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Solasta Solasta II - Journey to the Lands of Neokos in the Unreal Engine - coming to Early Access - Demo Available

whocares

Savant
Joined
Nov 8, 2016
Messages
351
You can see I didn't include any of that in my entries. And yes, maybe I'm not as good as I think I am or the winners are so good that they blow everything else out of the water like I said. We'll find out soon enough.
Aside from the one with the flyer (that one would fit well in BG3, and that's not a compliment), your entries are pretty good. But cmon. You're not so stupid to think that the criteria for picking the winners is how good it is. They have a setting, style and story in mind. These bits need to work with those. And since you have no way of knowing what they have planned, it's basically a lottery to hit the right tone, not a skill check.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
19,679
Pathfinder: Wrath
That's what frustrates me as well. They could've easily given us some examples for tone or style, and listed some no-nos. If they had something in mind in the first place.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,349
Myzzrym you've probably already by now but looks like WoTC is keeping their promise and they're going to release the 5.2 SRD on April 22nd.

Other than changes to Monk and a few other things I don't think it adds all that much compared to regular 5e but if you go either way that's cool. I am curious if it's too late in the game for you guys to pivot to updating the rule set.

I will note that the 5.2 SRD is going to only be released under the Creative Commons license it seems as there was no mention of the OGL. I don't know if that would hamper your ability to create a video game under the CC but I'm assuming its fine?

At least for OSR TTRPGs people have been releasing their retro-clones of the games older editions under the CC with no issue.
 

RPK

Sawtooth Games
Developer
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Messages
425
Myzzrym you've probably already by now but looks like WoTC is keeping their promise and they're going to release the 5.2 SRD on April 22nd.

Other than changes to Monk and a few other things I don't think it adds all that much compared to regular 5e but if you go either way that's cool. I am curious if it's too late in the game for you guys to pivot to updating the rule set.

I will note that the 5.2 SRD is going to only be released under the Creative Commons license it seems as there was no mention of the OGL. I don't know if that would hamper your ability to create a video game under the CC but I'm assuming its fine?

At least for OSR TTRPGs people have been releasing their retro-clones of the games older editions under the CC with no issue.
Creative commons is more permissive than their OGL. When WOTC tried to screw everyone by retroactively changing the OGL, they created such a shitstorm that they were forced to backpedal and release it under CC.
 

rojay

Augur
Joined
Oct 23, 2015
Messages
660
Myzzrym you've probably already by now but looks like WoTC is keeping their promise and they're going to release the 5.2 SRD on April 22nd.

Other than changes to Monk and a few other things I don't think it adds all that much compared to regular 5e but if you go either way that's cool. I am curious if it's too late in the game for you guys to pivot to updating the rule set.

I will note that the 5.2 SRD is going to only be released under the Creative Commons license it seems as there was no mention of the OGL. I don't know if that would hamper your ability to create a video game under the CC but I'm assuming its fine?

At least for OSR TTRPGs people have been releasing their retro-clones of the games older editions under the CC with no issue.
Creative commons is more permissive than their OGL. When WOTC tried to screw everyone by retroactively changing the OGL, they created such a shitstorm that they were forced to backpedal and release it under CC.
Which flavor of creative commons license is it?
 

RPK

Sawtooth Games
Developer
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Messages
425
Myzzrym you've probably already by now but looks like WoTC is keeping their promise and they're going to release the 5.2 SRD on April 22nd.

Other than changes to Monk and a few other things I don't think it adds all that much compared to regular 5e but if you go either way that's cool. I am curious if it's too late in the game for you guys to pivot to updating the rule set.

I will note that the 5.2 SRD is going to only be released under the Creative Commons license it seems as there was no mention of the OGL. I don't know if that would hamper your ability to create a video game under the CC but I'm assuming its fine?

At least for OSR TTRPGs people have been releasing their retro-clones of the games older editions under the CC with no issue.
Creative commons is more permissive than their OGL. When WOTC tried to screw everyone by retroactively changing the OGL, they created such a shitstorm that they were forced to backpedal and release it under CC.
Which flavor of creative commons license is it?
wasn't sure, so did a quick search. apparently, it's Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
 

rojay

Augur
Joined
Oct 23, 2015
Messages
660
Myzzrym you've probably already by now but looks like WoTC is keeping their promise and they're going to release the 5.2 SRD on April 22nd.

Other than changes to Monk and a few other things I don't think it adds all that much compared to regular 5e but if you go either way that's cool. I am curious if it's too late in the game for you guys to pivot to updating the rule set.

I will note that the 5.2 SRD is going to only be released under the Creative Commons license it seems as there was no mention of the OGL. I don't know if that would hamper your ability to create a video game under the CC but I'm assuming its fine?

At least for OSR TTRPGs people have been releasing their retro-clones of the games older editions under the CC with no issue.
Creative commons is more permissive than their OGL. When WOTC tried to screw everyone by retroactively changing the OGL, they created such a shitstorm that they were forced to backpedal and release it under CC.
Which flavor of creative commons license is it?
wasn't sure, so did a quick search. apparently, it's Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Interesting. If I have time I'll take a look into the only bits that would be of any concern, which are the potential limitations on publicity, privacy and "moral rights." Other than that it looks like a pretty open license to do what you want as long as you attribute and don't claim the license holder endorses your work. Thanks for looking that up.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
19,679
Pathfinder: Wrath
The new edition gives maneuvers to a lot of the martial classes, finally allowing them some choice about what to do in combat, so it's not trivial. The other egregious problems aren't fixed, though. It's also in Tactical Adventures' interest not to release a game with an outdated ruleset.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,349
Yeah that one's basically the same terms and conditions that youtube has apparently and is standard copyright from what I've heard.
License to YouTube


By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the Service and YouTube’s (and its successors' and Affiliates') business, including for the purpose of promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service.
I could be wrong but I think section 5.2 only applies if you upload things to the Beyond website for 5e and the clause is mostly there as a means to cover their own asses I think.


Did anything ever come out of that ORC-license?

It did release and it's usable for Paizo's Pathfinder or Chaosium's Basic Role-playing.

It honestly got all the wind sucked out of it when Wotc put the original 5.1 SRD under the Creative Commons as it became irrelevant.

And a few creators have a rather dim view of the ORC license.



There's a reason Matt Fitch made his own "AELF" license for Swords and Wizardry and soon OSRIC retro-clones for people to use branching from the Creative Commons instead of touching the ORC License.

And other creators are going the same way from what I've seen making their own licenses based off the creative commons release.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
102,485
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.solasta-game.com/news/204-trades-sails-contest-is-now-over

Trades & Sails Contest is now over!​


Hey there folks!

No news this week, just a big thank you for participating. We hope you enjoyed the contest! There will be more coming later (not next month though) so more of you get a chance to leave a mark in the world of Solasta II.

