Hunters and critical hits probability

[The_Mighty_Zol]

Hi, I've recently got back into the Bard's Tale 1 on Android, although I played it many years ago on C64. Back then I never used two character classes: Monk and Hunter, because they seemed pretty terrible starting out. In my last game (which was deleted because of a firmware update, harumph! ) I got to find out that the monk is incredible when he gains a few levels. Easily the best fighter in the game, in fact...

But what about the Hunter? I've been reading some of the discussion here and nobody seems to include them in their ideal party. I was thinking of using one when restarting, but two things for me always seemed to work against them:

1) They seem to have a really poor chance of scoring critical hits. A hunter would be that character in the party you could never be sure would kill the third monster and then have it reach out and wither you.
2) After a few level gains, warriors and paladins scoring multiple hits is almost always enough to kill a monster per round of combat. No need for critical hits.

Does anyone happen to know from disassembly of BT code how likely Hunter critical hits are per level? Maybe if I understand this I can decide better whether to use one or just stick with a Warrior.

[Ether]

According to the Bard's Tale Construction Set Manual, it is:

1-3%, plus 1% per point DX over 14, per level, up to a max of 99%

Not sure if BT1 follows that exact formula, but I would wager it's similar.

So, assuming the average is 2%, a level 1 hunter with 16 DX would be around 40% (2%+2% * 10). Level 20 would be around 80%.

An 18 DX hunter would be 60% at level 10, and max out around level 17.

Never knew that about the DX, BTW.

[Maven]

Ummm... Actually, we did the tests and watched the Hunter ability byte in the save file as the Hunter gained levels. On the IBM PC version at least, the critical hit chance starts at 0 and goes up randomly 1-32 every level. It maxes out at 255, which is 100%. You should be making critical hits reliably at about level 16 on average. I don't think I've ever seen a hunter NOT critically hit after level 20.

Other platforms may be different.

[ManicWonk]

In Destiny Knight BT II (PC DOS) I was bummed that my Hunter lost his critical hit ability once I passed the 255 value. It simply rolled over and started again at 0! I now save up experience points to level up 9 - 15 levels in succession.