[wip] The You-Got-To-Rely-More-On-Your-Companions Mod

[Andrei Gijgorev]

A lot of people, me included, feel that KotOR TSL is waaaaay too easy, especially once you're around level 20. There are a few mods that aim to make the game more difficult by increasing health points of opponents and such, but none of them really adds something to the game in my opinion.

 

What I'm trying to do is not increasing the potency of the enemies, but decreasing the potency of the player and the party. This also leads to more specialization - know how you can build up a Sentinel which will have 20 points in every skill by level 25, can cast Force powers all day long and still kicks ass? That won't be possible in my mod.

 

Most skill point modifiers have been removed. You still get at least 1 skill point per level, but this will only stack with INT modifiers for Scoundrels, Scouts and Sentinels. So if you want to have a Consular with 3 skill points per level, then you would have to have an INT of 16, which will use up 10 attribute points - not from 30, but 18, so you have only 8 left. In other words: if you want skills, pick a Sentinel. A Consular probably won't have the right class skills anyway, because I have introduced a mix of K1 and K2 in regards of class skills: You will only have very little class skills at the beginning, and not every class skill feat is available for every class. A Guardian has only Awareness as a class skill and can gain only Stealth and Treat Injury. Persuasion is cross-class, at any time, for any class. So what if you want to play a guardian with high STR and DEX and still be able to persuade from time to time? No problem, but you won't even see the mines that you can't disable anyways.

 

Health points and Force points have also been tweaked. Originally, you had a system of 10 / 8 / 6 and 8 / 6 / 4 respectively, which has been modified to 7 / 5 / 3 and 7 / 4 / 3. So Guardians will get more than double the amount of hitpoints than Consulars.

 

Feats have been heavily modified. You won't get special attacks at the start anymore, and you need requirements for those. For Power Attack you need STR 12 / 14 / 18, for Flurry you need DEX 12 / 14 / 18, and for Critical Strike you need STR and DEX 10 / 12 / 16. Weapon Feats like Two Weapon Fighting will also need such requirements. So for a kick-ass fighter you will need both DEX and STR. And since the number of feats you can get will also decrease, you really have to plan what you're getting.

 

Originally, by level 30 the feat distribution was 17 / 16 / 11 (Guardian/Sentinel/Consular), which was made to 11 / 16 / 8. Yes, a Sentinel gets more Feats than a Guardian. But a Guardion gets some feats granted, so they're about equal. Also, if a Sentinel doesn't have fighter stats, he can't even take the usual Guardian feats, because of what I wrote above. And if he does have the right stats - then he's just a Guardian with half the health points.

 

T3 will probably be very helpful, since he can have Security, Computer Use, Repair and Awareness as class skills and gets an additional skill point. But he will only get 2 health points during level-ups, so don't put him on the front line. See where this is going?

 

There will also be changes to Force powers, although only little: the potency of your Heal powers will not depend on your WIS and CHA modifiers and your level anymore, but solely on your Treat Injury skill. So if you want a Consular to be able to heal effectively, you will have to use up most of his skill points for Treat Injury (and purchase a class skill feat for that).

 

As soon as I've found out how to, I will also remove the permanent health regeneration (like in K1) and change the stats of some companions.

 

I'm also thinking about changing the Jedi classes of several companions:

Visas: Sentinel -> Consular

Mical: Consular -> Guardian

Atton: Sentinel -> Guardian

I'm not really sure about that, though. The coolest thing would probably be if the player were able to decide the classes on his own, but I don't know if this is even possible.

 

I've only started with KotOR modding 3 days ago, so if anyone hase any advice on anything, I would appreciate it.

 

The mod is about 60% done. What's left is:

- adapt description text of many feats and one Force power

- adapt companion stats

- remove permanent health regeneration

- throughout testing

[Drunkside]

Ehh... the idea of making kotor 2 harder is really nice, but the way you are doing it... just makes no sense to me. the only thing that would truly make kotor 2 harder would be increasing the stats of the enemies, noobs couldnt hit the bosses anymore, and the bosses could sometimes get a hit or two on me:xp: The hp increase mods are pure crap, since my characters just cannot be hit by the vanilla enemies, so i would just have to whack them for a longer time.

