My starting hero does 10 damage to a monster. He picks up his first sword, and suddenly does 80 damage. This is usually my experience when trying to set up a battle system, so I have been working for a while on a spreadsheet to try to help me see how damage will change when the character levels up or equips a new item.
I’m putting it out here if anyone else wants to play with it. It comes with some completely terrible stats in it just to have a baseline example to see how it works.
https://zyphli.design.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/calculator_rpgmaker.xlsx
Zyph's Game Design 