KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Efe]

wow perfectly placed to die in 1 breath

 

[Tweed]

But I won.

 

[Reinhardt]

I'm glad Pierre doesn't even pretend to be fair during the tutorial. It would lull players into a false sense of security.

looks like some kobold flatters himself

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I've learned enough from the main game to play the Tutorial.

What a time to be alive.

 

[Serus]

Overall i still think that Salamanders are good mainly for "flavor".

I mean you can't really say a game is all about initiative then ignore abilities that prevent surprise. And I haven't gotten back to that check to see if there's something there even more significant than that. Somehow I suspect that you don't know either.

Auto-crit? You mean the 1 shot at -8?

Oh for fuck sake, why do people insist on bloviating bout something they haven't even tested? And then have the temerity to condescend based on nothing more than theorycrafting?

I will never, never understand this.

You never use it at -8. As with most unique abilities there's a feat that goes with it.

half of the time you can't even aim properly.

Second person really isn't working for you here. Your inability (or more likely unwillingness) to play the class doesn't apply to me or in general. The whole point is that played properly you can aim just fine.

*It's the only class that really can* The trick is making that ability relevant. One way is to Haplo it up by stacking dice multipliers like Half-Giant + Force. You're Vital Striking. *From across the screen*

Basically, you are saying that Ranger can fare better in a form combat that is significantly worse than others. OK, I can buy that.

Ah, the Codex, where people feel compelled to parade around their ignorance then condescend from atop a pile of clown noses.

How would you know if it's worse than others if you haven't even played it? It's worse than others... unless you're playing a Ranger, which is the point of the class.

Your Druid had Zen and he didn't get the option possibly because your Ranger got it.

That party didn't have a Ranger. I was expecting to get it and didn't, then re-read the skill.

LOL. I suspect You don't get the irony of this? If I am condescending then You could swim in your condescension. And it's not the first time or place you do it. Why would anyone even stay here on the Codex, place full of ignorant (and condescending) people is always a mystery to me. Finally, the argument "You must eat shit - otherwise you can't say that it tastes bad" isn't as strong as you may think.

Having said that, i'll also say that I am an asshole, too often when i'm not planning it. So if i was here I am sorry. The above paragraph was me being an ass (and right) on purpose though.

As to ranged combat (not ranger combat), yes I did try it. I'm talking about not being able to aim due to coverage/blocking, not about damage or 70 vs 90% chances. If ranged doesn't work very well then any ranged class cannot - simple logic, i'm a simple man. However if you say that it works for you, then - perhaps - it does. I only know that you are the first claiming it. This versus: a) my own experience, b) a bunch of ignorant Codexers and c) Pierre Begue. However subjective opinion or numbers or being the author of something doesn't guarantee being right. You still might be right, I accept that. But pardon me if, considering the above, I am sceptical.

 

[Reinhardt]

It's Desiderius. He claimed the only proper way to play crusade battles in wrath of trannies is having multiple generals with different builds. Also he will probably add you to ignore soon.

 

[Serus]

It's Desiderius. He claimed the only proper way to play crusade battles in wrath of trannies is having multiple generals with different builds. Also he will probably add you to ignore soon.

Nah, I hope not. Whatever I might think of him or he of me, he also is someone who actually plays and likes CRPGs, the good ones included*. That it too valuable on the Dex. I don't want anyone like that to ignore me. There are some other people I wouldn't mind to ignore me but they rarely participate in threads like this one.

*Off topic but not an angry (or any) rant either:

Spoiler

Even Wrath I understand, I mostly liked Kingmaker myself and only avoided Wrath because I can't stomach Owlcat's bad writing anymore, woke-ism is just cherry on top. If you told me that Wrath has smaller word count than Kingmaker or it is of better quality (yeah, sure), I'd play it. I plan to play a little with a copy from maritime spoils and see if i can ignore most and stomach the rest of it. My hopes are not high though. It's such a shame really. Finally a partyu-based CRPG has actual horse(and other thing)-riding and horse combat. This is something I lack very much in CRPGs. Guys from Battle Brothers Legends wanted to implement it and made some progress but no luck so far

 

[Yosharian]

Wanna try a Death Knight. Try to see how I can fit him into a party.
Any cool build suggestions?

