Jediphile

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but David Gaider described a lot about Bioware's plans for Sleheyron over on their boards. Restoring it would be impossible, since they never even fleshed it all out. They had some ideas, but cut Sleheyron before ever making any final decisions on what to do on Sleheyron. Still, the basic idea was a power struggle between four competing Hutts with different interests and methods. It all sounds pretty interesting, so you might want to take a look at it here Personally I vote for having Sleheyron in KotOR3 (even included it in my own suggestiosn). I think it sounds like an interesting place.

Yeah, it seems being a sentinel is far more advantageous in KotOR2, since skills are now much more important. In KotOR1 my 'optimal' combination was to begin as scout and advance to level 5, then not advanced further until I made him/her a jedi guardian. Done right that allowed me to complete all quests in the game, including full repairs to HK-47. In KotOR2 skills are far more important in general, so the sentinel becomes attractive, since you can switch to somthing else later. Heck, my first feats usually go toward turning the cross-class skills into class-skills for my sentinel. I lack force jump, but I don't need it as much as I thought I would.

Yeah, seems we've gone way off topic and turned this into a Mystara topic... Sorry if it bores the crap out of people.

Better than getting involved in a flame war... And I will not believe that expressing my thoughts is futile. Nor should I hope anyone else does. Yes, little is likely to come from it, but it's still better than having ideas and saying nothing. We have been asked to voice our ideas here - that's what I'm doing. At least I'll know that I have tried to contribute in some way, no matter how pathetic others might think it is. So if KotOR3 sucks and I criticize and talk about what should have been done, nobody can tell me that I didn't speak up earlier.

