[KotOR] The Bash action

[Salk 374]

Hello!

I have been thinking lately how the Bash action makes practically useless the Security skill (or almost useless).  So I was wondering if a community effort may be taken in order to make bashing less effective.

My suggestion would be, if possible at all, to make Bash work only with exceptional Strength values and/or with weapons capable of delivering exceptional damage.

Another option, if possible, would be to give a chance to items in containers to be turned into trash, like in the KotOR II but that would still allow for no penalty for bashing doors open.

Ideas? Thoughts?

Thanks!

[Ragnarök 26]

Not a modder, well not much of one anyway, but I think you've touched on a bigger problem than just the Security skill being useless. In my opinion, the way that K1 handles skills isn't very good at all. There are several problems, the first of which is the needless "class skill" constraint that tries to railroad the player into doing what the game wants. Every player rebels against this guaranteed. We all pick the persuade skill, every time, no exceptions because if we don't we will have an objectively inferior experience. Not to mention, no other party member can use it.

Secondly, the game wants you to be the repair guy too. The devs went so far as to marry HK-47's backstory to it, and again it has to be you that has the skill. No other party member can help apparently. Terrible design decision especially if you picked Soldier.

So then we come to Security or bashing. I can't think of a time where I wasn't able to succeed at picking or bashing a lock in KotOR. I think the devs again knew that every piece of loot worth finding was in locked crates, and that not being able to open those crates would lead to an inferior experience, so they forced us to rough it on Taris a bit, before giving us the keys to the kingdom with Mission. Mission, who every player will keep bumping Security with anyway because it's a class skill. Which leads to the valid question, why are chests even locked past that point? I think they knew that being forced to bring a party member just for the security skill, when you're restricted to a party of three would suck. Thus bash is a thing, and security, like computer use and repair, is only useful for saving time. All three are just as useless.

What's clear is the loot from locked chests is needed for a fun experience. Certainly as a light-sided character you need to be selling stuff if you ever want to buy anything without doing Pazaak and Swoop Racing. Shop prices are way too high for benevolence otherwise. If KotOR was a D20 tabletop game, none of this would be a problem. You could have a party of six, with many people covering all the skills you need to do the job. You could accept that there would be a chest you can't get into because the only limit to the content is GM/player imagination. With KotOR, if you're unable to do something, that content isn't going to be replaced by anything. What you see is what you get.

I guess what I'm getting at is, if security was the only thing that was changed in a particular mod, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I think anything short of a full skill rebalance along with a tweak to the economy would wreck more than it would fix. Others may feel differently though.

[Salk 374]

Thank you for your intervention, Ragnarök!

I happen to feel practically the same and share your opinion about a much needed overhaul of the skill system inside KotOR but I fear that is not really feasible so I have mostly focused on what I believe is the worst offender in an undeniably not well thought-out implementation.

I am less critic about the Cross Class Skill and Class Skill (even because locally I made some changes that help in this sense) because I find such restriction to be compatibly with the Class system. We may discuss whether or not having a Class system is a good idea or not but since KotOR offers (forces?) the Player to choose a path then I believe it is just a consequence to face limitations in the development of a certain set of skills. 

And I agree: Persuade is THE skill to have and it is penalizing for the Soldier and the Scout to not have it as Class Skill. The developers must have realized that and patched this problem partly by making it a Class skill for each Jedi class. I find that the most annoying limitation, more than having to spend double amount of skill points to raise it, is that Cross Class Skills can be invested into up to a rank that is given by (Current Level + 3) / 2 rather than the Current Level +3 which applies to the Class Skill.

But back my initial issue: Security is the one skill that truly seems useless because at least Repair and Computer Use open new scenarios (even plot-related like for HK-47) and allow you to have alternatives. Security is the one skill whose purpose is to let you save a little time and gain some XP but that's it.

That's why I would welcome a modification that would introduce some sort of drawback for NOT having it.

It would already be a big step in the good direction, even if it would not magically solve the inconsistencies and the general poor Skill implementation.

There would be other critical issues (namely AI) which I was hoping would mostly be resolved by this project. Unfortunately the author is away and who knows when and if he ever returns to it?

Thanks again for your contribution!

[N-DReW25 1,337]

5 hours ago, Salk said:

Security is the one skill whose purpose is to let you save a little time and gain some XP but that's it.

 

To my knowledge, the bonus XP is exclusive to TSL. In other words, K1 Security is utterly useless. At least on the PC the security spikes don't work meaning you need at least some security to get through doors that can't be bashed (One door on Manaan in the Kolto Rift Station can't be bashed) or opened via a terminal but that's kinda sad that they need to break a feature of Kotor to make Security useful.

 

I'll present probably the worse, but potentially only, idea to make Security more useful. In the HK-47 dialogue he mentions opening and closing panels, why not make it a requirement to have both Repair and Security to fix HK-47. Security to open HK up and Repair to actually fix him.

[Ragnarök 26]

I'm not against classes or even class skills, but I think that most of the skills KotOR has are too generic to be considered something that one particular class could learn easier than another. Computer Use would be the only one I could see a valid reason to make a class skill for Scoundrels alone. The rest? You could justify any class could train in practically any of those without penalty.

In the case of Security, perhaps there should have been the equivalent of lock picks, and if it was made into a class skill for Scoundrels and Scouts, then Demolitions should have served the same purpose for Soldiers. Without the ability for any class to open locked chests though, the game would feel empty. K2 gets away with it easier because it has randomized loot, but with K1 every chest is a set piece and few of them ever have anything worthwhile.

I understand the importance of some classes being able to do things better than others, but I think trying to define the starting classes based purely on their non-combat skills was a huge mistake, the game just isn't suited to it. The three-man party restriction is what really kills the variety and sadly, nothing can be done about that.

 

 

 

[Salk 374]

4 hours ago, Ragnarök said:

I understand the importance of some classes being able to do things better than others, but I think trying to define the starting classes based purely on their non-combat skills was a huge mistake, the game just isn't suited to it. The three-man party restriction is what really kills the variety and sadly, nothing can be done about that.

 

If this other project meets complete success perhaps it may become possible to open up to more than two henchmen.