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So I completed Augury of Chaos many patches ago with much savescumming and gnashing of teeth. After finishing Hearkenwold (superb module btw, all glory to Dorateen) and still having the itch for Pierre's whacky 3.5. I decided to give AOC a replay.
Out of curiosity I decided to try it on the new "Normal" difficulty that Pierre added (quite recently?).
First things: The new village map has some fairly challenging encounters that can get you to level 2 (and perhaps higher) before you start the sewers. I'd suggest killing the bandits at the start rather than negotiating with them, as it gives you more gear and XP from what I can tell.
Pierre seems to have removed or shifted around some of the encounters, I'm not sure if this is a general change he has made or a result of playing on the normal difficulty setting. The minotaur mage encounter that spawns just after you get dumped naked didn't appear for instance.
The crone fight was still tough as nails, but very enjoyable. Feeblemind and control body were the keys to winning this encounter, still took many attempts though. It seems as though he nerfed their saves slightly here, probably to give you a better chance of landing save or suck spells without a ton of savescumming. This is as far as I've currently got.
Overall, I'm having a much more enjoyable time with it on this "normal" difficulty setting than I did when I completed the game a while back. The encounters feel fairer in many ways, and I think Pierre has taken some of the legit criticisms on board.
Pierre is determined to release it as bug free as possible and feature complete on steam, probably including steam success and shit, it could take a while.
Update #49: KotC 2 Version 1.16 Brings New Features & Expands Tutorial!
Hello everyone! Version 1.16 of KotC 2 Augury of Chaos is now available for download here for both Windows and macOS. The main additions to the game are the new shortcut system for spells and special abilities, feat suggestions, improved delay combat action, improved weapon enchanting, improved image search in the Module Editor, and extra content in the tutorial adventure.
The tutorial now ends after solving the door puzzle with triangles. Normally, I should be able to finish work on the tutorial in August. After that, I will focus on completing the village content and fixing any remaining bugs so that the game can finally be ready for its official release!
Quickbar Shortcut System For Spells & Special Abilities
I've just added the Quickbar shortcut system for spells, spell-like abilities, breath weapons and usable items such as wands, potions and scrolls. The Quickbar is displayed during combat only. It allows you to cast a spell or activate an ability with a single click.
Simply left click on any icon in the Quickbar to activate the associated spell or ability. You can also right click on any icon to display a bunch of options, including an option to remove the moused-over shortcut, an option to display the help entry for the moused-over spell or ability, and an option to make the shortcut permanent. A permanent shortcut is one that will not be overwritten when the game tries to add to the Quickbar the latest spells cast by your character.
The Quickbar can store up to 28 spells and abilities displayed over two lines, or up to 14 if you limit the Quickbar to a single line. Metamagic versions of spells will be marked with a small letter such as 'M' for maximised and 'E' for empowered. Psionic powers will be marked with a small number: the associated power-point expense. Potions will be marked with a tiny potion icon while scrolls will be marked with a tiny scroll icon. Wand spells will be marked with 'Wd', other items with 'It', breath weapons with 'Bw', gaze attacks with 'Gz' and spell-like abilities with 'Sp'.
In the Game Options screen, under the 'Display' tab, there are three new options: one to display or hide the Quickbar, one to limit it to a single line, and one to add the spells and abilities activated by your characters to each person's Quickbar automatically.
I'm thinking about adding a fourth option allowing you to add to the Quickbar the character's latest spell picks on level-up, spells recently learnt from scrolls, and all special abilities and magic items automatically.
You can create your own shortcut icons easily. Simply mouse over any spell icon in the Character Sheet and press the Tab key to add the spell to the character's Quickbar. You can also mouse over a special ability in the list of special abilities (shortcut key A) and press Tab to add that ability to the Quickbar.