In the interest of doing something more positive, I shall now post the final part of my own plot idea for KotOR3. Sorry, but it's a very long post. The earlier parts can be read in previous parts of this topic, if anyone's interested. It's been a while, so I'll start with a short outline... The story so far... The new main character has come across Bastila while the few remaining jedi have lived in fear of the returned Darth Nihilus. Fleeing Coruscant with his master, he came across Bastila, but lost his master in battle with the Sith. Through various events they have met old friends like Jolee on Sleheyron and Mission and Zaalbar on Myrkr, where the force is suppressed by the native Ysalamir, and eventually they found the flagship of Darth Nihilus. Joining all of the Exile's old friends, who now form the basis of the struggling jedi ranks trying to rebuild the order, they confronted Nihilus only to find out that the new Nihilus was really the Exile. Following Revan, the Exile had entered the Sith empire, where he found Revan. Revan had reverted to the dark side, however, and turned to the Exile to the dark side as well, thereby making him the new Darth Nihilus. With their combined powers and friendship for the Exile, they are able to turn him and learn of Revan's whereabouts in the Sith empire. Though Revan has turned to the dark side again, he continues his cause to destroy the true Sith by creating a civil war among their ranks and challenging the rank of current dark lord. The main character, Bastila, the Exile and a few others decide to find Revan and see if they can aid his cause and, perhaps, turn him back to the light side as well. They enter Sith space and look for Revan on Khar Shian, where Revan has turned the old base of Naga Sadow into a training ground for his own Sith. After many struggles the group learns that Revan has been betrayed and captured by the true Sith on Ziost, and that the true Sith are planning a final assault on the Republic soon. They travel to Ziost to find and free Revan. They don't know that the true Sith have manipulated Revan into thinking that the jedi, some of them his old friends, have come to kill him before he can become too great a threat. This results in a battle between Revan and the group, but they are eventually able to turn Revan and flee Ziost. The dark lord of the true Sith, Taras Hassek, has now begun his invasion of the Republic by performing a preemptive strike on Coruscant to both topple the Republic and kill the few remaning Jedi and younglings struggling to rebuild the order there... Part 5: For the endgame, the group is returning to the Republic to stop the Sith attack and confront Taras Hassek, the dark lord of the true Sith. There is a good deal of uncertainty, though, because Revan is still marked by the ties to the dark side, and the rest of the group are uncertain of where his/her loyalties lie. But they have little choice but to trust Revan, since they cannot fight the final battle without him/her. Even if reverted toward the light side, Revan will show flashes of the dark side at times. The group is split into three with each of the protagonists of the games leading one. While they do, Carth leads the Republic forces in a major space/air battle - KotOR games are not starfighter games, so we should leave that to characters outside the player's control. Besides, it will finally give Carth a true moment of glory to shine in rather than just being a supporting character in the overall plot. Note that in the endgame there will be more companions to choose from if Revan, the Exile, and the new main character are all light side, since this is the advantage of the jedi. After all, Sith lords have no friends to help them out when things get tough - they have "friends" only for as long as these are convenient, so there will be fewer people to help them. For example, Jolee will make an appearance if Revan and the main character are both light side, but he'll have no replacement if one of them was dark side, because either the Revan or the main character will have killed Jolee by then. If you're dark side, then the main character takes the mission to confront Taras Hassek described for Revan belong - you want to replace him and become the new dark lord, after all. As a Sith, you really couldn't care less whether the true Sith destroy the Republic forces or whether the remaining jedi and the padawan children are killed. Those issues might be important, but not until you've taken the throne of dark lord from Taras Hassek. Then you can sit down and begin structuring your empire and planning your resources... Revan's group has Bastila in it (rest is optional) and goes to confront Taras Hassek and his companion Sith Lords on their capital ship. This will be an epic battle of force powers and lightsaber duels at the top of the power-scale available. This will be a tough endfight, where the player will need to use every advantage. This should actually be played last, but I describe it first, because the companions in this group should be chosen first. The Exile's group should have Mandalore/Canderous in it (rest is optional) and represents the group forces that go to fight the invading Sith. This will be a bit like the clone attack at the end of Episode II with the Exile leading the Mandalorians like Mace Windu led the clone troopers, except that the only jedi will be those in the group. This should be done a bit like the Sith attack on the Mandalorian camp on Dxun in KotOR2, except there will be constant respawns on when troops go down. However, the Exile has unique abilities. If he is light side, for example, his Force Enlightenment (as learned in KotOR2) extends his level of Force Valor not just to the group but to his entire platoon of ground forces! This is a bit of a fake, of course, since only the group's actions will really matter - the rest is just active background - and the group needs to find and defeat the enemy commanders, led by Taras Hassek's apprentice Del Gor-Ulm, as well as kill a set number of enemy soldiers, but the player should be able to note that the Exile's use of group-affecting force powers has an effect on the battle field. It would also be nice if, at the end of the battle, the game awards bonus xp and influence with Mandalore based on how many Mandalorians survived - that would be a nice reward for taking out the enemy leaders quickly rather than rewarding senseless monster bashing... (Or even better, the Sith leaders will appear after the required number of enemy soldiers have been killed and automatically attack the group, so that abusing the respawn is impossible. Also, the bonus xp for the battle beyond the enemy commanders is based on the number of allies left rather than the number of enemy soldiers killed when the Sith leaders fall - that way you're rewarded for taking out the Sith leaders quickly). The main character's group is chosen freely from any remaining companions. This mission should actually be played first. The group's task is to save the remaining jedi students - younglings - by rushing to the jedi temple and helping them. This will be a bit like the way Padm

Like I said, there are several instances where you can accuse GL and LA for that. The problem is that you chose to make that accusation on a subject it just wasn't relevant because no such inconsistency or unraveling of continuity exists. I'm not sure why they dropped the idea of using Vima, but surely that choice doesn't constitute a breach of continuity. On the contrary, it avoids such a breach like the plague. Well, you certainly aren't shy on dealing it out yourself, so I thought you could take a dose of your own medicine. Obviously I was mistaken. My apologies to the list. I shall, which is why I have omitted the abuse of the rest of your post. I shall do so because Calax asked me to, however. That way you can rest secure that you don't owe me any favors.

