Yes, that system is pretty clear (although it seems that damage vs. the player never goes completely to 0, since I still took damage from wildlife after increasing my armor by more than my early life total), BUT there is an additional effect - hits that connect (enemy does not dodge, but reacts as if hit, and hit sound is played) but deal no damage anyway.

This happens a fair bit with skeletons, particularly with no melee training, but the test case mentioned above I bothered to test for dozens of hits in each case:
Uriziel + 135 Str + 42 Dex: No hit damages the apocalyptic templar (~100 test hits)
Uriziel + 203 Str + 70 Dex: No hit damages the apocalyptic templar, at least half of hits fail to damage obsessed novices, most fail to damage demon lords.
Uriziel + 86 Str + 126 Dex: Many hits damage templar, and significantly. Consistent damage on obsessed novices, most hits damage demon lords.

=> so, Dex plays some role in letting you cause damage at all, although strength drives the amount of damage for those hits that don't fail.


Perhaps my game was bugged, but the behavior was quite consistent everywhere I bothered to actually test, and it is consistent with what I've heard others report and seen in replays - Dex influences hit *rate*, and there's effectively a to-hit floor for some late-game enemies.

In all of those tests, my character had no 2h training. I suspect melee training improves damage rate in addition to providing criticals.

And yes, I know what blocks and parrys look and sound like. Neither was occurring in these cases. Basically, there is at least one more factor in combat that is primarily visible to characters operating out of class, but definitely occurs.

i suck at this game as well i joined the old camp and am a shadow but most monsters i encounter are too hard to defeat. And i dont know how to progress futher so i gave up lol

I don't understand why everyone complains about Gothic controls. Yes, it needs to get used to it, but from that point, it's hassle-free and efficient. There are tons of games with WAY WORSE controls... So if it comes to controls Gothic is good, just a little bit different.

I LOVE Gothic 1,2 & 3, but I do agree the controls for Gothic 1 are absolutely bizarre.

However, the story and action got me, so I stuck with it and got used to the controls, and it's far more interesting, fun and dangerous walking around the world of Gothic, than that "My Little Pony" Fisher-Price EZ-RPG called "Oblivion".

Monsters are actually dangerous in this game.

well i noticed that if you progress you character and do things it gets easier as long you dont astray too far.

Okay so let me get this straight. I have to spend three hours of my life wading through the chunky, grinding, hyper-polygonal graphics that for some reason my bought-in-2009, med-high range computer is struggling with, merely to be able to effectively fight a meatbug?

A combination of the least intuitive controls and worst inexplicable graphics errors have pretty much convinced me to give this up and start up another game of Mount&Blade Warband

I've played this on Windoze Vista and 7 (both 64 bit) without any problems, although Vista won't exit the game at all (without a reboot, which is why I switched computers), and 7 won't let me alt-tab to the desktop.

Have you tried asking for help in the forum (or sending an email to GOG)?