I actually do mean MAKANITO. Enemy resistance to criticals is based on their level, so it's harder to crit enemies that are too high in level to be affected by it.
I invite you to go look up Makanito, then:
"MAKANITO:
Deadly Air
Combat
All Monsters
Kills any monsters of less than 8th level (about 35-40 hit points)"
If you tried using it on high level monsters that's why it wasn't working for you. Ninja crits are not resisted in the same way, so the comparison you made is apples to oranges. Feel free to argue, but then you wont be agruing *with me*, since I didn't write the book on how the spell works.
Also, LAKANITO works less than half the time if the enemy is level 9 or higher (though, at least in some versions, it ignores resistance just like MAKANITO; then again, in the Soliton versions (PSX and Sega Saturn), MAKANITO doesn't ignore resistnace, making it useless against poison/frost giants),
I agree Lakanito is no reliable on higher level enemies *either, but at least it *CAN* work on them. Makanito will not.
For example, in Wizardry 2 you are not going to crit a fuzzball, not matter what. (Then again, for that particular enemy, that doesn't really matter, since it has only 1 HP and doesn't attack, but it is level 100 and immune to magic.)
Yes, but not sure how this moot point is relevant, either. We get it, you know a lot about the various game versions - you are however, misinformed on the first point.
(By the way, I should check to see if the ninja crit chance applies per hit when you attack multiple times; that might explain your observation of it working so often.)
A bit of both, being high level makes it more reliable per hit, AND hitting more times per attack means what you attack gets critted more reliably.
Incidentally, it's easy to get a level 50+ ninja in Apple 2 Wizardry 1/2; just use the identify glitch to get the XP you need. Just note that a ninja can't possibly beat KoD solo unless the game doesn't actually check to see if the items are equipped. and that Figher/Samurai/Lord are probably better if given the KoD equipment.
Yes and no, relying on the guantlets for Tiltowait falls off in reliability when facing top-level enemies. You have to fight them to kill them reliably, and iirc the full KOD set only gets you to -10 AC. Ninja will be harder to hit and crit more often. Plus, ninja can solo effectively with handling chests and traps.