KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[felipepepe]

If I can interject for one moment, I still think the best way to get a mod scene up and going is to do pre-existing pnp conversions in the KotC2 toolset. The only other sample we have right now is from felipepepe and I believe he worked from the map of a 5E D&D module.

Yup, did the Cragmaw Castle map from Lost Mine of Phandelver module. It's a nice, self-contained map with multiple routes and had a lot of different maps online for me to use as background.

Was extremely easy to make, even while learning the tools the whole process took just 1-2 hours. Biggest obstacles was what makes any conversion hard: adapting GM interactions into short CYOA segments (and figuring out which triggers I can use to set them).

I agree with Dorateen that it's probably the best way to start. Do a small 1-map/level adaptation. You'll learn A LOT. And it's easy to later integrate this level with more levels. My second project was a much larger and more ambitious original campaign, but got too ambitious, I kept changing the design all the time and never went beyond the first two levels. Most of my time was wasted playing with tiny details like this:

Really, if you wanna learn the tool, get something small & just do it at quickly as possible. Then you can iterate it a few times until it's decent, and use that experience to move to something a bit bigger. Don't start with crazy shit like "I'll do an adaptation of Shadows over Bögenhafen!".

Pierre did a nice editor manual, but here's the WIP manual we did when the editor had just come out: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16LKjIU2l-f5nVIqpxypGE3egq9iOO75PoFgm32CNqEQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

[FA7]

My second project was a much larger and more ambitious original campaign, but got too ambitious, I kept changing the design all the time and never went beyond the first two levels. Most of my time was wasted...

 

[Jermu]

How hard it Hearkenwold compared to base game? Was thinking going with hard difficulty and not using classes I previously used.
Is ranger still the worst class?

Was thinking going with:

Death Knight
Storm Warrior
Ranger / Rogue
Bard
Bishop
Warlock

That should cover all the spell classes.

 

[Desiderius]

How hard it Hearkenwold compared to base game? Was thinking going with hard difficulty and not using classes I previously used.
Is ranger still the worst class?

Was thinking going with:

Death Knight
Storm Warrior
Ranger / Rogue
Bard
Bishop
Warlock

That should cover all the spell classes.

Ranger isn't the worst class. I don't think there is a worst class but Ranger isn't it. It's just hard to fit into Augury since it's a dungeon crawl so your skills don't come up as much. Tight quarters makes ranged better, not worse.

 

[Jermu]

Tight quarters makes ranged better, not worse.

I would say this is untrue and our buddy Pierre seems to agree with me (from manual):

As far as Augury of Chaos is concerned, Rangers aren’t a terribly good class. The
Ranger favours bows, but many encounters are in cramped spaces where bows are diffi-
cult to use. This favours melee over ranged in many situations (though there are excep-
tions). As such, a Ranger will likely be more inefficient than most other classes due to
the nature of the module.

Also, Rangers aren’t necessarily the most useful ranged combatants either. Many of
their abilities give them great power and versatility with ranged attacks, but they lack
the Wade In feat Fighters get access to, which allows Fighters to move before firing all
of their attacks.

 

[Desiderius]

Tight quarters makes ranged better, not worse.

I would say this is untrue and our buddy Pierre seems to agree with me:

As far as Augury of Chaos is concerned, Rangers aren’t a terribly good class. The
Ranger favours bows, but many encounters are in cramped spaces where bows are diffi-
cult to use. This favours melee over ranged in many situations (though there are excep-
tions). As such, a Ranger will likely be more inefficient than most other classes due to
the nature of the module.

Also, Rangers aren’t necessarily the most useful ranged combatants either. Many of
their abilities give them great power and versatility with ranged attacks, but they lack
the Wade In feat Fighters get access to, which allows Fighters to move before firing all
of their attacks.

Lol, move? Why? Play one, you'll see. In any case you can move + crit shot or rapid from where you are. You're the only class that can hit things early with Careful, then you get Improved Careful (Standard Action) at the time you get Rapid, so you're move + Careful or Rapid, then the same with Crit Shot.

Melee gets gummed up and you'll want to lay down all sorts of clouds and surfaces and berzerked enemy melee. Ranger sits back and avoids all that while applying the damage (crit shot)/conditions exactly where they're needed.

Entangling costs one enchantment point and is no save. Likewise Barbed and/or Keen. If you go enlarged HG you can use Force with Crit Shot and go off. Or Stillfinger Halfling and Skewer with Barbed Warbow.

As I said before I think Pierre nerfed ranged to correct for BG so hasn't played much Ranger himself. Only downside is finding the slot and Bard can be good enough ranged while covering a lot of other things. I may try to work a Ranger into the slot where I've got the Monk currently. Monk is really great but has even less relevant skills, doesn't use magic weapons, and gets gummed up in all the junk on the battlefield.

 

[Dorateen]

How hard it Hearkenwold compared to base game?

It's not on the level of Augury of Chaos. I have had encounters described to me as "tough but fair". And the overall module is more exploration focused.

I used a Ranger when testing, and had a lot of fun with this class. The party you listed looks like it would do well.