Yes. I even planned to use those stats to run mass combat during the upcoming civil war in Rockhome (one of the PCs is a dwarf), but I might not get around to it now, since I'll have to close my campaign sooner than I hoped. Shame really... Yup, definitely more complex than 'advanced' D&D, which never had details like that. AD&D had only rules for dungeon-crawling PCs, but in the old rules you could actually build and run your own dominions and so. Never got around to actually doing it myself, though. True, but it's a sore point to mention in the Mystara community, because many hate the Planescape cosmology with a vengeance. Personally, I never quite understood why, since Planescape cosmology looks remarkably similar to that of OD&D. The old rules had a few more planes in there, but I never understood why there wasn't room for those in AD&D - the Planescape setting certainly didn't prohibit it, so the two are not mutually exclusive IMHO. Same goes for Spelljammer btw, but it remains a sore subject for some reason.

Well, to be perfectly blunt, it depends a lot of how much the players know about the HW. To those who don't know Mystara (and are still reading this...), I should explain that the HW was set up by the Immortals (i.e., gods) as a sort of museum for extinct cultures i the outer world - if one was destroyed by catastrophe or conquest or whatever, the Immortals would take a token few of the people in question and move them to the HW, then alter their memories so they'd think they had always lived there. That way all cultures of the world would be preserved in some form in spite of potential distinction. The Immortals also set it up so that the cultures they had saved would not destroy each other. To that end they created a spell called the Spell of Preservation (or just SoP), which affects the entire HW. It basically enforce a cultural bias on the people of the HW so that they cannot evolve further for any reason - they cannot learn superior technology from other nations or gain greater strategic insight from fighting wars with each other. They can conquer land from each other, but not all of it - no culture can ever be destroyed there. In some sense this makes the HW a little boring since the cultures cannot evolve and the HW will always be static - there can be no real change there. Lots of things can happen, but there will be no genuine growth. So while I like that as an opportunity for the PCs to explore, I would not want to play a PC from such a setting myself. It also limits the political potential a lot, since it can only ever go so far before the Immortals' fail-safe kicks in. Well, that's true... Most, yes, but not all. The Ierendi gaz follows the gaz format rather closely, but nobody ever uses it - it's just plain dull and doesn't inspire much interesting role-playing. Some say it's because Ierendi is an island nation cut off from the continent of Brun (where most of the Known World lies), but that is also true for the Minrothad Guilds, and they are far more interesting (though also lacking in NPC descriptions...) It would definitely have helped. I would have liked to read more about those ghastly Shattenalfen, for example... The Blacklore elves could also have been rather interesting. Yeah, I always found Bargle more interesting than von Hendriks. They are very typical villains, all black and nasty, though. The Heldannic Knights have more potential, since they are heroes or villains depending on your point of view. My players hate them, so it was a joy to have them come to the rescue against Thar's orcish hordes when Darokin was under siege in WotI. I played it right, too - the PCs were defending peace-loving Darokin from the orcs, but the forces were being pushed back, and just as things looked really dire, there were horns in the distance and the Heldannic Knights circled the defenders camps, making the players go, "Oh crap - not the HKs as well...", and then they saved them instead of invading. The looks on my players' faces was most satisfying, though strangely they didn't thank me... No, I don't think anything like that was written elsewhere. If there was, I certainly haven't seen it. We can thank Allston for that stroke of genius too, since he wrote the first one. Sure, that was in some part inspired by the timeline of WotI, but then that was also written by Allston.

