Red Hand of Doom [Demo v0.5 (27-Dec-2014)]

[bgillisp]

Another reason to add that resolution: Some of us don't like the higher resolutions as text tends to be too small to read then. So I would say definitely add in the option to switch to lower resolutions, as it will broaden the audience of the game.

 

[Nirwanda]

Well, despite the inconveniences and because I'm a total nerd for this type of game, I played it for a long while. BTW, you can access the rest of the screen by simply moving the window around...it's not as cumbersome as it sounds since most of the useful stuff is on the left/center side of the screen.

First, I'd like to say that I loved it, it plays as good as it looks and it was quite a generous demo, both in length difficulty and loot. IMHO, you should promote this game, post it in other sites...the whole deal. I believe more people should hear about it.

Anyway, here's my feedback on the bugs/ oddities I ran into while playing the game (keep in mind I'm more familiar with 3rd edition rules, so I might be pointing out something as a mistake when it really isn't):

Spoiler

>>Oddities

-Why of all the unique races did you chose Aasimar specifically.

-The choice of backgrounds was a little lackluster. Will you include more in the finished game or that's all?

-If you have more than one enemy near you when they incur into an attack of opportunity you can target any of them.

-Unconcious characters don't win exp. Is this intentional?

-You always start combat flatfooted, since you can never initiate it.

-Do sneak attacks only work when hidden? That's a very big nerf for rogues.

-Nitpick: Shouldn't the flaming weapon status be attached to the weapon, not characters. (though that's likely a coding limitation)

-The crypt took quite a bit of time to load, I guess it's because it's pretty big.

-Extra range weapons lets me trip enemies from only one tile away, despite attacks of oportunity triggering from two spaces away with it. Pretty annoying.

-I think I backstabbed the skeletons/zombies. Also, on a more nitpicky note, they're extremely wimpy in damage, BAB, and HP.

- Is there a fatigue system? My guys kept saying how tired they were, though there was no other indication of it.

-Where are my hamstrings, poison weapons and expertises? Hehe, I just miss those feats, are they absent from 3.5, or did you just choose not to use them?

-The game doesn't remember unused skill points, so i can't save them up for cross-class skils.

>>Impressions (Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about - if it is possible or not- also, these are only opinion/nitpicks, so feel free to ignore them)

-The way to select feats/spells one by one is a little annoying. Well, it's extra annoying for me because of my 1024X768 screen, but it's still kind of odd.

-When learning spells:
1- Maybe we should get a popup with the spell's name when mousing over them, so we don't have to click them one by one, to know which one is which.

2- Where is the spell's duration?

-Once you have learned spells, you should be able to see which school they belong to in the status screen. I'm saying this because I forgot which school each spell was, so I was not sure which Spell focus to pick on a later level up.

-Text It goes by really slowly, I had to repeat the random tutorial knights' intro because I lost against the goblins and hadn't saved, and it seemed to take forever to appear on screen. I'm exaggerating, but you knwo what I mean, there are some long pauses between each line.

-Is it impossible to make it so you can sell multiple copies of a weapon at once instead of having to select them one by one?

-When you load any save game your autosave gets automatically ovewritten, that's not always good. I like to think of the Autosave as a backup in case I mess stuff up, but with it saving all the time it felt kind of useless. Could it be possible to have some player customization to chose how often it autosaves?

-It would be cool to be able to see enemy's movement range when mousing over them.

-Nitpick: When switching lead characters, the party order got modified in menus, walking order and the save screen, but not on the on-screen hud.

-A remaining sp counter on the spell casting menu would help.

-Could it be possible to target friendly magic by clicking on party members portraits? As in, I want to heal my rogue, so I click on his portrait after selecting the spell instead of manually clicking on him.
-Is it impossible to have the popups for a target's name/hp/sp to appear over them when using a spell in battle?Since everything is so little, I'm always afraid I might confuse one guy for another.

>>Errors
-Typo: "stenght" on attack rolls tutorial.

