Jediphile

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... "

Well, that would at least explain why the Tomb Raider films sold even though they sucked - guys like Lara because they can go home and - ahem - play with her

Thanks. If you really want to hear the speculation, then check you this topic, especially toward the end (last page of the topic) when Metadigital and myself muse on the relevance of the Revan vision and what happened to Nihilus. Fair warning, though - Major *spoilers* !!!

Well, the Harbinger was headed for Onderon when he booked passage (the captain mentions that he was diverted from there to Telos) and that's not exactly in the outer rim... (In fact, it's in the "colonies" between the core worlds and the inner rim) So why was he going there? I mean, he didn't book passage on a ship that he didn't know where was going, I think...

The thing is that I don't like phases with action points because it always ends up the same way it does in the Fallout games - you have a few left over every phase/round that you never get around to using, which is just really annoying - especially when you needed only one more point to take an action you really wanted. But even if that wasn't a problem, I still don't like cutting actions into rounds and phases because it just doesn't make sense logically - time isn't carved into nice manageable time units for us in real life, and so I wouldn't want my RPG system to be either.

Don't remember that part, but it doesn't matter - we *know* that there was supposed to be a confrontation between the companions and Traya, so it's a moot point. This would probably remain unexplained for drama, and then once on board, T3 and Bao-Dur would tell you that they indeed fell - perhaps for a long time - but were fortunate enough to get the Ebon Hawk's thrusters working soon enough to save the ship. I consider the drop a cliffhanger and nothing more.

So that means people are no longer responsible for their own actions? Sorry, I don't agree there. But we digress - we're getting severely off topic now.

Well, the Ebon Hawk's hull was also exposed to space during the prologue, and yet T3 managed to get the ship to Peragus. I have no idea if this is cut content, but it seems obvious that there is much about the Malachor V arrival that we were not told, especially about the absense of all your allies. We know that Atton, Visas and either Handmaiden or Disciple were supposed to confront Traya (and probably be captured), and that GOTO hunted down Remote only to be stopped by HK-47. Exile, for some reason, would exit the Hawk later and Mira (if LS) the Hawk later still. That leaves Hanharr (if DS), Mandalore, Bao-Dur and T3 unaccouted for. Now, let us assume that all who did not leave to confront Traya were injured in the crash, or stayed on the Hawk for other reasons. Hanharr and Mandalore might have been injured badly, while the Exile and Mira were merely knocked out. Handmaiden/Disciple goes with Atton and Visas to confront Traya, and Bao-Dur secretly sends Remote to activate the Mass Shadow Generator, not knowing that GOTO follows Remote. GOTO doesn't know that HK-47 follows him, though. Bao-Dur and T3 stay on the Hawk to repair the damage (that even makes sense). The Exile awakens a little while later, realizes that his companions have gone to face Traya and rushes after them. A short time after that, Mira (if LS) also awakens and rushes after the Exile, since he is now alone on a hostile planet. This sets her up for her final confrontation with Hanharr. Hanharr (if DS) and Mandalore are still injured on the ship, while T3 and Bao-Dur repair it. Well, enough to make it fly anyway (setting out protective force fields and so). Yes, admittedly conjecture on my part, but does it sound plausible?

Yes, this is just told badly. Reason is confusing is because the scene is interrupted right in the middle of your actions - when I play it's usually when I save/doom the sullustan outside the cantina on Citadel station. I mean, how would you have felt if you watched a movie, you're in the middle of scene, and then you suddenly cut across the galaxy to something totally different with no explanation at all, then return to continue the scene you cut from, and still with nothing to explain what just happened? They should have let the current scene just play out, and then when the Exile entered a new area, then they should have cut in with this scene before the new area load screen. You just don't cut away from a scene still in progression - ever! It was just bad directing and bad storytelling

That makes no sense to me. I mean, the people who exiled him say they want him back, and so he just comes running like a good little puppy dog? Seems to me that rejection and exile doesn't exactly make you feel very motivated toward pleasing the people who condemned you in the first place. The Exile may be a jedi and therefore not subject to such "negative" emotions, but he was still pretty defiant when he left the order. If he just comes running home when daddy calls, then he admits that the council was right all along and that he was wrong to defy them and choose exile rather than submit to them, let alone choose to fight the Mandalorians in the first place. That doesn't seem very likely to me, since the stand he took was scarcely a spontaneous one - it's the sort of choice you make and stand by, because the consequences are severely obvious, and yet the Exile chose as he did. He is far more likely to say, "Oh, they cast me out, but now that I've become 'useful' they think I'll come running at their whim - they're going to be pretty disappointed..."