Force powers and Attribute Points

[Guest Damar Stiehl]

Original KOTOR, I remember the later-game enemies being quite resistant to Force, and the only characters who could throw offensive powers around with decent effect were Consulars. Is TSL the same way? (I'm a big fan of using the shwartz, but I thought I'd try the first run through with a Sentinel).

 

Also - how many attribute points do you end up getting? Does it make sense to leave one attribute with an odd value at character generation?

[Reveilled]

It doesn't matter. I can't speak for the damage dealing powers, but as a Sentinel/Watchman, by the end of the game 90% of enemies would fail their save for stasis field. And once that happens, you get your Watchman (since Watchman is effectively the Sentinel prestige class) sneak attack bonus, and it's lights out.

 

I imagine that something like Force Storm or Force Crush will be similarly unsaveable.

 

 

As to your attributes, you'd be surprised how unimportant it is. This game is astoundingly easy, so you won't have problems either way. However, the levelling system is not fixed, so the number of attributes you get can depend on what level you are by the end. Plan for at least five increases, and more likely six.

[Volourn]

"Original KOTOR, I remember the later-game enemies being quite resistant to Force, and the only characters who could throw offensive powers around with decent effect were Consulars."

 

Your premise is wrong. My Senitnel in game 1 was aesome with force powers. Please don't spread rumours, myths, and innuendo. It's embarassing.

 

As for game 2; the combat is easy, so a Spaghetti Man could crush their foes with force powers.

[Guest Damar Stiehl]

Maybe yours and mine definition of "decent effect" differ.

 

In any case, thanks for the pointers.

[JamieKirby]

well, i have noticed that even a mere thug can withstand Stasis or Push about 9/10, i understand if he was a hutt or someone with a strong mind, but come on, a thug is stupid. lol

 

Well, i am more of a melee person, so besides the healing, stasis, self buffing and push powers, i never use them. (well, i use Force Persuation or however you spell it.

[Objulen]

Original KOTOR, I remember the later-game enemies being quite resistant to Force, and the only characters who could throw offensive powers around with decent effect were Consulars. Is TSL the same way? (I'm a big fan of using the shwartz, but I thought I'd try the first run through with a Sentinel).

 

Also - how many attribute points do you end up getting? Does it make sense to leave one attribute with an odd value at character generation?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My Sith Lord/Councilor never had any problems with very high Wisdom/Charisma, but Visas didn't have too many problems either. There were a few resists with her, and her damage with Force Lighting Storm was noticably lower; while not as effective as my Sith Lord, her force powers were quite useful.

[The Bardic Pen]

I'd say it would be best to go with Consular so you have the Force Potency form. Whipe out anything in your path in at most 2 Force Storms. Sentinel and Guardian might have the form, but I'm not sure.

[Malagance]

I went through my first time as a Consular/Sith Lord, and just finished up the game again last night as a Guardian/Weaponmaster. Both of these chars were about the same level at the end of the game (26 and 27) and my observation yielded that yes, there is a pretty noticeable difference between the two and how effective their force powers were.

 

With the occasional exception of something like a sith lord or a sith marauder, none of the enemies ever saved against the Consular's powers at the end. He had pretty high wisdom and charisma, and was (obviously) dark side. Even the high level enemies like the Marauders and Sith Lords usually failed their saves. I would say one out of every 4 or 5 of them were able to resist the effects of an insanity or a force wave. All of the lesser enemies had no hope of saving, I think I might have seen one or two commandos out of 100 (Or more) save against my force crush, but even then, that power is so ridiculous that you were likely to kill them regardless of whether they saved or not.

 

Now my guardian had force wave, and his base wisdom and charisma weren't that high, though by the end he was wearing several stat boosting items, enough to get his wisdom to 16 or 17 (From his base of 12) and his charisma to 14 probably (Base of 10). Furthermore, he could temporarily boost his stats (and therefore, his save DCs) by using the final version of Force Valor (Can't remember the name of it, boosts all stats by 5 for 20 seconds). However in the same area as above, enemies would frequently make their saves. This isn't to say that force wave was useless, just that, for example, if I walked into a room of eight sith assassins/troopers/whatever and force waved, I could reasonably expect 6 of them to fail their saves and get knocked back and stunned.

 

Final Point:

If you want to use the force, be a consular. Not only do you get the DC boosts from force focus, but you'll also probably be concentrating on boosting wisdom and charisma anyway, getting a boost to your DCs from there. Finally, and perhaps most importantly is something that I didn't know about when I first went through: Sentinels and Guardians get a lot of lightsaber forms, but only one force form. Consulars get all 4 of the force forms, and believe me, these are nice forms. They affect everything from force point regeneration (Which you won't need, trust me, I ended the game at level 26 with over 600 force points with my Consular/Sith Lord and never even went down to half of that except perhaps during the final boss battles when I was abusing Force Crush up the wazoo) to the damage that your powers do, to the save DCs of those powers.

 

Force Potency boosts the damage of your powers by 30% for a 20% increase in cost, for example. When you force lightning, you can expect things to die. And since they usually don't make their saves, you can expect things to die FAST.

 

As a sentinel or a guardian you can get the offensive powers, but you just don't RELY on them as much as you do when you're a consular. As a consular, if I wasn't able to knock back a group of 8 or so sith commandos with force wave, I'd probably be in for it, but as a guardian, you can easily handle those guys, and the force powers just make it easier/cooler looking to do so.

[Fedifensor]

If you want to focus on Force Powers, take a Consular.

 

If you want to rip enemies apart with lightsabers, take a Weaponmaster.

 

If you want to do both...take a Consular/Weaponmaster. :D

 

That said, I took a Sentinel/Weaponmaster. I wanted to have a decent amount of skills. If I play through the game again, I may try a Consular.

[Darth Credulous]

I found Guardian/Master made an interesting force/melee combo. Force Wave was blasting back Sith Lords by the endgame.

[cozzy]

dude i was a consular/sith lord and in melee and force i rocked....i could use the force any way i wanted and own people (i had all the darkside powers some universal powers and even some lightside powers) I got all the feats i wanted too which i didn't think would happen.

 

although definately not as good as say a guardian weapon master in raw melee power i would still kill people in one or two rounds of combat. I had 4 attacks per round and my lightsaber had some crazy ass damage ratio like 27-54 or something and i had +34 to hit. I only used one lightsaber mind u and used flurry and dueling lines. At the end of the game i had like 43 defense with master speed on. Everyone would miss me even all the mauraders sith lords etc. And i would take them all out depending on my whim (hmm do i want to flurry this guy for 40, 38,80(crit hit), 40, or do i want to just force crush him? (or wave, insanity, scream, blah blah blah blah etc ad naseum). Pretty damn awesome i must say. With energy resistance your more than fine if u do get hit...say by a lightsaber or blaster fire etc. I had master heal too so that came in handy...by the end i was using force mastery exclusively just to have really long duration on speed and energy resistance and to make sure no one saved against my powers (which they probably wouldn't have anyway my dcs were in the high 40s i think).

 

Force consular/sith lord was incredibly satisfying to play...and don't let anyone tell u they suck at melee...they are incredible at it as long as u take the right feats, force powers, and equipment. I focused mostly on charisma, and wisdom but i had like 20 strength at the end from other equipment and from the base of 14 i made at startup. My personal lightsaber crystal rocked!

[JudeMorrigan]

I'm definitely in the "it doesn't matter" camp. I played the game through as a LS guardian/Master and it was really, really rare for anything to save against my stasis field in the end game. But then, I did have 40 wisdom buffed.