I think the biggest gripe with it was that some of the nations did really stupid things. I've heard Mystara-fans say that the nations involved showed less sense of strategy and tactics than three-year-olds playing RISK - ouch! There's even some truth it. I mean, Glantri is hated by its neighbours in Ethengar, yet when Alphatia decides to go to war with Glantri, they never seek alliance with Ethengar toward that end. That's pretty silly, and people are right to point that out. Some of the fanmade almanac has since mentioned that this was because the Alphatians did approach Ethengar, but were pretty arrogant about the whole thing by treating them as stupid savages, and so the potential for an alliance ended before it began, because Ethengar saw no difference between Glantrian wizards and Alphatian wizards. That makes perfect sense, but Allston should have mentioned that in WotI - it's a very convenient excuse for not using an obvious point of attack. The real problem with WotI is that it only has three well-described adventures and then a timeline to describe six years of war. They should have done it as a stand-alone box instead of trying to sell revised Immortals-rules with the same product. Obviously Allston is not going to be able to write adventures spanning six years of war, but three is very little, and each GM is left to fill in all the blanks (and there are many) for himself. Still, I guess I just like that myself - it sparks idea and gives me room to maneuver my plots. Doing the same is far more difficult in the PWA series, where the dates are specific. You don't have to follow them strictly, of course, but they do constitute canon, and so subsequent events will be based on them... I must say that I like the fact that the rules are there more than I like the rules themselves. I like that I can tell my players, "Yes, you can become Immortal - there are extensive rules for that", but in the end the chances are slim to none that I'll ever use them - mortal PCs are much more interesting than Immortal ones, if you ask me.

Amen! To push Mystara as entry-level is to misunderstand the setting - it's far more poltical and "grey" than FR will ever be, and to put the nations in a black/white light is dangerous to any player. Mystara fans hate most of the AD&D stuff because it's all directed at new players with adventures and supplements that are very basic in nature and clearly directed at new players. Attracting new players to Mystara is good, but what chance do they have to understand the setting if there is no introductory set? They should have done a Mystara campaign set with information similar to that of the D&D Cyclopedia (by in AD&D format) or the HW boxed set. We still suffer from the fact that they didn't, since nobody has ever written a general and comprehensive overview of Mystara - you can only get a feel for the setting by reading about each nation in turn, but that's difficult since they're all interconnected, and more so after the events of WotI. So new players never had a chance, and old players hated the basic/entry-level approach. They also hated the CDs, though I actually don't know why. They were very simple, but they were good fun to some extent IMHO. Actually 15 if you count the Dawn of the Emperors (DotE) boxed set covering the empires of Thyatis and Alphatia (though it was never given a number in the gazetteer series for some odd reason that defies explanation). Sorry, I'll stop splitting hairs now Well, the HW gazs were slim, since only three were ever published. Not enough to cover the HW, but then HW had its own box set for the whole setting, so it was not so necessary - those gaz just fill in more detail about the nations in question, so I consider them mostly valuable while the Known World gazs are essential role-playing tools. Not all the original gaz were equally good, however. Allston set the standard when he wrote gaz1 about Karameikos, but gaz2 about Ylaruam doesn't follow the format at all (it has no descriptions of NPCs, for example, which to this day has left Ylaruam as a boring and ill-described place). Gaz3 about Glantri was written by Heard, however, and very clearly followed in the footsteps of the gaz1 format, as did most of the subsequent gaz. Too bad they never got to do nations like Heldann, Essuria or Wendar in the gaz series, though... More detail on Alphatia would also have been nice - it's bleedin' huge! I mean, they barely even described the continent of Bellisaria in the D&D material, for example! Exactly. I love the info for all the kobold tribes. You can hunt them down or try to settle the matter peacefully or whatever - the background info is all there and just waiting for the PCs to try something and the GM to decide what he will allow. Nor do I. In fact, my players are reaching the end of events in PWA1 right now. One PC has the Black Eagle as his arch-enemy, so he's about to be very happy when the halflings kick out his sorry butt (I love that they let the halflings do that - they're not just couch-potatoes after all!) Oh, and the Almanacs are still being written to this day, though now they're being written by the fans. AC 1014-1018 are available free for download from the site I mentioned earlier, and AC 1019 is still being written. They tend to be fairly large, though - the AC 1017 almanac was 800+ pages, though most was info of the nations that is quite well known already.

