Solasta Solasta: Crown of the Magister Thread - now with Palace of Ice sequel DLC

[Alienman]

What party you got?

Very standard group. Paladin, priest, ranger and wizard.

There is an orc you can talk to in the swamp area that starts a large side quest leading to a cave there. Plenty of experience from it. He's kind of hidden in the center of the swamp around some trees and ruined walls. That smooths out the jungle a bit, otherwise its a difficulty spike going straight into it.

Thanks, man, I see you answered my question on the workshop too. Must have missed that orc dude totally.

 

[Artyoan]

What party you got?

Very standard group. Paladin, priest, ranger and wizard.

There is an orc you can talk to in the swamp area that starts a large side quest leading to a cave there. Plenty of experience from it. He's kind of hidden in the center of the swamp around some trees and ruined walls. That smooths out the jungle a bit, otherwise its a difficulty spike going straight into it.

Thanks, man, I see you answered my question on the workshop too. Must have missed that orc dude totally.

In the six man version I made him easier to find by moving some props and adding a waypoint marker. In retrospect, I should have added a quest starter at the dwarf in the camp who hints at him. For a side quest, there is a massive chunk of experience to be had and potentially missed.

 

[Alienman]

Is the six man version the recommend way to experience your campaign?

 

[Artyoan]

Is the six man version the recommend way to experience your campaign?

Not really. The six man versions are there for the novelty of a bigger party but they are almost identical. I did make some quality of life tweaks and changed the Witch Hut entirely but I wouldn't say that all adds up to a different or better experience necessarily. Its just up to the player to decide what size of party they want and if they want to use a mod, is all. I've been told the six man versions are harder on authentic, but I didn't feel that way in testing them.

I personally prefer six man combat though.

 

[Jinn]

I don't know why you wouldn't want a six man party if you had the option. Really appreciate you tuning the mod for it, Artyoan!

 

[Nortar]

You will find sustenance

Unless you bring along someone with goodberries or create food. Then sustenance finds you.

Would berries and divine porridge be enough to sustain a barbarian though?

 

[Artyoan]

You will find sustenance

Unless you bring along someone with goodberries or create food. Then sustenance finds you.

Would berries and divine porridge be enough to sustain a barbarian though?

Name stamped this time.

Spoiler

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You will find sustenance

Unless you bring along someone with goodberries or create food. Then sustenance finds you.

Would berries and divine porridge be enough to sustain a barbarian though?

Anything is fine with git krumping on the side.

 

[std::namespace]

watcha readin there friend?

 

[Artyoan]

Level 6?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

watcha readin there friend?

The lusty dragonborn maid, probably

 

[std::namespace]

Its not about level though, its about AC and broken Sneaking. DND5 is garbage...

What I am lacking here is Shield+2 (imho cannot be found if choosing another legendary weapon, should have picked the shield), Ring+2 (30k I can afford, I have 20k and more vendor trash, and probably half of the fights unfought), Fighting Style+1 (I made a mistake that I cant correct but if...), so I should have been able to hit... eh
36 AC?
30 with shield+2
31 with ring+2
32 with fighting style
34 haste
36 shield of faith

If you cast something like Fog or Darkness or just Dodge or any kind of Disadvantage on the Enemy attacks, that means they will have to roll two crits in a row (as I understand/guess it), which is 0.05*0.05==0.25% which the game might actually round down to 0. Unhittable on Cataclysm, imho. Well, not actually true... I'm not sure, Ancient Zombies roll +15, dragons too I think. I dunno. I couldnt get the Iron Golem to spawn so I dunno what it does.

 

[Artyoan]

AC does get broken quite easy. One thing they added for the Palace of Ice patch is a conditional debuff on hit which I can place on enemies that reduces player armor by 3. Which will get used at high levels. Jack the difficulty up and try the six man version where there are more enemies which peel off a tank easier.

 

[rojay]

AC does get broken quite easy. One thing they added for the Palace of Ice patch is a conditional debuff on hit which I can place on enemies that reduces player armor by 3. Which will get used at high levels. Jack the difficulty up and try the six man version where there are more enemies which peel off a tank easier.

