Solasta: Crown of the Magister (D&D SRD 5.1 CRPG)

[Jaymann]

I wanted to play some user made levels, so I checked out the Workshop. There is a level there which allows you to gear up your old or new characters at level 1, then save those characters with equipment. This is perfect for me since I completed the campaign on legit, and I have no desire to slug through anything with shitty equipment. The game is difficult enough even with good gear. I am now working through one of the higher rated levels.

[Jaymann]

I finished a Workshop level with all characters at level 5. The game allows you to save those characters at the current level and equipment. They can be used in other user created levels but not in the main campaign. However, I started a campaign with them at level 1, saved it and they retained their equipment.

[Blackhawk]

Quick question - I've read that you can make all of the members of your party, or you can take premade characters. Does it make any difference? Are there follower quests or dialogue?

[Jaymann]

Quick question - I've read that you can make all of the members of your party, or you can take premade characters. Does it make any difference? Are there follower quests or dialogue?

Yes you can, and I do make all members. I don't know for sure, but the premade characters look pretty generic, and I wouldn't expect any backstories. Some NPC's along the way have a story/quest behind them.

[Zenn7]

Quick question - I've read that you can make all of the members of your party, or you can take premade characters. Does it make any difference? Are there follower quests or dialogue?

Yes you can, and I do make all members. I don't know for sure, but the premade characters look pretty generic, and I wouldn't expect any backstories. Some NPC's along the way have a story/quest behind them.

I made all my own members and ran them through. The "backstory" for each was based on their background. They each has a short quest based on their background.

You also set two things (I forget what they are called) that help define your personality. Most of mine were cynical, so most of their comments that they'd blurt in different situations and their responses tended to be cynical. Not story/background, just a little flavor.

[Blackhawk]

And I'm off...

[Jaymann]

Looks like a good party mix.

[Blackhawk]

Given the ungodly number of hours I've dumped into the tabletop version over the past eight years, it had better be!

One observation: They really needed a better selection of voices. I get that they didn't have a huge budget, but the three they have for male and the three for female need to be a little more varied. My elderly dwarf sounds like an elderly dwarf. My halfling sounds like a wisecracking smartass (which is good.) My half-orc barbarian sounds like a cultured fop.

If I had to do it over, I'd have gone with two males/two females to have a little more choice in what I used for voices.

[The Meal]

I don't remember the mechanics well enough to know whether you're going to be annoyed with a range specialist without infravision... [edit]Oh, never mind. It's your rogue, not a ranger. [edit2]Oh, it's a halfling rogue. Double never mind.

[Zenn7]

I don't remember the mechanics well enough to know whether you're going to be annoyed with a range specialist without infravision... [edit]Oh, never mind. It's your rogue, not a ranger. [edit2]Oh, it's a halfling rogue. Double never mind.

Just have the Cleric and Wizard get light cantrip and keep it up constantly. You'll still get some annoying situations, but that will eliminate many/most.

[Blackhawk]

I don't remember the mechanics well enough to know whether you're going to be annoyed with a range specialist without infravision... [edit]Oh, never mind. It's your rogue, not a ranger. [edit2]Oh, it's a halfling rogue. Double never mind.

It's a halfling rogue who will be focusing on archery, so you can have back one mind.

[Blackhawk]

I'm really having fun with this, although (as a tabletop player), there are a few things that get on my nerves - mostly stuff that GMs generally rule on when it doesn't make sense. Like being able to peek out of cover for line of sight, being able to retry locks if you fail to pick them (unless they're physically impossible to pick, the only penalty for failing is wasted time and risking damaging your picks), and so on. There are also a couple of things that mystify me - I cannot, for the life of me, get Flaming Sphere to work as it should. There doesn't seem to be any way to ram it into an enemy, which takes away most of its utility as a 2nd level spell. And jumping is just... weird. I have one character that is incapacitated every single time he jumps in combat. There's no check involved - if he jumps, he's down and his turn ends. Also, you can't carry a light without also carrying your primary weapon, meaning that if you have a candle or a torch, you can't cast spells. You have to go into your inventory and manually switch out the light source, cast the spell, then switch back. Because reasons.

