Darth Frog

The defense bonus from Force Armour and Speed does work and it does stack, but since it goes into the 'feats and effects' mod like pretty much everything else (including the defense bonus from the Ossus Keeper Robes, as I just found) it tends to get limited. Lvl 32 Guardian/Weapon Master with miner's outfit in a scuffle with a Sith Lord: 26 = base 10 + armour 1 + dex 1 + class 14 Plus Force Armour and Master Speed, which add 6 and 4 respectively: 36 = base 10 + armour 1 + dex 1 + class 14 + feats&fx 10 Just as expected. The breakdown also matches the value shown in the equipment screen. Adding Nomi's Armband gives an additional +1 against DS opponents which does not get shown in the equipment screen (naturally). Although it gets added to the feats&fx component in the breakdown it is neutral with regard to the limit of 10. That is, with Nomi's Armband equipped the feats&fx mod can be 11. The defense penalties for certain things, like being attacked while flat-footed, are obviously accounted for in the 'feats and effects' mod - most likely after applying the limit. This can explain some of the discrepancies we've seen.

As Baley said, the loot is randomly generated, usually by the time you first enter the map that contains the treasure. One thing that influences loot quality is your level, and so you can increase your chance of finding rich loot in two ways. First option: leave places that known for rich treasures alone until you are high level. Example: Kinrath cave on Dantooine. You can get really powerful crystals there (besides your pet crystal, I mean) like Pontite or Barab Ore Ingot, if you go there late when you are in your twenties or so. Do not stick your nose in there beforehand, because that 'fixes' the loot according to whatever your level is then. Second option: utilize one of the infinite XP exploits in order to gain one or two dozen levels before you go adventuring in earnest. This will improve treasure quality tremendously and it is probably the only way to get Malak items. I've never done this and so I don't know how many levels you need for Malak stuff. So far I have finished half a dozen campaigns at level 30..32 and I never found any.

Sorry, there was little worth writing about - just the usual 'level Mira once to give her Stealth and then have her sneak to the escape door' thing, after which the Exile would go on a rampage to harvest the live stock and loot. That isn't to say that the Pit did not have its share of thrills and nerve-racking suspense - if lvl 7 Mira fights lvl 20-something Hanharr then anything is possible, even if Mira has the finest equipment and the most adhesive of grenades, so to speak. And at high levels the Kath Hounds can detect you if you sneak too close or if a high Awareness roll of theirs coincides with a low Stealth roll of yours, possibly upsetting your plans involving an intricately laid mine field and a carefully timed 'Boo!'. :D And I do try to find new ways of dealing with the Pit whenever the game dumps me there against my will, because otherwise I'd probably be tempted to quote a certain well-known bowl of petunias (which famously shared the fate of a somewhat short-lived sperm whale).

Well, now I have. Sort of. I investigated a little and it seems that the armour rating for most suits gets split into two components in the breakdown - part goes into 'armour' and part goes into 'feats and effects', and if the game is in a good mood then the things can even add up to the original armour rating that is listed in the description. Defense boni from items like (Enhanced) Shielding Visor, Czerka Defensive Gauntlets, Gamorrean Wargloves, Inertial Inhibitor, Expert Fencing Emitter and so on are also added under 'feats and effects'. Also, there seems to be a hard limit of 10 on the 'feats and effects' mod. Taken together with the 'armour rating split' I mentioned above this explains quite a lot of the oddities that we have observed regarding defense calculations. It does not, however, explain why Obsidian would invent such a brain-dead rule and then not tell the player about it. And there's still no explanation why sometimes the sum of armour mod and feats&fx mod is way less than the nominal armour rating of the suit, let alone figuring in all other active feats and effects. And there is no explanation why the defense rating in the combat feedback is sometimes clearly less than the rating in the equip screen.

For another way of having fun there, have a look at this article.

I agree as far as component yield from breaking down items is concerned, but I don't see any difference in cost for creating items. Could you give a specific example that highlights the difference? Interestingly enough, it seems that the game uses the Treat Injury skill rank of whoever operates the lab bench to determine the yield when items are broken down into chemicals. For another view on the skill angle, my last Guardian/Marauder fared pretty well with 8/8/8 INT/WIS/CHA, 16 Repair, 4 Computer and one point each in Awareness, Demolition, Persuade, Security and Treat Injury (not all skill points were used at the end). Master Valour and suitable equipment enabled her to beat all of the important skill checks, like repairing T3, repairing the airspeeder, getting Kreia's story via the [intelligence] angle, 'unlocking' Mira via [Awareness], and so on. She was also able to pick normal locks when alone (with tunnelers early on and with good items later) and to disable/recover minor and average mines. For almost everything else you can use your sidekicks anyway.

