With 9 strength, 1 piercing and 2 melee, my ranged guy seem to deal around 10-20 points of melee damage. The speed and block is nice, though melee damage is lacking. But yeah, I’m noticing even whenever you “whack” a person with a spear, the weapon can still get stuck as though you skewered them. I’m not sure if there really is a difference between when you poke and when you whack. The game just seems to combine the damage together then picks which verb it wants.
More importantly, I’m finding thrown wooden spears are a goddamn life saver whenever the game thinks it’s cool not to spawn any gun stores and lots of bears. Headshots regularly deal ~60 points of damage. Eat shit, Yogi.