Prestige Class Rebalancing

[kfweasel 0]

I missed this game series when it came out, and I just ran across it recently and played through KotOR and TSL light, then TSLRCM light/dark then K1R light/dark. So I played both games pretty much back-to-back, and it seemed to me like class choice in KotOR had a higher impact on gameplay than in TSL, even though TSL had prestige classes that branched by alignment. They're both so easy it doesn't really matter in the end (even though my custom autobalance.2da has multipliers like 3x vit and 1.5x attack), but from my outside perspective I thought the prestige classes lacked the definition they could have had.

I wrote myself a few force power scripts for specific classes that I'm testing out, and I am thinking about putting together a full mod (I've got lots of partially coded ideas), but I want to know what people who've played more think.

My general impression of classes:

• GUA: Mostly useless for PC except for HP; force jump rarely works (and both NPC guardians are trying to be unarmed specialists anyway ><)
• SEN: Nifty immunities, skill points
• CON: Overpowered class feat and force forms
• WPM/MAR: EZ-mode tank. Since you have effectively infinite FP these make great facerollers. Fury seems way cooler than deflect, and who cares about blaster bolts anyway? (though I played WPM, not MAR, so I might just be used to never getting hit)
• WTC/SAS: Burst damage. Stun/fear stuff and squash it.
• MST/SLD:  Went sentinel/master my first play-through, and I had already chosen force regen feat before 15. Influence power seems pointless. I never really used the master buff, and nothing seems to get resisted enough for me to think I'd care to use the debuff as a sith lord, especially if I had a consular parent class and/or force mastery active. Force points and force powers are ostensibly the defining characteristics of these classes, but since you get 100 force powers and 1000 force points in this game, both branches of this tree seem to fall short.

So basically they seem pretty unbalanced to me, and I have a few ideas on how to mitigate that imbalance via force powers (and a few other ideas if I can get them to work, like restoring a BAB scale and maybe revising force power gain...), but I want to know what you more experienced folks think about each base/prestige class and their distinctive varieties of gameplay (or lack thereof). Like,

What do you all think defines each one, or what are some areas that make it stand out (for better or worse)?

and/or

What is your idea for a class-specific force power?

 

tl;dr: pick a prestige class and reply with some words about it

[TheDarkChocolateJedi 17]

Well the class I had the most fun with was in TSL when I had this dark side jedi named Mardo drak he was a Jedi consular/Sith Lord and he was awesome he ripped apart stuff with his force powers. However i do have more nostalgic memories with A guardian/master or a guardian/weapons master. If I could give the Sith Lord a specific power it would be to suck some health and force power and some of the enemies atributes and absorb those atributes into myself for a short amount of time. It would be called force Imbalance.

[kfweasel 0]

Well the class I had the most fun with was in TSL when I had this dark side jedi named Mardo drak he was a Jedi consular/Sith Lord and he was awesome he ripped apart stuff with his force powers. However i do have more nostalgic memories with A guardian/master or a guardian/weapons master. If I could give the Sith Lord a specific power it would be to suck some health and force power and some of the enemies atributes and absorb those atributes into myself for a short amount of time. It would be called force Imbalance.

 

Hey that's a good idea! I was leaning more towards utility stuff like that absorb attribute thing for DS powers since they already have lots of damage output stuff going on, and Sith Lord was one I had struggling with. Maybe add paralysis to force storm? Your idea is better, though.

 

Here's a picture of a KotOR 1 gun I just made as a thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aside] While testing this rifle, I quickly realized that the game race "human" really just meant "not droid" and postulated that this value, ostensibly called "human" but used so broadly as to classify Gamorreans, might have a string identifier I could modify with pretty much no consequence. I mean the worst that can happen is some Rakatan computer might spout a sentience slur at me, but I think I could handle that.

[TheDarkChocolateJedi 17]

Oh, forgot to mention, Sith marauders should have a force power called blood bound where their health goes down quickly but their atributes are boosted for as long as they can stay alive (Force heal wouldn't work while this force power is in effect)

[kfweasel 0]

Sith Marauders already have Fury, so I have to be careful with them, and there are only so many functions I have to work with.

 

But as far as that idea, I had something similar in mind for Sith Lord, actually. Like whatever Palpantine did at the window with Mace Windu. Some sort of damage-self-but-damage-other-a-whole-lot-more situation. But I haven't fleshed that out.

 

My desktop failed the other day, so I don't have my files right now, but here are some ideas I have so far (any names are just working titles):

 

Global 20% increase in force power cost of all existing powers

 

Weaponmaster: Center of Being (self) +++Def, +Vit, ++Saves, 100% blaster Reflection

Watchman: Flash of Light (ae): unresistable stun (maybe save for duration), lower dexterity for a while after stun wears off, instant dd component if cast while stealthed

Master: Force Balance (party) restore other Jedi force points (at the cost of the Master's), cure debuffs

 

Marauder: I actually have something scripted and compiled already but I forgot what it is

Assassin: I was hoping for something about criticals but can't find anything in the code

Sith Lord: Force Imbalance [though I might make it dependent on the Plague line and rename it accordingly] (target/self): unresistable poison, drain all attributes and give (a fraction of) them to caster

 

And I could add some random stuff like Force Push 4 (since you know you chain cast Wave anyway and a damage boost would save everybody some clicks) etc

 

I mean I guess I have enough stuff I could call this a WIP; I'm just not sure I'm gonna finish it really.

[TheDarkChocolateJedi 17]

I have an idea, it would be called Ultimate Sacrifice or something And Jedi masters would use it, It would reduce the jedi masters health to 10 and it would basicly release an explosion of power and energy knocking everyone near him on the ground (Including himself) Not sure what else it would consist of other than an awesome suicide attempt lol.