 

Then again, your method would be perfect for a total conversion in my opinion.

[Demongo]

Interesting. I would prefer the "increase the enemie's hps"-like mods but this is also a good idea. The regeneration is completely a waste of time for me, because it takes centuries to my hps to regenerate! I won't miss it so much.

For the companions I don't really like if I have a weak party, but......oh well....

 

I would give it try if you release it somewhere:thmbup1:

[Salzella]

I think it looks like a really interesting way of doing it. I like the way of limiting certain skill's effectiveness according to certain restrictions, makes it feel like it would be more realistic. I'd try it.

 

PS i'd leave Atton as a Sentinel, it would fit his personality more. I always thought his intelligence score was too low aswell. Maybe alter that, so he would fit the Sentinel archetype better?

[Ulmont]

Sounds interesting! I certainly prefer this to the normal mode of just beefing up the enemies. I look forward to seeing it released.

[Gothic90]

There are something that I do not agree on. For example, only 8 feats for Consular+feats needed for class skills+no any special attacks in the beginning. I think the PC loses way too many feats, considering that the three effect stack together.

 

0 skill point with no int modifier is also something I don't quite like. This means the return of investing attribute points into intellect is way too small. You get ALMOST NOTHING (though not absolute nothing, because intellect still modifies most of your skills and contributes towards conversations) for the first FIVE points you put into intellect!

 

It goes both ways, though. On one hand, 2 points is a bit too much as there are only 7 skills in TSL rather than the many skills in DND games, while 0 or 1 makes investing points into INT a bit pointless. but for me, I think 1 is...good.

 

Another idea is that keep the current skill point progress or even give more skill points, modify each class's class skills, but remove all feats like "class skill: something" so that the PC HAS TO spend 2 points for a certain skill.

 

However, I do like many of the ideas. For example, Treat injury modifies heal is a great idea, you can focus your PC on some other stuff while focus some companions on TI.

 

Attribute requirement for feat IS A BRILLIANT IDEA I must say. There is nothing more to be said, it's simply brilliant. I've been waiting this for months.

[Apprentice_Greenwood]

This sounds great overall - I can't see it having much in the way of conflicts with other mods either, so anyone who finds the game has become suddenly too difficult (which I see as a possibility, even though normally TSL is waaay too easy on anything but the higher difficulty settings found in the Hardcore Mod) could still tweak things with items etc.

 

The feats system is a very logical idea, though I'd personally apply different requirements for the different feats - Dex for Flurry, Strength for Power Attack, either Wis or Con for Sniper Shot (to represent discipline required for sniping). I really liked the removal of the implant feat and it's replacement with a Con requirement in vanilla TSL, and think this idea is a great expansion on that, however you go about implementing it - just a suggestion, is all.

 

I'd also probably change the character generation attribute costs to reflect this too though - the one real drawback I see here is that it may be possible for it to become too restrictive to make a fun, well-balanced character, or to create the sort of specialised character someone may want - in theory, Treat Injury as a prerequisite for effective Heal is a fantastic idea, but in practice it may be too restricting, for example - see your comments on Consulars - aren't Consulars meant to be the best at manipulating the force for defensive purposes?

 

Having said all that, you seem to have this pretty well thought out already, so I'm sure that it'll all balance out nicely in play. I'm definitely looking forward to giving this a try, as most mods affecting the classskill and featgain tables do the opposite of what I'd like them too (the restrictions are there for a reason, after all). I'm also very keen on your changing the party Jedi classes - there are far too many sentinels in the group as it is, the diversity will make a very nice difference. Excellent stuff, good luck!

