KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

[Dorateen]

Recently, I created a new moving water animation effect for the game. It will be available in the next version of the game, version 1.57.

The next patch is shaping up nicely. I look forward to placing the new animation on water tiles in the Hearkenwold module.

 

[Serus]

Recently, I created a new moving water animation effect for the game. It will be available in the next version of the game, version 1.57.

The next patch is shaping up nicely. I look forward to placing the new animation on water tiles in the Hearkenwold module.

Sorry for being lazy and not checking it myself but you are in this thread often and i like being lazy. What is the "suggested" difficulty level for playing your module? The hardest one i presume?

 

[Dorateen]

Recently, I created a new moving water animation effect for the game. It will be available in the next version of the game, version 1.57.

The next patch is shaping up nicely. I look forward to placing the new animation on water tiles in the Hearkenwold module.

Sorry for being lazy and not checking it myself but you are in this thread often and i like being lazy. What is the "suggested" difficulty level for playing your module? The hardest one i presume?

I had tried to balance it for Challenging. There has been feedback that characters can get quite strong making some battles too easy. But there have also been a lot of updates to the module since it was first made, such as the new Barbarian special abilities, which a lot of enemies now have. It is a non-linear adventure though, so it is common for a low level party to run into difficult encounters, but they can come back when they are stronger and stomp on those enemies. So, balance really depends on what content the player has explored, and at what level they take on certain fights.

 

[Tacgnol]

Recently, I created a new moving water animation effect for the game. It will be available in the next version of the game, version 1.57.

The next patch is shaping up nicely. I look forward to placing the new animation on water tiles in the Hearkenwold module.

Sorry for being lazy and not checking it myself but you are in this thread often and i like being lazy. What is the "suggested" difficulty level for playing your module? The hardest one i presume?

I had tried to balance it for Challenging. There has been feedback that characters can get quite strong making some battles too easy. But there have also been a lot of updates to the module since it was first made, such as the new Barbarian special abilities, which a lot of enemies now have. It is a non-linear adventure though, so it is common for a low level party to run into difficult encounters, but they can come back when they are stronger and stomp on those enemies. So, balance really depends on what content the player has explored, and at what level they take on certain fights.

That's what I loved about your module, it captures that old feeling of wandering into somewhere you shouldn't go, getting stomped and then having to come back later.

 

[Serus]

I missed the discussion (if there was one) about the changes Pierre made in the last .20 versions.
Do anyone find the Monk specialisation a bit unbalanced? The one that gives Dex-to-dmg is bonkers. The one with Mirror image is... ok. Other 3 are crap. Am i missing something?


On another note, is there anyone working an a real module. Other than Pierre himself of curse?

 

[Jermu]

yup when I saw changes for monk dex to damage seemed like an easy choice. I have not played with the new changes but I would not be surprised if mantis monk is equal or even better than half giant fighter. Probably would end up bringing both since str is needed for certain mechanics.
true seeing as a free action is also good if you use your monk for grappling I would consider this one if I wanted to do ironman again with the new changes (dont remb anymore when you get true seeing item so would depend on that).

for rogue I would say there are only 2 real choices between dex to dmg and bypassing crit immunity

regarding module there is Hearkenwold

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/knights-of-the-chalice-2-editor-module-creation.134120/page-10

 

[Desiderius]

I missed the discussion (if there was one) about the changes Pierre made in the last .20 versions.
Do anyone find the Monk specialisation a bit unbalanced? The one that gives Dex-to-dmg is bonkers. The one with Mirror image is... ok. Other 3 are crap. Am i missing something?


On another note, is there anyone working an a real module. Other than Pierre himself of curse?

Guys, stop trying to make one weird trick happen. Pierre is simply the best. There’s always a use case and it’s always at least interesting and viable. He doesn’t do strictly worse.

