Jediphile

Should you know? Well depends on how much of a Star Wars freak you are. She did participate in the Clone Wars cartoon didn't she? Yes, she did. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shaak_Ti

Indeed. I wouldn't have thought it legal to have these online, but then I suppose 2e is now so old that WOTC doesn't care anymore. Anyway, to see how it works, consult the Critical Hit section in Combat & Tactics. I used to follow that pretty closely in my campaign with the following house rules. I had two notable rulechanges, though. For one, I revised the Weapon vs. Creature Size table that determines the severity of a critical. In my rules it looked like this: Weapon vs. Target Size - Dice Roll Weapon size is 4 or more sizes < target size - 1d4 Weapon size is 3 sizes < target size - 1d6 Weapon size is 2 sizes < target size - 2d4 Weapon size is 1 size < target size - 1d6+1d4 Weapon size is = target size - 2d6 Weapon size is 1 size > target size - 2d8 Weapon size is 2 sizes > target size - 2d10 Weapon size is 3 or more sizes > target size - 2d12 You'll rarely use the extremes of this list, since most will fall into the M vs. M, S vs. L or similar categories, but note that it means that a critical hit struck against a halfling (size S) from the claw of a huge dragon (size H) will be lethal, since it would fall into the 3+ sizes category and so have a severity of 2d12 (natural weapons are usually one size category lower than the creature, so since large dragons are usually size G, that will make their claws size H). And of course, even a human or elf would still face a 2d10 severity if critically hit by that dragon's claw. Keep your distance, folks! Also, if the critical hit was scored on a natural 20, I added a +1 bonus to the above results to reflect the special status of a natural 20. As mentioned before, I also made some additions to the thief's backstab ability, so that it became associated with critial hits:

Agreed. While I like the NPCs of both games (yes, even G0T0), I've always wondered what the point of up to 10 NPCs was, when you could only take two of them with you in the group. Having a few above the number allowed in the group is okay because it allows the player some variety and strategy in to construct the active group, but honestly, how many of us used T3 in K1 or G0T0 in TSL? I'd rather have fewer characters with more dialogue and story to them. I mean, as much as I like Visas, you can have one long conversation with her when she joins the group in TSL, and if you're thorough in that conversation, she has virtually nothing more to say for the rest of the game. Actually, same pretty much goes for Mira. And Bao-Dur may be a softspoken, quiet guy, but is that really all he has to say? TSL was an improvement over K1 in this regard, but the characters should still have much, much more contribute with and far more spontaneous comments to make on the protagonist's choices. The original movies had less major characters: Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, 3PO, R2 and Ben (replaced by Lando in ESB and ROTJ). That's seven major characters, which is fine to me. Obviously HK and T3 will be droids, and we have the protagonist. Four more beyond that is enough, although in KotOR games, at least two of those should probably be jedi/sith. Besides, less characters gives each of them a better chance to be a prominent influence in the plot. How much impact did Juhani or T3 have in K1 or Mira or Disicple in TSL? They could probably have been cut with very little impact to the plot...

You might wanna' be careful around the Revan fanboys. Not to mention those who think highly of Palpatine. Yeah, we don't want to get into one these "Revan was the greatest ever (because I played him" - "No, Palpatine was the greatest Sith ever, 'cos George Lucas said so" flamewars...

