Staffs and Quarterstaff talent.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Now the meta for my campaign is "wear as much armor as you can". Cloth & a small shield is considered dangerously light armor for both PC's and NPC's. [...] I suspect in most TFT campaigns typical armor being 3 or 4 points is not unusual.

I don't know what a "meta" is but this paragraph makes me wonder if you have forgotten that your campaign has lots of house rules that don't exist in canonical TFT. In particular, talents exist that greatly increase fighter weapon damage, armour penalties are greatly reduced and talents increase the protective power of shields. Also, in my experience and IIRC generally you start characters well above 32 points. It's a completely different regime from the one it would be inserted into if added to canonical TFT. It's hardly surprising your observations differ from modelling results that assumed canonical TFT as a baseline.

Currently players are in the mid to high 40's attributes.

i.e. illegally high by new TFT standards.

I do think that it is logical that a Staff's shocking damage should be added to a quarterstaff bash. David and Skarg agreed

My preference is deleting the shock damage from the regular staff spell altogether and having wizards just bash things with wooden sticks. The staff spell is useful in other ways: allowing spells to be cast while holding a weapon; mana storage; etc. Staff of power does provide a bonus. Wizard staff damage depends on wizard ST, via some mechanism or other: a table; a variety of staff-like weapons; a rule related to unarmed combat damage, the existing club and maul rules; whatever. It's simple, it's clean; it's believable; it can be in the spirit of TFT if you choose a good mechanism; it gives more or less the same result as canonical TFT and it doesn't allow wizards to outcompete fighters.

The rule as stated in canonical TFT is unambiguous but puts a stress on my suspension of disbelief.