Kensai-Mage: what are the necessary abilities?

Baassie · Post by **Baassie** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 5:56 am

I want to start a game with a human Kensai/Mage (12/-). What are the right statistics for this combination? Strenght, Constitution and INTELLIGENCE...

Oh and - dual wield or single?
- if dual wield, what weapon? Long sword, katana's, .....?
- how many proficiencies and where?

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If you can't stand the heat... feel free to DIE!
Worked for every other human being I encountered so far!

Black Hand · Post by **Black Hand** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 6:04 am

I think it's a matter of taste. Dual wielding is cool, single wielding is nod so good in my opinion.

Choice of weapons?
Longswords are not bad, katanas are rather difficult to find (if you have the bonus merchants, you can get Dak'kons blade, which should be very useful for a kensai/mage).
If you don't care about the samurai image, Maces, Flails and Axes are also excellent single handed weapons, and easy to acquire.

Karembeu · Post by **Karembeu** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 6:11 am

Don't forget the Celestial Fury....Katana +3 with some added features......it's a must have.

zorac · Post by **zorac** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 6:11 am

It's obviously up to you. I went for dualwielding katanas (CF and Zerth) with one point in long sword as well. You need at least 15 str and 17 int.

You would want to max out dex of course to get a decent AC. Con is always important but dex is more so. Choose str 15 and get a girdle of strength of some sort.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 6:11 am

For a Kensai, single wield *may* be better: -2 to AC if you get ++.

Also, crits on a 19/20 with kai shot (full damage). Devastating.

Baassie · Post by **Baassie** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 7:45 am

I can't seem to get good numbers at Int., Strength and Dex. at the same time. I've been trying for an hour! Why is dex. better dan con.?

If I do katana's, it will take a long time getting CF and the other blade. What should a use until then? And I have to have proficiencies in another weapons then!

I heard somebody say once I started a game (kensai/mage) with Grand Mastery in longswords and Mastery in dual wielding. Is that possible from the start of the game?

------------------
If you can't stand the heat... feel free to DIE!
Worked for every other human being I encountered so far!

Karembeu · Post by **Karembeu** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 7:50 am

You can always wield Katana +1...or Katana +2 until you get the Celestial Fury from the Slave lords.....(the slave lords are overrated....a pretty descent low-level party with a couple of potions and spells could clear them out while in Chapter 3)....

Maurice · Post by **Maurice** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 7:52 am

Baassie, when you roll your character, I hope you know you can substract numbers from certain attributes, and add them to others, right? So if you'd have rolled something like 15 17 13 12 18 15, you can redistribute the points to get to something like 18/45 18 15 18 10 11.

zorac · Post by **zorac** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 9:16 am

I would try get something like 15 18 18 18 10 10 (minimum str because you can easily get a girdle).

My shopping-list would look like this:
Robe of Vecna
Girdle of Hill? giant strength
CF (not too hard to get even for low level)
Zerth-blade (memorise more spells)

After that I would go after other stuff like Ring of wiz and so on.

Baassie · Post by **Baassie** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 10:09 am

Hey, thanks guys! That's a real big help! Aspecially the substract-stuff Maurice mentioned. I didn't know that (I'm a retard). So, this is the plan, thanks to zorac...

15 str. --> girdle of ... strenght
18 dex. --> for AC it seems (still don't get that one)
18 con. --> the higher the better!
18 int. --> dito!
10 wis. --> not important for Kensai/Mage????
10 char.--> ring of human influence.

You need to be a human right? Half-Orc is out of the question?

------------------
If you can't stand the heat... feel free to DIE!
Worked for every other human being I encountered so far!

zorac · Post by **zorac** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 11:05 am

Yes, human dual classing. Non-human multi classing. Since you won't be able to wear armour you want to have the best dex possible. Why, since you are a fighter/mage and not just a mage you probably want to go toe-toe and for that you need good AC. Of course you will be using defensive spells but a god AC doesn't hurt anyway.

Wisdom is mostly important for clerics. You wouldn't want it to low though.

Anatres · Post by **Anatres** » Thu Jan 11, 2001 11:10 am

Baassie; Press ctrl+shift+8 when you get to the stats portion of creating your character. Gives max stats in all. (Yeah, I know it's 'cheating'

).

[This message has been edited by Anatres (edited 01-11-2001).]

Edwin · Post by **Edwin** » Fri Jan 12, 2001 6:35 am

Anyone ever tried to dual a kensai to druid??? You gain exp qiucker and have a lot of nice spells. You must be true neutral and have at least 15 (17??) rep. My Kensai-druid has 5 slot in quarterstaff and 2 in two handed weapon style....really fun!!!!

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Jan 12, 2001 6:43 am

That's no a bad idea Edwin. Have you checked out the Ranger/Cleric thread? You might like it