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Thematic Sith Lords Premise Anyone who’s played TSL knows that the eponymous Sith Lords are pretty disappointing. The most hyped fight of the entire game, against Nihilus, is almost always trivial. Sion has the potential to be dangerous but rarely is, and Kreia’s floating lightsabers are almost always more of a threat than the woman herself. Thematic Sith Lords’s purpose is not to directly address these issues, but to push back against some of the underlying problems with these fights that results in them being so boring. While examining the .utc files for Sion, Kreia and Nihilus associated with their respective fights, I found that there was surprisingly little differentiation between them, especially in class & attributes, with very little specialization per Lord. Worse still, many feats and powers which the Lords should realistically have had were also missing: Sion, for example, lacked Ignore Pain despite his ability to fight through and even utilize his constant pain being the core of his character! Thematic Sith Lords, as you may have gathered, is not a difficulty mod as such. Rather, it’s a realism mod the goal of which is to increase the overall difficulty of the Lord fights as a natural result of restructuring the stats, feats and powers of the Lords to more accurately fit their physical and mental conditions, as well as their experiences and training, without making every fight harder for all characters. The goal is to make each fight with a Lord feel different, with each Lord having their own specialties, strengths and weaknesses, such that some character builds will do better against some Lords and struggle against others. For example, in Thematic Sith Lords, Sion has extreme STR and CON, but poor WIS and INT, and abysmal DEX and CHA. His archetype is as a bruiser, who trades taking hits for being able to dish out extremely powerful strikes with no fear of his close-range style resulting in his death—because Sion doesn’t need to worry about dying in a fight, and his combat style should reflect that. This overconfidence results in him being somewhat vulnerable to Force abilities, however, and a Consular might run circles around him where a Guardian struggles to bring him down. The goal is that the opposite will also be true—Consulars who had no trouble with Sion might find themselves in a pickle when their abilities bounce off Nihilus, who now has even higher WIS and Will saves than he did before, and the DEX to frequently dodge the lightsabers of most Jedi not built explicitly for melee combat. Additionally, for the 2.0 release of this mod the entire mod was reworked from the ground up with even more comprehensive alterations, as well as including the Visas ambush fight in the list of edits. The 2.0 changes were extensively tested for realism, balance & difficulty, and a full list of all the alterations made to each Lord is included in the file download for those who would like to see exactly what I did, as well as a brief explanation for why. Why use Thematic Sith Lords? As noted above, Thematic Sith Lords isn’t a difficulty mod, as most rebalances of the Lords are. The goal is to make each Lord’s attributes, stats, feats and powers a realistic reflection of their condition, and how they would actually fight. If you want pure difficulty, other mods might be for you; if you want to experience differentiated fights that are harder on average than what TSLRCM has to offer, however, Thematic Sith Lords is likely for you. Thematic Sith Lords also has three features which other difficulty mods for the Lords often don’t: it makes adjustment to Visas’s ambush of the party on the Ebon Hawk; it modifies the Sion fight on Korriban as well as Sion's fight with Atton on Malachor (both of which are frequently left out of other mods); and it uses the TSLPatcher to inject .utc edit data directly into module files for maximum compatibility. Difficulty, Balance & Testing Methodology Users who have tried other mods which make serious alterations to boss enemies, or who used the 1.0 version of Thematic Sith Lords, may justifiably be concerned about difficulty and balance. I’d like to disclose how these fights were tested to hopefully put some of those concerns to rest. This mod was tested with two DS characters, one Sentinel/Marauder and one Sentinel/Lord (although only DS characters were used in the test, none of the fights were won with unique powers or abilities which would make them viable on DS but not on LS builds). Both test characters were built well but not min-maxed, and for each battle the use of items (consumables or shield charges) was forbidden: I had to be able to beat each opponent with only melee and Force abilities. Some of the fights were still very difficult, but each could be won without needing to resort to cheesy tactics. For any player with an average or above grasp of D20 mechanics, I believe you can use this mod without concern. Beginners to d20 systems may need to turn the difficulty down for these encounters in some cases, but should still be able to beat them even with sub-par builds with a bit of clever positioning and pre-buffing. I will note as an aside that there is one fight that is abnormally difficult: Atton vs. Sion. But I view this as being realistic, and designed it this way purposefully: Atton is an above-average Jedi at best going against a Sith Lord, and there should be a real chance of him losing there. It should be a major triumph if you can evade Sion. Compatibility This mod requires TSLRCM to be installed first, and NOT to be installed via the Steam Workshop, in order to install properly & function. The Workshop is very poor for mod compatibility, so if you have it installed via the Workshop, it’s best you install it via the installer version anyway. This mod should be compatible with anything and everything else that doesn’t edit the Lords’ .utc files. Even mods that do so shouldn’t break this, they might just edit some of the same data. The only exception is if another mod drops a relevant .utc file directly to the override, which will fully overwrite Thematic Sith Lords’s module-based edits. Installation 1. Ensure TSLRCM is downloaded and installed, NOT through the Steam Workshop! 