List Of Changes In KotC 2 Version 1.16
Added a new dialogue option in the village map. You can now start the goblin and orc attack by talking to the Bailiff. First ask him about 'any missions', then select 'threat of invasion', then click 'let's change the subject', and the new dialogue option will be there: 'we're ready to help with defence preparations'. This is intended to prevent players getting stuck in the village. The attack on the village will still happen after resting a couple of times. Please note that the village is still a work in progress.
Added Feat Suggestions in the Feat-Selection screen. The recommended feats will now appear in green at the top of the list of possible feats when creating a character and during level-up. The suggested feats take into account all of the relevant character information: class and race, ability scores, existing feats, known spells, the Wizard's attunement, etc. Special Thanks to Juhani for the awesome help in compiling the list of suggestions for each character class!!
Improved the Delay combat action so that you can now set your characters to act after a specific combatant, such as your Wizard if you want your Fighters to attack only after the Wizard has cast a spell like Sleep or Grease on the enemy. Also added a new option in the AI settings of each creature: 'Delay until after full casters'. When this AI setting is turned on, the creature's first action will be to delay until after the last allied full caster in the initiative list has acted, allowing them to act after the casters have finished casting their spells on the player's party. See the stairway encounter in the Tutorial Module for an example.
When enchanting weapons and armour, you can now select the colour of the weapon's icon. This choice will also affect the colour of the weapon's sprite in the main view of the game when creatures are being displayed using sprites.
Added a new feature in the Module Editor allowing you to search for icons by typing some text. The search box can facilitate the selection of the NPC icon displayed during dialogue. This is very useful because there are now thousands of icons. For example, you can type 'dragon' (then press Enter) to display all of the dragon icons. I've made the search box available in a few more places, as well.
Upgraded the decoding interface so that when you mouse over a symbol, it will be highlighted in both the left-side and right-side panels (not only in the left-side panel as was the case previously).
Scripts can now check if the enemies were defeated quickly (e.g. if the battle ended in one round even though more enemies were supposed to arrive on round two or three). See the script command "Set in variable ~ the party's ~" and select "Enemies Were Defeated Quickly status". This can be useful when you don't want the extra monsters to arrive if the player has defeated the original enemies quickly.
You can now use the Share Potions button in the Inventory Screen to distribute consumable items like herbs to the party members.
Bags will not be closed automatically when you sell an item.
Expanded the tutorial adventure. As an example of what can be done with scripts, the tutorial adventure now contains a random encounter. It can be triggered several times until you've defeated all of the five groups in a random order. I've also included a coded text for the player to decipher, an image puzzle and a bunch of interesting extra encounters. For now, the tutorial ends around the time when you complete the puzzle with the triangles. Special Thanks to Guido for the awesome help concerning medieval artwork!!
Fixed a bug concerning attacks against Incorporeal creatures. The game wasn't applying the 50% miss chance even though the tooltip indicating the chance to hit was correct.
Fixed the Bard feats Improved Healing, Improved Chaos, Improved Dance and Improved Silence and the Psionicist feat Crystal Range. These feats could not be selected in the Level-Up screen.
Fixed a bug when leaving the Moon Crypt Death Snare where the dialogue with the Efreet would just repeat itself when selecting the option 'I am not ready yet' (depending on your party's formation).
Fixed a bug with the spell Contingent Greater Break Enchantment (both the Wizard and Cleric versions) not granting the correct bonus on the check to remove effects.
Fixed a bug with the spell Animal Trance affecting humanoid creatures.
Fixed a bug with the spell Protection from Arrows. It can now be cast out of combat.
Added some code to prevent any future freeze due to a script tied to a square executing over and over.
Fixed paperdoll images exceeding the window's height when increasing the character's height.
Fixed the missing data for a shield held by a number of enemies in the Castle Map.
Fixed a source of crash to desktop when loading a saved game.
Next Steps for Knights of the Chalice 2
Now I'm going to focus on the Tutorial Module, the Village Map, and bugs. The coming steps are:
Wrap up the Village content and Tutorial content and make sure that all quests can be completed. Also, it would be good to add a few extra quests in Chapter Two and Chapter Three.
