Just decided to do some testing of the effects of a character's stats on combat. Here is what I found so far:
* Strength: Affects melee damage. Also seems to affect your ability to swim.
* Speed: Affects initiative. Haven't noticed any other effects. (Note that initiative is not relevant in ranged combat.)
* Agility: Affects melee accuracy. Also helps you avoid attacks (though I did get hit once with 255 Agility, so there seems to be some "natural 20" type rule here).
* Dexterity: Affects melee damage, just like Strength does. Also appears to affect gun damage. (Does not affect melee accuracy.)
* Luck: Does not help in melee. Appears to affect gun damage.

There's still some more testing to be done. Note that it appears that gun damage will only give you better rolls on average, so you can't do large damage with a weak gun. You can, however, do large damage with a melee attack if your Strength and Dexterity are high enough.

So, for a melee character, you want:
* High Agility, so that your attacks don't miss and you don't get hit too much.
* High Strength and/or Dexterity, so that you deal more damage when you do hit. Note that either attribute will work here.

Still need to do some more testing with ranged combat.

Oops, was accidentally changing Charisma instead of Luck.

Luck does increase melee damage the same way Strength and Dexterity do.

For ranged combat (I removed Angela Deth's Clip Pistol skill so that my attacks would miss often without good stats):
* Agility: No offensive benefit.
* Dexterity: Affects accuracy. (Note that this affects melee damage but not accuracy, and ranged accuracy but not damage.)
* Luck: Affects damage. (Not accuracy, as you would expect.) With 255 luck, I did over 100 damage with a clip pistol. (Such high luck isn't something you'd normally see.)

Now to test some other weapon types and see if anything unusual comes up.

Luck is affecting both melee and ranged damage.

Dexterity is not affecting ranged damage; it is, however, affecting ranged *accuracy*. (On the other hand, it does not affect melee accuracy.)

I am doing my tests in the original version, specifically the version available on GOG as "Wasteland 1: The Original Classic" which is basically the DOS version with a frontend (allowing for multiple separate saves), a few little features (like a soundtrack that I've set to 0 volume for now), and maybe some minor differences (when you start/load, the initial message mentiones inXile). I do not currently own the remaster, but I would expect the remaster's mechanics to be similar (except for those instances when there are bugs in either version). I also would expect the mechanics to be the same for other classic versions (like the Apple 2 version, for example).

Interesting, thank you.

Other results:
* Spears, knives, and anti-tank weapons behave just like guns in terms of stat dependence. (Note that spears have a tendency to jam if you don't have good stats or skill (Brawling) for it. Yes, spears can jam in this game.)
* Grenades aren't affected by your stats, and they seem to be reliable even without Demolitions. Unlike other weapons, high Luck will not increase the damage dealt with grenades.

Nice, so - in theory - a knife can be used as a backup weapon for a ranged character as it is using the same set of stats to determinate efficiency as a ranged weapon.

Edit:
Also - if memory serves me well - you receive double amount of experience for melee kills, so it could be a good way to deal with low level enemies.

Yes, but I don't think it's worth spending the point in the skill. Also, I'm specifically referring to throwing knives; I'm guessing that melee knives just work like melee weapons as far as damage is concerned, and it's not worth taking the skill just for that weapon.

Spears are interesting; they use the same stats as other ranged weapons, but actually use the Brawling skill, which is normally used for melee weapons. Also, you get a much higher chance of a skill increase when using ranged weapons, particularly spears (and I believe anti-tank weapons).

I think the best option for a back-up melee weapon for a ranged character is an unloaded gun; I believe the damage you do is based off the damage the gun would do when fired, with a bonus depending on your level in the gun skill, but I think they use melee stats and extra attacks come from brawling. I should check to make sure unloaded guns use melee stats, however.

The behavior of grenades, on the other hand, is quite interesting; it means you don't need to spend any skill points in Demolitions (unless you want to blow doors up or similar, and it makes them a good weapon for those who are lacking combat skills.

There's also the Flamethrower for characters with enough Dexterity to not need a weapon skill in order to hit.

