Darth Frog

Jedi armour can take some upgrades that robes cannot, but their armour rating (4/4 before upgrades for the best one I found) is pretty limited/limiting. On Malachor my lvl 31 Guardian/WeaponMasterhad DEF 33 with plain clothing and light sabre in hand, DEX was 14 natural and 18 effective (from the $YOURNAME crystal, not even fully upgraded). Equipping the 4/4 Zeison Sha armour raised DEF by 1 point to 34. Nothing to write home about. I think equipping armour of any kind suppresses Jedi defense boni, so I'd take either a good robe or a nice piece of heavy armour. A Guardian/Weapon Master can easily do either, as the situation demands. I usually use Jedi armour only for its upgradability, for STR/CON boosts. Against grunts and bosses armour class doesn't matter much anyway (grunts hit only rarely even if your armour rating is comparatively poor, bosses hit pretty much always unless you are a totally defensive build).

Well, you get a bit of XP which is nice enough. Besides, this is one of the best fights in the whole game and you don't have to do it unless you want to.

The Push/Whirlwind trick that Hunter_of_Chaos mentioned works well if you have enough WIS/CHA to make the power 'stick', but for a melee-oriented character the most likely outcome is that none of the Handmaidens is affected and you just lose a combat round for nothing at all. One thing that works well for melee fighters is this: when the fight starts (Handmaidens are still 'green') cast Knight Speed, then equip your best piece of armour and your best sword. Then cast Improved Force Barrier to take the sting out of the Handmaidens' attacks, and start slashing away. Use Master Flurry or whatever your best combat feat is. Watch your portrait, so that you can re-cast Improved Force Barrier if it runs out; also, if your health gets too low then you may have to cast Heal. The Handmaidens should be one level higher than your character and they have pretty good defense, so watch your stats and the combat feedback to see whether it makes sense to dual-wield or if you are better off wielding only a single sword. There is a workbench somewhere in the complex and a lab bench, too, so you could level up Bao-Dur and Kreia and then produce some nice items to prep the Exile for the fight. Strengthening underlays and heavy bonding plates could be useful. Also, check your sword. You have been fighting only droids, droids, and droids for quite a while, so if the sword is still configured for droid combat you may switch upgrades. For example, having an ion cell in your sword is not very useful against non-droids. Also, you may have found a better sword in the loot than the trusty vibro from Peragus. In one game I found several Trandoshian swords, and in my current game found a Zabrak vibro in the military base. The Handmaidens are no pushovers, and so quite a number of your attacks will miss and every little bit helps. If a Handmaiden remains standing with 1 health it will still take a full combat round to take her out (unless you use a Force power with area effect, but Force Wave is not available yet). Last but not least, watch the combat feedback. If you have decent armour with decent upgrades and items like Gamorrhean Gloves and Combat Sensors and so on then your defense may be high enough to ward off some attacks. If you see that your DEF is too low to have noticable effect, reconfigure to boost your damage output and to hell with armour. In this case you'll probably have to cast Heal several times during combat (Improved Heal makes quite a difference) but at least you can use your full arsenal of buffs, especially Knight Speed and Battle Meditation. If all that doesn't help you can fight dirty. Use shields, stims, grenades, medpacks ... Be inventive. If you found a Thermal Shield belt (75% immunity against fire) and Insulation Gloves, put them on and then start dropping plasma grenades on the floor. It'll hurt them much more than you, and it will hurt all of them at the same time. Same principle with poison grenades (but watch the feedback - the girls may save against the poison). P.S.: if you are going flat-out light side or dark side and you have not achieved mastery yet then you might get there with a bit of talking (if you are very close already). The Last of the Handmaidens, T3, Bao-Dur and Kreia can give you opportunities for LSP and DSP. Dunno about Atton. P.P.S.: I just went back to a save and tested the Whirlwind thing. I equipped all WIS/CHA boosters that I had found for a total boost of +5 WIS; on top of my Guardian's 14/10 WIS/CHA and combined with Valour this gave a total WIS/CHA modifier of 6. My char is level 13, so total Force DC was 24 = 5 + 13 + 6, against the Handmaidens' Reflex save of 19. So there was a chance of knocking Handmaidens down if they rolled a 4 or less. In the first try all five girls shrugged it off, in the second try three were actually knocked down (very lucky here), one of them was knocked off the mat.

