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KickStarter Knights of the Chalice 2 Thread - Augury of Chaos

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Yeah, that is a tough battle, took me three attempts to finally win before any of the difficulty changes and patches.
 

Darth Roxor

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well

202010011041581.jpg


what a stupid fucking game :neveraskedforthis:

Commander Boreale voice pak has made this much less torturous than it would have otherwise been tho.

Also, Bruva Barachiel the sammy is MVP (even if for some STUPID FUCKING REASON nearly each and every single fucking enemy in this fucking castle is IMMUNE TO CRITS BECAUSE WHY NOT I GUESS), fugg da haters


Also2, a collection of fun facts:
- Never in the entire game can you buy or find a single crossbow.
- However, you get to find a few crossbow bolts. A total of 60, I think.
- There is only a single vendor who sells arrows, bolts and bullets, a goblin in chapter 2. Once chapter 3 starts, you never get to find or buy ammunition ever again.
- Similarly, you never get to find a heavy shield. I only noticed after killing the imperial dragon, when I looted the only tower shield, that my fighter had been running with a regular masterwork heavy shield I bought from the ratmen at the start of chapter 2 for all the time.
 
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Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Still interested in the engine, not really interested in (what sounds like to me) meat grinders.

The options for puzzles and paths is very exciting, and I hope to see other designers take a shot at them.
 

Darth Roxor

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202010091838381.jpg


I wanna get stuck in with da boyz

(this party is terrible and I'm sure it's going to crash and burn, but I don't intend to take it further than the second Pizdarra fight)
 

Darth Roxor

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Barb + storm wammo + monkor + roguey + psychic healer + wizard

:bro:

Thanks, you just proved Jaesede wrong by going back in after clearing the game.

Actually, I'm doing this primarily for research purposes (trying paid level-ups now). Nevertheless, I'm now at the moon crypt and I disagree with Jasede that the game is terrible on a replay, because on my previous playthrough I liked it up until mid-chapter 3, and so far I'm liking it still.

I have to say though, getting enjoyment out of the game is heavily dependent on meta-knowledge of what's coming up, especially when it comes to managing your funds, spell picks and resting early on.
 

cruelio

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Nov 9, 2014
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I have to say though, getting enjoyment out of the game is heavily dependent on meta-knowledge of what's coming up, especially when it comes to managing your funds, spell picks and resting early on.

Game is finally good after X failed runs trying to play it naturally and a run with cheat options enabled plus help from the internet. With a mere 100 hours of practice, you too can finally enjoy Pierre's Punching Self in the Dick Simulator.
 

Grunker

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Barb + storm wammo + monkor + roguey + psychic healer + wizard

:bro:

Thanks, you just proved Jaesede wrong by going back in after clearing the game.

Actually, I'm doing this primarily for research purposes (trying paid level-ups now). Nevertheless, I'm now at the moon crypt and I disagree with Jasede that the game is terrible on a replay, because on my previous playthrough I liked it up until mid-chapter 3, and so far I'm liking it still.

I have to say though, getting enjoyment out of the game is heavily dependent on meta-knowledge of what's coming up, especially when it comes to managing your funds, spell picks and resting early on.

so it’s the TrackMania of RPGs
 

Darth Roxor

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Lol, fighting the grey gobs in the arena is hilariously easier compared to greens. Especially since you don't have to fight the kang afterwards.

Also, I'm mostly going through this now to research my earlier theory that the paid level-ups are only a problem until you finish the Moon Crypt if you know what you're doing, and it deffo checks out. After the goblin arena I already have 100k+ geld.
 

Darth Roxor

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I use psionic fog on a bunch of bugmen. Psionic fog is supposed to provoke concentration checks on all spellcasting, where the target number is 10 + damage taken by the spell + level of the attempted spell + 1 per bonus peepee.

Bugman was hit for 8 damage. Imagine my surprise when the combat log said his concentration check target was 14, and clicking the value said it was only base (10) + the spell he cast (4). It completely skipped the damage and the bonus peepee. Nice.

I wonder how many more things in this game are bugged like this, and you have no idea until you check for them explicitly.

Also nevermind that the damage is supposed to be 1 per 2 caster levels, and this somehow produces 8 damage when cast by a level 13 psychic healer.
 

