Darth Frog

Ah ah ah! It's *NOT* your former ship!! :D It's REVAN'S SHIP, *NOT* the Exile's...Be more clear and concsise when you make such statements <{POST_SNAPBACK}> LOL, you should engage your ultima-brain before activating your ultima-vocabulator to make ultima-blunders. Rosbjerg was Revan in KotOR, and so the Ebon Hawk is certainly his former ship - he bleeding stole it personally from one hood called Davik! And so did you and I and everybody else. :D Regarding the poll, I concur with all people who liked the TSL intro better. The Endar Spire feld artificial and constructed, the typical KotOR 'emergency' where everybody stands around bored and yawning. As regards the newbie areas: getting to play T3 on Peragus and getting to meet an HK were nice touches, and the story was probably on par with the original KotOR. On Citadel there was even a somewhat consistent quest/event chain (Czerka vs. Ithorians). But gameplay-wise Taris wins hands-down, absolutely no contest.

Not sure about that. I think the three merchants that can have HK parts will be configured to have something that is still missing, if there is something still missing. In my last game I definitely had a chassis left over at the end. I went to Kodin a while before T3's hour of glory, because I needed the XP from rebuilding HK early. The chassis was the only thing still missing and a chassis was what Kodin had. In an earlier game he had a processor and I think in another game a control cluster. So it is not inconceivable that one of the merchants (or the spare part donor in the warehouse) might have a vocabulator if you forgot to loot one on Peragus. Since I always pick up the vocabulator I don't have a save that I could use to check, and replaying Harbinger, Citadel and Telos just for checking this small factoid would be stretching things a little. If I play ever again I'll keep it in mind, though currently I feel more like a game of KotOR or NWN (where the way you develop your character matters because enemies can actually kill you).

There are several merchants that have HK parts and as a rule they will have an item that you don't have yet. Offhand I remember three: Akkere on Dantooine, droid merchant on Onderon, Kodin on Nar Shaddaa. Two parts you should have gotten already (Peragus, Telos) and another part will drop during the Nar Shaddaa chain of events. So if you are missing just the chassis then visit one of the merchants that you haven't visited already or play Nar Shaddaa. You'll pop in for a cup of tea later but that's it. Heh, if Handmaiden won't talk to you then you may have to beat her up a little. She'll appreciate that. If you've done that already then you may have to progress a little, gain a level or so. It does not matter much who you convert and who not, but you should make sure that your NPCs are always combat ready. Select good equipment for them and upgrade it; they don't have to actually wear the equipment but you should have good stuff in the inventory so that they can be equipped without visiting the Ebon Hawk. As for company, I prefer Visas and T3 but one of them is a Jedi already and the other cannot be converted.

What he says sounds more like he has been to the sublevel but forgot to pick up the datapad. The errand to tell the mercs to 'Go ahead' is purely optional and in fact requires good Persuade to get in the first place. The only notable bug I've encountered there so far is that the droids fight on your side even if you set them to defend hostiles, which is exactly what I did in my last playthrough (I had hoped that this would make the battle slightly more interesting, which is also the reason why I did not deliver the message). Oh, and the usual scripting error whereby baddies like Vrook can stun you in a cutscene even if you're immune.

