I completed it the other night, I couldn't wait to finish by the end. I can see why some people like it but for me it is pretty worthless, even as a scenario maker. D&D is shit.
WISHING WELL UPDATE - TAKING A LOOK AT THE SUBMISSIONS!
Hey there folks!
It's been a bit more than a week since the Wishing Well Event ended, and we received so many submissions that we're still going through them all! No I mean seriously, we have several thousands of class features to read through, so that's going to take some time. In any case, thank you so much for your participation - we're super happy about how many of you took the time to send us your awesome ideas. But we aren't about to keep everything for ourselves! Today, we'll be presenting the main themes behind the subclass designs we received. But first...
Kitty! It's been a while, I know some of you only read our news for that fluff factor.
Barbarian Paths
Barbarians are an interesting bunch. Mighty warriors driven by their rage, overpowering their enemy through pure physical prowess and innate combat senses where Fighters shine through training and skills. You could draw similitudes to what Sorcerers are to Wizards: it's in their blood.
Most submissions we received can be regrouped in the following themes, here is a little breakdown of the most common ones (with some comments):
- Mountain / Stone: Unbreakable Barbarians who stand in the middle of the fight, taking blows left and right without a care. Just imagine that scene with Boromir from Lord of the Ring, but instead he doesn't die and keeps fighting (although that would be the Zealot from Xanathar's Guide - the features here are a little different) .
- Blood / Sacrifice: Barbarians who grow stronger the more injured they become, the epitome of high risk high reward.
- Strength / Might: Strength is everything to these Barbarians, who can break the ground with a stomp and throw enemies around like wet towels. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
- Dragons: Dragon Blood does not only produce Sorcerers, and these Barbarians use their Draconic features to heavily enhance their combat abilities.
- War Paint: Blessed by the shamans of their tribe, these Barbarians covered in magic war paint and tattoos often surprise enemies with strange curses and protection that one would not expect from a savage warrior.
- Leadership: Some are warriors, others are leaders - these Barbarians are both. They lead by example, jumping first into the fight, empowering and rallying their allies through their rage and powerful war cries.
- Spirits / Ancestors: Barbarians whose powers are linked to the tribe's Guardian Spirits or Ancestors. Unfortunately this theme skirts a little too close to the official Ancestral Guardian subclass featured in the Xanathar's Guide, so we had to discard the proposals linked to it.
- Pirates: Some people suggested Barbarian pirates, sailing the high seas! While the idea could be fun, Solasta: Crown of the Magister's campaign takes place far away from any ocean, and most features wouldn't work in consequence.
- Vikings: Similarly we also had some submissions for Barbarian Paths taking inspiration from the Vikings. Not a bad idea, but it just doesn't work in the current setting, sorry!
- Death: We had a few submissions for Barbarians that would grow stronger each time they would kill, with some features even giving them a little bit of Necromancer vibe.
- Brawler: What happens when you don't have Monks in your game? People submits Monk-like subclasses instead. More seriously though, this is something that could be very cool - and that we've seen a lot of homebrew out there. Some people just want the punching and kicking without the whole peace of mind and supernatural Ki package bundled with it, and I personally agree! But fighting barehanded would require a lot new set of animations, not to mention a lot of features included grappling which is just not in Solasta.
- Craziness: Barbarians whose rage goes incontrollable and unstable, leading to very strange consequences.
- Hunting: So, here's the issue with this theme - very often I found that the features submitted were pretty much Ranger features (or could be). It's not that Barbarians can't be close to nature, but here they retained very little Barbarian identity and went full Ranger-but-strong-instead-of-dexterous. Also, a lot of focus on thrown weapons - we don't have a lot of those in Solasta
- Animals: Unfortunate, chief. Path of the Beast is already a thing in Tasha, and the features are looking awfully similar.
- Half-Demon: This could be interesting, but we haven't introduced any demons to the Solasta setting yet. Does that mean there are none though? Who knows.