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Ehh... the idea of making kotor 2 harder is really nice, but the way you are doing it... just makes no sense to me. the only thing that would truly make kotor 2 harder would be increasing the stats of the enemies, noobs couldnt hit the bosses anymore, and the bosses could sometimes get a hit or two on me:xp: The hp increase mods are pure crap, since my characters just cannot be hit by the vanilla enemies, so i would just have to whack them for a longer time.

KotOR is not only about fighting. If you're building a pure fighter, you will still be able to easily defeat single enemies. But if you want to be able to open those security doors, then you will need companions - and those who are good at skills are usually bad at fighting. So you might get in trouble when facing a mob of enemies...

 

 

Interesting. I would prefer the "increase the enemie's hps"-like mods but this is also a good idea. The regeneration is completely a waste of time for me, because it takes centuries to my hps to regenerate! I won't miss it so much.

It's a waste of time in vanilla because you get lots of hitpoints and the Heal powers are completely overpowered - both will be different in my mod, and therefore I think it's best to remove the regeneration.

 

 

I think it looks like a really interesting way of doing it. I like the way of limiting certain skill's effectiveness according to certain restrictions, makes it feel like it would be more realistic. I'd try it.

 

 

PS i'd leave Atton as a Sentinel, it would fit his personality more. I always thought his intelligence score was too low aswell. Maybe alter that, so he would fit the Sentinel archetype better?

Yes, his INT will probably be 13, so that he gets 3 skill points once you add another INT.

 

 

There are something that I do not agree on. For example, only 8 feats for Consular+feats needed for class skills+no any special attacks in the beginning. I think the PC loses way too many feats, considering that the three effect stack together.

A Consular is supposed to use his lightsaber as defense, not offense. His offense are his Force powers, so you won't need special attack feats at all.

 

 

0 skill point with no int modifier is also something I don't quite like. This means the return of investing attribute points into intellect is way too small. You get ALMOST NOTHING (though not absolute nothing, because intellect still modifies most of your skills and contributes towards conversations) for the first FIVE points you put into intellect!

 

 

It goes both ways, though. On one hand, 2 points is a bit too much as there are only 7 skills in TSL rather than the many skills in DND games, while 0 or 1 makes investing points into INT a bit pointless. but for me, I think 1 is...good.

You still get 1 skill point per level at least. It just doesn't stack with the INT modifier for most classes:

Guardian/Consular with 8 INT = 1 skill point

Guardian/Consular with 10 INT = 1 skill point

Guardian/Consular with 12 INT = 1 skill point

Guardian/Consular with 14 INT = 2 skill points

Sentinel with 8 INT = 1 skill point

Sentinel with 10 INT = 1 skill point

Sentinel with 12 INT = 2 skill points

Sentinel with 14 INT = 3 skill points

So yeah, for a Guardian, INT may not be the best choice. But that's nothing new, is it? On the other hand, now you actually need INT for a Sentinel - no more 3 skill points for free.

 

 

Another idea is that keep the current skill point progress or even give more skill points, modify each class's class skills, but remove all feats like "class skill: something" so that the PC HAS TO spend 2 points for a certain skill.

That's what I did with the Persuade skill. But I like the idea of specialization by not making all skills available as class skills, and I also like the idea of having to sacrify a feat for skill points.

 

 

However, I do like many of the ideas. For example, Treat injury modifies heal is a great idea, you can focus your PC on some other stuff while focus some companions on TI.

 

 

Attribute requirement for feat IS A BRILLIANT IDEA I must say. There is nothing more to be said, it's simply brilliant. I've been waiting this for months.

That's what I thought as well.

 

 

The feats system is a very logical idea, though I'd personally apply different requirements for the different feats - Dex for Flurry, Strength for Power Attack, either Wis or Con for Sniper Shot (to represent discipline required for sniping). I really liked the removal of the implant feat and it's replacement with a Con requirement in vanilla TSL, and think this idea is a great expansion on that, however you go about implementing it - just a suggestion, is all.