TSL's defense calculations are 'unknowable' - the stuff simply doesn't work out. One part of the problem is that certain defense boni do not stack, but the game does not tell you which (in NWN at least the rules were clear and items were clearly labelled like 'AC Armour mod', 'DB Doge mod' and so on). Another part is the problem mentioned by grayswandir - the math does not add up. From my own experience: Felenar Armour (11/4) with Flexible Underlay V and Bonded Plates Mk IV has a defense rating of 14/7. Equipping this on a lvl 29 Guardian/Marauder along with a couple of DEX boosters yielded the following defense breakdown in the log: 41 = base 10 + armour 9 + dex mod 7 + class 12 + feats & fx 3 Here again the armour mod is several points below the armour rating of the suit (14 with upgrades, 11 without). My Exile was simply standing there getting shot at, so no defense penalties from attack feats. The (double-bladed) lightsabre contained an emitter with defense bonus +2 but I don't know where the third feats&fx mod came from. The equip screen showed defense 45 at the same time, go figure. I haven't looked at this closely as my characters never care about defense; the armour suit was one I made for Atton. P.S.: breakdown with a plain double-bladed sabre or two plain normal sabres is 39 = base 10 + armour 9 + dex mod 7 + class 12 + feats & fx 1 I have no idea what the feats&fx 1 could be.

No. But in TSL you get a 1.5 STR damage bonus multiplier for main hand attacks with double-bladed sabres and with single-wielded sabres. Which means with double-bladed sabres you get the extra off-hand attack and the 1.5 multiplier on the main hand; if you dual-wield instead then you lose the multiplier. This makes things quite a bit different from K1. P.S.: I think even in the original game the bug is only there if you do not patch up. It matters little anyway since the most powerful blades are vibros, not glowsticks.

It can be useful the let NPCs hold the last level-up where they can acquire a feat, or at least one level if you leave skill points unassigned until you see a need. Then you can easily react to unforeseen difficulties in the field. There's also a bit of reasoning pro and con from the dark arts of power gaming, but don't read on unless you have already played the hell out of the game and you are almost ready to lay it aside. (<-- read again) You have been warned:

Well, Dxun can be quite a beauty for somebody who plays the game for the first time and who hasn't played other d20 games like the original KotOR before. For one thing, the game forces you to choose two teams without even giving you a chance to switch equipment around or to take a look at the stats/abilities of your sidekicks, let alone a bit of time at a workbench or lab bench. For another, a first-timer may not be able to realize the full potential of the sidekicks - having a 'vision' for them (melee monster, turtle, whatever) and giving them the right attributes, feats, powers and skills, and rounding this out with suitable equipment. Newbies may even use the auto-level feature which pretty much guarantees that the strike team won't survive a frontal assault on the ramp (Obsidian should have added a note that auto-levelling is for oldbies who want to make the game more difficult :D). Plus, there are some situations were the sidekicks can be lured away from the party leader if you don't put them on a tight leash (similar to some scenes on the Star Forge). This can lead to some nasty suprises. Last but not least, the b0rken sidekick AI. Obsidian must have added some really brain-dead code to the engine which ensures that sidekicks will charge into battle even if you are soloing and you have placed the rest of your party in a tunnel half a mile away around several corners, with the 'Stationary' script selected and Stealth activated to pin them down ... This can create surprises even if you are an old hand at d20 games and the original KotOR.

There are quite a number of rather poorly scripted sequences where you are completely on rails and where the game does not even allow you to do normal things like switching equipment around between party members or to summon a party member for some work on a workbench. E.g. Nar Shaddaa from the time you receive the invitation until the Exile is freed on Goto's Yacht, or the sequence of events that starts in the rebuilt enclave on Dantooine and ends with the death of Darth Traya. Much of the bad scripting becomes really apparent if you replay the game because then you have a pretty good idea what you as a player can do and also what you want to do. It gets even more annoying if the script not only keeps you from doing what you want - quite unnecessarily at that - but if you are also forced to watch the cutscenes and convos again in their entirety because the game does not let you skip them or at least fast-forward through them. There are also plenty of scenes where small-minded, brain-dead scripting cages you in at certain locations. For example, after the fighting ends in the throne room of the Iziz Palace you are caged in close to a small platform; if you move towards the platform in order to retrieve the loot then the game yanks you back with some inane comment. Dito if you move towards the remains of the earlier battle in the middle of the hall. Of course, the brown stuff really hits fan if a brain-dead script cages you in at some battle scene and the last remaining foe is outside the cage; at this point the game becomes unwinnable and you have to reload. This happened to me in the final hall of the Dxun tomb.

Look at the main hand, not the off-hand. The off-hand (left in the equip screen) tends to be quite a bit weaker than the main hand, and the main hand is much more important anyway since you can get up to 5 main hand attacks per round but at most one with the off-hand.