- Elements: A lot of features received there were very close to the Storm Herald (Xanathar Guide), so we had to scrap them.
- Focus / Clarity: A twist on the usual rage-fueled warrior, these Barbarians turn their rage into pure focus instead.
Druid Circles
The Clerics of Mother Nature have arrived (though don't let them know I called them that, I don't think they'd appreciate it). Druids are full on spellcasters who trade the ability to wear metal and to shoo spooky skeletons away with the ability to turn into animals - and large ones at that.
Most submissions we received can be regrouped in the following themes, here is a little breakdown of the most common ones (with some comments):
How will I know if my submission is selected?
- Sky / Space: Although both Circle of the Moon & Circle of the Stars already exist, we found a lot of interesting submissions within that thematic which strayed away from those official subclasses.
- Nature / Balance: It was obvious, everyone was expecting it, the Druid was going to get submissions with nature-related features. And some good ones at that, there were a lot of great ideas there!
- Cycle of Life: These Druids protect the cycle by nurturing life but also combatting those who keep to remain alive after their time has come. Thematically it's the creed of Maraike in Solasta, so there might be conflicts with her Clerics.
- Healing: Druids whose powers revolve around healing the land and its inhabitants, blessed by Nature herself.
- Shapeshifting: As with Nature, we know Shapeshift-enhancing features were going to be a thing. That said, a lot of them are skirting a little close to the Circle of the Moon!
- Fire: Sorry chief, Circle of Wildfire just came out in Tasha recently!
- Death / Decay: A little close thematically to the Circle of Spore from Ravnica, and also a little too close to Necromancy. We found that theme getting a little far from what we think Druids are in Solasta, not to mention our campaign is ill-suited for really evil characters.
- Spirits: Flying a little close to the Circle of Dreams!
- Dragons: Now that's interesting. While Dragons are a huge thing in Solasta, and the notion of Draconic Barbarians sounded cool - Draconic Druids don't resonate with us as much. First of all, Dragons already grant Arcane powers (Sorcerers) so having a divine spellcaster with links to Dragons must mean they worship them. But Druids, unlike Clerics, aren't really drawing power from a single deity - but rather nature itself (which is why they are a separate class from Clerics). As you can see, it gets a little complicated lore-wise when it comes to Draconic Druids.
- Martial: Druids who've been spending time at the gym getting those gains and punching fools.
Before releasing the DLC (date not yet revealed), we will announce which ideas we selected (and some personal favorites as well) in a news post just like this one – and the name or nickname you put in the Google Form will also be added to the in-game credits as Community Designer.
The Vinyl Disks are starting to arrive!
Some of you in France may have already received theirs! For all the others, our audio partner G4F gave us the following estimates:
Also, some of you have been asking us about changing addresses. Unfortunately, that's already too late for the Vinyl Disks - but you still have a tiny bit of time for the Sourcebook and the Adventure Box! Just head to CrowdOx, log in and change your address there.
- France: About a week
- Europe: 2-3 weeks, maybe more depending on the country
- USA: Around a month
- Others: 1-2 months
Alright folks, this is the end for today! Hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse of all the submissions we received! Also, check out our Forums and our Discord Server to chat with other players!
Article by Tactical Myzzrym
Solasta: Crown of the Magister Review
I started playing RPGs on the tabletop, and I can still remember my uncle surprised us years ago when he brought the D&D starter box with him on a visit. Since then I have been a huge fan of games which try to capture the feeling of a Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game, whether it is something pretty close to the original experience, like Temple of Elemental Evil or something more derivative like Pillars of Eternity. Solasta: The Crown of Magister is definitely more of the former. It does an excellent job of giving you the feel of a tabletop game, even actively rolling dice on screen each time your characters make an attack roll or attempt a persuasion check. What Solasta isn’t, and what could potentially disappoint some players, is a Baldur’s Gate. There’s no big open world, there aren’t tons of quests waiting around every corner, and there are no memorable companions for you to recruit. Its much more a linear quest that focuses primarily on dungeon crawling and combat. In that way its much more like the aforementioned Temple of Elemental Evil or Icewind Dale. You do have a hub, chat with NPCs, get an occasional side quest, can periodically talk yourself out of a conflict, and are rewarded for carefully combing maps. It’s just that those activities present you with an occasional change of pace from your main task, which is exploring and fighting your way through various dungeons, ruins, caverns, and other exotic locations.