2. Download the file and unzip it to any folder of your choice (except for the game directory) using a program like 7zip or Winrar. 3. Run the TSLPatcher .exe and, when prompted, choose which of the two main modules you would like: Standard (base changes only) or No Force Rating (removes the saving throw bonuses to DS characters in the Korriban Sith Academy, which can make the Sion fight there more difficult). Once you have chosen your preferred module, select your game directory (the one with the .exe file in it), click “install mod” and you’re done! 4. Optionally, if you would like Visas to appear as a Sith Assassin during her ambush, re-run the installer after installing your chosen base module and select the “Sith Assassin Visas (Optional)” install option, then install that module also. Permissions & Thanks As with any mod I have made or will make in the future, this mod has completely open permissions: modify it, redistribute it, reupload it, do whatever. So long as you give myself credit for the idea and the balance settings (if you choose to retain most of these edits) & JCarter426 credit for the mod’s development, go for it. You don’t even need to ask me. Special thanks to @DarthParametric for his help with putting the 1.0 release together--it was my first time making significant edits with KOTORTool and creating a TSLPatcher install, and this mod quite probably wouldn’t exist without his help. Thanks to @Pavijan357 for identifying the missing changes to Sion in 906MAL.mod, and @DarthTyren for cleaning up my changes.ini and applying the changes properly. Credit to @offthegridmorty for his “Visas Marr: Sith Assassin” mod, which inspired this mod’s optional module to change Visas’s class to Sith Assassin during her ambush on the Ebon Hawk. Premier thanks goes as usual to @JCarter426, who rebuilt this entire mod at my request for the 2.0 release, and tirelessly put up with literally dozens of revisions of the mod as we fine-tuned the balancing. As of the 2.0 release, this mod is much more his than my own and I am tremendously grateful for his help. Thanks also to @doctoramanda from the KOTOR Discord for her help making the "preview" image.

Description: 2 mods were released a long time ago, doing some part of what this mod does. These 2 mods being Shem's Sith Assassin's with Lightsabers and Hassat Hunter's Sith troops to Sith Assassins. Although these 2 mods are fine, there were a few issues/complications. Both of these mods are listed to install on the TSL Community Mod Build, but having both installed leads to some consistency issues. The changed assassins on the Ebon Hawk won't have lightsabers like Shem's mod does to them on the Harbinger. Additionally, Shem's mod had some of the Lightsabers drop premature to the player getting their own lightsaber, allowing you to get multiple of them for you and your party. While that's not despicable, it is a bit annoying for players who want to have a consistent and story accurate playthrough. This mod combine's the features of the 2 mentioned mods, while making it consistent. Installation: This mod is split up into 2 mandatory install parts and 1 optional install. First, extract the .zip download. Run the Holopatcher.exe and select the first part install option, installing to your TSL directory. Once that is completed (rename "Backup" to "backup1", in case you want to uninstall the mod.) Go to the drop down menu where the first part install option is and select the second part, and run the Holopatcher again. Once that one is completed, you have the mod installed. Optionally, if you want the Assassins to be debuffed for the Ebon Hawk Raid. (rename the current "backup" folder to "backup2" in case you want to uninstall alter.) select the Optional third install in the drop down menu and install that. Boom, now you're done. Note: You can install the first part alone and the mod will be fine, but the second part installs for the turret sequence on peragus. If you'd like the immersion and consistency, install both parts. Uninstall: Open up "backup1" and copy the .mod file to the modules folder, overwriting it when prompted. Delete all the .utc filed in the game's override folder that match the .utc files in the backup2 folder. Open up "backup2" and copy the .mod file into there to the modules folder, overwriting when prompted. Open "backup" if you installed the optional third install, and copy the .mod to the modules folder, overwriting. Compatibility: Don't worry if you have Shem's and Hassat's mods installed first, this mod will overwrite what they do. Credits: Holocron Toolset - Cortisol Holopatcher - Cortisol TSLPatcher - Stoffe (used in the previous versions) Snigaroo for testing help. Shem and Hassat for making the original mods, that this mod replicates. Permissions: You can use parts of the mods in your own, as long as there is proper credit. Don't re-upload this mod anywhere without any changes done, if I want somewhere, I'll put it there. DO NOT reupload to the steam workshop. Bugs: None known at the time. Report if any are encountered.

