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KOTOR Build: The Skillmaster

Tags: #Albino KOTOR 
  • Member
    August 2, 2015

    And here it is, the single most challenging build I’ve ever played in KOTOR, and, when compared to my other builds, perhaps the most unorthodox as well. As you might’ve guessed from the name, this build is to skills as my Sabermaster is to lightsaber combat and my Forcemaster is to force powers. This build pushes the different skills in the game to their utmost, to the point of overkill really, and always has a trick up its sleeve for every encounter. I now present to you…

    The Skillmaster

    Class: Scoundrel -> Consular. While Scoundrel -> Sentinel gives the most skill points out of all the class combos, I went with Scoundrel -> Consular because it’s the only class combo in the game that gets to have every skill as a class skill. Don’t bother “saving” levels with this build; get as many levelups in Scoundrel as you can before going Consular.

    Alignment: Dark Side. In situations where the Skillmaster can’t use his skills to his advantage, he instead blasts his enemies with dark side force powers.

    Feats: Ordinarily, this would be its own section, but for the Skillmaster, it’s fairly simple. In order of priority, you’ll want to invest into the Caution, Gear Head, and Empathy lines of feats.

    Teammates: None! No, I didn’t do this just to punish myself; I just didn’t want to bring party members along most of the time because they can’t accompany you while you’re in stealth mode. That being said, there are some situations where you may want to bring your party members along (such as Taris or the final level). In those cases, I recommend taking your two most powerful frontliners to keep the heat off of you.

    Attributes

    STR:8   DEX:14   CON:8   INT:18   WIS:14   CHA:10

    That’s what you’ll want your starting stats to look like. Put the first four attribute points you get on levelups into Intelligence and the last into Dexterity. Seeing as it’s the attribute that determines your skill points, Intelligence will naturally be your most important stat. You’ll also want a good amount of Dexterity for a decent amount of defense. The remainder of your attribute points should go into Wisdom and Charisma so you can use your force powers effectively.

    Skills

    Listed in order of priority. Repair and Computer Use won’t become class skills until you become a Consular, so hold off on putting skill points into them until that happens.

    Stealth: When possible, you’ll want to sneak past enemies or even ambush them with a sneak attack if that tickles your fancy. Definitely put lots of skill points into this.

    Demolitions: An effective and readily available strategy is to plant a ton of mines and then lure enemies over them. In fact, it’s one of the few feasible ways that this build can take out the final boss. Unless you plan on fiddling with mines in the midst of combat (I don’t recommend this), you don’t need your total skill amount (as in including equipment/feat/attribute bonuses) to go higher than 20.

    Awareness: The easiest way to get mines is to recover them and in order to do that you need to be able to spot planted mines.

    Security: Ordinarily, this is a pretty worthless skill since you can just break the lock with brute force, but since bashing locks brings you out of stealth mode, I recommend picking them instead.

    Computer Use: Most of the interior areas that you fight your way through have a computer available for slicing that you can use to disable defenses or take out whole groups of enemies. Ultimately though, since all this skill really does is let you slice computers using less computer spikes, it’s one of the lower priority skills.

    Repair: Similar to Computer Use, most of the interior areas that you fight your way through have a droid available for fixing that can help you in combat. Ultimately though, since all this skill really does is let you repair droids using less parts, it’s one of the lower priority skills. Well, that and let you repair HK-47, but even if you decide to bring along party members he’s (unfortunately) not a good choice for this build.

    Persuade: One of the two skills you shouldn’t bother investing in. While it’s actually quite a useful skill (the most useful, in my opinion), for this build I decided to use Affect/Dominate Mind instead and invest my skill points elsewhere.

    Treat Injury: The other skill you shouldn’t bother investing in. Since you have a very limited amount of health, it doesn’t take many medpacs to heal you and ideally you won’t be getting hit in the first place. Also, you always have the option of using Drain Life for healing.

    Force Powers

    Listed in order of priority. All of them should be maxed out unless indicated otherwise.

    Affect/Dominate Mind: Like I said in the Skills section, you’ll want to use this instead of Persuade to get your way with people.

    Drain Life: Being on the dark side, you won’t be able to use Cure/Heal very cost-efficiently, but this is a good alternative power to use when low on health.

    Fear/Horror/Insanity: A great defensive tactic, you can use this to shut down groups of enemies. On top of that, stunned enemies are vulnerable to sneak attacks!

    Throw Lightsaber: This power doesn’t deal much damage, but the damage it deals is completely unblockable, making it useful in situations where you can’t rely on your skills that much and your force powers aren’t effective.

    Force Lightning: Provides a nice, reliable source of ranged offense and really helps you nail that evil Sith lord vibe.

    Force Choke: A great single-target force power, this is a great alternative to Force Lightning when you’re dealing with fewer but stronger enemies. Kill disables the target and deals DoT equal to 50% of your target’s vitality, so if you use it twice in a row on the same target and they fail to resist it both times, then they’ll stay paralyzed until the DoT kills them. Well, that’s only if they have an even amount of Vitality. If they have an odd amount then they’ll survive with one point of Vitality left.

    Equipment

    Weapon: You’ll want to use the glitched version of Darth Bandon’s Lightsaber with the Bondar and Jenruax crystals. If you want to learn more about this glitch, this guide has a nice section about it, but to sum it up here, if you make Manaan the third planet you get a Star Map on after Dantooine (so your fourth Star Map overall), thus making the Darth Bandon fight happen on Manaan, any crystals put into his lightsaber will have different effect than usual (with the exception of Rubat) provided that you never take out its red color crystal. In this build’s case it causes Jenruax to lose its +2 damage bonus (which is irrelevant to this build) but it boosts Bondar’s chance to stun up to 100%, making this the ultimate defensive lightsaber. Note that enemies can still negate the stun with a successful saving throw.

    Head: There’s a lot of skill-boosting headgear out there, so initially you can go with whatever you find. The absolute best option for this build though is the Advanced Agent Interface. However, that requires access to Yavin Station, so if you don’t have that then you’ll have to settle for the Interface Visor instead.

    Body: As a Scoundrel, go with whatever armor you come across. As a Consular, go with whatever robes you find that provide the best defense. By endgame this will be Darth Revan’s Robes.

    Belt: You’ll want to go with whatever belt you can find that gives the highest boost to stealth. In that regard, the best belt is the Baragwin Stealth Unit, but that requires access to Yavin Station, so if you don’t have that then you’ll have to settle for the GenoHaradan Stealth Unit instead.

    Hands: The Infiltrator Gauntlets are this build’s endgame gloves of choice, but until you get them, the Stabilizer Gauntlets are a nice alternative.

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  • August 3, 2015

    Didn't I comment on this? I could have sworn I did. 

    Anyway this is a more interesting build then your other ones in my opinion. I love the usage of Skills rather than Lightsabers or other weapons, it definitely adds a more unique twist on this build and makes it seem much more fun. 

  • Member
    August 3, 2015

    Thanks! Yeah, it's much more interesting, but also more difficult.