Game Mechanics
Solasta is my first experience with the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The Crown of the Magister currently features six classes, each with 3 specialties and 4 races, each with 2 subraces. While this is only a portion of the 5th edition’s classes and races, I feel there are enough choices that I could (and probably will) replay it a second time and have a different enough party to make another playthrough interesting. I never play the recommended party in the initial playthrough of a game, and for my first playthrough went with a paladin, ranger, rogue, and cleric for my party.
I found Solasta does an excellent job teaching you its rules. The game starts off with an extremely memorable tutorial, where your four characters are sitting around in a tavern, bragging about their adventures to one another. We get to play each character one by one in these flashbacks, and at the same time learn about combat mechanics, skill checks, lighting, manipulating items in the environment and so on.
Even though you design all of the characters in your party yourself, Solasta does a far better job of giving them personalities than other recent party-based games do, In fact the only game which I consider comparable is Wizardry 8. In The Crown of the Magister you give each character 3 personality traits. Some of these are associated with certain alignments and others with certain backgrounds. I found it amusing how my scholarly dwarf was always polite and well spoken, whereas my ranger was always direct, undiplomatic, and insulted my other characters when they performed poorly in combat.
My paladin Julian is a good guy at heart, but he also has the violent trait, which comes out in his dialogue. My ranger Luna is abrasive and direct, which also comes out in her dialogue and combat banter.
While the combat mechanics in something like Pillars of Eternity are pushed into the background and often seem obscure, here they are front and center. You actually have colorful dice rolling (which you can customize) with different colored dice rolled to show things like whether an attack is made with an advantage or disadvantage, or what kind of damage an attack does. Also, the game does a good job of asking you if you’d like to use abilities that could help you out, whether its your cleric casting a shield spell, your thief rolling away from damage, or your paladin using his divine grace to buff his persuasion checks or smite his enemies. Solasta did an excellent job of teaching me most of its mechanics in game, so I rarely had to look anything up in its lexicon or felt confused by something happening. Now I can say I think I have a pretty decent comprehension of 5th edition D&D and could actually explain to someone the major differences from Pathfinder, or 2nd edition D&D.
Above my dwarven cleric is casting cause wounds, and his necrotic damage is rolled out with black 10 sided dice. My ranger Luna below attacks with a rapier, and for the piercing damage from her weapon and hunter's mark spell, light grey dice are rolled.
The game also offers quite a crafting system. Unlike other games, crafting takes game time, but so does traveling from place to place or resting. Most of your party’s crafting activities, which require the proper blueprint to complete, will happen as you travel around. Crafting is also class dependent. There is a smithing, poison, alchemy, and enchanting kit, and not all classes can use them all. Only my Paladin and Cleric could brew potions, for example, and no one in my party could enchant, probably because I had no wizard or sorcerer. In any case I always stocked up on components when I went to town, so I could craft acid arrows for my ranger and thief or brew healing potions while I was underway.
My paladin has just hit an enemy with his sword, and the game is now giving him the option to smite, and explaining how that would work, should he choose to do so.
Story and Atmosphere
The Crown of the Magister’s story is fairly typical fantasy fare. Following an apocalypse, an ancient empire was destroyed, throwing the world of Solasta into a dark age. As the game starts, civilization is creeping back and an alliance of nations and powers are seeking to reclaim the lost knowledge and magic of the past. The only problem is that these relics are located in the so called “Badlands” which have been overrun by all sorts of nasties. This is where your characters enter the story. The Council, whose members represent various nations and powerful organizations, are appointing deputies to go on expeditions in the badlands and recover artifacts from the fallen empire. Alas, digging into the past doesn’t only have positive effects. An ancient evil has arisen once again, and its agents also have an interest in the ancient treasures, putting them on a collision course with your party of adventurers.
