Okay I was under impression you were recommending Kensai over cannon Archer. I didn't know you are looking at daggers I took it for the xbow.
It is not a bad idea overall because Kensai cannot wear armor so he better has a ranged weapon and daggers in this case sounds good.
I personally would choose Archer over Kensai for ranged; however, at end game the ranged Kensai with throwing dagger has the ability to deal significantly more damage than an Archer. The post was asking what has the most high end potential, so you may not like it, but kensai is what peak performance looks like in both melee and ranged.
For actual gameplay I tend to favour berserk over Kensai, simply because I don't have
to worry about mindflayers etc...
I remember my hammer-flail Kensai in vanilla BG2 was probably the strongest individual
character to be used. Lateron I started to fall in love with the magic system, though, and
nowadays if I do a run through I tend to use dual-class berserker (level 7, just for two ranks
of rage) and then mage, maximizing intelligence as much as possible via items. This may
not be the best combination, but I found it the most fun.
For max damage we may also have to include thieves backstab + spikes. In a short duration
this may yield even more damage than kensai but I haven't done the numbers calculations.
Sorry for being such a Kensai hater. You need some kind of tank with Kensai, or a summon, so you can exploit the lack of threat detection in this game. There is some degree of threat detection but it is exploitable. Like move around, re-engage tactics. So you can really melee enemies even without wearing armor because they simply won't hit you and engage your tank if you careful exploiting.
But it doesn't play well with my role-playing concept of a fighter. I don't like kiting fighters, I want them to stand their ground and build them accordingly. If I want kiting I might use a different class overall like a druid. And for me every round of kiting is lost opportunity cost of dishing damage.
This is also why I repeatedly recommend archer. It may not do the highest possible dpr but this class does consistent damage with minimal loss of opportunity. i really like to squeeze the best out of a class. In this sense I agree that bezerkers are top notch class.
Also I don't know about you but when I play I dislike and resist the idea of camping/rest too often. If I have to rest every single hundred yards, from one corridor to another corridor in a dungeon, the this party sucks and probably MC is bad build too. So I want to push the barrier as long as I can, for example I might try do a dungeon with only a single rest and this is entirely role playing perspective.
I also prefer a tankier main character, Kensai is very much a glass cannon. I've occasionally used them in IWD, but back in the 3rd or 4th slot so they don't draw so much fire. I did enjoy one once as the stubborn little sister character to the Cavalier party leader; she was so determined to dazzle with her sword skills she was sort of clueless about how hard the rest of the party had to work to keep her not dead. So it was fun, but otherwise I don't care for the character much.
I think it is worth mentioning though, if you want some sort of melee mage character it makes perfect sense, since they can't wear armor anyway. Although truly, when dual classing to mage I'd rather start with a bow or x-bow specialist.
The camping thing makes no difference to me. If the party has exhausted resources for the day, its appropriate to hide somewhere and recuperate. Even if its 8 am... And this will happen a lot with a low level party, your spell casters can exhaust themselves very early. This is exactly how I always DMed it PnP too. If a caster has used half their spells or more, they are literally getting tired. When they've spent all their spells they're ready to fall over. And yeah, that means a 1st level mage is pooped after casting 1 spell. I wish the game's fatigue system played into this.
The kensai dual classes are all about patching that defensive weakness.
Dual to a thief? They can't hit you if they can't see you. Or if you backstab and retreat, not sticking around in melee. And of course, the bonus damage works really well in backstabs.
Dual to a mage? AC doesn't matter when you're defending with mirror images and stoneskins and absolute protections. You can't tank forever, but when your spells are up you're practically untouchable.
Dual to a cleric or druid? Now that's the one that doesn't really help you defend yourself. Which is why it's not popular.
A pure kensai ... you're not a tank, and with no stealth or movement bonuses you don't naturally have the tools to do well as a skirmisher. You can try ranged attacks with throwing weapons, but your options are very limited with those especially early on. Are those big endgame damage numbers worth the early awkwardness and permanently weak defense?
The kensai dual classes are all about patching that defensive weakness.
Dual to a thief? They can't hit you if they can't see you. Or if you backstab and retreat, not sticking around in melee. And of course, the bonus damage works really well in backstabs.
Dual to a mage? AC doesn't matter when you're defending with mirror images and stoneskins and absolute protections. You can't tank forever, but when your spells are up you're practically untouchable.
Dual to a cleric or druid? Now that's the one that doesn't really help you defend yourself. Which is why it's not popular.
