Darth Frog

The force power were not just so much about how much FP you have, but due to the higher wis and cha that a Consular would have typically, the force power DC is higher and therefore the enemy would find it harder to resist (save). Wrong thinking. Attributes and class are completely orthogonal, and the only way that class makes a difference with regard to attributes is via the bonus from alignment mastery. The bonus is so small as makes no odds, except for two combos: Guardian/Weapon Master (+6 STR) and Consular/Jedi Master (+6 WIS). What differentiates classes like Weapon Master or Jedi Master is that they get something that is specific to the class, which enhances their abilities even more. Weapon Master and Marauder hit harder, deal more damage and take less damage in combat than a character of any other class with exactly the same attributes and equipment. By the same token, the spells of Jedi Masters and Sith Lords are harder to resist and do more damage. Other classes, like Sith Assassins, have their own special abilities that make them stand out. So, any yokel can kill a grunt in a single combat round with the lightsabre and any yokel can erase grunts by spamming Force Storm or Force Wave till the cows come home. But only a Weapon Master or Marauder can reliably take down tough enemies (Greater Storm Beast, Sion) in a single melee combat round, and only a Jedi Master or Sith Lord has enough power to fight bosses with spells easily. Combos such as Guardian/Sith Assassin have their own specialties.

No, the 8/14/14/8/14/14 is only an intermediate step, a kind of baseline or common denominator for certain ways of making a powerful Consular. There remain 6 of the 30 creation points and they can be used for putting emphasis; one good way of spending them would be 8/14/15/8/16/14. There is no single 'best' way for selecting a Consular's attributes but several good ways that represent different trade-offs and that have different strengths. Yes. But remember, attractive high-grade implants that require 18 natural CON tend to become available only in the second half of the game, and even the middling 16-CON implants usually don't start appearing before the teen levels. So the 18 CON is more a long-term goal, you can take your time about it. E.g. you could boost WIS at level 4 and 8, CON at 12/16/20, WIS at 24/28. The early WIS boost (lvl 4/;) gives you the most bang for your buck but the rest is pretty much a wash; at this point it is impossible to say which equipment you'll have and which other attribute boosts (e.g. mastery), and these factors can make it desirable to switch the order of attribute increases around a little, in order to even out odd attribute values. Yes, that would be a very good idea. Without Lightsabre Finesse DEX only contributes to defense and you would have to equip STR-boosting items in order to hit tougher enemies with the sabre reliably. If you have the feat then any DEX boosts will increase both defense and lightsabre attack at the same time. The passive Battle Precognition power works in a similar fashion (it makes WIS contribute both to Force power and to defense), which is why it is so attractive for Consulars in particular. So, be nice to the last of the Handmaidens. :D

There are various interesting implants that do not boost attributes. One is something like a 'total immunity' implant (criticals/poison/mind-affecting, I think), others grant plenty of combat feats or tons (+6) of skills. But even the attribute boosts can be interesting. High-grade implants tend to give you about 10 points' worth of attribute boosts; for example, the Universal D-Package boosts every attribute by 2. Not all of the attribute boosts from an implant are always useful, but you tend to get at least 6 points' worth for your favs from high-grade implants; e.g. three important attributes boosted by 2, or two important attributes boosted by 3. This compensates the 'cost' of diverting attribute points into CON and you get the high CON essentially for free. Another aspect is the increasing creation point cost for attribute values higher than 14 (double cost) or 16 (triple cost). If you keep attribute scores at creation at 14 or lower then you get the most 'attribute worth' out of your creation points and you can trade some of this back via the CON/implant route; by constrast, setting a single attribute to 18 costs more than half of your points. Yet another aspect is that the attribute point trade via CON/implants allows you to get higher attribute scores for important attributes. It is impossible to go higher than 18 at creation and (without exploits) you get at most 8 attribute increases at level-up; but you can set CON to 16 at creation which is enough for a medium implant that can give an additional +3 boost for your favourite attribute (e.g. Bavakar Strength System). In fact, that is what I am doing with my current Marauder campaign. So far I have always played sensible, balanced builds (e.g. Guardian with more natural INT/WIS than STR) and now it is time for something utterly silly. :D By the time my Exile reaches Malachor she will have 50+ STR (18 + 7 = 25 natural, rest from stat boosts).

psycho_leo hit the nail on the head - there is not a single battle in TSL that compares with the Star Forge battle in KotOR. There were some fights that were interesting - like Mira vs. Hanharr in the Jekk'Jekk Tarr pit if you don't want to level her up more than once - and the best was probably sparring against the five Handmaidens. The first planet after Telos has an occasional nugget, like the fight with the mercenaries at the Kinrath cave on Dantooine, or dispatching the Mandalorian reception committee on Dxun. But once you hit level 15 or so it is over. And these were short fights anyway, just a few combat rounds. There weren't any memorable battles.