Our bosses on the council often argue amongst themselves.
While Solasta’s story won’t overwhelm anyone with its originality, players who have taken part in an official Dungeons and Dragons campaign will feel right at home. The game isn’t all that narrative heavy, and the story is primarily there to lead the party from one exotic location to another. The story also starts stronger than it ends, though that has more to do with the quality of mystery present at the story’s beginning than uneven writing. The Crown of the Magister’s locations are well designed. While there is a world map you traverse, the game is pretty linear. Normally one main location appears on the map after another in a specific order, the locations themselves are beautifully done, bringing us into ancient ruins, not so abandoned fortresses, deep caverns, mining towns, volcanos, and arcane towers. Each location also has its own flavour, in terms of what monsters, environmental challenges, secrets, puzzles and NPCs are present as well as how the level itself is structured. The level design is in my opinion really top notch, with a few secrets, puzzles which range from simple to more complex, and of course, combat encounters. There are some areas with multiple NPCs whom you can negotiate with, while others are full of enemies, hazards, and puzzles.
Most of the game's required puzzles are very straightforward, but there are some treasure chests I could see, but had no clue how to reach.
Dialogues in Solasta vary a bit. Most of your discussions are fairly linear, where you have to pretty much click on all the options to advance the story and dialog. Still your characters will ask questions and make comments based on their personality traits. Discussions with potentially hostile or unhelpful NPCs work differently and normally give you different approaches which correspond to various skills you can use. I tend to run persuasion heavy parties, and in my case both my paladin and rogue were able to convince unfriendly NPCs on a number of occasions to help without resorting to violence.
Luckily my ranger has made her insight skill check, so I can see the chance of success of my dialogue choices. I probably would have gone with my paladin anyways, as he's got people skills.
Solasta also has its own faction system. The various factions of the council are interested in knowledge from the ruins. You will find some of these ancient texts in plain site as you accomplish the main quest, while others will really require you being perceptive to not overlook. Not all texts interest all factions, but many of them interest 2-3 groups. Unlike similar games where factions are openly hostile to each other, in The Crown of the Magister the main advantage of turning these items in, is to give you access to rare and more powerful items. Each factions has their own specialty as well. One has a lot of great crafting recipes, while another has an armory of magical weapons, so you will probably want to carefully consider who gets what.
I can sell these items to the Tower of Knowledge to improve my reputation with them, so that I can buy some of their special items, but that means not having access to items of other factions.
In addition to the main quest, you will get a few side quests from time to time. Most of these will require you to go back to old locations to find a specific item. But there are also a few which take place in town or open up a new location. All these are optional and the rewards they offer are fairly minor for the most part, which means you can really skip a number of them if you want to.
Dungeon Crawling
When the Solasta developers made their pitch on Kickstarter, they sold their game on its use of light, height, and terrain. While many D&D type games in the past have had dark areas, in which a light spell or a torch provided extra vision, Crown of the Magister takes this further. Like many games you will find burnt out torches and arcane devices which can be lit. The main difference here though is, if an enemy is in a dark area, you have combat disadvantage against them, making it significantly more difficult to hit. There are a number of ways to negate this. Basically, all non-humans have dark vision which cancels this out, unless enemies are at very long range (but then they will also try to close the distance, because they are also at combat disadvantage if they are outside dark vision range). There are also plenty of spells, like dark vision or fairy fire, which can help humans. In my playthrough light was only an issue initially. When my cleric hit level 3, he memorized a dark vision for my human ranger, and after that I almost forgot about light altogether, except for illuminating dark rooms by lighting torches.
