Darth Frog

LOL, poor example. Consulars/Jedi Masters are supposed to be good with Force powers, so what's your point? Or did you want to highlight the fact that Consulars/Jedi Masters cannot fend for themselves until late in the game? If offer a Guardian/Weapon Master with 16 natural INT, 18 natural WIS and Security/Repair/Computer as class skills via the three cross-class feats; she, too, used the Force to clear away groups of more than two enemies, simply because using melee requires one combat round per enemy instead of two per room. She was an LS Master, too, but she used Force Storm instead of Wave anyway. The alignment penalty on FP cost doesn't matter if you have FP coming out your ears. The atypically (for a Guardian) high intelligence and wisdom did not compromise her primary capabilities in any way. She did about 500 melee damage per round (52-93 main hand) and no other melee build could drop bosses in fewer rounds except perhaps for an extreme Guardian/Marauder build who might be able kill Traya in two rounds instead of three (or a critical build with lucky dice rolls).

Wrong. A DEX/WIS build with Battle Precognition (males only) can have defense in the 50s/60s; even bosses have trouble scratching such a build and all others hit only on a roll of 20. I, too, prefer damage-oriented builds with negligible defense because the fact that the enemy can actually kill you makes the game more interesting. But this does not mean that turtle builds aren't viable. As regards the mysterious limit: AC boni of the same kind don't stack. If you have two items that grant a bonus to, say, your AC dodge modifier then the higher of the two boni will be effective and you might as well replace the other item with something useful. This is one of the basic d20 rules. In KotOR/TSL such details are often glossed over or even ignored, but the engine comes from NWN and so it may obey more rules under the hood than is apparent on the surface (especially the inadequate documentation and incomplete/erroneous item/power/feat descriptions). Another d20 rule limits attribute boni to a maximum of +12 beyond your natural attributes; if this rule has been incompletely purged from the game engine then it may cause strange effects.

There are infinite cycles since you break down items with perfect efficiency if the Exile has an effective Repair skill rank of at least 20. However, these are not infinitely increasing cycles. :D Also, it seems that no merchant sells lower than they buy at (like e.g. merchants in Morrowind) so no infinite money machines here either. A careful look at item price vs. component yield might turn up cycles (buy A - break down - create B - sell B - buy A) but I don't think there are a whole lot of 'restocking' items and the potential candidates have low price and component yield. E.g. things like Repair Kits. So I guess that even if you were to find a cycle its yield would be painfully low. Some of your team members produce items that can be broken down. T3 makes up to 11 computer spikes total (20 components each), Bao-Dur conjures inifinite amounts of shields until you talk about lightsabres, Handmaiden can create Handmaiden Robes out of thin air (200 components each). Another way of producing arbitrary amounts of components would be to make a set of high-grade lightsabre upgrades, put them in a sabre and then start duplicating that sabre. There should be plenty of info on item duplication in the Xbox forum.

Also, have a look at Suvam's Baragwin Assault Blades. Fully upgraded they do more damage than lightsabres, and you can still use Force Jump if you use a lightsabre in the off-hand (which gets only one attack per round anyway). My last character used a Baragwin in the main hand (17-47 dmg equipped) and a lightsabre in the off-hand; during the finale she cut down Malak in two combat rounds most of the time and rarely took any damage. P.S.: Suvam's is only in the PC version but there are some other decent vibros in the game. I think Sawasiki's Blade (Dantooine) was pretty good, and there also was a good vibro that I got from some Wookiee or other. Sorry, but it's been a year or so ... :D

The Force powers are shtum and so we don't know what's bugging them. But if you tell us what's bugging you then we might be able to help ...