A pure kensai ... you're not a tank, and with no stealth or movement bonuses you don't naturally have the tools to do well as a skirmisher. You can try ranged attacks with throwing weapons, but your options are very limited with those especially early on. Are those big endgame damage numbers worth the early awkwardness and permanently weak defense?
I play numerous games with a pure kensai through bgee and SoD with minimal issues. Enemies die so quickly, even on insane double damage, that I don't have concern about the kensai survivability. Dead enemies deal zero damage, and the kensai is very good early game at removing enemies.
Edit to add: Item Revisions has a really neat component that allows kensai to wear braces (not gauntlets) that does help with early ac.
MultiClass is king in BG2. My favorite power party was usually something like
F/M with katanas then axes/LS
Inq with caraomyr
R/C dual flail and WH
F/T with staffs range and whatever els
Sorc
Whoever else you like or Imoen for last piece.
Dual wield everyone unless they hold it with two hands.
Kensai dualed to Druid does get access to Ironskins and shape-shifting which makes it arguably better than cleric. If you focus on quarterstaff, there's the Staff of Healing that you can find early in SoA that gives a -2 AC bonus. Not great, but a Kensai needs all the help it can get!
Thank you everybody for responses and opinions. I will comment some of tham as soon as possible. I also created similar interesting discussion on Reddit. Here is link so we can share informations and opinions accross these channels.
Comments
It is not a bad idea overall because Kensai cannot wear armor so he better has a ranged weapon and daggers in this case sounds good.
to worry about mindflayers etc...
I remember my hammer-flail Kensai in vanilla BG2 was probably the strongest individual
character to be used. Lateron I started to fall in love with the magic system, though, and
nowadays if I do a run through I tend to use dual-class berserker (level 7, just for two ranks
of rage) and then mage, maximizing intelligence as much as possible via items. This may
not be the best combination, but I found it the most fun.
For max damage we may also have to include thieves backstab + spikes. In a short duration
this may yield even more damage than kensai but I haven't done the numbers calculations.
But it doesn't play well with my role-playing concept of a fighter. I don't like kiting fighters, I want them to stand their ground and build them accordingly. If I want kiting I might use a different class overall like a druid. And for me every round of kiting is lost opportunity cost of dishing damage.
This is also why I repeatedly recommend archer. It may not do the highest possible dpr but this class does consistent damage with minimal loss of opportunity. i really like to squeeze the best out of a class. In this sense I agree that bezerkers are top notch class.
Also I don't know about you but when I play I dislike and resist the idea of camping/rest too often. If I have to rest every single hundred yards, from one corridor to another corridor in a dungeon, the this party sucks and probably MC is bad build too. So I want to push the barrier as long as I can, for example I might try do a dungeon with only a single rest and this is entirely role playing perspective.
I think it is worth mentioning though, if you want some sort of melee mage character it makes perfect sense, since they can't wear armor anyway. Although truly, when dual classing to mage I'd rather start with a bow or x-bow specialist.
The camping thing makes no difference to me. If the party has exhausted resources for the day, its appropriate to hide somewhere and recuperate. Even if its 8 am... And this will happen a lot with a low level party, your spell casters can exhaust themselves very early. This is exactly how I always DMed it PnP too. If a caster has used half their spells or more, they are literally getting tired. When they've spent all their spells they're ready to fall over. And yeah, that means a 1st level mage is pooped after casting 1 spell. I wish the game's fatigue system played into this.
Dual to a thief? They can't hit you if they can't see you. Or if you backstab and retreat, not sticking around in melee. And of course, the bonus damage works really well in backstabs.
Dual to a mage? AC doesn't matter when you're defending with mirror images and stoneskins and absolute protections. You can't tank forever, but when your spells are up you're practically untouchable.
Dual to a cleric or druid? Now that's the one that doesn't really help you defend yourself. Which is why it's not popular.
A pure kensai ... you're not a tank, and with no stealth or movement bonuses you don't naturally have the tools to do well as a skirmisher. You can try ranged attacks with throwing weapons, but your options are very limited with those especially early on. Are those big endgame damage numbers worth the early awkwardness and permanently weak defense?
I play numerous games with a pure kensai through bgee and SoD with minimal issues. Enemies die so quickly, even on insane double damage, that I don't have concern about the kensai survivability. Dead enemies deal zero damage, and the kensai is very good early game at removing enemies.
Edit to add: Item Revisions has a really neat component that allows kensai to wear braces (not gauntlets) that does help with early ac.
F/M with katanas then axes/LS
Inq with caraomyr
R/C dual flail and WH
F/T with staffs range and whatever els
Sorc
Whoever else you like or Imoen for last piece.
Dual wield everyone unless they hold it with two hands.