party is 13th level.
got a nice samurai
decent armour onboard, decent bow for long ranged stuff
(great bow + barbed arrows)

primary weapon started off as a katana, then the enchanted katana,
and now he is happily using demonsbane.
the weak thing with his kit is his secondary weapon
started off as a wussy wakashi and still has the same :(
cant even seem to find the wakashi +1 i know is outthere somewhere

any idea's on where i can find a better secondary weapon for him?

I believe the enhanced wakashi is the best secondary sword available. Not sure who sells them, probably Antone and/or Ferro.

** Spoiler Warning **

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One can be found in the cavern hidden behind the waterfall in the Northern Wilderness area.

[img]smile.gif[/img]

Also think you can PP one off of Antone =) And make a run for Fang, your Samurai will love that sword.

I noticed that my Samurai did a lot more lightning strikes at the start of the game compared to the end of the game. I think maybe its due to the fact that he was using Fang and not a 'samurai' waepon. Thoughts?

thinking back to wizardry 7, the best secondary weapon for the samurai i found was actually a wand.
forgotten its name but it did decent damage, plus a small chance to do a whole range of bad things i.e. stun, poison, critical, stone, disease K.O. etc.
wonder if its in wiz8...

Well, if the German translates right, it's the Kobold Wand, i loved them in W-7 myself. No, they don't import, nor have i found or heard of the finding of one. Turned a lot of stuff to stone with those!

Hey, but wasn't that wand faerie only? My faerie rogue had a great time using that, turned everything to stone [img]smile.gif[/img]

I think it depends on levels. If you are high level samurai and fight against lower level monsters, you will make more lightning strikes. I am pretty sure also, that you cannot affect lightning strike, because it's random.

There is a theory out there that lightning strike is based on how much weight you're carrying-I don't know if anyone has put any validity behind it, but I've read it in 2-3 places. I barely ever got a lightning strike after I started using Fang, but I didn't get them much with bloodlust, either. But I do carry a lot of stuff, so that may be part of it.

yah, Kobold is fairy only, doesn't import, so it's just a dream. I guess Winter Wand will have to do, you just have to train Staff/Wand once your Swd is up.
Lightning strike is definitely affected be Speed, Snakespeed, and Dex. What you're carrying doesn't seem to me to be a problem until you go over 2/3 Cap.

Are you sure lightning strike is affected by speed?

I have heard this theory about weight too, it couldn't hurt to follow it.

About Lightning strike...

If a samurai swings his sword three things can happen: normal swing, critical strike, lightning strike.
It goes like this (numbers are fictional)
The computer rolls a dice taking into account your lvl, the monsters lvl, encumbrance and your critical strike skill. If the number is high enough u get a critical kill, a bit lower lightning strike, otherwise normal swing. So your weight has some influence (keep it white or blue).
For example u and monster equal lvl : dice 1-20: 18-20 = critical strike/14-17 = lightning strike/1-13 = normal strike.
The higher your critical strike skill the lower the number required to get a critical! If your critical skill gets real high u might get a critical 15-20, lightning strike 14-15, normal strike 1-13.
Also, the higher your lvl compared to the monsters, the higher the chance for a critical kill. U will see lightning strikes against stronger monsters and when your critical skill lvl is low -> always so at start of game.

If u run 2 samurais next to each other and build critical strike on one of them, the one with high critical strike skill gets less lightning strikes. I decided not to build critical strike at first, putting 3pts in close combat, sword and dual weapons. Just start putting pts in critical strike when one of those is over 75.
Lightning strike and critical kill compete against each other so the higher critical strike skill and extra %kill from weapons, the lower the chance for a lightning strike.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but after all I've seen and read, it should work like this.

Signed,
One sick Psycho

[ 05-11-2002, 07:12 AM: Message edited by: Psycho ]

To be honest, I'm so intrested in lightning strike because my Sam dosen't dual wield. The enchanted wakazashi is just too weak for my power hungry style. My Sam uses a shield so I was wondering how I could up his number of hits with just his main sword. Honestly, to me, the ONLY weapon worth dual wielding is Dimond Eyes.

What about that vulcan hammer you get from Ferro's armory? I've got a fighter and a lord in this game, and I'm interested to dual one with each as a secondary, cuz that looked pretty cool (albeit not as good as diamond eyes, which I also didn't use last game cuz I liked excalibur so much....)

yah, i think it's a bad part of this game, the paucity of secondaries. Even Bec de Corbin imports as primary only--it was my Valk's secondary in W-7. I fight in the SCA and find it incredible that anyone who really thinks about fighting would so underestimate our ability to learn to use both hands almost equally offensively. Especially those who make fighting a vocation.