What does "keen" mean?

[vader815]

Does anyone out there in the Star Wars Universe know what the game means when it says "keen" in the describtion for weapon upgrades?

[spinkle]

it means that the critical threat range of a weapon is doubled.

 

if that range shows as 20-20, it's a threat range of 1. (must roll a natural 20 on your attack roll to do critical damage) if you make it keen, you'll double that, and the critical range is now 19-20. (that is, the weapon will do critical damage on an attack roll of 19 or 20 before bonuses)

 

likewise, if the threat range of the weapon starts out as 19-20 (a threat range of 2), making it keen will double that (threat range of 4...critical on 17, 18, 19, or 20).

 

took me a while to figure that out, and i was too stupid to just ask.

[vader815]

ohhh Thanks

[Char Ell]

Pretty much what spinkle said. I would only qualify that if your character rolls a number within the critical threat range it means that your character has the chance of doing double damage. Another attack roll vs. defense must be successfully made for a critical hit to actually occur. But upgrading a weapon so it's "keen" definitely improves your characters' chances at dealing out more damage to your characters' opponents.

 

KotOR and KotOR:TSL both use the same d20 combat system used in the Star Wars pen and paper role playing games (per starwarsknights.com) so in essence the game is using a 20-sided die roll with modifiers for strength, skills, weapon attack bonuses, etc. all included in the equation to determine whether an attack is successful against the opponents defense. Of course the game engine is taking care of all of this in the background and all we see is the combat animations. If you want to take a look at all the attack rolls vs defense just go to the journal section in TSL and click on the messages log then click on the combat header to see for yourself.