 

[Nortar]

they lack the Wade In feat Fighters get access to, which allows Fighters to move before firing all of their attacks.

You don't need to move before firing all your attacks, if you attack from range.

With that said, I don't use a ranger myself, coz who wants a guy armed with a stick-and-rope instead of a proper weapon.

 

[FA7]

Wade In feat Fighters get access to, which allows Fighters to move before firing all
of their attacks.

Not only that, best part of fighters-archers is that you can ready vs. spell, then when interrupt happens shoot whole salvo of 5-6 shots altogether.

 

[Desiderius]

Wade In feat Fighters get access to, which allows Fighters to move before firing all
of their attacks.

Not only that, best part of fighters-archers is that you can ready vs. spell, then when interrupt happens shoot whole salvo of 5-6 shots altogether.

Ranger has phat crit shot for that scenario but yeah that sounds nice too.

 

[Sacibengala]

If I can interject for one moment, I still think the best way to get a mod scene up and going is to do pre-existing pnp conversions in the KotC2 toolset. The only other sample we have right now is from felipepepe and I believe he worked from the map of a 5E D&D module.

Maybe a youtube video tutorial for the editor would help with that?

 

[anvi]

Going well with my second run. My 2 Rangers are better than I expected. Their bow shooting is not great yet but they did 1 shot an enemy with a single arrow, coup de grace on I think a stunned enemy, made that fight super easy. Also they get a bunch of Cleric spells so I have 2 healers in addition to my Cleric, and they can summon some simple pets too. Wolves and webs and stuff. If I knew both could heal like that I would have skipped the Cleric, but I'll change that into more offensive.

Psi is much better than Wiz -.- And this Samurai seems better than all other classes combined.

 

[Yosharian]

I started my caster-heavy party and holy shit the game is rough at the start when you have almost no spells. My cleric's aberration summon is carrying me hard through these fights.

Nowhere near as difficult as the tutorial so far though

 

[Serus]

Going well with my second run. My 2 Rangers are better than I expected. Their bow shooting is not great yet but they did 1 shot an enemy with a single arrow, coup de grace on I think a stunned enemy, made that fight super easy. Also they get a bunch of Cleric spells so I have 2 healers in addition to my Cleric, and they can summon some simple pets too. Wolves and webs and stuff. If I knew both could heal like that I would have skipped the Cleric, but I'll change that into more offensive.

Psi is much better than Wiz -.- And this Samurai seems better than all other classes combined.

Psi is much better early from my experience, much more casts and more possibilities but once wizards start to gain some levels they catch up.

 

[Serus]

Do anyone find Feint or Sunder worth the feats needed to make them effective? I find that there are better feats to take even as fighter. Grapple is very useful. You can't go wrong with Trip as long as the enemy doesn't have an immunity. Disarm is situational but when it works then it works, I suppose. Bull Rush in some battles can be nice too. Those two otoh, i'm not convinced.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Okay, I might be asking a strange questions, but how exactly effective Drake Bishop described in manual? Is there a better domain combination? Is Bishop really better than Cleric?
Truth be told, I always feel uncomfortable while building divine casters in any game, because something in me screams " stop complicating things, motherfucker, make this character as healbot, leave actual fighting to fighters and spells for wizards" while my more rational and logical side tells me that healbot would be a waste of a slot in party.
My earliest MMO expirience wasn't WoW or wow clone, so perhaps association cleric = healing comes from a fact that healing spells kinda unique feature for divine spell casters (unless we talking about Artificer, but this is a different story).

 

[Reinhardt]

A good module needs months of hard work.

very optimistic.

 

[FA7]

but yeah that sounds nice too.

It's nice unless it's aeromancers and their pointy-eared tryhard friends showing you this.

Spoiler

Ambush encounter near lava pit is insane. Lava, knocking weapons, wind gusts, interrupts... and that damn initiative. Definately one of harder battles for me.

 

[rojay]

Okay, I might be asking a strange questions, but how exactly effective Drake Bishop described in manual? Is there a better domain combination? Is Bishop really better than Cleric?
Truth be told, I always feel uncomfortable while building divine casters in any game, because something in me screams " stop complicating things, motherfucker, make this character as healbot, leave actual fighting to fighters and spells for wizards" while my more rational and logical side tells me that healbot would be a waste of a slot in party.
My earliest MMO expirience wasn't WoW or wow clone, so perhaps association cleric = healing comes from a fact that healing spells kinda unique feature for divine spell casters (unless we talking about Artificer, but this is a different story).

Clerics can be pretty useful because divine spells are good and the domains can be really helpful. I like to take celerity as one of the two, in part because it grants you a 1/day haste spell you can activate as a special ability. I don't typically use healing spells much in the early game, but later on spells which restore a character's hit points and cure negative conditions are very good to have, particularly in long battles.

 

[FA7]

Do anyone find Feint or Sunder worth the feats needed to make them effective? I find that there are better feats to take even as fighter. Grapple is very useful. You can't go wrong with Trip as long as the enemy doesn't have an immunity. Disarm is situational but when it works then it works, I suppose. Bull Rush in some battles can be nice too. Those two otoh, i'm not convinced.

