Thematic Obscured Mausoleum Burial 1.0.2

"Real talk, it annoys the hell out of me that you walk into the tomb of Ludo Kressh, pop off one Storm, and everybody but Malak is instantly dead."
That's probably down to the fact that the tomb is statically balanced to be doable even if Korriban is the very first place you go to after escaping Telos, and you're certainly not going to have Force Storm or in fact any master-level offensive powers at that point (unless you abuse the Hssiss respawning to powerlevel after you arrive). You won't even have a lightsaber at that point, unless you dip back aboard the Ebon Hawk and fight Visas before you enter the tomb.

Regarding the Kreia encounter, I think there are a number of reasons why it's set up the way it is, although I completely understand why it's unsatisfying for people. Here's why I think the vanilla version is the way it is:

• The phantasmal party members save Kreia crumbling quickly is likely due to the same static balance thing. For a low-level character, they can still be a danger all at once despite dying so quick. And in fairness, on someone's first playthrough... they're not gonna know the phantasmal party crumbles so quickly without outside info.You say "there is no hand-wringing struggle of considering whether you can beat your entire party combined against you", but that's your metagame knowledge talking; someone experiencing this for the first time has no way to know that without looking it up. As for Kreia getting to be solid, that's probably because she's potentially the only one the player fights.
• Obsidian probably didn't want the Kreia encounter to upstage the mirror match and Revan (the actual final bosses of the tomb) combat-wise. This encounter is more a test of character than a test of prowess. That and a storytelling moment (and a chance for the game to expound on Kreia's views, given the "Apathy is death" outcome). I'd argue that the reason your choice doesn't really matter for the battle.. is because the battle isn't the point here.
• Kreia having her Darth Traya look - albeit with the hood up to avoid completely giving things away - seems to serve two purposes: a tease of that appearance, and a test of whether you'll judge a book by its cover before deciding. And actually, now that I think about it... on the monitors and TVs of 2004, I don't think her black robe was quite as blatant in the darkness of the tomb.

It's definitely messy, though. And like I said, I get why people would find it unsatisfying. On the subject of metagaming, though, how do you feel about the fact that importing the current party as-is... opens up the possibility of people deliberately leaving as many characters as possible underleveled until after they do the tomb? It's always a risk with that sort of thing.

Making the mirror match Exile actually copy the player is a good thought, makes them a much better doppelganger and since it's a solo fight there shouldn't be any balance problems. I think it could be neat to have them be the opposite alignment (and prestige class if applicable), but then the tomb's penalties for Light Side characters might unbalance that for a Dark Side player.

Your changes for Revan are definitely interesting, although I'd argue that Revan always looking the same in the tomb was fine; we know from the Dantooine Star Map vision that Revan wore black robes even before falling. Not saying to get rid of the Star Forge Robes, just stating why the lack of appearance change in vanilla doesn't bug me. And I think your mechanical changes are very clever and definitely offer an extra challenge for someone doing the tomb at mid to high level. In keeping with the thematic idea, I would in fact like to propose one further change: Giving Revan a soundset contingent on which gender the player picked. I also have an alternate idea that I'll get to in a bit, though I dunno if it would interest you.

My thoughts on the vanilla implementation of Revan (and not just in the tomb):

• I don't think it was purely technical concerns that made Obsidian decide against trying to import data from a KotOR 1 save to determine which path Revan took. In order for that method to really work (especially on a shared system), the game would have to ask the player to select which KotOR 1 save to use (and it would have to be a save from after the Rakatan Temple for it to properly determine which ending to go with); the conversation with Atton is a much more immersive and smooth way of dealing with things, and also accounts for the possibility of no KotOR 1 saves being present at all.
• One of the issues with TSL's writing is that the desire to give the player agency regarding which path Revan took... kinda clashes with Obsidian's vision and recontextualization of Revan (which, as an aside, kinda feels like a knockoff of Timothy Zahn's recontextualization of Thrawn IMO) and the status quo the story requires. Which may be part of why we get this fixed vision of Revan in the tomb (which, given the dual lightsabers instead of the single one Revan wielded against Bastila et al, seems to be influenced by the stupid comics that Obsidian assumed everyone read). Although that could also stem from the tomb obviously being unfinished (as seen from the cut Dustil content).
• The relative weakness of the vanilla Revan fight (which is still the nastiest in the tomb) is again due to the same static balance thing, especially with the tomb being a gauntlet and LS players not getting FP regeneration.
• One could argue that both this Revan and the mirror match Exile always being dark side is a show of the Sith biases baked into the tomb's power - that making its strongest specters be aligned to the light is anathema to it. But maybe that's me reaching lol. And again, could be down to the tomb being unfinished.
• I have a suspicion that fighting a vision of Revan in the tomb in the first place... was done mostly or entirely for rule of cool rather than thematic reasons. That it's basically using the tomb as an excuse to let you fight Darth Revan because they thought that would be cool (and also a good final surprise scare for the player). So there's an argument to be made from a thematic perspective for yeeting the Revan fight entirely and making the doppelganger Exile the final boss. But idk if you'd want to make a version of the mod that does that, after putting in all that excellent work to make the Revan fight thematic rather than gratuitous.