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

[Saerain]

Now, as for our stance on the matter, it's fairly simple: We believe trans people have as much right to exist as any other person, so we added that option in. It literally doesn't change anything about the game, the story remains the same, the gameplay remains the same, the NPCs behavior don't change, so yea apologies if some of you get triggered by that - you can just choose to ignore it. The issue has never been a political one here (we're not americans), and it's not like we force you to use the "They" pronoun.

What the cock does the pronoun batshit have to do with "we believe trans people have the same rights"? Such a weaselly fucking non sequitur twist of jargon. But then, we're also segregating for equality, using fascist tactics/reasoning for anti-fascism, and burning police precincts to make high crime areas safer, so I guess incomprehensibility is par for the course.

Eggs are fruits, which you know is true because grapes are ovoid, yep yup.

The issue has never been a political one here (we're not americans)

And what the fuck is this? Reality doesn't literally change from one geographic mass to another, Jesus Christ. It's either political or it's not. Critical Theory is fundamentally political, specifically neo-Marxist. You can ask any of the people who actually promote the core arguments on their side of this little pronoun culture war. The people who've convinced these game developers that some Hegelian pseudoreality is equivalent to a person's "right to exist".

What they mean to say is probably "never been a controversial one", and that's a whole other can of worms coming from a French studio. Second only to Germany in terms of candidacy for the most fucked up philosophical output. To the extent that it's "never been controversial", it's because they practically can't have controversies, they're further from liberalism than any anglophone country.

so yea apologies if some of you get triggered by that

Yes I'm triggered, I hate authoritarian movements headlined by psychopaths tightening their grip on the whole of society, fuck off back to at least the 1930s God damn it.

 

[Harthwain]

Getting offended by a game OPTION that you can ignore without affecting your game in any way doesn't seem like a very rational thing to me. Going back to your analogy, in your restaurant people would have lots of options when ordering dishes: no salt, little salt, salt overdose, etc. Problem?

I am not even offended - I am baffled. They included "they" pronoun, but you're still picking between "male" and "female" sex. If they are truly this supportive to trans people, then where is "trans" sex option? Was it too hard to throw another label in there? Why are trans people pigeonholed into male or female voices? It lacks any sort of internal consistency. Other than being some sort of anti-cancel shield to protect the game. Same as "We believe trans people have as much right to exist" statement. Because you can't risk hurting your PR at this point, when the media are "reviewing" your game. This I can understand, because that's exactly what the majority of publishers/developers do.

 

[slymer]

Just bought it. Will probably start playing tomorrow. I think I'm gonna go Ranger, Thief, Wizard, Cleric. Seems like everyone I see playing has a Paladin in their party. Wish it was a 6 person party but oh well.

 

[fantadomat]

Just bought it. Will probably start playing tomorrow. I think I'm gonna go Ranger, Thief, Wizard, Cleric. Seems like everyone I see playing has a Paladin in their party. Wish it was a 6 person party but oh well.

Fighter with duel wilding is very powerful. Three attacks per turn,it is good if you have weapons that do bonus die damge. In one turn you could do around 6d8. Also thief with two rapiers and longbow is good.

 

[CodexTotalWar]

I'm having trouble deciding which Oath to go for with my Pally.

I was planning on having her focus heavily on melee with a greatsword (taking the feat that gets you the bonus action attack), which would mean Devotion or Tirmar b/c of their channel divinities (which scales better with # of attacks), but after seeing the spacing and verticality in the first few encounters, Motherland is looking pretty appealing too since that gives a few more ranged options. I rolled pretty good stats with her (high CHA) so she'll have no problem with using spell attacks.

Any thoughts from vets of the game?

 

[Reinhardt]

A encounter which would end in a single fireball on BG1...

Nigga, there is no gobboz in BG1.

 

[Tacgnol]

A encounter which would end in a single fireball on BG1...

Nigga, there is no gobboz in BG1.

Kobolds, xvarts and gibberlings all pretty much serve the same purpose though.

 

[Reinhardt]

Xaurips - maybe. But gibberlings are pretty much animals. And xvarts are rare breed so not much can be said about them.

 

[Tacgnol]

Xaurips - maybe. But gibberlings are pretty much animals. And xvarts are rare breed so not much can be said about them.

Weren't Xaurips a pillars thing?

 

[DemonKing]

Fighter with duel wilding is very powerful. Three attacks per turn,it is good if you have weapons that do bonus die damge. In one turn you could do around 6d8. Also thief with two rapiers and longbow is good.

