Differentiated Duelists 1.0.0

Rebalancing 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 between 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 it 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 let 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
Melee Weapon: Vibroblade -> Vibrosword
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, his vibroblade is upgraded to a vibrosword, 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 is still 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

To install, run HoloPatcher.exe. Unaltered copies of any modified files will be placed inside the backup folder in the location of HoloPatcher.exe.

(Optional) Run the compatibility patch if you have Effixian’s Taris Arena Changes installed.

UNINSTALLATION

Remove the following files from Override: tar02_bendak021.utc, tar02_gerlon021.utc, tar02_ice021.utc, tar02_marl021.utc, tar02_twitch021.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. 

Alternatively, you can run the uninstall script via HoloPatcher (Tools > Uninstall Mod)

COMPATIBILITY

May conflict with other mods that edit the same NPCs. Install this mod after any others that edit these NPCs to minimize incompatibility and ensure its full changes take effect.

Compatible with Effixian’s Taris Arena Changes but install order is critical. Install Taris Arena Changes first, then Differentiated Duelists, then apply the included compatibility patch.

Due to this mod installing to override, it will overwrite changes to the duelists made by K1 NPC Diversity Pack by N-DReW.

Compatible with Bendak Starkiller Emblem Armour by redrob14.

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