We will be contacting the winner of Trades and Sails in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more news and contests, and drop by our Discord server to chat with other players!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym
 
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
318
https://www.solasta-game.com/news/205-dev-update-12-class-spotlight-the-fighter-may

Dev Update #12 - Class Spotlight: The Fighter (+ May Dev Stream)​

April 29, 2025

Good day recruits,

Stop waving your hands and chanting your whimsical incantations, today’s Class Spotlight is on the Fighter. Pick up a weapon and start swinging, for heaven’s sake! Your job will be to be in your opponent’s face, stand your ground and make their life miserable. Sure you won’t get to play with fancy powers or colorful spells, but by the gods as your friends run out of magic or get caught out of position, you WILL still be standing firm and resolute. Now keep swinging, and don’t let me catch you slacking.

cat-680f7339735b8.jpg

For those who wish to multiclass into Monk, you may seek ol’ Kaiju’s wisdom (please don’t, Fighter/Monk is terrible).

Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!


By Blood and Steel!


While the others out there are playing around with forces they cannot comprehend, Fighters are your good old reliable - give them a weapon, any weapon, and point them at the enemy. With their D10 HP die (only second to the Barbarian), the ability to wear any type of armor and their extensive weapon proficiencies, Fighters make for perfect frontliners. And although high-level Monks can attack 5 times through Flurry of Blows with unarmed strikes, Fighters are also the only class with the ability to strike up to 4 times with a single Attack action.

… And that’s without taking Action Surge into consideration! Do you want to attack even more? Pop that Action Surge and lay down the pain. Put a powerful magic weapon in a Fighter’s hands, and watch your enemies melt. Within the 2024 D&D Rules and the new Paladin Divine Smite restricted to once per turn, the single target nova potential of the Fighter may be the highest among martial classes.

fighter-concept-sketches-680f738c05521.jpg


Now for those who may not know, nova is a term used when someone goes all-in to deal massive amounts of damage in one go, burning down their resources in order to do so (like a Supernova blowing up and dying down). It used to be that Paladins could quickly burn through their spell slots by attacking multiple times and using Divine Smite on each blow in D&D 5e 2014, but this is no longer possible in 2024 D&D thus limiting their nova potential. The Fighter, on other hand, still scales fantastically well with weapons that deal extra damage such as Flametongue - a sword that deals an extra 2d6 fire damage on hit. At level 11 with 18 STR and a Flametongue Greatsword, you are looking at 6 attacks with Action Surge, for a potential 24d6 + 24 of single target damage (without counting any other flat bonuses)! Wowwee, whoever is on the receiving end is in for a world of pain.

And that’s not all the Fighter has, far from it, especially looking at the 2024 upgrades. Second Wind keeps you in the fight by giving you a multi-usage self-heal. Weapon Mastery allows you to add all kinds of effects to your attacks to ruin the day of your foes, from slowing them down to making them easier to hit. Tactical Mind allows you to add 1d10 to any failed ability check, improving the Fighter’s capacity to perform outside combat. Indomitable almost guarantees that you turn a failed saving throw into a success by allowing you to reroll it with a bonus equal to your level, making you much less vulnerable to save or suck spells. At last, Studied Attacks gives you advantage on your next strike when you miss one, lowering the odds of your target eluding you too many times. One last thing that we didn’t mention yet - Fighters also get feats more often than any other classes. While almost all classes gain those at level 4, 8, 12 and 16, the Fighter gets two extra at level 6 and 14. More chances to raise your ability scores or grab those nifty feats!

soldier-concept-sketches-680f73ad40eb4.jpg


Actually we lied, there's another thing we forgot to talk about. While most picture the Fighter wearing heavy armor with a sword and shield, the beauty of that class is that it’s very customizable. Dexterity Fighter sporting dual blades and light armor? Sure. Longbow Fighter banking on their extra attacks to provide massive ranged damage? Go for it. Want to swing a Greataxe or a Maul with indiscriminate violence while protected in heavy armor? You’re on!

So, are you ready to roll a Fighter? Just don’t name them Bob and you’ll be fine.

The Fighters of Solasta


Alright, now let’s see how our armored folks fared in the first opus of Solasta. Considering Crown of the Magister was very combat-focused, the gap between spellcasters and martial classes tended to be less prevalent.

soldier-concept-armor-sketches-680f73dc26386.jpg


The Champion (SRD)


It is hard to be more “vanilla” than the Champion Fighter. With almost all of their features being passive upgrades, the Champion is just… an extension of the core Fighter class. After writing all these retrospectives about 4 classes and their 20 subclasses, it’s funny that we’re getting stumped by the Champion of all archetypes.

We start with Improved Critical, increasing your critical range to 19-20, which gets further improved later with Superior Critical for a range of 18-20. Now don’t get us wrong, rolling a crit is fun. It is exciting! So, rolling more crit isn’t bad per se - no, the issue mostly lies in the fact that critting with a regular weapon isn’t that impactful. Rogues love crits because their Sneak Attack already makes them roll a truckload of dice. Paladins love crits because it also doubles the impact of their Divine Smite. Fighters don’t really have something of the sort to take advantage of their crit.

It used to be that in 3.5e there were crit-fishing builds (the term used to try and “fish” for a critical hit), as there were special weapons, feats and features that would complement each other well for that purpose. We even found builds (although we didn’t verify if they were legit) where you ended up critting on a 9+, but even then most people would argue that crit-fishing wasn’t really good. It was fun, that’s for sure - but you could probably get more out of your character with a non crit-centered build.

fighter-concept-armor-sketches2-680f740f60e7d.jpg


Going back to 5e, there is much less support for crit-fishing than 3.5e - making a niche build even less viable. Gone are the days of Keen Kukris on Psychic Weapon Master. So you can imagine why for many more veteran players, Improved Critical just didn’t feel very exciting in the end.

Unfortunately for the Champion, the next few features were no more exciting. At level 7, Remarkable Athlete allowed you to add half your proficiency bonus to STR, DEX or CON checks - but only if you did not already use your proficiency bonus. A strictly worse Jack of All Trades that all Bards get at level 2, with the only upside being that you could jump a little further. Thankfully in the 2024 version, this feature instead unlocks as soon as level 3, and changed to grant you advantage on Initiative Rolls (which is huge!) and on Athletics checks. Additionally, you can now move for free without provoking Opportunity Attacks after scoring a Critical Hit - boosting the interest of Improved Critical by providing synergy. Huzzah!

