Jediphile

A big part of the problem that they never say either way - we still have no idea why he is coming back. I truly doubt he came because the jedi masters summoned him. After all, they were all rumored to be dead, and the exile doesn't learn otherwise until he meets Atris. But he wasn't meeting Carth/Cede either, because if that was the idea there would be no need for Carth/Cede to give secret orders to the Harbinger's captain about what to do with the exile. The captain even mentions that the exile has diplomatic status, though he doesn't know it himself. There's little doubt that bumping into HK-50 and then being attacked by the Sith was never a part of the Exile's plan, though.

Thanks. I guess I just want the idea that you have to mentally comprehend what is happening around you before you can take action to be somehow represented in the game, even if it is in a rather minor way.

There's that too. Somehow I don't like the idea of a system where the guys with the high stats *always* go first no matter what on that basis. I mean, you really want a bit of uncertainty in there, even if the guys with high stats are still likely to go first, right? I know I do.

Because the actual time it takes to react to a situation is independent of the time it takes to swing a sword, or a dagger, or run towards your enemy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Precisely. In fact, I might want my d6 initiative die to be open-ended in the sense that if you roll a 6, then you roll again and add that number to the 6. If you roll 6 again, then you roll a third time, etc. What would be the equivalent of someone who totally freezes during combat (separate from actual surprise or shock). Yes. That's why I want a mentally-based Reaction stat that modifies intiative as well as a physically-based Dexterity stat that modifies the Action Point cost of your action. Of course, these stats would also be relevant in other situations.

A late response to Hawk's lastest chapter for a K3 plot. Not sure about Falleen as a background, since the details don't seem important to the plot to me (not that I have a problem with it). I do like Kalan Tas, though. A Sith-hating Dark Jedi. That's not a character we see often in Star Wars - well done. I think in the strictly black/white universe of Star Wars, this character would forced to be a Sith, but I still think he works well as a character. It's probably more appropriate to say that will inescapably become Sith himself if continues to be fueled by his anger, hatred and vengeance (and so continues to use the dark side), even though he would never see it that way himself. But I digress... Never heard of the nighthunters before, but I assume you have some specific in mind for this one, since it otherwise doesn't seem to serve much purpose in the plot. I see you use Exile/Nihilus the same way I did. Not about to argue against that, obviously I'm not nearly as hot on the son/daughter of Revan idea, though. If Revan is your mother/father, then it certainly begs the question of who the other parent is. Besides, I don't get the impression that Revan is old enough to have a grown child (let alone the fact that jedi aren't supposed to have children at all). Also, you said that the plot began two years after K2. The problem with that is that this would be only 12 years after the Mandalorian wars, and Revan and Malak were both still pretty young at that time (remember, they were the young, rising heroes of the jedi, who defied the stuffy old ways of the masters). But even if that could be reconciled, I'm still not hot on the idea itself. In K1 my character was the fallen dark lord, who had a destiny to filful, whether I liked it or not. In K2 I'm the Exile who is returning the Republic as the last of the jedi. I'm really tired of the "chosen one" device, because it reduces my actions to being defined by my destiny instead of my choices. I'd rather play a jedi like any other who just make extraordinary choices and performs significant acts. I mean, Waddo even says it in your plot:

Kreia: "And do not mate with her. Whatever you may feel, whatever... urges consume you, do not let them control you. Such a union would breed... difficulties." Exile: "Oh, what a wonderful idea. I really hadn't thought of that - thanks for suggesting it. Wait here while I charge up her loading ramp..."

You could, of course, but I like to think that reaction time actually determines who gets to act first. Besides, I like the duality of one person acting sooner than another because he reacts quicker, while the other performs the action itself faster because he's more dextrous. Besides, even if you did the initiative roll with a d10, you'd still talk about only one second of delay at worst, and I'm actually considering using a d6 instead. I'm also considering a "delay" of 1d3 or 1d4 points upon each completed action before you can take the next to reflect how react to the changing situations around them in combat. Naturally your Reaction attribute would modify that "delay" as well. No, I don't agree there, sorry. But I did plan on highly skilled warriors to move more easily from one attack to another, sometimes taking one action upon another without delay or even chaining two or more attacks together as we see it in some computer games. The end effect would be similar, though. Indeed, a great warrior would likely get more attacks that way. Such a warrior would also be deadly, because even if his enemy blocks one attack, the warrior instinctively moves to the perfect countermove without hesitation.