I prefer a decent one handed weapon and a good shield, charging into the fray. Once you get your AC in the mid 20s or so it is very hard to hit you and at default settings the AI will rarely disengage or change targets meaning the other characters are free to do what they want while the monsters scratch at your full plate and steel and mountain of hit points.

 

[Lacrymas]

Surprisingly, I agree with fantadomat about a lot of things. There isn't a single fight which came even close to challenging me (I am at the dark castle, but I remember we are already too overleveled and op for anything to be an issue) and the encounters are very, very same-y. I am using core rules + max AI, btw. I don't think giving enemies straight-up bonuses to rolls every time is a good fix for that. The AI is just very dumb, they go for straight damage only and almost never hit because our AC is astronomical. The mobs need support casters to buff their attack rolls and debuff our AC. I know there are like 3 spells that can (indirectly) lower AC in 5E (Slow, Polymorph, and Heat Metal), but they could've homebrewed some more. Instead of homebrewing shit like Sparkle that is never used because there is no point to making humans in this game, they could've done something about AC. I really don't know why people think this game has good encounter design. Maybe some boss battles and they still lack the support casters.

And yes, like I said a million times before, verticality is a gimmick. I'd say verticality in BG3 is better implemented because it's a natural part of the environment. In Solasta, the combat arenas sometimes make no sense and look like attempts at cubism in order to accommodate the verticality which doesn't bring anything to the table because even ranged mobs can't touch us.

When I'm done with this playthrough, I'm going to run a test party that isn't so caster and Paladin heavy to see whether the party composition matters and whether I just randomly stumbled on an overpowered party.

 

[Larianshill]

I don't know how to feel about the party banter and personalities. It's a good idea, but the implementation is inconsistent as hell. My paladin would speak to the council in a high brow manner, in another dialogue he would be the reasonable leader, and in the third - a violent thug speaking in slang, which is what his tags should actually make him do all the time.

 

[Thac0]

Crank up the difficulty. On mine all enemies have double HP, 1,5x damage, +3 to hit. That turned the castle fight into the best fight in the game yet, I had my spellblade running across the wall with expeditious retreat, my ice cleric was disabling the elite skeletons with levitate, my mage was using tactical flaming spheres and entangles to hold the hordes at bay, and even my ranger sharpshooter got real mileage for the first time, since I positioned my party so that enemy skellie archers could only target her, so she got return fire once every turn. And despite all of that I still lost once.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

But still too slow for my taste.

Seems to be the problem in both 4e and 5e. They want to make every encounter an Epic Fight For Your Life. But giving goblins 3x the HP and sneak attack doesn't make them any less of trash mobs. Goblins will simply never be interesting enemies in *any* scenario. They are warm up mobs for lowbies and always will be.

Not every fight needs to tax the party to their limit. When every battle takes so long it gets exhausting, esp. in Solasta where the encounters are linear AF and unrewarding, at least as far as I played. It didn't seem the game uses the XP for treasure rule either. Lame.

The crushing linearity of Solasta sucks. Plenty of other stuff to play, no need to suffer through bad dungeon design in 5E. Game plays more like Fire Emblem than dungeons and dragons.

 

[Tacgnol]

And yes, like I said a million times before, verticality is a gimmick. I'd say verticality in BG3 is better implemented because it's a natural part of the environment. In Solasta, the combat arenas sometimes make no sense and look like attempts at cubism in order to accommodate the verticality which doesn't bring anything to the table because even ranged mobs can't touch us.

It's annoying how many fights have a lone wall crawler which serves little purpose but to extend combat and make ranged characters more useful.

I had an encounter the other day where a lone wall crawling sarok was just pinging very low damage missiles at my party whilst I had to keep spamming weak ranged attacks (out of spells) to bring it down. It was of no real threat, but just ended up extending the combat for about 4 rounds longer than it should have been.

If I'd known the game was going to contain so many encounters of this type, I'd have probably made a ranger/proper ranged attacker rather than relying on secondary ranged attacks from my fighter and rogue.

 

[Reinhardt]

Xaurips - maybe. But gibberlings are pretty much animals. And xvarts are rare breed so not much can be said about them.

Weren't Xaurips a pillars thing?

I liked it.

 

[Tacgnol]

Xaurips - maybe. But gibberlings are pretty much animals. And xvarts are rare breed so not much can be said about them.

Weren't Xaurips a pillars thing?

I liked it.

From your comment that BG1 didn't contain goblins, I assumed you were talking purely about enemies in BG1.

 

[Reinhardt]

I did. I just like the word.

 

[Thac0]

And yes, like I said a million times before, verticality is a gimmick. I'd say verticality in BG3 is better implemented because it's a natural part of the environment. In Solasta, the combat arenas sometimes make no sense and look like attempts at cubism in order to accommodate the verticality which doesn't bring anything to the table because even ranged mobs can't touch us.