The Champion also gets an additional Fighting Style (at level 10 in 2014 / level 7 in 2024), allowing them to further specialize or keep their options open. Now at level 10 in the 2024 ruleset, they get an archetype defining feature - something that the old Champion truly lacked outside being able to crit a little more often than others. Heroic Warrior gives them Heroic Inspiration at the start of each of their turns! This allows them to reroll ANY die after they rolled it once per round. You missed that last decisive strike on the big bad? Reroll. The evil wizard managed to use Charm Person on you? Reroll! The Champion just. Does. Not. Fail. EVER! This is the perfect flavor for them - they are THE Champion after all. Just remember that Heroic Inspiration doesn’t stack, so make sure you use it when you can.

soldier-concept-turn-680f7436b2c12.jpg


The rest of the Champion’s features remain relatively the same after that, with Superior Critical at level 15 and Survivor at level 18 - the only upgrade in 2024 being that Survivor gives you advantage on Death Saving Throws and also makes your 18-20 crit range work when rolling them. Once again, a perfect fit for the Champion’s fantasy - you don’t miss, you don’t fail, and when you fall your rise again. Ah, let’s not forget to mention what Survivor did in the first place: While under half-HP (bloodied) and above 0 HP, you regain HP at the start of each of your turns.

Final Verdict? Honestly, Champion went from a fairly bland and weak archetype to something that’s genuinely fun and exciting with a strong flavorful identity. If we were not so limited in the number of Subclasses we could implement in Solasta 2 (due to team size and time), it’d definitely be one of the more interesting choices to select.

Mountaineer (Crown of the Magister)


Aaaah the Mountaineer, one of our first subclasses ever designed. We imagined the Mountaineer as this axe and shield dwarven fighter holding out waves of monsters inside tight tunnels underground. This one went all-in trying to bank on the shove feature - something that started as very interesting and filled with potential, but that tapered on the later you get in-game. Why is that? Well, turns out most larger creatures that you start encountering at higher levels are immune to shove and prone from Medium size creatures (hint: that’s you).

They start out with Shield Swipe, giving advantage on shove rolls when wielding a shield, and Tunnel Fighter giving them a flat AC bonus when next to a wall. You can see here the idea of fighting in confined spaces with very little room to manoeuvre, where controlling where the enemy position with shove can really change the flow of the battle. Fun fact, in the very early conception stage of Solasta 1 (waaaay back, even before we started working on the Kickstarter demo), the game had a much smaller scope. We’re talking 4 classes, no character creation, and a focus almost exclusively on dungeon diving.

Here, let us share an early Concept Art from that time to illustrate what we mean.

old-680f7486cb2de.jpg

Just pulled that one from the Solasta 1 art vault. Our party of 4 adventurers are about to square off against a troll on a tight hanging bridge in the dark.

As you can imagine, that changed quite a bit (notably with the success of the Kickstarter), and Solasta 1 grew into the game we all know and love nowadays; with a Character Creator, all 12 classes, and a vast world with diverse locations not limited to caverns and corridors… Which means the Mountaineer just became a lot more situational! Dang it!

Moving on, at level 7 they got Close Quarters which gave them the ability to swap position with an enemy with a bonus action and gain advantage on attack rolls against it. An interesting feature, unfortunately hindered by the prerequisites to make it work: it only worked on creatures of your size or smaller (medium), and you needed to win a contested shove roll (albeit with advantage thanks to Shield Swipe). Close Quarters itself is an interesting idea, but its limitations made it very situational - especially later when many enemies are bigger than Medium size.

At level 10 they got Shield Push, another buff to their shove by making it a bonus action - once again putting all eggs in the shove basket without giving a solution for larger creatures. And finally at level 15 they had Pack Strider, which basically gave you the equivalent of Pack Tactics - giving you advantage on melee attack rolls if you have another ally next to the target.

Wew! Now that we know the weaknesses of our dear Mountaineer, how did we rework it in the Sourcebook? Well, we kept the initial idea of this shield-focused fighter, but without the whole shoving theme as it would quickly become size-gated - and the Mountaineer is no Path of the Giant.

fighter-concept-turn-680f74d44f2c6.jpg


At level 3, we start with Shield Expert instead of Shield Swipe, giving you the bonus of the Shield Master feat with a bit of extra on the side - being able to use the shield as a 1d4 bludgeoning weapon and strike with it as if it were a light weapon with your bonus action. We also get Close Quarters instead of Tunnel Fighter, which now both allows you to move through the space of any creature of a larger size than yours (making it useful against bigger creatures) and to swap place with creatures of your size instead of shoving them if you so desire (keeping it useful against smaller creatures).

At level 7 we see the return of Tunnel Fighter, which only sees a little update in its wording to clarify that the bonus AC is granted when next to an obstacle that can grant total cover (so not limited to walls). At level 10, Shield Push is replaced by Shield Bash, giving you the ability to force enemies hit by your shield to roll a CON save or be… Dazed? Wait, that doesn’t exist! But you’ve got the idea - we didn’t want to hand out too many hard CCs when making our subclasses, so Shield Bash would only halve the target’s speed and prevent them from using Bonus Actions and Reactions until your next turn.

At last, at level 15 you would get Watchful Sentry instead of Pack Strider, allowing you to use your reaction to swap places with an ally next to you that is getting attacked (and forcing the attack to target you instead). After all, with the Mountaineer archetype being all about defense, positioning and control - we had to make it so they could protect their allies properly!

Final Verdict? The Mountaineer is a real window into the very first drafts of Solasta 1 - its entire theme born from our original game plan: a deep delve into dark caverns with a small party of four: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric. The theme of the Mountaineer was good, its execution needed a little bit of readjusting but overall we believe that there’s a lot of room for a shield-focused archetype for the Fighter.

Spellblade (Crown of the Magister)


The Spellblade is where we start to get into some design struggle - we want a Fighter that can cast spells, but that’s already the turf of the Eldritch Knight. Does that mean there is no room for something new? No, of course not! But theme-wise we are bound to have some similarities because they both fulfill the same fantasy, a magic wielding fighter. Small funny anecdote: we remember seeing a comment about the Spellblade that made us laugh quite hard. “This is not a fighter, this is a rogue running on fighter hardware”.

Let’s forget the Spellblade for a moment and think about the idea of a spellcasting Fighter. What does a Fighter want to do to be relevant in a fight? Well, they need to be attacking to make use of all their extra attacks, which is the main draw of the class. But that means spending a turn casting spells is not a good thing, right? Well then, how do we make it work? There are a couple of solutions. First of all, spells are also useful outside battle - that’s one of the main reasons why people complain about the spellcaster vs martial gap at higher level on tabletop. Spells can give a lot of utility, like helping to sneak into a castle with Invisibility and Sleep, preventing combat with Suggestion or illusion spells, and so on and so forth.

fighter-concept-armor-sketches-680f7519a1972.jpg


But as you already know, Solasta 1 is mostly combat focused. So that doesn’t work out for us. The second solution is bonus action spells and reaction spells, which allow them to keep their main action to attack. Problem is, there are only a few of them (wizard spell list) - such as the well known Shield spell which is already something the Eldritch Knight has. The third solution is encouraging spellcasting by giving something in return. For example, Eldritch Knight’s Eldritch Strike makes your opponent roll their next saving throw with disadvantage if you manage to land a weapon attack on them - encouraging you to cast spells by making them more likely to land.

