Sorry about the post, i was just being nice (i am ''Nice coder'' after all)
I am new to game programming, (but i have build neural networks-no trainer and a small tic-tac-toe app - works well)
3+ years in Application programming
If you want any help please ask
If you want me to go away please ask

Nice coder

and for my $0.02
use different formulas for different things
or in different circumstances
try to have a 55/45 wepons to strength ratio
try not to use ANN''s for the NPC''s, instead use a finite state machines, and maybe a minimax tree for the bosses(to determine what it should do)
and if you want better formulas, try do build a program which uses GA''s, or check through every formula (and some random ones) you have made.

Goodbie and good luck making it

Humans are Human oriented, it is because of there nature: a design flaw-greed, jelosy the solution: AI- never greedy, and they stick to there ethics no matter what.

Are you doing this as an excercise to build on?

I''m a beggining game designer myself, but one of the things I always try to do when making a game demo is to not copy other systems. If you are doing this to display to a potential employer, they will probably not give a lot of attention on how you came up with your damage formulas. I''d focus on trying to make the battle system original and fun.

I''d give ideas, but this is one of my projects for a demo. ^^

Good luck!

Exhaustive and detailed design is, of course, a good thing, provided you already know enough about what you''re designing. If you''re doing your first ever RPG combat system, you probably want to get a prototype running fast so you can experiment, see how things feel and get a sense of what works and what doesn''t. Provided you keep your options open on how to add the features you haven''t got round to yet, it''s probably better to follow the rapid prototyping paradigm than two spend all your design time before doing any coding and then decide it would have been better, say, to replace strength, dexterity and constitution with attack, defence, dodge and resist, meaning you would have to redo all your carefully balanced mechanics in order to implement the change...

I''m still trying to come up with a combat system that doesn''t resolve down to the decision of when to use curative actions - in Final Fantasy games, for example, by the time I''m about half-way through the game, I''ve generally figured out which attack maximises damage, and which party members to use to heal and how often, and the fights become a simple matter of implementing the previously made decisions again and again.