LOL, that's cool. :D :D :D

The mobs are tailored to your character's level, so the only way how character level matters is that the game balance gets more out of whack the higher your level is. The d20 system was designed for 20 levels but with the, erm, 'adjustments' Obsidian have made things breaks apart even earlier, about level 15 or so. The effect is that around level 30 everybody except for the lowliest of grunts has such a high BAB compared to normal values of defense that everybody can hit everybody else most of the time, and the Exile will take damage even from Sith Apprentices/Marauders/Lords; armour is mostly useless at that point. That is, unless you use a totally defensive build where wear a robe and boost DEX and WIS (Handmaiden's Battle Precognition, only for male avatars) as much as possible. AFAICS this the only way to get DEF high enough to actually matter, in the fifties/sixties. It is possible but not a whole lot of fun, because then you are pretty much invulnerable most of the time. For example, I loaded a save for the encounter with the Great Storm Beast from my last run and looked at the math. The beast had defense and attack bonus 40, my level-30 Exile had defense 35 and total attack bonus 62. Completely out of whack. So at that point in time you can either go for a totally defensive build or forget armour/defense entirely and concentrate on boosting CON (so that you can tank a bit) and raw damage output. For example, a Guardian taking on the Greater Storm Beast would equip a double-bladed lightsabre or two singles and Force Jump the beast. With Master Speed and the Juyo lightsabre form this gives you five hits (4 mainhand, 1 offhand) with about 70 average damage per hit in the case of my Exile. On average this will almost kill the beast, only a single swipe with the blade or low-damage spell like Force Wave needed to finish it off. If you are lucky and you roll high damage or get a critical then the beast will drop in the first round already, but of course you can also be unlucky and get automatic misses for rolls of 1 on some attacks or simply roll low damage. Without Force Jump, similar considerations apply. Use dual-wielding even if you don't have the feats, your attack will be more than high enough to make up for this (see attack/defense examples above); use the Juyo form for the extra attack or Shien for improved criticals, and the power attack feat of your choice. I prefer Flurry because it is more dependable than the others (the plain Flurry feat is enough; the higher feats only reduce the attack penalty but you have plenty of attack bonus to spare); Master Power Attack and Master Critical Strike also have really serious damage potential and can outperform Flurry if you have the right equipment. Add Master Speed to the mix and the Greater Storm Beast should go down in two rounds or three at most, even if you don't have a special melee-oriented build.

On two playthroughs I didn't even get past the area where the duelling ring is. Force Jump from the hangar onto the back of an assassin and - wham! - Mandalore cutscene. Annoying. As regards high levels: my last character reached level 31 without exploiting glitches, just by using standard techniques for maximizing XP (or, more precisely, techniques that avoid gratuitous loss of XP like when you cross a level-up threshold in the middle of a battle). My current munchkin character will reach level 32 and probably even level 33, but she did pull every legit trick and then some. Regarding mines: the XP you get from mines is 15 * LEVEL if the DC of the action is not less than 20 + LEVEL, otherwise it is 10 * LEVEL. It does not matter whether you disarm or recover, it is only the DC that counts. With locks it is similar, except that the multipliers are 10 and 5 respectively. So if you want to use mines for glitching infinite XP, look at your level and pick the most appropriate type of mines from your inventory. For example, you get 15 * LEVEL for recovering minor mines up level 10 inclusive, from then on it is 10 * LEVEL and you're better off having a level-10 NPC recover those mines until you reach level 15. For average mines, do them yourself up to level 15 inclusive, use level-15 NPC until you are level 23 when you can do them yourself again, and so on. Things like that can make quite a difference, especially on Telos and on Goto's Yacht where there are more than thirty mines in some places.

Slice the security terminal in the area before the tomb on Dxun and access the system commands. Select "run the 'Foothold' scenario". Watch. :D

These things are way too powerful and cost way too little to be considered anything but cheap cop-outs. There are games where such things are viable, balanced parts of the gameplay; potions in the NWN games come time mind. But not in the KotOR games. Throw a grenade and take out several droids in a single hit, without any risk, cost or ability (skill/feat/power/attribute) requirements whatsoever. Flip on an energy shield and you are basically immune to blaster fire for several minutes, again no risk, no ability requirements, and no cost. Let Mira flip on a melee shield and have her gun down Hanharr or the Kath Hounds at your leisure. Pop a couple of stims and for two minutes you have better stats than a decently built character, enough the clean out a whole level even with a completely botched build. Activate the Foothold Scenario and watch the XP accumulate as the game plays itself for you. I think you can see the pattern by now - no risk, no ability requirements, no cost. That is why these 'I win' buttons are cheap. And they would still be cheap even if you had to made do with whatever you find instead of being able to craft such items yourself or having your party members conjure unlimited quantities out of thin air. As regards the use of NPCs: your NPCs are perfectly capable of obliterating the opposition without any help from the Exile, and in the levels where the Exile is solo all you have to do is take a leisurely stroll to the exit. You may have to push a button somewhere or bash a terminal, but that's all. So you can botch your character build all you want at no cost whatsoever; no need to balance various aspects, and no need to have a build where the progress is viable too, and not only the end result after ten or twenty levels. Peeling small numbers of enemies from bigger groups: Sun-Tzu's 'injuring the corners' may be a valuable approach in general but in KotOR it is so trivially easy to pick off enemies one by one that this strategy can only be considered cheap. AFAICS think the awareness/activation range of mobs is even shorter than the range of a blaster rifle or grenade throw ... There are a few exceptions - like when groups of enemies spawn on top of you or a script dumps you in front of a pack - where you actually have to use some tactics to divide and conquer. But these are rare. LOL, coming from somebody who is playing a Consular that's rather rich. Since when does paralyzing a roomfull of enemies with a single spell require anything even remotely resembling tactics? Or is spamming Force Storm/Wave any more demanding? There is nothing dishonourable in throwing a grenade into a pack of droids and watching the fireworks, or laying an elaborate mine field and luring a pack of enemies into it, or making a couple dozen enemies converge in the middle of a room and then killing them all with a couple of Force Storms/Waves, or triggering the Foothold Scenario and enjoying the resulting mayhem, and so on. It is great fun for a couple of times. Some people even have fun slaying endless hordes of Hssiss on Korriban in order to reach insanely high character levels, or doing elaborate procedures in order to duplicate items. Whatever. But on the gaming level where you focus on the underlying d20 game and discuss things like the merits of various character builds, different considerations apply. And on that level of discourse the pushing if no-brainer 'I win' buttons is certainly dishonourable and cheap, as is the use of overly powerful items that are there so that RPG newbies can muddle through without becoming frustrated.