Now let’s go back to the Spellblade. When we started working on this archetype, we hadn’t come to such conclusions quite yet, so we were mostly testing things around to see what stuck. At level 3, Magic Weapon made your weapon be considered magical against creatures resistant to non-magical damage. Honestly, this one was completely a filler feature - something that quickly became irrelevant as you would find +1 weapons while adventuring.

At level 7, Into the Fray made you able to use Melee weapons as spellcasting focus and the ability to cast somatic spells even while wielding such weapons - as well as allowing you to cast ranged spells without disadvantage while in melee. This feature was much more on point, as one of the biggest issues for spellcasting martial classes is the inability to cast somatic spells if both of their hands are occupied, with the only option being to drop a weapon to cast or to be playing Two-Handed weapons.

At level 10, Spelltyrant was a strange telekinesis power which allowed you to shove enemies from afar with a bonus action. While interesting, it didn’t really synergize with the rest of the Spellblade’s features - and a 5’ shove rarely mattered anyway.

At last, at level 15 they got Arcane Escape, which made Spellblades get the benefit of Dodge whenever they cast a spell. This was a strong feature which fell into the 3rd category - giving you a reason to cast a spell by rewarding you with something significant. Normally, dodging would take your main action anyway - so being allowed to cast a spell for that is just cherry on the top!

fighter-concept-final-680f9aeeeb2c2.jpg


After all of this, and looking back at it, when we started writing the revised Sourcebook Spellblade was one of the archetypes that we decided to completely rework. Into the Fray got moved to level 3 so that Spellblades could immediately start casting somatic spells when they got their subclass going. At level 7, they get Arcane Conduit which makes them imbue their weapon until the end of their next turn whenever they cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, making it deal an extra 1d10 force damage. With the amount of attacks a Fighter can dish out, this bonus damage would quickly stack up.

At level 10 Arcane Shield now gave them temporary HP when casting a spell, allowing them to stay in the fight longer. And at level 15, they would get Swift Cast to change the casting time of a spell that used a main action into a bonus action once per short rest (while still getting the benefit of Arcane Conduit).

As you can see, the Spellblade now had a much clearer pattern of play - one that was easy to understand. Unlike the Eldritch Knight that would cast spells and still attack thanks to War Magic, the Spellblade was supposed to alternate between spellcasting on one round to receive buffs and attacking on the other to spend them. Later on they would get the ability to cheat once per short rest by cutting the first round of spellcasting with Swift Cast, vastly improving their initial impact on the battle. However, the pattern remains simple: cast a spell to get damage buffs and temporary HP, then go slap the baddies with indiscriminate violence.

Final Verdict? The Spellblade wasn’t terrible in its first iteration, it got two good features for two mediocre ones. Previously an “okay” archetype, it fortunately became quite a lot of fun to play around with thanks to its rework, and managed to find its own identity!

Commander (Lost Valley)


With the Commander the aim was to provide a non-spellcasting support archetype, not unlike the 4th edition Warlord. Rallying the troops while standing beside them, without any divine blessings or magic shenanigans - just pure unadulterated guts. The fact that you could now have a strong frontliner who could also empower the rest of the team was a godsend for many players, who really enjoyed the addition of the Commander in Lost Valley.

At 3rd level, the Commander gains proficiency in Intimidation and Insight, as well as Rousing Shout - a bonus action to give all nearby allies (including themselves) advantage on their next attack. This feature can be used multiple times per short rest, allowing the Commander to heavily lower the chances of his party missing during combat, giving them a good use of their bonus action.

soldier-concept-final-680f7564a0f60.jpg


At level 7 they get Coordinated Defense, where they can sacrifice one of their attacks to grant any ally (or themselves) Dodge - again boosting their action economy by making Dodge usable without having to sacrifice a main action, and massively increasing the survivability of their teammates.

At level 10, Invigorating Shout increases the range of Rousing Shout and now also grants a small amount of temporary hit points, which over time considering the high amount of uses this feature has adds up to quite a lot, further enhancing the team’s tankiness. And at last, at level 15 Lead by Example marks enemies that you hit - making them additional damage any time someone makes a successful weapon attack against them.

As you can see, a very straightforward fantasy of a commander leading their troop to victory, by increasing both the offensive and defensive capabilities of nearby allies. There isn’t much to add since the Sourcebook version only saw minor tweaks, such as changing the name of Lead by Example to Take Them Down and increasing the additional damage from 1d4 to 1d6, and giving a name to the level 3 Bonus Proficiencies. It is now Gruff Authority, which on top of giving the 2 skill proficiencies also allows them to add their STR modifier to Intimidation & Persuasion checks.

Final Verdict? The Commander had an idea in mind when it was designed and they perfectly filled their role. A strong support martial class that can still kick ass on their own!

The… ??? (Solasta II)


In the demo, Neyra was a Cleric / Fighter who did not have the level to unlock her Fighter subclass, so there is very little that you could surmit from there. Let’s just say that we’re cooking something quite interesting, and we’re excited to see how you will like it!

Community Stream #09 Friday May 2nd


A little earlier than the other times, May’s Community Stream will take place later this week on Friday May 2nd! You’re many to have noticed the SRD 5.2 is now live, so we’re taking a deep dive into the document to discuss about the new content and what a passage to the 2024 ruleset would imply!
See you on Friday, 9 am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6 pm CEST!



Article by Tactical Myzzrym
 
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
3,188
Location
The Present
The new edition gives maneuvers to a lot of the martial classes, finally allowing them some choice about what to do in combat, so it's not trivial. The other egregious problems aren't fixed, though. It's also in Tactical Adventures' interest not to release a game with an outdated ruleset.
Are you talking about the Martial Adept feat, or do other classes now have Battle Master Maneuvers baked in?
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
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Messages
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Pathfinder: Wrath
The new edition gives maneuvers to a lot of the martial classes, finally allowing them some choice about what to do in combat, so it's not trivial. The other egregious problems aren't fixed, though. It's also in Tactical Adventures' interest not to release a game with an outdated ruleset.
Are you talking about the Martial Adept feat, or do other classes now have Battle Master Maneuvers baked in?
Other (sub-)classes have them baked in now.
 

Artyoan

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Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
916
I'd be surprised if they aren't going with the 2024 version. Lots of stream time spent discussing it. Myzz said he didn't see anything so far that would be too complex. It is an obvious selling point. I would also prefer it.
 

Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.solasta-game.com/news/206-dev-update-13-class-spotlight-the-wizard

Dev Update #13 - Class Spotlight: The Wizard​


Ready your quills, students.

Today we will be learning about the most refined of all classes, the distinguished and esteemed Wizard. For knowledge is power; and you are here to accumulate, to devour, to consume every last bit of it. May you have a spell penned for every situation, or rightfully suffer the consequences of your own ignorance.


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Only simpletons sleep in my class. I should have known to expect this behaviour from a cat named Chat (no, seriously, that’s his name).

Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!


