Dragonborn were also in Neverwinter as part of their Tyranny of Dragons DLC module. Other than that there's also Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation with a playable Saurial character (which is a far more interesting race than scaly Fus-Roh-Dah's ).
But yeah. Still utterly disappointed that half-orcs aren't in. And probably won't be unless Solasta will allow slacker backer pledges via paypal to count towards stretchgoals as well. Pathfinder: Kingmaker did this for instance.
Spells that allow you to shapeshift into dragons are amazing. Play as an half dragon in 3.5e was unbalaced as hell, but a lot of people liked. My unique critique was that the race origin is too boring. Should be something more nasty, like a evil vampire warlock/sorcerer/wziard doing experiments with draconic blood during spellplague to try to regain his powers and creating this race as an accident.
The Dragonborn lore is too generic and looks like an bad excuse to allow an easy to ballance "PC Dragon".
edit : is Tales from Candlekeep a good adaptation??
edit : is Tales from Candlekeep a good adaptation??
TfC:ToA is a rather faithful adaption of D&D's Adventure System board game of the same name. I'm particularly fond of the setting (Chult) and it being the only videogame where you can either play as Saurial, Aaracokra or Tabaxi. Don't really care for the human one though. But this sadly means that you won't be able to create your own character in this game.
The downside for me at least is that it's turn-based and has colored equipment names, depending on their rarity. Which is a bit odd in a singleplayer game like this. Oh, and don't bother with the various microtransaction/DLC Packs: they are basically paid cheat codes.
I've wondered about TfC. From looking at YT videos it seems like it is essentially a combat tactics game and not an RPG. For example, no character development outside of combat abilities. Is this correct?
Yup, sounds about right. It's really not a game for everyone. Especially since things like party banters are pretty much nonexistent. The main compounds are exploration, fighting and crafting. And the plot is as railroaded as possible, given the nature of the board game its based on.
I an satisfied with SORCERER. I mean, i would rather have Warlock due the fact that i already said(invocations like repelling blast with verticality and an class not present in many games), but an sorcerer with draconic bloodline will be amazing. Unfortunately looks like the level cap is 10, so no Dragon Wings. The best feature of draconic sorcerers IMO...
The first game since an long that explores verticality and looks like the coolest 5e abilities to explore an true 3D world aren't available...
You´ve got a lot of offensive spells and features, including martial proficiency, but you do not have heavy armor proficiency (That´s for the Life domain)
Heavy armor in 5e is not that good anyway unless you want to dump DEX entirely IMHO.
You´ve got a lot of offensive spells and features, including martial proficiency, but you do not have heavy armor proficiency (That´s for the Life domain)
Heavy armor in 5e is not that good anyway unless you want to dump DEX entirely IMHO.
If they wanna add homebrew classes(assuming that then can legally), i wanna see the anime swordsman ( https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/39530-anime-swordsman ) hu3hu3hu3hu3, just kidding. Their idea was amazing. Not only they get balancing feedback but they also get publicity.
I just tried the demo and it was absolutely terrible.
It's a shame, I liked the battle system and the interface well enough. But everything outside of that, navigation, level design, its awful and its because of their ambition to make every map some kind of vertical maze for human sized lab rats. You don't know what you're clicking on, elevation and character tracking is a mess, and I am sure some people will say "but its an alpha demo". Sometimes that is the issue, but I think the concept is the problem here because I can't really think of any way to make it work. Its just a bad idea and hasn't been done this way for a reason before.
Ya I picked it up since it was slightly discounted and half the price of BG3.
Played it slightly not that far into however.
I liked the character creation and hope they expand on it to include more classes, races and backgrounds but options are there to keep one occupied.
I liked how they gave options for the skills allotment with rolling, point buy and standard array all available.
The player creates their entire party of 4 characters so I went with a halfling paladin, dwarven cleric, elven wizard and half-elf ranger /w the low life background to cover rogue skills.
The tutorial was presented nicely with each character telling a story of how they made it to the inn with little short missions covering the basics.
The combat is actually well done and easy to follow even for those who aren’t familiar with 5e D&D. The 2 fights I did were brisk and not drawn out and were easy to follow. I didn’t mind the turn base system here because it was turn base and not ‘point base.’ You did your three actions (move, standard and quick) and then moved on.
