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About this mod
The primary goal in creating this mod was to enable a greater variety of player builds and guide the player in build creation. Primarily a weapon rebalance; I've also included significant changes to companion stats and recommended skill/feat elections for each class. I've also made changes to many items (emphasis on headpieces/implants).
- Permissions and credits
Weapons
Crit damage is not accurately reflected by weapon description in the original release, due to the fact that flat bonus bonus damage usually isn't doubled. For example, in the files a Krath Dire Sword is a Vibrosword with a +1 enhancement, meaning it gets +1 attack and deals +1 damage of whatever type it normally deals (slashing). In the instance of a crit, the +1 damage isn't actually doubled, despite the description saying it deals 3-13(19-20 x2) physical damage. If the bonus damage was of a different type, it would read 2-12(19-20 x2) physical + 1 fire (or something). So I went through nearly every weapon in the game and changed all bonus damage to either be 'dice'-based (+1d4, +1d6, etc.), which would actually crit, or be of a different type like fire or cold. This might seem like a nerf to a lot of weapons because I toned down their attack to compensate, but I felt this was an important oversight in the original game and a kind of "burden of knowledge" I wanted to remove for new players.
I've also increased the standard difficulty classes for on-hit weapon effects to 15/20/25 from 14/18/22, though it doesn't always reflect in the description. I wanted to encourage the use of weapons like the sonic pistol or Naga Sadow's blade, as they quickly became useless on max difficulty runs.
Melee Weapons
The primary reason I changed melee weapons was to nerf double-sided weaponry. In the release game, even the most min-maxed Critical
Strike or Power Attack builds with a balanced off-hand and Master Speed can’t beat
the damage/round of a simple double-bladed lightsaber with Flurry. Given that
the effects of flurry don’t echo across the additional hits granted by Master
Speed, this felt like a shortcoming of game design, i.e. it’s brainless. So I
nerfed the damage of double-bladed vibroswords and lightsabers. They still
excel for a character with low strength lacking weapon specialization. I also
slightly buffed long/short swords. This gives more options on Taris, and a nice
buff to the ancient Sith weapons.
Major Changes:
1. Average damage/round reduced for all double-bladed weaponry BESIDES the double-bladed sword
2. Average damage/round reduced for vibroblades
3. Average damage/round increased for shortswords
4. Crit threat range increased to 19-20 for short/longswords
5. Try the quarterstaff now. Just try it. Not even sure why it was in the game before, but I gave it a niche for crit strike builds.
Notes:
· Lightsabers are still far higher damage than other melee weapons. I felt this was fair to encourage their use on Jedi
characters and because of the commonality of energy shields.
Ranged Weapons
Notably, rifles were in an extremely bad spot. Not only was their damage sub-par, they didn’t benefit from two-weapon fighting OR dueling,
the most stat-efficient feats in the game. I set out to fix this by giving them
something special (with some inspiration from KotOR II). All rifles now have a crit.
multiplier of x3. I actually felt that pistols were O.K. given the powerhouse
Carth can be on Taris, and how they scale with Power Shot. Heavy weapons got a
slight buff for early-game purposes (notable examples come late; only scale decently
with rapid shot).
Notes:
· The blaster carbine’s range was lower than the blaster rifle’s, but not low enough to notice, and there was no difference in damage. I
increased the range differential and buffed damage.
· I felt I could go a little crazy with the bowcaster, given there are only two moderately notable examples, and both are low
on the damage scale. I decided to award it the only 18-20 crit. threat range with
a x3 crit. multiplier in the game. Combined with the keen bonus from upgrades,
Z’s Bowcaster is now a great choice for dex-focused PCs early on.
· Disruptor rifles felt even more weak than standard rifles despite their physical nature, but I chose not to buff them too
much as the highest-damage rifle in the game is a disruptor in the DLC after
the fifth star map. It was still slightly buffed as its crit. threat range used
to be 20-20.
