KickStarter Stoneshard - open world roguelike RPG - now available on Early Access

[Wayfinder]

Here're some upcoming high-tier magic staves.

Spoiler

By the way, we're currently deciding what types of weaponry to add to the beta (sadly can't include everything at once at this point).
Already had swords, axes, maces, daggers, greatsword and bows in alpha, so now we're choosing between greataxes, greatmauls, polearms, crossbows, staves and wands. Which categories attract you the most?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

greataxes, greatmauls,

Adding these would be great.

 

[Wayfinder]

New devlog everyone!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/1598131009997039912

Devlog: Pyromancy
29 JUN @ 9:09PM - WAYFINDER

Hello!

Finally, we’ve polished our first abilities branch well enough, so this devlog will be completely devoted to the mighty fire magic – Pyromancy. Beware though: many heavy GIFs!

===================

First we’d like to tell you how the ability system has changed in general in a recent year. As you remember, the Prologue used a so-called Tier-system – all ability branches were divided into 4 tiers, with each including one active and one passive ability. By investing a single SP you could unlock both skills at once.

Before & Now

However, the feedback was mixed, so it became clear for us it wasn’t our best idea: many players wanted more flexible system of levelling. Perhaps the old system would be just great if we were making short-sessional dungeon-crawler of some sort... But we aren’t, therefore we decided to take a more traditional approach.

Thanks to this, we made trees more diverse and interesting, since we were no longer strictly limited by rigid linear progression of exactly 8 abilities. Now each Sorcery branch contains 14 abilities – 7 active and 7 passive ones. Weapon and Utility abilities branches have fewer abilities: around 8-10.

And now let us explain the design philosophy behind the abilities branches – especially magical ones. There were lots of heated arguments over the general vision, but in the end we concluded that we should aim to make all magic branches as tactically different as possible. After all, it’s very boring if every magic school uses the same pattern of 2 AoEs, 2 nukes and some occasional debuffs, or something like that. So we tried to diversify magic branches in terms of intended playstyle.

For instance, Pyromancy is all about powerful AoE-spells, dealing tremendous damage when used at the right time in right combinations. If you love killing crowds of enemies with just several skillful casts, look no further – this’s the branch for you.

So, the most interesting part – the actual abilities! Also, unbelievable truth: we managed to do just great without even a single fireball.

Spoiler

Fire Barrage

Fire Barrage is the only non-AoE pyromantic ability. It consequentially launches three firebolts at the target, each dealing some minor damage. However bolts do increased damage, if the target is already on fire – so if you’re lucky to have your target set aflame by the first bolt, the other two will deal much more damage. Or maybe you’d set the target on fire with some other spell. It’s up to you, really.

Hellbreath (aka Firewave – RIP 2018-2019)

Prologue’s not so silent workhorse, the Firewave, has been reworked. This spell still deals decent area damage, but the shape of the zone was changed. We’ve also improved it with an interesting property: each target damaged by Hellbreath reduces active cooldowns of other pyromantic spells by 1 (including Hellbreath itself). An irreplaceable spell for keeping your spell rotation always ready for action.

Flame Ring

Doomsday weapon of some sort. This spell sets all neighboring cells aflame– along with the enemies, of course. Enemies affected by Flame Ring also have their Fire Resistance significantly reduced. You need to use this spell wisely – the pyromancers aren’t fully immune to fire, so an unthoughtful cast could lock you between the raging flames and cut off all possible retreat routes.

Melting Ray

This spell releases a fiery ray into the target tile, igniting and damaging everything on its trajectory. At the end point the beam explodes –the more targets were hit during the ray phase, the more damage the explosion would cause.

Incineration

Incineration is quite an interesting spell. It allows you to extinguish the selected enemy ... and then use the released thermal energy to cause an explosion of terrible power. The longer the extinguished burning lasted, the stronger the explosion – and the higher the chance that it will set aflame all affected enemies.

Magma Rain

Fiery rain covers the chosen area, leaving a magma puddle afterwards. Each turn enemies caught in the magma take minor damage and have their Fire Resistance slowly reduced – with a chance to be set aflame.

Inferno

Finally, the apex spell of Pyromancy – a terrifying Inferno. It creates a fire storm in the large area, dealing great damage each turn – what’s even better, the more enemies are trapped within Inferno, the hotter are the flames.

===================

And, of course, some passive abilities insight:

• Feed the Flames – if the enemy’s on fire, each Fire Barrage’s bolt increases burning duration for 1 turn.
  
