Solasta: Crown of The Magister Preview - D&D 5e Evolved
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a tabletop inspired RPG video game that uses the sourcebook from D&D 5th Edition for many of its mechanics.
Dungeons & Dragons has made a big comeback with
2019 being the franchise's biggest year ever, and with it there are an increasing number of video games based on the popular tabletop game, its rules and lore. PC game
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is heavily inspired by
D&D, and adapts many of the
systems and mechanics that make D&D 5th Edition tick. Everything from character creation, movement, combat, and actions are right out of
D&D's 5e sourcebook.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister began as a Kickstarter project and wound up breaking its goal by a significant amount. Last September the team behind
Solasta announced that they had crowdsourced more than $270,000, and were able to add a lot of new content including new classes and quest lines.
Ultimately,
Solasta is aiming to be a digital video game version of a
D&D session. The player will be able to create their entire party based on 5th Edition rules, and then go on a quest that feels like it could have been lifted straight from a campaign source book.
Screen Rant was able to participate in a virtual preview of
Solasta: Crown of the Magister which is in an early alpha stage and chat with Tactical Adventures, the team behind the game.
Solasta: Created By Fans Of Tabletop Games
During our chat with Tactical Adventures' founder Mathieu Girard, it was revealed that the devs are tabletop game players. Girard and his team wanted to bring their
passion and excitement for Dungeons & Dragons to
Solasta: Crown of the Magister as much as possible. Girard said "
We are big fans of tabletop RPGs as well as computer and video game RPGs... Making a RPG, especially one very faithful to tabletop, has always been a dream of mine, so this is really a passion project for me and for a large part of the team as well."
Girard has been playing tabletop RPGs for many years, and loves playing them with friends and coworkers. Girard is actually currently running four different
D&D campaigns with different groups, even while under lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also is currently running a session with a party of people who work at Tactical Adventures, and they play using the Roll20 app. All this to say that Girard and the rest of Tactical Adventures have a lot of of experience with pen and paper RPGs.
Girard stated during the interview portion that one of the biggest questions they had received from Kickstarter users was whether or not the game would have a multiplayer component. This isn't something that he wanted to rule out, since tabletop games are predominately a multiplayer experience. Ultimately, Tactical Adventures decided that they would rather stick to single-player for
Solasta because it would simplify their vision and enable the team to focus their efforts.
Solasta: Character Creation Feels Like 5th Edition
Our preview focused heavily on the character creation aspect of
Solasta: Crown of the Magister, and it was impressive to see how in-depth it was. The player in
Solasta will need to have a full party of four characters that have been personally hand-crafted. Just like in 5th Edition, players have the option of choosing their race, class, alignment, and backstory. Tactical Adventures even went as far as to acquire a 5e license from
Wizards of the Coast so that all of the rules and mechanics could be incorporated into
Solasta.
During the course of the preview, Girard gave us the option of deciding which character and class we wanted to see shown off. After choosing a Snow Dwarf Cleric, Girard informed us, "
You actually chose very well, because Dwarves and Clerics have the most customization options in the game so far." He wasn't wrong either as Clerics in the game have a range of different gods to choose from, which provide them with different skills and spells. There were many options for designing a character's looks as well, including different beards and hair styles.
Tactical Adventures has remained faithful to 5th Edition when it comes to backgrounds, but also adapted them into
Solasta: Crown of the Magister in new ways. "
Each background is going to define a story arc for this character, so players will have four different story arcs for their party. Each one will give the player a sidequest that unlocks a different part of the game," explains Girard. Just like in
D&D, backgrounds grant players different skill proficiencies and abilities.
Solasta also has a new system called "
personality flags." Depending on
what alignment and background the player chooses, they will receive specific personality traits that influence how the character behaves during cutscenes and narration. There will also be different dialogue options based on what a character's personality is.
The player will also be able to use ability scores to designate what skills their characters will be proficient at in
Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Just like
D&D, there are six different ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Each number determines how likely a player is to succeed at different actions. Characters who have more points invested in Charisma for example are more likely to perform well during while conversing with NPCs, while characters with more Dexterity will be more likely to avoid attacks or perform better in combat scenarios. Girard says, "
This mechanic is mostly for players who want to have exactly the same character that they play as during their home D&D campaign."
Solasta: How Movement And Combat Works
The preview gameplay shown to us was still in the early Alpha stages, so we were assured that the release version would be much more polished and in-depth than what was shown.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister doesn't have a release date yet, so some bugs and lack of polish should be forgiven at this time. Despite being an Alpha build and
Solasta running slightly rough sometimes, the gameplay mechanics were impressive and innovative.
Characters can be moved around in the environment in multiple ways to give different advantages in combat. Tactical Adventures put a significant focus on vertical movement, so players can position their characters on higher terrain to have a height advantage against ground enemies or attack enemies that are flying in the air. During one point in the demo, an enemy wolf was lured to a cliff-side and kicked off to its death. This made what should have been a difficult fight much simpler through the use of the environment. Girard says that they want to allow players to make choices such as this while they play, so that they feel like they are more in control of combat and movement.
The combat mechanics were still unpolished and glitchy, but the things that they were able to show off would introduce some unique ideas to
Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Players and enemies are able to use parts of the environment for cover or decrease their enemies visibility in different ways to reduce the chances of taking damage. The use of magic characters are where things become more interesting in combat. Since players and enemies are able to to move in three dimensions, players need to be able to attack in three dimensions as well. This means that spells can be cast in any direction the player choose, whether that is at an angle below them or directly above their head to hit a flying enemy.
Solasta: Dungeons And Dragons Evolved
During the brief session with Tactical Adventures, it was apparent that they are aiming to create something special with
Solasta: Crown of the Magister. Unlike other games that have been inspired by
tabletop adventures like Diablo or Baldur's Gate,
Solasta seems like a digital evolution of the experience that players receive from
Dungeons and Dragons.
There is currently no concrete release date for
Solasta: Crown of the Magister, but Girard and his team feel as though fans will embrace the work they have created when it does finally come to PC. He says, "
I hope players have fun interacting with the verticality and lighting. I hope they feel smart when they push an enemy to his death rather than fighting them in a standard way. I think players will have fun discovering all the possibilities the game is going to offer."
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