/edit - and they're undermining the tactical elements. I came up on a room I thought something might be in. I sneak in with one character with high stealth to see if there is anything to be concerned about. There is - it launches into a cutscene showing that the enemies I'm looking for are in there. I'm on an elevated area, they're below, and there are two staircases going up. My plan on seeing this is to back out, cast a few buffs, place my wizard and my rouge archer in the center of the top, and put my two melee fighters at the top of the two staircases. Then I can have my rogue start with a surprise attack to take advantage of all of the bonuses he gets on same.

Nope. The cutscene ends and auto-starts the combat. It moved all of my characters into the room from the hallway outside (remember, I was scouting), puts my caster at the top of the stairs where she'll be slaughtered, and puts my clanky dwarf war cleric with the magic armor and shield in the middle where he can't get to any enemies. A big part of playing this type of game is in planning the approach. Kindly don't take that away from me.

[Blackhawk]

...which, unsurprisingly, led to a TPK.

[Jaymann]

If that's the place I'm thinking of, I knew it was coming by my second playthrough. I put all but one character in a nearby cave to create a choke point. Then crept with my rogue to just within bow range. Started the battle and retreated to the cave. Flawless victory.

[Blackhawk]

After four TPKs, I might try that after I take a frustration breather.

I can't get the flying bastard down - he won't fail a concentration check no matter how many times I hit him. If I focus on him enough to use up his shield spells to stand a chance against him, the rest of the enemies kill us. If I focus on the rest of the enemies, he hovers there and obliterates us. Seriously, no DM would put a level 3 party against a double-party-sized group of enemies with movement 8 (cross the map in one turn and renders cover irrelevant), wall walking (renders terrain, chokepoints, and height advantages moot), teleportation (can't counter the ranged with melee), AOE attacks, and flying higher-level casters with regeneration. Oh, and the enemies have walked through the walls to flank me when I tried to hold a narrow passage against them.

Seriously, this DM is a dick.

[Jaymann]

That's not the battle I was thinking of, and I think that flying bastard is immune to magic missile. But the same tactic might work.

[Blackhawk]

Not immune, he just has the Shield spell as a Reaction, and a huge number of spell slots to burn on it (you are immune to Magic Missile while Shield is active.)

[Hyena]

Not immune, he just has the Shield spell as a Reaction, and a huge number of spell slots to burn on it (you are immune to Magic Missile while Shield is active.)

I found when I hit a cutscene and combat autostarted, I would watch it, then reload and try to start combat on my own terms with a well-placed sneak attack on the caster. I also had a party full of wood elves, so the first two rounds everyone had short or longbow attacks before the enemy acted. Kinda cheap, I guess, but in my story they all came from the same village.

[Zarathud]

I think of that unfairness as continuing in the footsteps of Baldur’s Gate. And save-scum like I did back then.

[Zenn7]

New DLC released this week.

New L1-12 campaign, supposedly has some replayability with different factions you can side with.

All classes got a new subclass.

Multiplayer, new DM stuff.

Other interesting things. Got it on Fanatical for 22% off ($12.99 became $10.13).

Need mods to get updated.
I like the variant human (for the feat) and multiclass (I like to multiclass rogue/ranger, get 3 levels of rogue (in tabletop, go assassin or inquistive; here on the main story I did the darkweaver, probably do that again), 5 levels of ranger (archery if tabletop and I don't need to be melee, usually w/ hand xbow and xbow expertise feat for bonus attack; here I did melee with TWF; and hunter w/ colossal slayer). Extra attack at 5th level ranger, if I can get hunters mark up, that goes on the 2nd attack and the bonus attack, all the attacks help ensure I get a hit for the sneak attack and colossal slayer to get an extra d8 in each round (if they aren't wounded yet, second hit will get it). Love this build, lots of dice and damage.

