Incline Knights of the Chalice 2 - Editor & Module Creation

[Dorateen]

Well, this battle was winnable. But...

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[Dorateen]

The above screenshot was something I posted when I tested a higher level encounter. I didn't expect to win, and it was a surprise our party's cleric survived with the rest of the characters dead. Of course, if you are going to have a 5/6 party wipe, it's best the surviving member is a cleric.

This week I've been working on the Ranger guild adventure, which will allow the player to travel to an enchanted forest where they can genocide elves.

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Elves are immune to sleep, but Hold Person can work just fine.

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While I have been concentrating on this part of the campaign, there are still other things going on elsewhere around Hearkenwold. In the example below, the party discusses the morality of egg-napping. Who says you can't have inter-party banter even with player generated characters!

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Next week, I will start on the Thief Guild adventure. This one will be of interest for Rogues and Bards.

 

[Dorateen]

I started on the Thief Guild adventure, so naturally the party gets suspected of having intentions for grave robbing.

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While back in the city of Skardale, I've been setting up the Arena. Here is the type of reaction the characters get after winning the first level of challenges.

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And there is still work to be done on the Halls of Hamhock. This variety of bugbear who comprise the Khrystos Horde have been given the barbarian template. It makes them tougher than the usual sort, with their raging and whirlwind attacks. A good introductory fight to the Dwarven stronghold part of the adventure.

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These are the areas I've been focusing on to close out the month of January. Next week I will begin the Fighters Guild quest, which of course is available for all the rest of the martial player character classes represented in Knights of the Chalice 2.

 

[Dorateen]

I downloaded version 1.10 of Knights of the Chalice 2, and decided to make a new video from Hearkenwold. Everyone loves party versus party battles, right? Here we get into a fight with a rival adventuring group.

This one is a little rough. I would have healed our unconscious wizard in the middle of combat, but the video capturing UI blocked his name on the party list! I thought he was dead, but he managed to survive with -9 hit points. That was a close one.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Well, this battle was winnable. But...

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It'd be nice if cRPG incentivized the player to keep playing after such a disastrous result instead of reloading.
The drawbacks of having some/most party members killed being obvious if there is random encounters but there should be some motivation to not reload after a failure, either through xp or loot bonus or maybe fate points or a mix of all this.

I know you can't do it here but you screen just made this idea resurface.

 

[Dorateen]

Well, this battle was winnable. But...

It'd be nice if cRPG incentivized the player to keep playing after such a disastrous result instead of reloading.

I agree. The interesting thing, and what I kind of implied tongue in cheek, is that in theory it could be a salvageable situation. With the cleric surviving, there is opportunity to raise the other dead characters and even an alternative method for revival that could be discovered. Essentially it's up to the player if they want to accept the temporary casualties. I suppose not saving in a while could be an incentive to carry on instead of reloading.

 

[Dorateen]

The Fighters Guild is open for business! Accepting membership from the additional martial classes in Knights of the Chalice 2, including: Barbarian, Death Knight, Gladiator, Mage Knight, Monk, Psychic Warrior, and Samurai. Each player class will have the dialogue option to select that they wish to join. Thankfully, the instructions from the guildmaster are not too long, as I had to copy and paste the lines in the script for reach reply.

Of course, first the characters must learn about this prestigious organization.

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Here is another example of how the guild awards titles based on character level according to the AD&D class system.

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Fighting a Red Sonja type character.

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Next week I will begin the Mage Guild adventure for all the arcane spell casting classes. Getting close to the final stretch here, as I work to make the module content complete by the end of March.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Fighting a Red Sonja type character.

Reminds me of this Conan cRPG i heard about early 2000s.
Was it cancelled or delayed and finally turned into the Age of Conan garbage? I have no idea.

Still, first time i heard about it, i had so much hope, just like the first time i heard about a PST sequel (and we know how it turned out).

Thinking about it, there's a lot of interesting characters in Howard's oeuvre and in the comics too, it'd make for a great TB/party-based cRPG.
Conan the Gladiator or Barbarian, Red Sonja the Fighter, Zula the Wizard (necromancer) or a green attunement's wizard...

 

[Dorateen]

The Wizard Guild adventure was the final section of the Hearkenwold campaign that I was working on last summer when Knights of the Chalice 2 was released. As I've mentioned elsewhere, after hitting a save corrupting bug in the first version, I decided to look into the module editor to see if a conversion would be worthwhile. I figured if I wasn't going to jump into Augury of Chaos right away, it might be fun to play Hearkenwold in this amazing combat engine.

So I have reached the point of setting up the mage quest. Here is an example of how it is available to different arcane caster characters. If there was a warlock or a sorcerer in the party, they would have had the dialogue option as well to inquire about joining, with the follow up NPC response recognizing the party member by name. If for some reason a player doesn't have any arcane spell casters in the party, then the opportunity to get further information would not be possible.

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Exploring the ruins of a mysterious tower.

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This battle with assassin vines takes place in an overgrown orchard. I used the "jungle" terrain brush, which grants some armour class cover but also restricts movement.

