Jediphile

The rules can be imperfect whether you or I like them or not. If obvious flaws can be pointed out in the rules, doesn't that mean that they should be fixed? Besides, there is also the question of what D&D we're talking about. I liked 2e player option rules. I didn't like 3e and onwards, because I thought the system regressed instead of growing. I can excuse 2e, but the core is all the way back from the late 80s, and so its age shows. 3e is brand new, however, and is a very different game, so there is little excuse fo the rules being mind-numbingly simplistic and rigid (at least to me). D20 might not be bad for some very simple hack'n slash games, but that also means that is a very superficial and inflexible system. It's an old but functional gamecube or PS1, not a slick anc advanced PC with fancy graphics and able to handle whatever you want it to. I just think it could have been a far more playable game without too much trouble. I don't much see the distinction, but I suppose you could say that. However, while rules a secondary to the role-playing experience, you still use them to set the foundation that your game will be built on. Therefore they are important, even if secondary. For example, I'm not planning to score low grades on my exams, but I'd still like to know what the passing grade is in case my own is pretty bad. In the same way the rules, though of lesser priority, are significant because they decide matters, when they come into play. As a player, I prefer to have knowledge of the rules, if I can. The reason for that are a few bad experiences with GMs who made the house rules up spontaneously, so that I never knew what his rulings would be. I don't mind that he changed the rules from the book. I do mind that he did so without telling me what they were instead, because that meant I created my character and played how I would play on a faulty foundation. And if you overrule the rules as a GM, that ruling should be consistent - it should work the same way next time, which it didn't always do. We had a very positive thing happen to one character after a specific situation. However, when the exact same thing happened to my own character, the outcome was not the same. Very annoying. Consequently I made a note to always write my own house rules down and make them available to the players so that they could always find out what to expect. I don't agree with that, since if the rulesystem is extensive and perfect, I will have no need to write house rules to make up for rules that I find to be flawed. And even if I do write house rules to suit my own preferences in my campaign, they will be few and therefore comprehensible to my players.

1. Agreed, but it needs to be implemented better than in K2. It made no sense that Handmaiden still lost influence when you did evil things after you had both become Sith, for example. Similarly, HK-47 still wanted to kill every meatbag in sight after I had given him LS mastery. Not good... But still a good idea, it just broken in some areas and needs to be fixed. 2. We all seem to want Coruscant. At least, I cannot remember anyone saying that they didn't want to see Coruscant in K3. 3. Obviously. I would prefer the number of companions to be smaller, though - you don't need half of them anyway. At least, I never used T3 in K1 or GOTO in K2... 4. Finally someone who sees it the same way I do. We seem to be in the minority, though. 5. The problem with the old characters is that they might have ended up in different places depending on your final LS/DS choice in the game. For example, Atton could be a Sith or a Jedi by the end of K2, and Mission is dead if Revan was DS. That makes it pretty difficult write a story that takes it into account. That said, I have voiced support for both of those in my own preferred plot, though Atton was not playable, and Mission was only playable for at short time. 6. If Revan is in there, then the love interest in K1 is more than likely to be touched upon, I think. 7. Yes. I wanted them both to be playable at the climax/finale of the game. 8. I think you should be able to choose both gender, alignment, appearance and jedi class for both Revan and Exile. Welcome to the forum.

The prophecy of the jedi says that he would destroy the sith and bring balance to the force. And he did in RotJ by destroying the emperor and himself. As all prophecies, it just didn't come about in the way many had thought. No, thanks.

Revan is consistently described as a strategic mastermind. How was that measured in K1? He was also said to have resolute leadership abilities and was famous or at least notorious. How was this measured? BG at least had a reputation stat... Anakin was more powerful than Obi-Wan, but he didn't have as much hands-on experience, and he was acting out of anger and hatred, which makes people do stupid things. If he hadn't tried that jump just to prove his own superiority, things might have turned out quite different. It's scarcely as if Obi-Wan was toying with him.