http://www.starwarsknights.com/tools.php#Kotor

It'll reduce the problem, but it won't make it go away. Since I hated 3e's muncking approach, my D&D experience lies mostly with AD&D 2e rules, where I used the Player Option rulebooks along with my own houserules. The Combat & Tactics book as a critical hits system that works fairly well with D&D rules. Essentially if you hit someone with a natural 18, 19 or 20 *AND* beat his AC by a margin of five or more, you score a critical hit, which means you inflict double damage. The target must then roll a save vs. death or suffer an additional effect, depending on where you hit him (which can be rolled randomly unless specificed beforehand by the player with a "called shot") and the size of the weapon used compared to the target's size. For instance, a critical hit will be more lethal if done with a two-handed sword (size Large) against a halfling (size Small) than if done with a Longsword (size Medium) against a hill giant (Size Huge). Basically the rules have a "weapon vs. creature size" table for how severe the effects can be, since the higher the weapon is compared to the creature size, the greater the chance will be of rolling a high value on the dice used. I modified that table in my own game to make things even more severe, so that a short sword will have very little chance of really injuring a large dragon, while a pixie may be devastated by being hit by a lance. I also included special rules for backstabs, so that any backstab would always be a critical hit and possibly fatal (save vs. death or die), if a critical hit was actually scored on the attempt. Never got to use it much, since the players preferred warriors and wizards, but I felt satisfied it make thieves and assassins a good deal more dangerous again. The problem is that those values were always assigned rather arbitrarily, and like so many things in D&D, the rules are now stuck with them. For example, are elves really in poorer health than most creatures? I don't get that impression reading Lord of the Rings... Are gnomes more intelligent in general than humans? Not really, but you've got to give them a bonus somewhere because, well, they're demihumans and so must have modifiers. And while you could argue a WIS bonus for half-elves on the basis of their status as outsiders in both societies, the classic elf has always been wiser than the average human and so can make an argument for the same bonus. And why should half-elves get a CHA penalty? They're outsiders, sure, but so are all demihumans in a human society. At least half-elves can often pass for humans, where elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings cannot. Frankly, I think if elves should have a penalty, it would make more sense to STR than CON, though I'd limit it to -1 to show that they are just that but more limited in physical strength than humans and dwarves. I'd give elves a penaty not on CHA as such but on NPC Reactions when meeting non-elves, because elves tend to come off as rather arrogant or at least superior to other humanoid species (I prefer that term to 'race'). In general, I think a CHA penalty applies only to orcs and half-orcs. Dwarves are not uncharismatic, but they may appear so to non-dwarves because of their gruff nature. I'd replace a lot of those CHA penalties with disfavorable NPC reaction modifiers that reinforce the strained relationships between the various humanoid species. Sure that dwarf may seem less charismatic, but only to a human or elf, not to another dwarf, so why should he be penalized on a general level? Limit his beginning CHA to 16 or so if you must, sure, but don't give him a penalty. Sorry, I'm probably not much help here. I've long since given up on making sense of D&D rules, and 3e and now 4e have scarcely made it better...

Nonsense. Buying and paying for games and music gives you the right to consume it privately. If I knew how, I could crack the heck out of every movie, game or cd I ever bought without breaking any rules as long as I don't give copies to other people or share it over the internet. And buying two copies to avoid tear and wear is ludicrous. While I'm sure the companies (and gaming companies are scarcely the worst there) would love that, they would do so only by letting their own money-loving tendency rear its ugly head. For example, if I buy a cd, I can rip the music down to my harddrive because that's how I prefer to listen to it. How are games any different? The customer is ALWAYS right! (Note: A pirate didn't pay and so is not a customer)