Oh, I see. Compare the feat/bonus ratio of the basic dual-wielding feats with that of the prestige series ... The basic series progresses by 4 points per feat (0/4 or 2/2), the prestige series progresses by 1 point per feat. The Superior Weapon Focus series is similar to the basic Weapon Focus in that you get exactly +1 to attack, but while the +1 from basic Weapon Focus can be useful early in the game there is little need for additional attack boni at high levels. For one thing, you get insane BAB simply from being high level. For another, you get so many items, boni, upgrades and whatever that the small boni from your natural attributes and your feats don't matter anymore. Besides, you'll miss on a roll of 1 in any case, even if your attack bonus is 10...20 points above the enemy's defense rating. At high levels the game is about dishing out damage faster than the enemy because everybody always hits pretty much everybody else, except if you have a high defense (DEX-/WIS-based) build. I am excluding grunts here but they don't matter anyway.

Level 36 without cheating? I didn't know that this was possible. For Guardian/Weapon Master good crossover points are after taking an odd level where you get a feat, so that you get one more feat as would otherwise be the case. Doing this at level 19 also gives you one more DB. But all this is pointless, since the game is pretty much over when you reach level 15 or so. Until then there are at least some situations where you could get hurt. Also, the prestige class feat series seem to be designed to take a lot of feats for giving little to nothing in return - basically to act as a 'sink' for the extra feats that players get because Obsidian stretched 15..20 levels worth of game over 30 character levels but couldn't be arsed to actually design a sane progression for levels past 20. Come to think of it, they couldn't be arsed to design a sensible progression for levels 1..20 either.

Soldier/Guardian was my first combo, and I also used it in my last run where I went strictly solo. For that last build I used only 14 STR at creation and put excess creation points into WIS/CHA (for the Force DC). If you solo then you need some powers for setting up the battlefield (Stun/Stasis series, Whirlwind/Wave) and you need those powers to stick at least some of the time or you're dead. At least in the more interesting fights, like against the Mandalorians, early Dark Jedi, mini-bosslets like Calo/Bandon and also the sand people if Tattooine is the first planet.

Spot on. Dual-wielding + Master Speed + Juyo are also nice with Force Jump. One hop, one dead enemy. Some battlefields are nicely spaced so that the number of combat rounds for clearing the area is equal to the number of enemies if you have Force Jump, compared to the more pedestrian approach of walking from foe to foe in order to hit them. Also, in KotOR the harder enemies used to be immune to critical attacks and had high defense, and these aspects made Critical Strike and Power Attack less attractive. The argument that the duelling feats negate the -3 the penalty for Power Attack is somewhat silly, since Master Flurry + Master Duelling actually give you +2 to hit compared to +0 for Master Power Attack + Master Duelling. Master Flurry + Master Duelling can be attractive for weak characters like Sentinels. Be that as it may, unless you use magic AOE attacks you need at least one combat round per enemy, regardless of which kind you use. So, if even Sion goes down in a single flurry I don't think I have to look any further ... P.S.: Master Speed + Juyo + Master Power Attack give 48 extra damage, so at low levels this may be attractive against weak enemies. At high levels you'll do more than 50 damage per attack on average and Power Attack loses out, not counting criticals (where the extra attack from Flurry gives you an extra chance for a crit).

I think you can just equip some items that boost those skills which you do not want (like Stealth) so that their effective skill rank is higher than that of the skill you want Kreia to pick as your weakest. Then equip items which boost the two skills that were chosen (casting Valour might work, too) and reap your bonus.

Hey, you're the man! None of the options on the computer gives any XP but if you select the option to have the droids mine locked doors and the one pickable door is still locked then the game conjures a new droid out of thin air for the cutscene. At least if all droids are gone already. And after the cutscene is over the droid is still there. Brand-spanking new, tailored for your current level, a big fat 125 XP. Minus the 40 XP from lock picking this gives a net gain of 85 XP, 4 times as much as needed. Thanks for sending me back there! :D

