I got Thieves Dagger and one of the info is:

Special Attack: Poison 20% (STR 2), Kill 5%

What does the Poison 20% mean? Does it mean that I can inflict do Poison damage 20% of the time? If so, does it mean "Kill 5%" to mean instant death in 5% of the time?

What about "(STR 2)"? Why is it in parenthesis?

In my current team, I have a ninja. I was thinking that since he got Critical Hit, I want to pump it all the way up. Does having 75 in Critical Hit to mean 75% chance of making 1-hit kill? if not, then how good would say a 100 Critical Hit be?

The only reason why I made a ninja was because I was thinking mainly of having someone who can make 1-hit kills to 500HP monsters.

Also I dumped fighter in favor of Samurai... but right now at level 10 samurai, he is as pathethic as a level 5 fighter in the Damage and Kill department.

Hi jsteng!

The (2 Str) means that the poison inflicts a penalty on the strength of the victim by lowering it to 2. Quite useful, yes! Unfortunately, I can't give you an info on the critical strike skill...

Hmm, my Ninja, now level 14, is doing fine, lots of crits, additional magic. Of course, about 10-20 damage per hit aren't that much... They take time to develop, stick to it! If you aren't interested only in damage, that is...

Never forget your towel, cheers
Philipp

[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: Pyrates ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Pyrates:
The (2 Str) means that the poison inflicts a penalty on the strength of the victim by lowering it to 2.<hr></blockquote>

Actually, the 2 Str means that the strength of the poison is the equivalent of a Poison spell cast at a strength of 2. Unfortunately, since there is no longer such a spell in Wiz 8 (though it was a staple in Wiz 6 and 7) most people will not realize what it means. Poison as a spell was probably equivalent to a Lvl 2 or maybe 3 spell but could do some good initial damage and last for quite a while if you cast it at the higher strengths, which is why some of the creatures can really do a number on you poison-wise and others are relatively minor.

So basically the Str 2 tells you that you can get a decent but not superlative poison level out of the dagger if it makes its 20% chance to poison. Looking back on some of the poisoning items from Wiz 7, the Viper Arrows had a 100% poison chance and the Str was 3 as I recall while the Coil of the Serpent also had a 100% poison chance but the Str was a 5.

jsteng.
Not much to say about the poison thing, Jem got it right (again [img]smile.gif[/img] )

With regard to having 75 in critical strike it is more a 7.5% chance of instakill per swing, not 75%!
7.5% may not sound like much but a decent Ninja should be able to get 6-8 swings at an opponent per combat round, do the math.

Other things that influence the % of instakills are the level of the ninja vs the level of the opponent and the Senses attribute.

With regards to Fighters vs Samurais. I would say that below level 15 the fighter is better than the equivalent Samurai. Above level 15, you will see more and more criticals, lightning strike, interesting spells,...

... and then there is always the dragon's tooth (dagger class). It is useable only by lizardmen and dracon's. It has a decent chance of poisoning, but at a (0) poison level. Once in a while, you will see a message saying that the enemy hit by dragon's tooth got poisoned, but it never lasts into the next round, and I don't even think there is any poison damage at the end of the round when it happened.

Maybe this poisoning affects the struck enemy's skills for the remainder of the round, similar to "itching skin". But I never could verify that this happened.

This poisoning weirdness aside, the dragon's tooth is one of the better daggers. It does more damage than a poignard or sai. The really, really nice thing about this dagger is the sound it makes when it hits the enemy. I can't explain it; you will have to hear it for yourself.

Woa, sorry for spreading wrong information, should have mentioned that that was only what I thougth... thanks for the correction, Jem.


Never forget your towel, cheers
Philipp

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Pyrates:
Woa, sorry for spreading wrong information, should have mentioned that that was only what I thougth... thanks for the correction, Jem.
<hr></blockquote>

Hey, that's what the board is for. And believe me, I've been wrong myself. It's just that in this particular instance I've been VERY familiar with Wiz7 having played through it something like 100 times over the last seven years waiting for 8. [img]smile.gif[/img]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jsteng:
Also I dumped fighter in favor of Samurai... but right now at level 10 samurai, he is as pathethic as a level 5 fighter in the Damage and Kill department.<hr></blockquote>


Samurai will mature later than a fighter. Have patience and you will be rewarded.

(That's my Laidback personality)

[img]smile.gif[/img]