I like both, though not nearly as much as the Known World part. I never played in the Red Steel area (though I have all the material), and I only ever played in the HW (that's short for Hollow World) when my players went through the events of WotI (which is short of Wrath of the Immortals - a huge adventure of large wars that cover six years of conflict in the Known World and completely alter the power structure - a few nations even disappear!). HW is a fun idea, though, and I've considered doing many things with it. It was fun to play a campaign where two characters (and naturally their players) knew that the Hollow World existed (because they'd been there in WotI), while the two other PCs knew nothing and didn't have a clue, since the first two PCs were prohibited from telling them about it by a Geas spell that the Alphatians had placed on them to prevent the existence of the HW to become common knowledge. Naturally this caused a lot of wonder and suspicion in the group, when the book revealing the truth of HW was published (by Claransa, as per Poor Wizard's Almanac 1), and the two other characters realized that their friends had known this for years (in game and outside) without ever telling them anything - yes, I'm that evil as a GM So the HW has lots of potential. It's basically a museum of extinct cultures in the outer world set by the Immortals (no gods on Mystara, but it's the same thing). Red Steel also has potential, though I was never so attracted to the red curse and the odd abilities it bestowed on people. Red Steel was really Bruce Heard's baby from the "Voyage of the Princess Ark" column in Dragon - it's about an Alphatian skyship (a flying, magical ship - though his *was* rather ununusal) boldly going where no man... eh, I mean exploring Mystara, while being in the occasional conflict with the evil Kling... er, I mean expansionist Heldannic Knights, who pursue them in their flying warbirds.... It was actually far more fun that it may sound like :D Aaron Allston (yes, that's the same Allston that wrote several of the X-Wing novels) was never involved with Red Steel, and I think it shows a little. To the uninitiated, I consider Bruce Heard and Aaron Allston to be the founding fathers of Mystara, since at least one of them has always been involved in the core works that defined the setting (B10 being a notable exception). Allston became central to role-playing when he wrote Gazetteer 1 about Karameikos and so defined the format of the gazetteer series that remains a high standard for other role-playing products to aspire to. Still, as you can probably tell, I always found myself more attracted to the political landscape of the Known World region. WotI is hated by many, but I loved the potential it gave me to cause massive changes in the world and let the players see their world fall apart around them. We're still dealing with the fallout of that war.

That's no disagreement, and certainly no inconsistency. Most likely using Vima was just associated with too much trouble, so they pushed the whole thing a few decades, which is a time of Star Wars not covered anywhere in canon or EU. It was simple easier and gave Bioware more freedom to tell whatever story they wanted, since it would cause no trouble with the Sunriders. If I had been a storyteller, I probably would have made the same choice, since you really don't need Vima in KotOR1. Even if she did inspire the character of Bastila, this still gave Bioware far more freedom to develop the character. Bastila's fascination with the dark side would and yet complete lack of knowledge of it have been far more difficult explain for Vima, since she has more insight having been trained by Ulic himself. What's the big problem, Mentaldigifool?

Ah, okay. I was wondering, and didn't remember if the original idea was for Vima or Nomi herself. We don't know much about Vima's life as a jedi, but Nomi did indeed have the jedi ability for Battle Meditation. So when I heard of the original intent for Bastila, I thought they might have meant her, but be denied the use of her and then decided to push the plot 50 years into the future, so that they wouldn't have to deal with "Tales of the Jedi" characters that they weren't allowed to use anyway. Hmm, there might even be some truth to that assumption, since Vima would have been 50 to 60 years in KotOR1 otherwise... Not much of romance that will sell games there, I think...

Ooo, touchy! I was making a general comment on the state of the continuity of the EU, as it is handled by GL. Every time he makes a new film, he completely ignores any continuity restrictions in order to expediently deliver the new revisionist view of SW that appeals to him at the moment. And the continuity is consistent because ...? Wher are the missing Sunriders? I put it to you that the only reason GL hasn't contradicted the continuity of this period is because he hasn't made any significant contribution to it, yet. What's wrong, "Jediphile" ( ), don't like anyone criticising "The Gospel according to St George"? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not at all, "Mentaldigital", I'll criticize Lucas whenever I think he does something wrong. By the time of the movies the Sunriders are 4000 years into the past - why should they have any significance at that time, much less be remembered at all? As I said, we have plenty of ammunition to use against Lucas already, but here is actually an area where there is no inconsistency, so what's the problem? You'd have far more ammunition if you accused Lucas for allowing Zahn to place the events leading to the devastation of the Noghri (sp?) homeworld more than 40 years into the past with references to the civil war between the Empire and the Rebellion, when Lucas then later sets the fall of the old republic later than that. But the point you have chosen to blame Lucas for here is unfair, since there is actually no inconsistency.