Darth Roxor

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Well, I've just finished my second playthrough - by which I mean I finished chapter 3. I'd have to be stupid to willingly expose myself to the retardation of chapter 4 again. A few closing thoughts:

- The economy is completely bonkers. As I predicted, after leaving the moon crypt you never have to worry about having geld to level-up anymore. In fact, the game drops so much cash and epic-level junk loot that sells for 100k each on you, the attrition aspect flies completely out of the window after that point as well. Even without campfires around, you can just haul ass to the nearest trader and heal everyone to full for a fiver.
- There is a good game hidden under all the insanity, and I think it shines the most after you leave the moon crypt up until late chapter 3, when the obnoxious bullshit begins to appear (spider queen, the undead mob before Xadriphar). Mind you, as evidenced by the greater grap genocide posted above, some bullshit will be less bullshitty for you depending on party composition, but I dare say chapter 4 will be nothing but aggravating nonsense from start to finish nevermind what your party is.
- Otherwise, the post-moon crypt, pre-chapter 4 part of the game is very solid, and I liked most of it quite a bit. The goblin arena and goblin king are probably the highlights for me, though I also liked Pizdarra, the witch coven and the black dragon. I was also surprised at some of the small differences between this and my previous playthrough, like the different things you can do with the tome of the dead if you copy it or don't give it away to the witches. For example - Maphistor appears at the start of chap4 if you don't let the witches summon him, and you can cut a deal with him. Using the staff of reversal, he... actually joins your party.
- Party building is deffo a big strength of the game, and all the three parties I had (including the terrible one from my aborted first playthrough) played very differently, showing different strengths and weaknesses. I was particularly surprised how effective the rogue turned out to be. I was sure he'd be a deadweight, but it was quite the contrary.
- I must say I have absolutely no idea how some of you could have been restarting this game like a dozen times with different parties because you were hitting a wall at some point. I can understand hitting a wall at the moon crypt. The moon crypt is bullshit, particularly the domain of fiery rape. But after that it's mostly smooth sailing up until chapter 4 (and as I said above, every party in existence will probably get assraped in chapter 4). And I say that as someone who doesn't have too big of an idea about D&D, so it's not like my successful parties were munchkins inc., unless I somehow managed to accidentally make munchkin bands, but I strongly doubt it, given that they included "total useless shit (tm)(c)(r)" classes like sammy, rogue and storm warrior, and I never even had a single mantis or half-giant. It also boggles my mind that some of you had to do stuff like xp banking.
- Unfortunately, most of the fun stuff is wasted on the late game bullshit. Late chapter 3 already starts being "tiresome" because combat fatigue kicks in once you realise that you're basically unticking a checklist of encounters left on the map, with very little other stuff to do ("ok so i'll now do the vampire lord, then i can kill the bugmen, then use the campfire and go for the death snare and..."). Then chapter 4 simply leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Chapter 4 is an abomination that shouldn't exist. If you ask me, the spider queen is the final boss of the game, and that's that.
- Though obviously there's also plenty bullshit to come around before the late game. Domain of fiery rape in the moon crypt takes the cake in that regard for sure. I also have a love/hate relationship with the fucking sharkman druid in chapter 1 - this encounter is 75% based on luck, but at the same time something about it is kind of cool, though I can't place my finger on it. Still, another absolute bullshit thing that's been bothering me ever since I noticed it, is that all enemy casters have access to all the spells they can have at their level. This is just stupid, lazy and cheap. And even then they also often pack a bunch of mega-annoying SLAs because having full spellbooks (further bonus points if they are "dual class" casters like warlock/sorcerer) is simply not enough. And don't even get me started about the bullshit arbitrary immunities to critical hits that almost everything starts having from late chapter 3 onward - at first I thought this was just an effect of foresight, but it ain't, since you also have generic evil cultist fighters who are immune to fucking crits.

Blaaaaah.
 
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CryptRat

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The economy is completely bonkers. As I predicted, after leaving the moon crypt you never have to worry about having geld to level-up anymore. In fact, the game drops so much cash and epic-level junk loot that sells for 100k each on you, the attrition aspect flies completely out of the window after that point as well. Even without campfires around, you can just haul ass to the nearest trader and heal everyone to full for a fiver.
You can buy items you know. You're really starving for money in the beginning and need to be very careful with buying, less afterwards, with enough gold to buy anything you want only at the very end, that's fine to me.

