what's wrong with my samurai?

[armakh]

I'm about level 14 with my party, and I love all my people so far except for my samurai. He's 100 speed and dex, using bloodlust, and I'm currently building up int and str. I know that I need to be patient building him and stuff, but right now he really sucks. I've put max points into wizardry every level since 5, cast spells for ranged combat, and I have all the points I can put in invested in critical strike, sword, almost maxxed in dual weapons and close combat (60's, I think). I know that I've neglected senses and that could be part of it, but even my gadgeteer has more crits than he does. I almost never get the lightning strike, and when I do he usually misses at least 4 times. Even with bloodlust, which everyone says is so great, I'm only doing 15-20 damage per hit. And as far as spellcasting goes, I don't know what his skill points are off the top of my head, but he can't cast anything at a very high level, and I still haven't gotten any real decent spells except for freeze flesh and fireball.

Am I doing something wrong, or do I just need to be patient?

[Sanguinarius]

The only advice I can give you is that if you want him to do more damage in close combat you shouldn't have put any point into wizardry until you had your close combat and dual weapons maxed as well, they make quite a difference to samurai's close combat, with the Strength vitality dexterity and speed are the main characteristics for your samurai's close combat, intelligence is only for his wizardry. You've done right ignoring senses for his close combat, it makes little if no difference at all for samarai's. With the attributes you've mentioned maxed and these maxed (critical strike and sword) as well as close combat and dual weapons maxed my samarai is now getting lightning strikes more often and often doing over 100 damage with his lightning strike attack. Its all a matter of whether your samurai is one of your front line troops or your using him to cover he flanks as to whether you put any points at all into wizardry unless you have nothing else to do with those points in the way of improving your samurais close combat.

[Sanguinarius]

eaaah scratch the bit about senses not being worthwhile, just the rest seem to have a greater effect than senses, senses still does have some effect, just get him more powerful, eventually samurai's do get very good and worthwhile with the held of their lightning attacks.

[swavek]

my sammy is about level 10 and i've only increased his dex and spd. i haven't seen him do any lightnings strkes nor do any crits, he does get 3 to 4 attacks per round and does decent damage each time. compared to my fighter, he's doing just as good. they both average about 100 points of damage per round. anyway, keep doing what you're doing and eventually you'll oneday see your samurai do some really high damage. patience my son. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[GenXCub]

I'm happy with my Sam for now. He's level 11, not too strong in the magic department, but I can work on that.

I did the STR/DEX route for him and it's made him a great melee fighter. Some would say "Why not just make a fighter?" But for now, why? When he's using Bloodlust, he's just as good as a fighter, so I'll slowly build up magic later.