KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[anvi]

Some things I figured out about freaky new D&D, I'll put them as general tips:

Spoiler

You end up with a lot of spells that can hit an area with either acid, cold, fire, lightning, etc. Select each one and mouse over the enemies to find which one does the highest damage. Over many battles it's good to be efficient like that.

And now you can cast spells at different levels. So eg: If your only level 8 spell is a fireball but it only does 10 damage on those enemies, try a level 7 lightning cast at a higher level and it could be huge. Same goes for lower level spells too. And the feat Maxmize lets you do this but get the highest damage the spell can do, which is uber.

Also, if you find the hotkeys a nightmare because they keep changing and stuff... Just remove them all, and start using either C or Z for divine/arcane spells. It pulls up the spell book and you get used to seeing the spells laid out by level and with descriptions and stuff. It's just a much better way of choosing what spell to cast... And then later you can use the hotkeys again for a few commonly used spells and it keeps it easy.

Also don't miss the campfire in CH3 or whatever I'm at. The dialogue mentions it but it's easy to miss. Tiny orange circle but they are a huge big deal. Also when you on your zillionth battle without a rest, don't forget you have those Astragalus things which is like a rest for that character.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

Well, no wonder paladin is shit, divine grace doesn't even work for fuck's sake and I noticed just now. It seems to apply a +1 to all saves regardless of your base CHA value.

 

[oneself]

So how strong/weak are the various hybrid classes? Is it worth it to take a mage knight/storm warrior or whatever else that is equivalent to those two over a fighter or full-spellcaster?

You can't really full pre-buff hybrids so they remain mediocre. Enemy gets too deadly to spend a few turns buffing one.

 

[rojay]

Is there some secret to crafting? I even played the tutorial and all that it shows is the button exists in your inventory menu. I've tried dropping ingots on it, click it first then clicking ingots, etc. It says you have to be trading with a wizard, cleric, druid, etc. which sounds very odd to me.

Does that mean you can only invoke crafting with very specific NPCs you trade with? I've tried crafting at NPCs with no luck too. Explain to me like I'm 5 (ELI5)

You can only craft at NPC merchants who are casters. You need a masterwork item before you can enchant it. The "ingots" you pick up during the game can be used to forge weapons/armor which you can thereafter enchant if you have the correct gem. Doing so costs gold and xp, the higher/more powerful the enchantment, the more gold/xp it costs. You can also add enchantments to magic weapons/armor that you find, so long as you don't go above the enchantment limit of 10. By the end game, you'll be shuffling between items with level 10 enchantments based on what you're facing - or at least I did when I played a year or so ago.

 

[Cryomancer]

High level spells are incredible powerful in this game. For eg, with a tier 8 spell which allows you to cast two spells in a round(if you do'nt take a move action), you can cast two Weird and if you are a "white wizard"/Solann wizard, you get +1 on conjuration, with +2 from greater spell focus(conjuration), a 28 base int with a +6 circlet means that you can cast twice in a round Werid spell with a DC of 34= 10+9(spell level)+3(feats)+ 9(base int)+3(mod on int)(yes, it is conjuration in this game instead of illusion), essentially deleting two troublesome hard group of enemies.

At low level, grease and web are amazing

 

[Darth Canoli]

So how strong/weak are the various hybrid classes? Is it worth it to take a mage knight/storm warrior or whatever else that is equivalent to those two over a fighter or full-spellcaster?

Hybrids aren't really good but you can afford to get 1 or 2 in a group of 6 when replaying the game or maybe just one on the hardest difficulty on a first try.
On lower difficulties, I have no idea.

They're good for re-playability though.
Also, some are better than others.
For example, I find the Storm warrior interesting because of the druid spells, an extra quicksand can be invaluable in chapters 2 and 3.

Fighter, Death Knight, Samouraï, Barbarian and Gladiator are good, but usually, it's better to include one Fighter because he does something the other don't (full attack at the end of a charge).

I don't like the monk because enchantments are powerful and fighting unarmed is just not that good in Augury, Using non monk weapons with a monk makes for a weaker Fighter.

Bishop is a good hybrid if you pick your extra domains with care because there is quite a lot of high level cleric scrolls to be found.

Bard is really good up until the hardest optional fights in chapter 3. It's alright in a group of 8 though and very good for Hearkenwold.

Didn't play the psion hybrids, found the mage knight a bit disappointing but now there is good martial classes as companions, I guess it's alright to take one.

Never played Paladin nor Champion, Paladin is just weaker than the DK and Champion, well, it could be alright if you want a Warpriest and not bring a Cleric nor a Bishop. I guess you could do the same with the Paladin.