The arcane at your fingertips

Ahhhh the good old Wizard, formerly known under the simple name of “Magic-User” in the Original version of D&D and Advanced D&D 1st Edition. In the past they were THE weakest class at low levels, with a measly 1d4 HP per level and no cantrip to speak of! I hope you like throwing daggers and shooting crossbow bolts while hiding behind other party members, because you’d do that a lot back then. And dying too. You’d die very easily.

Nowadays however, Wizards pose a respectable threat straight from the get-go - not having to rely on their low physical ability scores to score a hit with their crossbow or quarterstaff, instead being able to cast an endless amount of cantrips like Fire Bolt or Shocking Grasp. And with a d6 HP Die plus defensive spells like Mage Armor, Shield or even the newly buffed Blade Ward cantrip, they are a lot harder to take down too!

But enough reminiscing. Wizards, what are they good for? Absolutely n- no no no that’s not how it goes, if anything they are good at almost EVERYTHING. This is due to Wizards being the only Arcane spellcasting class that can accumulate an endless amount of spells thanks to their ability to scribe more spells in their spellbook. Unlike other arcane magic users, they are not just limited to learning new spells when leveling up. With enough gold and time, you can just copy any wizard spell from Spell Scrolls or other Wizards’ Spellbooks into your own.

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You might be wondering - aren’t Divine & Primal spellcasters able to prepare spells from their entire class spell list without restriction? So why are we talking like the Wizard is anything special here? Well, that would be because the Divine & Primal classes spell list are much more restrictive than the Wizard’s. They sport the insanely high number of 241 spells available in the PHB 2024. Compared to that, Clerics have 117 spells and Druid 135 spells.

This, in THEORY, gives Wizards the widest selection of spells and thus unreal versatility as there’s a spell for everything out there (there was even an attempt at giving Wizards the Modify Spell and Create Spell features in the Unearthed Arcana leading to D&D 2024). Now in practice it depends on how often you stumble upon Spell Scrolls and Spellbooks to copy spells from, as otherwise you’re still limited to 2 new spells per level (and that’s not a lot).

Because outside of spells, Wizards don’t get that many features. At level 1 Arcane Recovery gives them the ability to regain a few spell slots to avoid running out of fumes too early. At level 2 Scholar gives them the opportunity to specialize in one of the Knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Nature, Religion), Medicine or Investigation by giving them Expertise - which makes sense considering Wizards are supposed to be well learnt (although Investigation might feel a little outside that box). At level 5 Memorize Spell allows them to swap one prepared spell after each short rest to help with “oh no, I forgot to prepare that one spell which could really help us with this situation”.

Their next feature only comes at level 18, with Spell Mastery allowing them to choose one level 1 and one level 2 spell with a casting time of an action to cast at will - and the ability to swap them on a long rest. At last at level 20, you can select two level 3 spells to cast for free once per short rest with Signature Spells (although these ones can’t be swapped).

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Now some of you newer players may wonder - how come Wizards get so few features? Well, you have to understand that each new spell you learn is somewhat like unlocking a new feature, but that you can choose. Wild Heart Barbarian can fly using Power of the Wilds (Falcon) at level 14? You can simply cast Fly from level 5. The Rogue’s Cunning Action allows you to Dash as a bonus action? Expeditious Retreat can do that too! The Shadow Monk gets Darkvision with Shadow Arts at level 3? Guess what, Darkvision is a level 2 spell as well.

Of course, it would be disingenuous to say every class feature can be replaced by a spell (and false) - not to mention you have a limit to how many spells you can prepare and cast every day. However, it does highlight just how versatile you can be as a Wizard if you learn the right spells for the right occasion. When people complain about the Martial vs Spellcaster gap, it’s most often due to outside combat activities. Infiltrating a castle becomes much easier if you can cast Invisibility. Who needs to roll Athletics to climb a wall when you can just use Fly? You intercepted a letter but no one can read Goblin? Comprehend Languages is here for you!

So, who’s up to roll a Wizard and become the magic-wielding swiss army knife of the party?

The Wizards of Solasta

Alright, time to dive into the Wizards from our first game! Which archetypes were good, which ones weren’t, and who was our favourite of the lot?

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Shock Arcanist (Crown of the Magister)

Before we jump into the Shock Arcanist, let’s first talk about a little issue that pertains only to the Wizards. While all other classes had their SRD subclass with two homebrew subclasses, the Wizard’s subclasses were themed around the eight schools of magic - Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion Necromancy, Transmutation - with only Evocation being available in the SRD. Consequently, we thought it would be a little strange if we had Evocation but none of the other schools of magic as subclasses, so the Wizard was the only class to not feature their SRD subclass.

Due to this, The Shock Arcanist was quickly designed at the very start of the development cycle to have a functional Wizard subclass - which is why it has a lot of “video game” feel to it (vs the usually more Tabletop-driven approach we’ve taken in the subclasses that were designed later). Very much a lore-driven archetype, it was meant to represent the elite war wizards of the Manacalon Empire and to act as a parallel to the Evocation SRD subclass - a sort of “blaster” archetype with focus on pure damage numbers.

One consequence of needing to be playable very early can be seen with their War List spells, which instead of being selectable by the player were imposed on them. Those 15 spells were not given to you automatically - you had to select them when leveling up or scribe them, meaning you could theoretically be a Shock Arcanist with no spells that would benefit from your Arcane Warfare feature in-game. Not an ideal situation! For those who never played Shock Arcanist, this feature made you cast any spell from your War List as if you were using a spell slot of one level higher.

At level 6, you gained the ability to use a Bonus Action to enter Arcane Fury for one minute, increasing the damage of evocation spells by a flat amount scaling with your Proficiency and INT mod once per long rest. Unsurprisingly this caused a lot of inconsistencies as the wording wasn’t clear, with some assuming that multi-projectiles spells would multiply that extra damage (and to be fair there was a bug at first that did just that with Scorching Ray, making that one spell deal an disgusting amount of damage). Our intention was to make it proc’ once per spell at most, but we never properly wrote it down. Looking back there was also the issue of Arcane Fury being a little too similar to the Evocation Wizard’s level 10 Empowered Evocation feature (+INT mod to evocation spell damage), which isn’t great as we want our homebrew subclass to have their own identity.

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At level 10 things were starting to get even funkier, with Arcane Shock taking a Bonus Action and forcing YOU to roll a CON Saving Throw DC 14 (why 14?) or take 2D6 psychic damage. In return, you would become restrained but spells would deal no less than half of the maximum dice roll value - for example, a fireball (8d6) would deal at least 24 damage (out of a maximum of 48 damage). You also did gain Proficiency in Constitution Saving Throw at that same level to offset that a little, also boosting your chances to keep concentration when hit.