Wrong. First, double-bladed lightsabres have higher base damage. Second, with doubled-bladed weapons the STR damage bonus for the main hand is multiplied by 1.5. Around level 30, these two factors alone give you an additional +10 damage per main hand attack. Third, upgrades in a double-bladed weapon count for both 'ends' (i.e. for both main hand attack and off-hand attack) and so you can make better use of high-damage crystals like the Barab Ore Ingot (2d6 or 2d8, forgot which it was). These crystals are rare and you'd be lucky to find even one. Normal keened lightsabres can do higher damage, but only because of their doubled critical threat range compared to double-bladeers. Use with Master Power Attack or Master Critical Strike and with a suitable form like Shien or Juyo. Base damage is clearly lower. I prefer double-bladed weapons combined with Master Speed, Master Flurry and Juyo (6 attacks per round). Average damage output is marginally lower than dual-wielding single-bladed keen sabres for criticals, but the results are more dependable because they do not vary wildly from round to round like those that depend on criticals. There are some arguments pro and con singles+critical and double+flurry in this recent thread on the Bioware boards.

1... 2... 3... No contest. :D

You need to be level 15 or higher, and strongly aligned. I have read that you have to have Visas, but I can't say anything about that because I always got her on my first landing site after Telos (which is rather odd if you do Dxun first; at least they should wait until the player leaves the area where the Ebon Hawk is before planting Visas in the ship).

Don't you just love it when they cast Energy Resistance even though there's not a single blaster anywhere? Like when you fight Kinrath, Shyracks or Cannoks. Apart from that, if you have Kreia in your party then make sure she's in the thick of things and taking some damage. That means she'll heal/buff herself and you reap the benefits via the Force link. :D The Force link is a bit broken, btw. It doesn't work for party buffs. <_<

The Exile doesn't have to kill anything on Peragus except for the 25 Sith at the end, and for this you can use the laser turret which does not have any attribute/skill requirements. The HK has to be killed, too, but you can leave the dirty work to Kreia and Atton (your high CHA should improve their attack rating, btw). Have you tried to Whirlwind them off the mat? Your char has excellent Force DC so it should work. The Handmaidens are melee monsters, so only a melee monster can beat them in a fair fight anyway.

As Sylver has said, doing all the side quests and optional quests makes a difference of several levels. For example, on Dxun there a several choices for things to do for proving your worth do Mandalore. You have to do only one or two but nothing keeps you from doing all of them, both for the fun and for considerably more XP. Also, some choices are more 'XP-intensive' than others. For example, if you follow the LS path on Dantooine and you leave the Kinrath cave . Guess which gives you more XP. Another example: in the Refugee Sector on Nar Shaddaa you can solve the problems of the refugees in a peaceful manner or you can opt for a violent solution. You get the quest XP in either case but in the case of a violent solution you get the kill XP extra (and you get double helpings of the quest XP if you do the peaceful solutions first and provoke the afterwards, but I digress).

@ Sylver: how many Hssiss? 250? :D

I think LS and DS map directly to good/evil and the lawful/chaotic axis gets ignored entirely. Or did you ever get a DSP for B&E or stealing stuff? :D Sure, the set from which you can choose your prestige class depends on your alignment at that point but once you have taken your prestige class there is no ill effect even if your alignment shifts all the way to the opposite side. So you can have an LS master Sith Marauder ( :D ) or a DS master Jedi Watchman. Paladins, on the other hand, can only advance as Paladins if they are lawful good. If they aren't then the buck stops there. They can advance in another class that is compatible with their then-current alignment but they have to become lawful good again if they want to progress as Paladins. Regarding the lawfulness of Consulars: in KotOR they were the only Jedi class with thief skills.

(1) Korriban, (2) Dxun, (3) Mines. Lay some mines, leave the area, come back and recover. The mines are still friendly but the game forgets that you laid them yourself and gives you XP for disarming/recovering them. Use mines whose DC for recovering is at least your taken level + 20 in order to get 15 * level XP for recovering, otherwise it is 10 * level.

Yes, I think there is a lot of similarity between LS Guardian and Paladin or DS Guardian and Blackguard, even to the extent that their magical powers are of the clerical sort (if you associate Consulars and Clerics) and their association with good/evil. I think Consulars are more powerful than any single magic class but Cleric is probably the best equivalent for LS Consular. In KotOR/TSL there is little difference between classes, actually, it is more like two flavours of Paladins with combat emphasis on one hand (Guardian) and magic focus on the other (Consular). The TSL prestige classes add some interesting aspects but so do the AD&D prestige classes. And the Sentinel isn't a class anyway, just a mix between Guardian and Consular with a few skill points and immunities thrown in for good measure. A good choice for people who want to play both Guardian and Consular at the same time, but not really a class or archetype in its own right (except perhaps in a Scout/Hunter/Ranger way?). The KotOR/TSL classes were probably done this way because you cannot multiclass freely as in other games.