Height and terrain kind of go hand in hand. Solasta does a good job at concealing treasure chests. And sometimes you will see a treasure chest, but it won’t be apparent how to reach it. The athletics skill plays a big roll here. Character will have to climb, jump from cliff to cliff, push stone pillars and boulders, and squeeze through cracks in the wall. Some areas can’t be reached without flying or levitating, which are two spells The Crown of the Magister makes good use of that are normally ignored by computer games. Terrain also plays a pretty interesting role in combat. Cover is important, mostly in ranged combat and so is line of sight. A rogue especially can hide at the end of their turn if they can use terrain to break line of sight with all enemies. You can also use terrain to break line of sight to frustrate enemy archers and spellcasters.
This fort has verticle levels and some areas that can only be reached by jumping or flying. My thief has also detected a trap, which she can attempt to disarm.
I found stealth worked well in Solasta. In most other games of this type I ignore stealth almost entirely, because I find it more trouble than its worth. Crown of the Magister does an excellent job at telegraphing about how far away your character’s movement can be heard as well as when you enter enemy line of sight. A standard tactic for me was to move my rogue and ranger into ambush position, while keeping my cleric and paladin just outside of listening distance. I’d get my ranger somewhere where she could snipe enemies from behind their cover and my rogue where she could fire sneak attack shots from concealment, and then after surprising my enemies I’d charge in with the paladin and cleric. I was often able to pick off a number of enemies before they could react, which in a number of encounters more than made up for not having an arcane spell caster in my party.
Here I can see line of sight and that my party is in stealth. I also see that Katie can sneak attack her reptilian opponent, and has advantage against him, meaning she rolls twice to hit and takes the best roll. Doesn't look good for the bad guy.
Like in most RPGs that take place on a tabletop and not in a computer, Solasta’s maps only have a handful of combat encounters, but they take a fair amount of time to complete. I found the turn based combat for the most part pretty entertaining. Also, you can’t rest anywhere. Most larger dungeons will have a campsite where you can perform a long rest, but you need to manage your resources, because most maps have a tougher fight at the end.
Presentation
Its been a good while since we’ve had an AAA party based isometric RPG. Solasta has beautiful maps and terrain, but elsewhere the game is less attractive. Especially in the cut scenes the character models speaking animations could use improvement. On the other hand, Solasta can compete visually well with games like Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity or Wasteland 3, which also are weakest when one examines things close up.
The voice acting in Solasta is very uneven. As a rule of thumb the bigger the speaking role, the better the voice acting. Most major NPCs as well as the PCs themselves are voiced by competent, if not excellent, voice actors. The voice acting of the minor NPCs range from competent to grating and amateurish speakers. There are a large amount of voiced cut scenes in the game. This includes almost every NPC who has a role in a quest, as well as almost every merchant. Only NPCs like guards or generic bystanders have unspoken text.
This library is one of the fantastic places you'll visit in the course of your adventure.
Summary
Solasta is one of those games I had a hard time putting down and occasionally got lost in. And that despite its weaknesses. Yes, the story is nothing to write home about. The presentation could have been better. The majority of side quests were largely backtracking to old maps and fighting a new battle there. The game is fairly linear. And yet despite all of those things, I enjoyed the game immensely. Crown of the Magister hits the nail on the head with its core gameplay. Combat is fun and easy to understand. Deciding which faction to give artifacts to and improving your characters seems meaningful. Your self-designed PCs get more personality than just what you make up in your head. Level design is well done and that makes navigating the maps entertaining. The game also does an excellent job capturing that familiar heroic fantasy feel, and for me it felt comfortable, like rewatching a film I love, but have seen countless times, rather than feeling cliched or stale. Solasta is a game of decent size, and it took me over 40 hours to complete, even though I left a few side quests unsolved. I sincerely hope that Tactical adventures gets the chance to bring us another adventure in the Solasta universe, even it doesn’t iron out any of the many flaws of Crown of the Magister. With a few improvements though a good D&D CRPG could be succeeded by an amazing one.