I am skeptical as to how much money PC game development really makes, especially since PC Exclusive titles seem less common, and many development houses that once supported PC games no longer do. Obviously it is preferable to release a game over several platforms, because while you need to program the game for each, you only need to design characters and backgrounds, write music, record voiceacting and develop the plot once. PC Gaming does not make more money than the movies do, you're talking about the videogame industry in general, which everybody knows the bulk of the revenue today comes from the console game companies. The Crysis developers aren't saying that the piracy of video games is why they made their decision, but the piracy of PC games. As an avid PC gamer that does not feel like PC gaming is going to die, I do feel that PC gaming is on the decline. I never said pc gaming specifically, so kindly do not try to infer that I did. I consistently spoke of the gaming industry, because the history of comptuer gaming goes back way before the pc was a viable platform for computer games. The pc didn't have much piracy in the mid 80s, but the C64 did. After that it was mainly Amiga and Atari ST. And in each case, there were these talks of how piracy would destroy the basis for the new games being produced. But it never happened, and they grew into their own industry instead. Obviously piracy is potentially detrimental to computer games, and while I don't believe the claim that a copied game equals a lost sale by definition, the counterargument is equally unconvincing. Piracy is not a good thing for the industry. And piracy does occur on the consoles too. I'm less certain if it's as widespread as it is on the pc, but I fairly certain that it will be, if games really are produced less for the pc. Bad as it may seem, piracy is just a fact of life in the gaming industry, and it always will be. The idea that consoles are impervious to piracy is ludicrous. The idea that registration over the internet will solve everything is equally self-delusional, because the hackers/crackers/pirates/whatever they are called today always find a way around it. But it does not mean the end of gaming. And franky I doubt pc piracy is the primary reason for the success of consoles. For one thing, buying a console is a lot cheaper than buying a pc. But the games are more expensive, and they are easier to program, because the developers don't have to consider programming that is compatible for multiple soundcards, graphics-chips, and CPU-speed into account, since the specs on various consoles are virtually identical respectively. And since prices tend to be higher, they make more money too. After all, the developers and publishers don't have to worry about Sony selling the PS3 with a loss. It's not their problem. Customers tend to overlook that they pay a little more for games on the consoles. Besides, MS and Sony may even pay devs to release titles exclusively for their system to promote it. No such thing on the pc. And exclusivity can be a great benefit to a console, where games is the only selling point. I'm still miffed that I must buy a PS2 to try the 24 game, for example (not that I'm getting one just to play one game). And if consoles is where the devs see more money, then that's where they will go. It's really quite that simple. In short, pc games sell at a lower price than console games, and so makes less money for the publishers and developers. And sometimes the manufacturers of the consoles will pay publishers and developers to release games for their consoles, making them even more money. Taking that into account, where would you publish your games?

Not really. I sort of like him too. If he was less preachy and less naive, he'd be a nice enough guy to have on the team. True. This is exactly why I prefer Visas over Brianna as a love interest for the male exile. The problem is that given Mical's feelings for the exile, he is scarcely in a position to make an objective decision on the matter. In fact, he was so much in love with female exile that he would have no one else train him. That being the case, he has no choice but to disagree with the jedi code on this matter when he consider that he did want to be a jedi. Yet he is a lovestruck little puppydog when he wants it. His only redeeming characteristic in that regard is that he at least does not preach the jedi ban on relationships at the same. Somehow that doesn't quite justify it for me, since he seems unaware of just how much he violates that part of the code himself. Mical is a very immature person in this regard and should be about the last person to be trained as a jedi until he comes to terms with his feelings for the female exile. The problem is that while you've quoted Mical correctly here, you've left out the very part that does make him look creepy, unstable and immature. Mical: "And I knew that if I were to have a Master, I would want it to be you. And then you went to war. Many Jedi went to war, and the Jedi Masters proclaimed that you were Jedi no longer. Atris, the mistress of the archives, was first among them. I knew at that moment, that if you would no longer be a Jedi, then you must be correct. I realized I did not want to be a Jedi - instead, I wished to follow your path. And in any event, there was no one to train me, even if I wished it. They all went to war, as I grew past the age of acceptance.It is possible to forget the Force, you know - if you not have felt it strongly enough, then there is little to miss. But I never felt the Force as strongly as I did when I was with you.And so I decided to serve the Republic, study the Jedi teachings, gather them, perhaps. It was important to me to understand the Jedi now that they were gone.I felt some part of you should be preserved, so that your lessons would not be lost." Whoa, down boy - that's way, WAY over the top!!