You can easily replace feint with grease spell, and it won't require opposite rolls to work. So yeah. As for sunder, I sort of like it - there are plenty of enemies that have very high natural ac and it seems like a good way to work them out. Trip is top tier. Grapple I use only on dedicated grapple char. Bull Rush is great to have on high str chars to be able to push/slide/pull weaker party members out of grapple or hazards without wasting action.

 

[Desiderius]

Okay, I might be asking a strange questions, but how exactly effective Drake Bishop described in manual? Is there a better domain combination? Is Bishop really better than Cleric?
Truth be told, I always feel uncomfortable while building divine casters in any game, because something in me screams " stop complicating things, motherfucker, make this character as healbot, leave actual fighting to fighters and spells for wizards" while my more rational and logical side tells me that healbot would be a waste of a slot in party.
My earliest MMO expirience wasn't WoW or wow clone, so perhaps association cleric = healing comes from a fact that healing spells kinda unique feature for divine spell casters (unless we talking about Artificer, but this is a different story).

Bishop is nuts. Argossian is the way to go though.

I could see Cleric with Mysticism and Reach being fine, but there are so many broken Domains.

But yeah Healing is whatever, you've got herbs out the wazoo.

 

[Desiderius]

Do anyone find Feint or Sunder worth the feats needed to make them effective? I find that there are better feats to take even as fighter. Grapple is very useful. You can't go wrong with Trip as long as the enemy doesn't have an immunity. Disarm is situational but when it works then it works, I suppose. Bull Rush in some battles can be nice too. Those two otoh, i'm not convinced.

You can easily replace feint with grease spell, and it won't require opposite rolls to work. So yeah. As for sunder, I sort of like it - there are plenty of enemies that have very high natural ac and it seems like a good way to work them out. Trip is top tier. Grapple I use only on dedicated grapple char. Bull Rush is great to have on high str chars to be able to push/slide/pull weaker party members out of grapple or hazards without wasting action.

Better bring a two-handed Disarmer. Pierre set up some of the hardest foes with one-handed weapons. Two-handed is +4, one-handed -4.

Do anyone find Feint or Sunder worth the feats needed to make them effective? I find that there are better feats to take even as fighter. Grapple is very useful. You can't go wrong with Trip as long as the enemy doesn't have an immunity. Disarm is situational but when it works then it works, I suppose. Bull Rush in some battles can be nice too. Those two otoh, i'm not convinced.

I grab Feint on Rogue to set up Sneaks. Water Elemental comes with Sunder so might as well kick up to Greater, though I've had him on Disarm duty too. Trip is the one where I just rely on Grease.

 

[Desiderius]

Going well with my second run. My 2 Rangers are better than I expected. Their bow shooting is not great yet but they did 1 shot an enemy with a single arrow, coup de grace on I think a stunned enemy, made that fight super easy. Also they get a bunch of Cleric spells so I have 2 healers in addition to my Cleric, and they can summon some simple pets too. Wolves and webs and stuff. If I knew both could heal like that I would have skipped the Cleric, but I'll change that into more offensive.

Psi is much better than Wiz -.- And this Samurai seems better than all other classes combined.

Psi is much better early from my experience, much more casts and more possibilities but once wizards start to gain some levels they catch up.

Only pure Psi gets improved version of Energy Missile, Mind Hammer. and Inflict Pain which are all great midgame. But I've been replacing my Psi with Pizarra when I get there.

I've got restartitis but plan is to replace starting pure casters with Erzimon and Pizarra since they eventually get to 9th level by endgame. Looking forward to Counterspell Mastery (Sorc Exclusive) and staying power of high level Warlock.

 

[Desiderius]

but yeah that sounds nice too.

It's nice unless it's aeromancers and their pointy-eared tryhard friends showing you this.

Spoiler

Ambush encounter near lava pit is insane. Lava, knocking weapons, wind gusts, interrupts... and that damn initiative. Definately one of harder battles for me.

That's why I try to cover as many skill checks as possible. 5hp Fire Elemental Mages nearly wiped me one playthrough with Sleep + stairs and Coups. Ambushes can get lethal.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Okay, I might be asking a strange questions, but how exactly effective Drake Bishop described in manual? Is there a better domain combination? Is Bishop really better than Cleric?
Truth be told, I always feel uncomfortable while building divine casters in any game, because something in me screams " stop complicating things, motherfucker, make this character as healbot, leave actual fighting to fighters and spells for wizards" while my more rational and logical side tells me that healbot would be a waste of a slot in party.

Drake is nice but you'll need a couple of feats to make it useful so it wouldn't work too well on higher difficulty.

Cleric/Bishop is nice for silence and holy smite but it's mostly for true res, heal and mass heal (for clerics) and specific domains for the bishop.
A druid can do the job using scrolls and the few healing spells he gets and be way more efficient with summons and crowd control spells.

So, depending on your knowledge of the game, you can do without even on the higher difficulty.
It's painful on very hard during chapter 4 but there is options to make it work.