First of all, let me say that I'm very much enjoying this game! It's a fun RPG, with some neat ideas to it, thus far! ^_^

Now, to the point of the thread: I'm currently building a new companion (Gallitzin) as a warrior, and I find myself confused:

For a melee warrior, why would I not build them with skill in "Two-Handed Weapons", the "Mighty" trait, and a two-handed club or hammer...?

As far as I see, the main advantage of a one-handed weapon is that it allows a shield--but "Mighty" gives that advantage to wielders of two-handed weapons as well.

Conversely, the main advantage of two-handed weapons seems to be their high damage--and I don't yet see a trait that gives that advantage to one-handed weapons...

Now, of course, taking "Mighty" means spending a trait-point on it... but traits seem to become available often enough, and aside from those that I have yet to unlock, I haven't seen that many that call to me, especially for a melee warrior.

As to the choice of weapon, I don't know what enchanted blades I might yet find, but thus far a simple stone club has a high average damage and a low damage-spread; other weapons seem thus less effective.

Indeed, on the matter of clubs, I was thinking to develop Bhulown to move from clubs to axes, in part as an RP thing--but also in part expecting axes to be better. And yet... two-handed axes seem thus far to have higher damage-spreads and lower average-damage values...

I (genuinely) feel like I'm missing something here, because right now one-handed melee weapons seem pointless... o_0

Mighty is a very powerful trait - but it's also locked behind an 18 STR requirement. Same for a lot of the better weapons and armours. So generally it's a case of choosing the best option your STR allows. As for axes vs clubs, generally axes do slashing damage and clubs do blunt damage. Axes have big bonuses against wooden enemies. I think they have higher critical chance too. It's a case of choosing the best weapon for the enemy type you're facing.

Lighter weapons also tend to have more of a roguey focus too - they often come with flanking and backstab bonuses. For some characters they're really just an extra enchantment slot.

But surely if you're building a melee warrior, you're likely to want STR? Especially since it gives access to Mighty and to the better weapons and armours.

At least when looking at fighter-type characters, rather than rogue-type characters. (See below.) Sure, but that sounds a bit situational to base a character-build on, I feel.

That is, there may be fights in which it's better to give your melee fighters, say, axes--but there it's less a matter of axes being better, than of accepting a lesser weapon to avoid damage reduction.

As a general rule, clubs seem to be better weapons. This may touch on a matter of personal perspective: I tend to not bother with critical chance values in games, unless the chance is very high. To my mind, higher consistent damage is more reliable than very-high-but-unlikely damage. I'm trying to remember whether I had a rogue of any sort in my party... I'm really not sure. I know that I had two melee fighters. (Bhulown and... er... the human fighter-guy who one meets later in the game. Looking back, was that "Gallitzin"?) And I think at least three mages. I may have skipped on any rogue companions.

But I can see there being space for knife-rogues or the like.

Conversely, however I'm still not seeing much space for things like one-handed-sword-with-shield fighters; or even classic barbarian-style two-handed-weapon fighters: they both just seem outclassed by two-handed-club-with-shield fighters.