Allow the player to save the game in a few particular places where you have to go through a long dialogue sequence before fighting, or you have to go from one fight to another without any chance to save (I'll see what I can do about this).
Remove any remaining bugs. Improve the item descriptions of Magic Scrolls, Potions and Wands.
Add a new section in the PDF Guidebook on How to Create a New Module.
Add the names of Kickstarter backers to the Credits Screen. Prepare Steam and GOG Achievements.
Add a few new Magic Items like the Prismatic Helmet and Amulet of the Second Spell. They were mentioned in the Kickstarter update about magic items. These items would be nice to have for the Castle Map of Augury of Chaos, where you face many high-level spellcasters.
As always, if you find bugs or if you have any feedback, thoughts and suggestions, please feel free to let me know here, or in the forums, or by email at enquiries@heroicfantasygames.com. I will read all of the forum posts very soon to help me remove any remaining bugs.
Thank You For Your Support, Great Wizards and Mighty Knights of the Realm! Enjoy!!
I'm going in, one month to complete the game before the next update.
Half-Giant Barbarian -- Two-handed brute with the STR Barb perks + rage, i'll go full damage and try to craft a +1 2H weapon with best damage enhancers
Centaur Fighter -- Probably dual weapons (main skewer weapon which i'll switch off before the fourth chapter)
High-Elf Bard
Stygian-Human Psionicist
Deep-Kobold Red Wizard (initiative familiar)
Argossian-Human Druid (Geomancer)
Last one will be either the Druid or a "undecided" Cleric with 2 domains increasing healing spells range/power but i think i'm going without a cleric this time.
Geomancer for earthquake mostly, this spell is just great and hits a wide area, useful when it matters, also, never tried it and the crystal golem might be good.
Aeromancer druid with the improved Sirocco also working on gargantuan monsters and better guts of wind spells is also quite good but i used this one more than once already.
Quicksand is just too good and then there's earthquake or better Sirocco, druid spells are just better than cleric ones and there's scrolls, maybe i'll even use Erz as a weaker cleric this time.
First time using a bard or a barbarian in KotC 2, i'm not sure how that team will fare but with luck, the bard songs will do what my usual Death Knight do (reducing enemies saving throws) in a wider area or just increasing my spells DC.
Just finished my playthrough on normal difficulty. It was still an extremely challenging playthrough and some fights required a lot of attempts, but it felt a lot "fairer" than my original playthrough shortly after release.
Many fights were winnable even with botched initiative rolls and bad RNG on saves.
I used:
Gladiator
Fighter
Rogue
Cleric
Psionicist
Wizard
I'd recommend that anyone who wrote the original module off gives it another go on normal.
You can email Pierre at enquiries@heroicfantasygames.com to ask him how to buy a copy. The game isn't "officially available", but you can still buy it directly from him.
The new village content is quite good, I didn't split the party, beat everyone to a pulp and then went for the extra fight, quite entertaining and not too tough.
Of course, the optional spider fight is something else and the elevation is not helping, well, characters below don't get stuck into spiderweb at least.
The Troll fight was quite weird, i lost initiative and reloaded after a cleric threw pandemonium on my two fighters and the bard and when i did, 4 allies survivors from the previous fight were still there (they left the first time) and i won the initiative which allowed me to block the opponents clerics before things got too hairy.
And some psionicist grease to finish off the troll, while some grease kept him at bay while i was cleaning the southern area.
Got a nice warhammer for my trouble, worth saving some spell slots for the optional combat.
Still, i have no clue how to beat the spiders with a level 1 party, short of save-scumming until you get lucky with sleep.
Also, psi-bugs DR must have been bugged last time i tried v1.14 probably because they only took 1 damage per hit while this time, i could hit them hard.