It's annoying how many fights have a lone wall crawler which serves little purpose but to extend combat and make ranged characters more useful.

I had an encounter the other day where a lone wall crawling sarok was just pinging very low damage missiles at my party whilst I had to keep spamming weak ranged attacks (out of spells) to bring it down. It was of no real threat, but just ended up extending the combat for about 4 rounds longer than it should have been.

If I'd known the game was going to contain so many encounters of this type, I'd have probably made a ranger/proper ranged attacker rather than relying on secondary ranged attacks from my fighter and rogue.

Hmmh, I wonder if this is actually a big factor in the difference of enjoyment?
Since I wouldn't say that the combat is slow at all, but fantadomat called it slow in his review due to verticality aswell. Every single character of mine has premium ranged options, since I knew tha ranged combat is slightly OP in 5e even in a non vertical focussed game. My party could pick off those wall flowers in a single turn, even with double hp.

 

[V_K]

I couldn't yet. I have a primed longsword but I haven't got a recipe or the materials to craft a +2 or better sword with it. Best I can do is craft a +1 battleaxe.

As I've posted later, I mixed up two sword types - it was a greatsword I've crafted, not a longsword.

I'm playing on a difficulty balanced for normies and game journos and I'm not challenged at all!!!

I wonder why would that be.

 

[Cryomancer]

Nigga, there is no gobboz in BG1.

I know, but my point remains. Low level manlet enemies should die quickly.

And yes, like I said a million times before, verticality is a gimmick. I'd say verticality in BG3 is better implemented because it's a natural part of the environment. In Solasta, the combat arenas sometimes make no sense and look like attempts at cubism in order to accommodate the verticality which doesn't bring anything to the table because even ranged mobs can't touch us.

There was a cataclysm which changed a lot of the world.

But I really missed a WATER heavy level. Just imagine having to fight underwater or even better, under heavy waterflow, crazy penalty and chekcs to move against teh waterflow and speed boosts to moving in direction of the waterflow. And the water changing how spells works. Making fireball weaker and lightning bolt much more deadly to everyone, including your party. That would be cool.

Sadly, water is the most underrated element. This is another game which allow fire, earth and air elemental summoning but not water elemental

 

[Tacgnol]

And yes, like I said a million times before, verticality is a gimmick. I'd say verticality in BG3 is better implemented because it's a natural part of the environment. In Solasta, the combat arenas sometimes make no sense and look like attempts at cubism in order to accommodate the verticality which doesn't bring anything to the table because even ranged mobs can't touch us.

It's annoying how many fights have a lone wall crawler which serves little purpose but to extend combat and make ranged characters more useful.

I had an encounter the other day where a lone wall crawling sarok was just pinging very low damage missiles at my party whilst I had to keep spamming weak ranged attacks (out of spells) to bring it down. It was of no real threat, but just ended up extending the combat for about 4 rounds longer than it should have been.

If I'd known the game was going to contain so many encounters of this type, I'd have probably made a ranger/proper ranged attacker rather than relying on secondary ranged attacks from my fighter and rogue.

Hmmh, I wonder if this is actually a big factor in the difference of enjoyment?
Since I wouldn't say that the combat is slow at all, but fantadomat called it slow in his review due to verticality aswell. Every single character of mine has premium ranged options, since I knew tha ranged combat is slightly OP in 5e even in a non vertical focussed game. My party could pick off those wall flowers in a single turn, even with double hp.

Maybe. I've never been very big on making pure ranged characters aside from spell casters.

I'll usually make my martials and scouts melee based and give them secondary ranged weapons. Usually casters are enough to deal with most ranged threats, but this game has way more out of range attackers than most CRPGs I've played.

In all honesty if I'd known going in that lowlife gives you the lockpicking ability, I'd have probably have made a ranger instead of a rogue anyway.

 

[Reinhardt]

Low level manlet enemies should die quickly.

Go and read Tucker's Xaurips again, nigga.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm playing on a difficulty balanced for normies and game journos and I'm not challenged at all!!!

I wonder why would that be.

I am assuming this is core RAW, so I don't see why a challenge isn't possible. I am going to crank it up to max and see what that does for the dark castle. The AI is still dumb, though.

 

[Thac0]

Myzzrym ! If I action surge on my fighter spellblade I should be able to use burning hands twice. The rules against not casting two spells in the same turn specifically apply only to bonus action spells.
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/94437/can-a-pc-cast-additional-spell-using-action-surge
This is not that important now, but it is a huge part of what makes the later fighter/wizard multiclass fun.