Spent today planning out how weapon damage scales. Very important!
Basically, each weapon has a base power, and then for each stat, a scaling factor and a requirement. You can use a weapon regardless of stats, and you will always do at least its base power in damage - scaling is purely a bonus.
It works on a log2(1+n) scale for every point you exceed the requirement (which is then factored against the scaling and power), which means that you see the highest scaling after a few points into that stat. It continues to scale indefinitely, but quickly levels off. For reference:
+1 above req stat: 100% x scale x power
+3 above req stat: 200% x scale x power
+7 above req stat: 300% x scale x power
+15 above req stat: 400% x scale x power
This is all summed up and added to the base power. In any case, what this means is that this can be used to make a variety of weapon types, such as weapons that scale well early, scale well late, don’t scale but have high power, or start as absolute crap and progress constantly as you increase in stats.
This determines the raw damage, which then gets converted into different damage types depending on the weapon: Slash, Crush, Pierce, Fire, Frost, Lightning, Magic, Occult, Poison, Bleed, Disease, Curse, etc. Most weapons have 100% scaling on a single type, so a Falchion would do 100% slashing. Or maybe a magic Javelin that does 80% physical(pierce) and 40% lightning. Or a knife that does slashing and bleeding damage.
Each status effect basically has its own HP bar, and when it fills up, you become afflicted by that status, so the knife above would only really do slashing damage, but for a prolonged fight, it might afflict a DoT effect.