The importance of attributes changes a bit over the course of the game; for example, once you have Battle Precognition (males only, not before level 18) both DEX and WIS add to your defense; before that it is only DEX. And DEX is also your only means of doing physical damage (blasters, lightsabres). Another example, the fact that CHA decreases the cost of powers of the opposite alignment means nothing during later parts of the game, because then even a Guardian/Weapon Master has enough Force points to spam powers of the wrong alignment until the cows come home. Concentrating on qualitative aspects may help with 'rating' the attributes. WIS: Force points, Force DC, defense DEX: defense, physical combat (blasters, lightsabres) CON: ability to use high-grade implants, vitality CHA: Force DC Note on CHA: this attribute also makes your party members hit harder (by adding a bonus to their attack rating) and during early levels the cost decrease for powers of the opposite alignment may be somewhat useful. Therefore it may be worth it to use 14 CHA at creation, but don't waste any attribute points beyond that. Note on CON: eventually you'll want 18 natural CON, for high-grade implants, but those implants do not become available until later in the game. As a rough guide for implants, 14 CON should be plenty enough during the single-digit levels, 16 during the teens and 18 from the twenties to the end of the game. A high-grade implant will typically give you 6 points total on various interesting attributes (2x3 or 3x2) and you enjoy the benefits of the higher CON in any case. So the trade-off is usually more than worth it. So the basic template would look like 8/14/14/8/14/14, leaving 6 creation points that you can use to put emphasis where you want. Beyond 14 it takes two creation points to get a one-point increase, beyond 16 it takes three. If you want to get the most bang for your buck and you want to go the high-defense/implants route then you could do a lot worse then using 8/14/15/8/16/14 (numbers in the usual order, STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA). Over the course of the game there will be roughly 8 opportunities for increasing attribute points at level-up (ever four levels); round out CON slowly so that you have 18 by the mid-twenties, otherwise pump the points into WIS where they do the most good. P.S.: "DC" means "difficulty class" and "Force DC" describes how hard it is for enemies to 'save' against your spells. Your Force DC is typically (5 + level + WIS/CHA modifiers), and enemies make a saving throw of the appropriate type (Fortitude, Reflex, Will) by adding the result of a d20 roll to the base save + mods.

I think they only wanted to avoid a situation like in the original game, where you had enough XP for 25..26 levels but the cap was 20. It was always a little sad when your character hit level 20, because that meant your character stopped evolving. No more stats progress, no more skills/feats/powers, no opportunities for correcting blunders ... In my last game that happened on the Leviathan already. In TSL even the pet crystal is set such that you cannot reach its 'end' without resorting to exploits. AFAICS the upgrades are at levels 15/18/21/.../33, but since you need Kreia for this the last opportunity for most people will be the upgrade at level 27 (crystal level 7 of 9). On a light-side playthrough it would be just barely possible to get the lvl 30 upgrade, but only by utilitizing XP-maximizing techniques to the fullest and distorting the campaign in a certain way that has no benefits at all except making this upgrade possible. DS should be easier. So I think the high levels are only there so that people don't get the disappointing 'the buck stops here' effect ,but they were never meant to be reached actually. Even around level 30 the game balance is coming apart at the seams but at level 50 it is completely out of whack. Btw, it is likely that the lvl 33 crystal upgrade was meant to be reachable but the cut content also means less XP for the player.

Unless you have an ATI card you'll probably wonder what all the talk about bugginess is about; with an ATI card you may have to switch drivers around. However, the game will eat into your time and you should be able to give it time in order to appreciate it instead of rushing through. So getting it before graduation would not seem a smart move.