The Exile doesn't need any help since even soloing on 'difficult' is pathetically easy. So I usually select party members for their amusement value. If the game had a 'difficult' setting and I were heading into a sticky situation I'd pick T3 and Visas to complement my Guardian - T3 as the ultimate techie and mobile workbench, Visas for stealth and versatility. The droids can be made rather tough and with good blasters they can have insane damage output that Jedi can only surpass by using the Force (AOE attacks or buffs/forms that grant additional attacks over and above Dual-Wielding + Master Flurry/Rapid Shot). Visas is a Sentinel but at least she is a full Jedi; she does not have to excel at anything as long as she can provide good support. Kreia is also a full Jedi but she's handicapped. And the other characters make good Force-enhanced specialists/fighters but never a good Jedi, since you get them too late and in a messed state except maybe Atton. Pity that party members can't take a prestige class, though. At least Deekin could become a Red Dragon Disciple if you wished ... Be that as it may, in some situations it can be advantageous to have Kreia and T3 tag along, simply because only Kreia can give you your prestige class and only Kreia can upgrade the $YOURNAME crystal, which needs to be taken out of the lightsabre for this. Otherwise it can happen that you can never upgrade the crystal fully, because sometimes you don't get a chance to speak with Kreia for long stretches of time and many levels unless she is in your party. If you have talked all your party members to death then it doesn't matter anyway who's parked at the entrance to the current level. P.S.: and if the game had a real hard difficulty setting I'd probably pick Kreia, because then I could put some real heavy armour on the Exile and have Kreia do the buffing via Force link. May also be a good idea for people who botched their builds, especially during early levels.

Munchkin. 'nuff said. " Apart from that I simply used the random name generator.

I agree, that is a very good point. Also, although Kreia would probably eat him for breakfast he is a picture-perfect Bond style super villain while Kreia is more subtle. So Malak makes a perfect Sith Lord while Kreia takes that title/post only because it suits her plans. Pity that we'll never know the story that turns Atris into Darth Traya (although there would also be a bit of a parallel to Malak if you play a male Exile to a female Revan).

Good call, I'll load a save and check the computer for the containment fields. I played with it during my first game and I don't think there was any XP to be gotten, but it is at least a chance. BTW, I was able to make the Harbinger with level 6 (15106 after HK with soloing the dormitories, 15336 with running through the dormitories, punching in the code, and coming back with Kreia to have her watch the action). Also, the point stoffe -mkb- has made regarding spawning enemies is even more useful than I initially thought. The assassins on the Harbinger spawn in fours, and this has two consequences: (1) if you hit a level-up threshold while fighting them then those who fall afterwards will yield less XP; eg. 175 instead of 200 (2) in the crew quarters, the assassins that spawn at level 7 yield 225 XP apiece but at level 6 (and probably level 5) only 200 XP This means the level-up to 7 should occur as early as possible, and either outside combat (e.g. picking locks, watching videos) or when slaying the fourth of an assassin squad, so as not to lose XP. If you watch your XP-o-meter and do the math in your head then this can be timed easily. Two other cases of spawning enemies are in the fuel depot. There is a squad of four droids after you disable the force field (225 XP apiece @ level 7) but more interesting are the two droids that spawn after somebody returns from the fuel depot lift to the area where you can loot three deadly mines. You can visit this area very early with T3, and you have to do this if you want to look inside the rooms with the damaged doors in the dormitories (cannot be bashed or picked, need something stronger than minor mines to open). This time I did not send T3 there as the rooms with the damaged doors never yielded anything even remotely interesting, and therefore I left those rooms unlooted and went to fetch the mines with the Exile, after the Harbinger. So when we returned, the two droids spawned - and yielded 225 XP apiece because they were made to 'fit' (at level 7 as well as at level . If T3 kills them early then they yield 50 XP, I think, but that doesn't matter since T3's XP during the solo venture does not carry over anyway and so it is better to keep T3 from damaging anything while he's trying open the escape hatch (I usually have him open the door with a part/spike from the Ebon Hawk and then I race him past the angry droids).

Of my two completed runs one was female/female and the other male/male. But in singleplayer games with 3rd-person/chasecam view I usually select a female avatar - if I am going to stare at something for hundreds of hours then it may as well be aesthetically pleasing.

This does not seem to be the case for areas where enemies are respawning though. For example on Dxun when the Mandalorian camp is under attack by Sith Assassins. As long as you don't go near the door to the Command Center, the Assassins by the gate and the secondary training circle respawn indefinitely. As you level up, the new ones that spawn become more powerful and give more exp when killed. That is good point. A similar thing seems to happen with the assassins on the Harbinger, and the key point is probably that they are spawned at that point in time. Normal monsters seem to get spawned when you first enter the area, so it is the same principle and it just applies in different ways. Hehe, me too. Not that I minded in any way, except that there were too many Mandalorians who kept getting in the way. In fact, there were so many Mandalorians and so few assassins that Exile & friends were not needed at all.