No, my last character finished at level 31 without any cheats/exploits. My current character - Munchkin - is an experiment to see how high you can get if you play your cards right, and I think she'll reach at least level 32. The level cap is 50, I believe.

Face it, a character like Yst's cannot make it through Peragus without cheap tactics like - using shields/stims/medpacks/explosives - having Atton/Kreia tank - exploiting weaknesses of the AI (very short awareness range, half-hearted 'follow through' on enemy sightings, no communication/coordination between mobs) or all of the above.

Me too. And if you went solo then even the Dark Jedi triplets and the Calo/Bandon ambushes required finesse ... If you played those badly then you were dead. Same for the sand people and wraids on Tattooine if you went there early - if you rushed into combat and charged them head-on then you were dead, in a hurry. Which is as is should be. Stuff became easy once you reached level 14..15, though. What about the fight against a mob of Handmaidens? One of the best combat scenes in the game, especially if you restrict yourself to fight fair. Well ... mostly fair. But nothing like the Rancor in the Taris sewers or the Terentatek on Kashyyyk. The Zakkeg should have been like the latter and it had a real nice bad-boy look but it turned out to be just another puffed-up gizka (minus the cooing, of course) ...

... for this playthrough, I'm putting a different spin on my character from what I did with my last consular, by having high Int to make necessary Int checks, instead of just high Wis with middling physical stats. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You can beat the INT checks even if you start with 14..15 INT or less, and even the 15 is only necessary if you want your character to beat absolutely every check that comes up, instead of delegating the job to one of your NPCs. There's also the Valour spell, then a certain robe in a certain museum that gives a big INT boost, and then there's implants. My last character was an experiment to see what it would take to beat every skill check on difficult without a single exception. So I made a Guardian with 15 INT. The only reason for INT beyond 14 was that recovering average mines at level 7 (Peragus, Fuel Depot) requires an INT mod of 3 if the only available boosts are Valour and an item with +1 Demolition; for practical purposes it would have been to sufficient to disable the mines or simply disarm them by walking over them as Guardians usually do. I agree with JediExile. Pushing attributes over 14 at creation goes beyond balancing/emphasizing, because of the cost involved. In your case each of the extra +1 modifiers for INT/WIS costs two mods elsewhere. KotOR2 is special in that your natural attributes don't matter much once you leave Peragus/Telos behind you, because of the extremely high boni from items and other sources (the only exception is CON, because of implants). However, I think JediExile is right: you have gimped your character. That character will have to hide behind T3/Atton/Kreia for a long time or use medpacks/stims/shields/explosives, unless you prefer tactics like 'cast two spells, then run away and rest for half an hour'.

What, the Death Poke? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, where they take turns stepping forward, tickling you, and then stepping back. :D

Gorth has said it best. T3 ownz!

LOL, I think T3 is even cuter and more loyal to boot. In the original KotOR my Revan stumbled over a Gizka while soloing against the Trandoshians on Yavin (the late game ambush scene) and that misstep nearly cost her life. So I guess I am a bit biased. BTW, the attack animation of the Kinrath is funny in a strange way. But that is probably because it reminds me of the Starforge droids, whose melee attack is so cute that I was rolling on the floor laughing when I saw it the first time.