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And now I have all the guild adventures started and in different states of completion. In the next six and a half weeks I will try to finish everything including other parts of the module.

 

[Dorateen]

Earlier this week I completed the Cleric guild adventure. Here's something neat: in the KotC2 party formation option, you can change the active leader. By doing this just before returning to the Guildmaster, I was able to have our party's cleric recognized and receive the achievement for finishing the quest appear on his character sheet. The default script is to simply award the party leader. However, I designed Hearkenwold around the concept of a player selecting different characters, primarily through the conversation interface. It is nice to have some sort of similar function in Knights of the Chalice.

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This is a preview of some more of the Paladin/Champion guild adventure. I would love to finish this by next week, but I have a feeling it is going to run into March. In this battle, the party faces death itself in the form of three orc clerics backed up by some half-orc warriors. I gave the half orcs the Champion template, which makes them more of a pain to deal with.

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And elsewhere in the campaign, the push through the Dwarven Halls of Hamhock continues.

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Probably another good example, where going through character themed areas it might be an idea for the player to switch the party leader if appropriate. It's not necessary, but it would mean any Party Leader inserts would point to a dwarf character for this part of the adventure.

 

[Dorateen]

Still fighting monsters in Asherim, which is the desert landscape part of the Hearkenwold campaign. It is also the proving grounds for the Paladin/Champion guild adventure and has more maps than the other class specific quests. That is why I suspected it would take me a little longer to complete everything hopefully heading into the last month of this project. In the screen below, some gnolls accost the party as they are crossing a bridge.

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This next screen shows another battle that makes use of elevated terrain, with the enemy positioned up the stairs on the floor above. But what made this encounter challenging was the half-orcs spamming sound blast.

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I also like to show random samples of other parts of the module, such as things a player can find through exploration of underground areas. Could this fountain be magical?

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I plan to start off March by returning to the Ranger guild content, and I also need to start wrapping up the few places left unfinished. Looking at the calendar, I would probably aim to release the module for Knights of the Chalice 2 around the first weekend of April.

 

[AdolfSatan]

This has become my most awaited release, April can't come soon enough

 

[Dorateen]

The class content I developed for Hearkenwold has always been about more than an NPC telling the character to kill this monster, or fetch that item. Each quest is of varying degrees of complexity. Some might send the party to new locations with their own subplots and encounter arcs to be resolved. There is a reason I referred to these respective missions as guild adventures. This week, I was able to conclude the Ranger/Druid/Storm Warrior path.

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Here is an NPC reacting to a party member piping up from the back.

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In this battle, we were ambushed by some dark elves. The terrain features some pit traps, which represent the holes in the ground the elves sprung from. But it also creates an opportunity to bull rush those enemies right back into a pit, causing them to fall prone and take damage. Very gratifying.

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Finally, just another example where a dwarf in the party has to do all the dirty work.

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Next week I need to focus again on the Thief guild adventure. That one is characterized by a fun dungeon crawl with a lot of detail, so it might take a wee bit longer to finish.

 

[Dorateen]

I've been working through the thief guild adventure and still have the last level of the dungeon to finish. The good news is next week, I should complete the fighters guild quest in a day or two, and I'll be able to spend the rest of the time working on other areas that have been left open. In this way I expect to bring everything together by the end of the month. It really is a matter of tying up loose ends at this point and taking care of a few lingering micro issues.

This battle below features fire beetles who have a special ability to cast Burning Hands. I was surprised when one of them in a later round used this ability to burn away our ranger's web. Stupid beetles.

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You never know who, or what, you might run into exploring deep dark places.

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This dungeon complex will feature events where a rogue party member can make themselves useful. On a serious note, though, Hearkenwold in general is filled with traps or options available to rogue characters, which can keep the party out of danger.

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Finally, I was able to advance the party to 6th level. I am enjoying those extra attacks and some new spells. The accumulated experience does not include any of the guild content. I checked back with the IceBlink version where I ran a party through all the quests, and the characters were mostly 8th level, with the wizard at 9th and thief was 10th. This is because of the staggered leveling of different class experience tables. In Knights of the Chalice 2, I anticipate the gains to be similar, if all content is completed by a player.

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[Dorateen]

This week I finished the Fighters guild quest and did some more work on the Paladin/Champion guild adventure as well as some other key locations. I would like to get these done in addition to the guild content for arcane spellcasters next week. Today, I wanted to post some combat screenshots.

Here the party fights a giant purple worm out on the plains. I was hoping to capture a moment when it swallows a character whole because that's always amusing, but it didn't happen this time.

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This battle with wyverns had always given me trouble with a lower level party, due to the confined quarters coupled with their reach special ability, which made these beasts difficult to use magic against or maneuver without provoking attacks of opportunity . Finally, we returned and claimed their prize.

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I like how this encounter with ghouls looks, with the grave marked burial mounds on the battlefield. Pretty good XP on account of their superior numbers, and a chance to show of the electric sphere spell.

