Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Any% Glitchless Guide

v6.0: Male/Female Scout -> Jedi Guardian Route (Light Side)

This route defeats Malak on the Star Forge as fast as possible without the use of glitches. Timing begins upon clicking “PLAY” after character creation and ends when the screen cuts to black at the start of the Malak Death cutscene. A load-removal tool and auto-splitter is available for LiveSplit thanks to glasnonck and XeroHR (results may vary for Windows 11 users); times are sorted based on load-removed times, since load times vary significantly in this game, and saving is frequent. This guide will cover the character build for the run, as well as a detailed route.

If you have additional questions, you can check out the KotOR Speedrunning Discord which is linked on the game’s sidebar on speedrun.com. There’s a bunch of friendly folks there willing to answer questions!

Table of Contents:

Glitchless Ruleset

REMEMBER to show yourself restarting the game at the beginning of each attempt.

All glitches are banned, with the exception of the following:

In addition, exploits that give infinite experience, credits, or alignment points are also banned.

Due to its glitchy nature, QUICKSAVE is banned as well. Manual and autosaves, however, are allowed.

Character Build

Character Creation

We begin as a Scout; this guide as written can be completed as either a Male or Female character, but Male is potentially a few seconds faster since they have an easier time sparing Bastila on the Star Forge with successful Persuade checks. Scout is used for the Implant Level 2 feat, as well as decent skill points and overall strength of saving throws.

On becoming a Jedi we’ll choose the Jedi Guardian class for maximum attack power, the Force Jump feat, and since we no longer need any skill points.

Initial Attributes

Initial Skills

Initial Feat - Weapon Focus: Melee Weapons

We are going to focus on melee attacks with a lightsaber, so we max out Strength immediately, and get enough Dexterity and Constitution to help us survive. Two points are put into Intelligence for enough skill points to get 4 net Computer Use; this saves one Computer Spike each time we hack something, and allows us to skip a fight. Charisma is not needed; we’ll get enough Persuade and the Empathy feat to guarantee nearly all the Persuade checks we try. As an option, you can choose to put 12 in Dex and 10 in Wis; this gives a slightly better Will save and more Force points in exchange for a slightly weaker Reflex save and getting hit more often. The lower Dex is really only relevant before Korriban, where medpac use is a little tight.

Treat Injury (TI) will be our main skill, with Persuade the secondary skill; however since Persuade is not a Class Skill for Scouts, we’ll save points to put into Persuade once we become a Jedi. We don’t put any additional points into Computer Use after the initial 4; we’d need 8 total to save additional spikes, and we just don’t need those extra spikes. The point in Stealth guarantees our credit route for the early game; see below.

We choose Weapon Focus: Melee Weapons for the attack boost on Taris; we pick it over Two-Weapon Fighting because Weapon Focus takes longer to select, so at level 2 it’s faster to pick Two-Weapon Fighting. Since character creation isn’t timed, this is optimal.

Leveling Plan

Level Feats Powers Skills
1 Weapon Focus: Melee Weapons, Flurry   Com to 4, Stealth to 1, TI to 4, Save Rest
2 Two-Weapon Fighting   Save All
3 Empathy   TI to 6, Save Rest
4 Implant 2   TI to 7, Save Rest
5 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting Burst of Speed, Force Valor Save All
6   Affect Mind Per to 9, TI to 8
7 Improved Flurry Dominate Mind Per to 10
8   Energy Resistance TI to 9
9   Knight Speed TI to 10
10 Master Two-Weapon Fighting Knight Valor Per to 11
11 Master Flurry Force Resistance Per to 12
12   Drain Life Per to 13

Our main combat plan is lots of Strength, Master Two-Weapon Fighting, Master Flurry, and Knight Speed, using Bastila’s Double-bladed Lightsaber as our main weapon. This gives us multiple attacks that will deal as much damage as possible; we need as many attacks as we can get, since our chance to hit will be relatively low. Other notes:

Skill Notes:

Feat Notes:

Force Power Notes:

Equipment Plan

Implant: Nerve Enhancement Package - Bought on Taris from Zelka Forn (500 Credits)

Head: Verpine Headband - Found on Dantooine, Casus Sandral’s corpse

Gloves: Strength Enhancer - Found on Taris, Sith Governor’s corpse

Body: Jedi Knight Robe - Found on Dantooine, Nemo’s remains

Weapon: Double-bladed Lightsaber - Found on Taris, Brejik’s corpse

Belt: Adrenaline Amplifier - Found on Taris, Sith Governor’s corpse

All of our equipment should be equipped by the time we leave Dantooine, with the exception of the lightsaber crystals. We’ll also use the Combat Suit and various vibroblades while on Taris.

Credit Route

The new route has a very streamlined credit route, since we no longer need 8500 credits for the CNS Strength Enhancer. Because of this, we make do with only 4 shopping trips during the run; there is a backup shopping trim if you’re short on stims as well. Our shopping is as follows:

1. Larrim on Taris

2: Zelka Forn on Taris

3. Selkath Merchant on Manaan

4. Czerka Shop on Korriban

Optional shopping if you are short on stims: 5: Eli Gand on Kashyyyk

We get most of our credits for the Korriban shopping trip from selling the Cardio Power System that we get as reward for completing “Mission for the Republic” for Roland Wann on Manaan. The rest comes from selling the items we’ve accumulated up to that point; we loot one or two optional things to get enough credits for all the medpacs and stims we need.

Alignment Route

Alignment in KotOR is a sliding scale from 0 to 100, initialized at 50; higher numbers are Light, lower numbers are dark. Shifts in alignment are determined by a matrix; every alignment-shifting action is classified as Light or Dark, and then assigned a level (either Low, Mid, or High). The player character (Revan) can either be aligned as Very Dark, Dark, Neutral, Light, or Very Light. The more opposed your alignment and the action’s classification, the more drastic your shift in alignment; for example, a Light-aligned character performing a High Dark action will have a large shift, while a Dark character performing a High Dark action will have a smaller shift.