While I agree with your post overall, I do disagree with your conclusion. By your measure a STR-oriented Guardian/Weapon Master wins hands down. Nihilus: two rounds. Zakkeg, Drexl Larva, Greater Storm Beast, Sion: 1..2 rounds. Traya: 2 x 2..3 rounds. Everything else 1 round, except for a few toothless tanks like Kobin and some Sith lieutenants on Dxun. In areas where enemies (like turrets) are spaced too far apart for AOE spells the Guardian needs only one round for each enemy (jump - jump - jump - done), while all other classes have to walk/run from one to the other (melee) or play sitting duck while using two combat rounds per foe in order to cast spells or spit blaster bolts. Granted, such areas are very few and in most other cases you can Force Storm the whole room at once if you pick the right spot, so this advantage is more theoretical than practical. But it is more fun than spamming Force powers. Against non-bosses even a Guardian/WM can cast Stasis, Force Storm and Destroy Droid just as reliably as a flat-out Consular/JM. In fact, even with melee builds I always used Force Storm or Destroy Droids to clear away enemy groups, since killing each one individually and personally takes one combat round per enemy instead of two per room. Be that as it may, TSL is so easy that you can have fun in a myriad of ways and set your mind on the most outlandish things without making the game too hard. E.g. the Blaster Deflector From Hell who walks in a room and simply waits until enemies have shot themselves, and so on. Force Confusion, mhmm..... :D

Well, yes and no. I don't like DEX builds myself but it is not because they're "gonna be hit no matter what" - it is because such builds become virtually untouchable. Start with 16/14/14 CON/DEX/WIS, bring CON to 18 (for implants) and put further attribute points into DEX (melee) or WIS (magic). Wear robes, choose equipment/upgrades/crystals for DEX or defense boni first, WIS else. Take the lightsabre finesse feat. Get Battle Precognition from Brianna. If you want to push this to the limit then take the Duelling feats and use a single lightsabre, Master Speed, Ataru form (at least against bosses). If they're immune to criticals then switch to twin sabres or double-bladed, Flurry. If your damage per main hand attack is less than 50 (average) then Master Power Attack may be better. For a battlemage it is similar, except that WIS takes the role of DEX (asssuming that you have Battle Precognition). Both attributes contribute to defense but WIS also improves Force DC which plays the same role for spells as attack bonus for physical combat. Female Exiles can't get Battle Precognition so you can't play an untouchable battlewitch. As a quick test I loaded a save for a male Guardian/Weapon Master (STR-oriented) from before the chat with Sion on Malachor and switched a bit of equipment around to transform him into something resembling a DEX build. E.g. moved pet crystal into a single lightsabre, donned the Ossus Robe, exchanged STR gear for DEX/WIS boosters, and so on. Result: defense 56 and attack 52. During the four rounds, Sion landed a single lightsabre hit and 2 Drain Life, for a total damage of 86. Exile needed 2..3 flurries to take down Sion, who had about 480 HP. In the STR loadout he needed 1..2 flurries to defeat Sion and took a lot more damage. Guess which was more fun. :D If you develop a character as a 'defensive' build instead of merely reconfiguring a STR build then you can push defense even higher.