I've made a save before going to pick the locks, and I am already playing on 'difficult' in order to make the game interesting. In particular the skill checks are not as trivial as on 'normal' or 'easy' and you have to plan a little to make ends meet. For continuing without a cheat I'll resume the save from before picking the locks, as there would be little point in doing them at that time unless they help reaching level 5 before touching the dormitories.

########## STRATEGIES FOR MAXIMIZING XP ########## For those who are interested, a little background on maximizing XP. Generally speaking and glossing over some details, the XP gained from skill checks (locks, mines etc.) increases with character level, quest/conversation XP is fixed and kill XP decreases. So, if you are in some area and you can expect to cross a level-up threshold while you are there then the best overall sequence is - slay monsters - get any fixed XP - do locks, mines etc. after levelling up Combat XP: once you have touched an area the monsters are fixed and they will yield less XP if you gain levels. Or more precisely, if you gain enough XP for higher levels - you don't have to take the level to incur the XP penalty. This can be seen if you gain enough XP for a new level during combat; one foe yields, say, 200 XP and the next to fall gives only 150. Skill check details: XP for picking locks is 10 per character level if DC >= LEVEL + 20, else 5 per level. In particular, the difficult locks that have a DC of LEVEL + 33 give the same XP as simple locks (DC26) as long as your character is level 6 or less. XP for mines is 15 per level if DC >= LEVEL + 20, else 10 per level. The criterion here is the *taken* level, not the amount of XP you have. So you can hold a level if necessary to get over a dip in the XP yield curve, or keep T3 at level 20 for recovering DC40 mines at 350 XP instead of doing it yourself at 250 apiece. Some repairs are level-dependent and some are not. Experiment to see which is which. The damaged droid near the entrance to the mining tunnels on Peragus scales with character level, for example (50 XP per level). Kreia's mentor ability will add a small percentage to XP gained, but it seems that this affects only non-combat XP. But all that is peanuts compared to this: monster stats and loot are fixed when you first enter an area, so you should harvest the monsters immediately or avoid touching the area at that point. If you touch the same area at a higher level then you will generally get better monsters and better loot. For example, in one game I scouted the Jekk'Jekk Tarr and contacted the Lunar Shadow captain immediately before the Red Eclipse ambush, at level 18. During the ambush I gained a level and also took the prestige class, and so I was 2 levels higher when I came back to the Jekk'Jekk Tarr a few minutes later. The bounty hunters were complete pushovers and yielded 100 XP apiece. In another game I was also level 20 for the Jekk'Jekk Tarr thing but I had taken care not to enter the bar before the appointed time. Thus it was the first time I touched the area and the enemies were tailored to level 20, still pushovers but not as pitiful as earlier, and yielding 175 XP apiece. So the difference for this scene alone was about 7500 XP, simply for not sticking my nose into the place before the right time. And that is also the reason why struggling for 20 XP during early levels can have a pay-off to the tune of 10000s down the road.

Yes, the temptation was rather strong and the deed could be accomplished easily ingame (e.g. without console cheats), simply by planting a mine, leaving the area, and recovering the mine after coming back. In fact I did the dirty deed in order to scout, which is how I found out that the level-5 courtesy monsters yield 150 XP instead of the 125 for level 4. But unless I find a legit way of acquiring the missing 20 XP I am going to 'bite into the sour apple' as we Germans say and proceed to the dormitories at level 4. I am still a bit ahead in XP compared to earlier games and so I may be enter the Harbinger at level 6 instead of 'one drift chart download' short of level 6. I might continue the game with the mine trick at another time, simply to see where it leads. But the result would have to be qualified with 'I got my char to level X but I had to cheat for 20 XP at level 4'. And if cheating once is okay, why not cheat twice? Or three times? There are sure to be situations that are close calls in a similar fashion. And why work hard for an hour in order to get an additional 20 XP if you can slay thousands of Hssiss on Korriban in the same time, for XP in the five or six digits? Also, results of different people are not really comparable, unless you codify the XP crutches a bit. So one could say 'I got level 33 with only two mines'. I think something like that could work. We did a somewhat similar thing with "Freelancer Done Quick", where timings competed only with other timings that had the same number of battleship kills or less. So you had T0 timings with no battleship kills, T1 timings with one battleship kill, and so on, and you could really mix up the field by flying an extremely good time with lots of battleship kills (I think my best was close to 4 hours T17, but that was a long time ago and my memory is hazy). So in our case a '0 mines' result would automatically be better than any result that used any mines at all, a '1 mine' result would be better than any result using two or more mines, and so on. For the time being I am going to do an 'M0', no mines, but I'll probably try the 'M1' as well.