Great work, I will use your research results when building my next party.

Yes, thanks for taking the time to do these tests.

Just for fun, I'm going to pull out my copy of MSPE tomorrow and see how it matches what you've found.

Overall, MSPE works very similar to what you have found above.

I'm summarised / simplified the relevant portions below (just for fun, I don't think Wasteland always strictly adheres to the MSPE rules):

- "For every point of DEX, ST, or LK above 12, the character gets one [hand-to-hand] combat add... [and] will lose one combat add for each point below 9."

"For every point of LK above 12 the character gets one missile weapon combat add... for each point below 9 [the character] will lose one missile weapon combat add.” (Missile weapons include everything from throwing knives through guns through AT weapons and includes Mortars).

SPD is only used in combat for martial arts (which doesn’t exist in Wasteland)
There is no AGL attribute.

For hand-to-hand combat: Roll for the damage the weapon does and add your combat adds. Your opponent does the same. You then compare the two numbers, subtracting the lesser from the greater, and this result is the damage inflicted on the character with the lower number. Therefore, combat adds will affect your accuracy and your damage. The skills "Brawling" and "Knife Fighting" increase the character's chance to make a saving roll and (if successful) take no damage and deal maximum damage that round (the saving roll is LK-based for Brawling and DEX-based for Knife Fighting). Pugilism skill affects the damage dice you roll for damage when fighting unarmed, and the number of damage points the character can ignore per round from unarmed attacks.

For missile weapon combat: Unlike hand-to-hand combat, for missile weapon combat the character needs to first make a roll to hit the target (this is only based on range, size, etc, nothing directly related to the target’s attributes, there is no opposed roll from the opponent). This roll is based directly on the character’s DEX score, and is modified by the relevant weapon skill (the skill level adds to the DEX score). The damage is determined by the weapon type plus any missile weapon combat adds due to LK.

“Burst fire”: make one attack roll, if successful then determine number of bullets which hit by: 1d6/2 rounded up.

If you burn a full clip of ammo: subtract the number of bullets fired from the target number (this is equivalent to adding the number of bullets to the character’s DEX). If successful, then the number of bullets which hit is determined by: dividing the number of bullets fired by 6 and rounding down, then rolling that number of d6.

Weapon jamming is not affected by DEX, Weapon skill, or anything else, it’s a flat chance. Unjamming requires an IQ-based roll, modified by the character’s skill with that type of weapon.

“Demolitions” skill: The game says “to be most effective, explosive [weapons] should be used by characters with Demolition skill,” but it doesn’t specify exactly what this means. It includes TNT, Plastic Explosive, Grenades, and Mortars in this section. Grenades are specifically mentioned as being treated as thrown weapons (thus DEX-based roll is required), but there is no associated skill in the skill section (unlike AT Weapons and Mortars, which do have such skills).

This mechanic is what makes going full auto so powerful. If you fire 30 shots at the enemy, that's +30 to hit, which is ridiculous (is it the equivalent of 30 points of skill?), and is why you don't really need skill with automatic weapons to use them effectively.


Does MSPE allow anti-tank weapons and spears to jam?

(Spear jamming actually reminds me of how, in one version of Bard's Tale 2, enemy thrown weapons would fizzle in anti-magic zones.)

Yes, in that case it is equivalent to having 30 skill ranks.

Yes, in a sense. In those case the "jam" would be adjudicated by the Gamemaster as some other kind of fault which would prevent the attack (the rules are fairly open in this regard), and would still require an unjam roll to fix.

So, the MSPE rules *do* allow spears to jam.

In Wasteland, when a spear jams, the spear just disappears; you can't try to unjam it because it's gone.

(I'm thinking of how a bow jam could be treated as the bowstring breaking; it's too bad there are no bows in Wasteland.)

It would be more accurate to say that it's my personal interpretation, the rules don't specifically allow or prohibit "jams" for thrown weapons.

In the case of spears, it seems Wasteland is interpreting the jam as a broken/worthless spear.