Another option - for male Exiles - is to go for an 'untouchable' character. With the Lightsabre Finesse feat, DEX adds to both defense and sabre attack. With Battle Recognition (lvl 18 at the earliest, I think), WIS adds both to Force oomph and defense. By emphasizing DEX and WIS you get a character that even bosses have a hard time scratching, yet you have excellent Force abilities and you are fairly good with a lightsabre and with blasters. Another consideration is that even an untouchable Consular will probably want natural CON of 18 in the later parts of the game, for the ability to use high-grade implants. For such a character, DEX/CON/WIS should probably start out with no less than 14, STR and INT can be left at 8 without any loss. This leaves 12 creation points, with several options for spending them to emphasize different aspects during early times. E.g. 4 more points into DEX (to 16) for higher defense, 6 points into CHA (14) for high Force DC early and the rest into CON (to 15) in order to get implants a bit earlier. With the Duelling feat series and good DEX you'll be good with blasters, for early soloing ventures. Or you could bring both DEX/WIS to 16 and CHA to 12 (leaving CON at 14), for emphasizing the 'Consularity' a bit more.

Entertainment Module? The scene with the two mercs begging for a knuckle sandwich? :D Same for me, on some LS playthroughs. I think this is the first light-side act on Citadel, and so it certainly seems possible to get the Visas vision already during the flight from Peragus. I mean, it is just one more LSP. For example, besides all the regular chatting with Atton and Kreia there's also everyone's favourite astromech droid. A character with high INT and maxed-out Repair/Computer skills could make quite a bit of progress with T3 (either still on Peragus or during the flight), and there may be LSPs. For a DS player it should be even easier - if you can stomach selecting the most childish responses.

Bodily strength is not exactly the hallmark of a Consular/Jedi Master. Thus the most promising route seems to be enhancing defense to the point where enemies do hardly any damage, rather than ignoring defense entirely and relying on superior damage output to kill all enemies before they do too much damage (as a Guardian/Marauder would). So the sabre should enhance its wielder by following the theme of the Duelling feat series: boost defense and (at least during early levels) attack; damage boni are welcome but not the primary focus, and for Consular-type characters a bonus to WIS/CHA is probably more interesting than damage or attack anyway. With Battle Precognition, WIS boni add not only to Force oomph but also to defense. With Lightsabre Finesse, DEX can be used to boost both attack and defense rating at the same time. Thus, some good candidates for the second main sabre crystal (first will be pet crystal, for obvious reasons) are: * Kaiburr: +3 WIS, +3 CON * Pontite: +2 CHA, 1d10 cold * Kasha: +2 WIS, +1 AB * Ruusan: +1 WIS, +1 CHA * Ankarres: keen, +1 DEX, +2 STR * Velmorite: keen, +1 DEX * Stygium: +1 DEX, +1 AB, +4 Stealth * Nextor: keen, +1 AB Any extra crystals with WIS/DEX/CHA boni can go into an off-hand buff sabre; if the crystals offer at least +2 combined WIS/DEX and with the Expert Fencing Emitter the buff sabre will add at least 3 AC and thus nullify the AC drop caused by equipping a second weapon (compared to single-wielding with Master Duelling). Any WIS/CHA boni from the buff sabre will help with Force oomph. However, dual-wielding in melee combat without the Two-Handed Fighting feats is not recommended until later when you have AB coming out of your ears. That is for when you actually engage in melee combat, which would be rare for a Consular. Attack bonus doesn't matter while you cast spells, only defense rating (AC) and Force oomph. Regarding upgrades, the Expert Fencing Emitter (+2 AC, 3 energy) seems an obvious choice. There are no lenses and cells that follow the theme of your sabre, so you could pick the Improved Beam Gem Lens for making your sabre keen, or a lens that enhances both damage and attack, like Enhanced Byrosis Lens (4 damage, 3 AB) or Pontite Lens (2d6 damage, 1 AB). For power cells there seems to be hardly any candidate besides the Ultimate Diatium (5 damage). If you have trouble with blaster enemies early on - e.g. Iziz - then you could build an off-hand buff sabre specifically for enhancing AC and blaster deflection. E.g. Expert Deflection Emitter (1 AC, 4 BBD (blaster bolt deflection)), Jenruax Crystal (5 BBD). Later on your high AC should make a special BBD sabre superfluous.

Once you board the Ebon Hawk on Peragus you cannot leave it again. When you touch down on Citadel you cannot go back into the ship Regarding the thread topic, I usually get the intro somewhere on Citadel but then I usually play LS. If I play DS then it is often later rather than sooner, simply because many of the DS options are so utterly stupid. I can picture myself as cynical and perhaps a bit ruthless (Revan-/Goto-type evil), but not as a cross between a petulant child and a psychopathetic moron. Edit: tagged some spoilers. Why was a topic like this posted here instead of in the spoiler forum? It is virtually impossible to discuss it without touching up spoilerish aspects.

