KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[NJClaw]

60 ? Is it not more like 10-60 damage ? It'd be 35 on average.
The Salamander doesn't even have a high initiative, a simple silence spell and the fight is over.

So you are telling me that, when you enter the lava room, you just face both encounters with full confidence because you know that a simple silence is enough to conclude the fight? You don't even save beforehand, you just go all in.

Can't talk about this one but from reading this and that, it seems that at the very least, you can delay it by a lot, is it even a mandatory fight ?
[...]
Lizardmen ? The sharkman druid you mean ? This one is tough but optional and the rewards aren't even that great but i didn't find the extra rewards after decoding the message yet so you never know.

The fact that those encounters are optional doesn't make their design any less infuriating. If you lose the initiative to the druid and he decides to cast quicksand, either you roll a couple of perfect saves or you are dead. There's nothing you can do. If you lose the initiative to the queen and you didn't prepare the arena BEFORE her appearance (that you have no possible way to predict), you are dead.

About chapter 1 Pizarra, i only did it twice and won them both, stomp, summon, cleave some improve initiative here and there, it was nothing special.

Are you saying that you never lost that fight? Maybe you are just incredibly better at the game than me, but it's still the most problematic encounter in the entire game to me.

If every fight can be won by any team, even when they all roll 1 initiative, the game would be worthless.

Knights of the Chalice 1 is not a worthless game and there are very few encounters that you can't win even with bad initiative rolls. Giving the player a chance to react to various possible situations is more fun than just saying "hey you little shit, win initiative or you are dead".

 

[NJClaw]

"The entire game is optional" is not a valid excuse for bad encounter design.

 

[Dickie]

What is this wizard transformation people keep talking about? I never got past the goblin king, so I didn't see that, I think. I gave up on the game for now, but I'll return to it some day, so I was curious.

 

[Tacgnol]

Knights of the Chalice 1 is not a worthless game and there are very few encounters that you can't win even with bad initiative rolls. Giving the player a chance to react to various possible situations is more fun than just saying "hey you little shit, win initiative or you are dead".

It's actually more fun to win a fight with a bad or unfortunate start. On the other hand, savescumming till you get all natural 20s is both boring and shows no actual tactical ability.

It's no different from saving at the start of a turn in Fallout 1 and 2 and reloading till you get a critical eye shot.

 

[NJClaw]

What is this wizard transformation people keep talking about? I never got past the goblin king, so I didn't see that, I think. I gave up on the game for now, but I'll return to it some day, so I was curious.

If you satisfy certain requirements, you can spend some gold and experience points to "transform". The effects of the transformation depend on the "Moon" you selected at character creations and you can check them in the in-game wiki: from the Moon selection, right click on any option and then click on "Transformation" in the first paragraph to get a full list of all possible transformations.

I've only tried the "Red Wizard" transformation and you get a bunch of minor buffs and a 50% bonus to the damage of all your energy-based spells.

 

[Dickie]

Starting over, i can see how people found the underwater shark priest fight quite tough, without spell focus nor the Death knight to gain 15%

My level 2 death knight was only giving a 5% penalty to saves for stuff near him. How can you get it to 15% at level 2?

 

[NJClaw]

Starting over, i can see how people found the underwater shark priest fight quite tough, without spell focus nor the Death knight to gain 15%

My level 2 death knight was only giving a 5% penalty to saves for stuff near him. How can you get it to 15% at level 2?

I think he means a 15% "penalty" considering the Death Knight aura and both Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus.

 

[Dickie]

Starting over, i can see how people found the underwater shark priest fight quite tough, without spell focus nor the Death knight to gain 15%

My level 2 death knight was only giving a 5% penalty to saves for stuff near him. How can you get it to 15% at level 2?

I think he means a 15% "penalty" considering the Death Knight aura and both Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus.

Oh, yes, I see. I misread that. I was really hoping for some hack I missed because my death knight wasn't very helpful.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Are you saying that you never lost that fight? Maybe you are just incredibly better at the game than me, but it's still the most problematic encounter in the entire game to me.

Mmmm, are you not the Kobold fetishist ?
If so, do i really need to answer that ?

First try, i got one or two members KO but really, octopussy, the DK and at that time the drake fighter really did a number on them, along with stomp and i don't remember what else.
If you have a gladiator, it's even easier, they all have very little HP so you get him surrounded by 3/4 guys, kill one and watch them fall like dominos...
Of course, you also have to corner the witch near the southern wall with a summon or your weakest fighter/ hybrid.

I absolutely disagree with you about the optional encounters, most KotC players have fond memories of trying very hard to beat the optional battle after KotC ending, he just banked on that by adding very difficult optional fights.