• Flame Saturation – restores some energy each time an enemy is set aflame within the vision range.
  
• Scorch – causes Hellbreath to debuff Fire Resistance of all damaged targets.
  
• Excess Heat – each enemy killed with Pyromancy restores some energy.
  
• Safe Distance - increases casting range of pyromantic spells by 1 tile.
  
• Baptism of Fire – taking fire damage reduces the duration of all active pyromantic cooldowns.
  
• Pyromania – increases Magic Power and Crit Chance for every burning enemy in sight (yes, casts can also become critical).

Well, that’s all for today. Can’t wait to show you the other branches and some other progress we’ve made. So stay tuned, and until the next time!

===================

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[Wayfinder]

New devlog about our health system changes:

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/inkstainsgames#announcements/detail/1599258900450359468

Devlog: Health System
20 JUL @ 4:57PM - WAYFINDER

Hello!

In this devlog we will talk about the health system changes – since the Prologue’s release, we’ve made lots of fundamental changes.

Almost from the very start, the health system was one of the main features of Stoneshard. Its main purpose isn’t about realism and difficulty for the sake of realism and difficulty, but to help you immerse in your character. It's one thing to watch your hero being a potion-consuming damage sponge, and the other – to watch your hero getting gameplay-affecting injuries, while also suffering from pain and nasty side effects. We wanted even survival outside the battle to require well-considered and thought-out decisions, since it drastically changes the general gamefeel.

In the Prologue, the injury system was almost entirely based on randomness. You took damage; the injury chance depended on its amount; after receiving a trauma there was a chance for it to worsen or stabilize. Such an approach left little of planning – you could only stock up as many consumables as possible, and hope you wouldn’t need them too often.

Since then, the health system has gone through many iterations, changing drastically during the process. Let’s start with the recently added health tab, showing all aspects of your character’s health:

Each body part now has its own health pool, decreasing upon receiving damage. If the bodypart condition falls to half or less, you will receive an injury that reduces some stats. Upon reaching 25%, this injury will turn into a wound with increased effect, and upon reaching 0% you will receive a maim with a special property. Maimed head makes it impossible to cast spells, and maimed hand means you can’t wield weapons with it anymore. Maims still can be reverted though, but it’s much harder.

Attacks now also inflict damage not only to your health pool in general, but also damage specific body parts. The damaged body parts, in turn, reduce the Health Threshold – the stat responsible for the maximum limit of your current health. Thus, a character with multiple injuries won’t be able to restore health to the maximum, even after using some healing potion – first he will have to treat all damaged body parts. Also, being low on health increases the maximum Pain Limit – so being badly battered means you’ll suffer from stronger pain as well. Because of these changes, injuries, health points and pain began to work as a coherent and consistent system.

Passive injury healing now depends on any healing your character receives, including natural regeneration. If your character has restored health to the maximum threshold, all the excess healing will be evenly distributed between all damaged body parts. This makes it possible to survive, even if you run out of medicines – for example, by huddling in a safe corner to rest and recover. Also this change Vitality builds more viable, since boosted Health Restoration and Received Healing stats allows to heal injuries much faster.

The bleeding mechanic was also reworked. First of all, it isn’t some abstract status effect caused by skills anymore – now bleeding is tied to body parts. If your injured limb takes some damage, there’s a chance it’ll start bleeding – thanks to this, bandages aren’t situational vampire dungeon consumables anymore.

Some aspects of the health system are still to be implemented (like maladies), but most part of it is already working the way we like it.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned!

=======================

By the way, we've recently created a Steam page for our development studio. Follow us so you won't miss any updates from us!

• Ink Stains Games

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[Sacibengala]

Would be great to have visual feedback to the kind of damage that affects the body part. If it was muscular or nervous or in the bone. Only a muscle or skelleton texture on the body part image would be great to have.

 

[Wayfinder]

Would be great to have visual feedback to the kind of damage that affects the body part. If it was muscular or nervous or in the bone. Only a muscle or skelleton texture on the body part image would be great to have.

This would be way too in-depth, I guess. We aren't really pursuing realism or simulation goal; instead we try to balance it between being deep enough to make survival interesting and at the same time easy to grasp. This is why we don't explain what type of injury it is (fracture, cut, burn etc.) and keep it pretty abstract.

 

[Wayfinder]

I'm not the fastest gun in the West

 

[Sacibengala]

Any plans for GOG release before the full game is out? Or We need to just wait to get the game on GOG?

