GameBanshee Forums

Hi.

I'm new to BG2 and just took a look at some Kensai/Mage strategy guide on gamebanshee.com. I'd be glad if u could answer a few questions about this character.

I'm not sure I understood well... but the author says it's possible to reactivate the Kensai class (so u may gains more kensai levels) even after you have dualed to a mage ?! How can we do that ?

Another question : what is that limited wish and wish thing that requires the character to have a good wisdom ?

One more : would it be a good idea to wait till lvl 15 before dualing in order to have bettre fighting skills, since I plan to export to Throne of Bhaal later (8,000,000 exp cap) ?

Since there are plenty of belts that can raise strength to 19+, would it be a good idea to make a kensai/mage with as low strength as possible in order to max wisdom ? Is there any uber-belt that I should wear instead of a strength enhancing belt ? High wisdom helps with saving throws right ?

Thanks a lot for your help

Pat

I think the author of the guide means that when you switch classes to dual, your first class becomes inoperative. When you a level in your second class that surpasses the first, that first class again becomes operative. You gain all its benefits.

Q 2 - 4

Limited Wish and Wish are 7th and 9th lvl spells, fairly powerful... The 7th lvl version gives you a set of specific options, check out the gamebanshee strategy guide for this spell... The 9th lvl is more powerful, but the results are less predictable... Wisdom is still the key, but the available wishes vary...
There is a trick to the spell that you can use is your wisdom is low:
Cast either spell... This will summon the Genie which grants wishes... Then take a wiser character: e.g. Keldorn, and speak to the genie with him... His wisdom will be used, not yours...

If this is your first run through the game, I'd recommend Dualing immediately after the start of the game... You won't be the most powerful fighter, you'll regain your old abilities faster... When you dual, you start back as a lvl 1 mage - pretty weak - and have to work back up to the lvl you left at...
BTW, you can never again gain Kensai lvls after you dual...

The ideal strength enhancing item is the Crom Feyr, I hammer that sets strength at 25... Besides that, you just have a couple of belts, 1 set of gauntlets, 1 mace, and a sword in ToB...
Wisdom helps with Saving Throws in PnP DnD, but I don't think in BG2... I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong here...

Well first of all I'd like to voice an opinion I have about kensai/mages and that they're too cliche. Go for a Berserker/Mage, they're much more utilitarian. ie:cast a few spells, turn on rage, and run into battle swinging(immune to any mind affecting anything).

Now about your questions:
1. The way dualing works is that after you start your second class your first class becomes inactive until your second class surpasses the first by one level. You cease to gain levels in your first class as soon as you start your second, and it's impossible to continue to gain levels in your first class under any circumstances.
2. The wish spells are potentially very powerful and fun spells but with a character like this there are more important atributes than wisdom, so I never bothered to use them.
3. If you're playing with a full party it'd be best to dual early on, but if you're soloing or going with a smaller party you can dual later on. There are guides for this build that will detail what levels to dual. I don't remember the numbers.
4. As has been stated high wisdom only helps your saves in real pnp dnd, not BG2, so unless you're planning on getting high wisdom for wish spells don't bother. There are also potions which can temporarily enhance your wisdom for casting wish spells and a few dialogues where high wisdom is necessary for certain dialogue options. Personally I'd concentrate on str and int, with dex and con taking up whatever points you've got left. Let's face it you're playing this character because somewhere deep down inside you're a powergamer, and you want the most effective stats possible. And it's not worth putting points in something you're not gonna use that often and which can be suplemented with potions.

You need at least 15 on str. to be able to dual, and at least 17 on int. to dual to a mage.
The other main stats. are dex. and con. , so ideally you should think of a char. with 15 str., 18 dex/con, 17 wis, if you have other points put them where you like.
Don't bother to have a very high wisdom, because unless you are soloing you should leave wish spells to the other mages of the company and eventually let the priest speak.
As for the lev. to wich dual I agree with Skuld, anyway 15 seems very late, even with ToB unless you are soloing (or with a 2 party) your are going to take a loong time, and you will be mainly playing with a pure kensai and a pure mage most of the time: you want to play a Kensai/mage, don't you?

In my opinion, there's really no question as to what are the best levels for dualling a kensai-mage. If you don't have TOB installed and thus have the exp cap, dual at level 9. If you -do- have TOB, then dual at level 13 (when you get the maximum # of attacks per round and a nice saving throw boost). I don't really think there's anything gained at level 14 and 15 worth shooting for beyond that that can make up for not having your kensai skills active for a MUCH MUCH MUCH longer period of time. A THACO that's 3 better? That's it? Nice, but not nice enough. I'd rather get to use my kensai abilities in the Underdark, especially pit fighting

To make catching up your mage level to 14 much much easier, kick everyone out of your party that you can, and then scribe every scroll you found (you -have- been saving them all up to this point, right?). I got up to about level 10 that way splitting exp with just Aerie (my romance).