From earlier:

Nobody's better than a pure fighter at killing things with a sword, that said, either you take other classes because you know what to do with their special skills, you want some diversity or just don't.

DK is one of my favorite class because of the aura of dread, -3 AC - 3 to saving throws is a big deal when it matters the most, aka when fighting powerful foes.
If you specialize your casters to make the most of it, it makes a huge difference.

As for the rest, you need to spend a couple of feats on his special abilities to make the DK worth it and also build him right.
Conviction requires an INT bonus and Smite requires CHA bonus.
Smite is only useful when you need some extra THC or if you use a skewer weapon.

Life steal, I don't use it much, as Serus said, it requires 1 feat at least to make it a free action.

Some DK builds:

Spoiler

Race STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
Hu. (M) 18 - 8 - 14 - 16 - 8 - 15
Hu. (M. North.) 20 6 14 16 8 13
Centaur (F. Arb.) 18 6 14 14 8 15
Drake and Dwarf males works as well, even Half-Giant.

With 1 Attribute point every 4 levels, you can spend 4 in STR and 1 in CHA.

Of course, you could do something different with a bit more of DEX or CON and remove some CHA points if you don't plan to use feats on smite or remove some INT points.
Or even go with 10 CON and go full CHA or with a lesser DEX penalty.

Low DEX might be a problem so you might want to consider something different with less STR and CON.
These builds work very well with a smite DK using a 2H Skewer weapon, like the axe you get in chapter 3 or another one with high base damage and high crit multiplier.

Actually what's your opinion about sorcerer and wizard?

I don't like Sorcerers, you can transform them like wizards but their spell slots are shared between divine and arcane magic (they use the same spell slots).
I find the Warlock better.
Still, both of them require too many abilities to work.

So a pure wizard works better, a highly specialized one even ore if you know what you're doing.

So whenever I save with Jorad in the group (active or inactive) game crashes. Any suggested fix?

Time to play KotC 1 I guess.

YES!

Send a bug report to Pierre through steam or e-mail with your saved attached to it.

But which Wizards are best? Red is a no brainer, but what about the others? Blue's transformation seems rather good

 

[Yosharian]

I see Serus has had the pleasure of meeting Desiderius in the wild

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, I replaced all the tokens of the module with better looking ones from the Nexus, and then the new update undid all the changes just like that. Maybe I did something wrong since I'm a bit ooga-booga, maybe it's Pierre's shit engine, either way, weak, dude. Weak.

Copy paste the Graphics/Token or even Graphics/Tokens/PlayerCharacter from your old installation into the new one, don't overwrite except if you renamed some files, which you probably avoid.

Or just save the tokens you like somewhere and add them for each new installment, which is the same thing.

What is your party setup now?

Kobold Red Wiz, transformed
Human Stygian Black Wiz transformed
Centaur DK (2H skewer axe you get in chapter 3)
Drake Fighter (dual skewer, one crafter, one 2H scyte from Xadriphar's chest but I'm probably goign to replace it with a dispelling sword)
Mantis Rogue (4 weapons : dispel/shatermantle + skewer + undead destruction(crafted) + random fourth one)
I'm not sure what (Elf?) Psionicist
Sarrabas (Fire druid companion) - dedicated healer and quicksand caster for 2/3 of the game.
Pizarra (Warlock companion)

But which Wizards are best? Red is a no brainer, but what about the others? Blue's transformation seems rather good

I like the blue one, there's a lot of great enchantment spells but conjuration spells are overpowered late game.


So, the party is Level 18/19 now.
The death snare was a joke, I guess my hording xp to overlevel hard encounter strategy finally payed, some chapter 3 encounters were quite tough to manage since I sticked to level 8 almost the entire time.
Formians were clearly the hardest part but nothing stinking cloud and quicksand couldn't solve.

The death snare was just a joke, I was even disappointed the demon didn't even spawn, I think he's dropping some extra loot, oh well...

The Spider Queen, I saved a campsite just for that fight to I rested before going in.
Grouped everyone from the formation screen, buffed everyone for two turns, except for a chaos spell to keep the spiders busy, hid the allied spiders far south, just in case (which was a bad idea, late spawns almost killed them).

