Yeah, the statement of damage is meaningless without more information. What is interesting, though, is that it is static and more damage requires higher level abilities. This may be a method of balancing casters against non casters -- it suggests that damage output for fighters goes up at benchmarks as well -- and may also play into the concept of "relevant orcs" because it suggests you will be using you level x abilities to fight your level x enemies, even when you are level x+2.