About This File
Rebalance of the Taris duelists.
SUMMARY
This mod re-equips and rebalances the Taris duelists, aiming to give them more variety, smooth out their difficulty curve, and make the fights a bit more challenging and engaging overall.
Almost all duelists have had their stats or equipment tweaked to some degree to make them more distinct in both appearance and combat while ensuring a natural progression in difficulty throughout the fights. Twitch has undergone the most extensive changes and should now be significantly more challenging. Each of the human duelists gets a different set of level-appropriate light armor, instead of all wearing the same armor as they do in vanilla. Certain duelists have had their AI tweaked for improved behavior. Detailed changes to each duelist are listed below.
This mod is not intended to dramatically alter the difficulty of the dueling arena but will make it harder overall.
Note this mod will only work on saves from before entering the Taris cantina for the first time.
DETAILS
For consistency, all fighters have had their base HP set to 8*level. For most fighters this results in minor changes and is only noted below where the difference is a significant fraction of the original HP.
Deadeye Duncan
Duncan is supposed to be bad, so no changes.
Gerlon Two-Fingers
CON: 10 -> 12
Armor: Light Battle Armor -> Zabrak Combat Suit
Gerlon is equipped with a Zabrak Combat Suit, increasing his defense by +1 compared to vanilla. His CON is raised from 10 to 12 for a little extra HP and Fortitude.
Ice
Armor: Combat Suit -> Echani Light Armor
Grenades: CryoBan Grenade
Ice is equipped with Echani Light Armor, increasing her defense by +1 compared to vanilla. Ice is supposed to have the Power Blast feat but doesn’t use it due to an AI bug. She now has an updated AI script which lets her use the feat to deal some extra damage. Going along with her theme, she will also use a CryoBan grenade in combat.
Marl
Feats: Master Critical Strike -> Improved Critical Strike;
Armor: Combat Suit -> Cinnagar Weave Armor
Marl is equipped with Cinnagar Weave Armor, increasing his defense by +2 compared to vanilla. His Master Critical Strike feat which he technically shouldn’t have at his level is replaced with Improved Critical Strike, reducing his critical chance from 20% to 15%.
Twitch
STR: 12 -> 14
CON: 14 -> 16
Base HP: 66 -> 72
Feats: Two-Weapon Fighting -> Improved Two-Weapon Fighting; Rapid Shot -> Master Rapid Shot; Master Power Blast; Improved Power Attack; Dueling
Armor: Light Battle Armor -> Reinforced Fiber Armor
Grenades: Adhesive Grenade
Twitch has several vanilla issues which make him feel pretty underwhelming for being the dueling champion. For one, he has multiple attributes lower than Marl, despite everyone else having at least equivalent stats to the next lowest ranked duelist. On top of that, while Marl and Bendak both have multiple high level combat feats, Twitch has only a single low-level combat feat which he doesn’t even use due to an AI bug. Finally, Twitch is built for dual-blasters but very poor at melee, with low STR and no melee feats, letting you drastically reduce his difficulty by rushing him with a vibroblade and forcing him to switch weapons. It makes sense for him to have a weakness, but he’s just too exploitable in vanilla.
To address these issues, Twitch gets a number of changes. His STR and CON are raised to match Marl and he gains the Improve Power Attack feat so he can deal some meaningful melee damage. His HP increase now places him more squarely between Marl and Bendak. A new set of Reinforced Fiber Armor allows him to fully utilize his DEX bonus, granting an additional +2 defense over vanilla. He also gets the Dueling feat which slightly boosts his attack and defense while using a single weapon. Making sure his dual-blaster skills still stand out, Twitch also gets Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Master Rapid Shot, and Master Power Blast feats and his AI is modified so that he’ll correctly use them. Finally, adhesive grenades give him a way to delay getting rushed by melee users. This should make him significantly more challenging, less exploitable, and hopefully more worthy of the title of champion.