Summary
Pros
Cons
- Excellent level design
- Beautiful Locations
- Fun combat, especially the use of terrain
- Teaches is its mechanics well
- Well done personality system
Rating: Very Good
- Uneven voice acting
- Unoriginal story
- Fairly Linear
A very good game that is just short of being excellent, because of one or more minor issues that reduce the level of enjoyment a little bit.
Review version
Steam
Eh, it was very uneven. My George Floyd paladin was a violent thug only about 50% of the time, and spent the other 50% of the time talking like a generic, well-adjusted adventurer. And then there's the question of donkey piss.
This is just a tinfoil hat theory but I have a feeling that the quotes that get picked might be based on which voice you select during character creation.
STEAM TRADING CARDS ARE OUT & 35% DISCOUNT ON SOLASTA!
Heya you lovely folks!
We're still some way until our next update, but in the meantime we're putting out Steam Cards for y'all! But before that, we're going to treat you with another feline picture - two in one week, that's crazy!
Long long cat.
35% Discount - Time to grab a copy!
It's time for some week-end sales! If you had some friends on the fence about Solasta, now's the time to tell them about it! The 35% discount is running this week-end and ends on Monday 20th at 10 am PST / 1 pm EST / 7 pm CEST. Also slightly unrelated, but we're seeing some people asking about the Mac version - don't worry, we haven't forgotten about it! We're still working on it, and we'll inform you as soon as we have a date.
Steam Trading Cards, woooooh
That's right folks, Solasta's getting some Steam Trading Cards! We wanted to do that at launch, buuuuut you all know how busy that can be, especially for a team that have less than 20 people. So, we're fixing that right now! Actually, they've been out for a few hours already, so you might have noticed them popping in your Steam inventory.
Here are the 11 Steam Cards that you can collect through playing the game (and trading with other players)
The 5 Badges (plus the foil badge) based on the different Schools of Magic
Emoticons that you'll be able to use while chatting on Steam. Spoon included for the connoisseurs out there.
5 different backgrounds that you'll be able to unlock or purchase in the Steam Points Shop
Alright folks, this is the end for today! Take care, and enjoy hunting for them Steam Trading Cards! Also, check out our Forums and our Discord Server to chat with other players
Solasta Dev Stream on Tuesday September 28th & Physical Goodies Update
Hello everyone!
While we're all patiently waiting for more news about the upcoming Solasta DLC, we'll be hosting a chill Dev Stream on Tuesday 28th starting at 9 am PDT / 11 am EDT / 6 pm CEST, where we'll discuss Barbarians and Druids and check out some community-made dungeons (I heard the ones made by Silverquick are quite popular). Make sure you join us to chat about Solasta and chill together with other fans of the game!
Our gameplay director's new kitten, taking a nap on his favorite plushy
Physical Goodies Update
We've just received good news from our partners helping us on the Solasta physical goods!
As a reminder, our goal is to start shipping the Adventure Boxes and Sourcebooks in January 2022 - so there's still quite some time before you receive them.
- Adventure Box: As some of you already saw in previous updates, we had receive a sample of the Adventure Box. Now we've received confirmation that the manufacturing process has started!
- Vinyl Disk: We've stated in a previous update that our Vinyl Disks have been sent! Hopefully everyone should receive theirs by mid-October at the latest.
- Solasta Sourcebook : We're finally getting there. We just got the final digital version of the Deluxe Sourcebook complete, and we're now validating the design of the physical cover. That's the final step before printing!
The Deluxe Version contains 40 additional pages of Concept Art & other sketches with notes from yours truly, Myzzrym
Alright folks, this is the end for today! See you on September 28th for the Dev Stream, and don't hesitate to prepare a few questions for us! Thank you for reading, and don't hesitate to drop by our Forums or our Discord Server.