Companion Changes
One quick look at the attributes of Bastila and Zaalbar or the feats of Carth or Canderous in the original game reveals these characters were
granted advantages that weren’t afforded to the PC. While a not-unreasonable
explanation for this would be the fact that the PC has amnesia while their companions
are clearly experienced, a game-balance explanation is that these characters
are not optimized in the slightest. Firstly, Charisma has no use for non-jedi
characters, and from a building perspective it makes little sense to invest in
both Dexterity AND Strength, or put more than 2 points into Intelligence
(unlike Kotor II, you have to invest 4 attribute points after 10 for an
additional skill/level). So, in keeping with that theme, I didn’t hesitate to flesh
these characters out a little more and adjusted their attributes from both an
RP perspective and from the perspective of guiding recommended builds. Auto-levelling
characters is now much more reliable (except for Jolee - See Patch 1.0.1.0 changes) and you’ll appreciate not having to pay
too much attention to your companions for them to be useful.
Major Changes:
1. Mission is now solidified as a Melee character, with Strength being her recommended attribute upgrade and her vibroblade being
upgraded to a vibrosword. With Light Exoskeleton and the Baragwin Stealth Unit
She has a perfect +5 dex armor bonus so it didn’t make sense to invest more in that. As a
melee character, she can hit sneak attacks from the side mid-combat without
needing to debilitate the enemy.
2. Juhani now comes with a short-lightsaber! It was always optimal to run one on her before with Power Attack and Master Speed, now
she’s just closer to that point.
3. Carth and Canderous now both transition to melee builds, as pistol damage falls off hard and Canderous’s stats always made more
sense for melee.
4. HK is a fair bit stronger with the blaster rifle upgrades. Let’s be honest, he sucked before (even though we all loved his
dialogue).
Classes
I went back and forth in my head over whether to change the starting combat feat for each class. Power Attack is perfectly matched with the
Soldier (highest hit chance to spare). However, given defense is categorically
lower than attack rolls in this game (after bonuses of course), it doesn’t make
sense why a Scoundrel would throw away its one combat advantage for a chance at
“assassinating” an enemy using Critical Strike when the Sneak Attack bonus
can’t even Crit. And they certainly would never use it in combat. So I thought
to give it Flurry. Is it too OP to give the Scoundrel Flurry, given the
potential damage of that second hit? I think not, considering how steep the
penalties are early. It’s still a big risk to go for an “assassination” early
on with Flurry, which is when you’d be going for those stealth attacks in the
first place (later you can either use some sort of hard Force CC or Force
Jump).
Scout
For a long time, I considered the Scout to be sub-par. It had less health and attack chance than the Soldier. Sure, it has nice skills,
but skills aren’t essential to gameplay, and companions can easily fill that
role for other classes. It also starts with fewer feats (no heavy armor and no
heavy weapon proficiency) and lacks access to weapon specializations. Though it
technically got the same number of feat ‘choices’ as the Soldier, the level 8
‘choice’ (Implant Lvl. 3) is certainly not useful through early/midgame. Its
only strong suit in combat is its naturally high saves and the oft-forgotten
Uncanny Dodge. Yet Scouts were recommended to run high-Dex ‘ranged’ builds,
despite the class’s naturally high saves overlapping with the immunities of a
Jedi Sentinel, the class most frequently selected by ranged PCs (due to its
lack of Force Jump). To give it a stronger identity and guide players away from
this mistake, I thought to establish it as a melee/damage-soak class (inspired
by Zaalbar) that wasn’t afraid to throw away its meager defense for a stun or
run face-first into a cluster of enemies while their companions threw grenades
at them. I gave it Heavy Armor proficiency and 10 health/level. I took away one
feat elective, such that Soldier will be the clear choice for feat-heavy builds.
Additionally, now that I’ve given Scouts Sniper Shot, the perks of investing in
Intelligence have increased dramatically for experienced players who want to
run ranged Scout/Consular builds. There are even some good INT-boosting
implants now, primarily for Sniper Shot DC (still not that reliable, but at
least now it occurs more frequently) and skill bonuses.
Soldier
I nerfed the Soldier by making it the Medium Armor class and giving it 8 hp/level. Possibly controversial, but it was really the
superior choice to the Scout in every way. It still is for ranged or balanced characters.