I already do have DEX for Flurry, STR for Power Attack and DEX and STR for Critical Strike. However, I have chosen DEX for all ranged attacks, since this is the attribute a ranged fighter will pick. You don't have many attribute points to spend in this mod, so a ranged fighter with high WIS probably won't work anyway.

 

 

I'd also probably change the character generation attribute costs to reflect this too though - the one real drawback I see here is that it may be possible for it to become too restrictive to make a fun, well-balanced character, or to create the sort of specialised character someone may want - in theory, Treat Injury as a prerequisite for effective Heal is a fantastic idea, but in practice it may be too restricting, for example - see your comments on Consulars - aren't Consulars meant to be the best at manipulating the force for defensive purposes?

I think Consulars are able to use the Force for both defensive and offensive purposes. And if you're playing a Consular and are only worrying about your own health, then you won't need to invest many points in Treat Injury, since you won't have many hitpoints anyway.

Currently you have 18 attribute points to spend at the beginning of the game, which goes well with my concept for character creation: "Fighting, Skills, Powers - pick one and a half".

 

 

Having said all that, you seem to have this pretty well thought out already, so I'm sure that it'll all balance out nicely in play. I'm definitely looking forward to giving this a try, as most mods affecting the classskill and featgain tables do the opposite of what I'd like them too (the restrictions are there for a reason, after all). I'm also very keen on your changing the party Jedi classes - there are far too many sentinels in the group as it is, the diversity will make a very nice difference. Excellent stuff, good luck!

Thanks. I hope I will be done with the modding part by next week, after which comes the testing.

[Apprentice_Greenwood]

Ah, point taken on the Consular thing, that does make good sense really, especially given the whole purpose of this making your companions more useful. Thinking back, one issue I used to have with both KOTOR & TSL is that it becomes far too easy at higher levels to have your PC do everything and reduces the purpose of specialising the rest of the party - I think I'd just gotten used to it through numerous replays. Wow, I'm even more impressed now I think about it!

A quick query - does the effect Heal has on party members depend on the caster's TI, or the character it's healing? I hadn't thought about that before your last post...

[stoffe]

As soon as I've found out how to, I will also remove the permanent health regeneration (like in K1)

(...)

- remove permanent health regeneration

 

You can set that in the regeneration.2da file, if I remember correctly.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Is there any way to reintroduce the level implant feat? I hate having to invest into constitution in order to get use of the really interesting implants. Either that or make it so that a sentinel's +3 bonus stacks with constitution. I would find that great, thanks.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Is there any way to reintroduce the level implant feat? I hate having to invest into constitution in order to get use of the really interesting implants. Either that or make it so that a sentinel's +3 bonus stacks with constitution. I would find that great, thanks.

I'm not planning on reintroducing the implant feats, unless there are very good arguments for it. I think the TSL system is ok, since it makes CON more interesting. Also, I don't know what you mean with the Sentinel's +3 bonus.

 

 

You can set that in the regeneration.2da file, if I remember correctly.

Yup, found it. Thanks a lot.

 

 

A quick query - does the effect Heal has on party members depend on the caster's TI, or the character it's healing? I hadn't thought about that before your last post...

I don't quite understand your question... Sorry, English of mine very very bad is.

 

This may answer your question, though:

case FORCE_POWER_CURE:
{
int nCnt; int nHeal = GetSkillRankBase(7, OBJECT_SELF) / 2 + 2;

object oParty;
if(IsObjectPartyMember(OBJECT_SELF)) oParty = GetPartyMemberByIndex(0);
else oParty = OBJECT_SELF;
if(nHeal > 10) nHeal = 10;

for(nCnt = 1; nCnt < 4; nCnt++)
{
	if(GetIsObjectValid(oParty) && GetRacialType(oParty) != RACIAL_TYPE_DROID && GetDistanceBetween(OBJECT_SELF, oParty) < 5.0)
	{
		SignalEvent(oParty, EventSpellCastAt(OBJECT_SELF, GetSpellId(), FALSE));
		ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, EffectVisualEffect(VFX_IMP_CURE), oParty);
		ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, EffectHeal(nHeal), oParty);
	}
	if(IsObjectPartyMember(OBJECT_SELF)) oParty = GetPartyMemberByIndex(nCnt);
	else oParty = GetNearestCreature(CREATURE_TYPE_REPUTATION, REPUTATION_TYPE_FRIEND, OBJECT_SELF, nCnt);
}
} break;