Is there some secret to crafting? I even played the tutorial and all that it shows is the button exists in your inventory menu. I've tried dropping ingots on it, click it first then clicking ingots, etc. It says you have to be trading with a wizard, cleric, druid, etc. which sounds very odd to me.

Does that mean you can only invoke crafting with very specific NPCs you trade with? I've tried crafting at NPCs with no luck too. Explain to me like I'm 5 (ELI5)

You can only craft at NPC merchants who are casters. You need a masterwork item before you can enchant it. The "ingots" you pick up during the game can be used to forge weapons/armor which you can thereafter enchant if you have the correct gem. Doing so costs gold and xp, the higher/more powerful the enchantment, the more gold/xp it costs. You can also add enchantments to magic weapons/armor that you find, so long as you don't go above the enchantment limit of 10. By the end game, you'll be shuffling between items with level 10 enchantments based on what you're facing - or at least I did when I played a year or so ago.

This and elemental gems (fire, air, star, water, earth).

 

[TigerKnee]

Is there some secret to crafting? I even played the tutorial and all that it shows is the button exists in your inventory menu. I've tried dropping ingots on it, click it first then clicking ingots, etc. It says you have to be trading with a wizard, cleric, druid, etc. which sounds very odd to me.

Does that mean you can only invoke crafting with very specific NPCs you trade with? I've tried crafting at NPCs with no luck too. Explain to me like I'm 5 (ELI5)

You simply click the grey hammer button to craft, but you drag and drop masterwork/magic items on the purple hammer to its right for enchanting, and you need to do it while you are inside their trade menu. I know, it's not the greatest example of a UI choice.

And yes, it's correct that only spellcasting merchants can craft/enchant, but really just click the crafting button and that pretty much solves itself on "can this guy craft my stuff"

 

[Cryomancer]

About hybrid classes, Paladin seems good for a Fighter/Cleric hybrid. But IMO most martial/caster hybrids are bad. Now, caster hybrids like warlock(wiz+psi) are good.

 

[Whisper]

What is Hearkenwold? And how to play it?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

It's no rocket science, everyone minmax since cRPG were born.

I usually stop myself from min/max in most AD&D CRPG games to make them more 'fun' and challenging, but I think I will have to break myself of this habit to win this game, or at least Pierre style modules at least...or so it sounds like, I still have not had the time to star the game yet, probably not until the weekend

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I can't believe people already got this. Come on, man.

you can save scum the ironman save file .

And play on easy ...

Someone probably used the Steam Achievement Manager. They were all achieved an hour or so after the game was released.

Steam achievement manager? Wtf? Imagine being so worthless that you think cheating this thing makes you look good.

Achievements were a genius invention. Most people don't care about them at all but like .1% of the population goes absolutely apeshit for them and will purchase a game just to get the little trophy.

That and those fucking stickers or cards or whatever they are.

I could not believe people would pay actual money for your digital computer cards and and stickers or whatever. I sold all my cards awhile ago on the steam market for .03 to .50 cents each and ended up with about 15-20 dollars or something. I am sure I have a bunch more cards piled up by now, I should do it again...i

in reality I am probably making like $2.50 an hour after all the clicking around so its probably not all that bright an idea to sell them-- but its still unbelievable people pay money for these useless cards.

 

[Tacgnol]

What is Hearkenwold? And how to play it?

Dorateen's module, a full length level 1-10 campaign.

You can download it here:
https://www.nexusmods.com/knightsofthechalice2/mods/5?tab=description

You just extract it to the KOTC 2 module directory and then select it ingame.

 

[Serus]

I can't believe people already got this. Come on, man.

you can save scum the ironman save file .

And play on easy ...

Someone probably used the Steam Achievement Manager. They were all achieved an hour or so after the game was released.

Steam achievement manager? Wtf? Imagine being so worthless that you think cheating this thing makes you look good.

Achievements were a genius invention. Most people don't care about them at all but like .1% of the population goes absolutely apeshit for them and will purchase a game just to get the little trophy.

That and those fucking stickers or cards or whatever they are.

I wouldn't put the cards and achievements on the same level. The former are just nonsense. The latter have some merits. I don't care about them much - i wouldn't be buying most of my games on GoG given the chance (no Galaxy) if I did. But they can sometimes give good estimation of how much side content is (left) in the game. They tell us how many % of players finished the game or parts of the game. And finally, if some are well designed - they may provide nice additional challenge goals or ideas for some. Of curse in many or most games most achievements ARE retarded and useless but that's another issue.


