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Multi-Stat Attack Scaling - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Feb 08 2025

Multi-Stat Attack Scaling (trope)

In most RPGs, we expect a sword to do a certain amount of damage. Maybe some swords are better than others, maybe not, but the basic principle is they add to a Base Damage stat. Some games add a character's Strength, Intelligence, or Dexterity stats, wholly or in part, to a physical, magical, or ranged (respectively) attack's base-damage to determine how much harm overall an attack does. And then there's this.

Say, for example, a Guard has an Epic Flail. This, naturally, is a brutal physical weapon. Consider, though, that the user has to be mildly more dexterous than average to avoid smashing in their own head with it. Instead of only adding the wielder's Strength, it adds all or most of his Strength and a bit of his Dexterity. His cohort down the hall, who's a Magic Knight, has an enchanted sword that adds the force of his magical talents to a blow. That Ninja who just launched enchanted throwing stars at you, on the way there, homing into your left kidney? Well, his stars get most of their damage from his Magical Ninjutsu; he only needs enough Dexterity to choose the specific organ to target. Their boss, an evil witch, has a more esoteric weapon that adds the values of a stat that only exists in this specific hypothetical game for story reasons to her attacks. Say an Evil Weapon that adds the value of her Corruption level and/or how many cute, fuzzy animals she killed with it and her magic to reflect her status as an Evil Sorceress.

This is the inverse of Stat Sticks, wherein your weapons increase your stats. Here, your stats make your weapons better. Compare Atypical Attack Scaling, which is focused more on special abilities that calculate based on stats you might not consider at first glance. If it scales with missing HP, then it's a Desperation Attack. Situational Damage Attack doesn't often overlap with this, because that is boosted by some other outside factor than just the user's stats, whereas this and Atypical are still using the user's stats, just more than one, or a different one than usual, as applicable. See also Ability Rewrite, wherein the player can modify how a skill or attack scales with character stats. May overlap with Magikarp Power if scaling is based on something that starts small and can't be upgraded normally.

Examples

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Video Games

First-Person Shooter 

  • Borderlands 3: Blade Fury is a gun that has half of its damage treated as melee and half as regular gun damage, which gives it opportunities for strange synergies, like activation of Amara's Body and Mind skill (which makes melee attacks release Area of Effect elemental explosions) or the Unleash the Dragon artifact (guaranteed fire Damage Over Time on all melee attacks), on distant enemies.

Card Battle Games 

  • One Step From Eden:
    • The Spell Power stat improves the damage of all Spells' hits by its value, a.k.a any attack that's not the Emergency Weapon. Spell Power can even boost Atypical Attack Scaling spells like Shield Throw, which fires a shot with damage equal to the user's Shield:

      Flavor Text: When you have no sword and no options

    • The Attack Damage stat boosts the power of Emergency Weapons only, and some weapons scale according to something else instead of having fixed damage, for example, Shiso's Lynchpin, "Deals dmg equal to half of your Money. Lose 3 Money but gain 10 Money when this kills":

Metroidvania 

  • Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: The damage done to an enemy touching a Cubus block is controlled by a mix of the Strength and Intelligence stats at the time of the block's creation.

MOBA 

  • League of Legends:
    • There's a rune in the Resolve tree called Shield Bash that, when the user gains a shield, empowers the user's next attack against an enemy champion to deal additional damage based on the shield amount.
    • Early champions often had several abilities that scaled on both Attack and Ability Power, which made champions like AP Master Yi viable before he was retooled to be a physical attack champion only.

MMORPG 

  • Temtem:
    • Hyperkinetic Strike's damage is based on the user's speed as well as their special attack.
    • Extra Energy Slam's damage is based on the user's remaining stamina as well as their (physical) attack.
  • Warframe: Most Warframe abilities scale based on four primary stats: Strength, Duration, Efficiency, and Range. However, there are some exceptions. Koumei's abilities all scale with the usual stats, but also with her dice rolls; in particular, her third ability, Omamori, will generate an amount of tags that absorb damage equal to the result rolled on up to five six-sided dice, and rolling three sixes on these rolls gives additional affects to her abilities.

Roguelike 

  • 20 Minutes Till Dawn:
    • The Soul Knight upgrade in the Magic Spear tree gives the spears another way of powering up, boosting the damage of the Magic Spears by 15 every time you pick up a Soul Heart, a.k.a Stat Overflow-type Heart Container.
    • The Tome of Might increases damage by 2 for each max HP that you have.
  • Brotato has some weapons which scale off of multiple attacking stats. For example, the Torch's damage is based on both the wielder's Melee Damage and Elemental Damage stats.
  • Deepwoken: All weapons' damage scales based on their respective Weapon stat, be it Light, Medium or Heavy Weapons. However, some, mainly Elemental Legendary weapons, scale based on a second stat as well. In very few cases, there are some that scale on three stats, such as the Chef weapons.
  • Touhou Lost Branch Of Legend: Almost all attacks deal a set amount of damage, with Firepower added on, which usually starts each battle at 0, but some attacks, like the "Barrier Slam", have a second variable that alters damage as well, in this case, the Barrier stat is added.