I didn't know that! How near do you have to be Mandalore's "office" till they stop respawning??? Do you have to stay near the sparring pit, or can you go to the other side ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'd give it about as wide a berth as possible, since you don't need to get really close at all for the last group to spawn. Keeping distance isn't the problem, though. No, the problem is that your companions tend to rush into battle and get them to spawn. And yes, they'll do so even if set them to ranged or jedi support, since they'll hunt down enemies when the current opposition goes down, and that invariably brings them too close to Mandalore's office. My advice is to drop any and all companions and let the Exile fight the battle alone. Power levels shouldn't be a huge problem, since they'll be based off your own level, and in any event, you can always stay close to the Mandalorian soldiers or even turn and run to them if things turn against you. That said, I did play a high level (15 or so) sentinel when I did that part, so I'm sure about lower levels, but since it's based off your level, I doubt it'll be a huge problem. Funny thing, btw, since I was so high level, the final group was a push-over compared to the spawning Sith... If you're playing lightside, I advice the spawning Sith on Dxun to the Hsiss on Korriban, since your force power doesn't regenerate right on Korriban (something to do with the area's connection to the dark side), and you'll want to heal your wounds, since Hsiss pack quite a punch - even with a powerful Exile that can finish off two Hsiss in a few attacks, you'll still take a lot of damage, so keep that in mind.

What on Earth are you babbling about?!? We can flame GL all we want and for many reasons, but what has been said here that deserves that? This part of Star Wars continuity actually seems fairly consistent.

Actually, that's pretty much the conclusion Monte Cook reached when reviewing D&D 3.5, and he was one of the designers of 3e. According to him, 3.5 was released for the potential of profit and not because there was something wrong with the system. He knew that because an update was proposed by WotC while he was still designing 3e with Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams. The designers tried to fight the idea that an 'update' should come after a few years, but after leaving WotC, Monte Cook describes in his review that apparently WotC forced the update even earlier than orginally planned. No, he didn't flame the whole thing and hate it all - he did like a lot of the changes - but he also said that 3.5 caused a lot of problems because it came too soon and left players in confusion as to which edition of D&D they were really playing. Maybe it's just me, but I found it damn funny that he criticized 3.5, when he was one of the original designers of 3e. If we follow that strategy, then D&D 3.7 or 4.0 or whatever can't be far away now...

Yes. Especially when it actually turned out to be way more complex than 'advanced' D&D... I mean, the old Gazetteer series had new skills and alternate classes almost every time. That's way more complex than the crappy kits of AD&D. It was annoying for the same reason, though. For example, every gazetteer also had a tendency to redefine the skills so that important skills suddenly worked differently and were based on different stats in each nation. I prefer to have one standard to sort all that out and then stick with that. That's why I played OD&D Known World with AD&D rules long before the AD&D Mystara setting was declared - AD&D gave me one standard proficiency base to operate from, so I stuck with that. And some of all those new classes were pretty silly IMHO (taken the "Master" class for the halflings, for example... That could have been done a lot better - speaks volumes that that gaz was written by Ed 'Forgotten Realms' Greenwood...). I see the same thing happening in d20 D&D today (for the classes I mean), which is another reason why I don't like the system - every new rulebook or supplement introduces "new cool classes and feats that you just must have in your campaign because they're more powerful than ever before, but certainly don't unbalance your game, and definitely are not released because WotC wants more $$..."

Thanks, that's praise indeed. I do pride myself on having been able to keep my players' interest for ten years running and counting, but it would have been difficult with a campaign that just wasn't very interesting. In case anyone is interested in Mystara, WotC declared a number of official sites for the "dead" worlds, and Mystara's is here.

