KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Pink Eye]

A very fair review, all things considered.

 

[Mauman]

I don't know if this a bug or a feature (probably the Former), but evidently the coven sells a new necklace of fireballs after every reload.

In theory, this means infinite fireballs (as long as your money holds out). In practice, it means up to 24 fireballs a day as a necklace has to be on someone at rest to recharge. Equip everyone with one before rest then give them all to a spellcasting oriented bard. Or a high charisma Death Knight/Paladin/domain bishop/dual caster (though that last group probably doesn't need it).

That's still a lot of fireballs.

Bard Im rolling full spell build with little bit bow potential. Songs are useful whole game and spells are great they fall off little bit end game. Pipes of pain does great cc + dmg early and single aria of chaos ends quite many encounters and is still useful end game. I have tried hybrid bards with either melee/bow but after early game their dmg is bad since you cant afford too many feats for melee combat and by allocating stats into str you are missing daily uses for songs/spells.

Late game the bard can be used as a spell-like ability chassis; their DC depends on CHA. Acorns of EQ can do decent work in castle mage duels. Necklace of fireballs should be enough to disrupt treant's spells. There are also bracers allowing a 1/day cast of the prismatic void for sale in Finchbury, but that comes at the expense of the arms slot. I think

What I find the most interesting is who is the best user of cleric's spellbook, from a purely powergaming perspective. Is it even worth running one in lieu of another wiz/psi?

I'd personally say a Cleric with reach/mysticism is the best user of the cleric spellbook. The game's help-guide lists Sound Burst and Holy Smite as top tier spells w/ reach domain (even more so with the improved spell feats) for a reason. Mysticism also supplies good move action spells for action economy. And Feats.....lot's and lot's of feats.

I'd say it's worthwhile to keep one. Religion, detect evil, and Champion of Good skills come up very often as well.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

Lol the RPGWatch review reminded me that Pierre’s solution to the extreme difficulty of AoC was to basically introduce various cheat modes instead of actually rebalancing the module.

I’m finally about to start playing this 2+ years after receiving my backer copy, and I’m going into this more or less blind so I’m not going to have a party that’s optimized to handle this module specifically. What level of challenge should I expect if I go with Archmage difficulty but reduce the bonus to enemy initiative by 25% just to reduce the number of times my party gets wiped out on the first turn due to unlucky initiative rolls?

 

[Mauman]

Just finished a run through the high sewers using a Mantis Dex Monk, a barbarian with the new spirit animals, and an assassin rogue (Drake, breath and whirlwind focused).

First off, while the dex monk started easier than a mantis strength focused fighter, by the end I noticed a noticeable falling behind damage wise in comparison. It's not that bad so the monk is a viable alternative. Best way to go is crafting 4 light axes with skewer, swift, barbed, and something else. You lose out on cleave/improved cleave so you get noticeably less attacks. Your damage against anything that is crit immune is way less, but with the "something else" (I chose acidic for general damage) and the massive amount of attacks, it's ok. Monks do have VERY high speed going for them, so you're not going to run out of juice like a fighter could over a long distance. Ultimately the larger base damage, reach weapon combo, cleave/great cleave attacks, and ridiculous strength stacking available for fighters makes them the clear winner.

Monks also have more defenses going for them though, but they're easily disrupted by grapple and trip. Grapple in particular completely neuters a dex monk. Can't win them all I guess :/

Also, one nice thing about having a monk over a fighter is that I'm actually feeling ok skipping a certain demon till the castle. Usually I feel the need to do that right away for Bloodletter (and ensuing enchanting + duping).

The Barbarian is great all around. I had a feeling it was going to be good based on my first impressions and it stayed that way the whole way through. He wasn't the blender that a wade-in fighter (or dex monk) can be, but did excellent single target hits against foes that my monk would have problems dealing with (like the dragon on the lava). Having flight and blindsense (but not both at the same time) right from the get-go is just amazing. Once I get the true-seeing helm I'll probably just use the flight power. The breath weapon is great for what it is as it gives your barbarian a good AoE hit for clean-ups. Using it too much will result in quickly running out of powers though. Sadly, the pounce ability can't be used with the flying ability so still not a fan of pounce.