So, aside from all the buffs (mass everything i could think of), I put two vertical walls between the Spider Queen spawning spot and the big room alonside the "fake wall" which doesn't block spells and these two magical walls actually block spells.
With enhanced STR + enlarge and stuff, the fighter had 95% chances to grapple the Queen, I usually don't use grapple but it's an Ironman run, then pinned her, also put a anti-magic cloud up there for her and her other spawning spider mage allies with one of mine earlier.

So, that was it.
For the fun, I used all my prismatic voids and sprays on the Queen and her spider mages, fun part is, the wal was protecting my fighters surrounding her but not her because of her gigantic size...

It was like stealing candy from Rusty.
The Spider Prince now sells a SR 30 robe now, only 110K gold, 3 times cheaper than the SR28 mantle, I'll probably enchant it for the psionicist.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah white has better spells for sure. I trivialised a lot of fights in the tutorial just by casting web and then destroying people with ranged spells or reach weapons

 

[Darth Canoli]

Yeah white has better spells for sure. I trivialised a lot of fights in the tutorial just by casting web and then destroying people with ranged spells or reach weapons

After the druid spells like Quicksand, Earthquake, Sirocco and Tornado, conjuration spells are among my favorites, notably stinking cloud but also grease/resilient grease, Vortex of Doom and Weird.

Pierre has compiled a spell-list by magic school in the KotC 2 data part of his website.

Spoiler

Alteration (22 spells):


L1 Reduce
L2 Mute
L3 Dispel Magic
L3 Slow
L3 Suppress Sword
L4 Mass Reduce
L5 Mass Mute
L5 Break Enchantment
L5 Dismissal
L5 Baleful Polymorph
L6 Contingent Break Enchantment
L6 Greater Dispel Magic
L6 Disintegrate
L6 Flesh to Stone
L7 Time Control
L7 Banishment
L8 Mass Baleful Polymorph
L8 Mass Suppress Sword
L8 Mass Disrupt Armour
L8 Greater Break Enchantment
L9 Greater Disintegrate
L9 Contingent Greater Break Enchantment


Enchantment (23 spells):


L1 Sleep
L1 Colour Spray
L2 Daze Monster
L2 Hideous Laughter
L2 Hypnotic Pattern
L3 Deep Slumber
L3 Hold Person
L4 Confusion
L4 Crushing Despair
L4 Rainbow Pattern
L4 Control Person
L5 Dominate Person
L5 Feeblemind
L5 Hold Monster
L5 Mind Breach
L6 Chaos
L7 Mass Hold Person
L7 Mind Blast
L8 Control Monster
L9 Dominate Monster
L9 Mass Hold Monster
L9 Mass Irresistible Dance
L9 Mass Mind Blast


Evocation (27 spells):


L1 Burning Hands
L1 Gust of Wind
L1 Ray of Frost
L2 Flaming Sphere
L2 Scorch
L2 Acid Splash
L2 Ice Blast
L3 Fireball
L3 Electric Sphere
L3 Lightning Bolt
L3 Sound Lance
L4 Shout
L4 Energy Orb
L5 Cone of Cold
L5 Greater Shocking Grasp
L5 Blast of Force
L5 Greater Gust of Wind
L6 Chain Lightning
L6 Freezing Sphere
L7 Power Fireball
L7 Prismatic Spray
L7 Discharge
L8 Prismatic Wall
L8 Polar Ray
L8 Greater Shout
L8 Sunburst
L9 Acid Blast


Necromancy (18 spells):


L1 Cause Fear
L2 Blindness
L2 Ghoul Touch
L2 Scare
L3 Halt Undead
L3 Ray of Exhaustion
L4 Bestow Curse
L4 Fear
L5 Psychic Turmoil
L6 Mass Blindness
L6 Undeath to Death
L6 Circle of Death
L7 Dominate Undead
L7 Finger of Death
L7 Vampiric Blast
L8 Horrid Wilting
L8 Malison
L9 Shadow Storm


Conjuration (19 spells):