Rogue and Monk are no exception. It’s ok to admit that you don’t have time to explore them all (does anyone over 14?). Pick the one you like and go with it. No need to pretend its optimal or a no brainer or whatever.

 

[Serus]

I missed the discussion (if there was one) about the changes Pierre made in the last .20 versions.
Do anyone find the Monk specialisation a bit unbalanced? The one that gives Dex-to-dmg is bonkers. The one with Mirror image is... ok. Other 3 are crap. Am i missing something?


On another note, is there anyone working an a real module. Other than Pierre himself of curse?

Guys, stop trying to make one weird trick happen. Pierre is simply the best. There’s always a use case and it’s always at least interesting and viable. He doesn’t do strictly worse.

Rogue and Monk are no exception. It’s ok to admit that you don’t have time to explore them all (does anyone over 14?). Pick the one you like and go with it. No need to pretend its optimal or a no brainer or whatever.

What "trick"? What do I want to happen? What does Pierre being "the best" have to do with anything? What?
And yes, we all know how "brainstorming" is evil. Unless it is you who do it. It's ok to admit of being a hipocrite.

I get it, you had a bad day. Go out, have some fun, be happy just... don't to that.

 

[Jermu]

Its not like you need to do whole playthrough to determine is for example

Rogue Specialisation, Ninja: You are a Shinobi, a dreaded master of espionage, stealth, deception and assassination. Your exacting training grants you benefits related to your magical abilities. You receive a +2 bonus to Willpower saving throws. You get the feat Fast Spells for free at level 1. In addition, you gain one extra spell slot of each available spell level.

or

Monk Specialisation, Way Of The Candle: Your focus on pious meditation in a candlelit monastery has granted you profound insights into energy manipulation through mystical means. You receive a +1 bonus on all Damage Rolls. You also gain an Energy Shield personal-range Free Action supernatural ability, as the spell Energy Shield (Wizard). You can use this ability once per day from level 1 to 3, twice per day from level 4 to 6, three times per day from level 7 to 9, four times per day from level 10 to 12, five times per day from level 13 to 15, six times per day from level 16 to 18, and seven times per day from level 19.

as good/useful as dex to dmg. I know what those spells and feats do so I can use my imagination.

there are classes, subraces, feats and spells in same tier/school that are simply better that other options.

If you dont want to be an epic powergamer thats obviously fine but its quite retarded to assume everything is equally good. Even our lord and saviour Pierre agrees with this considering he has been making balance changes.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Its not like you need to do whole playthrough to determine is for example

Rogue Specialisation, Ninja: You are a Shinobi, a dreaded master of espionage, stealth, deception and assassination. Your exacting training grants you benefits related to your magical abilities. You receive a +2 bonus to Willpower saving throws. You get the feat Fast Spells for free at level 1. In addition, you gain one extra spell slot of each available spell level.

or

Monk Specialisation, Way Of The Candle: Your focus on pious meditation in a candlelit monastery has granted you profound insights into energy manipulation through mystical means. You receive a +1 bonus on all Damage Rolls. You also gain an Energy Shield personal-range Free Action supernatural ability, as the spell Energy Shield (Wizard). You can use this ability once per day from level 1 to 3, twice per day from level 4 to 6, three times per day from level 7 to 9, four times per day from level 10 to 12, five times per day from level 13 to 15, six times per day from level 16 to 18, and seven times per day from level 19.

as good/useful as dex to dmg. I know what those spells and feats do so I can use my imagination.

there are classes, subraces, feats and spells in same tier/school that are simply better that other options.

If you dont want to be an epic powergamer thats obviously fine but its quite retarded to assume everything is equally good.

It depends what you want the character to do in the context of your party. If you have a decent strength score, Dex to damage isn't all that important. If your character isn't a primary damage dealer, Dex to damage isn't overly relevant, but some of the other abilities might be.

 

[Jermu]

Well thats quite obvious if you are not making dex based monk then dex to dmg is not that useful.