 

[Wayfinder]

Any plans for GOG release before the full game is out? Or We need to just wait to get the game on GOG?

Probably not, we plan to go GOG after finishing EA phase. Supporting game on several platforms at once may be a burden for a small team like ours.

 

[Wayfinder]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/625960/announcements/detail/2874908663956827344

Devlog: Geomancy
Rocks, Runes and Explosions

Greetings everyone!

Our monthly devlog has arrived. As was promised, we present the second magic skill tree – Geomancy. In fact, the development progress over the last month was rather substantial (overall we have finished or have nearly finished a dozen of skill trees), so it doesn't all fit in a single devlog. As a result, we settled on presenting one of the more interesting skill trees.

To be frank, creating Geomancy wasn't easy. Each skill has gone through at least a couple of reworks and many of them now differ greatly from the original intent. Nevertheless, the skill tree benefited greatly as a result. As we see it, we have achieved our goal – to make an interesting and visually impressive magic school, backed up by some unique mechanics.
The main idea behind geomancy is that most spells of this school require a conductor, a runic boulder which has many uses. All in all the skill tree ended up fairly versatile: there are buffs, disables, an extremely effective single target spell and some powerful AoE effects.

===================

Runic Boulder

A foundation for the entirety of the skill tree. A caster raises a boulder from the ground, knocking back adjacent enemies and dealing some magic damage. Runic boulders don't have a cooldown, so they can be raised in a quick succession though only three can exist simultaneously.

These summoned entities have three possible functions:

• Support. Each runic boulder within your range of vision grants a single tier of Runic Empowerment to the character, increasing magic power and energy regeneration. It also reduces received damage and your cooldowns.
• Positioning. Boulders can strategically shape the battlefield, serving as obstacles wherever required. However this option should be used with care. If the boulder is destroyed, a sudden severance of the link with it will stun the caster for three entire turns.
• Magic. Boulders are used as a resource for some of the more powerful geomancy spells . However maintaining the buff or blocking an enemy can sometimes prove more strategically sound than an opportunity for direct damage. The choice is yours.

Stone Armor

This spell is useful for a variety of builds. It can serve well to a mage (to boost their limited survivability) or to help a warrior who decides to dabble in magic. In addition to greatly raising the resistances to all types of damage, Stone Armor also explodes at the end of its duration, delivering the more damage the more attacks it absorbs. A great finishing move for a large fight.

Stone armor's duration is directly linked to the tier of Runic Empowerment. Raising new boulders prolongs this spell automatically.

Petrification

A fairly effective AoE disable which has a chance to turn all enemies within its area of effect into stone for few turns. The damage dealt to petrified enemies is greatly reduced which makes Petrification more suitable for creating an opportunity to escape and catch your breath than to finish the enemy off immediately. In addition, nearby petrified enemies grant you a benefit of increasing the power of other geomancy spells.

Stone Spikes

This spell destroys a targeted runic boulder, summoning stone spikes on its adjacent tiles. Affected enemies receive decent physical damage with a chance of knockback. The spikes formed on the emptied tiles remain there for 20 turns, allowing you to block off large areas. However, you shouldn't rely on this effect too much – it doesn’t take long for a strong enemy to bash through spikes.

Earthquake

A very effective AoE debuff & disable, this spell synergises well with many other skills and even entire skill trees. It destroys a targeted boulder, creating an earthquake which slightly damages everyone within its area. Earthquake also burns energy of the affected targets each turn with a chance to stun while lowering stun and knockback resistances.

Boulder Throw

This is perhaps my personal favourite method to initiate a fight. Or to effectively end it. This spell rips a targeted boulder from the ground and launches it at the enemy, delivering significant blunt and arcane damage. The enemy has a high chance to be knocked back and stunned. The power of this spell is affected by the distance – the further the throw, the more damage the boulder inflicts.

Runic Explosion

Destroys a boulder, provoking an immensely powerful magic explosion within a large area. Surviving enemies have a high chance to be stunned and knocked backed by the resulting blast wave. Caster'll also restore some energy per each enemy killed by the explosion.

===================

Now lets get to the second part – passive abilities:

• Rune of Enfeeblement – reduces physical and stun resistances for enemies adjacent to runic boulders.
• Rune of Binding – raising a boulder slightly decreases energy cost of the skills used during the next turn.
• Rune of Absorption – reduces geomancy spells' cooldowns by 1 for each enemy hit by Stone spikes.
• Rune of Fortification – increases base duration for Stone armor, increases blunt damage delivered by stone spikes as well as improves maximum durability of runic boulders and stone spikes
• Rune of Destabilization – enemies affected by Earthquake take increased damage and have a higher fumble chance.
• Rune of Cycle – reduces geomancy spells' cooldowns for each enemy affected by Runic explosion.
• Rune of Sustention – killing an enemy restores durability of runic boulders. Also reduces energy cost for skills used during the next turn.