    The strongest barrier can be used to block danmaku, and also smack faces.

  • Zig-Zagged in Tiny Rogues. The game has three core stats — Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence — with most weapons scaling to at least one of the three to a degree dictated by a grade ranging from E to S. Some weapons scale to multiple stats (and may have different scaling grades), and there are some weapons that don't scale with any stats.

RPG 

  • Divinity: Original Sin II: Damage calculations draw on many stats in the Point Build System, including an Attribute (e.g.: Intelligence for spells), weapon specializations (e.g.: Dual Wielding), damage skills (e.g.: Pyromancy for fire damage), and Critical Hit and Geo Effects modifiers (e.g.: Huntsman boosting high-ground advantage). As a Guide Dang It!, some factors are additive and some are multiplicative.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy II: Ultima's power is based on the combined total of the user's weapon skill levels and the levels of all the spells they have equipped.
    • Final Fantasy IV: Onion Sword from DS version factors Strength and user Level into the damage.
    • Final Fantasy V: Several weapon types, such as knives, scale damage based on both Strength and Speed stats.
    • Final Fantasy VI: The sword Ultima Weapon factors both Strength, Level and Current HP/Max HP the user has into the damage.
    • Final Fantasy VII:
      • Vincent's ultimate weapon, Death Penalty, has bonus scaling with how many enemies he's killed.
      • Barett's ultimate weapon, Missing Score, has bonus scaling with the combined AP of the Materia equipped to it.
    • Celestial Weapons from Final Fantasy X all employ this. Each of them takes Strength into account like standard weapons, but their damage also decreases the less HP (Tidus, Wakka, Kimahri, Rikku) or MP (Lulu and Yuna) the wielder has. Auron's Masamune also factors HP in, but he does more damage the lower his HP is, making him a potential early Game-Breaker if used correctly.
    • Final Fantasy XII: Several weapons factor in multiple stats:
      • Katanas and Staves scale based on Strength and Magic.
      • Daggers, Ninja weapons, and bows scale with Strength and Speed.
      • Axes, hammers, and grenades scale with Vitality and Strength.
      • Shemhazi's "Soul Purge" Limit Break scales with how many times she's cast "Devour Soul," and how many Knots of Rust/Dark Matters the player has thrown.
  • Heroes Of Oakenhaven: Guardians' Wind Slashes, a physical damage move powered by the Physical Damage stat, also adds Magical Attack to damage.
  • Pokémon:
    • The moves Return and Frustration scale their damage based on both the user's Attack stat and their happiness.
    • Gyro Ball is a physical move - therefore its damage is affected by Attack stat - but its damage also increases the slower the user is compared to the enemy. Inversely, Electro Ball does more damage the faster user is than its target, but depends on Special Attack instead.
    • Eruption is a Fire-type move depending on Special Attack and remaining HP (the less, the worse). Hard Press is a Steel-type move that works similarly, but is affected by Attack instead. Reversal is a Fighting-type move also affected by Attack that becomes stronger with more damage taken.
    • The damage of Heat Crash depends on Attack and the weight difference between user and target Pokemon. Heavy Slam is a steel move that works in a similar manner, except in this case the target must be lighter for bigger damage.
  • Prayer of the Faithless: The "Shoulder Tackle" attack Drive "Adds 50% of Armor to damage.", and its physical damage also scales off the regular Power stat.
  • Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: Each point of Attack makes a character's attacks deal another point of damage, but some things make other stats relevant too.
    • Elemental attacks are multiplied by their user's Elemental Amp, which are percentages.
    • Stone's Throw medals "Add (1/4 per Stone's Throw medal) Rock Wall boost to Attack", where Rock Wall is a defensive status effect on the user, making defense also count for attack.
    • Landslide potions are Earth element attacks that add "4x Defense to attack", giving it 4 more damage for every point of defense.
  • Super Battle Kiddo Experience: Leon's Shield Bash has its damage partially raised by his armor, which also scales off the regular physical damage stat.
  • Zeboyd Games: The games with combo systems increase some attacks' damage the higher the combo number is, as well as with their regular damage-increasing stats, usually marked by being a "Combo Boost" attack.
  • Persona 2: Heirogliphen scales its damage based on the caster's level times the Rank of their Persona.
  • Tales of Symphonia: A late-game quest unlocks the ability of the Devil's Arms to scale with how many enemies the wielder has killed.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: As in the tabletop game, attacks scale based on a combination of a physical attribute and a combat ability (e.g.: Strength+Brawl; Dexterity+Firearms), with attributes being more versatile but costlier to improve in the Point Build System. A few things modify this further, like the Protean Discipline's scaling buff to unarmed combat.

