I've never experienced the strike bug - with a strike well over 100.. (in CE).
Here is the page on Attributes and their derivations:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/dungeonlords/attributes.php
High attributes *sound* like a good idea.. but practically speaking they aren't that great (with one exception).
The problem here is their usefulness vs. your ability to obtain higher levels.
For instance:
Intelligence directly decreases skill cost. Therefore a higher intelligence allows you to spend fewer skill points for a given skill. BUT you have three serious problems here:
1. Intelligence does NOT scale proportionately to skill cost reduction. Once you get past 45 points in this attribute, then any increases to it does not lower your skill cost as much. I'd estimate that doubling your Intelligence to 90 only results in about a 30% reduction in skill level costs.
2. Higher levels in Intelligence cost increasingly more (though not double like a skill). This makes spending the points on Intelligence (beyond 45) - costly. The only time it makes sense is lowering skill costs at extremely high skill levels. Of course racial bonuses and detriments can alter this somewhat.
3. Skill costs double per level (..without obtaining an additional learning bonus). Practically speaking - this puts a serious "cap" on how many levels you can put in any skill, because you do NOT gain experience proportionately to match that increasing cost. For instance: killing just one moonbeast might net you 5 skill levels (1-5) for any given skill, but to go from skill level 9 to 10 (one level) might well require killing 100's of moonbeasts. Note however that at an extreme skill level cost (2+ million), you may well be better off spending a good bit of that 2 million to increase Intelligence beyond 45 (to around 80) to decrease your skill costs by about 25%, and THEN spending the rest on increasing your skill (..this is particularly true if that next skill level is not 2 million, but rather 4 million points :speech: ). Again, racial bonuses and detriments alter this some.
For a derivative example:
The Parry skill increases with an increase in the attribute Agility. Like the 1st and 2nd problems with Intelligence, it doesn't scale well.. Higher and higher levels of Agility only provide modest gains to Parry while costing more and more experience points. Again though, like Intelligence above, at extremely high Parry levels, you may be better off increasing Agility.
Another attribute example:
Vitality - again, as you increase this attribute - fewer and fewer health points are obtained at increased experience point expenditures.
....
Dexterity has been discussed, and Honor is pointless (beyond commerce).
....
Finally we have the exception to the group:
Strength directly effects your Damage stat (and also your ability to use heavier items). Unlike the other attributes, it scales almost inversely for Damage..
At lower levels (below about 40), Strength does not effect Damage as much.. BUT around 40+ it has a one-to-one relationship to damage. I.E. for every point your Strength increases - so does your damage potential.
Because Strength scales in this fashion - its usually a priority for all my characters. (The ability to bash chests is just a bonus.) To "buff" the character some more..
I'll often increase it to where it becomes prohibitive to increase it anymore for a given race and sex (which is usually between 85 and 100). I'll do this all before "cashing-in" on my first +3 to attributes for the placing the artifact (horn). After that, I won't spend any more experience points on it, but that doesn't mean that I won't increase it more..:mischief:
Of course I'll also receive an increase from the other artifacts (excepting the last of course), BUT I don't "cash" those in until the end.. or at the very least not until I do this:
Just before the Tomb of Souls - I'll typically have increased my other attributes modestly (above 45 points), usually no more than the mid-sixties. Moreover, I keep them within about 3 points of each other (excepting honor).
Then I make my Infernal "deal".. for Strength in the Tomb of Souls. (..saving of course before.) With a "normal" character you can increase Strength to I believe to a maximum of +19 (its a variable which is why I save first). An atypical character with the "Fools" heraldry can go up to I believe 10 more points beyond this. Of course the penalty is a reduction in all of your other attributes (..and the Fools heraldry seems to lessen this).
Of course the experience point expenditure for this "deal" is NOT the same. Your character might well have expended more than 20 million experience points to achieve such a high level in Strength without the "Fools", while likely spending less than 1 million in experience points to "pay" for the reduction in all your other attributes (..because they are at lower levels and as a result cost a lot less). A "Fool"ish character might well have expended 40 million + for their strength increase.
Only after this do I start increasing my other attributes above the mid-sixties (..UNLESS Intelligence is REALLY easy to increase as a female elf.. which is the only time I'd increase it high along with strength). Once I'm satisfied with their level I'll return the other artifacts.
I then got the bright idea of putting on the Gas Mask as that takes strike points away. Worked like a charm, strike was down to 97!