Solasta Solasta II - coming to Early Access in 2025

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Too bad Solasta 2 is still stuck with D&D 5E.

D&D 5E is perfectly alright-ish.
But I would homebrew the shit out of some rules.

Deficiencies of "D&D 5th edition":

• Concentration mechanic, renders most spells worthless
• Attunement mechanic, renders surplus magic items worthless (except for sale)
• Short-rest mechanic, along with many abilities that are per short rest or per encounter
• Enormous power jump at 5th level across almost all classes
• More of a super-hero game than a heroic fantasy game
• Overpowered subclasses or class combinations

 

[Artyoan]

Since I don't play tabletop and know almost nothing about alternatives, what other tabletop system is mechanically better? Regardless of popularity. Especially if adapted to a video game crpg format.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Since I don't play tabletop and know almost nothing about alternatives, what other tabletop system is mechanically better? Regardless of popularity. Especially if adapted to a video game crpg format.

3E, Pathfinder (basically D&D 3.75), something like Rolemaster might be interesting, AD&D 1E and 2E. WEG's D6 system... almost anything really. Lol

5E is fine, it just sucks that such a nice rendition of tabletop stuff doesn't use a better system.

A full fledged BECMI D&D CRPG would be interesting. I think they did that in... Warriors of the Eternal Sun? Game was pretty bad though.

 

[scytheavatar]

Since I don't play tabletop and know almost nothing about alternatives, what other tabletop system is mechanically better? Regardless of popularity. Especially if adapted to a video game crpg format.

3E, Pathfinder (basically D&D 3.75), something like Rolemaster might be interesting, AD&D 1E and 2E. WEG's D6 system... almost anything really. Lol

5E is fine, it just sucks that such a nice rendition of tabletop stuff doesn't use a better system.

A full fledged BECMI D&D CRPG would be interesting. I think they did that in... Warriors of the Eternal Sun? Game was pretty bad though.

Any system which doesn't deal with the stacking 100 buffs problem is not better than 5E. 5E is better than any of the system you have named just from Concentration.

 

[Lacrymas]

5E doesn't give us enough tools to build a character, the only meaningful choice you have is what subclass to get. 3E and Pathfinder are better in this regard, but they suffer from the stacking effects thing. Which admittedly is a better thing to suffer from than the myriad of problems 5E has when translated into video game form. I'd say no to Pathfinder 1E regardless, though, because it's just bloated. I haven't seriously looked into PF 2E.

 

[rashiakas]

Since I don't play tabletop and know almost nothing about alternatives, what other tabletop system is mechanically better? Regardless of popularity. Especially if adapted to a video game crpg format.

Pathfinder is perfect for a PC game, especially if you use some of the optional rules from unchained.

 

[rashiakas]

5E doesn't give us enough tools to build a character, the only meaningful choice you have is what subclass to get. 3E and Pathfinder are better in this regard, but they suffer from the stacking effects thing. Which admittedly is a better thing to suffer from than the myriad of problems 5E has when translated into video game form. I'd say no to Pathfinder 1E regardless, though, because it's just bloated. I haven't seriously looked into PF 2E.

The stacking/Buffing wouldn't be a problem if the game was set up right. First, most people think of WotR when they think about buffboting, and that is with mythic rules, which are pretty bad imo. Second, there is/was a lot of stacking that shouldn't work per RAW. If we had a level 1-12 Pathfinder game with good encounters and all the great options of Solastas encounter maps, it would be a superb game. Things like spiderclimb, fly, dimdoor, darkvision etc. all hardly matter in most games, this is where Solasta really shined. With Pathfinder, you have all this things on top of buildporn. Heck, even core only has more options then anything 5E.

 

[Lacrymas]

Outside of the bloat, Pathfinder suffers from action economy problems. It throws countless abilities at you but only a few are ever viable due to how action economy works in TB games, or at least works in Pathfinder. If I were to make a Pathfinder game, I'd start by trimming the fat and house ruling the fuck out of how the action economy works.

