KickStarter Solasta: Crown of the Magister Thread - now with Palace of Ice sequel DLC

[Grunker]

Awesome Sorr-Akkath fight in the ruins with the chest - really utilizes the verticality mechanics.

 

[Artyoan]

Artyoan your mod thinks my monk is a paladin

obligatory:

For now both the Bard and Monk tags don't work. I think the game believes the Monk is a Paladin and the Bard is a Rogue in dialogue interactions, been that way since the Inner Strength DLC came out. Warlock works though.

There are a few places, mainly the forest locations, that allow for decent verticality. Hoping they have castle walls for the outdoor snow area in PoI at least.

 

[Grunker]

Okay, I’m like 15 encounters in and I’m convinced. Myzzrym would you just hire this guy to design every single encounter of PoI? I’m legitimately having more fun in this scuffed mod than in the main game, and I’m even playing on a lower difficulty.

It’s not rocket science either - the encounters just stack the action economy against the player and use the environment that you guys designed so well. Enemies are positioned so their AI is somewhat capable of leveraging the environment against you - meanwhile you actually looking at the fight before engaging will result in massive differences in difficulty level (of course indicating that environs actually make a difference in this mod).

The key thing seems to be that Isle (so far) makes a lot of its environments more constrained than the huge open spaces of Lost Valley and Crown, thus forcing you be creative with pathing and positioning.

So many fights in the base adventures happen in HUGE environments and while I can understand why this is - you wanted to demonstrate the awesome capabilities of the engine - the reality is that more open spaces = more paths = ironically more constrained use of the environment. Restricting pathing forces the player to use all the maneuverability tools the game has to offer and allows AI with special abilities like flight or climbing to have an actual advantage rather than just a visually different movement set.

You guys already painstakingly put all these moving parts in the game - you just refused to design any content around them. Artyoan out here proving it ain't actually that hard.

But besides from this, if I could ask only one thing of future Solasta releases it would be this:

Please, PLEASE stack the action economy against the player, at least on higher difficulties. It is the main tool you have to create challenge in this rules system.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I’m like 15 encounters in and I’m convinced. @Myzzrym would you just hire this guy to design every single encounter of PoI

Maybe too late for the imminent release, but might as well rope the guy in for a director's cut if that's a thing.
Mortmal did you ever find a module that ties in to your notion of difficulty?

 

[Grunker]

I’m like 15 encounters in and I’m convinced. @Myzzrym would you just hire this guy to design every single encounter of PoI

Mortmal did you ever find a module that ties in to your notion of difficulty?

Isle isn't even that difficult, it plays totally fair on core rules. I'm not exactly playing cheesey builds here and so far I've reloaded 2/15 fights more than once. It's just that I couldn't disengage my brain during nearly any of those 15 fights.

If this is what unfair difficulty looks like to Mortmal, he's even more lost than I thought.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

If this is what unfair difficulty looks like to Mortmal, he's even more lost than I thought

Not difficulty, but more of encounters that cater to his preference of pacing. I mean x CR per long and short rest you lot have instead of just having barbarians fight other barbarians like all sensible people do.

 

[Artyoan]

It’s not rocket science either - the encounters just stack the action economy against the player and use the environment that you guys designed so well.

Pretty much. The only areas I have that tend to be open and without much cover are areas that require a 3x3 or 4x4 monster to be able to maneuver. Which is also why I don't use them that often. You can actually tell when you're likely going to fight one just based on observing how little props I've put there and pathing thats been allowed for. The cover system is great. The AI will use it some of the time.

I think the actual areas look more natural and better just by having prop clutter that has tactical value to its placement as well. I don't think anything I've done was genius, I just emphasize cover, try to use a variety of enemies (with archers), and the majority of fights can be scouted out or have environmental warnings as to an ambush. Beyond that, I just play it and roll with whatever felt fair and tactical.

