Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Walkthrough for Xbox Game Name: Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Format: Xbox Submitted By: Irregular Sausage [Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic] [Rule System Walkthrough] Many people do not realise that if you were to strip away the fancy graphics and animations in this game you are left with a rule system used by pen and paper role-playing gamers all around the world. This rule system is the Dungeons and Dragons system (sometimes called the D20 system because of its use with 20 sided dice) and this determines everything you do on Knights of the Old Republic. Although the beauty of the game itself is that to play Knights of the Old Republic you do not need to know anything about this system and the way it works, understanding it proves very useful when trying to master the game. So in this walkthrough I will explain how the rules are used, what they mean and how to use them to your advantage. [Abilities] – These are the main statistics of your characters. They are: Strength (Str)– Determines how physically strong your character is. Is used for melee attack modifiers, damage done with melee attacks and strength related skills. Dexterity (Dex) – How nimble your character is. Is used for your Armour total, ranged attack modifiers, dexterity related skills and reflex. Constitution (Con) – How much your character can physically take. This is mainly used for health but is also used for constitution related skills and fortitude. Intelligence (Int) – Simply how intelligent your character is. This is mainly used for how many skill points you receive each level but is also used for a lot of skills themselves as well. Wisdom (Wis) – How intelligent you are again but in a more natural style. Most people recognise this as raw intelligence and even common sense. It is vital for force powers and will. Charisma (Cha) – How charismatic your character is – how he speaks, how he looks but more importantly how easy it is for him to manipulate people. This is important for lots force powers and also the Persuade skill. At the beginning of the game you are given points to assign to these abilities. The number you end up with for each one determines how good your character is at different skills. This is represented as Ability Modifiers. The pattern for these modifiers is as follows: 18 (+4) 17 (+3) 16 (+3) 15 (+2) 14 (+2) 13 (+1) 12 (+1) 11 (+0) 10 (+0) 9 (-1) 8 (-1) 7 (-2) 6 (-2) And so on. As you can see every even number brings a change to your modifier. These modifiers are used for almost everything in the game – from deciding your final skill check to how much damage you do to an enemy. Modifiers are also used in skills however. [Skills] – These are the things your character is good at. In KOTOR these are: Computer Use, Demolitions, Stealth, Awareness, Persuade, Repair, Security and Treat Wound. Depending which class you are these will then be split up into class skills and cross-class skills. The difference between them is that: Class skills are ones your character is familiar with and finds it easy to improve on whereas cross-class skills are ones that your character is unfamiliar with and finds it hard to improve on. The basic thing to know is that cross-class skills take much longer to get higher. Every level you are awarded skill points and these can be assigned to different skills. This initial input of points is called a Rank. Then your ability modifier for that type of skill is added. This is called a skill modifier. These two numbers are then added together to make your Skill Check (SC). For example lets say you add 4 points to your characters Persuade skill. Seeing as this is a class skill for your character you are awarded 4 ranks in that skill. The relative ability to this skill is Charisma and so your character's Charisma Modifier is added to your ranks. In this example lets pretend the character has a Charisma of 14 meaning he has a modifier of +2. This +2 is added to his ranks to make a final skill number of 6 (4 + 2 = 6). This is now that characters skill check and will be used throughout the game in different situations. [Difficulty Class] – This is commonly referred to as DC for shorthand. Basically this is a number that determines how successful you need to be to complete the task you want to do. For example, in KOTOR your character commonly comes across locked doors that can be opened if you have the security skill. When you use your skill the game looks at your Skill Check and looks at the difficulty class for that door (how hard it is to open). Lets say your skill check (SC) equals 6 and the difficulty class (DC) equals 15. The game now rolls a virtual, 20-sided dice for your character. Whatever the number rolled is added to your skill check to make your total skill check. In this situation the game rolls an 8. This is added to the characters SC to make 14 (6 + 8 = 14). This number is then compared to the DC of what you’re trying to do, in this case the door you’re trying to open. If this number equals or is higher then the DC it is said that you have “beaten the DC” and therefore successfully opened the door. However, like in this case, the character has not “beaten the DC” and therefore the door doesn’t open. KOTOR will inform you of this and you will have the option to try again. However in most circumstances when you fail, the DC that you have to beat each time increases so that the task you want to complete (or the door you want to open) becomes more difficult to do, until it is impossible to beat. This