I can understand hitting a wall at the moon crypt. The moon crypt is bullshit, particularly the domain of fiery rape.
But then just fight alongside green goblins and just do moon crypt afterwards. I'm very surprised you're not including the crypt in the good parts of the game.

Late chapter 3 already starts being "tiresome" because combat fatigue kicks in once you realise that you're basically unticking a checklist of encounters left on the map
I like that part. I like to finally be able to beat all these fights which previously felt very hard with my 3 level lower party.

- Unfortunately, most of the fun stuff is wasted on the late game bullshit. Late chapter 3 already starts being "tiresome" because combat fatigue kicks in once you realise that you're basically unticking a checklist of encounters left on the map, with very little other stuff to do ("ok so i'll now do the vampire lord, then i can kill the bugmen, then use the campfire and go for the death snare and..."). Then chapter 4 simply leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Chapter 4 is an abomination that shouldn't exist. If you ask me, the spider queen is the final boss of the game, and that's that.
I didn't particularly liked chapter 4, I thought 2 and 3 were better, but what I don't understand is that you specifically complained in a previous post about all encounters being a bit too hard instead of variations in difficulty, but chapter 4 is exactly that, mostly easy (I've not said particularly fun, just easy with simply casting one prismatic void spell, although some are cool like the water enemies in southeast) with a few hard encounters (primarly the one when you just entered the castle and the very last one, and arguably at least also the one to enter but I felt it was one step below those two, these encounters, especially the third one, are hard but cool by the way). It was much shorter than chapter 3 to me because far fewer reloads.
 

Darth Roxor

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You can buy items you know.

Why would you? The stuff you find along the way is, for the most part, perfectly enough. The only things I bought were some of the cheaper accessories like gauntlets of grap and spell scrolls. Apart from that everything is so overpriced anyway that you can hardly afford to buy more than a few "big" things throughout the game, and it's not like they are even that much better than what you find.

But then just fight alongside green goblins and just do moon crypt afterwards. I'm very surprised you're not including the crypt in the good parts of the game.

By doing the arena first you're missing out on xp and rewards from delivering the symbol to the grey gobs, I think.

Also, the crypt is a 50/50. Parts of it are ok - like most of the coffin fights. But then there's the ghost dragon, which is kind of stupid. The babau and the psionic beetle, which are very stupid. And the domain of fiery rape which is completely stupid.

I like that part. I like to finally be able to beat all these fights which previously felt very hard with my 3 level lower party.

What I disliked was the "checklist" aspect. Otherwise chapter 3 is prob the strongest part of the game.

what I don't understand is that you specifically complained in a previous post about all encounters being a bit too hard instead of variations in difficulty, but chapter 4 is exactly that

But it really isn't. The variation in difficulty in chapter 4 is binary - either the enemy mob has 398476 pre-buffed multi-classed level 20 casters, which makes it hell, or it doesn't, which means you cast one prismatic spray and it's over. Everything else in those fights is chaff. The ogres, the giants, the cultist warriors, even the fucking dragons (barring black dragons who are also pre-buffed multi-classed level 20 casters) are chaff. But if there are casters in the enemy mob, the game turns into a quick draw competition - either you win initiative and send a stinking cloud their way (even prismatic void doesn't help much in this case because they are PRE-BUFFED UP THE ASS and also have epic-level gear that gives them an assortment of bullshit immunities), or they start with accelerated spell + prismatic void + prismatic void, and you're left with 1 guy on the field. It's stupid.
 

CryptRat

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By doing the arena first you're missing out on xp and rewards from delivering the symbol to the grey gobs, I think.
Yes, helping the green goblins and then doing the crypt is the easy mode and makes the crypt part very enjoyable, the fight against the babaus is one fight where you have some flexibility to approach it very badly to much better, which can't be said about all fights in the game, while doing the crypt first will allow you to be more ambitious with the arena.

I didn't try with a cleric, maybe having a cleric or not in your party is also a variable of the equation, if a cleric makes the crypt more reasonable then I would say it's well thought but I've no idea about that.
 

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