Uhm, Ulic sacrificed himself to save the Republic from a great threat too... He may not have been a great strategist, but Revan certainly did things that were as bad as anything Ulic did - setting all the jedi who didn't blindly follow him up to be killed on Malachor ranks right up there with anything Ulic did, and note that Ulic's worst acts were mostly done in fits of rage, whereas Revan's were cold and calculated. Besides, Ulic was just apprentice to Exar Kun, so blame him for assaulting the Republic. As for Ulic's stupid death, well, we haven't seen how Revan dies yet... "

Yes, you've put your finger exactly on the problem with the K2 influence system. It's fine that the Handmaiden should act this way given her initial sense of ethics, but not once you've corrupted her and led her astray with your evil ways [insert optional evil MUHAHAAA here]. Yes, but only as long as you haven't corrupted her. Initially you may "pretend" to be good and take LS points. And you should take LS points in those situations, because you're doing good things - I don't care whether you're just "pretending to be good for the sake of proving how evil you really are". It's a characters actions and choices that define him, not he deludes himself into thinking. Besides, it should "cost" (i.e., give you LS points) to corrupt the good. Once you managed to do it, however, it makes no sense that the corrupted should continue to behave according the same sense of ethics. No, they won't have abandoned their principles completely, but they will have perverted and twisted them into something almost unrecognizable. After all, that's what happened to Anakin. He wanted to save his wife. That's not evil, is it? No, but Sidious used that goal and perverted it into something that corrupted Anakin.

I'd agree, except Bao-Dur isn't just a regular mechanic - he engineered the Mass Shadow Generator that ended the war, after all. I think I'd remember Oppenheimer if I were a general...

Ulic.... ...if only to distance myself from all the Revan fanboys :D

I didn't think they were all so bad. Look at what you can do to that Twi'lek dancer on Citadel station and her "owner" as well as her former boyfriend. That was pretty nasty. Or the mother in Nar Shaddaa, whom you can convince to sell herself into slavery so she can be with her child. Also nasty. Sure, it's not all the "evil and manipulative" options which are that imaginative, but then they often weren't in K1 either.

I don't think Kreia was talking about your alignment and where you stood morally (LS or DS), but rather whether you followed the strict code of the Jedi or the teachings of the Sith. In a sense she's right, since the Jedi masters never accepted you and even wanted to cut you off from the Force, and the Sith just wanted to hunt you down and kill you. I see the Exile more as Jolee, who was "gray" and abandonned the Jedi order not because he wasn't ethical or moral enough, but because he rejected their rigid order and questioned their teachings and misplaced sympathy. I'd say Jolee is very ethical, and if he seems gray, it's only because he carries a burden of guilt for what happened with his wife.

I have no perception stat, though I do have a Precision stat, which modifies attacks. I planned to have Reaction (which is mental in nature) affect the initiative roll. Don't have the specifics on that one figured out yet, since I'd want Reaction to affect a Surprise roll, and rolling severely bad on that one should really cause a character to freeze up for potentially fatal seconds. Yes. Thanks for the responses, btw.

Didn't you get the memo? :D Sorry, saw "Batman Begins" recently " I'd like to be thorough, but I guess you're right in the sense that it's the sort of thing that it's best to just do and then leave out there for everyone else to flame and criticize, so that you can get a better estimate that way

The Sith assassins and their brethren were pushovers in the game and so a disappointment, yes. However, I don't agree that the multiple villains were a bad thing. On the contrary, the fact that K2 did not have an all black-and-white plot was one of its high points.

No, they're short, but they're still annoying, especially when they make you wait for another boring walk through a place you're just passing by.

Well, what if you set each Action Point (or whatever) to be equal to 1/10 of a second. I find it unlikely you will ever need a greater detail in time measurement than that in combat. That way, ten Action Points would be one second, and 600 would a minute. Then you assign point costs to all actions. You could even give it in time, because it's just a matter of whether of perspective (11 action points or 1.1 second...). This has the benefit of making it easy for the GM to add new options, since he can evaulate the duration and assign that without having to convert anything.

Well, the Transit system I could do without. What I really would like to be able to do is to use the map screen to travel between the pointers there. I mean, if you have the place on your map, then you've already been there, and so it should be easy to jump there. For example, if I'm in the Czerka office on Citadel station and I want to go to the cantina, then why I'd want to open them map screen, flip through the maps and find the Cantina, then click on the point there, where I want to go. The game could then check if there are any set encounters along the way and block me if there are. That would have saved an awful lot of boring walking and annoying loading screens.