During earlier runs through the game it often happened that my Exile was just a few hundred XP short of a new level when entering a new area or planet. In fact, during my first play it happened pretty much all of the time, so often that I thought I was doing something wrong. Enemy stats, loot and other things are determined based on your level when you enter an area for the first time; as a rule the beasts are meaner and the loot is fatter the higher your level is. And this means that entering an area just one kill short of a new level is the worst possible thing one can do with regard to combat fun and loot yield ... The first two areas where my characters were always few hundred XP short of the mark were the Dormitories section and the Harbinger, and so I took care to get every scrap of XP during the early levels this time because I knew the pay-off would be good. So now my brand-new maximum munch character (Munchkin, a wise and very intelligent Guardian) is in the fuel depot on Peragus, standing before the airlock that will lead her to the dormitories. She is standing there with 9980 on the XP-o-meter, just 20 XP short of the new level. I can't bl**dy believe it. There is not a whole lot that can be done to maximize XP on the admin level and the mining tunnels, and I think she has done it all. She killed all droids on the admin level except for one, toggled the switch that deactivates the force field (50 XP for the one remaining droid) and then reprogrammed that droid (60 XP, for a total of 110 XP vs. 100 XP for simply killing it). +10 XP may not look like much but being 20 XP short of 10000 is not fun. En route to Atton Munchkin had also milked the computer in the med bay but ignored the 3 locks, since Security XP scales linearly with level and picking the locks at level 4 yields four times as much XP as picking them on level 1. Upon entering the mining tunnels Munchkin raced past the lowly droids in order to take out all four maintenance droids before crossing the level-3 XP threshold, because at level 2 the maintenance droids yield 125 XP apiece and at level 3 only the same 100 XP as the rest. That accomplished, she thoroughly de-droidified the mining tunnels and fully repaired the damaged droid at the entrance (50 XP per character level, so she got 150 XP). At that point she was still 70 XP short of level 4, so she picked one lock (30 XP) and recovered one mine (45 XP) to level up before cleaning out the area (one more lock @ 40 XP, 11 more mines @ 60 XP). In the fuel depot there was no opportunity for finesse. Munchkin smashed the droids, went around with the Sonic Sensor to record the maintenance engineer's voice (maintenance console, HK, sec desk in Admin) and tricked the HK into speaking the voice lock code in two different ways (Persuade+Sonic, Intelligence+Sonic). She wrapped up several issues by milking the HK and the maintenance console for information (medical treatment, T3, history etc.), after which she was left with 9780 XP. There were five locks that she could pick at 40 per (2 in the depot, 3 on Admin), bringing the total to 9980. 20 XP short of the mark. Bummer. Of course I was somewhat tempted to have her set and recover a mine while I wasn't looking, in order to make up the difference. But that would defeat the whole purpose of this particular game ... There is no real difference between using an infinite exploit to get 20 XP or doing it to get 200000 XP, might as well go to Korriban and slay a couple thousand Hssiss. So, is there a way to get the missing 20 XP? In case anyone wonders, yes it does make a difference. If you enter the dorms at level 4 the lowly droids are configured such that they yield 125 XP, but if you enter at level 5 they are tastier and give 150 XP, for example.