The rogue ended up being surprisingly good. The ability to sneak anything made my rogue more effective than my monk when it came to crit-immune enemies and still really good against everything else. I had no complaints with him.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Lol the RPGWatch review reminded me that Pierre’s solution to the extreme difficulty of AoC was to basically introduce various cheat modes instead of actually rebalancing the module.

I’m finally about to start playing this 2+ years after receiving my backer copy, and I’m going into this more or less blind so I’m not going to have a party that’s optimized to handle this module specifically. What level of challenge should I expect if I go with Archmage difficulty but reduce the bonus to enemy initiative by 25% just to reduce the number of times my party gets wiped out on the first turn due to unlucky initiative rolls?

If you like challenge, you'll love this, It's comparable to ToEE, Wizardry, KotC, in terms of difficulty, with the village new content, the early game, chapter 1 and 2 are easier than they used to be but you'll probably get some party wipes regularly on a first run without meta-gaming.

I'd recommend going with no gold for leveling up.
If those games were too much for you or if it's proving too difficult, you should consider tampering with the difficulty as you go.

There's a lot of settings to speed up the game, ultra fast is recommended but go with thorough AI if you don't want to dumb it down and there's a lot of options to disable spells extra explosions. It really saves some time.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

If you like challenge, you'll love this, It's comparable to ToEE, Wizardry, KotC, in terms of difficulty, with the village new content, the early game, chapter 1 and 2 are easier than they used to be but you'll probably get some party wipes regularly on a first run without meta-gaming.

I'd recommend going with no gold for leveling up.
If those games were too much for you or if it's proving too difficult, you should consider tampering with the difficulty as you go.

There's a lot of settings to speed up the game, ultra fast is recommended but go with thorough AI if you don't want to dumb it down and there's a lot of options to disable spells extra explosions. It really saves some time.

Great, thanks for the feedback It's been 10+ years since I finished KotC and am looking forward to getting into fights where I can do things like bull rush and grapple once again (no homo). Based on previous comments it seemed like a lot of enemies get insane initiative bonuses combined with powerful/borderline bullshit first-strike abilities, such that you essentially need to reload if you don't win initiative. I wasn't sure whether reducing the bonus to enemy initiative would make this aspect easier to deal with without trivializing combat as a whole.

 

[Mauman]

Spoiler

 

[Darth Canoli]

Great, thanks for the feedback It's been 10+ years since I finished KotC and am looking forward to getting into fights where I can do things like bull rush and grapple once again (no homo). Based on previous comments it seemed like a lot of enemies get insane initiative bonuses combined with powerful/borderline bullshit first-strike abilities, such that you essentially need to reload if you don't win initiative. I wasn't sure whether reducing the bonus to enemy initiative would make this aspect easier to deal with without trivializing combat as a whole.

You get used to take all the initiative feats for mages and offensive "fighters".
With this and a wide panel of classes and races, you get a lot of options to get the initiative through dialog options (class/ race related skills) and when you don't, initiative feats and equipment are enough to act first most of the time.

When you don't during a tough fight, that's where a healing focused (through domains) bishop shines.

There's nothing more satisfying than turning a bad situation to your advantage and you'll get a lot of True Resurrection scrolls during chapter 3.

 

[rojay]

Initiative is the most important thing in this game.

 

[Desiderius]

Initiative is the most important thing in this game.

That's generally true of all RPGs though not always well-understood. Which is why D:OSII forced turn-taking regardless of initiative.

That said Darth Canoli is right. You might be surprised how viable rezzing from the Pal is (even as a planned strategy!) compared to reload upon any death.

 

[Mauman]

Initiative is the most important thing in this game.

That's generally true of all RPGs though not always well-understood. Which is why D:OSII forced turn-taking regardless of initiative.

That said Darth Canoli is right. You might be surprised how viable rezzing from the Pal is (even as a planned strategy!) compared to reload upon any death.

I've always been of mixed mind on DOS2's take on that.

It just resulted in a different form of minmaxing.

