Question regarding bonuses to stats. (in General)

I have a Lesser ToA equipped on one of my chars. He has base (20) st and dx and UC. All additional stats on st and dx are from the LToA. Equipping a rented pair of Helms I noticed that I get the bonus to UC but no bonus st. If I put some xp into the st then I get the bonus from the Helms. Unlearning that xp the st bonus goes back to 0. Unequipping the LToA and leaving the Helms equipped shows no bonus to st either.

The question is - do you get no bonus from items if your stats are at base? Would the same apply for instance, if I was to equip a trollskin armour?

The reason that you are not seeing an increase in your stats is that the increase the helms gives is not enough to make a full point

20 * 1.04 (or 104%) = 20.8

unfortunately for bonuses everything is rounded down so your 20 st + 4% from helms = 20

Additionally since the LToA is considered a bonus as well the helms % based bonus does not apply to it

To follow on to my own question - another question is - is this correct? Base stats get penalised by armours - a base dx will lose 1 point if you equip a steel brig. Therefore why shouldn't bonuses apply to base stats?

Answered myself before I saw your response. Thanks. I'd forgotten about the rounding down.

Bonuses don't apply to tattoos? I thought that was the case but wasn't sure. Means that if you want the full benefits from 'rares' that you need to use the likes of an LToA as an addition to your stats, not a replacement.

I guess the word 'balance' applies here. Can't have too many 'supertanks' around the place in CB2 eh?