K1 Jedi Rebalance

[tm1104 1]

Hey there, so my basic premise is I don't like how in KotOR 1 you feel punished for levelling up your starting class on Taris so loads of people struggle through the planet at level 2 - ruining natural progression of the early game but making endgame build more powerful owing to the extra force powers/points.

I've seen two mods that try to address this which I feel have their own flaws; one is Balance in the Force (BitF) - which comes with a bunch of other gameplay changes that aren't for everyone, and the other just makes it so the first level of any Jedi class allows the player to choose a greater number of force powers straight off the bat - which I feel also negatively impacts the feeling of character progression due the the instant power increase (even if there was a lite version of BitF solely addressing this, I believe that there is a similar issue). 

So the basic problem imo is people want more force powers, generally you'd leave Taris with enough XP to be level 8, therefore by staying at level 2, you would gain at least 6 extra powers (8 if consular). 

My suggestion is: based on the jedi class the player chooses a mod would find a lore/gameplay friendly way to give players those powers gradually. I think guardians should get their 6 they are entitled too, sentinels should get one more (so 7) helping buff the underpowered class while being lore friendly, and consulars get their 8.

Suggestions on this are more than welcome but as a starting point, I think there are a few sensible changes that would compliment the 'vanilla' experience.

1) When adopting an advanced class, the first level of each should give one of the 3 main buffs for free alongside the standard 2 powers the player can choose. e.g. Guardian would get the first level of Valor (feel like that makes sense as they specialise in combat extra attributes and saving throws is v nice and lore friendly), Sentinels would get the first level of Speed (often perceived as the most powerful buff so helps the Sentinel out a bit as its the weakest Jedi class, plus their precursor class scout is given flurry/rapid shot so that also makes sense to me), and Consulars would get Aura (left over and lore firendly as the idea is they are defending themselves with the force instead of enhanced skills/speed).

2) All Jedi classes also get given the first level of force push immediately. We see the PC using telekenesis in the training montage so works well towards the overall goal as well as being very lore friendly.

3) Sentinels should get given Affect Mind in addition to the above as they are often seen as the skill based build and its the power that's linked to persuade.

4) Consulars should also get Cure (the first level of heal) immediately given they are supposed to be the masters of the force and would likely focus on this kind of thing. To my mind this is v lore friendly while also maintaining the consulars superiority in terms of having an extra given power.

At this point we have given the Guardian 2 and Sentinel/Consular 3 additional powers, much less jarring than just getting to choose all the extra powers striaght off the bat. From here, we could easily go the way of letting the player to choose all the remaining powers they get from here on out as they level, ie at Guardian level 3 the player can choose 2 powers instead of the vanilla 1 etc, spreading the additonal powers they are owed throught the levelling path. 

I suggest that Guardians should get to choose 2 powers (instead of 1) every 4 levels of the class, Sentinels should get to chose 2 powers every 3 levels, and Consulars every 2. Meaning that, assuming the PC is going for a normal 8/12 split, a Guardian would get given 2 extra powers and can choose an additional extra 3 over vanilla, a Sentinel would get given 3 and can choose as additional 4, and a Consular gets 3 as well as an additonal 6.

Genuinly keen to hear everyone's thoughts on this as I think that this is a rather elegant solution to the saving levels problem that plagues the vanilla KotOR experience.

[JCarter426 1,239]

In KOTOR 1, it is not possible to grant a character Force powers outside of the player choosing them when leveling up the character. This renders many of your desired changes impossible, barring changes to the game engine.

[Liserg 12]

If I understand you correctly, most of what you described can be done using the KSE program. Before you start, save your current game progress. This will allow you to delete the modified save and try again if the result is unsatisfactory. This way, you can experiment with KSE until you achieve the desired outcome.

[tm1104 1]

13 hours ago, JCarter426 said:

In KOTOR 1, it is not possible to grant a character Force powers outside of the player choosing them when leveling up the character. This renders many of your desired changes impossible, barring changes to the game engine.

That’s such a bummer, was hoping it would work the same way as feats which can get given at certain class levels and the hidden powers like sense you unlock as you progress the Jedi class, but guessing those systems aren’t manipulatable with the tools modders have. In that case, would it instead be possible to change how many force powers the player can pick at certain levels and give them the number in like with what I suggested? As opposed to the bulk increase that some mods already offer… Ie instead of being able to choose 2 powers at Level 1, Guardians can choose 4, and Sentinels/Consulars 5. Then as I said before make it so Guardians can subsequently choose 2 powers every 4 levels, Sentinels every 3 and Consulars every 2?

5 hours ago, Liserg said:

If I understand you correctly, most of what you described can be done using the KSE program. Before you start, save your current game progress. This will allow you to delete the modified save and try again if the result is unsatisfactory. This way, you can experiment with KSE until you achieve the desired outcome.

Ye it absolutely is I was just hoping for a way to do it organically in game rather than mucking with save game files as I go.

[JCarter426 1,239]

On 3/3/2025 at 1:00 PM, tm1104 said:

In that case, would it instead be possible to change how many force powers the player can pick at certain levels and give them the number in like with what I suggested?

Yes, that is configured in classpoweregain.2da. Unfortunately, a lot of the functionality for feats does not have an equivalent for Force powers.

In KOTOR 2, there are script functions which can grant a character a Force power outside of the level up system (e.g. when your player learns a hidden power like Breath Control) so there are more options in that game.