I have received feedback of between 20 and 30 hours. That is a good estimate, although it depends on your party and how much you complete. The module is open-ended and nonlinear.
I think i'm going to craft a valorous (double static + STR weapon damage on charge) + destruction (+3D6 base weapon damage, not sure if it works with valorous but if it does it's a mini-skewer on each charge) weapon for my Centaur Fighter when i reach the crones.
And probably a vorpal something for the bard at some point, to compare, maybe a force weapon too if i can when he gets good enough for dual-wielding or for the fighter second hand.
As for our "favorite" scarecrows:
Salamander
Silence works well but quicksand works even better and then the lvl 1 pebble druid spell does "insane damage" 3x10 on average for a lvl 5 druid...
Djinn
Hideous laughter has a good chance to land and if it does, the fight is over.
The bard isn't impressive but he's still quite useful, he's using the luth of defense ( +1 AC, 1 one song per rest) and his most useful feature for now his silence.
Pipes of pain is alright, really short range so it's only useful when the casters are in danger, he's their bodyguard which allows the druid to be more offensive.
Always knowing there's a silence at the ready is really great and i think aria of chaos is going to be his most useful song along with arcane rhyme (improves spells DC) but he's not level 8 so i didn't get aria yet.
Still, i wouldn't trade a psionicist or a wizard for a bard, not even a druid but it's a nice change for a replay.
By the way, geomancer is just great, his quicksand aoe is wider, it's like bringing an arbalest to a fist fight.
About the Spider Queen, i'm not there yet, i'll probably craft or modify a weapon just for this fight but i'll probably start by silencing the spawn area, the queen one and the northern part, throw in some summons and maybe throw one or two quicksand on top of it before the real fight, i'll also try to win without grapple as well.
Also, resilient grease + Sirocco might work, i'm not sure about gargantuan creatures though and of course, heroic initiative or initiative equipment.
Edit: Mass true sight and/or helmet of true strike do wonders along with silencing North and North west spawning areas.
So, with the new "event" the Spider Queen isn't as difficult as she used to be.
Maybe getting there with a Lvl 17 team (one 16 ) also helped along with knowing your buffs.
Mass True seeing for fighters so they bypass the mirror images and concealment and haste if you don't have two pair of haste boots.
Eventually enhance STR and weapons if you have +1 weapons with a lot of nice enchantments instead of a +5.
Defense, mass protection against evil.
Oak Body, regen and evade burst for one or two healers and eventually the mage.
There's a few spells that work besides silence
Mass ectoplasmic entanglement (or whatever it's called) worked quite well against the queen and her minions with a lot of DC boosts for the mages and psionicists, Quicksand for the statue (95% with a lot of boots including +2/3 from the bard + 4 from a spell)
There's a plot twist, spoiler for those who didn't read the news.
The Spider Prince will offer an alliance, he comes with 2 ally spiders which you'll control during the fight if you agree and you'll convince even more spiders from the first fight up to 5 more, some of them possibly druids or psionicists.
Of course, i killed the spiders too early before i silenced the northers areas and then, silence didn't land for some reason so the Queen murdered most of my summons and allies on her first turn, plus one of my party members unconscious.
But on my fighters second turn, she was done, true seeing really do wonders.
As for Maphistor/Xadriphar. (SPOILERS)
I gave the book to the crones and after clearing most of the sewers, when i could buy everything i wanted from them, made a deal with maphistor to kill the crones and free him.
Of course, he turned against me afterwards and i used the book against him.
Then, i couldn't banish Xadriphar who keeps on coming back, i guess i should have used the book on xadriphar and then the scrolls he drops on Maphistor if he comes back.
I also dealt with the castle gate fights, there's too much reinforcements on this one if you ask me, specially the 4 waves on the ramparts, it never ends.
My party is now still level 17 but with enough xp to get to level 19, i might level up since the next fight is hairy...
Saving xp early on up until the Spider Queen really does the trick.