Gray jedi are not "in between". They are not dark jedi and they are not Sith. You could call them "good", but only after a fashion. Unlike the "proper" jedi, the gray jedi are simply jedi who have left the order and no longer feel compelled to follow the code. That's it. That's all there is to it. At least as far as I can tell... But I don't agree that Jolee is a "do-gooder". Jolee went into seclusion not caring what happened in the galaxy around him (Mandalorian Wars, for example). He also does not feel compelled to reveal Revan's identity to him, though not because he heeds the council's wishes in the matter. Jolee simply does what he thinks is right and nothing else. If he behaves in a "benign" manner towards Revan, then it's only because he feel like doing so. He also doesn't scold Revan for using the force to his own advantage in a few situations. If you Force Persuade your way around paying the docking fee on Manaan, Jolee is not going to tell you off for it - on the contrary, he'll tell you that the council wouldn't agree, but that sometimes you need to do what you need to do.

Difficult to say... But they would deserve it in my book.

Damn, so close <{POST_SNAPBACK}> [Force Domination] You don't want it to be a surprise, Dashus...

Necroposting detected I have... Necroposting leads to derailment... Derailment leads to lockdown... Lockdown... leads to suffering... The way of the dark side it is.

Yup

No, one part of the rules says something specific, only you don't agree with it. The other part implies something else to you. You are welcome to your interpretations, but bear in mind that that is indeed what they are. Except the rest of the rules do not support your interpretation per se. Your interpretation is not impossible, but it's still your's and not what the rules dictate. I don't agree with your interpretation, and you have not been able to prove me wrong on that point, nor are you about to, since my interpretation remains just as valid as your's. That's fine, except I argue from a position of what my own preferences and experiences as a player and GM tell me, whereas you try to "prove" your position and "disprove" mine, which is futile. I don't play "wrong" D&D just because I play it differently than you like to. Your preference is not the "correct" one by definition. Only now you're overlooking my point for mentioning house rules in the first place, which was that their constant presence in every campaign I know of says something definite about RPGs. House rules are not impossible in soccer, chess or monopoly, but they are fairly rare, because they create doubt about what the rules really are. But there always seem to be house rules in RPG campaigns (that I know of, at least), which tells me that the rules themselves are secondary to the greater purpose of improving the role-playing experience. It also means that the final rules are settled to a large degree by the players and not the designers. Gygax tried to go against this by implying in 1e that those who embraced house rules were not playing AD&D, but something else. The players didn't care though, which left TSR with the choice of either embracing the practice of house rules or else be ignored by the players, who were going to apply them whether TSR liked it or not. AD&D 2e tried to cater to house rules for a reason...

[Force persuade]You don't wan't to report death threats... there are no dead-threats in this thread. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So certain you are... Always with you the thought is to manipulate.. Now report you I shall, don't you think? Also: Lots of Luke-slashing at the moment [sigh] - I see the Revan fanboys are out in force... [the poor deluded foo... oops, cease typing I shall!] :D

No, "Shrunk and shrunker..."

Holding back on levels causes weird problems according to what I read on the Bioware boards a while ago. I suppose not. But since the alternative is to have no say in the creation at all (like autolevel up) it's understandable why it works that way. Technically it makes no sense that you have any say in anyones creation but your own. But it's one of those gameplay tradeoffs. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The real problem is that d20 game balance demands that all the characters are the same level, or else you get some really odd combinations, where one character is far stronger than the others. The reason for that is how d20 assigns power by levels only, so Jolee has got to be the same level as everybody else no matter how silly that is. It would not have been a problem in a skill-based game, since you could just have given him lots of levels in various skills, but not in lightsaber combat. But that distinction is not possible in d20, which leads to has some really idiotic consequences. For example, the PnP rulebook lists Vader at the beginning of RotJ as Fringer 1/Jedi Guardian 11/Sith Lord 6 for a total 18 levels. Very powerful. However, the book also lists Luke a little later than that (end of RotJ) as Fringer 2/Jedi Guardian 7, leaving him as a 9th-level character. Yet we seen in the film how Luke defeats Vader with relative easy, despite Vader having twice as many levels. The chances of that under d20 rules are astronomical, especially when Vader has more Jedi Guardian levels than Luke does... Nope, I don't like d20.

No, I don't think so. You're certainly above level 3 (or at least has xp for that) by the time you get Bastila in the party, and given how much Jolee has experienced, it makes no sense IMHO that you have as much say in his "creation" as you do in Juhani's.