 

[rojay]

I did not play D:OS2 and so have no idea what either of you are talking about. I put about 4 or 5 hours into the first one and that was enough to convince me I had better things to do.

Initiative is always important in turn based games, but I do not know of a game where it is as important to so many encounters as Augury of Chaos. Dexterity is important for almost all characters and if you don't take initiative feats on (at the very least) casters you are a masochist.

 

[Desiderius]

I did not play D:OS2 and so have no idea what either of you are talking about. I put about 4 or 5 hours into the first one and that was enough to convince me I had better things to do.

Initiative is always important in turn based games, but I do not know of a game where it is as important to so many encounters as Augury of Chaos. Dexterity is important for almost all characters and if you don't take initiative feats on (at the very least) casters you are a masochist.

That’s not the case. You haven’t discovered the power of tactically dying yet. There are many ways to attack the game, tho focusing on initiative is probably one of the most straightforward.

Initiative isn’t just important in turn-based games. If anything it may be more important in RTwP since it determines whether you can interrupt enemy actions.

DOSII degenerates into a game of stunlock tag even with the turn-taking due to the holes in the armor system and the power of the stuns, but there are a variety of ways to do that too so not sure what it has to do with min-maxxing.

That’s more of a MMO damage race thing.

 

[rojay]

What's not the case?

In what scenario is it better to "tactically die" than to win initiative?

 

[Desiderius]

What's not the case?

In what scenario is it better to "tactically die" than to win initiative?

Trade-offs for everything. Feats spent on initiative are Feats not spent on what your class is good at, same with points on DEX. Plenty of ways to heal/rez come back from falling behind in a fight and sometimes dying can cure you of nasty conditions and the like.

Likewise covering all your dialogue options can save you from a lot of situations where you'd otherwise want to win initiative, but one of the reasons to bring a Pal is to live long enough to bring back everyone else when things go wrong (and to protect them from things that would kill them in the first place). Don't need initiative for always on auras.

 

[rojay]

If you're spending spell slots on resurrecting dead characters, you're not using those spell slots to kill the enemies before they kill your characters. Initiative is not the only important thing in this game, it's just the most important thing.

 

[Darth Canoli]

If you're spending spell slots on resurrecting dead characters, you're not using those spell slots to kill the enemies before they kill your characters. Initiative is not the only important thing in this game, it's just the most important thing.

The fact is, on the highest difficulty and without tampering with enemy's initiative, even with initiative builds and equipment, sometimes, you get surprised, you pick an option to get more xp and a harder fight and/or there's some long fights (Ch3 Pizarra, Xadriphar, Death Snare, Spider Queen, Ch4 inside the castle, etc)

When this time comes and you get terrible initiative rolls, either you're a fag and you reload, you're a fag and you reload after you get some character killed or you take it like a man and use heal and resurrection.

You'd be surprised how using TR + heal in a single turn (accelerated spells) can be extremely powerful because that's one character which doesn't die and can act and another one which comes back from the dead ready to dive into the fray.

There's also a lot of consumables to regain spells slots to use in chapters 3 & 4.
Last but not least, sometimes it's way better to get a multiple debuffed character killed and to resurrect him rather than trying and possibly failing to cure him.

 

[rojay]

I didn't say there aren't exceptions and that there aren't edge cases, but for the majority of encounters you are better off with at least your casters going first.

Initiative is the most important thing in this game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I didn't say there aren't exceptions and that there aren't edge cases, but for the majority of encounters you are better off with at least your casters going first.

Initiative is the most important thing in this game.

Good for you, you figured it out, that's what people have been talking about for most of the 300 pages of this thread.
And it's also true for most games where initiative is involved.

In the original UFO, for example, it's called reaction, it's so important that you use every trick you have to train it, like controlling aliens, disarming them and giving your soldiers low damage with no ammunition weapons like laser guns, you hide and line them up and wait for the helpless aliens to show up, it's like shooting ducks.

Everyone can nuke the opposition in KotC 2 after winning the initiative rolls, even on Archmage but not everyone can get back from not winning it during tough fights.