[Harkonis]

Loving this so far, been doing it on stream since the dlc launch. Looking forward to trying coop as well as some odd parties like all cleric/druids since the subclasses are so varied.

edit: not being able to retry locks is a huge issue I have. seems very odd to me.

[IceBear]

Kind of goes back to pen and paper. If you can just keep retrying the skill roll then locks are pointless and eventually you will pick them with enough time

[Blackhawk]

Which is why a lot of GMs these days don't make it the only way to open the lock. If the player is capable of opening the lock (IE - he'll roll a high enough number if he keeps trying), they'll give them one roll top pop it open quickly, then just say they can open the lock, no roll needed, but it will take X number of minutes. If there is a dramatic reason or failing carries a penalty (IE - there is a guard patrolling and you need to get the door open before he makes his next pass, or failing sets off an alarm/trap, etc), then they make rolls. "The guard is just around the corner. You can hear his footsteps. You can hear him stopping to rattle the doors. He'll be in sight in well under a minute. You can keep rerolling, but every attempt is going to take you ten seconds..."

Either not being able to try after one failure, or sitting there rerolling for 15 minutes while everyone else twiddles their thumbs doesn't make for fun gameplay.

The same thing goes with other skills.

[Skinypupy]

I think I need to give this another look. I got irritated with a few things when I tried it about a year ago, but have heard they've made improvements since then.

[Hyena]

I think I need to give this another look. I got irritated with a few things when I tried it about a year ago, but have heard they've made improvements since then.

Definitely give it a try. I use it to get my D&D fix while I wait for Baldur's Gate 3 since it uses the same rules. I'm currently in my 3rd playthrough, and this time I'm using two ranger/rogues, a druid, and an artificer. It's bonkers, because I'll run my two rangers up to sight-range of the enemies and then start off combat with two rounds of sneak attacks w/advantage. I went through my first three fights without the goblins even seeing me before combat was over. Add in my Artificer's creations and my druid's bear pet, I'm pretty much mowing through everyone with very little healing needed after battles.

[The Meal]

I like the GUI of Solasta a hundred times better than that of BG3.

[Jag]

I may pick up the DLC. I'm usually burned out on games by the time DLC comes out and almost never buy it but Solasta really hits that RPG sweet spot. The new Pathfinder was great but as usual, turned into a slog by late game.

[Skinypupy]

I think I need to give this another look. I got irritated with a few things when I tried it about a year ago, but have heard they've made improvements since then.

Definitely give it a try. I use it to get my D&D fix while I wait for Baldur's Gate 3 since it uses the same rules. I'm currently in my 3rd playthrough, and this time I'm using two ranger/rogues, a druid, and an artificer. It's bonkers, because I'll run my two rangers up to sight-range of the enemies and then start off combat with two rounds of sneak attacks w/advantage. I went through my first three fights without the goblins even seeing me before combat was over. Add in my Artificer's creations and my druid's bear pet, I'm pretty much mowing through everyone with very little healing needed after battles.

I just need to get past the mental block that the story is mostly garbage and just focus on the combat. That disconnect was a deal-breaker for me last time, but I think that I can adjust my expectations accordingly.

[Madmarcus]

Should I finally buy this?

Edit - bought

[Jag]

Should I finally buy this?

Edit - bought

Yes.

Edit- good

[Skinypupy]

Should I finally buy this?

Edit - bought

I don't have my GamePass sub anymore, so I grabbed it on Steam yesterday too.

[Zenn7]

FYI:
Fanatical.com has the new dlc for 22% off ($10.13), 25% off ($7.49) the previous DLC and 67% off ($13.19) the base game.

Nexus mods has a CE mod that allows you to turn on a large range of individual tweaks. For me, in particular - it allowed human variant (feat, skill, +1 to 2 stats of choice) and multi-classing. Only other thing i used it advantage/disadvantage follows the book rules.

It adds support for the Warlock, a Tinker class (artificer like I think) and Witch classes. Haven't tried any of those.