When I take a look at monk special abilities anything else than mantis seems suboptimal to me and that pretty much naturally leads to dex based monk already. As I mentioned before I could see myself skipping dex to dmg for true seeing but I have a hard time imagining taking energy shield being the best option in any scenario.

 

[Zed]

How long is KOTC2? For a KOTC noob, is it more like 20h, or 100h?
Apparently I got this on KS but I still haven't touched it.

 

[Serus]

Its not like you need to do whole playthrough to determine is for example

Rogue Specialisation, Ninja: You are a Shinobi, a dreaded master of espionage, stealth, deception and assassination. Your exacting training grants you benefits related to your magical abilities. You receive a +2 bonus to Willpower saving throws. You get the feat Fast Spells for free at level 1. In addition, you gain one extra spell slot of each available spell level.

or

Monk Specialisation, Way Of The Candle: Your focus on pious meditation in a candlelit monastery has granted you profound insights into energy manipulation through mystical means. You receive a +1 bonus on all Damage Rolls. You also gain an Energy Shield personal-range Free Action supernatural ability, as the spell Energy Shield (Wizard). You can use this ability once per day from level 1 to 3, twice per day from level 4 to 6, three times per day from level 7 to 9, four times per day from level 10 to 12, five times per day from level 13 to 15, six times per day from level 16 to 18, and seven times per day from level 19.

as good/useful as dex to dmg. I know what those spells and feats do so I can use my imagination.

there are classes, subraces, feats and spells in same tier/school that are simply better that other options.

If you dont want to be an epic powergamer thats obviously fine but its quite retarded to assume everything is equally good.

It depends what you want the character to do in the context of your party. If you have a decent strength score, Dex to damage isn't all that important. If your character isn't a primary damage dealer, Dex to damage isn't overly relevant, but some of the other abilities might be.

Sure some abilities could be good in certain scenarios but that is why i asked. Maybe someone played with them, maybe he has something to say. That is where the "am I missing something" part of my post comes into pay.
However DEX, if you can get DEX-to-dmg and finesse, simply does majority of things STR does and a ton of important things more. And monks are more DEX oriented than before and than most other classes. But if you want a STR monk for say, party grappler then it might work i guess. And if some did that - i would be glad to hear about the experience.
I just don't see how abilities that can be (more or less easily) replicated or are have uses in specific situation can be better than a strong ability that works all the time. Assuming you create a build that is capable of using such ability effectively.
Also what Jermu said.

 

[Serus]

How long is KOTC2? For a KOTC noob, is it more like 20h, or 100h?
Apparently I got this on KS but I still haven't touched it.

Between the two mentioned numbers. I am a very slow player but even for me it isn't 100.

 

[Serus]

On another note, is there anyone working an a real module. Other than Pierre himself of curse?

Am just started working on ma module. Map number one is pretty much finished, about fifty more to go and am gonna release the whole thing.

Do you make the module 100% original or is iit, at least partially, using ideas or even whole elements from an existing p&p module?

 

[Mauman]

I missed the discussion (if there was one) about the changes Pierre made in the last .20 versions.
Do anyone find the Monk specialisation a bit unbalanced? The one that gives Dex-to-dmg is bonkers. The one with Mirror image is... ok. Other 3 are crap. Am i missing something?


On another note, is there anyone working an a real module. Other than Pierre himself of curse?

I wrote my thoughts on the dex monk a few pages back having played through a game with said monk.

To summary - Fighter still better offensively, but dex monk has better defenses (outside of resisting combat maneuvers, which will neuter them) and the damage is respectable so a dex monk is a valid alternative.

 

[Covenant]

I found my appreciation for my dex monk growing a lot more after I realised that I could craft a robe and give it useful enchantments (Quick, Bravery, resistances, etc) without impeding his combat abilities.