Article by Tactical Myzzrym
Hey there everyone,
We're back today with the results of the Wishing Well Event, with our final two community subclass designs (as well as some runner-ups that we really liked). We've also saved the VOD of last week's stream for those who might have missed it - which ended up becoming a Q&A and unboxing session (with the support of a cute cat cam). Also, make sure you check your emails - the final PDF of the Sourcebook has been sent through CrowdOx[portal.crowdox.com]!
Here we can see two members of the Solasta team hard at work. Such passion. Much wow.
Dev Stream Archive
[www.twitch.tv]
Didn't manage to catch last week's stream? No worries, you can watch (or rather listen to) the session here[www.twitch.tv]. Outside an impromptu unboxing session of the Solasta Adventure Box, we've mostly been discussing about the upcoming DLC, bugs and improvements as well as modding (with a good amount of unrelated tangents about gaming and the game industry in general). Grab a coffee and enjoy those 2 hours of chit-chat!
Community Contest: Crown of the Dungeon Player?!
For those who might not be aware, some awesome members of the community have been hosting Community Contests recently. After SirMadnessTV's Custom Dungeon Creation Contest[cdn.discordapp.com], it's now Vel's turn to announce the Crown of the Dungeon Player contest[medium.com] - a custom dungeon run contest with $125 prize pool in Steam gift cards! Just click on the image below to see the rules and submit your run.
[medium.com]
Huge thanks to Vel for hosting this contest. Go give it a try!
Wishing Well - And the Community Subclasses are...
Before we get into the results, we just wanted to thank you all again for participating to the Wishing Well Event. We've received several hundred submissions, totaling more than 2,000 features to sift through - and let me tell, some of those ideas were fantastic. For everyone who participated and had a valid email address linked to a Solasta Forum account, you should have received a new forum badge!
Barbarian Participation / Barbarian Community Designer / Druid Community Designer / Druid Participation
For those who may not remember the Wishing Well Event rules, we picked up themes and features that we loved the most to put together a Druid & Barbarian community subclass from all the great ideas you submitted. Without further ado, here are the members of the community whose submission we took inspiration from: Patrick P. Hansen, Randy Ward, IceJoker, MooWun, Brad Allison, Miles Young (Ragnar), Cat Scratch Fever, DestinyNinja, Joshua Talty
Barbarian - Path of Stone
Barbarian Community Subclass - Path of Stone
Barbarians following this path draw their strength from their connection to stone. They never give up in the face of adversity and thrive in hostile environments. The first Stone Barbarians hailed from the North, even before there was a Snow Alliance. They were the ones who kept the people safe during the harsh winters, when hungry monsters were on the prowl. And once Manacalon began its incursions, they were in the thick of it, lending their legendary implacability to the resistance. 1000 years after the Cataclysm the Path of Stone still has many followers, from all lineages.
Path Features:
Barbarian Runner-Ups
- Level 3: Stone Resilience - While raging, you gain temporary HP equal to twice your proficiency bonus at the end of your turn. These temporary hit points are removed once you stop raging.
- Level 6: Strength from Within - You can use your Constitution modifier instead of another ability modifier whenever you have to make a Saving Throw.
- Level 10: Rock Solid - While raging, you gain +1 AC for every hostile opponent you can see within 5' of you, up to a maximum of +4.
- Level 14 (not in-game): Last Stand - While you have temporary HP, you gain a bonus to your melee weapon attacks and melee weapon damage rolls equal to half your proficiency bonus. Additionally, whenever your Relentless Rage roll succeeds, you also gain temporary HP equal to 1/4th of your maximum HP. These temporary hit points are removed once you stop raging.
- Note: Temporary Hit Points do not stack (higher amount of temporary HP overrides current temporary HP).
- Contributors: Patrick P. Hansen, Randy Ward, IceJoker, MooWun, Brad Allison
- Sacrifice Theme: Deal additional damage when below half HP / Gain the effect of Bless for one round when damaged / Expend hit point dice in combat to gain temporary HP / Regain HP gradually up until half max HP while raging.
