So, I just got my Shen Drowne Sword from the Gilded Grasshopped quest. It said initially that it only did 24 damage. No biggie, I didn't even think twice about using such a [censored] weapon...

Well I later killed a bunch of raiders and exited an underground station. Went through my weapons and noticed something... Odd.

My Shem Drowne Sword for no apparent reason now does 188 base damage. That can't be right, this has to be a glitch. Right?!

Edit:

All credit goes to "felisimpurrator" for finding the information about the current Yao Guai Roast glitch. I did in fact have that food item consumed, I confirmed this tonight. After sleeping in a bed for 24 hours I was able to remove the damage buff from my sword from 188 back down to 20! Thanks for the help everyone, case closed.

There are some chems that can increase your melee damage 50% alone. Although it shouldn't be doing 188 damage...

My first thought was that I took some Chems. But 188 seems WAY too high. I'm literally 1-shorting everything I encounter. And I've had the difficulty cranked up to Very Hard for a while now. I didn't try restarting the game, but when I get one tomorrow I'll see if it's still the same damage. If it is, I'll likely put the weapon away and ignore it. Would kind of ruin the game if I had it on me as an option.

Did you gain any levels between those times, and did any of those points go into strength, Big Leagues, or Nuclear Physicist? Also, check other melee weapons.

Although it seems, after some investigation, that Yao Guai Roast (the food item) is bugged, giving a far bigger melee bonus than the listed 10% - if you've eaten any bear meat recently, that may be why you're ridiculously overpowered.

My strength is only 2. I may have eaten a Yao Guai Roast though. I will check tonight.

I think General Chao's swords base damage is only 53 or so... 188 would be astounding. melee perks? high strength stat?

Well, I'm talking about Shem Drowne Sword, where the base damage was 24, but is now 188.

My strength is 2, and I have no strength bonus gear on nor do I have any strength Percs. All I know, is that I'm literally 1 shotting everything I come across on Very Hard. Which is kind of game breaking for me. So I'm hoping when I go home to play tonight that it was just a meat affect and it will wear off after I rest for 12 hours.

On a side note, I noticed that switchblades do 90 damage. Seemed high also.

Haha, yea something is very bugged. Switchblades do like 10 damage. I'd take a look at your active effects in your stat menu

I was so tired last night I didn't even think to check that. I'll be following up in my original post tonight.

updated original post with new information. Thanks everyone for the help!