A big part of the problem is that there is no introduction to the Exile. You could argue the same in K1, of course, but in K1 Revan had lost his memories. That is not true in K2, we just don't get to hear what those memories are, and we're sort of forced to pick up stuff about the character we're playing along the way. I personally feel this was the greatest disappointment in K2 - how on Earth does Obsidian expect us to identify with a character that we're not allowed to know anything about? How are we supposed to make choices for this character, when we don't know the first thing about his background and his experiences? I mean, you gether that something happened on Malachor V, but you don't know what it is. It's just sort of revealed along the way, even though *my* character was right there, and I'm still not allowed to know :angry: The scene were you meet Bao-Dur is just peculiar - "It's good to see you again, General". Uhm, do I know this guy or not - DO I KNOW HIM, YOU STUPID GAME!?! :angry: Where I will defend K2 on many points despite its incomplete nature, this is one area where Obsidan really failed miserably - their attempts to make us identify with the main character that the player is supposed to control are just pathetic How the **** can you tell the plot of a computer game when you won't allow the player to know his protagonist?!?

Yes, but the trouble with that is that as soon as you begin allowing stuff like that, you have to set up rules for that too, in which case the whole idea of making a simpler and more playable system is again lost - now instead of just taking your action and counting the time, you have to understand the action points concept, fit actions into the phase/round, and consider the rules of 'carrying points over to the next round or from the last'. That really isn't that much easier or more playable to do, as far as I can tell.

I couldn't possibly disagree more, and I think you're completely missing the signicance of the various Sith Lords in the game. Kreia is a teacher and manipulator. If she is to serve her function in the game, then she *must* know secrets and lore that is unknown to everyone else - she *has* to know more than her student does. Her student, Sion, wants power, however, and he doesn't want to wait for it. He is the failed student, because he does betray her rather than learn from her. But if he is to do that, then he has to make an alliance because - as I said above for Kreia - he does know less than she does. For Sion to be able to effectively betray her, he has to make allegiance with somone else, someone who is more powerful than Kreia. Yet it must also be someone who knows "less", in a sense, than Kreia does, because otherwise her role in the plot is again compromised. Nihilus is power, power greater than Kreia's. But he is uncontrolled power - power without will or intelligence. Note what Kreia says of Nihilus: "Power? Do you think so? 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." Nihilus is stronger than Kreia, but he has no sense of control over his powers and no ambition or intellect. He could never have been Kreia's apprentice, because she would never have accepted him - he lacks the very characteristics that she most respects, such as ambition, will, determination, intelligence, analytical sense, subtlety and, of course, manipulation. Nihilus is brute force or just plain brawn, but he has little brain, and that's the only thing that Kreia respects. Note also the Kreia and Sion discussion when the fight on Peragus: Kreia [to Exile and Atton]: "He cannot kill what he cannot see, and power has blinded him long ago. Run. I shall be along shortly." Sion: "I sense you, my master. Faint... weak. Kreia: "Your senses betray you. As you betrayed me. Sion: "After all that has happened, still you live. You are difficult to kill. For one as limited as you, perhaps. To have fallen so far and learned nothing - that is your failing. The failure is yours. No longer do your whispers crawl within my skull. No longer do I suffer beneath teachings that weaken us. And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one - and one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." Kreia: "Perhaps. We shall see." If you remove any of these three characters, then you destroy the plot, because they each serve important functions. Also, if you remove one, then the plot is also the lost on the basis of a struggle of among the Sith Lords (of the title) because it then becomes a more internal struggle between who should be master and who should be apprentice - who would Sion betray Kreia for if not Nihilus?

I *really* think you're overlooking Nihilus' special ties to the Exile... Yes, he may have been a pushover in combat, but plotwise he is a central character, and he scared the living **** out of me when I confronted him... Until the actual fight began, that is

It's not in the Outer Rim, but it's also not where you say it is. It's in the Inner Rim but right on the edge, bordering on the Expansion Region, which is still quite a bit away from the Core Worlds. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's in the "colonies" ring between the core worlds and inner rim according to the map in the d20 revised Star Wars RPG rulebook (p.209).

Yeah, though I fear it doesn't say good things about us... "