L1 Grease
L1 Chromatic Orb
L1 Flaming Oil
L2 Acid Arrow
L2 Glitterdust
L2 Web
L3 Flame Arrow
L3 Ice Lance
L3 Stinking Cloud
L5 Phantasmal Killer
L5 Cloudkill
L6 Acid Fog
L7 Forcecage
L7 Vortex of Doom
L8 Incendiary Cloud
L9 Weird
L9 Meteor Shower
L9 Mass Forcecage

 

[Lios]

So, I replaced all the tokens of the module with better looking ones from the Nexus, and then the new update undid all the changes just like that. Maybe I did something wrong since I'm a bit ooga-booga, maybe it's Pierre's shit engine, either way, weak, dude. Weak.

Copy paste the Graphics/Token or even Graphics/Tokens/PlayerCharacter from your old installation into the new one, don't overwrite except if you renamed some files, which you probably avoid.

Or just save the tokens you like somewhere and add them for each new installment, which is the same thing.

I have the tokens in the graphics file alright, it's just that they got erased from the module, in-game, and they got replaced again by the standard, ugly ones. So around 2 hours of "work" in the creature editor wasted.
*Or maybe I misunderstood what you wrote, in which case, can you elaborate please?
Is there a quick way to replace the tokens in the creature editor en masse, or is it manually replacing each one (which is what I did) the only way?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I have the tokens in the graphics file alright, it's just that they got erased from the module, in-game, and they got replaced again by the standard, ugly ones. So around 2 hours of "work" in the creature editor wasted.
*Or maybe I misunderstood what you wrote, in which case, can you elaborate please?
Is there a quick way to replace the tokens in the creature editor en masse, or is it manually replacing each one (which is what I did) the only way?

No, that's the other way around.
Well, don't replace tokens until you're playing on a definitive version.
And if you've edited the module, maybe just copy/paste your tokens where they belong and then the modified module you've edited into the new module directory, chances are bug fixes are within the engine and not the module, by now.

 

[Desiderius]

LOL. I suspect You don't get the irony of this? If I am condescending then You could swim in your condescension. And it's not the first time or place you do it. Why would anyone even stay here on the Codex, place full of ignorant (and condescending) people is always a mystery to me. Finally, the argument "You must eat shit - otherwise you can't say that it tastes bad" isn't as strong as you may think.

Having said that, i'll also say that I am an asshole, too often when i'm not planning it. So if i was here I am sorry. The above paragraph was me being an ass (and right) on purpose though.

As to ranged combat (not ranger combat), yes I did try it. I'm talking about not being able to aim due to coverage/blocking, not about damage or 70 vs 90% chances. If ranged doesn't work very well then any ranged class cannot - simple logic, i'm a simple man. However if you say that it works for you, then - perhaps - it does. I only know that you are the first claiming it. This versus: a) my own experience, b) a bunch of ignorant Codexers and c) Pierre Begue. However subjective opinion or numbers or being the author of something doesn't guarantee being right. You still might be right, I accept that. But pardon me if, considering the above, I am sceptical.

There is no irony.

The word condescension had a positive connotation for hundreds of years before the mindless levelers got the upper hand. Men need hierarchy, but it's never absolute. Even Charlemagne knelt before the Pope, who himself knelt before the poor and the widow. And back then they actually believed it too. I know those who still do and they're outstanding people.

You as someone with extensive experience with this game legitimately condescended to me initially here, and I'm glad you did and offered some useful observations. Would that more experienced players took the time to do so.

The problem was when you took the same approach on a subject where you don't have that experience. Hierarchies to be functional have to be both fluid and relative to experience/accomplishment/knowledge. You don't have that when it comes to the Ranger class and I do, although by necessity I still lack much experience with the wider context so I could ultimately be wrong on the question of whether it deserves a slot. So far its been earning it in my games.

The logic you're using to extrapolate from the experience you do have is flawed.

Would you say that struggles to make classes like Cleric or Bard relevant in melee means that melee is bad therefore Fighter is bad?

Specialized classes have their own set of rules, including in the specific case you cite with your inability (and mine!) to make Hunting Domain worth it.