You're certifiably loony. Morrowind was never in a shape where it could be called a game, let alone finished or 'perfected'. A board and some pieces, or a sandbox, but no game. Bethesda put lots of towns, dungeons, people and whatnot into Morrowind and so they never got around to designing the underlying game as such. Look at what you want - character development, combat, magic, mercantile, alchemy, quests, everything. The stuff was never developed beyond the earliest, proof-of-concept prototype stage ... The background/lore was first-class but I get more of that and with better quality if I simply go and buy a book; much less cumbersome to read too. The only game I've played that was even worse than Morrowind was Dungeon Siege. DS was pure mindless grind from beginning to end while Morrowind at least had Ajira, M'Aiq the Liar, Gaenor and so on to give it a bit of character. Despite all the imperfections of KotOR ][ it is still much more of a game than Morrowind. For example, one might say that KotOR ][ has somewhat poorly balanced classes, but Morrowind does not even have any classes and there cannot be something like balance or lack thereof in something which is not even coherent.

As in the original game, you need to make up your mind whether you want to do damage via critical hits (Master Power Attack with Juyo/Shien and two keen sabres) or via a high number of attacks combined with high base damage per attack (Master Flurry with Juyo, double-bladed sabre). The 'critical' route gives you slightly higher average damage but results vary more wildly, meaning it is quite common that foes who should have gone down in '0.9 rounds' take in fact two rounds two dispatch. The 'flurry' route gives very dependable results because damage does not deviate as wildly from the average; average damage per combat round is slightly less compared to the most potent 'critical' combo but the difference is less than 10% (for STR builds). The 'flurry' option is most attractive for STR-oriented characters although in KotOR 2 this means little more than switching a bit of equipment around (natural attributes matter little). But it certainly means that the 'flurry' option is not attractive for characters who do not want to select their equipment for other boni than STR; if you want to boost DEX and/or WIS instead (turtle builds, battle mages) then the 'critical' option is more promising. So, for a 'non-critical' STR-build you'll use a double-bladed sabre and for the 'critical' option two keened normal sabres (at least at higher levels where you have plenty of attack bonus). Double-bladed sabres have only half the critical threat range compared to normal sabres (20-20 vs. 19-20) but their advantage is the higher base damage (+2 average per attack) and the 1.5 multiplier for the STR damage bonus on the main hand. For a STR build around level 30 this means 10..15 extra damage per main hand attack (depending on your natural STR), or 50..75 per combat round. Once you have chosen your type of sabre the only difference between single and double is that you have to make the single sabre keen. That is, take a recipe and replace one of the upgrades/crystals with something that increases the critical threat range (e.g. Nextor crystal). For 'critical' sabres there is another consideration, which is that some damage boni get multiplied for criticals and some do not. However, since I am a 'double-bladed + Flurry' man myself I don't know what's what, and the difference is probably marginal in any case. My preferred loadout for a high-damage sabre: * pet crystal * Barab Ore Ingot (2-12 fire) or Pontite Crystal (1-10 cold, 2 CHA) * Expert Fencing Emitter (3 energy, 2 AC) * Ultimate Diatium Cell (5 energy) * Pontite Lens (2-12 energy) With a thusly loaded double-bladed sabre my last character (LSM 19/13 Guardian/Weapon Master) did 53-95 per main hand attack with Master Valour and Master Battle Meditation active; a character with maxed-out STR would do 59-101 and a Marauder (Fury) would do even more, and stims could add some extra damage on top of that. Note: a description like '2-12' for the Barab Ore Ingot means that it is actually a '2d6'; that is, two 6-sided dice are rolled to determine the outcome. The result is that middlish results are much more likely than the extremes. For a '1-12' item each of the twelve possible values is equally likely (1/12th). For the '2d6' (2-12) Barab Ore Ingot the probability for a roll of 7 is six times higher than for a roll of 2 or 12; the probability for getting a value in the range 5..9 is 2/3. Note: the Barab Ore Ingot is variously listed as '2-16' but I am fairly certain that this is wrong and it is actually '2-12' (2d6).