Am I the only one who likes Cannoks immensely? The funny concept - big hungry mouth on legs that eats everything - was superbly modelled and animated (like when they hold an arm over their eyes to block your strike). I also liked that they were not complete pushovers. My vote for least favourite critter goes to the Greater Storm Beast on Malachor V. After the great build-up with cutscene and whatnot I expected a tough enemy, and the fact that for once you actually got enough time to buff up after the cutscene made me expect a real tough enemy indeed. Of course, the reality was disappointing and the blown-up gizka goes down in one or two attack rounds. Close second is the 'tank' droid in the military base on Telos, for similar reasons. While it looked impressive and its defense was almost adequate, it had too few hitpoints and its damage output was almost nil. I think even Cannoks or the blaster turrets in the encampment did more damage ...

Just played that section and she doesn't sound like Bastila or like Juni (Jun'co Zane from Freelancer). But then Bastila does not sound like Juni at all either ... I think Jennifer Hale is amazing.

The pacifist package was hilarious but yes, pretty much everybody who explored the game probably knows about it. BTW, didn't I kill you a while back on Solstheim? Must have botched the job.

Hold it. Isn't 10 the base defense that everything gets in d20 games? Dunno. If it is then the defense breakdown doesn't compute at all, because the boni from Jedi Sense (6), Greater Prestige Sense (4) and Battle Precognition (3) would be missing. Come to think of it, the math doesn't really work either way ... So it is probably a good thing that AC doesn't matter in KotOR 2. "

I would class those as 'rare items' like the Sith Armour. Sometimes you find them, sometimes not, sometimes a vendor has them, sometimes not. IIRC the force pikes yield oodles of components, so you may be better off selling your stacks of junk like medpacks, grenades, mines, shields, stims etc. pp. if you do need a bit of cash. Conversely, it may be interesting to find out which 'buyables' yield the most components/chemicals per buck, in case you want to craft some

No, not really. It isn't like you need money for anything after Telos/Citadel, as long as you have 50 credits for a pint of (youknowwhat if you've been there already) and a bit of loose change for landing fees or alms. I think the only things worth buying are crystals for lightsabres (colour crystals and upgrade crystals) and perhaps rare items like Sith Armour (7/7 rating, nice for some party members). Pretty much everything else can be crafted.

Mhmm, that makes sense. If we assume that the 'base 10' term included 3 bonus from WIS/Battle Precognition and if we further assume that equipping Jedi armour negates this bonus then the math suddenly works. But this also means my breakdown of the Jedi Sense and Greater Prestige Sense boni has to be wrong somewhere. LOL, this is so true. The last time I worried about AC was for the final Handmaiden fight on Telos. Except for this one fight I usually choose garments for their stat boni, especially WIS/CHA/STR, or their looks.

I'm trying to make sense of that number. Def 33 in plain clothing.... 10 base, 4 from Dex... What else? The Handmaiden upgrade? Dueling? Defense breakdown from combat feedback: base 10 class 14 (Guardian 19 -> 8, Weapon Master 12 -> 6) DEX mod 4 feats and effects 1 It looks like Jedi Sense etc. are lumped into 'base': Guardian 19 -> +6 for Jedi Sense Weapon Master 12 -> +4 for Greater Prestige Sense Dunno what 'feats and effects' refers to here. Holding a double-bladed light sabre, so no Duelling bonus. The sabre is listed as having defense bonus 2 (from a crystal or upgrade) but the 2 is missing from the defense breakdown. So perhaps the game used +1 instead, which would explain the 'feats and effects'. Anyway, equipping the 4/4 armour increases defense by 1, and it is hard to make sense of that fact. The DEX bonus is 4 and thus not limited by the armour; this means that equipping the armour must 'steal' 3 somewhere so that the net change after adding the armour's 4 defense is +1. Is Battle Precognition a passive ability or is it a power that has to be activated? If it is the former then it is also missing from the breakdown (the $YOURNAME crystal has a good WIS bonus).

Now where's the fun in stun+kill? Be that as it may, I have heard that Sneak Attack works in conjunction with Force Jump. If that is indeed so then Guardian/Watchman (or Assassin) may have some unique fun potential that other combos don't have. I think one of the party members can do Scoundrel/Guardian, so you don't have to use the Exile for this.