Er, no. Sorry, but you're mistaking the age of KotOR with the age of Naga Sadow. It's true that some of the Tales of the Jedi comic books (the "Golden Age of the Sith" and "Fall of the Sith Empire" series) do take place around 5000 before the Battle of Yavin, but the other Tales of the Jedi stories (the original five issues and the "Freedon Nadd Uprising", "Dark Lords of the Sith", "Sith War", and "Redemption" series) all take place about a thousand years after around 4000 before the Battle of Yavin (bBY). The earliest of these (the original five issues about Ulic and Nomi) take place 4000 bBY, while the last ("Redemption") takes place place around 3986 bBY. The "Sith War" was set around 3996 bBY, and since KotOR1 takes place about 50 years later, it probably takes place around 3956 bBY and KotOR2 around 3951 bBY. I'd say Nomi was still in her 20s during the Sith War, which would put her in her 70s or 80s at the time of the KotOR games. She might have died of old age by then, but she also might still be alive. Even if we discount the timeline speculation, it's still clear that Nomi could not have lived a thousand years before, since the only time we hear of her in KotOR1 is when Jolee remembers her, which would be impossible unless he is a thousand years old himself...

Atton: "We've arrived at Malachor V. Jeeze, look at that thing. How in the blazes do you people expect me to land the ship in that god-forsaken nest of sharp, pointy rocks, much less take off again?" Exile: "Don't worry - the programmers will have long since run out of time by then..." :D

I vote Bastile, but only among the choices available. Otherwise I would have voted Kreia and the mouth of my blaster

All I can say is that common wisdom seems to indicate otherwise, and my own experience tends to support that idea. A friend of mine played the Exile as a Guardian turned Sith Lord and said it was the ultimate combination. I played Exile as a Sentinal turned Weapon Master, however, and cannot complain about the results in any way. Your mileage may wary...

Well, there is little question that the OD&D (or Basic D&D) material is far better than the AD&D rubbish they publised. The Explorer's Guide in the Karameikos set was good, especially with all the illustrations (which had been lacking before), but the rest was utter garbage. Heck, the Grimoire in the Glantri set wasn't even updated to reflect all of the changes of Wrath of the Immortals, and so the description of the Nucleus of the Spheres was just the same as in gaz3 despite being reprogrammed at the end of the war... Of course, they never finished the AD&D project, because it died. The problem was that they tried to push Mystara as an entry-level AD&D world, which indicates major misunderstanding of the setting and consequent flaws in the strategy given how politically complex and "grey" the nations of that campaign really are. It's what makes Mystara great, though - no all black or white heroes or villains. Even good King Stefan has to stab his own in the back from time to time, which makes for much better role-playing that the endless "good vs. evil" and "chosen of the gods" stuff in FR. Mystara is inhabited by people instead of all heroes and villains. So yes, the original OD&D stuff - particulary the early adventuring modules and the gazetteer series is some of the best D&D stuff around. Heck, some of it is even among the best role-playing material in general - I count B10: Night's Dark Terror among the best adventures ever made for any RPG. You can't play it outside Mystara, however, since it is so closely tied to gods, races, and places that exist only Mystara. It's what makes it great, though - it really uses the setting's detail to create depth that is very compelling. Er, sorry about the Mystara rant, everybody... :">

Well, I don't know. I was just speculating because I know they couldn't use Nomi in KotOR1, but it may just as well be that Lucasarts just didn't want to commit those characters to a computer game. After all, Nomi would come with a lot of history that gamers might know nothing about, while fans of the comic books would suddenly wonder about later references to her association with Revan, if more comic books were made about her after the events of KotOR1 in the timeline. If Lucasfilm's policy is that anything published as Star Wars becomes their property, then it's unlikely Veitch would own anything, and neither would Dark Horse. It doesn't seem that Zahn owns much, either - he created Mara Jade, yet I doubt anyone asked him about how she has subsequently been used in both comic books and, particularly, the novels (not that I'm implying dislike for them - I know some people hate those novels and Mara Jade's role in them, but I'm not one of them).