Exile and Nihilus are similar according the masters. "The Sith are a threat, it is true. But the threat they present... it is tied to you in some way. The echo we have felt on the worlds we have walked - we have encountered it only once before, when you stood before us at your trial.We believe that somehow, you are creating this - or that the Sith have learned this technique from you." But the Exile and Nihilus are not identical. The Exile can exist just fine without leeching force from others - he did so for years during his exile, when he thought he had just lost his connection to the force. Nihilus does that have that option - he must drain force from others to sustain himself and continue to exist, since that is the only way he can stave of his own destruction. This unending hunger has also made him far more powerful, though, since while the Exile has been ignoring his own unique skills, Nihilus has had little choice but to let them grow more powerful and dangerous over time. Also, note Kreia's comments on Nihilus: "It is a technique that is almost as old as the Sith themselves... it is a means of severing connections between life, the Force, and feeding upon the death it causes.It cannot be taught... it can only be gained through instinct, through experiencing its effects, first-hand." {Quietly}"Yes. And he fed upon its destruction - it will sustain him, for a time.Because it is not something that can ever truly be controlled... and it leaves nothing to conquer in its wake.And it rules him, not the other way around. It has its own will, its own instincts." {Chiding}"Power? Do you think so?{Shakes head}You would be wrong. There is no strength in the hunger he possesses... and the will behind his power is a primal thing. And it devours him as he devours others - his mere presence kills all around him, slowly, feeding him. He is already dead, it is simply a question of how many he kills before he falls."

You don't seem to distinguish between power levels dictated by the rules and strength of character. Sure, Revan wasn't so tough in K1, since he had to take several levels as a non-jedi (minimum of 2, but usually it's around 8 or 9), while he was allowed to take jedi levels only up to 20. That doesn't mean he's a weakling, though. You did finish the game with what you had, even though you had less jedi levels than Bastila, Juhani, or Jolee. That he could do that is one reason why Revan is powerful. Another is that he was able to "learn" (which meant redicsover, but he didn't know that at the time) the jedi ways in a few weeks only. He was also able to resist the dark side far better than Bastila - if Revan goes DS in K1, then it's because he chooses to, not because he fails to resist. But a big problem in all this is still the way d20 experience levels translates into power and character growth in the game, which is not always pretty. I mean, just look at the other jedi - they are all supposed to be jedi of many years of training, yet Bastila was only 3rd level, Juhani 6th, and Jolee also 6th when they join the party. Why is young, inexperienced Juhani as experienced by the rules as old Jolee, who has certainly seen and experienced a lot in his time? Simple - because game balance demanded it... No, I don't think it's very satisfying either, but that what's what you're stuck with if you use d20 rules (which is one reason why I dislike them).

Hmmm, should online death-threats be reported to the mods, I wonder...

1. The Exile's "choice" to cut himself off from the force goes right back to some things that Kreia and HK-47 echo throughout the game. Remember HK's comment about Revan "cleaning house" at Malachor V and Kreia's comment about Revan using Malachor as a means by which to convert the jedi to sith. Revan had engineered the confrontation at Malachor V to be so horrible that no jedi could bear it - they would all either die or fall to the dark side, and they all die... except the Exile. When the Mass Shadow Generator was activated, all the jedi died or fell to the dark side, but the Exile realised the danger intuitively and instead of dying or falling to the dark side, he subconsciously cut himself off from the force rather than embrace the fate the Force had fated for him. 2. He's leeching it from the people around him throughout the game - he cut himself off from the force on Malachor V, and he still hasn't reconnected to it. Whether he ever will or did at the end of KotOR2 is something we don't know yet, but which I think we might see in KotOR3. 3. Yes, I think I might actually have been one of the people to propose that. We don't know it, though. All we know is that there must be some sort of connection between the Exile and Nihilus due to their similar powers and due to the masters pointing out that their abilities are the same and that Nihilus has learned his power from the Exile somehow. Hope that helps, but you're right that a lot is left hanging, and not just because of allt he cut content. It seems obvious that KotOR2 was always intended to have a sort of "open" ending that would not be explained entirely until the subsequent KotOR3. Meanwhile we can speculate here.