That is strange - if anything, he should have more problems than the Exile because he is always at least one level behind and the amount of points that you can pay into a class skill is capped by (LEVEL + 3). Also, if memory serves Atton has very low Intelligence, he's barely able to speak. I can't see how Atton can open these locks without tunnelers even if you max his Security skill and put all attribute points into Intelligence. Later in the game there are plenty of Security-boosting items but the Exile can use them too, except for a very nice Scoundrel-only item that gives a big Security boost (among other things). T3 would be a different thing. I think he starts with higher Intelligence then you'd ever give your Exile and you can do upgrades that boost INT even more, and so T3 can be better than the Exile even though he is also at least one level behind. Since DC of the difficult locks is based on your level you can plan for them without knowing the exact DC - just make sure the Exile or some other party member can beat Security DC (LEVEL + 33), which basically means keeping the Security skill topped up and a couple tunnelers at hand, in addition to whatever Valour spell you can cast and any items you may have. Early in the game you may even need a spike tunneler. The math is simple. If you keep Security topped up then the unmodded skill rank will be (LEVEL + 3), which is 30 points less than the lock DC. Out of combat you always take 20 on the roll, which leaves 10 skill ranks to beat with INT mod, items and Valour spells. A character with 16 INT has an INT mod of 3, and you can always have at least the basic Valour spell which increases the INT mod by 1. So you have 10 - 3 - 1 = 6 skill points to beat if you don't have any security-boosting items, and a plain tunneler should do that. The difficult locks are rare and if you always keep a few tunnelers at hand then you can use the above math to decide at level-up whether you need to max the Exile's security skill. The more booster items you have and the more potent your Valour spell is the less points you need to pay into Security (i.e. you can afford to trail the allowed maximum by a couple of skill points and spend them elsewhere). P.S.: it might be good idea to put 'bl**dy difficult locks' or something like that in the subtitle of this thread, so that people browsing the forum have a better idea what this topic is about. I think you can do this by editing the top post.

These locks have a DC of (LEVEL + 33) and the DC will be determined/set when you first enter the area where the lock is. There are more such locks in the game; I think the first you encounter is the one on the Harbinger, on the door opposite of the Exile's room. P.S.: to find out what the DC of a lock is, just look at the feedback log after attempting to open the lock.

Hehe, you can get even more XP if you do it non-violently first and fail the Intimidate on the kidnapping issue afterwards. Same for the Serroco, except that you don't need to fail a Persuade/Intimidate here. Negotiate a truce for the settlers and then let the Serroco catch T3 fumbling a lock. Creating a free path for Aidaa so that she can get to her husband in the flophouse requires failing an Intimidate/Persuade, although the situation is resolved automatically if you do the above. So I don't think you can help Aidaa if you have high Persuade but want to role-play a light-side character (as opposed to a murderous psychopath with LS mastery, which is trivially easy although ethically inconsistent). Also, there are quite a number of items and powers that let you boost Persuade but very few that let you un-boost it (and these items seem to occur only in random loot at higher levels). P.S.: during the second trip to Onderon you get an item that boosts INT considerably, meaning that even with mediocre INT you can unlock the convos/upgrades that involve an INT check if you don't mind waiting a little.

How much Persuasion skill does the Exile need in order not to miss anything? On Peragus, a skill rank of 5 or 6 seems to be required in order to get the HK to speak the voice lock code in the dead engineer's voice (250 XP). But as far as I can see this is the only time where Persuade is needed in order to completely complete a quest. On Telos Kreia bails you out if you fail the persuade during the Batu Rem investigation, and apart from that it seems that Persuade gives you no advantage except for saving a few credits here and there. Near the end of the game there is a scene where you can persuade Colonel Tobin for an LSP but at that point in time the game is over anyway so this won't matter for most people. Are there other places where you can miss out on quests/XP if your Persuade is too low? Does anybody know the skill rank requirements for the skill checks involved? Assuming the 'difficult' setting of the three choices for gameplay easiculty. I am planning a max-XP character build and I am pondering whether INT 14 might not be sufficient, since my last INT 16 Guardian had plenty skill points left over. INT 14 instead of INT 16 means sacrificing a feat in order to make up for the lost INT mod but the creation/attribute points that are thus freed for use with other attributes more than make up for this one feat. And the sacrifice may not even be necessary if a Demolition-boosting item is found in the random loot.

I think Obsidian did an excellent job with TSL. In many ways the game is superb and surpasses the original, but there is also the lack of QA/playtesting and the incompleteness due to the rushed schedule. And if you replay the game then it becomes painfully obvious that this is Obsidian's first game.

These locks are moving targets, and it seems their DC depends on your level. Something like level+32 (although I have seen level+33 too). It can throw a monkey wrench in your planning if you assume the lock DCs to be some fixed value. I do not know if the DC is assigned when you enter an area for the first time or if it is always floating, and I also don't know if the game looks at the taken level or at the XP-equivalent level.