- Might Theme: Rage damage bonus is doubled + Make a free shove action when hitting with Reckless Attack / Double movement speed when entering rage + hitting enemies reduce their speed by half for a round / Add an extra weapon damage die to your Reckless Attack / Gain AC depending on number of enemies around you (reused in Path of Stone)
- Dragon Theme: Gain AC + Resistance to one element / Breath Attack (limited use) / Deal additional elemental damage with melee weapon attacks / Enemies hitting you in melee take elemental damage
- Warpaint Theme - Share Rage bonus damage to surrounding allies / Enemies within 5' are affected by Bane on a failed saving throw (aura) / Share Rage resistance to damage type to surrounding allies / Ranged attacks against you are made with disadvantage.
- Chieftain Theme - Can't be surprised + Gain Advantage on Initiative rolls / Enemies you hit have disadvantage if they try to attack someone else / Gain AC for each ally close to you / Bolster an ally granting Temporary HP to both of you and giving them advantage on their next attack (limited use)
Druid - Circle of Winds
Druid Community Subclass - Circle of Winds
Druids from this circle draw their strength from the winds. As the Cataclysm raged, the connection druids felt to nature frayed. But not so for the Circle of the Winds. They felt the mana currents carried by the winds and through them a connection to nature. Through this, they were able to protect nature from the worst of the cataclysm-born depredations. The Circle is still alive today, its druids hailing from all part of Solasta, wanderers under the open sky.
Circle Features:
Druid Runner-Ups
- Level 2: Carried by the Wind - Casting a level 1 or higher spell makes you automatically take the Disengage action for free and gain 10' of movement speed until the end of your turn.
- Level 6: Sheltering Breeze - You can use a bonus action to let a Sheltering Breeze blow upon all allies within 30' of you, making them gain advantage on all Saving Throws until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest.
- Level 10: Guiding Winds - When you hit an enemy with an attack (anything that requires an attack roll), the next attack made against them before the end of your next turn has advantage.
- Level 14 (not in-game): Unfettered - While conscious, you are constantly under the effect of Freedom of Movement.
- Contributors: Miles Young (Ragnar), Cat Scratch Fever, DestinyNinja, Joshua Talty
Alright folks, this is the end for today! As always thank you for reading, and remember to download your Solasta Sourcebook PDF if it was among your Kickstarter rewards[portal.crowdox.com]. And check out our Forums[forums.solasta-game.com] and our Discord Server[discord.com] to chat with other players :D
- Plant Theme: Summon a patch of venomous vines, poisoning and damaging upon failed saving throw (limited use) / Create a plant armor granting you temporary HP and dealing piercing damage back upon getting hit by melee attacks (limited use) / Gain the permanent effect of Barkskin and reduce non-magical damage taken by a flat amount / Increase the power of venomous vines and plant armor.
- Cycle of Life Theme: Use your reaction to reroll a failed concentration check with advantage (limited use) / Gain a bonus to your spell DC and spell attack modifier equal to half your knowledge level when fighting creatures you already faced (Solasta only) / Damaging an enemy with a level 1 or higher spell prevents them from healing any HP until the start of your next turn / While not incapacitated, critical hits count as normal hits and you gain resistance to poison and necrotic damage (too similar to Fungal Body from Circle of Spore)
- Healing Theme: Restoring HP using a spell of level 1 or above also heals the target for half your druid level HP at the start of your next turn / Make a giant flower sprout on the battlefield, healing and shielding allies who end their turn next to the flower (limited use) / Healing spells are automatically cast as if using a spell slot on level higher / When dropping to 0 HP, immediately regain 50% of your maximum health (once per long rest)
Lower level brood vampires have Spiderclimb on by default, they don't have to cast it. There are boots in the game that allow your chars to do that too. I had a very memorable fight once with my rogue and a brood vamp exchanging blows while standing on the sides of adjacent pillars.