Who the fuck with half a brain is not playing your stuff? I would assume anybody here with an interest in turn-based combat would be all over it.

It boggles what mind I have remaining.

 

[Nortar]

Who the fuck with half a brain is not playing your stuff? I would assume anybody here with an interest in turn-based combat would be all over it.

I suppose those with only half a brain prefer rtwp anyway.

Spoiler

 

[Grunker]

AC does get broken quite easy. One thing they added for the Palace of Ice patch is a conditional debuff on hit which I can place on enemies that reduces player armor by 3. Which will get used at high levels. Jack the difficulty up and try the six man version where there are more enemies which peel off a tank easier.

Who the fuck with half a brain is not playing your stuff? I would assume anybody here with an interest in turn-based combat would be all over it.

It boggles what mind I have remaining.

Lolno. Codex is into complaining over gays in AAA games, not actually playing RPGs

 

[HoboForEternity]

you need the DLCs to play artyoan's modules? i will wait till they are cheap enough bundled

 

[Artyoan]

you need the DLCs to play artyoan's modules? i will wait till they are cheap enough bundled

The current published campaigns don't require palace of ice but do require lost valley and inner strength. The next one will require PoI. There is a full Lightbringer edition for Solasta but I'm not sure what it goes on sale for. Christmas sale ought to be decent I would think. No rush.

 

[Lyric Suite]

AC does get broken quite easy. One thing they added for the Palace of Ice patch is a conditional debuff on hit which I can place on enemies that reduces player armor by 3. Which will get used at high levels. Jack the difficulty up and try the six man version where there are more enemies which peel off a tank easier.

Who the fuck with half a brain is not playing your stuff? I would assume anybody here with an interest in turn-based combat would be all over it.

It boggles what mind I have remaining.

Lolno. Codex is into complaining over gays in AAA games, not actually playing RPGs

The complaints are all justified faggot.

Anyway taking this for a spin after quitting BG3 (i'm better off waiting until the game is ACTUALLY out of EA anyway). Let's see how long i last.

 

[std::namespace]

AC does get broken quite easy.

What!? Nothing is even remotely as powerful is AC in the game. Are we playing the same thing?...

Done at level 6. Had to drop to Scavenger. The crits were too rage inducing. Final fight is an order of magnitude tougher than anything else in the game. Didnt think it was doable at first but life retard AI finds a way.
Successfully avoided fighting even a single Sorcuck squad!

Spoiler

Questions:
1. Where is the mutated bulette head recipe? Why does the encounter not spawn again later if you dont rest like a sane good boy...? What item does one get?
2. Is there some sekret to see with True Seeing being On all the time? Or Detect Magic?
3. Is it intentional that one can bypass most fights? Did you intend the player to fight all that trash?

 

[Artyoan]

AC does get broken quite easy.

What!? Nothing is even remotely as powerful is AC in the game. Are we playing the same thing?...

Done at level 6. Had to drop to Scavenger. The crits were too rage inducing. Final fight is an order of magnitude tougher than anything else in the game. Didnt think it was doable at first but life retard AI finds a way.
Successfully avoided fighting even a single Sorcuck squad!

Spoiler

Questions:
1. Where is the mutated bulette head recipe? Why does the encounter not spawn again later if you dont rest like a sane good boy...? What item does one get?
2. Is there some sekret to see with True Seeing being On all the time? Or Detect Magic?
3. Is it intentional that one can bypass most fights? Did you intend the player to fight all that trash?

When I say broken I mean powerful. Not that I can counter AC easy, which I can't. I can limit items that grant AC but that would make items more boring overall. I'd rather have custom spell lists for enemies but that isn't a capability in the DM.
1. There is no recipe. The head drops from being a part of the main game drop for that monster, which I can't remove once picked up. Setting a custom loot pack seems to disable that sometimes but not always. There are a few encounters that I had to cancel them if the player leaves the area because triggering a long rest would then spawn them on re-entry to the area, including the modal lore, which wouldn't make sense. I can probably get around this with quest looping but I didn't know I could do that when first making this.
2. Not really. True seeing will find hidden walls but I don't have anything set to require any spell to see.
3. Yes. Only if they want to.