In my game I saw plenty of collapses and a couple of verges, but I don't think I ever saw one of those republic thingies nearby ... They're green, aren't they? With dullish brown stripes?

Naw, go for a keen dex build and max out your criticals! (w00t) I did the math for criticals vs. flurry once, for a lvl 32 STR-based LS Guardian/Weapon Master. The damage output for best critical combo - Master Power Attack with keen sabre(s), Master Speed and Juyo - was a bit better than Master Flurry + Master Speed + Juyo with a double-bladed sabre, but the difference was less than 10% (avg. per round 493 vs. 450). The other 'critical' combos were somewhere between those two values. Note: these results are a bit skewed in favour of criticals because they were made on the assumption that criticals multiply all of the damage and not only a part as they actually do. Also, although the average damage output for non-critical Flurry is lower it gives more single-round kills because results do not vary wildly from the average like the 'critical' results do. E.g. if you hit a 400 HP critter with 380 in one round and 600 in the next then you still needed two combat rounds, even though you did 470 dmg per round on average. For a low-STR build the difference between the various combos will naturally be higher. Master Power Attack adds constant damage while other attack feats basically act like multipliers, meaning that combos involving Master Power Attack will probably have a much larger lead over the other combos than for high-STR builds. Damage output will be much lower in any case, about 2/3rds of what a high-STR character does. Some numbers for my last characters (from the equip screen, which does not reflect special damage like LS vs. DS) with double-bladed lightsabres: Munchkin, LS master Guardian(19)/Weapon Master(13): 44-85 @ 55 unbuffed, 52-93 @ 62 with Master Battle Meditation and Master Valour Mara Udor, LS master Guardian(15)/Marauder(17): 51-93 @ 53 unbuffed, 64-106 @ 63 with Master Battle Med., Master Valour and Master Fury Munchkin had only 14 natural STR vs. Mara's 26, but Mara did not have any of the better STR boosters like Dominator Gloves, CNS/GNS Strength Enhancer or implants with +3 STR even though all my previous characters had at least two of each ... <_< So Mara got only 6 STR from belt/gloves/implant and not 12 as usual.

How so? What's the secret winner strategy? I have always found the final round against the five Handmaidens very challenging, even though I prepared my Exile carefully - browsing the loot to select the best armour, putting in some quality time at the workbench, things like that. In fact, for me this battle has always been the highlight during the earlier part of a replay and I always plan character development (e.g. which feat/power to take when) with an eye towards being fully battle-worthy at level 13, in order to be prepared for this fight. The rest after level 13 I play by the ear, as there are no fights after that which tax the Exile's abilities to the fullest. And despite careful preparation and good strategy/tactics the battle was always a close call. In fact, this was quite a contrast to the first four rounds which a fighter type can go through unarmed in the jumpsuit without even bothering to equip anything or to heal up between rounds.

LOL, the game nicely explained why Cannoks can drop pretty much anything, but blaster turrets that drop money (or that make a Reflex save against a grenade throw) are definitely among the stranger CRPGisms. What I don't like is systems that kill motivation and take fun out of a game. Take Morrowind, for example. The loot drop lists are nice in one way but utterly stupid in another: apart from fixed things (like armour in the case of Ordinators and DB assassins), higher-quality items drop only for higher-level characters even though the mob stats remain the same. A high-level character kills a Dremora Lord with a single hit and there would be no danger even if it took longer; a low-level character has to work quite a bit for this and they face considerable danger, yet the high-level char can get a Daedric or Ebony item and the low-level char can get only a knobby club or something Dwarven. It was similarly bad in Freelancer where the quality of drops was determined by your net worth, not the difficulty of the fight. Be that as it may, it is similar in many games and so you simply try to gain plenty of levels before hitting the more promising mobs/dungeons, or to grow a fat bank account before going fishing for nice weapon drops (Freelancer). What I don't like is when you are at the mercy of a random loot generator with regard to 'strategic' items like Circlet of Saresh or Force Focussing Visor for Force DC, Dominator Gloves or CNS/GNS Strength Enhancer for strength, and so on. At least not if things are such that you can play a whole game from start to end and not get any of the high-powered items, let alone the ones you were hoping for ... I agree with LadyCrimson and Drakon et al that a hybrid system with partially controlled randomness would be better, and a few more plants a la Ossus robes would have helped too. The latter did work well in KotOR and it actually gave you an incentive to go out and acquire money, as the best items had to be bought (e.g. Dominator Gloves). In TSL there is little to spend money on exept for lightsabre colour crystals or an occasional lucky find like Bothan Precision Gloves. As regards infinite inventory capacity: NWN, Morrowind and Dungeon Siege have finite character inventory capacity (Morrowind: weight limit, Dungeon Siege: volume limit, NWN: both) and in these games you have to worry quite a bit about the logistics of loot transport. But while this may add a small bit of verisimilitude it does not add a whole lot of fun to the gameplay, and sometimes it can be downright annoying (like in SoU where magic bags are extremely scarce and loot transport involves a lot of travel time). KotOR, TSL and Freelancer don't have such restrictions and in my eyes this doesn't hurt the fun any.