Bendak Starkiller
Feats: Dueling
Melee Weapon: Vibroblade -> Vibrosword
Bendak is already plenty tough, but to make sure he remains a clear step up in difficulty from Twitch, he also gets the Dueling feat and his vibroblade is upgraded to a vibrosword.
AI Changes
This mod gives certain duelists a customized AI script to fix some issues and improve combat behavior. Duelists will now correctly use their ranged feats. Twitch and Ice will use grenades but not needlessly spam them if their effects are already active. Flurry and Rapid Shot feats are broken for NPCs in certain situations; Twitch and Bendak have these feats but will use them selectively to avoid such cases. For the sake of compatibility and the scope of this mod, these changes are applied only to these duelists and will not affect other NPCs.
INSTALLATION
Run HoloPatcher.exe and select an install option. The default option installs the mod to the Override folder. An alternative option is included which installs to the Modules folder. If you don’t have any mods which edit these NPCs in Override but do have mods which edit them in Modules, you can use the alternative install option to prevent overwriting them. See compatibility notes for more details.
Direct the installer to your game folder then press install. Unaltered copies of any modified files will be placed inside the backup folder in the location of HoloPatcher.exe.
If you receive the following warning while running the alternative install option: “A resource located at ‘…\Override\…’ is shadowing this mod’s changes in Modules\tar_m02ae.mod!” then you should install the default option instead.
If you have Effixian’s Taris Arena Changes installed, run the compatibility patch after running the default install option.
UNINSTALLATION
To uninstall from the default install option:
Remove the following files from Override: tar02_bendak021.utc, tar02_gerlon021.utc, tar02_ice021.utc, tar02_marl021.utc, tar02_twitch021.utc, tar02_deadeye022.utc, m_ai_dueler.ncs, m_att_dueler.ncs, m_dmg_dueler.ncs, m_htb_dueler.ncs, m_per_dueler.ncs, m_rnd_dueler.ncs, m_spn_dueler.ncs, and m_udf_dueler.ncs. If any files were created inside the backup folder, move them to Override.
To uninstall from the alternative install option:
Remove tar_m02ae.mod from the Modules folder and, if present, replace with the tar_m02ae.mod in the backup folder.
COMPATIBILITY
Two install options are included to allow compatibility with different sets of mods that edit the same NPCs. If you are using any other mods which edit the duelist NPCs in the Override folder, you should use the default install option. However if the only other mods you have which edit these NPCs do so in the Modules folder, you can use the alternative install option to prevent overwriting them. See list of which mods are compatible with which options below.
Installs to Override (use the default option if using any of these mods):
-
Effixian’s Taris Arena Changes by Effix
- NOTE: Install order critical! Taris Arena Changes > Differentiated Duelists > Patch
- Bendak Starkiller Emblem Armour by redrob14
Installs to Modules (use the alternative option if using any of these mods and none of the previously listed mods):
-
K1 NPC Diversity Pack - N-DReW25
- NOTE: If you prefer the armors from this mod, install it after Differentiated Duelists.
- Galaxy of Faces - N-DReW25
If unsure, install using the default option after any other mods that edit these NPCs to ensure its full changes take effect.
Twitch, Ice, and Bendak will not be affected by combat AI changes from other mods.
PERMISSIONS
Feel free to do whatever you want with this mod as long as credit is provided.
CREDITS
offthegridmorty
HoloPatcher - Cortisol
TSLPatcher - stoffe, Fair Strides
KOTOR Tool - Fred Tetra
DeNCS - JdNoa, Dashus
Mods in screenshots:
High Quality Blasters by Sithspecter
HD Fire and Ice by Cinder Skye
JC’s Blaster Visual Effects by JCarter426
Taris Dueling Arena Adjustment by DarthParametric
Taris Reskin Pack by Quanon
Ultimate Character Overhaul by ShiningRedHD
Ultimate Taris High Resolution by ShiningRedHD
What's New in Version 1.0.1
Released
- Added MOD-based installation option
- Reverted Twitch's melee weapon to a vibroblade