Still lags behind the fighter, as Mauman said, but he's got his uses. I think next time I'd swap him out for a half-giant though and focus on grappling; there seem to be a lot of enemy casters where you have literally no other option to disable them due to immunities and ridiculous stats (nothing like seeing your level 8 antimagic cloud get completely wasted because the caster has a +30 concentration check bonus), so having a guy optimised to take advantage of that seems sensible.

 

[Mauman]

I found my appreciation for my dex monk growing a lot more after I realised that I could craft a robe and give it useful enchantments (Quick, Bravery, resistances, etc) without impeding his combat abilities.

Still lags behind the fighter, as Mauman said, but he's got his uses. I think next time I'd swap him out for a half-giant though and focus on grappling; there seem to be a lot of enemy casters where you have literally no other option to disable them due to immunities and ridiculous stats (nothing like seeing your level 8 antimagic cloud get completely wasted because the caster has a +30 concentration check bonus), so having a guy optimised to take advantage of that seems sensible.

You want a grappler? Try a half-giant barbarian. Take the true-sight ability at level 1 and you can grapple damn near ANYTHING.

 

[Serus]

I found my appreciation for my dex monk growing a lot more after I realised that I could craft a robe and give it useful enchantments (Quick, Bravery, resistances, etc) without impeding his combat abilities.

Still lags behind the fighter, as Mauman said, but he's got his uses. I think next time I'd swap him out for a half-giant though and focus on grappling; there seem to be a lot of enemy casters where you have literally no other option to disable them due to immunities and ridiculous stats (nothing like seeing your level 8 antimagic cloud get completely wasted because the caster has a +30 concentration check bonus), so having a guy optimised to take advantage of that seems sensible.

You want a grappler? Try a half-giant barbarian. Take the true-sight ability at level 1 and you can grapple damn near ANYTHING.

And as bonus, you don't need to make one. He waits for you, seconds into the game. Would be seconds if you didn't have to deal with the thiefs. I don't think you need true-sight at level 1 and he should get more picks later.

 

[Mauman]

I found my appreciation for my dex monk growing a lot more after I realised that I could craft a robe and give it useful enchantments (Quick, Bravery, resistances, etc) without impeding his combat abilities.

Still lags behind the fighter, as Mauman said, but he's got his uses. I think next time I'd swap him out for a half-giant though and focus on grappling; there seem to be a lot of enemy casters where you have literally no other option to disable them due to immunities and ridiculous stats (nothing like seeing your level 8 antimagic cloud get completely wasted because the caster has a +30 concentration check bonus), so having a guy optimised to take advantage of that seems sensible.

You want a grappler? Try a half-giant barbarian. Take the true-sight ability at level 1 and you can grapple damn near ANYTHING.

And as bonus, you don't need to make one. He waits for you, seconds into the game. Would be seconds if you didn't have to deal with the thiefs. I don't think you need true-sight at level 1 and he should get more picks later.

the true-sight ability is useful right out of the gate. It let's you easily grapple the spider queen for instance.

Also, the barbarian npc has some minor issues. Not huge ones like the freaking fire druid with low wisdom, but he had something that annoyed me.

 

[Covenant]

Yeah, I'd be reluctant to switch away from Pizzara and Asharzaelle, but the barb was solid up until I got those two. Didn't really try him as a grappler though - I slept on it until the fight with the lich in the tomb, where it was the only thing that saved my bacon.

Just beat the Spider Queen fight as it happens - I basically spent the first couple of rounds just pre-buffing my party and the Prince (as a single Chaos spell is enough to deal with all the starting spiders) with all those things I never normally use like Evade Burst, and it was enough to mostly survive her initial couple of spells. Then it was just a matter of keeping the mages she arrived with busy with a couple of energy walls and keeping up on healing/true resurrection scolls while bashing her and the others to death. The statue seems to have really bad saving throws so he wasn't much of a concern once I had him slowed. Managed to keep the Prince alive too, which was nice. Though I'm a bit gutted that I wasted significant cash by making a great robe for my monk just before this fight, only to then immediately buy the True Seeing robe from the Prince afterward (which has no enchantment value, so there's no reason not use that as a base for a new robe).