That's all for now. Expect news about the start of closed beta very soon. As for now, here is a gif demonstrating a certain other skill tree:

Until the next time!

===================

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[frajaq]

wow I forgot about this game but it's actually looking really sick so far

 

[Grauken]

Got 2 beta keys, but I only need one

Now it's gone

 

[Drowed]

Got 2 beta keys, but I only need one

I would kindly accept one.

 

[pakoito]

Got 2 beta keys, but I only need one

I would kindly accept one.

And me the other

 

[Grauken]

Got 2 beta keys, but I only need one

I would kindly accept one.

And me the other

Sorry mate, too slow

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

This looks fucking fantastic. I'm in, when's it coming out?

 

[Lagi]

that geomancy looks awesome, and very well though out! Look like would be very fun to play with.



Boulder idea is awesome. [could be possible to make like 3 of them to create small wall? that would be dope control spell].
if this magic school relay heavy on boulders, then to avoid visual repeatabilitym you could create 3x type of boulders xor change the rune on the boulder

[from pseudo-logic point of view] If some one have power to manipulate ground, I would said he should mostly operate with ground movement. This require less energy and provide most effect.
quicksands - enemy need to move out (slowly) of area, or will sink.
burry- immobilize (1 or AoE). till waist, till neck or completely (+suffocating). Victim could have chance to unearth.
chasm - open and devour everyone standing above. [+lvl] Could close after, with no chance to came back.


also idea for passive skill
rune of magnetism - draws targets [could affect armored with metal targets more/only] close to the boulder and prevent them from moving away.

 

[Lagi]

Seeing how interesting design is the geomancy, I'm mostly excited about Cryomancy

Some ideas:

Frost grip - melee attack (hp lost). Could do more damage against target clad in metal armor.
Frost bite - more powerful melee attack (should do permanent damage condition penalty)

Glazed frost - AoE slippery surface. Could accelerate victim in random direction or make them go prone.
Stalagmite - AoE surface with spikes coming from the ground. deal dmg.

Hail - AoE light damage over some time
Stalactite - AoE heavy damage short time. Falling from sky spikes. [take into account after playing Stoneshard, people finally 'll learn the difference between stalagmite and stalactite]

Cryostasis - Out Of Combat use, form of healing. Basically should remove negative condition from permanent injuries
Hibernation - as above plus in combat disable completely target from combat (but heal them).

Cold Wave - deal damage in arc
Winter Nova - deal damage all around PC

ice wall - 3 tile wall
ice cage - 9tile wall with empty space in middle. could be use to disable 1 target or create temporary safe space for PC

snow ball - single target is engulf in snow. Need take long time to get out of it
Avalanche - AoE targets need take time to move out of snow. It should suspend combat for a while, giving time to retreat.

hoar frost - target weapon are covered with ice - disarming
freeze - target is covered with ice (could be use on self). Very slow move, Very high armor (toughness). Could deal damage is target is clad in metal armor.

ice dagger - temporary melee weapon that shutter after hit
crystal spear - could be thrown on long distance (GoT Night King style)

breeze - AoE that hinder range combat
blizzard - AoE big wind that disable range combat (also magic one).
===

I group them in 2: weaker & more powerful. Not sure if it break your magic system concept.
I try to avoid prefix Ice, cold in names- everybody know the magic coming from low temperature.

 

[Grauken]

Game is really fun to play

 

[Wayfinder]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Seeing how interesting design is the geomancy, I'm mostly excited about Cryomancy

Some ideas:

...

Especially Lagi, some ideas are really interesting. Though UI-wise we're kinda limited with the max amount of possible abilities we're able to fit into one branch, so expanding existing skill trees is problematic.

 

[The Wall]

Wayfinder I've got couple of questions for you:

1)During Stoneshard's Kickstarter era, one of stretch goals was all about dynamic factions, their rise or fall, battle over Aldor, which would be all on their own or spearheaded by Player. Few days ago I joined your discord server and there I saw that you (?) murdered in cold blood any and all hope of this ever being added to the game no matter the number of hundreds of thousands sold copies after realese, because it would ''now involve rewriting 50% of game code''. This feature would make Stoneshard much closer to single character Battle Brothers/ roguelike-isometric Daggerfall, which is at least how I view it. How many sold copies can ressurect hope for this feature being implemented post-release?