1. HPs are not realistic. Not because having a measure of damage represented in points is silly as such, but as you correctly points out because the way it scales in D&D is ludicrous. One of the better ways to represent damage that I've seen is, I believe, in Twilight 200, where you get a number of points for each body part based on your health/constitution value. Some would argue that having body parts be virtually separate is illogical, but actually it is not unreasonable to assume a person is able to run quite well, just because his arm is greatly injured. The real problem in D&D is how HPs grow over the course of the game. This means a normal man can have 8 or less HPs, but a great warrior can have well over 100. The rationale is that the warrior is battlehardened and so can resist more damage, but once you begin throwing fireballs or the thief's backstab into the mix, the logic soon falls apart. I mean, why would the warrior better resist the assassin's knife in the back than the common man? The assumption is that the assassin goes unnoticed, or it would not be a backstab - that's why a backstab does multiple damage. However, at high levels and full health, the warrior can ignore the assassin's knife, because there is no way the backstab damage can add up to enough damage to kill him. It's sort of like, "Yeah, so he stabbed me in the back through my heart, so what? How much damage did I take?". Same goes for arrows shot to vital parts of the body - why are those fatal to a common man, but not to high-leveled warrior? Being shot by an arrow that pierces your body is actually very dangerous. Boromir should have played D&D - then he never would have been killed by a few measely arrows... But HPs are an arbitration used for the sake of making the game easier to play. It does that, but only at the cost of logic and credibility to the game's basics, which does not serve to suspend disbelief, in which case I've always thought the costs outweigh the benefits. 2. It's the same rationale behind AC - it's simple can convenient to use in the game, but it makes no sense. Fallout has a much better system close to the GURPS system, where armor absorbs damage, but sometimes actually make the person wearing it easier to hit. You don't wear armor to avoid being hit. If that were the case, then no armor would be best of all. No, you wear armor because then it takes the damage instead of your body. In GURPS, armor provides a Damage Resistance (DR) depending on type measured by a value. When you're hit or struck on the part of the body that the armor covers, you subtract the DR from the damage inflicted, and the rest goes through as damage to the body. It's a far more elegant and realistic approach to the use of armor, which is not really that much more complicated to use. 3. Races are difficult to judge, since they are by their very nature unreaslistic, given that we don't have elves and dwarves or vulcans and klingons or whatever in the real world. Some games, like D&D, handle it by letting you generate stats and then force modifiers to various stats on that. The problem is that if you roll fairly average stats, that still makes all the resulting characters very, very similar - your dwarf is not going to have the fabled resilence of the dwarves if he rolls a Constitution of 12, nor is the elf going to have elven grace if the player a Dexterity of 11. I prefer the approach of some games, where all the initial stats are fixed but different depending on race and can then be modified from there during character generation. But that also speaks to a personal preference regarding something I don't like in D&D, which is how you have to generate stats at random for your character. I hate that. I shouldn't get to play an average character just because of some bloody dice rolls. Dice rolls are fine, but I don't want to roll any until I've actually begun playing the game - I want none during character generation. I'll take GURPS' approach any day, where all stats begin at 10, and then you can modify them up or down to your heart's (and character points') content until you like the emerging character. I used to think about making D&D more realistic, but frankly with 3.X and now 4.0 on the horizon, I've long since given up - D&D is now munchkin fanboy RPGs. It has nothing to do with any semblance of a roleplaying game that even approaches a realistically convincing approach to role-playing, and it never will.

I believe the word you're looking for is "sexist". Go on, you can say it. Because you're right that I (being male) would be accused of being sexist if I were to suggest that jedi guardian fits best with a male character.

Why?

so you thought that I was just throwing some random crap on your comments. That's awesome. I wonder if Jediphile has noticed I added it to his, too. He seemed to be the only one that got my joke. Of course I noticed. But don't get me started on the Pythons. Seriously! Once I begin, there is no way of stopping it! It's like an overdose luring me to the dark side... must... resist... BLASPHEMY!! *throws rocks* "Stop it! Who threw that? Nobody throw anything at anybody until I blow this whistle... even if they do say Jehova"

But tha'ts just the point - I can choose to not take those options, but it means ONLY that there are parts of the game I don't get to see. There is NO other impact, good or bad. Conversely, if I choose to pursue those options, I get NO negative impact or actually positive (as with Bastila in K1), so there is no downside to defying the jedi code, which is a cop-out. Don't get me wrong - the jedi code is stupid in this regard. I don't blame people for choosing against it. But it speaks ill of the jedi council that their code dictates this, when seems to solve nothing, and given how wise the masters are supposed to be, it means that the credibilty of the plot suffers as a result. Presumably the ban on relationships is there to protect the jedi from being swept away by their feelings. As such I understand that, but all the evidence in Star Wars speaks to the contrary. You could mention Anakin, but I never bought that - Anakin always wanted power, and in that regard his love for Padme and need to save her from some uncertain possibly harmful future just became a convenient excuse for him to delude himself into thinking he chose the dark side for some greater good. Jolee's story of his wife is far more to the point in K1, but it's just one he tells in one conversation in the game and not one we experience.

