So I was checking my sword stats and my demon brand now only does 288 instead of 430 damage as it did earlier.... It's not broken or anything - please tell me it's just a halloween thing? 'Coes I got a weird disconnect during a online game where it didn't register that I just helped beat the Tower Knight and yet gave me the souls without reviving me and I'm worried it messed up my stats.... (was using my Crescent Falchion +4 which does 288 total damage on the game and worried it switched up stats).

That would be one weird a** glitch though if so. Anyone else having this?

Demon/Soulbrands do less damage if you don't have pure Character Tendency.  You'll get more damage if you have Pure White CT with the Demonbrand and more damage with the Soulbrand with Pure Black CT.  The Northern Regalia is similar but you just have to be on either extremes and not on Neutral CT to get the most damage.

 http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/
 
Good source for all info like this. I use North Regalia as my main but yea, the character extremes is a real pain - I'm constantly having to invade to counterset my tendency that went towards white from killing an invading black phantom.

Tried going for black soul tendency as I wanted more colourless demon's souls but it's such a pain - not good enough to risk losing a soul level in PVP and there aren't enough non-valuable NPCs around for you to kill. Plus every time I kill a Black Phantom or a Boss, it seems to set me back down to white... At least I have the North Regalia now and will probably work back up to white so I can power it up fully.

Also, any idea if the Halloween increased enemy strength thing is still ongoing? Because I just got annihilated by the Shadowmen Shrine skeletons/Adjudicator boss and am having a really hard time... Unless this is just New Game + being a f*uck tonne harder than my original playthrough... Having a soul level of 110 does not help apparently