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Is it necessary to wear Jedi Robes? My character has some decent armor I don't want to part with. I realize this limits which force powers I can use but other than that, must you wear robes?

It depends. If you are a Jedi Guardian - then you lose some of the buffing powers and the force speed power which is incredibly useful. Importantly I don't think it effects Force Jump. If you are playing anything other than Guardian though, it is best to just wear the robes.

Armor is only really better if you are playing a high strength character - like if you start with a Soldier. If you are going for dexterity, then best to go for robes.

a sides armor restricting powers, the robe aren't really not really necessary, but once you get to be a higher level Jedi (depending on what ability you give you character) you will earn a force defense, anyway

I always thought the game could of used a non-restricting armor (at least in II you there's upgradeable robes)

an on a semi related note...

I just started a new play through (on the dark side) I know the Qel-Droma Robe has a 5 bonus defense, but, its restricted to light side, are they any dark side robes with a high defense?

Spoiler

other then, the costume star forge robes

I know the master dark jedi are 3 bonus defense

A better question would be "Armor... who needs it?" The answer would be "not Jedi".

Just use the Energy Resistance power or shields to soak damage while focusing on raw offensive damage instead of monkeying around with AC. AC almost never gets used in the combat mechanics after Taris:
--most enemies use blasters, and blaster-bolt-deflection uses an opposed attack roll, which uses your attack bonus instead of AC
--grenades always hit regardless of AC if you're in their blast area when they go off-- you just take half damage if you save
--melee enemies using physical-damage-typed weapons will typically be killed off fast enough that they don't really get a chance to attack you.

If you focus on offense instead (specifically raw damage), you'll kill everything so fast they won't have a chance to swing let alone hit.

I"ve gone through the entire game only using Master Speed (for the extra swings), Energy Resistance (soak 1st 15 points of non-physical damage per shot/swing, including lightsabers), and occasionally Force Immunity (vs. Jedi) for combat buffs, and never had any problems despite staying at 8 DEX and just using a regular Jedi Master Robe, which are the best you'll get for darkside except for Darth Revan's Robes at the very end of the game.

Yeah, I've done a couple playthrough's with armor and plan to do more, and I'm doing one right now. There are certain powers you can't use which is pretty annoying, esp. at the end with Malak when you cant use Force Drain, but it's not super detrimental if you build a hack and slash type character. There just isn't enough different robes in this game to be honest

Not being able to use Force Speed and upgrades, is a major weakness of any melee character, and the later robes are better than armours.

You'll also invariably lose the AC bonus derived from your Dexterity score, so it doesn't really mesh well with a finesse or blaster jedi.