I like the vertically of the maps, and the cover system. A player can still approach combat in a tactical manner, but, so far from what I’ve seen, the places where combat takes place blends nicely in with the rest of the map. Nothing screams ‘combat happens in this area,’ except maybe the roving monsters. One slight annoyance was putting a monster to sleep up on a cliff and then it taking 3 turns to reach the snoozing beast but it is what it is and I couldn’t think of a way that the game could speed that up.
Cutscene Graphics are on par with NWN2 which I don’t mind but the Voice Acting and writing (so far) are below par IMO.
I haven’t come across the main story yet being on the first mission still but there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to it. It was nice that my characters aren’t anything special and are just level 2 grunts.
Being early access, I did come across a bug in combat where my cleric put himself to sleep so he couldn’t finish his turn and there was no way to back out of it so I had a to reload. Some missing text and features as well but nothing drastic.
So far, I am not disappointed with the purchase and think it’s worth the $40 Canadian I paid for it. Should be a suitable game to hold me over till BG3 gets discounted to that price.
I may post more thoughts this weekend when I have more time to play it.
I've got it, obviously, as a backer. But per my standing rule of not playing an EA game, I won't be playing it anytime soon.
But going by gameplay videos and streams, yes for a TB combat game this game actually has combat I can at least work with and not find it utterly intolerable. So much better than BG3 combat and don't understand why this is the case.
So here's character creation rundown with screenshots.
The player first chooses a race (or ancestry) and a gender. 5 races (Dwarf, Elf, Half-elf, Human and Halfling) with sub-races for halflings, dwarves and elves. It wasn't obvious to me at first, but to change the subrace, the player has to click on the arrows on the ancestry portrait. When the player selects a race, the features are listed on the right hand side. Gender can be changed here as well with the small button under the features.
The six classes available at the moment are Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger and Wizard, with 3 arch types each (except for Clerics who have 9 domains to choose from at level 1) unlocked at level 3. Once again, the game breaks down each class neatly on the right hand side, with the ability to change ones starting equipment as well. Paladins and Clerics also select their deity at level 1. There are only four to choose from however and none are evil aligned. Hopefully they will add more in soon - I like god options.
Next the player chooses one of 8 backgrounds (Academic, Aristocrat, Low Life, Sell Sword, Acolyte, Lawkeeper, Philosopher and Spy) and their alignment. The background gives bonus proficiencies, equipment and languages as well as personality flags. These flags allegedly change some of the voiced dialog and how the characters act during cut scenes, however I personally haven't fully tested it yet. It will be a neat gimmick if they can pull it off however. Like everything else so far, I wouldn't mind more of a selection than what is presented here.
Ability allotment is next and surprisingly where it is most flexible. There is the Standard Array (which I use) of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8; a point buy system that prevents min maxing (you can't decrease an ability score below 8 and you can not raise a stat above 15) unless the player turns on Free Edit which allows them to put 18 in every stat or, standard die roll which can be generous and may feel less of a cheat than the free edit. Note though that one cannot change the die roll totals. The 6 numbers that are rolled are the six numbers that the player has to keep; good with the bad. The Free Edit does have its purpose however if a player wants to bring one of their tabletop characters into the game they don't have to fiddle with point buys or attempt to roll their exact stats.
Once the stats are allocated, the player chooses their proficiencies. Any proficiencies given during any of the previous selections will already be chosen. Languages are also chosen here and with 10 all together, it is quite easy to have all of them chosen by your 4 companions as long as they're of different races.
After that, its spell selection for Clerics and Wizards (pretty standard stuff really) and then character customization which is a bit lacking, but once again, EA, hopefully they add more options later.
Sorcerer will be added to the game as a free DLC after the launch of the game. This is already confirmed. TA have said adding more classes and races is the most likely DLC path for the game.
Indeed, there are some homebrew subclasses that changed drastically how you play a character, like the "Green warrior" for wizards that basically turns your wizard into a pseudo-druid. I think that´s a fine way of making subclasses.
What I find interesting is that in the game are some roleplay details and mechanics that they use in the game: Like following tracks if you have the skill (actual tracks with info appear in the world), the crafting system or how factions react to your backgrounds. Also, the personality tags really change your dialogues. Gives some "Storm of zehir" and "IWD2" vibes I find appealing.
Indeed, there are some homebrew subclasses that changed drastically how you play a character, like the "Green warrior" for wizards that basically turns your wizard into a pseudo-druid. I think that´s a fine way of making subclasses.