-I picked Spell focus: Conjuration for my sorcerer, and went to the next screen, then changed my mind. Upon hitting the return button, I could choose both regular Focus and Greater focus for conjuration.

>>Bugs
-In the spell learning screen, clicking on some of the level 1 spells (as a sorcerer) causes a CTD.

-Clicking on an empty inventory slot in the shop menu triggers an error.

- I gave my cleric the nature domain, when I tried to learn barkskin, it CTDed.

- Ran into a bug when attempting a melee attack with my sorcerer. (Maybe because of his negative BAB?)

-The game bugged on me again when I tried to trip one of the shadows with my rogue using a non-magical weapon. BTW, I understand why I need a magical weapon to damage them...but why do I need one to trip them too? (Didn't take a screenshot, sorry)

-Right clicking on the save screen caused a graphical bug.

I reached the battle with the rogues, but ran into a couple of game crashing bugs with their mages. First, they tried to use an attack of opportunity, in a second attempt I tried to trip them: the game crashed both times. (Sorry, I didn't take pictures of either)

I was too lazy to try that long battle a third time, maybe later. If it helps, I'll attach the error log from my game, the bugs happened in the exact order I mentioned them, though I intentionally repeated the two first ones in order to screenshoot them.

 

[Kaelan]

Thanks for all the feedback! I'm actually surprised you managed to get through the game with parts cutoff like that. For promotion, this is still a super early build (everything in the demo is basically just the tutorial area with monsters giving way more XP than normal so you can actually get enough levels to play around with the combat mechanics - the main story hasn't even started yet), so I wanted to make sure I had any major bugs or issues out of the way first.

Once the issues you mentioned get fixed, I have a more stable build and I'm working on the main parts of the game, I'll be promoting it more. Thanks for the vote of confidence though, I definitely appreciate it.

Some comments:

Spoiler

Why of all the unique races did you chose Aasimar specifically?

No particular reason, other than having 8 races with different bonuses. I have a list of several other races I want to add in, but I didn't want to add too much content too fast. I've also had people less familiar with D&D test-play the game and tell me they were a bit overwhelmed by the amount of options, so I didn't want to complicate things too much just yet. There will be more coming later on.

The choice of backgrounds was a little lackluster. Will you include more in the finished game or that's all?

I don't want to have too much stuff on backgrounds as they're supposed to be a minor tweak to your character to support your playstyle or mitigate a weakness, rather than be a large bonus. If you have anything specific you'd like to see though, feel free to make suggestions.

Unconcious characters don't win exp. Is this intentional?

You always start combat flatfooted, since you can never initiate it.

Those are both intentional. There is actually one fight early on you can get a scripted surprise attack in and your party always acts first, but for the most part, everyone starts out flatfooted. There will be more of these throughout the game, usually based on making some conversation or story choice. If you start an encounter normally, everyone is always flatfooted.

Do sneak attacks only work when hidden? That's a very big nerf for rogues.

They should work whenever you have flanking or the opponent has some effect preventing a DEX to AC bonus. Did you run into situations where it should have worked and didn't?

Nitpick: Shouldn't the flaming weapon status be attached to the weapon, not characters. (though that's likely a coding limitation)

Technically yes, that, magic weapon, bladeweave, and all the rest. It would only be relevant if you were dual-wielding though (or if you switch weapon, I guess), and I felt it was kind of tedious to force people to cast it twice. I think it's easier to just make it apply to any weapon. Same reasoning for why weapon focus doesn't require you to pick a weapon. The benefit of it always applying isn't that huge or a game changer, it's mostly just removing tediousness from the game.

The crypt took quite a bit of time to load, I guess it's because it's pretty big.

Yeah, I was using it as a benchmark for large maps. I didn't know whether or not I could support them, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Frame rate also goes down in larger maps, though I think I managed to do a decent job of hiding that. I'll probably keep maps that big to a minimum in the future, but it's nice to know the loading times are more or less the only real problem.

Extra range weapons lets me trip enemies from only one tile away, despite attacks of oportunity triggering from two spaces away with it. Pretty annoying.

