No keen sabers if use Mantle of the Force or Heart of the Guardian

[Vennek]

Anyone else just avoid even having to save up for the two big saber crystals in KOTOR1 because the bonuses they give you strip away the possibility to have a 17-20 crit range saber? I don't feel it's a good trade to get a couple points extra damage or attack and have to halve your chance of getting a critical hit, which not only gives beefy damage but stuns.

Anyone else do this or am I just a pedantic nerfherder?

[cerberusiv]

IIRC what they do is change the effects of the other crystals. I don't know of any list ever being compiled as to what those changes are for the other crystals, you will just have to try different crystals, but if they take keen away from one crystal are you sure they do not change another to add keen?

Since I go for Master Flurry with dual wielding I never really pay attention to crit range.

[Vennek]

There are two normally obtainable crystals in game that double the crit range from 19-20 to 17-20 on a saber. Nextor is one, it says it doubles the critical threat range. There's another crystal that does the same but its description is keen, which is the same thing, same effect. Both these crystals lose that keening if you use either MotF or HotG as color crystals. Yeah, I tried the crit builds in this game a few times but it seemed gimp damage compared to master flurry. Crit or no crit, you get triple the attack damage with master flurry, plus 2 additional chances to crit which isn't exactly the same thing as extending the weapon's crit range but it's not bad. Plus as some others have commented, even if you go master critical strike with a keen weapon you don't end up with as high a critical chance as the description seems to indicate because there are times you don't crit and you should be critting a lot, like quadruple 17-20, so 16 times out of 20 with a keen weapon. In reality crits just don't seem to happen 80% of the time though. Mastery Flurry makes things nice and dead.

I usually go scoundrel/consular because I like the sneak attack damage and when you score a crit in I think it stuns the opponent too which makes your next normal, non-feat, attack do sneak damage even if its midcombat. I think one of them though raises the Bondar crystals chance to stun from DC10 to DC14 which would be a way to try to set up sneak attack damage, albeit by sacrificing damage or attack you could get with something else.

And no, sadly the two pricey crystals do not add the keen effect to any other ones. If you roll with one, you have a 19-20 range on that saber.

[Vennek]

I think I may be mixing up the mechanics of KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2 when it comes to feats. I'm on Manaan now and just checked my feats while leveling up Carth and it seems master rapid shot and master flurry only give one extra attack round, plus give a minus 1 to defense and to-hit that I didn't remember them having. Maybe it's a balancing thing done by the Restoration Project which I am running. Apologies. I guess it's KOTOR 2 that has two extra attack rounds with flurry.

[cerberusiv]

Originally posted by Vennek:

I think I may be mixing up the mechanics of KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2 when it comes to feats. I'm on Manaan now and just checked my feats while leveling up Carth and it seems master rapid shot and master flurry only give one extra attack round, plus give a minus 1 to defense and to-hit that I didn't remember them having. Maybe it's a balancing thing done by the Restoration Project which I am running. Apologies. I guess it's KOTOR 2 that has two extra attack rounds with flurry.

IIRC Master rapid shot and Master flurry only give one extra attack in both games but if you combine them with the force speed powers that adds another two (at least in Kotor 2, I have a recollection that the force speed powers in 1 only give one extra attack - but I may be wrong). With Master flurry at least, it simply reduces the penalties for using the feat.

[MaxorMeow]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Master Force speed adds +2 extra attacks in a turn. If used with Flurry, you can get 3 attacks per round - which I think is the max number of attacks you can have per round.

[Vennek]

Yep, that's what I was doing, conflating the extra attack rounds offered by the Force Speed feat and the Flurry series of feats. I knew I should have handed over all the spice that Rodian told me was in the ship's hold but I just couldn't help myself.