Finally at level 14, Greater Arcane Shock would similarly force you to roll a CON saving throw DC 16 or take 7d6 psychic damage, but this time maximizing the dice value on your next spell damage roll - usable only once per long rest. Now of course those designs parallels that of the Evocation Wizard’s Overchannel, which in exchange for forcing the spell to deal maximum damage would deal 2d12 necrotic damage per spell level if you used it more than once a day. Again, a result of us rushing to make a usable Wizard subclass when we decided Evocation wouldn’t be implemented - many features do feel very similar, and not in a better way either - arbitrary DC and damage numbers with little rhyme or reason were not the way.

Understandably when we started working on the revised Sourcebook, we went back to the drawing board with the Shock Arcanist to try and pry it away from its Evocation roots. Arcane Warfare now worked on all spells that would increase their damage roll when upcast and was no longer at will, having a set number of uses per day. Arcane Fury was removed and the entire identity of the archetype, Arcane Shock, was moved to level 6. It would allow the Shock Arcanist to access different options, all with different drawbacks - but only if used more than once a day.

Arcane Shock (Power) would be unlocked straight away at level 6, and would allow you to roll the spell damage twice and keep the highest of the two rolls, with the drawback of taking psychic damage equal to twice the spell slot used. Arcane Shock (Pierce) got unlocked at level 10 and allowed you to bypass Magic Resistance and any damage resistance, with the drawback of taking damage equal to thrice the spell slot used. Finally, Arcane Shock (Overwhelm) became available at level 14, allowing you to inflict full damage on your spell even if your target succeeds on their saving throw (only affects the damage, not the other effects) - with the drawback of becoming blinded and deafened until the end of your next turn.

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Additionally, you also unlocked Prepared for War at level 10, a unique feature that improved your Wizard Hit Die from D6 to D8 to better soak the damage from Arcane Shock, and Wrath of the Magister at level 10 improving Arcane Warfare to cast spells as if you used a slot of two level higher (instead of one), and allowing you to combine different options of Arcane Shock together (also combining the drawback).

Final Verdict? You could very much feel the circumstances that led to the birth of the Shock Arcanist, who very much started as an offshoot of the Evocation Wizard (and not in a good way). However even with all their issues, many players do appreciate having a full blaster spellcaster archetype as - let’s be honest - it is very much entertaining to see big numbers and make enemies go boom. Still, after the rework the Shock Arcanist manage to stand on their own two feet with a strong identity, without treading into the Sorcerer’s Metamagic either (which did happen in some of the rework iterations).

Greenmage (Crown of the Magister)

Another product of its time, the Greenmage was our way to add Primal spells to a game that did not have the Druid planned! You have to remember that Solasta 1 was intended to launch with only 6 classes: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Ranger, Paladin - plus the promise of the Sorcerer after launch. However, we were not sure we would ever get around to adding the 5 other classes: Barbarian, Druid, Bard, Monk, Warlock - as there were debates between supporting post-launch with DLCs or moving on to another project.

As Crown of the Magister’s release was well received, we ended up deciding to stick around for a bit longer - and that “bit longer” became even longer when the addition of Multiplayer gave our game a second wind with Lost Valley. Which in turn motivated us to make that one last push to get all the missing classes AND a higher level cap (the two most popular requests by our players) before moving on.

Anyway, back on track with the Greenmage - as you now understand, this archetype was created to make use of Druid spells as we did not know if we would ever implement the Druid. But did you know Greenmage almost got shelved? All the way back in December 2019 just 3 months after our Kickstarter Campaign, we held a vote to see which Wizard subclasses we would keep - with the 3 choices being Loremaster, Greenmage and Stonemage. While the Loremaster won convincingly with 44% of the votes, the Greenmage was barely 2% ahead of the Stonemage. You almost got a Stone / Rune / Dwarf themed Wizard in Solasta 1!

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Woops, got sidetracked again. Lorewise, the Greenmages were the counterpart to the Shock Arcanists. Sylvan elves who broke themselves away from the High Elves Manacalon Empire, they developed more hybrid skills as skirmishers and managed to tap into Primal Spells on top of Arcane ones. They not only covered the lack of Druids, but also of Multiclassing - giving you a full caster with some martial options. This made them very popular with our players, but let’s be honest balance-wise they were a little too strong, not to mention they stepped on both the Ranger’s and Druid’s toes (one foot for each).

Starting with Green Magic at level 2, which simply gave them access to most Druids spells available in Solasta. This alone would make the subclass broken on Tabletop, because unlike Divine Soul Sorcerers who can learn Cleric spells or Bards who can learn spells from almost all lists with Magical Secrets, the Wizard… has the ability to scribe spells in their spellbook. So they’re not just learning one or two spells for each level up, they are potentially penning down the entire Druid spell list into their sourcebook, pushing their versatility even further beyond!

Because of that, their other level 2 feature is often forgotten, even though it’s also extremely strong too. Warden of the Forest provides the Wizard with Light Armor proficiency (removing the need of casting Mage Armor and allowing Wizards to benefit from magical Light Armors later), Archery Fighting Style AND the Ranger’s Natural Explorer (Forest) feature. So not only are we stealing from the Druid, we’re also blatantly taking the Ranger’s belongings as well. You wouldn’t scribe a carriage, would you?

Moving on to level 6 with Entangling Shot, which allows you to restrain enemies you hit with your arrows for a round if they fail a STR saving throw. This feature is interesting as it gave you more crowd control that did not rely on you using Spell Slots - and while as a Wizard you would often rather be casting spells, at level 6 your cantrips still haven’t completely eclipsed your bow shots with Archery Fighting Style if you have a decent DEX score. Effectively, you could think of Entangling Shot as a limited use Cantrip that could also restrain, which is pretty good!

At level 10 you got one of the more powerful defensive tools in Solasta’s arsenal: Leaf Scales. Using your reaction, you could halve any damage from a spell or ranged attack - not unlike the Rogue Uncanny Dodge, but with a twist. And a rather positive one at that! Being able to halve damage from spells that don’t require an attack roll is pretty huge, as the damage of a single spell tends to quickly overshadow the damage of a single attack. From the simple 8d6 Fireball to the 7d8+30 Finger of Death, you’ll be glad to halve those, especially as a squishy mage.

We round it up at level 14 with Weakening Entangling Shot, an improvement to the level 6 feature that gives its target disadvantage on all saving throws for a round. A simple, yet deceptively powerful debuff - usually when class powers inflict disadvantage, it’s limited to one instance (like against the next spell), or to you (only get disadvantage against spells cast by you). But this power gives disadvantage on ALL saving throws to your target, no matter the situation, no matter who is targeting them, it doesn’t even care if it’s from a spell or not! Obviously a little too overtuned, it would likely need to be hit with a nerf bat pretty hard.

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So how did we balance all that in the Sourcebook, which had to take into account both Multiclassing and the fact that Druids simply exist? Well, first Green Magic had to be reined in. We decided to tune it more to the likes of Domain Spells for Clerics, with the Greenmage getting access to an expanded spell list at level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 with spells from the Druid Spell List. Spells that lore-wise would fit the Manacalon era conflict like Animal Friendship, Call Lightning, Freedom of Movement and Insect Plague. It does cull down the versatility of the Greenmage by quite a bit, but it was necessary for it to not power creep all other Wizard subclasses.