That's on my list of stuff to fix, I noticed it too a couple hours after I submitted the game.

I think I backstabbed the skeletons/zombies. Also, on a more nitpicky note, they're extremely wimpy in damage, BAB, and HP.

Backstabbing undead is intentional, I mostly got rid of racial sneak attack / crit immunity, I kinda hate that mechanic. There's still some ways to be immune to it, but it's far rarer than normal D&D (mostly things that are either temporary or can be dispelled). Glad to hear about the stats, I thought I might be going too easy, but I wasn't sure. I didn't want the first enemies with DR to also be super dangerous (the ghosts initially could cast Bestow Curse, but that felt a little too strong that early in the game, haha). If more people find them easy, I might buff them up a bit.

Is there a fatigue system? My guys kept saying how tired they were, though there was no other indication of it.

Nah, PCs just have a variety of quotes based on how they end each battle. The ones you heard are probably the quotes for ending battle low on HP.

Where are my hamstrings, poison weapons and expertises? Hehe, I just miss those feats, are they absent from 3.5, or did you just choose not to use them?

Which feats are you referring to? I don't think I'm familiar with those (the only Expertise I know of is Combat Expertise, which I assume isn't what you're talking about).

Poisoning isn't in the game yet because I'm planning an overhaul of item properties sometime in the future. It will be more important once crafting comes along. There's actually like half a dozen different poisons in the actual status effects code, but no way of using most of them right now

The game doesn't remember unused skill points, so i can't save them up for cross-class skils.

Yeah, that's another one of those small things I never ended up having time to do. It's been on my to-do list forever, but just didn't make the cut for the demo. It'll be in a later build.

When learning spells:

1- Maybe we should get a popup with the spell's name when mousing over them, so we don't have to click them one by one, to know which one is which.

2- Where is the spell's duration?

Once you have learned spells, you should be able to see which school they belong to in the status screen. I'm saying this because I forgot which school each spell was, so I was not sure which Spell focus to pick on a later level up.

Ohh, you're right, I did forget to put the spell's duration there. I added it to the tooltips but never added it to the level up screen. The first thing you mentioned probably never occurred to me because I already know what every spell is. I could add a tooltip label to them if that makes things easier. Same with the spell school, I can probably fit it in the tooltip somewhere.

Is it impossible to make it so you can sell multiple copies of a weapon at once instead of having to select them one by one?

I'm not quite sure how I'd do that, since each copy can actually have different properties and I don't want you selling the wrong one by accident. You can right click to quick-sell things without opening the confirmation window, though.

When you load any save game your autosave gets automatically ovewritten, that's not always good. I like to think of the Autosave as a backup in case I mess stuff up, but with it saving all the time it felt kind of useless. Could it be possible to have some player customization to chose how often it autosaves?

You can choose when the game auto-saves in the options menu. By default it saves on map transition, after winning an encounter and whenever you rest. You can turn all of those off, if you want.

It should never get overwritten when you load a game though. I've never had that happen to me. Do you remember what the specific situation was? (eg. you just won a battle, you just changed map, etc.).

Nitpick: When switching lead characters, the party order got modified in menus, walking order and the save screen, but not on the on-screen hud.

That's intentional, so it's easier to keep track of who's who when looking at / clicking on portraits. I find it useful when I'm looking for how much SP or HP someone has and I don't remember the party order (i.e. I can know "the healer is always the third guy", regardless of the actual walking order).

Is it impossible to have the popups for a target's name/hp/sp to appear over them when using a spell in battle?Since everything is so little, I'm always afraid I might confuse one guy for another.

Originally I didn't have damage previews for spells because the logic for them is a bit complicated and I didn't have any way of previewing damage or spell effects without actually casting the spell. I added that very recently to show them on tooltips though, so I'm sure I could add a spell preview window, similar to the one you get when targeting things with melee attacks.

The game bugged on me again when I tried to trip one of the shadows with my rogue using a non-magical weapon. BTW, I understand why I need a magical weapon to damage them...but why do I need one to trip them too?

