I am thinking of starting a solo Kensai/Mage dual class run after soloing my sorceror enough times. Does anyone have any advice for me on quest order, when to dual class etc..? Any tips are welcome.

Last time I soloed a K/M, I dualed at lvl 13. I had been saving up a massive amount of scrolls and almost leveled past 13. After that I basically did the quests that were plausible to complete as a lonesome low level mage.

I went quite early to the Guarded Compound as well as the Copper Coronet in order to get the Celestial Fury and Blade of Roses (dualed Katanas + Longswords, later Warhammers for Golemslaying).

I also did Haer'Dalis' quest (for the Boots of Speed), though I don't know if your planning on making NPC quests (and drop them asap).

Since you posted here, I guess you play with ToB installed meaning you'll have HLA's early on. I beat up Firkraag using Robe of Vecna -> Imp. Alacrity -> Time Stop -> Breach -> Lower Resistance -> More Time Stop, Finger of Death -> Abi Dalzim -> Dead Firkraag in 2 or 3 rounds. That kinda sucked. I'd recommend tagging along that boat pretty early, just for the challenge. God knows it wasn't a challenge for me after hitting those HLA's.

Or you could just make up rules for yourself, like

* don't use HLA's
* don't use Time Stop
* don't use massive equipment like Robe of Vecna, Celestial Fury, Crom Faeyr etc.

All I can think about at this very moment.

Cheers.

The best time to dual-class your Kensai is at 13 level for that extra half Attack/Round.
Also at the XP CAP he will be a 28 level Mage who can cast the same number of spells/day with a 31 level Mage.

At 13 level you will have 8 proficiency points.
Put 3* in dual wielding and if you have the True Grandmastery patch installed put 5* in your weapon of choice (I would choose Flails powerwise or Katanas that fit better with a Kensai).

If you don't have the True G.Mastery patch though it is better IMO to put only 2* in your weapon of choice, other 2* in Scimitars (Belm will help a lot with its +1 ApR bonus) and the last in Staves.

As for quests order you can find a good thread here (http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/10/5321.html#000000) .

Either dual katana's or use staves as a specialty (spears and halberds are fun too). As you know there are some great staves in the game and having a +2/+5 with +4 speed and extra attacks would be great. Dual welding Celestial Fury and Dakkon's Blade is pretty much standard though (lack of imagination).

As far as when to dual... there are a few main cutoff points for dualing:

7th level (dual immediately): You have an extra half attack and decent amount of hit points. This give you two attacks per round (with specialization) plus an off hand attack if dual welding. I think this is the best time to dual if you are going to be primarily a spell caster. You will be very close to regaining your fighter abilities when you finish with Irenicus' dungeon.
9th level: Takes advantage of maxing out the hit points of the fighter and an extra +1 to hit and damage. Second best time to dual (you'll still be in the Irenicus' dungeon).
13th level: 12th level granted another +1 to hit and damage, while 13th gives yet another half attack (you should have 2½ attacks per round plus an off hand attack if dual welding). This character is awesome with Tensor's Transformation. You need to gain 1,250,000 experience points before you regain your fighting ability.

Really it depends on how long you want to be puttering around as a low level mage with lots of hit points. When you want to dual will also determine the quest order. A solo kensai can do a lot on his/her own. But after the shift to mage you may want to do the quests that have little fighting (Bridge District murders is a good place to start).

Save every scroll. You can scribe and erase those spells you have multiple scrolls of. This will gain a lot of experience early on.

IMO Staves are really the ONLY option for an effective Kensai/Mage...

You have Staff of the Rhynn available as soon as you are out of Chateau Irenicus for a +4 weapon, you have Staff of the Magi available as soon as you can slaughter Twisted Rune...(it has on hit dispel ability...for this purpose, its as good as Carsomyr +5!!) You also pick up Staff of the Ram later on for oodleplexes of damage!!

Late game, I just pack my Staff of the Magi and Staff of the Ram. Beat up baddies with the SotR and if they get any protections up, slam them around with the SotM!

@ Faraaz - What do you base your statement of staves beeing the ONLY option for an effective K/M?

I played with Celestial Fury/Equalizer and Crom Faeyr and let me till ya, that was god-like (not fun, but god-like).

Magi dispels, but Celestial Fury stuns.
Crom Faeyr gives you 25 str and is the best weapon in the game to slay Golems.

Don't get to focused on one thing or one spell (etc.)

Cheers out.

@spetznaz: I'm not saying you can't use Katanas and Crom Faeyr...when I said effective, I meant Kensai/Mage conjures up this image of a martial mage in my head, laying waste to all he sees with his staff and his arcane might! :D

So yeah...not this samurai type who has this great big katana in each hand...

@ Faraaz - Ah ok, it sounded like you thought that staves were the only effective weapon "game-wise". No harm meant though ;)

Personally I feel more for the use of a Katana or two when it comes to Kensai, dualed or not ;)

To play solo Kensai/Mage, you don't need advice's, class is powerful imho, just play and let the game teach you. If you've made it with full party before, you should be fine with solo Kensai/Mage.

A kensai/mage will kill anything easily with any decent weapon, don't worry! ;)

Since you have ToB installed, you may as well wait for level 15 to dual. 13 is fine though, and I definitely recommend going at least that far. Solos get all the XP, so you should have no trouble making all that up.

The hardest part for dual classed characters is usually the "down time" between having both classes active. Dual-classes to Mage fix this easily.

Make sure you have a high Reputation when you dual class (should be easy enough), and have a lot of money with you (again, very easy for solo characters of that level). Buy all the scrolls you can, and just memorize away. A Mage gets XP for every scroll memorized, and you'll gain so much this way.

Another trick is to resist accepting quest rewards until you dual class, and then get the XP by talking to the XP giver later.

BTW, I personally believe a Berserker > Mage to be a more powerful character, and easier to keep alive as well. To each his own though. :)

Here's a few things you can do:

Finish the Copper Coronet Slaver Quests, do NOT talk to Hendak till after you dual-class.
Do the graveyard quests after you dual-class.
Finish the Umar Hills Mimic Blood Quest but don't talk to the Wizard till after you dual-class.
Finish the Bridge District Skinner Murder quests, do not talk to Lt. Aegisfield till after you dual-class.

Do NOT do the Docks District Mae'var quests until after you are a Mage who can cast atleast lvl 5 spells. That's ~ lvl 9 or 10 right?? Yeah...the only difficult fight in this quest is assassination of Rayic Gethras...that can be done with Cloudkill spells. If you have a wand, you can do it before that too! And these quests are all worth a lot of XP!

That's about 100,000 in easy XP right there.

Thanks for all the tips. I started and unfortunately didn't get all the advice I should, and man is it difficult. So incredibly much more difficlut than soloing a sorcerer. Not having magic makes things a whole lot worse, so I have had to, at times, recruit help. But the challenge is why I keep coming back to the game.

As a Kensai, your problem will be high AC which means you get beat up quite a bit. Once you dual class, you can use Mage Robes, buff spells like Spirit Armor to take care of this...

I recommend hit and run tactics...lure out enemies by manipulating the fog of war, instead of having them all swarm on you at once. You also need to utilise your terrain effectively. Force them into bottlenecks like doors and narrow corridors.

Thanks for all the tips. After some too late night, my guy is pretty much invincible. The only fight I have yet to win is against Demogorgon. Anyone know how to beat him solo? I just can't figure out any strategy that works.

Well although TS doesn't work against demogorgon himself, it will stop all of his demon friends (the marileths). You could probably just throw up a bunch of protections on yourself, do a timestop, then hack him to death.