 

[rashiakas]

Where is action economy a problem?

 

[Abu Antar]

I liked The Dark Eye ruleset in Blackguards, and Drakensang: RoT.

 

[Fedora Master]

I liked The Dark Eye ruleset in Blackguards, and Drakensang: RoT.

Look there's no reason to go all extremist on us.

 

[Lacrymas]

Where is action economy a problem?

Since you can generally perform a single action in a turn, it forces an overwhelming opportunity cost to every spell or ability, meaning you have an incentive to spam the most overpowered abilities and others which might be useful in certain situations are actually not used at all in practice. This leads to a slew of balance issues down the road.

 

[rashiakas]

Have you actually played any Pathfinder game? Because what you say is simply not true. Most powerful actions are limited and not spamable. Also, there are quick and intermediate actions. Not sure what you are talking about.

 

[Lacrymas]

Have you actually played any Pathfinder game? Because what you say is simply not true. Most powerful actions are limited and not spamable. Also, there are quick and intermediate actions. Not sure what you are talking about.

You are telling me Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are very balanced and well paced? ;d And whether you have limited powerful actions is moot since resting is not limited.

 

[rashiakas]

If you rest spam, it's on you, not the system. And balance is nothing I want in my RPG. Finding good combos is part of the fun.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's not on me, it's on the game. Not everyone wants a broken mess they can accidentally exploit either.

 

[rashiakas]

So pressing rest each time you are out of your most powerful abilities is an accidental exploit?

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

If you rest spam, it's on you, not the system.

 

[Lacrymas]

So pressing rest each time you are out of your most powerful abilities is an accidental exploit?

I was talking about the balance thing, but actually yes. These games are obviously designed around limited rest, yet nothing is stopping you from clicking the rest button whenever you are out of your powerful abilities. If I were a normie and had no idea RPGs and Vancian systems existed, I would wonder why these resources are limited in the first place when I can just click "rest" to get them back whenever. This also presents another balancing hurdle for the designers. Do you design all the encounters around the idea the player is going to have all his powerful abilities all the time or not? If yes, you are unnecessarily punishing players who don't rest spam and are thus baking rest spamming into the foundation of the game. If not, you are actively making the game trivially easy. There is no winning here.

 

[rashiakas]

So what you want is a puzzle game, not an RPG. Also, I am pretty sure a normie wouldn't even get past the char creation screeen without 5 guides and play on story mode anyway.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

D&D from its inception is based around resting. You're never going to balance it otherwise without changing it into something fundamentally different. Resting either needs to be explicitly controlled or made consequential. This can be a chance of camp getting ambushed and monsters respawning in incomplete dungeons while the player is away from it. One of the weaknesses CRPGs have with this rhythm is that the drudgery aspects of this aren't abstracted like in PnP, so it's tedious in practice. Short rests are one of 5E's attempts to circumvent this while still rate limiting character output. It has questionable results.

PS: I would wager that the future of D&D spellcaster classes are going to strongly resemble the Tome Pact Warlock. A wide variety of general purpose at-will spells that aren't terribly potent (cantrips), mid-range spells being tightly controlled in volume but being functionally per encounter, with top-tier spells being 1-day. Liberal application of the Ritual Tag outside of combat.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Since I don't play tabletop and know almost nothing about alternatives, what other tabletop system is mechanically better? Regardless of popularity. Especially if adapted to a video game crpg format.

3E, Pathfinder (basically D&D 3.75), something like Rolemaster might be interesting, AD&D 1E and 2E. WEG's D6 system... almost anything really. Lol

5E is fine, it just sucks that such a nice rendition of tabletop stuff doesn't use a better system.

A full fledged BECMI D&D CRPG would be interesting. I think they did that in... Warriors of the Eternal Sun? Game was pretty bad though.

Any system which doesn't deal with the stacking 100 buffs problem is not better than 5E. 5E is better than any of the system you have named just from Concentration.

get fucked