Kreia: "Is that what he was? Or was he always true to himself, no matter what personality he wore?And there is something that the Council may never understand. That perhaps Revan never fell. The difference between a fall and a sacrifice is sometimes difficult, but I feel that Revan understood that difference, more than anyone knew.The galaxy would have fallen if Revan had not gone to war. Perhaps he became the dark lord out of necessity, to prevent a greater evil. I do not believe the Jedi Council changed Revan, as they claimed. They merely stripped away the surface, and allowed the true self to emerge again - someone who was willing to wage war to save others." You got your answer right there. And what was under that surface is what you get to decide in KotOR1.

People do grow and change. But they dont flip flop from one extreme to the other and back again. Why ? Seems perfectly reasonable given who her father is. How about if she put on Dads armour and tried to take over the Galaxy, thats a bit out of character for her isnt it ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, there were those who called her "Lady Vader" in those books...

So if another writer got their hands on Star Wars and rewrote the characters that would be ok would it ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If he jumps five years into the future, then I would expect the characters to grow and change. They should be recognizable as the characters we knew and any inconsistencies should be explained, but apart from that I would expect it. People change over the course of five years. The way you describe it, it almost makes me think you objected to Han and Leia being married and having children in the Thrawn trilogy five years after RotJ. Or more to the point, Leia had become aware of enough of her force sensitivity to feel the babies growing in her womb. By your logic that is inconsistent or what?

That's just because they cannot bring themselves to believe that Jack is being serious... Must admit that I have trouble with it myself :cool:

The genius of Dracula is that the entire thing is written as diary entries by the various characters. From the very beginning they talk about how they've compared notes, and they can't really believe all that they have written, but just chosen present it as is. It's a very compelling literary trick by Stoker to make his own characters doubt the events of the story just as much or more so than than the reader will. I know everybody's seen the films and nobody's read the book, but I do advice it. Dracula is a classic for a reason, and it's not just because it's a good excuse for gory horror. Heck, Dracula didn't even have fangs until Christopher Lee put them on. Try watching Browning's 1933 version of Dracula with (in my opinion the best Dracula) Bela Lugosi. There are no fangs anywhere.

I don't agree that Hawk invalidates Revan's choice in K1 because she gives him a fixed alignment in her K3 plot. K1 spanned less than one year. Revan left the republic a year after that. Since then four years have passed before we even begin K2. A lot could have happened in that time, which means that Revan could have changed yet again. In my plot I made both Revan and Exile DS. Does that invalidate their choices in K1 and K2 respectively? No, because the Star Forge and Malachor will still be destroyed or not depending on what choices they made at that point. And there are good reasons why they both fell to the dark side. Revan was your character in K1. He was not in K2. Exile was your character in K2, but neither he nor Revan will be in K3 (or so I think). You only get to make choices for them and decide their alignments during the time when you actually play them. Revan was DS before K1 began, whether you liked it or not. Exile used the Mass Shadow Generator and cut himself off from the force, whether you like it or not. Just as it is unreasonable to demand control over these characters before you began playing them, it is similarly unreasonable to demand that they remain static in the alignments you chose for them for posterity after you stopped playing them.

Exactly. Whatever you chose had no meaning. Never really going to know because of the cut content. Thats why death works really well. Because you solve the problems having them around causes. But you also keep intact their purpose for fighting the Sith (whether it be DS or LS). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, that's precisely why there is no problem - all of K2 was scripted toward this outcome. If they were going to kill of Revan and Exile, then there would be no point. They could have just left Revan out of it completely and let Exile end up wherever we wanted him to - it wouldn't have mattered either way, because they would both be killed in time for the next game anyway. The fact that this is not how it turned is the exact reason why the inclusion of Revan and the Exile won't be a problem - they were always meant to be in K3 as far as I can tell, and *that* is why the story was stage to fit a specific outcome. Doesn't mean that there it is irrelevant what you choose - the StarForge does live or die depending on your choices in K1, and Malachor V is destroyed or not depending on your choices in K2. If neither the Star Forge nor Malachor V will be deciding factors in K3, then this is fine and fits the intentions of the devs either way, which I think is what is the case here. Fighting Revan and Exile while needing them to be persuaded to join your side should be in K3 IMHO. It should also be a major part of your quest. This is part of what will make K3 great, I think, so I don't see the downside.