BOSSR Recreated Movies Please rate this file before you scamper away. Thanks! Mod Description: To wind up my efforts to modernize Silveredge9’s Brotherhood of Shadow Solomon’s Revenge, I decided to concentrate on the pre-rendered videos (BIKs) that came with that mod. Though I previously made a replacement for the BOSSR specific “Legal Screen” video – available separately here – these 3 cover the other 3 BIKs. Namely, the flyby of a Hammerhead vessel (the Orion), a duel between Solomon and Shadow, and the BOSSR-specific credits video. The new videos are in 1920 x 1080 resolution. There are two options for the live_13.bik video. (Both videos can be seen on the mod download page.) But I think seeing it in action would probably be more convincing than just writing about it. Here's the BEFORE video, taken from the original mod. And here's what the AFTER version using a modern computer and having upscaled textures. This is Version 1 of the Credits BIK And here's Version 2 of the Credits BIK. And here's the video where the Hammerhead Orion does a fly-by past the camera. The original video in the mod only had "Brotherhood of Shadow" rather than the full title as it was taken directly from the original version of the mod. This has been corrected here. A Reminder: BOSSR is not compatible with the KotOR Community Portal Mod Build. If you’re using that, then you should NOT be installing BOSSR or this mod with your setup. Installation: Drop the BIK files into the Movies folder. You’ll have to choose only 1 version of the live_13.bik video which are in separate folders. If you play in a resolution below 1920x1080, you will need to manually downscale the cutscenes to match your chosen resolution. If you are playing with no widescreen modifications they will need to be downscaled to play at *native movie resolution* [I forget what this is, something asininely small like 800x600?]. If you are using widescreen and have NOT added in other cutscene mods or edited your executable to allow for widescreen movies, you will need to enable this functionality. See this video for more. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA5l6HVs4Y4]. If you do so and experience cutscene minimization, you should double-check your edited hex values. If the issue persists, you may need to manually rescale these cutscenes to precisely match your chosen widescreen resolution. Uninstall: Remove the files from this mod that you placed in the Movies folder. Legal Disclaimer: All materials and copyrights belong to LucasArts, Bioware and Obsidian Entertainment Inc., I own none of the materials, and I'm not making any money out of this mod. This mod is not to be distributed for profit. I hereby state that I specifically do NOT wish this mod to be uploaded to Steam Workshop. Ever. I may release this on NexusMods at a later date but I don't wish others to do so. Usage in other mods must be requested AND approved by me before your use. Messages that request permission without providing information on how your alternate version would be different than mine should be considered an instant denial of permission. Special Thanks: JCarter426: Created the live_12 and live_13 videos - with the exception of the BOSSR logo – entirely by himself. His videos are included with his permission and with my thanks. 90sk: Adding an outline to the made-from-scratch BOSSR logo. Basil Bonehead: Animating the moving BOSSR logo in the “BOSSR Live 11” video. Dark Hope: For creating the Shadow textures that I used in the “BOSSR Live 11” video. They are available here. Snigaroo: He helped tremendously with the Installation instructions you find above. If this mod works for you, it’s mostly due to him.