 

[std::namespace]

The amount of possible trash fights in the game is staggering. Imho they should not be there even if optional. There will be people without a rogue...

Spoiler

u have to kill the chief, its a quest, rest is shit

there is actually another sorcuck spawn on the right

these niggers spawned on top of each other

this is sheer insane, its worse than anything POE1 threw at you...

why.... more even more sorcucks?

and then there is sorcuck avatar on the next floor...

Having played through the campaign now, emotionally I would actually rate it slightly worse than the base game... Even though its actually better on paper.
I would rate it worse because the base game had more memorable encounters for me. Even though all of em were "cheap" ambushes where I could not decide position and get first turn.
Forsaken Island has better exploration, better maps, better economy, theoretically better encounters, about the same placeholder mystery story I didnt care about. But all that gets ruined by the retarded AI, retarded DND5, and heeps of possible pointless combat that is distracting.
The main weakness/problem is that Artyoan never throws your whole squad into an enclosed environ where you roll initiative. The toughest fights past early game in Solasta are this way - 2 vampire fights, dragon, lava ork frontal assault, hotel ambush, village ambush.
Forsaken Island has 3 memorable fights past level 4: final boss, witch apprentice, chapel assassins. The rest is solved like POE1, AC-up and bottleneck and its over. Here in DND5 you even get a broken sneak attack.
So actually, combat wise the base game was better...
Also, its all the same items as in the base game right? That was very disappointing.

 

[Alienman]

I really like it and I think it's much better balanced than the main campaign, as the enemies are still putting up a fight long into the campaign. (damn skeleton archers ) I enjoy the story too, even if I have not finished yet. But yeah, there are a ton of fights, sometimes one fight crosses into the next, lol.

 

[std::namespace]

The fights density problem actually ruined my most fun fight nail-biter experience as it organically happened - the witch disciple.
Because this happened. Its not even far, I am not even pulling the witch disciple characters. I just tried getting cover from arrows for the mage.

I entered the Abandoned Tower bypassing the Sorcuck fort and the Witch Disciple and collected the loot inside.
Exit the tower and when the game loads, it kicks you out of Stealth, kek, I didnt realise before that it does this, and instantly launches combat cause the enemy squad sees me.
They could not see me when I entered because I had stealth but now I dont, which is a kinda ambush.
I tried fighting them from here at level 5. After eating a couple of Cone of Colds and getting obliterated in 2 turns, I leveld up to 6. Thank God there is Resting inside.

Exit the tower and get absolutely AOE assblasted again.
Had to think. I cant run backwards in combat, its a Fort full of lizards that I bypassed lel.
Scrolled through inventory and found a single potion of Invis! My mage can invis 2 people - oh shit! Thats 3 and maaaybe they wont trigger on the lone halfling rogue wtih maxed stealth!
And it worked! I could pause after exiting the tower and going stealth! Saved from reloading an hour old savegame.
So now I decide to kill em cause their Shock Arcanist is placed so seductively...

The tactikewl plan is a rogue sneak assassin surprise round with dual poisoned short swords and cleric helping kill the Aracanist and then going stealth behind the wall. While my fighter on the other side of the building solos the wtich disciple or at least wont allow AOE nukes, my mage casts Haste and hides... And it almost works on first try, but I dont quite get the arcanist kill clean in time and thus the rogue has to do a disengagement dance and the cleric is spotted and runs towards the mage, eats damage. I'm trying to maneuver with the rogue and mage to distract the AI. Warlord goes for my fighter, phew. Manage to somehow sneak kill the evil priest, veteran is onto the cleric who is down to 5hp and for the first time (and probably last) uses the clutch levitation boots that I gave her for this reason - to escape martials.

It works - no AOO on flying kek. But the veteran can shoot and the their rogue might shoot too. I show em my rogue and engage the veteran in melee, which is suicide but the cleric dead is game over. And it marginally works. Veteran goes down. Their rogue doesnt shoot. My fighter is finishing the wtich disciple and still untouched. And I move my mage behind a pillar for safety......................................................................................................
Which triggers the Dryad Queen fight...............................................................
I was sooo disappointed. Literally quit the game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Interesting... interface.

Just saw the game has male and female 10/10 already better than BG3.