Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

On of my toons has reached 7th level weapon master and I find myself pretty fuzzy on the ki-strike feat. The description says that the blow is supposed to inflict maximum damage, but from what I can tell it only seems to do the maximum damage of the weapon used plus the critical threat. For example, I use a great sword that does 2d6, critical threat X2. My ki-strike seems to hit for only 24 damage(I think. . . I'll have to test this more), despite the fact that the weapon is a +3. Also, the ki-strike does not seem to factor in improved critical, ki-critical, or any increased critical multiplier.

Is ki-strike supposed to be this way? And, if so.... yuck.

Ki strike doesn't mean a crit.

If your weapon is 1d12, it will roll a 12 on the dice, then add whatever it adds usually.

If you crit, you crit. If not, you don't. But you'll still have a max roll on the damage dice.

ki strike is only max normal damage and should be max of everything factored in that is not considered extra/crit damage, like elemental damage or SA dice

it adds damage to crit hits but i cant remember how it does it, sorta like the way massive crit works, you just roll another die or something, but it does not max your crit damage

i do have a lvl 30 WM and yea the ability is a bit meh, but it comes in handy in a limited number of instances

I'd just like to point out that critical hits do not apply a raw multiplier to your damage (regardless of class here).

If you have a katana and deal 1d10 damage and say you roll 10 and score a critical you will not necessarily deal 20 damage (10 x2). You instead roll a second die for your critical damage (10 +d10). So that 'critical hit' could be 11 damage, it could be 20 damage.

All 'solid' damage amounts are multiplied (eg damage bonus from strength, weapon specialisation, enhancement bonus), but damage dice rolls are not and are calculated as I indicated above. Proof of this fact is easy to gather: any weapon that has a x2 or x4 multiplier should NEVER roll an odd number for a critical hit (discounting elemental weapon damage here) but you often do. That is because your weapon's base dX damage roll is not merely multiplied but rather rolled an additional number of times according to the weapon's critical multiplier.

In the case of a x3 multiplier then it would be 3d10. x4 is 4d10 etc.

In the case of ki strike you only roll your maximum dice damage on the first roll of these.

So a weaponmaster using a katana with ki critical (x3 multiplier) and ki strike would roll 10 + 2d10.

A weaponmaster using a dwarven waraxe (x4 multiplier) with same values would roll 10 + 3d10.

A weaponmaster using a scythe (x5) would roll 8 + 10d4 (2d4x5).

Why the combat scripting can't just make a raw multiplication of the first roll is beyond me. A ki strike critical should be better than what it is.