kensai questions

[Tactic2178]

does the kensai class ability (ki is it?) max things like theif back-stab or wizard spells? would it make a fireball (for example) do max damage?

[Mugiwara]

Kai ability works as an automatic max damage with weapons on hit for the alloted time period. As far as I'm aware, but I have never tried multiclassing Kensai's, Kai should work with backstab providing you are using an appropriate thief weapon. It doesn't work spells as far as I recall.

[Коп Базилио]

Kai 100% maximizes backstab

[Tactic2178]

excellent!

( i made a high-roll human kensai with daggers. trying to make the most out of that. )
if i make a new one i'll keep that in mind. my new little plan!

[Elrion]

Kai maximizes the base damage of weapon attacks. It does not maximize any elemental bonus damage of a weapon though.

For instance, let us say you use a weapon which does

1d8 (base damage) +5 (weapon bonus)+ 1d4 (fire damage).

With Kai, the 1d8 base damage is maximized, and becomes an 8 without rolling. The 1d4 fire damage is not maximized though, you still roll this normally.

For backstabs, the base damage roll is maximized and then multiplied with the backstab multiplier. For instance, if you have a backstab multiplier of x5 and backstab with the weapon above while Kai is active, your backstab would do the following damage:

(8 (maximized base damage) +5 (weapon damage bonus) ) x 5
+ 5 strength bonus (not multiplied)
+ 1d4 elemental damage bonus (neither maximized nor multiplied)

[Tactic2178]

wanting to make my character work. comes down to the decision between daggers and scimitars.

[Elrion]

Originally posted by Tactic2178:

wanting to make my character work. comes down to the decision between daggers and scimitars.

For a kensai -> thief, you of course want to go for a weapon type which allows you to backstab. There are a number of decent weapon options for that:

- Of all weapons which allow you to backstab, Katanas have the highest base damage (d10). This fits in very well with Kai, which maximises base weapon damage. While there are relatively few Katanas in the trilogy, there are a couple of exceptional ones, especially Celestial Fury and Hindo's Doom.

- Long Swords are a highly versatile backstab option. While they only do 1d8 base damage, the best Longswords in the game are +5, while the best Katana only gives +4 (note that the weapon damage bonus is also affected by the backstab multiplier). Also, there is a wide range of different longswords with special weapon effects for different situations (Angurvadal +5, Blackrazor, the Answerer).

- Daggers are also a very decent option. While daggers typically only deal 1d4 base damage (which severely limites the damage output from kai-powered maximised backstabs), there are specific daggers with a base damage of 2d4. A nice bonus is that there are also several throwing daggers which return to you (Boomerang Dagger, Firetooth), so you automatically get a ranged option as well. (Backstab attacks require you to be in melee range though.). Finally, the legendary dagger in ToB has a chance to turn you invisible with every hit... which allows you to make another backstab attack.

- Quarterstaffs are often mentioned as the backstab weapon which gives the maximum single backstab hits, thanks to Staff of the Ram. An additional advantage is that quarterstaffs deal crushing damage, which is useful because particular enemies have resistances against piercing or slashing damage.

- Scimitars also deal 1d8 base damage. They are not as versatile as longswords as far as special weapon effects are concerned. Belm is a very useful offhand option though, which gives you an additional mainhand attack. In the lategame, this can be combined with the Assassination HLA, which turns all your attacks (even offhand attacks) into backstabs for one round.

- Finally, Short Swords are definitely also a very solid option. While they only deal 1d6 base damage, the legendary Short Sword of the Mask (which can be obtained very early in SoA) compensates for that with two useful special effects. Just as Belm does for Scimitars, Kundane gives you an offhand option which provides an additional mainhand attack.

[Tactic2178]

thankyou!

[EmotionallyBroken]

Originally posted by Elrion:

- Long Swords are a highly versatile backstab option. While they only do 1d8 base damage, the best Longswords in the game are +5, while the best Katana only gives +4 (note that the weapon damage bonus is also affected by the backstab multiplier). Also, there is a wide range of different longswords with special weapon effects for different situations (Angurvadal +5, Blackrazor, the Answerer).


- Quarterstaffs are often mentioned as the backstab weapon which gives the maximum single backstab hits, thanks to Staff of the Ram. An additional advantage is that quarterstaffs deal crushing damage, which is useful because particular enemies have resistances against piercing or slashing damage.

- Scimitars also deal 1d8 base damage. They are not as versatile as longswords as far as special weapon effects are concerned though. Belm is a very useful offhand option though, which gives you an additional mainhand attack. In the lategame, this can be combined with the Assassination HLA, which turns all your attacks (even offhand attacks) into backstabs for one round.

arent these all slashing weapons? (Except for the staff which is blunt?)

[Коп Базилио]

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

arent these all slashing weapons? (Except for the staff which is blunt?)

This is a weapon that thief can be use for backstab

[Elrion]

Originally posted by EmotionallyBroken:

arent these all slashing weapons? (Except for the staff which is blunt?)

The post was about weapon types which allow you to backstab. This is completely unrelated to the damage type of the weapon. For instance, within the category of weapons with crushing damage, there are some weapon types which can be used for backstabbing (e.g. quarterstaffs and clubs) and others which do not allow you to backstab (e.g. flails and hammers). The same holds for weapons which do piercing or slashing damage (For instance, you can backstab with long swords and scimitars, but not with two-handed swords or halberds).

As a general rule, you can backstab with all weapons which a single-class thief can equip without 'use any item'. This even holds for specific weapons within a weapon type: For instance, you can backstab with 'staff of the ram +6' (a quarterstaff which can be equipped by a thief without 'use an item'). but not with 'staff of the magi' (also a quarterstaff, but not usable by thieves without 'use an item').

[Hamish]

Just a few general pointers... by the sound of it you are making a kensai thief to play through the whole series - a very fun choice I would say!

Now for example, you start off with 2 points in Longswords, 2 in either another weapon like quarter staffs, progress to 5 points in Longswords to level 9, then dual Class (a common dual class point) to a thief, you can take daggers, and short swords, get enough exp to get to level 10, and I believe you can add another 2 points to whatever you want. From their, you can Grand Master in more weapons. It's a bit dirty but it's within the game without any actual cheat codes entered... I've done it with an NPC.

Just like to add, I want to try this myself now! Thanks for the inspiration!