You don't have to do them to complete the game, there is always an easier way.
- Talk your way into Yanos service
- Don't fight the sharkman druid
- Side with the green gobs for an easy fight
- Do the crypt after the green gobos so it's easier
...

If you want a game where optional fights throw trash mobs at you, maybe you picked the wrong door...

SPOILERS

• By the way, i did the crypt first (rewards from the greys + grey merchants and resting spot)
• Then i fought the greys alone, i'm a bit disapointed because for some reason, they didn't call any reinforcements, i tried to keep two alive in the pond but after 6/7 turns, they didn't call for help ...
• The green reward is quite nice but i don't exactly remember the grey one (got a +4 str +4 dex belt, it looks really good on my mantis gladiator, a magician belt, cloak of flames, this one is worthless but fetches a good price, 80K gold, 2 enchanting gems, true res scroll + another scroll)
  
• This time, the lizard king called the hydra during the fight, luckily, the hydra doesn't act right away and some web/stinking cloud made her spend her whole first turn moving.
• In the end, daze monster and the psionicist mind hammer (i think) spells had high chances to hit and after 2 of each, it actually landed and the fight was over (well, the lizard king fully healed himself once and then it was over).
• Then i didn't skewered the giant crocodile right away and there were 4 or 5 waves or reinforcements, result 8K xp for the lizard king fight, and 3+K xp for the giant croco.
• Now, there is an option to kick the green gob king ass too and that's what i'm going to do, or maybe i'll fight the witches DK champion first, i think the tunnel only closes once you use the stairs.
• Unfortunately, Erz died during the lizard king fight, i'm not sure i'll use the true rez scroll on him, pizarra looks way better and i'm intrigued by the paladin succubus (and i'm not going for a 9/10 men team)

 

[NJClaw]

Mmmm, are you not the Kobold fetishist ?

No, that's Tweed. I'm the one who wants to fuck water druids.

I absolutely disagree with you about the optional encounters, most KotC players have fond memories of trying very hard to beat the optional battle after KotC ending, he just banked on that by adding very difficult optional fights.

I loved that encounter, but that was ONE optional fight at the end of the game. Here it's an endless stream of encounters like that (probably a bit easier, but still a giant "win roll X or reload", where before "X" was "dominate the caster" and now it's "initiative").

You don't have to do them to complete the game, there is always an easier way.

Sure, there is an "easier" way in the sense that you can skip those encounters. But I don't want to skip encounters, I want to have fun. And, while I can still enjoy the fight because I love the system, reloading until you win initiative or the enemy decides to spare you is not fun.

If you want a game where optional fights throw trash mobs at you, maybe you picked the wrong door...

Again, I don't want an "easy" game: I want a fun one. The system is there, the spirit is there: everything is in the right place. Pierre just needs to tweak his next modules so that encounters are actually fair, where by "fair" I mean that they allow you to react to the game instead of just reloading until you get the right favorable conditions.

If you are an experienced 3.x player, you already know how to handle almost any possible scenario. In that case, encounters where you need to win the initiative in order to execute your winning strategy or else you are dead are not hard, because reloading is not hard. It's just boring.

 

[The Red Knight]

Someone wanted to make an erotic module?

Aaanyway, is there some sort of lore description for each subrace anywhere? I want to make additional checks for races that might be more common in/familiar with the area but all I've found is racial math and a few (sub)races mentioned as living on the elemental moons and getting onto the planet with high-level teleporting magic.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Well, i always play with some high dex + improve ini chars (usually, you can take improve ini later), i read the comments before so obviously, it oriented my party creation, i'm not playing with a gimped party on a notoriously difficult cRPG.

Still, that "you win initiative or you're dead" meme is wrong, there is a couple of fights where it's true but not 100% because AI spells fail too, 90% of your enemies have the same attributes as your guys and even lower for most.

The AI seems to react to your party and formation in an amazing way, which makes it harder, even if sometimes, it picks the weaker move (it's probably part of the code), which makes the game harder than most cRPG where the AI couldn't tell you the time and the day.

 

[Tigranes]

Except (1) max dex rolls + improved ini parties regularly get killed before they can act; (2) surprise rounds don't care about initiative anyway; (3) AI targets you hard with AOE spells based on your formation, which is great..... except you can't position your dudes individually, you can't send anyone in first, and half the time you're moving your dudes back and forth in a corridor until they've reshuffled themselves OK so you can walk in that door but then bam they get reshuffled a bit when the dialogue starts

 

[Darth Canoli]

Except (1) max dex rolls + improved ini parties regularly get killed before they can act; (2) surprise rounds don't care about initiative anyway; (3) AI targets you hard with AOE spells based on your formation, which is great..... except you can't position your dudes individually, you can't send anyone in first, and half the time you're moving your dudes back and forth in a corridor until they've reshuffled themselves OK so you can walk in that door but then bam they get reshuffled a bit when the dialogue starts

I agree about the reshuffle, it's annoying at times but you can alleviate it with a Barbarian, monk, samourai classes and the mantis and centaur races (bonus move), because it's annoying when one of your frontliner starts 10-15 feet behind.
Also the stride druid spell, boots of striding, haste boots, haste spell, celerity domain ...