2)I totally enjoyed what few Stoneshard BETA streams I watched (bonus: learned few new Russian curses), but what I noticed that slightly felt wrong is that when Player would hunt wildlife, once wildlife (be it fox, deer or forest whatever) would reach end of tile-map, it would hit invisible dead-end, which doesn't exist for Player who can freely traverse between maps but it seems NPCs can't. It really cheapened the feeling of ''I GOT YA!'' during hunt cause what really got poor deer was his inability to switch maps. Is this something you could/might change?

!MY FIRST PUBLIC CODEX BEG!

Dear Sirs/Ladyboys of Codex,

I, student of survival in Slavic environment, for the first time in my life, ask, if you have one spare BETA key, to spare it on poor me. Last year I halved my rations during exam period so I could donate to Realms Beyond and German prestigious arpeegism, sadly nothing was left for Russian prestigious arpeegism. I'm completely in love with idea, esthetics and mechanics of Stoneshard, which number of hours invested in Steam free demo could show but I'm embarrassed to show them (THAT BIG!). I'm ready to pay 100 solid Codex brofists and give eternal Thank You! blessing to Kind One who DMs me key

P.S. Hope I didn't sound too much like Imperial City beggar from Oblivion, *voice change* blessings of Codex upon ye!

 

[The Wall]

Codex Administratum's wicked sense of humour won't stop me from hopefully playing Stoneshard BETA, damn it!
Since you can now only suspect who stands behind posts, here's my Codex address: The Wall, Boulevard of Incline

BTW: Have few beautiful game artworks from Discord, so purpose of this post isn't only shameless begging:

 

[Lagi]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Seeing how interesting design is the geomancy, I'm mostly excited about Cryomancy

Some ideas:

...

Especially Lagi, some ideas are really interesting. Though UI-wise we're kinda limited with the max amount of possible abilities we're able to fit into one branch, so expanding existing skill trees is problematic.

Im aware about your design principles: 7 active skills + 7 passive skill & each magic with own philosophy.

Cryomancy - utility, debuff , crowd control magic, minor lethality

Proposed passive skills work as upgrade to active skills. Idea is, if player like some active ability he can improve it for spending extra Skill point. Passive make small drawback to active skill, so players have additional factor to take into consideration. I'm not a fan of passives like "you get +X for each token".

Cryomancy tech tree create 3 path:

• blue - melee + heal - it make an "ice priest"
  
• green - aggressive (that harm NPC)
• red - debuff (that disable NPC)

square is active ability
circle is passive ability ( upgrade for active)

left blue skills

Frost Grip - disarming melee attack. Single target is auto hit (no defense). Target weapon (or shield) is covered with ice, and drop to the ground. If the target dont have weapon in hands, the attack is doing minor damage (could do little more vs metal armored foes).
frozen weapon can be pickup. After single attack it deal more damage and shatter into pieces (destroy weapon). If frozen weapon is throwing it could have increase range.

I see all the gif and notice awesome animation of weapons dropping on the floor when NPC die. Add transparent blue overlay to visually mark the weapon is frozen.
fluff: Ice mage try to touch the opponent, who defend himself and his weapons get covered in ice.

Freeze (passive upgrade for Frost Grip) - generate significant chance (around 50% depend from target resistance) that target itself become frozen, instead disarming his weapon (due to ice load).
Victim is covered with ice - blue transparent GRP overlay that cover legs and torso, but not hand and head.
Freezed victim can move only 1 tile, it is very easy to hit, but has massively increased armor value.
PC can cast Frost Grip on himself (situational maybe the extra armor is worth it).
Drawback: If PC want only to disarm foe in melee combat, then extra buff to enemy armor is an big issue.

Cryostasis - active skill that remove all penalties from injuries or maims, but did not heal the HP. Also stopping poison and bleeding.

Hibernation- (passive for Cryostasis) allow to target NPC. Over short time target NPC collapse in sleep and would wake up with full hp and with no penalties.
GRP: use dead corpse animation with color filter (gray colors) on victim.
By default PC heal himself or some ally. Could be used to disable enemy, and hit him when he is helpless.
Drawback: if you Hibernate foe, and he wake up before end of combat you could just do him a favor

Glacial Shard - basic damage attack. Short-middle range, grenade like ability that target single enemy. Could lob over obstacles, to avoid Line of Fire issues.