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[Dorateen]

One last round of screenshots. Here, the characters are caught between two arguing nymphs, each accusing the other of ulterior intentions. What's a party of adventurers to do.

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Fighting rust monsters. Not just any rust monsters, but giant rust monsters.

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I have finished the Wizard (arcane spell casters) Guild adventure this week. It seems the Paladin and Rogue quests ended up taking the longest to complete everything. That's OK, because next week I will be able to devote more attention to those areas.

 

[Dorateen]

I will be releasing Hearkenwold as an Adventure Module for Knights of the Chalice 2 this month.

Just for fun, I've put together a dramatic, over the top trailer. Enjoy.

 

[AdolfSatan]

What's the date? I'm hyped as hell

Is it compatible with the latest version of kotc2 or is some kind of rollback required?

 

[Dorateen]

Is it compatible with the latest version of kotc2 or is some kind of rollback required?

Actually, it will require updating to the latest version 1.12

I've been downloading and building with the newest versions as Pierre rolled them out, and in fact I don't think the module will play on the earliest builds of KotC2. Likely due to the introduction of the higher res sprites and other modifications to the engine that simply did not exist when the game came out. The latest 1.12 also contains a minor bug fix I needed (the big image display issue in full screen mode).

I'm trying to be realistic and project another two weeks to finish. If I can get it done sooner, I will post to the Nexus page.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Almost one week down!

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No pressure.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I will be releasing Hearkenwold as an Adventure Module for Knights of the Chalice 2 this month.

Just for fun, I've put together a dramatic, over the top trailer. Enjoy.

Can't wait to add this to my Hearkenwold collection.

 

[Dorateen]

I’m preparing a ReadMe file, which probably no one will read, but I wanted to list three key points about this version of Hearkenwold recreated with the Knights of the Chalice 2 Editor, for future reference.

• In terms of presentation, I think the module is closer to the original Knights of the Chalice than its sequel, especially with regard to the use of the original character sprites. In fact, throughout this conversion I have incorporated a mix of both the old style sprites and Gold Box style sprites represented as creature tokens. Players are free to use the new higher resolution sprites if they wish, but I do not think they fit the lower res backgrounds used for maps, nor are they properly sized for such maps. Still, if one wants to take advantage of the new feature, go right ahead. Likewise, you can select to play with only tokens, but be aware that in Hearkenwold, the tokens for NPCs in the world will show as either the square images used in conversation portraits or else will remain as the Gold Box style token being the single image available for a creature. In order to use the original Knights of the Chalice sprites, the player needs to select the option on their characters sheets and under sprites and uncheck high resolution.

• I find Knights of the Chalice more point and clicky than the way Hearkenwold was originally designed to be almost entirely trigger based as far as interactions in the gameworld. The Knights of the Chalice 2 Editor provides interactive objects such as stair and door icons, transition icons, and many others, and to be certain I have made use of these on the maps in a lot of places. However the editor also allows a builder to draw “activable zones”, which means you can make any space something the player can click on to interact with. Hearkenwold uses pre-made 2d maps that already have things like stairs and doors and chests baked into the image. In some cases, I do include a descriptive label that will appear when mouse hovering over the object, but often I do not as I want there to be events in the world the player discovers on their own. If you ever get stuck, the tab key will highlight all objects that can be interacted with. On another note, there are some objects such as books, rocks, and corpses I designed as creature tokens, because it is the only way to make them disappear through scripting. This means a player should be prepared to use the “talk” mouse command to interact with these objects.

• Ultimately, Hearkenwold is a reconstruction of a module that already existed, rather than making something from scratch in the KotC2 Editor. I have tried to be faithful to the original source material, while taking advantage of the resources this engine provides, wherever it seemed appropriate. Most importantly, Hearkenwold features maps that were originally designed to be navigated by one character token representing the full party (and which the player could toggle between freely). As I understand it, even Augury of Chaos has some cramped quarters and there is some party shuffling to deal with. I’ve done as best I can to make sure the player won’t get their party stuck in narrow corridors or behind locked doors. While I did not find it necessary while testing, exploring the Party Formation option could be helpful in a tight spot. The original version of Hearkenwold transitions combat to a separate map for each battle, and I have done this where locations were too small to stage a proper fight, especially with large sized monsters. In more open areas or in big rooms, combat plays out on the adventure screen.

 

[Reinhardt]

I want to try to use bros from Battle Brothers as tokens after game releases.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I’m preparing a ReadMe file, which probably no one will read

I promise to read it.

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After the first play-through.

 

[Dorateen]

Here is the current status of Hearkenwold. It turns out the latest update of Knights of the Chalice 2, version 1.12 introduced a bug that has impacted the module. I've talked to Pierre and anticipate this will be fixed in the next update. However, I am not going to publish on Nexus until this engine issue is resolved.

If anyone wants to have a look now, I can send the module file with the understanding that it has to launch using version 1.11 of KotC2 and it is not the final release version.

Otherwise, as soon as the next update comes out, I'll be good to go.