Here is the alignment route used in the run:

Aligned Action Type Delta New
Neutral Game Start 50 50
Neutral Save the alien informant Low Light +2 52
Neutral Persuade the drunks not to fight Low Light +2 54
Neutral Give 20 credits to the beggars Low Light +2 56
Neutral Threaten Janice Nall to get T3 Mid Dark -4 52
Neutral Rescue the Duros from the Sith Base Low Light +2 54
Neutral Tell Shaardan not to kill the hopefuls Low Light +2 56
Neutral Try to Persuade Shaardan to spare the hopefuls Low Light +2 58
Neutral Succeed in Persuading Shaardan Hardcoded +3 61
Light Snitch on Kel Algwinn to Uthar Wynn Hardcoded -5 56
Neutral Spare Yuthura Ban Mid Light +4 60
Light Persuade Carth not to kill Saul Low Light +2 62
Light   Low Light +1 63
Light Stay true to the Light Side on Lehon High Light 4 67
Light   Highest Light 5 72

Snitching on Kel Algwinn is for some reason hardcoded to always give -5 alignment; similarly, rescuing the hopefuls from Shaardan is hardcoded to give +3 alignment.

There are two important points in this route:

  1. We must be at 60 alignment or higher (the boundary between Neutral and Light) in order to equip any Light Side restricted equipment. The Solari crystal is Light Side restricted, as well as being ridiculously good. So we need to be at 60 alignment by the time we place the Solari Crystal (after Korriban) and stay there in order to keep our lightsaber equipped.

  2. When Persuading Yuthura to allow us access to the Sith Academy, if we are at 61 or more alignment we will have a Persuade/Lie option in addition to the normal Persuade option. The Persuade option is a Low Dark action and loses alignment, while Persuade/Lie is a neutral action. It is important to be at 61 or more before entering this conversation, otherwise we would have to go out of our way on Korriban to be able to equip the Solari crystal at the end of the planet.

These two points combined mean we want to do mostly light side actions. Hence each dark side action we take is done for a specific and very good reason:

Route Overview

The order in which we visit planets is as follows:

Taris -> Dantooine -> Manaan -> Korriban -> Tatooine -> Leviathan -> Kashyyyk -> Unknown World -> Star Forge

The reasoning for the middle planets:

Detailed Route

This section will describe all the actions you’ll need to take for the Any% Glitchless run.

Notation:

Conversation Notes:

Jump to a Section:

Endar Spire

Character Creation

Endar Spire

Starboard Section

Taris 1

Note on Alacrity: We want Adrenal Alacrity to be active on the MC for as much of Taris as possible. The route obtains 8 Alacrities, and we want to save 3 for after Taris. This leaves 5 for use on Taris; 6 can be used if absolutely necessary, but that requires tweaks later. Try to duration glitch Alacrity somewhere on Taris, and otherwise use Alacrity as needed!

Upper City

SHOPPING TRIP: Larrim
- SELL ALL EXCEPT:
  - Medpacs
  - Computer Spikes
  - Vibroblade
  - Frag and Poison Grenades
  - Adrenal Strength
- Note: You SHOULD sell the Adrenal Stamina
- BUY:
  - 2x Computer Spikes
- End: ~812 Credits
SHOPPING: Zelka Forn
- BUY:
  - Nerve Enhancement Package
  - 6x Adrenal Alacrity
- End: ~12 Credits

Lower City

Undercity

Sewers

Vulkar Base

Rescuing Bastila

Taris 2

Upper City

Sith Base

Leaving Taris

Dantooine

Jedi Enclave

Dantooine Savannah

Ancient Ruins

Manaan

Ahto City

SHOPPING: Selkath Merchant
- BUY:
  - 2x Hyper-Adrenal Alacrity
  - 3x Hyper-Adrenal Strength
- End: ~12 Credits

Sith Base

Hrakert Rift

Korriban

Dreshdae

SHOPPING: Czerka Shop
- SELL ALL EXCEPT:
  - Medpacs
  - Computer Spikes
  - Stims
- BUY:
  - All Life Support Packs/Advanced Medpacs
  - All 25 Hyper/Echani Stims
- End: ~300-400 Credits

Gaining Prestige

Tomb of Naga Sadow

Tatooine

Anchorhead

Dune Sea

Eastern Dune Sea

The Leviathan

Detention

Bridge

In the bridge section, you have to keep Carth and Bastila close to you in order to leave through the Bridge Storage door. Do your best to make sure they don’t wander off, as that can and will lose you a lot of time. You can choose to manually save and reload that save; this sometimes helps.

Hangar

Kashyyyk

Stim Note: At this point, you should have at minimum 2 Alacrities, 2 Stamina, 4 Strength, and 4 Echani/Hyper Battle Stims. If you feel you’ve used too many, or you want a backup set for the Malak fight on the Star Forge, you can buy one extra set from Eli Gand below.

The Great Walkway

SHOPPING: Eli Gand
- BUY:
  - All Hyper Stims (costs 500 Credits)
- End: Doesn't Matter

Upper Shadowlands

Lower Shadowlands

Leaving Kashyyyk

Lehon

The Warrior Rakata

The Elder Rakata

Ancient Temple

The Star Forge

Deck One

Deck Two

Command Center

Viewing Platform

Version History

v6.0 (August 2021)

v5.0 (June 2021)

v4.0 (August 2020)

v3.0 (June 2020)

v2.1 (June 2020)

v2.0 (December 2019)

v1.0 (November 2016, newly found!)