Ninja- critical strike problems

[Shea_Giesler]

I've currently been playing Wiz 8 for about 3 weeks now, im in mine tunnel area and i just found the RAS-81 npc and gave him the healing oil stuff. My problem is this:
My Ninja seems to be not the type of character i wanted him to be. I've played roleplaying games all the way from pool of radiance on a 386 ....to playing pc games now, so i do have some pretty good experience with RPG type stuff. CRITICAL STRIKE doesnt seem to ever process. My ranger gets more instant kills than my ninja, and my ninja gets sometimes 6 attacks a round. The only thing i can think of is that my senses skill is around 65 but speed is really high dex is really high, and im thinking that using up my points for my senses skill is pointless, i could just throw them all into strength and really be doing some good dmg (but i really want to see him instant kill more if that is what the critical strike skill is for....also my Critical Strike skill is well over 100 at this time (including items bonuses) ). Also, i have another question, my party consists of....
Figher, Valkyrie, Lord, Ninja, Ranger, Bishop, Mage
I'm not into the whole gadgeteer thing, and i was hearing something about merging Three heavy crossbows....if so does that give you three attacks for each of your attacks per round? Seems to me that gadgeteers overpower the game a little bit, if i had 6 hits every round with my ranger the game would be ridiculously easy. Not to mention what other things i dont know that the gadgeteers can do. ALso, where did everyone figure out how to do stuff with the gadgeteers, i saw gadgeteer items in the game but had NO CLUE at all what they were for. Maybe i suck, but sometimes this RPG really has me guessing what on earth im suppose to do. It's a fun game and i like my party but im really getting POed at this Critical Strike skill thing. OK ONE MORE QUESTION......what skill effects how many attacks you get....is it speed, dexterity, or just your combat skill in that weapon?.....please let me know, thanks....i seem to be pretty clueless with this attribute distribution system, im use to the Str dex int wis con cha scores, not all these....thanks everyone

[the_young_one]

AFAIK senses is the main stat to determine critical strikes so you really need to up your senses from 65 to 100 as soon as possible.

If you have a gadgeteer, they can merge items and it is a combination of trial and error and getting tips through forums/friends/walkthroughs as to which items can combine. Gadgeteers with sufficiently high enough engineering skills can merge three light crossbows and have lots of attacks (although the chances of an attack hitting drops slightly). You might want to consider picking up the NPC in Trynton (Madras) who is a gadgeteer.

I don't think there is a problem with balance since each character has the potential to be absolute killing machines. Spellcasters with powercast 100 and level 7 spells maxed are absolute destroyers (e.g. tsunami or earthquake can do over 100 points of damage to each enemy even under hard setting, death spells can eliminate foes immediately or try cerebral haemmorage spells for over 250 pts damage). The pandemonium spell works against 99% of enemies.. Alchemists can merge potions ad infinitum and be source of cash. Ninjas have critical strike (eg faerie ninja with cane of corpus are almost unbelievably strong at such an early stage of the game). Even simple fighters can do over 300 points of pure damage in one round.

Speed is the main stat to determine initiative and number of attacks although i think dex/senses also matters. If you are using two weapons, then your dual weapons skill is also important.

[Shea_Giesler]

Ok cool thanks a lot man,

Nother question, you said something about alchemy, can you make potions?..like cure poison and stuff ...if so , how do you make them that would be really helpful for me if i could make my own potions.

[the_young_one]

You make potions by mixing two existing potions eg medium heal + light heal = heavy heal. Your alchemy skill needs to be above certain levels in order to make different potions.

[Shea_Giesler]

how high does the level limit go to in this game,

im curious because im already at level 11 now with my ninja, and am i gonna have enough levels to go through to get my senses skill up to 100 , should i just start over...also, i noticed i have about 7 different awesome instruments not being used becuase i dont have a bard....lol can i survive this game without a bard???, seems that whoever made this game figured everyone was going to use a bard, also i have tons of gadgeteer items. currently im allied with t'rang and i guess i lied to the umpani becuase i went through two of the recruitment misions for them also. with my fighter i use bloodfury, things as they are ill probably never find a replacement it gives me quit a bit of attacks, and great dmg. oh yeah , i killed crock to get my ninja back, i couldnt find that frog and searched the whole swamp, are bugs normal in this game ?.....thats just about all the stuff i have for now, thanks

[the_young_one]

You can finish this game with much fewer than six players so life with or without a bard is not really an issue. If you want a bard, you can pick up Saxx from the umpani base.

As to levels, depends on how you play the game. Some people finish the game at level 18, others play until level 30 by going to the dungeons, completing all the quests and roaming swamp/ascension peak... If your senses is 65, you need another 12 levels to reach 100, and level 23 should be attainable. If you want to level up faster, reduce your party size..

Bugs there are a few, but not many. The frog is easy to find - cross the bridge to reach the northern part of the swamp and head east to the pool..

Allying with both umpani and t'rang is part of the game, gets good exp and you can try to unite them if you rescue Drazic and Sgt Glumph later on.

Bloodlust is a very good weapon - especially if you have a samurai who otherwise wouldn't be able to berserk. Other good weapons in the game include cane of corpus, light sword, zatoichi bo, diamond eyes, muramasa blade..

[Shea_Giesler]

cool thanks for the advice again,

well this is what i did. I remade my party and characters all over again just because, i think i know more about the game now and how things work and what classes im interested in. I may have the wrong idea about ninja, i want him to get instant kills about 25% of the time, is this possible....or is instant kill not something you see very often even later on in the game. i made a fighter, ranger, ninja, bard, priest, and mage. im almost up to the trynton area after finishing thoroughly what i can at the other areas ive been to and already up to level 9 with my fighter. i just stopped playing a second ago cause i got attacked by a level 13 group on the way ...ouch, they summoned two elementals on me, couldnt do much but die. i think also that ninja attack dmg isnt based off of strength from what im seeing this time, i only have 55 or so strength, and my actual dmg (martial arts) either comes from the skill itself or from spd/senses attributes. which is pretty cool (i thought before i had to have 90 str to do decent dmg with the ninja. from the looks of things, this game has a lot of replay value i didnt think it would have before playing.

[MaskedFrog]

Your ninja will never get 25% critical hits. Think of critical hits as a nice bonus when they happen. Your ninja is still a valuable member because of the auto pentrating thrown weapons. Keep throwing weapons in both secondary slots so he can do some dual weapon throwing.

HH damage is based on both strength and Martial Arts. Also with a high enough martial arts your ninja will be able to KO opponents in addition to Instant Killing them.

There definitely is some replay potential as you can make different groups of PCs. Personally I find that a party of 4 is better than a party of 6 because you gain levels faster.

[EEWorzelle]

Here is a site that I found good for stat questions:

http://www.geocities.com/shau185/index.html

It is just one players attempt to gather this information, and I suspect it isn't perfect, but it has a lot of good stuff. The section is called "Stats explained," or something like that.

[Shea_Giesler]

Thanks for the advice, gonna check out that link now,

This is how i use my ninja so far. I hardly use throwing weapons with him, he's in my front line and generally is martial arts, stealth, close combat based....working on raising speed, dex, senses to 100 then after that ill probably go str and int if i have the ability to. So far i like my new party a lot more, using a bard rocks, they can help out so much. k thanks again and any other advice you all have on character stats let me know. one more question, do you gain special skills for raising combat skills to 100 like you do the ability scores for your attributes?....like my fighter, priest and mage all have new skills iron will, power attack , and power cast....