Still, from the beginning to chapter 3 after pizara fight, there is exactly ONE fight where i got surprised without an option to fuck them over and get the surprise round instead ...

Also, you "learn" to mitigate the problem, it might be something Pierre can work on, i'm writing it down along with my current list, which is :

- Multi psion missiles and magic missiles : could it work like in ToEE ? (you tag targets and they all fire at once) It's nice to see if you can kill a target and add one more missile to finish him but it's time consuming, maybe the tags could be targets priorities for mages missiles, for the psion, as they can only hit one target each, i see no reason not to use the ToEE tag option.

- A "loot all" option for chests.

- Spell scrolls level and source should be there, that's the only info i need and yet, it's the only one not there (or if learnable yet/later by any character)

- quicksave bugs (skipping the details, usually fucks up in the ch.2 salamander area)

- small window for the inventory/char screen, would be nice if it was full screen on full screen mode

- psy bug in the crypt (ch.2) not spawning 50% of the time

- CTD when recruiting erz when doing a lot of stuff and not saving after exiting the crypt in ch. 2

- Anything to prevent the constant "reshuffle" of your formation when entering a fight from a tight corridor , like having your frontliners 2/3 squares behind ?

 

[NJClaw]

Well, i always play with some high dex + improve ini chars (usually, you can take improve ini later), i read the comments before so obviously, it oriented my party creation, i'm not playing with a gimped party on a notoriously difficult cRPG.

#MeToo. I maxed Dexterity on every single character and took Improved Initiative with everyone at level 1.

Still, that "you win initiative or you're dead" meme is wrong, there is a couple of fights where it's true but not 100% because AI spells fail too, 90% of your enemies have the same attributes as your guys and even lower for most.

I'm trying ironman runs and I think you are vastly underestimating the number of times that you need to reload in this game due to bad initiative rolls or bad rolls in general. Even dumb encounters like the crocodiles + elemental in the pool and the centipedes at the start of chapter 2 can destroy your entire party, if you don't win the initiative with the right character and the enemies decide that they want to use their best abilities. I still haven't managed to reach the lava room: the shadows, the vampire or the dragon always find a way to fuck me.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I'm sure the AI finds a way to be even nastier in Iron Man mode, sure, anything can go wrong at some point, would it be so fun if it didn't though ?

 

[Noddy]

Lads, i've just been getting back into this and scouting out an ironman. Not very far, but i'm convinced, with the exception of the centipedes, i can make it down and through the crypt without reloads 99% of the time. Centipedes are still occasionally bullshit.
The real problem with init reloading is not it's necessary, it's that it provides such an overwhelming advantage over not winning init that it's much easier to go back to the load screen. You could spend half an hour learning an encounter inside and out, or you could spend one minute finding the strat that'll work with init and then another five minutes getting that init.

The fire salamander in the lava room in chapter 2 has a fireball that deals something around 60 damage.
I don't see how you can survive the first Pizarra fight with unlucky initiative rolls, or even the underwater lizardmen encounter.

git gud lmao

 

[The Red Knight]

- Anything to prevent the constant "reshuffle" of your formation when entering a fight from a tight corridor , like having your frontliners 2/3 squares behind ?

That might result in Pierre nerfing the formations.

Have you tried changing your formation to match the corridor shape? Or putting squishies way back at the bottom of the formation and leaving just the meat shield(s) in the front so their reshuffling doesn't interfere with the frontline?

With a bit of observation you can figure out where to place your characters to get the desired effect, plus cases where you can get melee guys closer to the enemies than your leader can approach (or into some tactically-useful tile).

Fairly sure it should also be doable to use after-combat positioning to get into and out of the tomb without the door locking behind you (probably by using the elemental fight to get in and one of the easier sarcophagi to get out).

Or you can do it Avernum/Nethergate-style:

Spoiler

 

[Strange Fellow]

I'm sure the AI finds a way to be even nastier in Iron Man mode, sure, anything can go wrong at some point, would it be so fun if it didn't though ?

The difference is that in other games you can roll with the punches, and in fact it's usually more fun if you do. Here it's perfection or lolurded

 

[Darth Canoli]

That might result in Pierre nerfing the formations.

Have you tried changing your formation to match the corridor shape? Or putting squishies way back at the bottom of the formation and leaving just the meat shield(s) in the front so their reshuffling doesn't interfere with the frontline?

Tigranes was complaining about it, not me, i was answering but you probably missed half my answer.