Did the original campaign with Human Paladin, High Elf Wizard, Hill Dwarf Cleric and Human Rogue/Ranger.

DLC run sees my human rogue/ranger, half-orc barbarian, half-elf sorcerer, wood elf druid.

[Madmarcus]

I didn't worry about buying things elsewhere and simply picked up the game plus both DLCs on Steam. I messed around last night but I'll install the CE today before really starting to dive into a game. I'm still not sure if I will start with the Crown campaign, the Lost Valley, or one of the player created campaigns. Probably the LV.

I find it weird how few people seem to play with a cleric in their party.

[The Meal]

In my original run through, my Cleric was the MVP. These aren't the healers and plink-plink melee dudes from our youth.

[IceBear]

Which is why a lot of GMs these days don't make it the only way to open the lock. If the player is capable of opening the lock (IE - he'll roll a high enough number if he keeps trying), they'll give them one roll top pop it open quickly, then just say they can open the lock, no roll needed, but it will take X number of minutes. If there is a dramatic reason or failing carries a penalty (IE - there is a guard patrolling and you need to get the door open before he makes his next pass, or failing sets off an alarm/trap, etc), then they make rolls. "The guard is just around the corner. You can hear his footsteps. You can hear him stopping to rattle the doors. He'll be in sight in well under a minute. You can keep rerolling, but every attempt is going to take you ten seconds..."

Either not being able to try after one failure, or sitting there rerolling for 15 minutes while everyone else twiddles their thumbs doesn't make for fun gameplay.

The same thing goes with other skills.

And I tend to use the PbtA way of "failing forward" as well for a lot of skills...stuff like "You needed a 10 to pick the lock on the door, but you got a 2, so yeah, you pick the lock but you took so long and made so much noise doing so that all the guards are standing on the other side with their swords drawn"

I do wonder why they got rid of Take 10 and Take 20 in 5E. This type of issue was exactly why those rules existed

[Madmarcus]

Some thoughts after a couple of hours creating characters for and starting the Lost Mines player made campaign with the CE mode. Warning - babbling ahead!

5e is just different enough from everything I've even played to really get me going on all the character options. Especially with the possibility of multiclassing. Luckily I think planning characters is a fun game in and of itself.

3 feats (and the stat tradeoff involved in getting even those 3 feats) feels so limiting! On the other hand I like the rolling and rerolling. In the end a few extra boosts to non-primary stats isn't a big deal but it makes the early game more fun in my opinion.

I don't mind the face generation part. It is really limited but ok except for the beards that float in front of the face and the insanely skinny arms. My cleric looks like a Don Quixote clone.

The UI is good but and might even be great once I get used to the 5e rules for actions.

Maybe the biggest deal - I'm going to have to completely relearn how to think about rests! My D&D experience dates back to when there was no such thing as a standard adventuring day. Spell slots were a consumable resource but martial characters didn't really have anything equivalent and the balance between number of encounters and resting wasn't nearly as fine tuned. Even 3e/3.5e/Pathfinder experience from crpgs feels like it leads me into the wrong expectations. Saving spell slots, letting the martials deal with things without spending many resources, and then using easily available healing doesn't seem like it is going to work here even though BG, BG2, NWN, and even Pathfinder have made me default to that!

[Blackhawk]

FWIW, cantrips in 5e are the caster's bread-and-butter, and they improve with level. They're like making a basic attack to the fighter. Book spells are for special situations.

[Madmarcus]

Hmm, restart and hope for the best or wait?

I tempted fate and started using the Community mod as I like the idea of multiclassing. But when I try to level up a character from fighter to cleric it causes the mod to crash. I guess I'll go mess around in fan made campaigns.

[Zenn7]

I am only doing rogue/ranger, but I have no problems with the CE mod and multi-classing.

I did see the CE mod got updated along with the version of the game the other day - had to update the mod to get it to start. Said game was unstable, likely caused by mod.

[Madmarcus]

I reported the cleric problem earlier today and a fix was part of the 1.3.46.2 update to the CEM this afternoon. Pretty impressive really.