I never paid much notice to the sparring rounds except the last one, so some of the following details may be off: I think there are five rounds total, with restrictions being gradually lifted. The fourth round is against a pair of Handmaidens, the last one against five of them and it cannot be repeated if you lose. At the end you get 750 XP. The difficulty probably lies in the early rounds where you are not allowed to use items, weapons, armour and so on. This makes it very tough for non-fighter types (fighters can do all rounds except for the last one unarmed in their jumpsuit without breaking a sweat). The last round - without any restrictions but facing five Handmaidens at once - can be challenging even for a decent fighter, at least if you want to fight fair. But there are no restrictions and so other characters also have a chance; for example, with good Force DC it is usually easy to knock some Handmaidens off the mat with Force Push or Force Whirlwind. Certainly. But you may hit a dead end if you are much closer to Visas than to Handmaiden too early.

No problem here (Germany, 18:48 GMT). I handed Snow's URL (thanks!) to GetRight and download commenced immediately.

Point your ship at Onderon.

Once you have all the required parts for building a sabre, any future 'sabre parts' drops should be sabres. E.g., if you do Dxun first then Mandalore will hand you a sabre unless you forgot to pick up all parts (save the game before talking to Mandalore, in case you get a short but wanted a normal or double). This means you can put off talking to Bao-Dur as long as you please; having 2000 XP 'on call' can be useful for finessing things, and I think Bao-Dur also stops making shields once he has built your sabre. So, when you get your mitts on Freedon Nadd's sabre you'll have plenty of sabres already. And the thing isn't even upgradable; all it is good for is selling (6000) or breaking down into components (500).

I guess the low, fixed DC of the Knockback makes the effect hard to notice, considering that you usually don't even get the crystal before level 12..13. And the Slow seems virtually impossible to notice at all, since most enemies are dead after the first combat round and the rest aren't likely to run away.

Me too. Getting an early drop of a good item is a nice surprise and it can open new possibilities - like allowing you train another skill earlier than planned or perhaps using tactics that would otherwise not be feasible. But if treasure chests yield healing potions or even stale air then there is something wrong. And if you play the whole game from Peragus to Malachor without getting even a single high-powered item then this it is frustrating. Now that we are talking about this, it seems to me that there are a few true treasure hoards in the game. The two caches on Dxun and the puzzle-locked storage room in the Iziz palace; perhaps also the storage room in Khoonda and Vogga's hoard. There is little choice regarding when to loot the room in the Iziz palace; one of the Dxun caches (the Thorium one) is spoiled when you first enter the jungle, Vogga's hoard is spoiled when you first enter the docks, and the Khoonda storage room is spoiled when you first enter Khoonda. But the 'Permacrete' cache on Dxun does not get spoiled until you enter it, and it is freely accessible any time once you have done the first Dxun/Onderon expedition. So it is easy to leave it until the last possible moment, which would be around level 29 ...

Right. Like when you are level 30 on the Ravager and you loot all those high-DC security rooms, the suspense can really kill you. What'll it be? 37 Components? 23 Chemicals? An Ion Grenade? A Verpine Prototype Shield? A medpack? Even TSL's ancient precursor - NWN - was lots better in this regard, because there a treasure chest yielded some sort of treasure every time and not useless junk 99.9% of the time and something valuable 0.1% of the time. The supporting mechanisms are probably still in the engine. And even if not, how difficult could it have been to handplace certain strategic items in the game, like it was done in KotOR with the Circlet of Saresh?

Now I really feel cheated - I only got four pairs of those! :D But what really gets me are the plentiful drops of Chemicals and Life Support Packs a long time after you've seen the last lab bench, which is in the Telos Academy, before the final chat with Atris. The other stuff, including shields, can be broken down at the workbench and grenades can be lobbed at enemies (although they don't do any damage worth mentioning at the levels in question). On the Ravager there was a locked locker behind a DC63 High Security door and it contained ... 2 medpacks.

No. If their handling of TSL continues in the current vein then people won't even pick up NWN2 if there is only the slightest hint of the quality issues that are plaguing TSL, because it means those issues won't get fixed. Look at what the fabled patch - which was two months in coming - actually fixes; they probably had one junior staff working on it in his/her spare time. This lends credibility to the rumour that Obsidian pretty much gave up on TSL after the XBox ship, did the PC port with the barest minimum of people and then completely washed their hands of the game.