Shattering Crystals - passive. Glacial Shard upon impact create shrapnels that hurt adjacent characters.
drawback: you dont want to use glacial shard when standing next to enemy.

green skills

Glaze Frost - create ice on surface. Each NPC on the tile are moved in random direction or falldown.
Utility spell : Could be used to create bridge over water bodies, or extinguish fire.

Stalagmite - passive Glaze Frost create spikes that damage targets (could work like mines, if someone step on them stalagmites disappear and tile dont hurt any more).
Drawback: if you plan to use the frozen tiles, you have to prepare yourself for leg Health loss.


Cold wave - late game, arch AoE, multiple target hit. With small chance for freezing targets.

Winter Nova - passive. When casting Cold Wave if you select yourself, you will cast a ring around yourself. No drawback.

red skills

Blizzard - large AoE, that last some time. Create local weather (wind+snow). Completely disables any missile (including magic one) from going into or out of the affected area.

Hail - (passive) add some damage over time into the Blizzard
drawback: if you plan to use Blizzard as shield on yourself, then its worth to consider not taking this upgrade.

Snowball - (check the grid in bottom right corner) completely bury in snow the target (HIT) and 2x nearby tiles (random 2 out of 4 "?" tiles). Victim drop all weapons (&or some random items) on nearby tiles (so its a method of stealing items from NPC). Buried in snow targets cannot be target of any skills or attacks, not can they use any skills themselves (timer effect like poison or regeneration work normally). Snow melt after some time.

Avalanche - passive affect 3x3 area (HIT) plus some from random two side. Victim drop weapons, but they cannot be pick up, until snow melt.

fake UI

 

[Lagi]

passive abilities

insight:

• Feed the Flames – if the enemy’s on fire, each Fire Barrage’s bolt increases burning duration for 1 turn.
  
• Flame Saturation – restores some energy each time an enemy is set aflame within the vision range.
  
• Scorch – causes Hellbreath to debuff Fire Resistance of all damaged targets.
  
• Excess Heat – each enemy killed with Pyromancy restores some energy. [this double Flame Saturation effect]
  
• Safe Distance - increases casting range of pyromantic spells by 1 tile.
  
• Baptism of Fire – taking fire damage reduces the duration of all active pyromantic cooldowns.
  
• Pyromania – increases Magic Power and Crit Chance for every burning enemy in sight (yes, casts can also become critical).

Pyromancy tech tree could look like that:

active is square
passive is ellipse

above Tree create 3x tiers of abilities: Early 3 (skill), Mid (3skill) ,Late (1 ultimate skill - Inferno)

change name of Fire Barrage into Fire Blaze - not upgraded Fire Blaze launch 2 bolts. Name "barrage" fit to passive upgrade more then.
If first skill launch 2x projectile, then upgrade with +1 (to 3 total) would be more visible & feel-able taking into account extra benefit of already burning target.

• there is nice early choice - melee (ring) or short range (breath)
• all 3 early passive are beneficial for each skill. Ring and breath have use from +energy, longer burning or reduce FireRes.
• from 3 early passive, scorch is not obligatory for progress, because Reduce Fire Res looks strongest (PC can always restore energy from supplies, to benefit from longer burn you need first ignite the target).

Incineration before Melting Ray - feels like more general spell for fire mage, than Melting Ray. Gameplay wise, setting enemy in line to maximize benefit from ray is more tricky (more advance) than just pick burning target.

Baptism of Fire - having Magma Rain before, PC can create a nice hot pond, and take a bath in it. Removing penalties will open new nice application - feels right with the name, a "cleansing".

passive abilities could be:

• Fire Barrage – increases amount of Fire Blaze’s bolt by 1 (from 2 to 3).
  
• Flame Saturation – restores some energy each time an enemy is set aflame within the vision range.
  
• Scorch – each Pyromantic abilities debuff Fire Resistance of all damaged targets.
  
• Feed the Flames – increases burning duration of enemy’s on fire for 1 turn.
  
• Rapid Oxidation [pseudo-science name fit more, than "Safe distance" - doesnt sound dangerous]- increases casting range of pyromantic spells by 1 tile.
  
• Baptism of Fire – taking fire damage reduces the duration of all active pyromantic cooldowns & remove penalties (wound, stun..).
  
• Pyromania – increases Magic Power and Crit Chance for every burning enemy in sight.

 

[ItsChon]

I tried the prologue almost a year ago and it was great, I'm excited to see that this project has come so far since then. Keep up the good work!