Thanks, Vashanti. This is most excellent, just what the doctor ordered. chibajoe, seven attacks? (w00t) BTW, does anybody know which form a Marauder gets from Master Vrook? I think it is Juyo for Guardian and Weapon Master, and Juyo is what I want. If the Marauder gets anything other than Juyo then I'd schedule Vrook's demise such that it occurs before taking the prestige class ... :cool:

Entropy. Left to its own devices any system tends towards states with lower energy, simply because they are more stable and returning to other states would require investment of energy. Occasionally nature 'achieves' balance when contradicting influences/forces reach an equilibrium, like the balance between the number of predators vs. the numbers of prey. But these are coincidences, as a rule only observable because they are in fact more stable/enduring than the numerous failed 'experiments' of Mother Nature which simply resulted in all dead predators and/or all dead prey.

The way the Force makes sense to me as a force would be as the superposition/sum total of an infinite number of infinitesimally small contributions by Force sensitive consciousnesses/beings. Similar to the way clouds of small droid 'flies' can form a group intelligence/consciousness with fearsome powers even though each individual fly is hardly more intelligent than a bacterium on its own, in the Stanislaw Lem book whose German title Der Unbesiegbare translates to The Invincible One. Or Isaac Asimov's Nemesis, where the planet intelligence is actually the sum total of a gazillion microbes. Or Gaia in Asimov's Foundation series. As such the Force could have 'a will of its own' even though it is not a conscious being in itself.

As far as I can tell the 'poison room' in the Iziz palace is the only inconsistency. I checked most occurrences of poison/poisoning from Peragus to Malachor before I made my post; what I did not check was Korriban (academy) and Dantooine (Kinrath cave). The two Nar Shaddaa poisoning bugs - that is, the two scripted occasions where you get poisoned even if you are immune - have no bearing on Breath Control because you don't have the power yet when they occur. The Kinrath cave may be somewhat interesting because Breath Control is ostensibly about inhaled poisons (d'oh) but the Kinrath poisoning is via injection or contact transfer, something that you cannot protect against by holding your breath. I guess the power, like the breath mask, will simply protect against all kinds of poisoning whether it makes sense or not. I have never done Dantooine after Nar Shaddaa, so there is no savegame that I could load for a quick check.

Yes. Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. As regards the 'Poison Room' next to the museum in Queen Talia's palace: poison immunity - regardless of its source - works insofar as you do not actually get poisoned (health bar turning green, loss of stats/VP and so on). The problem is that the game still applies a debilitating effect (red cross on the character icon, inability to act in any way for one or more rounds) even if you are immune to poison. Droids are not affected, only meatbags.

Not in the sense of Suvam, at least. The droid merchant on Onderon can be re-programmed for a markup of 0. Has anybody compared the droid's prices for buying/selling to the prices of Greeda?

Barab Ore Ingot? Ultimate Expert Diatium Pontificatium Emitter Cell Lens? A well-tuned TSL sabre does about three times as much damage as a KotOR sabre with MotF or HotG. Sure, the 'mutating' effect of MotF/HotG on the properties of the other crystals was interesting, but in a TSL sabre the crystals tend to be the weakest upgrades. And TSL sabres are mindboggingly powerful already ...

The difference is easy to see in the combat feedback log. With the Breath Control power active you get a line like "Munchkin is immune to poison" and without it you see the Fortitude save roll. The DC of the poison 'mines' on Malachor (DC25) is normal for poison, it is the same almost everywhere from Peragus to Malachor. What's ridiculous is the character level and associated stats, plus all the boosts from items. After a campaign like TSL you'd normally be more like level 8..10 but Obsidian used hyper-inflated XP values for everything so that the player is around level 30 instead of 10 near the end of the game. This is not necessarily a problem if the rest is adjusted to account for the god-like abilities of a level-30 character. Be that is it may, in my experience the Breath Control power does work everywhere as advertised. The only exceptions are sloppily scripted scenes - like the 'Poison Room' in the Iziz palace - but even there the power works insofar as it has the exactly same effect as poison immunity from an item.

Sounds interesting. Please let us know how you fared ... We had a lot of fun with quick runs through Freelancer (times differentiated by number of battleship kills) and finding out things and discussing approaches in the forum was a big part of the fun. Currently there is a similar undertaking in the form of Forna K. Shan's Minimum XP Challenge. Perhaps you can find some inspiration there. Min-XP allows for a more laid-back playing style and so it suits my current mood better. :D When the Quarterly Billing is over I'll have a stab at continuing my Mynx campaign.