 

[Serus]

I found my appreciation for my dex monk growing a lot more after I realised that I could craft a robe and give it useful enchantments (Quick, Bravery, resistances, etc) without impeding his combat abilities.

Still lags behind the fighter, as Mauman said, but he's got his uses. I think next time I'd swap him out for a half-giant though and focus on grappling; there seem to be a lot of enemy casters where you have literally no other option to disable them due to immunities and ridiculous stats (nothing like seeing your level 8 antimagic cloud get completely wasted because the caster has a +30 concentration check bonus), so having a guy optimised to take advantage of that seems sensible.

You want a grappler? Try a half-giant barbarian. Take the true-sight ability at level 1 and you can grapple damn near ANYTHING.

And as bonus, you don't need to make one. He waits for you, seconds into the game. Would be seconds if you didn't have to deal with the thiefs. I don't think you need true-sight at level 1 and he should get more picks later.

the true-sight ability is useful right out of the gate. It let's you easily grapple the spider queen for instance.

Also, the barbarian npc has some minor issues. Not huge ones like the freaking fire druid with low wisdom, but he had something that annoyed me.

I thought he was great. Almost perfect barbarian. I kept him all the time. I even dropped the water elemental to keep him - both are good tough. Excellent grappler even without the changes to barbarians. The only think i would make different is the subrace but it is not a big deal. Now he has the Elephant spirit thing which doesn't seem to be great but maybe it can be useful? The other pick seems to be very good to me.
He has one undeniable quality. And it's major. He doesn't take one of the 6 slots. The additional slots are much less valuable because most other recruit-able characters aren't as min-maxed as your base 6 can potentially be. OTOH, 2(?) NPCs have unique races so that's a thing to consider too.
In the end, i suppose, this is a matter of opinion. Jorad(?) however is one the better min-maxed recruit-ables for sure.

 

[Mauman]

Yeah, I'd be reluctant to switch away from Pizzara and Asharzaelle, but the barb was solid up until I got those two. Didn't really try him as a grappler though - I slept on it until the fight with the lich in the tomb, where it was the only thing that saved my bacon.

Just beat the Spider Queen fight as it happens - I basically spent the first couple of rounds just pre-buffing my party and the Prince (as a single Chaos spell is enough to deal with all the starting spiders) with all those things I never normally use like Evade Burst, and it was enough to mostly survive her initial couple of spells. Then it was just a matter of keeping the mages she arrived with busy with a couple of energy walls and keeping up on healing/true resurrection scolls while bashing her and the others to death. The statue seems to have really bad saving throws so he wasn't much of a concern once I had him slowed. Managed to keep the Prince alive too, which was nice. Though I'm a bit gutted that I wasted significant cash by making a great robe for my monk just before this fight, only to then immediately buy the True Seeing robe from the Prince afterward (which has no enchantment value, so there's no reason not use that as a base for a new robe).

fyi, when I said spider queen, I didn't mean THE spider queen. I meant the spider that calls itself queen in the prologue. She's got some spell protections that true sight can bypass.

Though my barb had zero problems grappling THE spider queen when I got to that point. Grapple spider queen, threw a silence over the area, and it's good night Gracie.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Composition question: I see people recommend KKCW or KCWW for KOTC1. What's the situation in Kotc2?

Also, no thief? Is it really that useless?

And lastly, why is everyone obsessed with these 3 specific classes? There's a bunch of classes in the game, so Knight alternatives work too, right? And druid instead of Cleric?

How punishing is this game exactly that people literally only play one or two party compositions?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What's the situation in Kotc2?

Very different. Knight cleric and wizard are pretty much the only classes in KoTC 1.
You got like 22 classes here , so feel free to go nuts.