DEX should govern action speed, not damage

DEX is always just an inferior STR. It's pointless to have two stats that do the same thing

Dex Stacking HOWA goes brrr

Being able to hit what you aim for is absolutely gonna impact your damage

It depends on game. Like, in D&D Dex is waaaaaaaay stronger than Str.

DEX is stronger than STR in DnD 5e due to affecting Initiative, AC, Hit/Damage with Ranged & Finesse weapons, and boosting stealth/acrobatics (since acrobatics is used to contest grapples).

STR affects carry weight, but that almost never comes up due to items like the Bag of Holding, Jump distance which also doesn't come up very often and with spells like Fly you don't really need to jump either, performing grapples which have confusing rules around them, and hit/damage with Melee Weapons.

Plus in 5e, Dex Saves are far more common than Str Saves.

Strength = you deal damage by overpowering or forcing your way through their defenses.
Dexterity = you deal damage by hitting weaknesses in their defenses with precision

They both make perfect sense and are not remotely the same thing.

If dex is about hitting weak points, then it should affect crit rates, not attack power.

RPG stats are so weird sometimes.

Almost every one has a feature where the higher your stats are the more damage you do even when it doesn't make sense like firing an arrow from a bow.

A few TT games try to fix this by having you roll to hit, then roll to see WHERE on the body you hit, and then deal damage based on that, sometimes location specific damage like in BRP/CoC but it really slows things down.

And then the stat distributions are all messed up. Like why does basically all of them use DEX to determine how fast you can run? That should be STR.

Aristoph posted...

Strength = you deal damage by overpowering or forcing your way through their defenses.
Dexterity = you deal damage by hitting weaknesses in their defenses with precision

They both make perfect sense and are not remotely the same thing.

In ARPGs like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, these concepts don't apply to the mechanics of the game at all.

MarthGoomba posted...

In ARPGs like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, these concepts don't apply to the mechanics of the game at all.

Then complain about garbage games that do everything because of their lack of imagination rather than the stat system actually being a problem. Good games, old and new, have made dex and str distinct just fine.