Mondain wasn't expecting you at all. You hopped in a time machine and went back to before he became immortal.

Hi everyone. I have been doing a bit of research on UW stats using various sources looking at decompiled executable, reverse enginering formulas etc.

These are my best approximations for the formulas for Carry Weight in both games.
UU1 2 * STR which means STR>INT>DEX making Druid most viable
UU2 1.35 * STR + 29 (a bit more forgiving) which means STR=INT>DEX making Paladin viable

So as everyone pointed out DEX is a bit of a dump stat. Ranged weapons are very poor in Ultima Underworld games as well making this stat less useful.

However these games do have something "old school" that is not commonly used anymore and that is chance to hit mechanic. So your ability to hurt an enemy or get hurt is based on DEX however from my research weapon skills are equally if not more important than DEX.

These are the formulas from reverse engineering of the executable done by a few people
Attack Roll = (Attack Skill / 2) + Weapon Skill + (Dexterity / 7) + Magic Bonus + Flanking Bonus + Accuracy Bonus
Defense Roll = (Defense Skill /2) + (Dexterity / 7) + Protection Bonus + Flanking Bonus

So as you can see weapon specific skill is used in full where as Dexterity /7 is used. However an incredibly high dexterity would result in hitting almost all the time and avoiding a lot of blows making it potentially useful. Hitting all the time means higher DPS. You would probably need DEX 30 to start to see some benefits. I wonder if anyone has tried max DEX character builds.

These are interesting points. I didn't look into this, but what counts as a hit in the game? Attack Roll > Defense Roll, or is there something else? I know Lore, for example, has biased roll, which makes it possible for a 30 Lore character to not fully identify an item. If you know exactly the mechanics, we could try doing some simulations and see the DPS dealt and received, to see if it's truly worth it to have high DEX.

The formula confirms what pretty much everyone has been saying. Skills > DEX. The benefits of DEX simply do not match the benefits of STR and INT.

A more important consideration for DPS would be the weapon type. Jeweled swords are excellent for this, while Black swords are too slow to be worthwhile.

I think the discussion is more towards high DEX compensating for high STR in DPS, and not totally related to what is better, but if high DEX is reasonably viable. Also, DPS is relevant if you're standing there tanking damage, and the best combat strategy, in my experience, is to weave in and out, striking and retreating, making high accuracy more important that fast weapon speed.

It wouldn't though because the difference between medium and maximum DEX is negligible. You get all the accuracy you need from the skills.