 

[Mortmal]

I’m like 15 encounters in and I’m convinced. @Myzzrym would you just hire this guy to design every single encounter of PoI

Maybe too late for the imminent release, but might as well rope the guy in for a director's cut if that's a thing.
Mortmal did you ever find a module that ties in to your notion of difficulty?

None alas , what is sad is it was the case in the first solasta demo long ago, you were able to use the campfire once , had a bunch of encounters, then onlycould you use the next campfire after that set of reasonable encounters. But i guess doing it fair and square and following ruleset was too hard for the playtesters and they back down on that. Remember the same playtester were lamenting the sorak fight with the crown being too hard as well.
Only way is doing it myself , but spending two hundreds of hours on the editor just to make a point is too much.

 

[Grunker]

It’s not rocket science either - the encounters just stack the action economy against the player and use the environment that you guys designed so well.

Pretty much. The only areas I have that tend to be open and without much cover are areas that require a 3x3 or 4x4 monster to be able to maneuver. Which is also why I don't use them that often. You can actually tell when you're likely going to fight one just based on observing how little props I've put there and pathing thats been allowed for. The cover system is great. The AI will use it some of the time.

I think the actual areas look more natural and better just by having prop clutter that has tactical value to its placement as well. I don't think anything I've done was genius, I just emphasize cover, try to use a variety of enemies (with archers), and the majority of fights can be scouted out or have environmental warnings as to an ambush. Beyond that, I just play it and roll with whatever felt fair and tactical.

You clearly "get it". About the only thing I would have done different is that I would have given the sewer Ogre legendary actions. Even on my team with no hard CC, it was a bit too easy to nerf it down, though it was a very cool design to give it that Confuse.

 

[Artyoan]

It’s not rocket science either - the encounters just stack the action economy against the player and use the environment that you guys designed so well.

Pretty much. The only areas I have that tend to be open and without much cover are areas that require a 3x3 or 4x4 monster to be able to maneuver. Which is also why I don't use them that often. You can actually tell when you're likely going to fight one just based on observing how little props I've put there and pathing thats been allowed for. The cover system is great. The AI will use it some of the time.

I think the actual areas look more natural and better just by having prop clutter that has tactical value to its placement as well. I don't think anything I've done was genius, I just emphasize cover, try to use a variety of enemies (with archers), and the majority of fights can be scouted out or have environmental warnings as to an ambush. Beyond that, I just play it and roll with whatever felt fair and tactical.

You clearly "get it". About the only thing I would have done different is that I would have given the sewer Ogre legendary actions. Even on my team with no hard CC, it was a bit too easy to nerf it down, though it was a very cool design to give it that Confuse.

Legendary actions and any other traits (pack tactics, blindsight, etc) I unfortunately can't give to custom monsters. They remain on only the designated enemies from the main campaigns. One of those things on my wishlist, alongside allowing for custom spell lists on certain custom monsters as well.

 

[Grunker]

It’s not rocket science either - the encounters just stack the action economy against the player and use the environment that you guys designed so well.

Pretty much. The only areas I have that tend to be open and without much cover are areas that require a 3x3 or 4x4 monster to be able to maneuver. Which is also why I don't use them that often. You can actually tell when you're likely going to fight one just based on observing how little props I've put there and pathing thats been allowed for. The cover system is great. The AI will use it some of the time.

I think the actual areas look more natural and better just by having prop clutter that has tactical value to its placement as well. I don't think anything I've done was genius, I just emphasize cover, try to use a variety of enemies (with archers), and the majority of fights can be scouted out or have environmental warnings as to an ambush. Beyond that, I just play it and roll with whatever felt fair and tactical.

You clearly "get it". About the only thing I would have done different is that I would have given the sewer Ogre legendary actions. Even on my team with no hard CC, it was a bit too easy to nerf it down, though it was a very cool design to give it that Confuse.

Legendary actions and any other traits (pack tactics, blindsight, etc) I unfortunately can't give to custom monsters

That's a huge SAD Legendary Actions - and more specifically unique mechanics of Legendary Actions - is the main way to make bosses a truly awesome experience in 5E (well, without resorting to additional mechanical design like what Matt Mercer is doing with his new Monster Manual).