 

[rojay]

Thank you for acknowledging it, dude. And I appreciate the advice on the nuances of the game. I am not as knowledgeable as many people in this thread, but I know what I know and I found it odd that anyone would actually disagree with the statement, "initiative is the most important thing in this game."

 

[overtenemy]

bros gnarly game but I have several asspains.

Improved life drain doesn't work. Dice remain d6s.

In chapter 4 my death knight's entire reason for existing, the aura, ceased to work. Could not determine why but didn't bother trying much because the game was easy by this point. This one is pretty critical though so if anyone's had experience with this it'd be worth sharing.

Can't sneak attack on touch spells like in PnP. This would be huge for DK and rogue.

Spells that force concentration DCs from something such as burning say they add to the DC the damage last dealt by the spell. What I've found is this refers to the burning damage and never the initial, meaning if you set somebody on fire with a flaming sphere the first concentration check the caster has to make doesn't get a bonus of any kind because they won't have "burned" yet. This makes those spells a little shitty.

Jorad was still dunked by the blind condition after using porpoise when wearing the blindfold helmet.

skewer too good but in fairness I don't know how else to make fitan dudes competitive, feels bad.

Other bugs too, can't remember. Should've written them down.

Oh and I took all four emperor/maximize feats on red wiz thinking you'd be able to simultaneously use both but you can't. That was a bummer.

RIGHT I also ended up with two books of the dead. For some reason it didn't remove the one from my inventory when I gave it to the hags and then I got another for defeating them. So I banish Xandriphar and get to the end of the sewers and some demons show up demanding it. If you fork it over you get permanent +2 str and con to a character. I figured what the hell I probably won't need it again.

 

[overtenemy]

Alright Pierre, it seems aura of terror subtracts rather than adds 5 feet to the aura. It won't even affect enemies standing diagonally from you. That is huge.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

Alright Pierre, it seems aura of terror subtracts rather than adds 5 feet to the aura. It won't even affect enemies standing diagonally from you. That is huge.

Which version are you playing? It seems to work for me using the most recent version, although it's very possible the game is showing inaccurate info.

 

[overtenemy]

Steam version 1.44. Since you said it's still working I went and tested it again, and now I find that sometimes even standing directly next to someone won't cause them to be affected. I can't unspec aura of terror on this save because I took it too long ago, but I have alot of saves so I went all the way back and can confirm that it was working properly in chapter 3. I tested at level 9 and then level 17 at the spider queen and I'm getting the 15 feet. Now it gets weirder. I load a save at the very beginning of chapter 4 and go right to the gate. The marilith is not debuffed at 15, but IS at 10. I'm trying to figure out what could be causing it but if I can't I guess I'll get in touch with Pierre and send a save.

Edit: May have found something. Loading that save and leveling from 17 to 18 is now causing the marilith to only be debuffed when the DK is directly adjacent. Happened this way twice in a row. But if this caused by some sort of class feature on levelup fuckup, I don't get why it works from 15 on my chapter 3 level 17 saves. I'll load some more I guess...

Edit: Bros verily I say unto thee that this is fucking weird. I have a save after queen but before leaving sewers, still 17 and able to level. It works at 15 feet staying 17 and is reduced to 10 if I level. Crazy though this may sound it appears going from 17 to 18 reduces the aura by 5, and going from chapter 3 to 4 reduces the aura by 5. If anybody else has a DK game with saves at these points I'd appreciate another confirmation.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Steam version 1.44. Since you said it's still working I went and tested it again, and now I find that sometimes even standing directly next to someone won't cause them to be affected. I can't unspec aura of terror on this save because I took it too long ago, but I have alot of saves so I went all the way back and can confirm that it was working properly in chapter 3. I tested at level 9 and then level 17 at the spider queen and I'm getting the 15 feet. Now it gets weirder. I load a save at the very beginning of chapter 4 and go right to the gate. The marilith is not debuffed at 15, but IS at 10. I'm trying to figure out what could be causing it but if I can't I guess I'll get in touch with Pierre and send a save.

Auras don't work across water like the long 5 feet large pools running in the sewers.
Same if you are in the pool and your target isn't or vice versa.
Height difference might also affect the auras.