From the FAQ (Star_Wars_Kotor_II_a.txt) notes on the Marauder class: So, is there anybody who has played a Marauder and who can tell us what the deal actually is? Even without the extra attacks, Fury should add STR and damage boni. If so, how much? Is the Marauder's Increase Combat Damage feat comparable to the Weapon Master's Increase Melee Damage (+2 dmg per attack for the basic feat, +4 for level II)? Also, I am not entirely convinced that the FAQ writer did not overlook something. Juyo + Master Speed + Flurry + dual-wielding gives you 6 attacks per round but on-screen you see only 5 (the first number is suppressed). So it is easy to get the impression that there are only 5 attacks per round unless you call up the feedback log and count the attacks there. Not to mention that the game stops attacks once the enemy is dead, so often you see even fewer than 5. Or perhaps the deal with the extra attacks is similar to Master Speed, i.e. restricted by armour. Currently I have no quick and easy way of checking because I did a big savegame purge and the only saves left are from LS campaigns. So it would take quite a while to start a Marauder and bring her to high enough levels ...

The difference between the Force capabilities of a Consular-type character and any other class is that only Consular-types have enough Force DC against bosses, and this little bit extra comes from class-specific feats and Force forms. WIS/CHA alone won't cut it, least of all the negligible differences from natural attributes. Against non-bosses even a Guardian/Weapon Master has more than enough Force DC and enough Force points to spam powers of the wrong alignment (e.g. Force Storm for LS). :D Oh, and there is of course the bug whereby only Consular-type characters can nudge the alignment of their padawans that last tiny bit towards LS mastery. I think you need one of the Consular-type prestige classes for this (Jedi Master, Sith Lord). <_<

I think VotF (a.k.a. Saberist) has made some good points about how a nice game ought to be if you look at it as a combat/martial arts simulation. However, d20 is no such beast and much less our favourite hack&slash lite which is based on a thoroughly watered-down version of d20. And given the math as it is and the game as it is the 'epic' versions of weapon specialization and the dual-wielding feats are utterly superfluous feat sinks. For example, around level 30 your enemies have defense 40 or less (except for two bosses), meaning you need an attack modifier of 38 in order to score any hit that can be scored. Roll 1 is automatic miss, and your attack roll must match or exceed enemy defense in order to score a hit, so in order to hit on roll 2 or higher you need an attack bonus of 40 - 2 = 38. Now, any level 30 character - even Consular/Jedi Master - already has a BAB of 30. Add to that the plentiful free items/upgrades that give you attack boni as a side-effect (!) and you end up with an attack modifier in the 50s/60s, meaning that the surplus attack bonus is already higher than the penalty for dual-wielding without having even the basic feat (-6/-10). With the third of the basic feats the remaining penalty is -2/-2 for the unbalanced case, which is completely negligible. The situation is less dramatic at level 15 which is the earliest time where it is possible to acquire the feats, but around that time melee-oriented characters won't have any use for those feats either (assuming semi-decent equipment that anybody can get/craft). A similar dichotomy exists in, e.g., the question of double-bladed lightsabres (sabre staffs). They may be a stupid idea if you extrapolate the natural laws of our reality/universe but in the KotOR games the 'natural law' is d20 combined with whatever properties the designers assigned to game items. And from this point of view - the game as it is - the double-bladed sabres would beat single sabres hands-down if it were not for their halved critical threat range (20-20 vs. 19-20): higher base damage, one rare crystal gives benefits for both main hand and off hand, 1.5 multiplier for the STR damage bonus. Around level 30 this translates to +10 damage per main hand attack for a STR-based character, for a guaranteed 50 extra damage per combat round. Double-bladed sabre + Master Speed + Flurry + Juyo will serve you well in any situation and give fairly dependable results; approaches relying on critical hits yield 3...10% more average damage and much higher peak (and also much lower lows), but actual results tend to fluctuate rather wildly and thus the number of combat rounds needed to defeat non-grunt enemies. Note: the 10% figure is for STR builds; for weak characters the advantage from using Master Power Attack with keen 'non-double' sabres can be higher because for them the +12 damage bonus from Master Power Attack makes more of a difference. I prefer the double-bladed sabre with Flurry, because it is enough to cut down Sion in a single combat round reliably, so there is nothing to be gained from using a combo that cannot give any better results but that has higher probability of failure.