Darth Canoli How did you manage to get your party to level 17 before the Spider Queen fight? Can you save xp by not leveling right away? Last I played my party was level 12 before the fight, but that was almost a year ago.
The dragon fight right after the gates was a piece of cake, a gold dragon joined and i let him because i didn't need the extra xp, he was mostly useless because i cleared the way before he could even act.
Wizard: 1x spell acceleration + 2x weird and the usual for the few survivors and the black dragon.
The cleaning inside and outside the castle was a bit painful with some good fights like the last one outside Yanos building.
And the last fight was nothing special, aside from the undead reinforcements wave, the bard with aria of chaos and pipes of pain was really useful in chapter 4 and i started to use prismatic spells (i'm always afraid i'm going to miss some loot because of disintegration or turned to stone effects) which help a lot.
Having three spellcasters with prismatic spells really does the trick, along with 3x +2 init armors 1x +10 init boots and 2x +6 init boots.
It even worked against the undead, along with some mass heal scrolls, some energy waves and some good old decapitations.
Well, game completed, toughest battles are the Spider Queen, the Black dragon and the Gang right after the castle gates and the Death Snare boss, a shame Xadriphar (he's up there too) doesn't show up again during the final fight.
The village improvements along with the few bits here and there (genie offereing to join if you didn't use him, the gold dragon, the Spider Prince, ...) really improves the game.
Rating
Great Dungeon Crawler, i prefer open or semi-open world games like KotC 1 or Fallout 1 & 2 but it's really good at what it's doing.
Really makes me want to replay the first KotC.
My favorite chapter is probably the second one, the first one is good but a bit short, Pizarra fight is also really good outside the Orcs/Vroks reinforcements.
Mostly, tuning down reinforcements on the castle ramparts would be a good thing and i wouldn't have minded if a drow, duergar of dwarf city was added somewhere for a change of pace.
Still, combat is epic, great character development and combat systems, great encounter design, good itemization (i had to forge my ultimate weapons though) and bestiary (a few more hydras would have been great), interesting riddles (the riddle masters are pushing it to far sometimes like the chess master after the chess riddles)
I can't wait for the final release and the next module!
Edit: Tomas Yes you can!
You just have to not level up too soon, level 11 is enough to clear everything but the hidden rooms from chapter 3.
Anyway, even without that, you can probably get at least to level 15 before the Spider Queen if you clear the high-sewers before tackling her.
There is some (minor) bugs that come with the modified encounters like some reinforcements coming back from the grave during other fights on the same level (fixed with a reload or other tricks when dialog boxes are involved, like banishing pizarra's ice devil when he comes back a second time).
So, no game-breaking bug but next version is probably going to fix these, i sent preliminary feedback to Pierre already and a bug report will follow.
So I decided to give the game another try this weekend and sadly it is still a motherfucker. The new village content comes with a spider queen fight (she has got be a sister of the spider queen downstairs). She has mirror images, concealment, and spell resistance! How are you supposed to get through that with level one party is beyond me. Just spend couple hours trying to beat it but am not going through that again.
It's an optional fight in a dark corner, the only one i didn't beat yet, not that i tried very hard but with a level 1 party, there isn't much options to get through it, i'm guessing you can import characters that went through the tutorial which will probably make them level 2 before this fight, you can also level up characters on the character creation screen, i believe, never tried it but i think you can start augury of chaos with level 2 characters.
Anyway, this fight is just some extra challenge you don't have to get through, it's probably by far the hardest fight of the game with a party level 1.
I'm also, very slowly playing the prolog and the big, multi-stage fight gave me a lot of grief because it divides your party and is preceded by giving important items to specific party members. The thing is I don't remember the names of all 6 of my party members yet. There are no class indicators in the dialogue and there is no way to review the characters in dialogue.
So I lost that fight. 3 fighters went one way, 3 spellcasters went the other. I'm not saying I couldn't have won that fight, but it would be nice to not be hindered by the "bad design".