Warden of the Forest remained relatively the same, with the only change being the removal of the Natural Explorer (Forest) part since that was 100% a Ranger Feature (which also got removed in the 2024 edition, and we wanted our Revised Sourcebook to be as 2024 friendly as possible). Level 6 Entangling shot was tweaked a little by now requiring a bonus action to trigger after the hit (to avoid cheating the action economy too much), but now also added your Wizard level as extra damage to give it a little more oomph.

And while the power Leaf Scales remained unchanged, the level 14 feature changed to Infused Shot. And oh boy, where to start. Infused Shot as an idea came from the Arcane Archer prestige class in 3.5e, who from level 2 got the Imbue Arrow feature. This would allow them to cast area spells into an arrow, then shoot the arrow and have the spell trigger from where the arrow lands. Theme-wise, perfect for the Greenmage! Gameplay-wise, when you start digging into it you realize how complex it became - what happens in this case? That case?

Even though it was a huge headache, we still decided to go with it as it really felt right for the Greenmage to have that - and considering it is a level 14 feature (and for Tabletop and not the video game), we could afford to take a little more risks. Using Glyph of Warding as a baseline, we wrote a long set of rules to hopefully make sure everything was clear.

First of all and independent of all that, you would now be able to use range weapons with your INT instead of DEX at level 14 (to avoid the situation of feeling frustrated to be gated by your DEX instead of using your INT as every Wizard does). Only spells with a cast time of 1 action and not a range of self could be infused in the arrow. Spells would automatically fail if the target was invalid (like shooting a Haste arrow on an unwilling creature). So on and so forth. Honestly the list is very long, but for those of you who are curious remember that the Revised Sourcebook is being sold by Modiphius (both in physical and PDF format) so you can grab a copy if you want!

Final Verdict? The Greenmage is extremely interesting as an archetype, as it was born from a void left by another official class not existing in Solasta 1.0. Obviously if you were to take the original Greenmage and put it on Tabletop, it would make little sense - but the fact that many players loved them likely points to the lack of “multi-spellcaster mix” archetypes like the Mystic Theurge in 3.5e, who would level both arcane & divine spellcasting classes at the same time. Reworked Greenmage feels more like a Wizard-Ranger, but where Ranger is 80% martial 20% caster, Greenmage is more 90% caster and 10% martial. An unique archetype that really pulls the Wizard away from their classic staff-wielding book-reading robe-wearing elder image.

Loremaster (Crown of the Magister)

As if we were going for opposites after the Greenmage, the Loremaster’s role was to be the Wizardiest Wizard to ever wizard. Winner of the 2019 December Wizard Community Vote, this archetype took everything from their core class and offered just more of that. To be to the Wizard what the Champion is to the Fighter.

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And it did its job very well! At level 2, Keen Mind gave them advantage on Arcana, History and Investigation checks - something that we did quite a bit in Solasta, giving advantages on Skill Checks, not necessarily for the best - including the Arcana Check to scroll new spells into their spellbook. To top it off, they also reduced the time required to craft potions and scrolls by half. Nothing flashy, but that made your life as a Wizard easier.

At level 6, Spell Academic simply gave you an extra spell each time you leveled up. Granted this feature would be much better on any spellcaster that is NOT a Wizard (due to them being able to scribe more spells already), but since you’re not always guaranteed to find the spell you’re looking for out there it helped plan out your spell list with more consistency.

Arcane Lore at level 10 let you learn 2 additional cantrips and increased the maximum number of spells you could memorize, giving you more versatility by having more spells prepared than your peers. And at last, at level 14 came Arcane Professor, granting you 4 additional cantrips from ANY class, and an extra level 1, 2, 3 and 4 spell slots. More spells!

Now compared to most other subclasses we designed, the Loremaster is one of the most straightforward ones so there is fairly little to say. With its Revised Sourcebook rework, we mostly aimed at ironing out the kinks in its design. Keen Mind no longer gave advantage on some skill checks, instead giving out skill proficiencies. An additional feature called Pursuit of Knowledge was given at level 2 that grants one additional level 1 spell and cantrip from any class to the Loremaster, giving them a little more of an interesting welcome package to play with.

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Spell Academic got a little boost as well, allowing the 3rd spell each level to be a spell of any class as long as they had the ritual tag - giving them a little more identity than simply “I learn more wizard spells, which spell scribing already allows every wizard to do”. Arcane Memory also changed a little, removing the two additional cantrip (since Arcane Professor which stayed the same already gives you four more later) but instead allowing you to replace a prepared spell after each short rest on top of the rest of the feature. But wait isn’t that…? Yep, that’s 2024 Wizards’ level 5 Memorize Spell feature! Turns out many wizards out there wanted such a feature, so it’s not surprising that some ideas between our homebrew and the official 2024 D&D ended up the same.

Final Verdict? The Loremaster is as Vanilla as can be, but sometimes vanilla is just what you want. For Wizards that just want to learn more spells, memorize more spells, cast more spells and borrow a few from other classes, that’s what the Loremaster does perfectly.

Court Mage (Lost Valley)

Our final wizard archetype, and probably our… strongest one? Arguable, considering what we said about the Greenmage. But where Greenmage shines by their vast selection of spells and their tendency to “borrow” features from other classes, the Court Mage simply does one thing extremely well: protecting their VIP.

The idea of the subclass comes from the Solasta lore - in the Manacalon era Arcane Magic reigned supreme, so unsurprisingly the need of expert bodyguards specialized against magic would appear. Where Shock Arcanists make the brunt of the elite warforce, Court Mages would be more a private service for nobles and rich aristocrats. After all, in such a society, accidents tend to happen… right?

But thematic isn’t the problem with this Lost Valley subclass - it's the power level that’s a little overtuned. Starting at level 2, you get proficiency with Shields and the Protection Fighting Style. So far, nothing crazy. But then comes Spell Shield, a power that grants an ally AND you a shield with Temporary HP equal to FOUR times your level.

Just… let that sit for a moment. 4 HP per level is more or less how much a Wizard with 10 CON would have as max HP. So this power would not only almost double your own HP, but also grants that amount to another party member. Independently (your shield and their shield don’t share the HP pool). For an hour. Twice per long rest. Yeaaaaaa you can start to see how that was a tad bit too much.

So what comes after this? Counterspell Mastery at level 6 gives you advantage on your checks when casting Counterspell against level 4+ spells, and enemies have disadvantage on their Counterspell rolls against your spells. Nice, and in line with the idea of protecting your client against other mages.

At level 10 Improved Spell Shield further boosts the feature by granting advantage on all saving throws against spells and magic effects when you’re under the effect of Spell Shield. Now here’s a fun tidbit - due to how Spell Shield was coded, even at 0 HP the condition was still applied (and lasted for the full hour). So due to technical limitations, it would still work even if the Spell Shield was broken.