idea of beating something is used throughout the entire system. [Ability checks] –An ability check is very similar to a skill check except that instead of using one of your skills (such as security) you are using one of your abilities instead (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma). For example perhaps your character failed opening the door and instead you want to try and bash the door down. In this case the door will already have a hardness DC – how hard the material that the object is made out of is to break. Just like in real life this hardness DC is unique to each and every type of object (e.g. a piece of paper will have a different hardness DC to a piece of concrete.) A hardness DC is not linked to the skill DC and therefore maybe lower or higher. So lets say the hardness DC for this door is 12, seeing as it is a wooden door. Behind the scenes the game rolls a d20 and the number is remembered. This number (in this case 10) is added to your ability modifier (in this case strength, +3). If the number beats the DC, like in our example, the task is carried out successfully. However what happens next may sometimes change according to different situations and abilities used. [Fighting] – Fighting makes up a big part of KOTOR. However it is also the most complicated. Here I will describe the very basics of attacking and causing damage. [Armour Class] – This is how hard your character is to hit. This is a number and is determined by your dexterity plus your armour bonus plus natural armour. Your armour bonus is simply the bonus the piece of armour you are wearing gives to you. Your natural armour however is the amount a feat might give to you and/or how naturally hard you are to hit. This natural armour comes into play when you become a Jedi and are, inevitably, harder to hit. [Attack Bonus] – This is the modifier that goes toward you actually attacking someone. It is split up into melee and ranged. [Melee] – Your strength modifier added to your character base attack bonus. The base bonus is a number that is dependent on your class and level. For example, if a characters base bonus was 2 and his strength modifier was +4, his melee attack bonus would be +6. [Ranged] – Your dexterity modifier added to your base attack bonus. For example, if a characters base attack bonus was 2 and his strength modifier was +1, his ranged attack bonus would be +3. These bonuses may also be a negative though. For example if you had 8 for your strength your modifier would be -2. If your base attack bonus were 1 then your melee attack bonus would end up being –1. Unless you haven’t noticed already noticed melee attack bonus is to do with swords, etc, whereas ranged attack bonus is to do with blaster pistols, etc. A lightsaber, however, is to do with both – when you use a lightsaber, the highest attack bonus out of your ranged and melee is chosen and used. [Attacking] – in it’s simplest form, attacking is as follows. When you select to attack an enemy the game checks your attack bonus. This will depend on the type of weapon you are using but will always be your melee or ranged attack bonus. A d20 is then rolled and the number is added to your attack bonus. If this “attack roll” is higher then your opponents “armour class” you have hit him and cause him damage. If it hasn’t beaten his armour class or it is equal to it, then you do not hit him. [Damage] – First thing to know about damage – it is unique to the weapon you are using. Second thing to know about damage – you get a strength bonus with melee weapons but thee is no bonus with ranged weapons. A weapon’s damage will be shown like this: Sword – (1 – 6) +2. The first part is the weapons name and will indicate it’s type as well (melee or ranged). The second part is how much damage it can do. In this case the Sword will do 1 damage up to 6 damage. The game looks at this and rolls a relative dice – for this it will be a six-sided dice. The last part is the bonus (if there is any). In this case our character has a strength bonus of two so 2 will be added to the number rolled. For example, if a 4 were rolled then 2 would be added to it to make 6 points of damage. This amount is then taken away from the enemies total Health (Known as Hit points or Hp). Once the enemies’ health has been knocked down to zero he is dead. In the case of characters they will need to be revived, however enemies will be, fortunately, defeated. And that is basic fighting. Of course the enemy will have his turn next and then the round will repeat again until someone is dead. [Final Note] - I have not explained force powers for one reason – they use a combination of DC’s, attack bonuses and damage that I have already mentioned. If you wish to find out more about individual force powers the game tells you itself. In fact the game tells you a lot about different weapons, characters and items if you look closely and I hope now with the fundamental rules explained you might understand them. So thanks for reading my walkthrough, I hope it has helped you to understand a bit more what’s going on. I would like to say that this is my own work and should not be used by anyone without my permission. Otherwise feel free to read it again and again! Being already experienced with the d20 rule system myself I found it a lot easier to plan my attacks and make my decisions. What it also allowed me to do was plan how to advance my character to become what I wanted him to be and therefore allowed me to fully enjoy the game. Hopefully reading this walkthrough will have done the same for you! Thanks again, Craig Summers