 

The part you're curious about is probably "nHeal = GetSkillRankBase(7, OBJECT_SELF) / 2 + 2;"

 

 

---

 

 

EDIT: Finished dialog.tlk, a few pictures:

 

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Sentinel with 18 Attribute points:

 

Sentinel class skills:

 

Some feat descriptions:

 

Sentinel's don't get many feats at the start of the game... well, other classes don't either...

 

New Heal powers: (first power has a radius of 5 meters and is 2 + 0.5*ti)

 

 

IF THERE ARE ANY GRAMMATICAL OR SPELLING MISTAKES, PLEASE TELL ME!

The modding part is now 80% done.

 

EDIT2: Is it wanted that requirements for Force powers will also be revamped?

 

EDIT3: Help, where can I edit companion stats?

 

EDIT4: Nevermind...

[Andrei Gijgorev]

All right, I had to take a break for some weeks, but the work ist still up and running. In fact, I've nearly finished adjusting all classes, force powers, feats, and companions by now.

 

I am now searching for testers, since I can't possibly do all the balance testing alone. Anyone interested?

[DarthJacen]

Wow! This mod is frightening. I get chills.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Hm, so noone's interested? That's too bad, since I'm finished soon and I really don't want to release a nearly untested version, but if there's no other way, I'll have to.

I'll do some testing on my own starting from next week. If anyone would like to help me, feel free to PM me or just reply here.

[Gothic90]

I'm down with testing.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Thanks for that. Please send me your e-mail address, so I can send you the alpha version by monday.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

The mod has now reached alpha status and is currently being tested by Gothic90 and myself for at least one week. If anyone else wants to join the testing process, then now is the time.

[DarthJacen]

Are you testing the mod on a US/ British copy, too, somehow? Europe and the US use different formats with games. Yes, I was referring to the Region not the language, since English is taught as a second language in German primary/ elementary schools before they take their college placement exam.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

I think I have a US copy here, but I'm not sure. I've also never heard of a difference regarding file formats before. So far, every mod I downloaded did work.

How can I check which version I have? And I still don't get what difference it makes; if I make this mod on a British copy, will it not work on a US copy? That sounds odd.

[Andrei Gijgorev]

ARCAGE has now reached beta status and can be expected to be released soon (modding work 98% done). I've changed quite a few things, for example the class skill system. For every class, there are class skills, cross-class skills, and cross-class skills which can be picked up as class skills (for a feat). The number and allocation varies - scouts have awareness, demolitions, and stealth and can pick up computer use and security, while soldiers and guardians both start without class skills and can only pick up awareness and either demolitions (soldiers) or treat injury (guardians).

Persuasion is always cross-class while awareness is the only skill that any class can have - although you still need INT 12 and WIS 12 for the feat. The demolitions class skill feat requires the caution feat (which requires DEX 10 and INT 10), so you actually need two feets for the class skill.

 

Here's a pic of the stealth feat:

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In general the master levels of feat chains are very hard to get, and you have to plan carefully from the start. Some master feats (like lightsaber specialization) have been made class-independent, so they solely depend upon your stats - STR 14 and DEX 20 in this case.

 

I'm currently not sure what to do with the toughness feat chain - I'd like to make CON a prerequisite, but I can only do that with STR, DEX, INT, and WIS. Also, since you have less hitpoints in this mod, toughness becomes much more valuable. Would it be best if I removed the toughness feats altogether?