Hi fellow adventurers,

I carefully searched this forum for information on close combat abilities, but found little w.r.t. the senses attribute.

I'm not a power player and quite content with my party at lv 14 (sam, nin, bis, ran, gad, mag) but my sam and nin, who were supposed to kick butt, lag behind. I maxed out spd and dex, so they hit often but weak. I read - way to late - that str and sen are the controlling attributes for close combat skill. Now, my dracon sam is a rather insensitive fellow (35 sen) - is it important or do fighters just need str.

Can anyone shed some light on the influence of senses on close combat performance?

Thanks,
duck

• RE: Close combat and senses,amastropolo, 04:02 AM, May-21-02
• Senses more important for Critical hits,Llevram, 06:44 AM, May-21-02
  • RE: Senses more important for Critical hits,Xantor (Guest), 06:38 AM, May-29-02
• RE: Close combat and senses,Sir Knardhome the Midget (Guest), 11:00 AM, May-29-02

LAST EDITED ON May-21-02 AT 04:03 AM (Pacific)

I don't know about senses; my sense is that it's not your problem (sorry, I couldn't resisit the pun). If you're hitting often, but not doing any damage, then you need to boost your strength. There are rings and amulets that will boost your strenght too. Pick up one or two of them, until you bring up your strength by levelling up.

One other possible problem you might be having is your weapon. A longsword does not do as much damage as, say The Avenger or Fang or even Bloodlust.

Right-click on senses and it will tell you what it controls. Likewise, right-clicking on a skill will tell you what controls it.

I would say you want to build senses for Psionics/Monks, Rangers and any character you that has Critical hit.

Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

Read the posts under the "Samurai...there's something I don't grasp... " thread for an indication of all the things that enter inot damage done. Strength, close combat, weapon type, senses, weapon skill, speed, and dexterity all play a role.

the first time around i also had a dracon samurai with the same problem. i maxed out str and dex first, but even then he wasn't pulling his weight because his skills did not advance through practice as fast compared to my other characters, due to low senses. intelligence and senses are the controlling attributes for many combat skills. just to give an example of how much these matter, i had a level 11 psionic with maxed int/sen with almost no combat ability that i switched to a monk and stuck in the front line, and within 6 levels most of his combat skills were better than the melee characters i started with. so now he is an awesome monk as well as a powerful psionic. so, having a melee character with poor senses is somewhat of a handicap.

another note on samurais, if you start the game completely ignorant of the system like me, don't choose a samurai thinking he's going to lightning strike all the time and be a constant wall of blades, because it's not going to happen. with my samurai, he didn't start lightning striking until about level 5, and after that averaged about one lightning strike per level, until about level 20, then it increase to a whopping average of 2 times per level. pretty disappointing. so unless you're playing a samurai for the mage spells, go with a dual-wielding fighter.