The Hybrid
This is the last of my KOTOR builds that I have saved on my computer. Technically speaking, I have one more, but it’s just a slightly modified version of a build I found from a guide. Anyway, this is my attempt at a well-rounded, jack of all trades build, one that is proficient with lightsabers, the force, and a few different skills. Think of it as a combination of my Sabermaster, Forcemaster, and Skillmaster.
The Hybrid uses his lightsaber augmented with Force Speed to target single enemies up close and uses his force powers against distant enemies or to hit multiple targets at once, with skills providing situational utility. Allies provide general support.
Class: Scout -> Guardian. While Scout -> Sentinel is seen as the well-rounded path (not without reason, I might add), I find Sentinel to be an underwhelming class (in the first KOTOR, anyway), so I chose Guardian instead for a boost to the physical side of things. To make sure that I’d still have plenty of force power, I only stayed in Scout until level 5, taking Guardian the rest of the way.
Alignment: Dark Side. The Hybrid utilizes several different dark side force powers as part of the force side of his combat style.
Skills: You’ll want to prioritize Awareness, Demolitions, and Repair, in that order. Be sure to save any spare skill points as a Scout; the amount of skill points you get on levelups will decrease significantly upon becoming a Guardian.
Teammates: Canderous and HK-47. All dark side team, hell yeah! With Canderous, you’ll want to make him into a melee weapons user; make sure he gets Flurry, Melee Weapons Specialization, and a good double-bladed weapon and set of heavy armor. With HK-47, all he needs are the Rapid Shot feats and a good blaster rifle. If you want more details on how to develop these party members, this guide has good builds for both of them.
A note for the earlygame: Since this character will need to hang back and use a blaster until he can use a lightsaber, I recommend having Carth use a melee weapon and take care of the frontlines. You’ll want to swap him out for more capable frontliners as soon as you can though.
Attributes
STR:8 DEX:14 CON:14 INT:14 WIS:14 CHA:14
That’s what you’ll want your starting stats to look like. For the attribute points you get on levelups, put the first one into Dexterity, the next two into Wisdom, and the last two into Dexterity. Since this build is all about being well-rounded, it only makes sense to have a well-rounded attribute spread. Admittedly, it does have poor strength, but that’s fine; it just means that you won’t be doing quite as much damage.
Feats
Listed in order of priority. All of them should be maxed out unless indicated otherwise.
Two-Weapon Fighting: This is a weird one. Ordinarily, you’d want this ASAP since you’ll be using double-bladed weapons, however, due to a glitch, double-bladed weapons don’t suffer an attack penalty at all, making this feat useless for this build. However, it’s my understanding that this was patched on PC, so if you play on PC, pick this up. If not, don’t bother with it.
Power Attack: In the early going, you may not want to use this due to the attack penalty. By the time you become a Guardian though, you’ll want to use in lieu of your regular attack, aside from whenever you want to Force Jump. Important to note is that the damage bonus from this applies to each hit of your attack. So if you’re using a double-bladed weapon and hit twice, each of those hits will have the boost from Power Attack.
Weapon Focus/Specialization – Lightsaber: More attack and damage for your weapon of choice? Yes please!
Jedi Defense: It’s great being able reflect blaster bolts back where they came from. Offense and defense at the same time.
Implants: You’ll get the first two levels for free with this build, so pick up the last one when you get the chance.
Toughness: You’ll already have a good health pool, but this will augment it further. That being said, if you’re on PC and thus taking Two-Weapon Fighting, you won’t have the feats for this, so skip out on this one.
Conditioning: At level three, you’ll have a feat to use but nothing particularly useful to invest it in; I recommend this.
Force Powers
Listed in order of priority. All of them should be maxed out unless indicated otherwise.
Affect/Dominate Mind: As you might’ve noticed in the Skills section, this build doesn’t use Persuade. Thus, you’ll want to pick this up so you can persuade others a little more… “directly”.
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.
Force Speed: Burst of Speed isn’t terribly useful (aside from getting around faster), but the extra hit(s) from Knight/Master Speed make it the most OP force power in the entire game.
Force Push: This is your crowd control power of choice. Force Push is nice for keeping enemies away from you, while Force Whirlwind can more or less disable them, and, Force Wave is a great power to use if you get surrounded. It’s also, if I recall correctly, one of the few powers that can be used effectively on the final boss.
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 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 Sapith and Upari 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 the Sapith/Upari combination to give an impressive +9 boost to both damage and attack!
Head: Not a whole lot of useful headgear for this guy. I recommend going with whatever you find that gives immunity to mind-affecting powers and boosts to saving throws. In that regard, the best piece of headgear is the Stabilizer Mask.
Body: As a Scout, go with whatever armor you come across. As a Guardian, go with whatever robes you find that provide the best defense. By endgame this will be Darth Revan’s Robes.
Implant: Initially, just go with whatever you can find that has a useful bonus. By endgame though you’ll want to be using the Gordulan Reaction System.
Belt: For most of the game you can just stick with using save-boosting belts. The absolute best belt for this build though is the Adrenaline Stimulator.
Hands: In the earlygame I recommend using Brejik’s Gloves. Eventually though you’ll want to upgrade to either the Karakan Gauntlets or, if you have access to Yavin Station, the Advanced Stabilizer Gloves.
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