No-one knows what the eyes look like - it could not be as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Ah, but that picture is Visas before she is captured by Nihilus. After he is done with her, so looks like this... Presumably Nihilus either removed her eyes or it was a consequence of him forcing her to "see the galaxy." This is why Kreia was to say to her towards the end of the game, when the companions confront her without the exile at the Trayus Core: "And you, blind one, you have hungered to strike me down ever since you saw the bond the exile and I share.Can you feel the Force running through me, even past the veil, past your bloodied eyes? You know you cannot win." But it was cut from the game, of course. (You can see Visas' response to that at the bottom of my sig.)

Lol no. It's called an excuse. They can make up any number of those to justify their game not living up to their sales expectations, but that doesn't make them true. Yours is living in denial. You can state that people that pirate wouldn't buy the game anyways, but that doesn't make it true. Nor does claiming that a pirated copy of a game equals a lost sale make it so. There simply is no clear evidence either way, and it's pretty convenient to blame piracy for your game (or movie, novel or music) not selling so well. Because there will always be piracy, and so it can always be blamed. But despite how much piracy allegedly harms those industries, they still make money. This is even more relevant in computer games, which has always dealt with piracy. Since the days of the very first computer games, I've heard this "oh the pirates copy our games - the sky is fallng!!" sort of arguments, but despite the purported impending doom of computer games, they still evolved into an industry onto its own and a business so successful, it now makes more money than movies do. So succesful that no movie wants to open on the release date of GTA4, because they fear losing to people being at home playing... Doesn't sound like the industry is quite that threatened.

You're not. I'd like the jedi code to finally mean something, though. The jedi code dictates no relationships, yet we have them in each and every game. And although we could argue that TSL doesn't to some extent, since they never lead to anything and Kreia tells us in the end that we must leave such things behind, it still doesn't make it a choice. I like it if you KotOR3 could give you the option not to seek romance and have that have plot impact. Because so far it hasn't. Every time somebody makes that point, people moan with "oh, but you don't have to pursue the romance options in the KotOR games - it's your choice". Yes, it is, but it's a choice between whether I want to play that part of the game or not, and if I choose not to, my only reward is that there are parts of the game I don't get to see - players who defy the jedi code and choose romance face no detrimental effects as a consequence of that choice, which begs the question of why the code dictates this in the first place. When are we finally going to see why this is in the jedi code? I can see the potential problems for it, but as much as the jedi preaches having no relationships, the plots always, always prove the opposite - in K1 romancing Bastila makes it easier to turn her back to the light side in the end, and in TSL Atris falls to the dark side not because she loves the exile but because she denies those feelings for him. Let's see the other side of that, for crying out loud! Because the jedi are correct that romance can lead to disaster. The Star Wars plots just never support that position...

Male and male. I've played female in both games, but the male versions make for better plot IMHO. Somehow Revan dropping his guard, giving Bastila the option to kill, just to prove that he trusts in her and their love for each other is more poignant than "remember the Jedi Code, Bastila". In TSL, I think the female version of events suffers. Atris' fall is has less impact, because it's harder to see why she respected the female so much, while she was in love with the male exile, and that love was perverted over the years. It also makes for a better dramatic triangle once Handmaiden gets involved. Instead of Atris, female exile gets Sion as a "lost love interest", which is completely out of the blue with no explanation whatsoever, and so bad storytelling IMHO. Mical has good points to make (in his own sanctimonious ways), but overall I think Handmaiden adds more to the story plotwise.