Also, are you doing the crypt at level 2 ?
If you complete it including the Djinn fight at level 2, you're my hero.

The difference is that in other games you can roll with the punches, and in fact it's usually more fun if you do. Here it's perfection or lolurded

I disagree, you can't afford death most of the time, not unless it's one of the hardest fight and you have the means to resurrect the dead but you can afford KOs.

Also, the psionicist can resurrect with lend life...
Never tried yet but it's in the description, i don't know if you can do it outside of combat, i'll try to rez Erz with it.

Edit : doesn't work outside of combat for resurrection purposes, i guess i'll have to check during combat to check if it's a bug.

 

[Tigranes]

Except (1) max dex rolls + improved ini parties regularly get killed before they can act; (2) surprise rounds don't care about initiative anyway; (3) AI targets you hard with AOE spells based on your formation, which is great..... except you can't position your dudes individually, you can't send anyone in first, and half the time you're moving your dudes back and forth in a corridor until they've reshuffled themselves OK so you can walk in that door but then bam they get reshuffled a bit when the dialogue starts

I agree about the reshuffle, it's annoying at times but you can alleviate it with a Barbarian, monk, samourai classes and the mantis and centaur races (bonus move), because it's annoying when one of your frontliner starts 10-15 feet behind.
Also the stride druid spell, boots of striding, haste boots, haste spell, celerity domain ...

With a bit of observation you can figure out where to place your characters to get the desired effect, plus cases where you can get melee guys closer to the enemies than your leader can approach (or into some tactically-useful tile).

We all know how the game works, it was the same in KOTC1. The game shuffles and jumbles your players to fit into narrow corridors and such based on your formation, and it's easy to have people get scrunched into unintended tiles in the process.

Yes, there are ways to mitigate the problem by walking back and forth, building a high mobility party, whatever. At this point I know how to move my dudes in such a way to reduce the problem. Being able to partially mitigate a problem doesn't mean it's not a problem.

The game makes positioning important and punishes players for bad positioning. But the game won't let you actually position yourself precisely. That's not meaningful challenge.

 

[Tweed]

Mmmm, are you not the Kobold fetishist ?

FYI, I didn't have any trouble with the chapter 1 Pizarra battle or most of the battles on my replay. The only ones that gave me trouble were the vampire and mummies in the crypt, the goblin king, Queen Prismatic Void, the gas chamber, and the final battle. I stomped almost everything else including the chapter 3 Pizarra battle, the front gate assault and the following courtyard party.

 

[NJClaw]

Mmmm, are you not the Kobold fetishist ?

FYI, I didn't have any trouble with the chapter 1 Pizarra battle or most of the battles on my replay. The only ones that gave me trouble were the vampire and mummies in the crypt, the goblin king, Queen Prismatic Void, the gas chamber, and the final battle. I stomped almost everything else including the chapter 3 Pizarra battle, the front gate assault and the following courtyard party.

I think I'm doing something fundamentally wrong with the game because, to me, Pizarra on chapter 1 is 100 times worse than the gas chamber and the final battle. The gas chamber doesn't have any real threat (provided that you have high enough hp) and by the time you reach the final battle you have enough initiative boosting items to reliably go first and blast down everyone.

 

[Noddy]

I think I'm doing something fundamentally wrong with the game because, to me, Pizarra on chapter 1 is 100 times worse than the gas chamber and the final battle. The gas chamber doesn't have any real threat (provided that you have high enough hp) and by the time you reach the final battle you have enough initiative boosting items to reliably go first and blast down everyone.

What level are you taking it at mate?

 

[Mortmal]

I think i'll suggest Pierre to add a score system if it's not there already or to use the steam points leaderboard and every option making the game easier reduces the score.

I'm 100% certain it'll change everyone's perception, hardcore players will be happy to get a higher score multiplier than the pleb and will actually get higher scores to gloat.

And the weaklings will still be able to complete the game but their score will reflect their worth.

And everyone will be happy...

A score system ?! You are going on a bad path there, the last guy i heard who wanted to make d&d an esport was at wotc, the same guy who then next choose inclusiveness and diversity as top priority , over gameplay.
I do not envision RPG like that. A good computer RPG should mimick as close possible a pen and paper session, i dont want a score nor prove anyone anything . The DM while being the omnipotent puppeteer of the mutiverse is at the same time still an entertainer. He has to provide challenging encounters, combat amongst them, not too hard not too easy . The purpose is for players to have a good time . Kotc 2 has its pro and cons, but right now its getting far from a pen and paper session. Or kotc2 could be one of those /rpghorrorstories DM pitting players agaisnt impossible encounters ruining everyone fun, there's so many posts like that . Could be worse KOTC2 is not the kind of DM sexually assaulting you..Oh wait it somewhat does.