And finally at level 14, Expanded Spell Shield shielded an additional ally. Simple, but again mathematically that’s boosting its efficiency by a whopping +50%. Now, some of you might be wondering - wait, it also says that it extends the casting range to 60’, what’s that about? Well originally Spell Shield had a limited range (like a tether): if you got more than a certain range away from your shielded ally, the shield would disappear. This would add more limitations to this extremely powerful feature. However, it is very simple for people (especially in video games) to move a little too far, and having a twice per day power suddenly get cancelled because you mistakenly moved away felt very bad.

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This is why the range limitation was removed in the video game version of Solasta. Now, in the Sourcebook we put it back as you can remind your ally not to do that (as opposed to “whoops I clicked too far guess it’s too late” on PC), and also reduced the amount absorbed to three times your Wizard level. The duration was lowered to 10 minutes (to make it less of a fire and forget move), but the amount of uses now increases with your Proficiency Bonus - starting at two per day, but scaling up at higher levels.

Funny anecdote, we had to modify the rest of the archetype quite a bit not because the features didn’t fit or because they were too strong / too weak, but because… we noticed Court Mage was just way too similar to Abjuration Wizards. Arcane Ward vs Spell Shield granting a temporary shield. Improved Abjuration vs Counterspell Mastery granting bonuses to Counterspell. Spell Resistance vs Improved Spell Shield granting Spell Resistance.

So, Counterspell Mastery made way for Careful Protector, instead allowing the Court Mage to teleport at will to their ward by using a bonus action, and granting passive flat AC bonus to allies next to them. After all, the easiest way to take down a target is to get them away from their bodyguard, a quick stab to the guts can be harder to prevent and more unpredictable than a Fireball in a society of Wizards.

Improved Spell Shield was replaced by Shield Resonance, which instead gives you the ability to choose a damage type to resist when creating the Spell Shield. Did your boss happen to piss off a circle of famous Pyromancers? Well, Fire resistance it is then. And finally, at level 14 Expanded Spell Shield became Shield Shatter. Instead of the boring +1 shielded target, you instead get a Spell Shield that explodes when reduced to 0 HP, potentially blinding, deafening and silencing surrounding enemies and granting resistance to all damage types to the Spell Shield target for one round.

A sort of final layer of protective magic - get through the Spell Shield, get hit with a powerful flashbang that prevents you from casting most spells for a bit. And good luck bursting your target down with that damage resistance. Thinking back on it, that was probably a little overtuned again. Damnit!

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Final Verdict? The Court Mage oozes flavour and we love them - which is probably why they were given a little too much power at first. We also ran into the “lore vs gameplay” issue where going straight for our own ideas, we realized only later that it was too similar to an existing subclass. But at the end of the day, the Court Mage is now its own archetype with a well defined role and a good synergistic set of features.

The… ??? (Solasta II)

No Wizard was in the demo, so what could the Wizard archetype from Neokos be? We’ll let you guess, what do you think it will be?

Article by Tactical Myzzrym
 

Artyoan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
916
Have a handful of color variations for this and I'm a happy man. That looks great. Hoping for much more variety/options for armor and robes.

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Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
102,485
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.solasta-game.com/news/207-trades-sails-april-contest-results

Trades & Sails April Contest Results!​


Hey there folks,

We’re back with the winner of the Trades & Sails Community Contest! This article will be a short one as we’re cooking something fierce for our next news - so keep an eye out for June 10th, which will hold June’s Community Stream at 9am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6pm CEST.


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Hey guys I just rolled 12 on my Stealth Check, do you think it’s going to be enough?

Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!


And the winner is!

Without further ado, we present to you the winner of April’s Community Contest: Captain Tucker Stoutarm, aboard their ship The Sea Mermaid.

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With its shipment mostly comprised of alcoholic beverages, the Sea Mermaid will make many locals merry and slightly less productive for a period of time.

Congratulations! We will be contacting the winner shortly by mail with the rewards.

You have questions, we have answers

As you all know by now, our line of communication has always been about honesty and transparency - so when we saw questions arise after announcing the results of the previous Community Contest in March, we decided that we’d go ahead and give everyone a little more context.

The main question we want to answer today is: “Hey, how do you actually choose the winners?”. A very fair question! After all, many of you put a lot of time and effort into participating in these contests, so you might want to know a little more about the process.

How did we select the winner?

First things first! When a contest ends, we usually have a LOT of submissions to go through. Usually what will happen is that we’ll first quickly go over each of them to strike those we deem invalid - for example, referencing copyrighted material, not following the rules of the contest, being incomplete, asking for content that we wouldn’t be able to implement, etc etc…

Once those are removed, we are usually left with… a lot of entries still, which is not surprising since many of you put a lot of thoughts into your submissions (for which we are ever grateful). Now, from there we’ll have two different “types” of contests - those with long answers that are usually related to design or creative writing, and those with short answers that are usually more about names or images.

Of Quills & Ink, March Community Contest, is of the former type. In this case, we will read through every single remaining entry (that wasn’t in the first pass) and we make a rather large selection of favorites. Then a core group will step in, which usually consists of me (your community lead), our game director, our lead gameplay designer, our creative director and our writers plus sometimes others depending on the nature of the contest (for example if it’s a contest about designing a new subclass, we’ll involve our technical director as well to make sure that the subclass features are feasible). This group will make a final selection by voting to crown a winner.

Trades & Sails, April Community Contest, is of the latter type. Choosing between several hundreds / thousands ideas of ship emblems is much harder than judging someone’s creative writing or design suggestion, as we did not want to limit submissions to actual drawings (which would make it harder for non artists to participate). In this case since all the remaining submissions could be winners, the fairest way we found was simply RNG - we randomly pull a selection of twenty to thirty entries, and we vote on our favorite within that selection.

What did I do wrong?

When you put time and effort into your submission, it is understandable to feel a little down when you’re not selected. We want to reassure you that not winning does not necessarily mean that your submission was “worse” - there is no objective way to judge here, there isn’t a right or wrong answer.

Sometimes we really like an idea even though the writer’s skills may not be fantastic, because it’s original or it resonates with one of us. Sometimes something oozes flavor, but unfortunately would be too costly to implement. Sometimes it simply comes down to preferences, or the reader’s mood! That also means - if you’re worrying that you’re not good at writing or that your English is bad because you’re not a native speaker, it’s alright! Writing is a medium to convey ideas and feelings, and you don’t need to do it perfectly to do so.

Let’s be honest, we’re constantly amazed by the creativity you have shown. To the question: “Why don’t you give more specific guidelines as to what tone/topic you want to see?” the answer is that it is not the point. The goal of our contests isn’t to replace our writers by giving you clear instructions about what WE want and have you write it - it is to let you write what YOU want so that we can add it to the game.

Long story short - don’t let failure prevent you from joining future contests. And with this, we’re out!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym
 

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