Oh yeah, beware, cause kicking your romance interest out of the party, and possibly kicking Jaheira out if you're doing her Harper quest, will end the romance/quest prematurely. The good news (for Jaheira) is that in the middle of the Harper quest she leaves your party voluntarily until you go pick her back up. That happened to coincide very closely to when I dualled, so I did all my scribing with just Aerie (my romance) in the party and got up to about level 10 after both me and her were done scribing. And that was without doing the "unlearn/rescribe" trick too, which is just way too cheesy for me. I'm guessing if Jaheira -is- your romance, and you do it during that segment where she leaves the party, you could get your mage level up to 11 or 12 by scribing the spells all alone. Then invite Aerie/Jan/Nalia/Edwin/Imoen back in, and let -them- scribe a bunch of spells, and you can share that with 'em one at a time. I don't think you could get your level quite back up to 14 that way, but you could get pretty damn close

Oh, and don't waste a single extra stat point on wisdom. Just drink a potion of insight to get an 18 wis, or let your higher wis party members do the talking for you. You'll be much better off having the high strength naturally for the first portion of the game, and you -won't- have enough strength enhancing items to go around to -every- character (tho you can get close by the -very- end of TOB).

Qwinn

"Aerie/Jan/Nalia/Edwin/Imoen back in, and let -them- scribe a bunch of spells, and you can share that with 'em one at a time. I don't think you could get your level quite back up to 14 that way, but you could get pretty damn close"

that is easily as cheesy as erase/scribe cheese. The same with kicking everyone out. I just play with my mage, mages are fine. I'm sure you have enough firepower as it is. However, with tactics and improved mages, it makes it much harder, you end up rellying so heavily on just lowering defences then storming with fighters.

I'm new to BG2 and just took a look at some Kensai/Mage strategy guide on gamebanshee.com. I'd be glad if u could answer a few questions about this character.

I'm not sure I understood well... but the author says it's possible to reactivate the Kensai class (so u may gains more kensai levels) even after you have dualed to a mage ?! How can we do that ?

Nope, once you dual to another class you cease to earn experience in your older class completely and can never increase your abilities in that class with an exception to potions and spells.

Another question : what is that limited wish and wish thing that requires the character to have a good wisdom ?

The wish spells are similar to stories you may have heard at some point about summoning a Genie (or in this case a Djinn) from a magic lamp (spell). These beings have a chance at granting your wishes but the effects are dependant on your wisdom. The lower your wisdom the less likely you'll get the effect you want.

One more : would it be a good idea to wait till lvl 15 before dualing in order to have bettre fighting skills, since I plan to export to Throne of Bhaal later (8,000,000 exp cap) ?

It will take a long time for you to regain your abilities and your character will be pretty much useless for a majority of the game. (I like to try and use my character for everything) It's your choice.

Since there are plenty of belts that can raise strength to 19+, would it be a good idea to make a kensai/mage with as low strength as possible in order to max wisdom ? Is there any uber-belt that I should wear instead of a strength enhancing belt ? High wisdom helps with saving throws right ?

No, not a smart idea in my opinion. There are many people in the game who already have low strength with not nearly enough belts of strength to go around. Besides the fact that getting most of the belts takes a long time into the game and you'll suffer the problems of not being able to do effective damage in the earlier part of the game when comparitively the enemies seem tougher.

Wisdom is a very good trait for mages, not just for the lore and saving bonus. Whenever you cast a spell there is a huge delay (intuition) where your character will stand around dumbfounded before he can cast another spell, with a high wisdom you will be able to cast spells and spells on end without that annoying pause. In effect at the end it seems like your character casts faster, not to mention you gain the ability to litterally drown your enemies in spells.

I know that wisdom has no effect on saving throws in BG2, and I'm almost positive it has no effect on spell casting "lag." My opinion is that you're only really gonna need wisdom for casting wish spells so don't worry about putting points in wisdom, just use a potion to boost it right before you cast the spell. And there are two items that significantly increase your casting speed; the Robe of Vecna and a necklace of which the name presently escapes me so don't worry about lag.

I'd only take wisdom on one caster and that's a Sorceror, because they require neither intelligence nor charisma regardless of what dnd rules or the manual says. So you can do basically whatever you want with one of those.

Scribing spells will grant you nice exp. but if you dual at 13 you will still be quite far away from reactivate the class: scribing 15 spells for each lev. from 1 to 8 will get you about 450 kexp.pt., that you hav eto divide by the number of char. in the party. To reactivate the kensai you need 1500 kexp.pt., so it helps but the way is still long.

SPOILER




As for the strenght enhancing item you can get a belt thet sets str. at 19 and a mace that sets str. at 18 right after Irenicus dungeon, and str. is the stats which is the easier to increase by using items: 1 mace, 1 gauntlets, 3 belts in SoA (but you need 2 of them to make Crom), and 1 sword and 1 belt in ToB; plus you can raise str. by 1 point in ToB and by 3 in the end of SoA depending on your choices.

[INDENT]"that is easily as cheesy as erase/scribe cheese."[/INDENT]

Nah, I made it sound much worse than it was (though I agree if someone took it to that extent it would be pretty cheesy). I really didn't do that with anyone except Aerie - and she -was- my romance after all. After I dualled, I just had her join me... alone... for some... "private" tutoring in magic. *nudge nudge wink wink*

And as lompo noted, yeah, you still spend a long while getting your kensai skills reactivated (for example, after all my scribing, I did the planar sphere and two other SoA quests, all of Spellhold, all of the Sahuagin City, and was releasing the guys from the soul prison in the Underdark when my kensai skills finally reactivated. It's just helpful not to have to be starting from level -1-. If it hadn't been for the scribing, I believe I'd still have gotten them back in the Underdark, just later on.

Qwinn