It is not following the rules I found laid out somewhere. It seems to be happening with wizards and magic users, but not sure. After the kill, health is intact, but immediately after the critter goes away health suddenly goes down. It seems it was working as expected till there was a glitch in my system and since then it became unreliable.

I don't know all of the particulars but you have to be careful about the First Strike combined with a magic user (like a Wizard).


First Strike works better with melee character classes.

The most likely cause is that the monster also has first strike. Monster first strike takes priority over your character's first strike, so they will hit you first. Another, less likely, possibility is that you're playing the Sorcerer class and are using the Mana Shield class feature to kill the monster. Damage from mana shield is always applied last in combat resolution, so the monster will be able to hit you before that damage is dealt to kill it.

If you've got a screenshot (ensure it contains the combat prediction) showing what you're doing maybe I could see if there's something else going on.

It is not because melee. That is the point, you ensure first strike even if the critter has first strike, otherwise you do not use it; the condition is that the critter be your level or less for your first strike to work. I have not yet reach the mana shield stage nor the sorcerer character but it is not because of level nor because of magic/melee using. Problem is by the time I realize first strike did not work, it is too late to get a screenshot, I am either dead or the critter is gone and I did not even notice the details of it...

Are you suggesting that the First Strike ability is buggy?

Yeah, or something downloaded after I downloaded it. It does contain an online facility that does not seem to work at all, and there was a glitch in my system after which I noticed the behaviour. Tried restarting but nothing, so next thing is to reinstall but I dislike such maneuvers. Would it be easy to modify that particular code snippet on the fly?

Sounds complicated.

:)


Haven't played in a while, but I've never encountered that issue you mentioned (regarding the First Strike).

Regarding gameplay, First Strike does not favor magic based character classes... although, First Strike does help sometimes.

Maybe I ll need a support ticket. It is suspicious, makes me lose a lot.