You're confusing something. DEX builds are untouchable because of their high defense and so they don't require any finesse at all ('finesse' as in 'tactics', not the feat). STR builds are more interesting. Again, you're confusing something. At the end of the game you'll hit with something like 80 against defense of 40 with a double-bladed lightsabre + Master Flurry + Juyo, and that's against bosses. That's six attacks per round, all of which will hit except on a roll of 1. Without any melee fighting feats you'll still hit with 60 against 40, so why bother? The dual-bladed sabre has a 1.5 multiplier for the STR bonus to main hand damage and slightly higher base damage (+2 average main hand, +4 avg. off hand). For my last character the multiplier translated into an extra +8 bonus on the main hand, for more than 50 extra damage per combat round compared to wielding two sabres. Of course, only STR-oriented builds will realize this advantage and you pay for it with decreased critical threat range. DEX-oriented builds are probably better off wielding two sabres and going the 'keen' route. P.S.: starting stats were 14/10/14/15/14/10 because I wanted my character to beat all skill checks without help, final stats 14/10/18/16/18/10 (+6 STR from LS mastery). The low DEX compared to the more usual 14 was noticable during the earliest levels and during the duelling finals (Handmaidens, Mandalorians) but nothing dramatic. The improved Force points & DC were more noticable, for more of the time.

The original KotOR actually requires a bit of tactics and has very nice battles if you go solo. At least until you reach level 15 or so. For added spice, do it without shields/stims/medpacks/grenades/mines. In two places the use of grenades cannot be avoided unless you have lots of time on your hands (Rancor in the sewers, triple turrets in Vulcar base) and there are two places where the game script requires the use of grenades/mines (Korriban) but apart from that it is more fun without. This requires a balanced character with a modicum of skills and a bit of Force DC. Even in TSL battles can get tactical in a hurry if you accept Forna K. Shan's Minimum XP Challenge.

Got plenty of those as well and found them annoying. However, I noticed that they only occurred in situations where a very high roll by the enemy could beat a very low roll by my character. So perhaps the success was actually legit and the feedback logic simply chose the wrong pair of rolls for logging. These rolls are made continuously and if all of them were shown then they would flood the feedback log in a hurry. Another possibility is that the automatic miss/hit logic (roll 1/20) from the core combat mechanic was mistakenly carried over to this situation. It does not apply to skill checks. SKILL CHECKS------------ A skill check takes into account a character

Mynx finished her work on Citadel @ 13727 (she did pick up her old things, as there were no stealth gennies to be gotten on Citadel). Tomorrow she'll go shopping and then proceed to Telos ... The military base should be interesting.

For breaking down items into components this works only in situations where Bao-Dur is the party leader (e.g. Dxun if you decree thusly); if the Exile is in the party then the Exile's Repair skill rank will be used. It seems, though, that things are different for breaking down mines/stims/medpacks etc. into chemicals. AFAICS in this case the Treat Injury skill rank of whoever uses the lab bench is relevant.

No problem, the new game could import an old savegame in order to pull out the specifics without further user interaction.

With a slight twist the TSL scheme (some base value + delta per level) might work. So a Guardian might start out with 120 VP, a Sentinel with 100 VP, a Consular with 80. Tone down the per-level increases, so that after 20 levels the VP are at most doubled, and even that only if all attribute points are pumped into CON. The values are only examples; the base values probably need to be quite a bit higher since a level 30 G/WM does 400 damage per combat round on average and you'd expect a non-grunt enemy to be in the same ballpark. But that would throw a hydrospanner ( " ) into the works of the d20 system. A high level Guardian has six attacks per round compared to at most two for a low-level one, and damage per attack is probably double even if you tone it down considerably (currently the ratio is one to ten). So if you look at it his way then even a toned-down highlevel char does at least ten times as much damage per round as the low-level char. Having the high-level char fall to an equal enemy in a single combat round would be unfun, but it would be equally unfun if the low-level char had to hit an enemy twenty times. So there's a clash already, the VP change creates echos in the Force ...

IMHO, both were great. There are many little improvements in TSL, which is most noticable if you go back and replay the original; OTOH the original has more replay value because the gameplay is balanced. That is, you can replay it as a d20 tactical game even if you have already played it to death as an RP adventure. What I liked better in the original was that the NPCs actually said so if they had something new to say; in TSL you have to summon your NPCs from the Ebon Hawk regularly and go over their convo options to see whether there is something new, or whether an old option leads to something new. And not only that, you also have to try different locations. On the Ebon Hawk, off the Ebon Hawk, or in specific places (e.g. Nar Shaddaa). This is patently silly.