Soulslike 

  • Most FromSoftware games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring) have a ranking system that gives each weapon a letter grade, ranging from S (for Superior) at 150% to E at 1% in each stat, that shows which stat the weapon will scale up best with. Some games have attachments that allow a weapon to scale with an additional stat than what it started with.
    • Demon's Souls: "Quality" weapons scale with both Strength and Dexterity, as opposed to "Crushing" (STR-only) and "Sharp" (DEX-only) weapons.
    • Dark Souls 2:
      • The Lost Sinner's Sword has an inverse scaling with the player character's Sins. The more sins they've done, the weaker it is.
      • The Ruler's Sword, and the spells Resonant Soul and Great Resonant Soul have bonus scaling with how many Souls (exp) the player character possesses.
      • The Dark Pyromancy flame, Scythe of the Forlorn, and Greatsword of the Forlorn, have bonus scaling with your Hollowing level (read: "How many times you've died").
      • Pyromancy and Hex spells scale with Faith and Intelligence.
    • Bloodborne:
      • The game gives Ranged weaponry scaling with its "Bloodtinge" stat, as they fire Quicksilver (an archaic term for mercury) bullets mixed with a drop of the user's own blood. Bloodtinge also scales up weapons with some kind of Blood Magic enchantment like the Chikage and Bloodletter, or whose Trick involves a built-in gun, such as the Rifle-Spear or the Reiterspallatch.
      • The Beast's Claws weapons scale with the user's Beasthood stat, which is usually only used to determine when a pc can perform a Finishing Move. The weapon is a pair of cestii carved from a skeleton-werewolf's armbones, so they resonate with how close the wielder is to becoming a werewolf as well.
    • Elden Ring: While Quality scaling skipped both Dark Souls and Bloodborne, it returned for Elden Ring. In this installment, weapon scaling has diminishing returns within the same stat, but stacks across multiple stats, meaning that a Quality weapon does more damage at 60 STR and 60 DEX than a Heavy (STR-based) or a Keen (DEX-based) one would do at 120 STR or DEX, respectively.
  • Salt and Sanctuary largely follows off from Dark Souls, its major inspiration. Weapons scale based on a letter grade that indicates how much a stat will increase their damage, S for the best and E for the worst.

Turn-Based Strategy 

  • Disgaea: the damage stat for bows is the average of ATK and HIT. From 3 onwards, Guns scale off of the average of both the HIT and SPD stats.
  • Fire Emblem Engage: The standard rule for the series is that any given weapon will use a unit's strength or magic as part of the damage calculation. This entry bends that rule with the Arts weapon type, which instead uses the average of both of those stats to calculate how much damage the user will inflict.
  • Honkai: Star Rail: Blade is unique in that many of his attacks scale from both his ATK stat and his Max HP. Given that said attacks also tend to be Cast From Hitpoints to empower them, making him tanky gives him both more survivability and attacking power.
  • X Com UFO Defense has the overall accuracy calculated from two of the soldier's stats: firing accuracy, and health percentage. This is then combined with a few other factors, such as the weapon's fire-mode accuracy (e.g. burst, snap, or aimed) to determine the possible spread of the weapon. Rookies are notorious for being as fumble-fingered as Imperial Stormtroopers.

Non-Video Game Examples:

Tabletop Games 

  • Big Eyes, Small Mouth bases its damage on the Combat Value, the average of all three Stats of the Tri-Stat System (Body, Mind, Soul) averaged together and modified with Attributes.
  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • Basic D&D has thrown weapons use dexterity for the accuracy of the weapon, and strength for the damage of the weapon.
    • 3rd Edition: The Factotum, a generalist class themed on Awesomeness by Analysis, can spend Inspiration points to add their Intelligence modifier to attack and damage rolls on top of the standard ability score modifier.
    • 4th Edition: Most powers rely on a single stat, but there's an occasional ability (e.g. Fighter's Armor Piercing Thrust) that grants a bonus to an attack based on a second stat. This second stat isn't always related to the attack or damage bonus, and may instead be part of a secondary effect.
  • Chronicles of Darkness: Attacks normally use the standard (Attribute + Skill) dice pool: Strength + Weaponry, Dexterity + Firearms, and so on. A few Fighting Style merits modify this, like Judo adding the Athletics skill to some actions and Muai Thai adding Dexterity to melee damage during a grapple.