Guardian
I changed the pattern by which Guardians learn new feats. They now learn their sixth/seventh feats at level 12/14 instead of 12/13, so it's pertinent to level to 8 if you're going for max feat count. I didn't like that it was basically sub-optimal to level any of the starting classes past 7.
Skills
See version 1.0.1.0 changes.
Awareness
If you’ve managed to get so far as to find this collection of mods and download it, you are probably aware that there is a major breakpoint at 10 awareness to notice standard mines out of combat. With some of the items I've added/changed, 10 awareness is easily achievable on Carth and HK early on. This should
encourage more diverse party selections, as awareness is usually something you don’t want to skimp on. The next breakpoint is at 20 awareness, which can be achieved on Carth without investment but with the proper equipment.
Armor/Equipment
There are fewer ‘strictly greater’ items in the game and they’re usually separated by 2 or more stages (Taris/Dantooine/Star
Maps/Leviathan/Lost Planet). I encourage players to re-read the effects of all items they come across of the following types, because many have changed significantly:
Headpieces
I’ve added required armor proficiencies to many headpieces. Before, only a few pieces required such proficiencies, and they weren’t the strongest
ones by far. My goal was to create a smooth curve of power based on required proficiencies and price.
Implants
There are a couple more implants in the game, including a great one for Scouts and some replacements of unused/strictly-weaker implants.
1.0.1.0 changes:
Sentinel: Treat Injury, Awareness, Repair, Security, Stealth
Consular: Persuade, Awareness, Computer Use
Crit damage is not accurately reflected by weapon description in the original release, due to the fact that flat bonus bonus damage usually isn't doubled. For example, in the files a Krath Dire Sword is a Vibrosword with a +1 enhancement, meaning it gets +1 attack and deals +1 damage of whatever type it normally deals (slashing). In the instance of a crit, the +1 damage isn't actually doubled, despite the description saying it deals 3-13(19-20 x2) physical damage. If the bonus damage was of a different type, it would read 2-12(19-20 x2) physical + 1 fire (or something). So I went through nearly every weapon in the game and changed all bonus damage to either be 'dice'-based (+1d4, +1d6, etc.), which would actually crit, or be of a different type like fire or cold. This might seem like a nerf to a lot of weapons because I toned down their attack to compensate, but I felt this was an important oversight in the original game and a kind of "burden of knowledge" I wanted to remove for new players.
I've also increased the standard difficulty classes for on-hit weapon effects to 15/20/25 from 14/18/22, though it doesn't always reflect in the description. I wanted to encourage the use of weapons like the sonic pistol or Naga Sadow's blade, as they quickly became useless on max difficulty runs.
Melee Weapons
The primary reason I changed melee weapons was to nerf double-sided weaponry. In the release game, even the most min-maxed Critical
Strike or Power Attack builds with a balanced off-hand and Master Speed can’t beat
the damage/round of a simple double-bladed lightsaber with Flurry. Given that
the effects of flurry don’t echo across the additional hits granted by Master
Speed, this felt like a shortcoming of game design, i.e. it’s brainless. So I
nerfed the damage of double-bladed vibroswords and lightsabers. They still
excel for a character with low strength lacking weapon specialization. I also
slightly buffed long/short swords. This gives more options on Taris, and a nice
buff to the ancient Sith weapons.
Major Changes:
1. Average damage/round reduced for all double-bladed weaponry BESIDES the double-bladed sword
2. Average damage/round reduced for vibroblades
3. Average damage/round increased for shortswords
4. Crit threat range increased to 19-20 for short/longswords
5. Try the quarterstaff now. Just try it. Not even sure why it was in the game before, but I gave it a niche for crit strike builds.
Notes:
· Lightsabers are still far higher damage than other melee weapons. I felt this was fair to encourage their use on Jedi
characters and because of the commonality of energy shields.
Ranged Weapons
Notably, rifles were in an extremely bad spot. Not only was their damage sub-par, they didn’t benefit from two-weapon fighting OR dueling,
the most stat-efficient feats in the game. I set out to fix this by giving them
something special (with some inspiration from KotOR II). All rifles now have a crit.
multiplier of x3. I actually felt that pistols were O.K. given the powerhouse
Carth can be on Taris, and how they scale with Power Shot. Heavy weapons got a
slight buff for early-game purposes (notable examples come late; only scale decently
with rapid shot).