What I find interesting is that in the game are some roleplay details and mechanics that they use in the game: Like following tracks if you have the skill (actual tracks with info appear in the world), the crafting system or how factions react to your backgrounds. Also, the personality tags really change your dialogues. Gives some "Storm of zehir" and "IWD2" vibes I find appealing.
Ya even though I find the writing a bit jarring, the personality traits are an amazing and refreshing take on how dialog is handled.
That and the decluttered UI are the best things about this game so far.
And the factions mechanics. The game is more a dungeon crawler than a story-driven game as someone already said in this thread, IMHO; but it has interesting mechanics that make the game a Role-playing game not only in name.
I am enjoying that all your party members could participate in the dialogues and stuff, with a different approach or using his skills and interjections (at least the ones in my party. I already chose them with different tags, background and races) in a way similar that was made in NWN2 Storm of Zehir.
Having fun with it so far as well and it is different in a lot of ways. it's been pretty smooth on the PC side as well were as BG3 has locked my rig up twice.
After a while playing I have to say I am enjoying a lot the "camping and travelling" mechanics of this game. They allow you to do several things and the messages of encounters while playing are fun.
Not as well-made as the camping mechanics of PF:K but very close and superior in some aspects. And at least in this game you do not have time restrictions so you can take your time exploring the countryside.
Comments
Spells that allow you to shapeshift into dragons are amazing. Play as an half dragon in 3.5e was unbalaced as hell, but a lot of people liked. My unique critique was that the race origin is too boring. Should be something more nasty, like a evil vampire warlock/sorcerer/wziard doing experiments with draconic blood during spellplague to try to regain his powers and creating this race as an accident.
The Dragonborn lore is too generic and looks like an bad excuse to allow an easy to ballance "PC Dragon".
edit : is Tales from Candlekeep a good adaptation??
The downside for me at least is that it's turn-based and has colored equipment names, depending on their rarity. Which is a bit odd in a singleplayer game like this. Oh, and don't bother with the various microtransaction/DLC Packs: they are basically paid cheat codes.
The first game since an long that explores verticality and looks like the coolest 5e abilities to explore an true 3D world aren't available...
The first one is https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/281440-battle-domain-solasta
(Myzz is one of the devs and a habitual in the Solasta Discord)
You´ve got a lot of offensive spells and features, including martial proficiency, but you do not have heavy armor proficiency (That´s for the Life domain)
Heavy armor in 5e is not that good anyway unless you want to dump DEX entirely IMHO.
If they wanna add homebrew classes(assuming that then can legally), i wanna see the anime swordsman ( https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/39530-anime-swordsman ) hu3hu3hu3hu3, just kidding. Their idea was amazing. Not only they get balancing feedback but they also get publicity.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/284446-darkweaver-solasta
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/284445-mountaineer-solasta
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/284490-shock-arcanist-solasta
Improved a lot IMO
Trailer.
It's a shame, I liked the battle system and the interface well enough. But everything outside of that, navigation, level design, its awful and its because of their ambition to make every map some kind of vertical maze for human sized lab rats. You don't know what you're clicking on, elevation and character tracking is a mess, and I am sure some people will say "but its an alpha demo". Sometimes that is the issue, but I think the concept is the problem here because I can't really think of any way to make it work. Its just a bad idea and hasn't been done this way for a reason before.
Ya I picked it up since it was slightly discounted and half the price of BG3.
Played it slightly not that far into however.
I liked the character creation and hope they expand on it to include more classes, races and backgrounds but options are there to keep one occupied.
I liked how they gave options for the skills allotment with rolling, point buy and standard array all available.
The player creates their entire party of 4 characters so I went with a halfling paladin, dwarven cleric, elven wizard and half-elf ranger /w the low life background to cover rogue skills.
The tutorial was presented nicely with each character telling a story of how they made it to the inn with little short missions covering the basics.
The combat is actually well done and easy to follow even for those who aren’t familiar with 5e D&D. The 2 fights I did were brisk and not drawn out and were easy to follow. I didn’t mind the turn base system here because it was turn base and not ‘point base.’ You did your three actions (move, standard and quick) and then moved on.