We'll see. I've been wrong before and I could turn out to be wrong again. As for Pierre I think he intentionally made ranged weaker to correct for BG and likely hasn't played Ranger much either with that in mind. Certainly Half-Giant Ranger is a unique take. I didn't find the Haplo approach in Pathfinder either until I saw him doing it. It isn't intuitive.

 

[Grunker]

*opens thread*

*autism level is above 9000*

oh i see desiderius is back

 

[plem]

damn you Pierre for making me do a math test in a videogame

 

[Dorateen]

Following a longstanding tradition of working out arithmetic problems in computer role-playing games.

 

[ItsChon]

Is it just me or are all these fruity classes such as Samurai or Death Knight just cringe? I never liked this special snowflake bullshit, and I'm a bit disappointed to see KotC 2 full of it. I loved KotC 1, how does the second compare so far? Are there a lot of bugs? Should I wait for more updates?

 

[Serus]

Is it just me or are all these fruity classes such as Samurai or Death Knight just cringe? I never liked this special snowflake bullshit, and I'm a bit disappointed to see KotC 2 full of it. I loved KotC 1, how does the second compare so far? Are there a lot of bugs? Should I wait for more updates?

What is wrong with more classes if they have some unique abilities and are interesting to play? Sure you could name a Samurai* something else - say a Knight. Heavily armoured, often uses big two-handed swords, word of honour skill make sense, etc... But it wouldn't make any difference inn this game.
As to Death Knight, same, he has enough unique abilities to make him interesting and the class' name be damned.
My answers:
It compares well. Mostly. Well in what counts, like level and encounter design. Less good in technical aspects but nothing major.
It addresses some issues of the first one. One of the biggest, at least for me, was lack of choices when it comes to character and especially party building.
It is less polished than KotC 1 but more varied.
It is good enough to play now.


*If Pierre named Samurai a Rainbow Warrior or Wakanda Defender instead then we'd agree.

 

[AdamReith]

Rolled a party and gave this a spin.

What, mechanics wise, is the deal with Psionics. I don't really get what they are beyond another flavour of wizard. Why not just have a Psionic school of magic?

Also, despite in theory preferring sprites I find the screen almost unreadable with them enabled. Do you guys use the token view?

 

[plem]

Is it just me or are all these fruity classes such as Samurai or Death Knight just cringe? I never liked this special snowflake bullshit, and I'm a bit disappointed to see KotC 2 full of it. I loved KotC 1, how does the second compare so far? Are there a lot of bugs? Should I wait for more updates?

I think it's just you. the unique classes are great, and not really all that "fruity". Death Knight is pretty much a Blackguard (through not necessarily evil), Samurai kits have been in D&D in some form or another since forever. others like Mage Knight and Storm Warrior are basically two classes mixed together, which makes up for no multiclassing.

as for the other questions, the basic gameplay is very much like KotC 1, even the keyboard shortcuts and sound effects are mostly the same. it's KotC but with tons more classes, graphics, dialogue and puzzles, with the biggest change being the addition of skill checks in dialogue and scripted interactions.

Rolled a party and gave this a spin.

What, mechanics wise, is the deal with Psionics. I don't really get what they are beyond another flavour of wizard. Why not just have a Psionic school of magic?

Also, despite in theory preferring sprites I find the screen almost unreadable with them enabled. Do you guys use the token view?

the deal with psionicists, besides having their own exclusive spells, is their power points. you can increase damage, save DC, duration etc of any power by spending PP, making lower level powers scalable. they can also wear armor and don't get counter-spelled (which is a big deal in this game).

I use tokens exclusively, mostly because I can't stand having my kobold be just a little red guy instead of actually looking like a kobold.

 

[Desiderius]

*opens thread*

*autism level is above 9000*

oh i see desiderius is back

Being profoundly misunderstood is the price I have to pay for getting to talk about great games with other people who love them.

And the rest of you ignoramuses.

There's no bigger fan of autism than yours truly - one of my twins is legit diagnosed and he knows his states in alphabetical order (he's four) so he's already scaling heights of autism I can never hope to reach - but the comment you're referring to is in fact the opposite of autism.

 

[Jermu]

 

[Angelo85]

Time to get the popcorn