Notes:
· The blaster carbine’s range was lower than the blaster rifle’s, but not low enough to notice, and there was no difference in damage. I
increased the range differential and buffed damage.
· I felt I could go a little crazy with the bowcaster, given there are only two moderately notable examples, and both are low
on the damage scale. I decided to award it the only 18-20 crit. threat range with
a x3 crit. multiplier in the game. Combined with the keen bonus from upgrades,
Z’s Bowcaster is now a great choice for dex-focused PCs early on.
· Disruptor rifles felt even more weak than standard rifles despite their physical nature, but I chose not to buff them too
much as the highest-damage rifle in the game is a disruptor in the DLC after
the fifth star map. It was still slightly buffed as its crit. threat range used
to be 20-20.
Companion Changes
One quick look at the attributes of Bastila and Zaalbar or the feats of Carth or Canderous in the original game reveals these characters were
granted advantages that weren’t afforded to the PC. While a not-unreasonable
explanation for this would be the fact that the PC has amnesia while their companions
are clearly experienced, a game-balance explanation is that these characters
are not optimized in the slightest. Firstly, Charisma has no use for non-jedi
characters, and from a building perspective it makes little sense to invest in
both Dexterity AND Strength, or put more than 2 points into Intelligence
(unlike Kotor II, you have to invest 4 attribute points after 10 for an
additional skill/level). So, in keeping with that theme, I didn’t hesitate to flesh
these characters out a little more and adjusted their attributes from both an
RP perspective and from the perspective of guiding recommended builds. Auto-levelling
characters is now much more reliable (except for Jolee - See Patch 1.0.1.0 changes) and you’ll appreciate not having to pay
too much attention to your companions for them to be useful.
Major Changes:
1. Mission is now solidified as a Melee character, with Strength being her recommended attribute upgrade and her vibroblade being
upgraded to a vibrosword. With Light Exoskeleton and the Baragwin Stealth Unit
She has a perfect +5 dex armor bonus so it didn’t make sense to invest more in that. As a
melee character, she can hit sneak attacks from the side mid-combat without
needing to debilitate the enemy.
2. Juhani now comes with a short-lightsaber! It was always optimal to run one on her before with Power Attack and Master Speed, now
she’s just closer to that point.
3. Carth and Canderous now both transition to melee builds, as pistol damage falls off hard and Canderous’s stats always made more
sense for melee.
4. HK is a fair bit stronger with the blaster rifle upgrades. Let’s be honest, he sucked before (even though we all loved his
dialogue).
Classes
I went back and forth in my head over whether to change the starting combat feat for each class. Power Attack is perfectly matched with the
Soldier (highest hit chance to spare). However, given defense is categorically
lower than attack rolls in this game (after bonuses of course), it doesn’t make
sense why a Scoundrel would throw away its one combat advantage for a chance at
“assassinating” an enemy using Critical Strike when the Sneak Attack bonus
can’t even Crit. And they certainly would never use it in combat. So I thought
to give it Flurry. Is it too OP to give the Scoundrel Flurry, given the
potential damage of that second hit? I think not, considering how steep the
penalties are early. It’s still a big risk to go for an “assassination” early
on with Flurry, which is when you’d be going for those stealth attacks in the
first place (later you can either use some sort of hard Force CC or Force
Jump).
Scout
For a long time, I considered the Scout to be sub-par. It had less health and attack chance than the Soldier. Sure, it has nice skills,
but skills aren’t essential to gameplay, and companions can easily fill that
role for other classes. It also starts with fewer feats (no heavy armor and no
heavy weapon proficiency) and lacks access to weapon specializations. Though it
technically got the same number of feat ‘choices’ as the Soldier, the level 8
‘choice’ (Implant Lvl. 3) is certainly not useful through early/midgame. Its
only strong suit in combat is its naturally high saves and the oft-forgotten
Uncanny Dodge. Yet Scouts were recommended to run high-Dex ‘ranged’ builds,
despite the class’s naturally high saves overlapping with the immunities of a
Jedi Sentinel, the class most frequently selected by ranged PCs (due to its
lack of Force Jump). To give it a stronger identity and guide players away from
this mistake, I thought to establish it as a melee/damage-soak class (inspired
by Zaalbar) that wasn’t afraid to throw away its meager defense for a stun or
run face-first into a cluster of enemies while their companions threw grenades
at them. I gave it Heavy Armor proficiency and 10 health/level. I took away one
feat elective, such that Soldier will be the clear choice for feat-heavy builds.
