the role of strength mentioned more clearly myself. I went and reread all the information yesterday looking for just that piece of info.

Of course strength helps when you're lugging around a thousand arrows too....

What about bows? What is the difference between elm and ash? I assume ash is better in some way due to the ash arrows being better... But, I can't figure out how since there are no damage estimates like in Angband...

the range is higher on better bows

I think at character creation the ability to see the effects that races and classes have on the base stats and being able to peak at the talent trees of the classes before making a finalized choice would be cool.

Final Master wrote:I think at character creation the ability to see the effects that races and classes have on the base stats and being able to peak at the talent trees of the classes before making a finalized choice would be cool.

This point will probably become moot though when the game is released and the help system is in place....