 

[Artyoan]

I agree. There are some that have it but they are custom versions of the same boss enemies like the Spider Queen, Orenetis, Aksha, etc. So its there but very limited and won't approach anything fresh unfortunately.

 

[Alienman]

I like your mods, been trying some out. But damn, I miss the janky voice acting from the main game. Didn't realize how much that makes Solasta to what it is.

 

[Reinhardt]

a few annoyances

you mean faces?

 

[NJClaw]

Okay, I’m like 15 encounters in and I’m convinced. @Myzzrym would you just hire this guy to design every single encounter of PoI?

Yeah, combat is so much more interesting it feels like a completely different game.

I think at Tactical Adventures they're quite satisfied with what they made and aren't really interested in offering a more challenging experience. This is why I hope they expand the DM tools as much as possible. Pairing this type of encounter design with the ability to build creative arenas like what we saw in the "orc caves" of the main campaign would be great.

 

[Grunker]

I think at Tactical Adventures they're quite satisfied with what they made

They made a goddamn hadron collider to harness the power of the fucking multiverse and used it to produce soft ice without sprinkles is what they did

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a few annoyances

you mean faces?

You get used to them.

I think at Tactical Adventures they're quite satisfied with what they made

They made a goddamn hadron collider to harness the power of the fucking multiverse and used it to produce soft ice without sprinkles is what they did

I wonder....
Oi Myzzrym how many people at TA are magefags? Got a percentage value? I mean I know your CEO is.

 

[Reinhardt]

You get used to them.

i don't want to get used to them

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You get used to them.

i don't want to get used to them

It's okay, they'll get used to you anyway.

 

[covr]

I've just bought all DLC to play Artyoan mods. Wife and son will be away for a weekend, this is going to be goooood.

Unfortunately I don't know how to install UB on Linux (will play it on steam deck) so I will have to try 4 man party version of the module.

 

[Artyoan]

I've just bought all DLC to play Artyoan mods. Wife and son will be away for a weekend, this is going to be goooood.

Unfortunately I don't know how to install UB on Linux (will play it on steam deck) so I will have to try 4 man party version of the module.

4 man versions will do. They were tested/built before I used UB too. As far as I'm aware the steam deck works pretty well for Solasta except for some cutscenes in the main campaigns.

 

[Mud']

I've just bought all DLC to play Artyoan mods. Wife and son will be away for a weekend, this is going to be goooood.

Unfortunately I don't know how to install UB on Linux (will play it on steam deck) so I will have to try 4 man party version of the module.

Damn, so i do need to buy all the DLCs to be able to play mods?

 

[Artyoan]

I've just bought all DLC to play Artyoan mods. Wife and son will be away for a weekend, this is going to be goooood.

Unfortunately I don't know how to install UB on Linux (will play it on steam deck) so I will have to try 4 man party version of the module.

Damn, so i do need to buy all the DLCs to be able to play mods?

Most of the workshop pages show what DLC is required. Lost Valley will be for most of them. Inner Strength introduces a lot of bard/warlock/monk items that are theoretically supposed to be filtered out and not drop if you don't have the DLC. But I've seen enough reports of people having their saves suddenly not load because one of those items dropped anyway, that I just put it as a requirement by default. I don't think primal calling has had any issues like that, as far as I'm aware.

 

[Abu Antar]

Artyoan Do I need the Inner Strength DLC for your campaigns?

 

[Artyoan]

Artyoan Do I need the Inner Strength DLC for your campaigns?

I would get it, just to avoid that potential bug of an Inner Strength item dropping and then borking your save if you don't have it. I do have quite a few IS items set to drop but they are supposed to be filtered out by the game. Too many people reporting thats not happening correctly in custom campaigns.

You could possibly play without it but if you see you got a warlock/bard/monk item you might find your save game won't load anymore. I'm not sure if picking the item up or not matters, too few details on what is causing the real issue.