I like the vertically of the maps, and the cover system. A player can still approach combat in a tactical manner, but, so far from what I’ve seen, the places where combat takes place blends nicely in with the rest of the map. Nothing screams ‘combat happens in this area,’ except maybe the roving monsters. One slight annoyance was putting a monster to sleep up on a cliff and then it taking 3 turns to reach the snoozing beast but it is what it is and I couldn’t think of a way that the game could speed that up.
Cutscene Graphics are on par with NWN2 which I don’t mind but the Voice Acting and writing (so far) are below par IMO.
I haven’t come across the main story yet being on the first mission still but there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to it. It was nice that my characters aren’t anything special and are just level 2 grunts.
Being early access, I did come across a bug in combat where my cleric put himself to sleep so he couldn’t finish his turn and there was no way to back out of it so I had a to reload. Some missing text and features as well but nothing drastic.
So far, I am not disappointed with the purchase and think it’s worth the $40 Canadian I paid for it. Should be a suitable game to hold me over till BG3 gets discounted to that price.
I may post more thoughts this weekend when I have more time to play it.
But going by gameplay videos and streams, yes for a TB combat game this game actually has combat I can at least work with and not find it utterly intolerable. So much better than BG3 combat and don't understand why this is the case.
The player first chooses a race (or ancestry) and a gender. 5 races (Dwarf, Elf, Half-elf, Human and Halfling) with sub-races for halflings, dwarves and elves. It wasn't obvious to me at first, but to change the subrace, the player has to click on the arrows on the ancestry portrait. When the player selects a race, the features are listed on the right hand side. Gender can be changed here as well with the small button under the features.
The six classes available at the moment are Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger and Wizard, with 3 arch types each (except for Clerics who have 9 domains to choose from at level 1) unlocked at level 3. Once again, the game breaks down each class neatly on the right hand side, with the ability to change ones starting equipment as well. Paladins and Clerics also select their deity at level 1. There are only four to choose from however and none are evil aligned. Hopefully they will add more in soon - I like god options.
Next the player chooses one of 8 backgrounds (Academic, Aristocrat, Low Life, Sell Sword, Acolyte, Lawkeeper, Philosopher and Spy) and their alignment. The background gives bonus proficiencies, equipment and languages as well as personality flags. These flags allegedly change some of the voiced dialog and how the characters act during cut scenes, however I personally haven't fully tested it yet. It will be a neat gimmick if they can pull it off however. Like everything else so far, I wouldn't mind more of a selection than what is presented here.
Ability allotment is next and surprisingly where it is most flexible. There is the Standard Array (which I use) of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8; a point buy system that prevents min maxing (you can't decrease an ability score below 8 and you can not raise a stat above 15) unless the player turns on Free Edit which allows them to put 18 in every stat or, standard die roll which can be generous and may feel less of a cheat than the free edit. Note though that one cannot change the die roll totals. The 6 numbers that are rolled are the six numbers that the player has to keep; good with the bad. The Free Edit does have its purpose however if a player wants to bring one of their tabletop characters into the game they don't have to fiddle with point buys or attempt to roll their exact stats.
Once the stats are allocated, the player chooses their proficiencies. Any proficiencies given during any of the previous selections will already be chosen. Languages are also chosen here and with 10 all together, it is quite easy to have all of them chosen by your 4 companions as long as they're of different races.
After that, its spell selection for Clerics and Wizards (pretty standard stuff really) and then character customization which is a bit lacking, but once again, EA, hopefully they add more options later.
What I find interesting is that in the game are some roleplay details and mechanics that they use in the game: Like following tracks if you have the skill (actual tracks with info appear in the world), the crafting system or how factions react to your backgrounds. Also, the personality tags really change your dialogues. Gives some "Storm of zehir" and "IWD2" vibes I find appealing.
Ya even though I find the writing a bit jarring, the personality traits are an amazing and refreshing take on how dialog is handled.
That and the decluttered UI are the best things about this game so far.
I am enjoying that all your party members could participate in the dialogues and stuff, with a different approach or using his skills and interjections (at least the ones in my party. I already chose them with different tags, background and races) in a way similar that was made in NWN2 Storm of Zehir.
Not in the EA at least.
But I will say. An big con for this game is ... Puzzles
# of people working on Solasta = 17
Not as well-made as the camping mechanics of PF:K but very close and superior in some aspects. And at least in this game you do not have time restrictions so you can take your time exploring the countryside.