Additionally, now that I’ve given Scouts Sniper Shot, the perks of investing in
Intelligence have increased dramatically for experienced players who want to
run ranged Scout/Consular builds. There are even some good INT-boosting
implants now, primarily for Sniper Shot DC (still not that reliable, but at
least now it occurs more frequently) and skill bonuses.
Soldier
I nerfed the Soldier by making it the Medium Armor class and giving it 8 hp/level. Possibly controversial, but it was really the
superior choice to the Scout in every way. It still is for ranged or balanced characters.
Guardian
I changed the pattern by which Guardians learn new feats. They now learn their sixth/seventh feats at level 12/14 instead of 12/13, so it's pertinent to level to 8 if you're going for max feat count. I didn't like that it was basically sub-optimal to level any of the starting classes past 7.
Skills
See version 1.0.1.0 changes.
Awareness
If you’ve managed to get so far as to find this collection of mods and download it, you are probably aware that there is a major breakpoint at 10 awareness to notice standard mines out of combat. With some of the items I've added/changed, 10 awareness is easily achievable on Carth and HK early on. This should
encourage more diverse party selections, as awareness is usually something you don’t want to skimp on. The next breakpoint is at 20 awareness, which can be achieved on Carth without investment but with the proper equipment.
Armor/Equipment
There are fewer ‘strictly greater’ items in the game and they’re usually separated by 2 or more stages (Taris/Dantooine/Star
Maps/Leviathan/Lost Planet). I encourage players to re-read the effects of all items they come across of the following types, because many have changed significantly:
Headpieces
I’ve added required armor proficiencies to many headpieces. Before, only a few pieces required such proficiencies, and they weren’t the strongest
ones by far. My goal was to create a smooth curve of power based on required proficiencies and price.
Implants
There are a couple more implants in the game, including a great one for Scouts and some replacements of unused/strictly-weaker implants.
1.0.1.0 changes:
- Further reduced the damage of two-handed weapons. It never made sense why they should do more damage than an equivalent one-handed weapon. The choice is now clear: by using a two-handed weapon, base damage on the second attack is increased from that of a balanced off-hand weapon(unique lightsaber crystals like Upari with Heart of the Guardian can be combined to further increase this difference when normally they could only benefit one hand) while crit threat range is reduced. There is no further difference, as two-handed weapons are also balanced despite not saying so.
- Class Skill rebalance - I felt the Jedi classes' skill proficiencies should better reflect their roles in the Jedi order. If Guardians and Sentinels are the field agents, they would both be proficient in Treat Injury and Awareness, and probably Repair from working with droids all the time. Sentinels would of course also be proficient in Security and Stealth based on Master Dorak's description. Consulars would use the force to heal and are the diplomats of the order, so persuade is a perfect fit. I also replaced Repair with Computer Use because they usually stay at the temples and libraries.
Sentinel: Treat Injury, Awareness, Repair, Security, Stealth
Consular: Persuade, Awareness, Computer Use
- There's some spicy new droid Sensors to be found aboard the Leviathan (Hint: check the Difficulty Class for Sniper Shot)!
- I had over-buffed Bondar. It's still better than it was, but it's not overpowered through mid-game.
- Luxum is now a meaningful power crystal choice. It's a unique crystal that used to be strictly worse than Firkrann, which you could get two of. It now better fits the description (and is restricted to Dark Side).
- I spent hours configuring the recommended Light Side Force Powers so that Jolee would have more AOE options while Bastila and Juhani got more offensive abilities. I feel I've done a good job, but in doing so I discovered a bug in which auto-leveling only grants 1 force power per level, even if you'd get 2 that level. So... all I can say is if you're reading this, don't auto-level Jolee.