Funny that you would ask for proof, when you provided none yourself. The point of my original post was that neither side can prove their claims. "The thing about "they wouldn't have bought it anyway" is that it's just as valid an argument as "every pirated copy is a lost sale", because there is no way to prove it either way. I suspect the truth is in the middle." The legal principle is that the one making the accusation carries the burden of proof, and in these cases, it's the gaming companies that accuse the piracy of dwindling sales. However, I can no longer take that claim seriously. The music industry claim that piracy kill their business. The movie industry claim that piracy kill their business. But guess what? The music, movie AND gaming industries all STILL produce material, and they all STILL make money. I especially don't believe the claims of piracy killing the gaming business, because piracy has been part of the gaming industry since its very birth - it's always been there, right back to the days when games were written by lone programmers sitting in their parents' basements. And games STILL evolved into an industry that now makes more money than the movie industry, according to some sources. It just doesn't add up that piracy is quite THAT lethal to gaming. If it were, the business would have gone under by now, rather than actually making more money than ever and developing into the mammoth industry it is today. Now, that's not to support piracy. I don't. I'm just saying that there will always be piracy to some extent, but that the business can survive even so. No amount of copy protection or registration is going to make it go away. None. Companies have been trying to create a fool-proof method for decades now, and the pirates always find a way around it, and I suspect they always will. A shame, because it means some people don't support the industry with money. But I doubt it'll kill the industry.

I can see it now... "Who will save the free world from the extremism of the Middle East?" Nana-nanana-nanana-nananana - BATMAN! http://youtube.com/watch?v=IQBobrCBTNI

You actually do find out if you get influence to 100 with him and then ask him where he came from. No, it's not all said outright, and is actually said by the exile's comments on his bleeping rather than T3 himself, but if you combine the bits and pieces in the game and interpret them, you can figure it all out... to a point, at least.

For no particular reason?? You killed her family! You destroyed her clan! Nonsense. The exile and her family fought on opposing sides in the Mandalorian Wars, but to go from there to saying the exile personally killed her family is a pretty big stretch. Besides, if a family/clan doesn't want to fight in a war, then simply don't fight in one, particularly one which your side started and pushed. Otherwise it's like saying I should seek blood vengeance because you killed my brother when he forced his way into your home and tried to kill you and your family at gunpoint. Which makes her non-aggressive, but calling a self-proclaimed bounty hunter specialized in the use of mines non-violent seems odd to me. So she's not blind... She sure didn't have much tact, though. And she's not the only one. Kreia comments on relationships too, and in their own way, her comments are far more amusing than Mira's, which are usually just tactless or embarrassing or both. Not really. I have no problem that she turned the male exile down. After all, the female exile can't romance Bao-Dur either. It was the constant "ooh, you're my bounty" comments that made me wanted to force a lightsaber down her throat repeatedly... and I play LS. At least the game could have let me tell her to stop doing that, but oh no - "because Mira's so perky and got so much spunk - hahaha!"

Yes, Mandalore is tough. He is nasty in both the good and the bad sense. However, for me the bad heavily outweighs the coolness factor, since it disgusts me how he takes pride in attacking the innocent and helpless of the Republic. That's the infantile boy who torments his baby sister and makes her cry because he doesn't feel he gets enough attention from his mother. That's how I see the Mandalorians. I can appreciate their skill in war, but their attitude is immoral, inexcusable and infantile.

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As KotOR3? No. As a KotOR CRPG? No. As a Star Wars computer game. Sure. The thing is, prequels are notoriously difficult, because nothing can happen that might possibly contradict the established chain of events in the material already written and set chronologically later. This is a problem for both books and films, and I think it's worse for a CPRG, because the backgrounds tend to be more expansive on account of the games being interactive and the plot dictated by the choices of the player. That will make it very difficult to write a CRPG plot with real player choices that won't conflict with what is in KotOR, TSL or even the KotOR comic books. I mean, if you set it during the Mandalorian Wars, there is no way around Revan and Exile, because they are pivotal characters of that conflict. What then do they look like? What genders are they? What are their motives? Well, you have to avoid all that like the plague because those details are chosen by the player in KotOR and TSL. That puts a huge strain on what sort of plot you can tell. It can work in other genres, though. RTS or FPS games (like Battlefront in the latter case) might be okay. But otherwise no. I used to think I'd like a game like that, but since the KotOR comic is now busy chronicling the Mandalorian Wars, I like the idea less. Too many cooks and all that... Besides, KotOR3 needs to deal with the True Sith after TSL. I mean, we were left with a cliffhanger... We need that story finished, or it would be like doing "Empire Strikes Back" without doing "Return of the Jedi" next.