Crafting/shopping is one of the worst offender when it comes to UI. The idea to put the UI on character sheets instead of on a separate shop window/interface as most other games do - and for good reasons - is already questionable at best. Then making it with tiny buttons that work differently each. Some need an item to be dragged on them, like enchantment. Others, like crafting basic items, need to be clicked directly, etc.. Pierre could take some lessons in UI design. And this part of the UI isn't the only poorly designed one.

 

[Tacgnol]

If you really care about steam achievement % it's better to use one of those achievement leader board sites that can easily detect if someone was using SAM.

The percentages on the steam site aren't going to be very accurate.

 

[Darth Canoli]

UI isn't perfect, that's for sure but It's a minor nuisance, I've seen many games fail way harder even though they were not developped by a solo dev.
Some recent games are nigh unplayable.

About achievements, it just sucks if it's not in game with some gameplay rewards.
Also, ii doesn't give any information since many players use the real exe to play offline.

 

[Serus]

UI isn't perfect, that's for sure but It's a minor nuisance, I've seen many games fail way harder even though they were not developped by a solo dev.
Some recent games are nigh unplayable.

About achievements, it just sucks if it's not in game with some gameplay rewards.
Also, ii doesn't give any information since many players use the real exe to play offline.

Yeah, sure, there are worse UIs. And yes, it usable, it isn't a big complaint on my part. The UI doesn't detract from the fun. But it makes it a bit more tedious and taking time i'd prefer to use better.
Both access to information and access to some functions are far from good. We already talked about some functions. Now think how many mouse clicks you need to access more detailed information (not only very basic but say feats or whatever else) of an enemy in combat (hint: several). Of curse you can also use one of dozens of shortcuts (V in this case iirc) but you still have to move mouse over the enemy. And you still need to select the correct (and tiny!) )tab. Using shortcuts for everything is roguelike school of design, except those usually don't use mouse at all. Compare it to Pathfinder (not a perfect UI by any means but a dnd-like game with similar gameplay and complexity). To access info on enemy you need only to hoover the mouse over him. Zero clicks, no shortcuts needed. To go deeper, one click. Amount of work you need to make to access game functions that are used often is one of a measure of an interface. KotC2 isn't great in that area.
Of curse Pierre did it by himself (?) but he had a previous game to work with and several years so he probably could have done a little better. As i said, it isn't a big complaint. It simply annoys me when people says that this interface is "OK". "Usable" != "OK".

 

[Dickie]

in reality I am probably making like $2.50 an hour after all the clicking around so its probably not all that bright an idea to sell them

Just get Steam Inventory Helper and sell them all with a few clicks. You'll be retiring in no time from your gains.

 

[JarlFrank]

I can't believe people already got this. Come on, man.

you can save scum the ironman save file .

And play on easy ...

Someone probably used the Steam Achievement Manager. They were all achieved an hour or so after the game was released.

That is super gay and whoever did that should have the game revoked from his library, disgusting!

At least use Cheat Engine to make it look legitimate

It's an obscure niche game... where's he gonna brag with that?

 

[Serus]

I can't believe people already got this. Come on, man.

you can save scum the ironman save file .

And play on easy ...

Someone probably used the Steam Achievement Manager. They were all achieved an hour or so after the game was released.

That is super gay and whoever did that should have the game revoked from his library, disgusting!

At least use Cheat Engine to make it look legitimate

It's an obscure niche game... where's he gonna brag with that?

On the Codex. In this thread...

 

[PorkaMorka]

UI isn't perfect, that's for sure but It's a minor nuisance, I've seen many games fail way harder even though they were not developped by a solo dev.

Perhaps but between the crowded and busy nature of the interface, the weird decorations and the lack of scaling with higher resolutions, it makes the game harder to look at and harder to market through screenshots and videos / streams. Unless the guy making the video knows that he should use a hack to fix the resolution / interface size it's unreasonably difficult to actually read the text in a heavily text based game.

 

[LabRat]

Mage Knight class is a bit disappointed. Unlimited Spells feat is interesting. But I expect it can be like Duskblade(3.5e) or Magus(Pathfinder). Add a Spellstrike feat would be perfect.

 

[Yosharian]

Anyone care to throw together a class tier list?

 

[Serus]

Anyone care to throw together a class tier list?

Compiling what people said in this thread on average:
God tier: Any full (9 spell levels) spellcaster (wizard being the best, cleric possibly the worst)
Useful tier: Any full BAB martial (so no bard) class (death knight or whatever the name is being the least popular)
Crap tier: All the rest (ranger and then paladin + rogue being probably the worst ones)

Anything more detailed i leave to people who actually finished the game.

 

[JarlFrank]

Finished it on normal.

Now either for an Archmage attempt or Ironman... hmmm...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Finished it on normal.

Now either for an Archmage attempt or Ironman... hmmm...