Can a Kensai somehow protect himself from critical hits?

Korlamaq

Since he is unable to wear a helmet...
Also is it new that when i dual my Kensai into a Mage or Thief he loses all weapon proficiencies? Isn't he supposed to be super badass when you dual him into a Mage or Thief because he can then wear their armor? What use is this if he doesn't keep his proficiencies... or am i missing something here? Although I've been playing Baldurs Gate for ages I am kinda new to dual/multiclassing so i have no clue about whats good :P

meagloth

When your dual class reaches the level the original class was when you dual led, then you'll get your kensai profs. back. Until then, it a grind. I.E. You dual from kensai at lvl 7 to a Mage, you become a lvl 1 Mage, and when your Mage reaches lvl 7, then you will become a kensai Mage. Until then, your just a Mage. I don't know about the crits, I always wanted to think ioun stones protected, but it don't think they do.

FinneousPJ

You'll be able to wear other headgear you find later, which seem to block criticals too. I don't know if that's a bug. For a K->M it's not an issue though, since stoneskin, MI, PfMW and other protective spells will shield you also.

Aranthys

Ioun stones protect from critical hits just fine.
Worse case scenario, you can use the King Strohm III Mask if everything else fails, but I believe Ioun Stones are useable by anyone

Calmar

Does the mask do anything? I don't remember it granting protection from critical hits.

FinneousPJ

Like I said, it seems like wearing any headgear protects from criticals, whether the description states protection from criticals or not.

moody_mage

meagloth said:

When your dual class reaches the level the original class was when you dual led, then you'll get your kensai profs. back. Until then, it a grind. I.E. You dual from kensai at lvl 7 to a Mage, you become a lvl 1 Mage, and when your Mage reaches lvl 7, then you will become a kensai Mage. Until then, your just a Mage. I don't know about the crits, I always wanted to think ioun stones protected, but it don't think they do.

Level 8 dude. If you dual from a Kensai at level 7 you then need to get to level 8 as a mage to become a Kensage.

Remember, when dual-classing your new class needs to exceed that of your old one before you get your old skills back.

abacus

meagloth said:

When your dual class reaches the level the original class was when you dual led, then you'll get your kensai profs. back. Until then, it a grind. I.E. You dual from kensai at lvl 7 to a Mage, you become a lvl 1 Mage, and when your Mage reaches lvl 7, then you will become a kensai Mage. Until then, your just a Mage. I don't know about the crits, I always wanted to think ioun stones protected, but it don't think they do.

Close... But you actually need to be one level higher in your second class. Kensai(7)>Mage(7) has only Mage abilities... Kensai(7)>Mage(8) has both.

Edit: and the only way to let a Kensai wear armour is to dual to Thief get 3million XP as Thief and take the Higher Level Ability 'Use Any Item'.

Fardragon

FinneousPJ said:

Like I said, it seems like wearing any headgear protects from criticals, whether the description states protection from criticals or not.

I'm not sure if that is true or not, but The Visage (from Dorn's SoA quest) lists protection from criticals, and is wearable by anyone.

Heindrich

FinneousPJ said:

Like I said, it seems like wearing any headgear protects from criticals, whether the description states protection from criticals or not.

Oh really? I had no idea! Is this a bug or intended?

Actually on the matter of critical hits. I found that the worst problem in BG 2 wasn't so much how hard u got hit, but getting hit in the first place, and the worst of the pain came from non-melee/physical attacks, which can't be 'critical' anyway.

bob_veng

it's a bug stemming from early engine limitations and lack of polish, reported.

CrevsDaak

bob_veng said:

it's a bug stemming from early engine limitations and lack of polish, reported.

It isn't because of that, it is because of hardcoded and non-externalized features that wasn't important enough to look at.

bob_veng

yeah, that's what i meant - they didn't have time to wrap it up properly ("lack of polish") at the time of bg2 release and the very reason for that it is the "engine limitation", namely fixing hardcoded stuff takes loads more time then creating and editing items etc.

they surely must have thought it was fairly important but simply couldn't make it in time, and after already having created all those ioun stones, said: "there's gonna be a bug but screw it, we're either tossing all these or we're lumping them together with helmets", and somebody opted for the latter and probably said: "don't worry, we'll fix it post-release" ...we all know how that usually goes

i guess that's how you can illustrate the difference between something being legitimately cut out because it wasn't high enough on the priority list and something missing unintentionally because of economic/technical hurdles. the former is never in itself a bug, but the latter may be and often results in one

Blucher

Could very well be that it (Ioun Stones protecting against criticals) was intended, as a perk,

Besides, helmets protecting against critical hits isn't even a rule in AD&D.

bob_veng

that would most likely be a no, because it doesn't say so in the item descriptions, for any ioun stone

the helmet crit protection is a bg1 rule. things only got complicated once non-helmet headgear got introduced in bg2

FinneousPJ

TBH I always thought it made helmets/headgear OP.

sarevok57

once your character hits level 20 I believe ( or 3 000 000 xp or somewhere in that ballpark) your character will naturally become immune to critical hits

dustbubsy

Glad I'm not the only one who uses King Strohm's Mask on characters who can't wear helmets. Cause really, how cool is it to imagine your monk or kensai rocking into battle with that thing on?

jackjack

Predictably, hilarity ensues when putting it on a Bard.

Abel

sarevok57 said:

once your character hits level 20 I believe ( or 3 000 000 xp or somewhere in that ballpark) your character will naturally become immune to critical hits

I don't know how you came up with that fact but it's certainly not true for me at least.
Tested in game with a 8M XP protagonist. Takes critical hits without a helmet.

CrevsDaak

dustbubsy said:

Glad I'm not the only one who uses King Strohm's Mask on characters who can't wear helmets. Cause really, how cool is it to imagine your monk or kensai rocking into battle with that thing on?

I always thought that it gave detect invisibility to detect the fire elemental Guardian, but then I looked at the game files... and I decided to left it in my Bag of Holding because it's cool.

meagloth

dustbubsy said:

Glad I'm not the only one who uses King Strohm's Mask on characters who can't wear helmets. Cause really, how cool is it to imagine your monk or kensai rocking into battle with that thing on?

My first run I had my sorcerer PC wear it to the end of the game. I didn't even know it protected from crits, I just thought it was fun.
And sorry about the dual class mess up. I don't dual much.