The crash is a bug, but the 0% is correct. Ghosts and shadows have the incorporeal subtype, which makes them immune to all forms of trip / knockdown (in addition to all the things undead are immune to)

I'll look into the bug reports. And thanks for including the error log, that will save me some time trying to figure out what happened.

 

[Nirwanda]

Thanks for the extremely complete reply.

And here's a new and kinda messy report/response.

Spoiler

If you have anything specific you'd like to see though, feel free to make suggestions. (Backgrounds)

Not anything specific per se, it just felt like picking them was an afterthought. None of them were very interesting. Then again, when I read the word background, I imagined something complex and interesting like in Arcanum. I'm not saying that they should be more powerful, just more varied and maybe more prone to sinergyzing with a creatively generated character. A silly and basic example would be a background giving BAB a bonus in exchange for a damage penalty.

They should work whenever you have flanking and whenever the opponent has some effect preventing a DEX to AC bonus. Did you run into situations where it should have worked and didn't?

I'm not a D&D expert: all of my knowledge, comes from games based on the franchise, so I'm not exactly sure what would prevent a dex bonus, though I certainly flanked my enemies a few times. I thought that I just couldn't sneak attack, so I didn't try again.

it's nice to know the loading times are more or less the only real problem.

Actually I experienced a small slowdown when I entered the caves and a bigger one once the door to the final chamber opened. Though my computer is quite old, so you probably shouldn't put much stock into it.

That's on my list of stuff to fix, I noticed it too a couple hours after I submitted the game.(On tripping with extra range weapons)

Actually it seems only some of them are limited as the Meteor hammer allowed me to trip from two spaces away.

I didn't want the first enemies with DR to also be super dangerous. If more people find them easy, I might buff them up a bit.

Well, the whole crypt was really easy compared to that giant (or was it ogre?) on the other cave.

Which feats are you referring to? I don't think I'm familiar with those (the only Expertise I know of is Combat Expertise, which I assume isn't what you're talking about).

Hamstring was one of several pretty cool rogue-only feats featured on Icewind Dale 2.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/necromancers-of-the-northwest/combat-feats---3rd-party---necromancers-of-the-northwest/hamstring-combat

Another cool one was arterial strike

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Arterial_Strike_%28D20_Modern_Feat%29

Also, I did meant combat expertise, I was having bad luck with my cleric so I thought about incresing her survibability with it, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It should never get overwritten when you load a game though. I've never had that happen to me. Do you remember what the specific situation was? (eg. you just won a battle, you just changed map, etc.).

Uhh.. sorry, I'm not sure, but I think it happened when I was on the rogue battle bug-athon.

I'm sure I could add a spell preview window, similar to the one you get when targeting things with melee attacks.

That would be great, though I simply meant to ask for a name/hp window when mousing over targets to a spell so I don't confuse them and hit with a flame arrow the guy who had only 1HP left.

Finished the demo, here's the rest of the feedback:

-I forgot to mention that autosave uses the image of the previous area you where in, instead of the one it's actually saving on.

-I had both hedge wizards confused, but one was still casting spells, he triggered an attack of opportunity and I used it to attack him, causing an unscreenshoted CTD.

- The game crashed to desktop when a confused barbarian tried to move.

-I opened the menu while a spell was casting, when I closed it the screen remained dark until I moved to a different area.

-Despite being slowed, my warrior could still move after attacking (Obviously, she had 0 AP).

-Despite there being rain sfx there doesn't appear to be a rain graphic. Unless i'm not seeing it because of the low resolution.

-I tripped the bandit leader when he was walking amongst my guys (and had avoided by tumble a few) yet, despite the "prone" text appearing, he continued walking one extra tile and didn't fall.

-More tripping stuff: the two hedge wizards casted spells in range of my cleric, but only one of them triggered an attack of opportunity (is that how the rules go?) and despite the fact that I succesfully tripped him, the spell still went off. Also, he never got up, maybe because he was confused.

-The batlle with rogues crashed several unreported times, before I finally won it.

-After resting my cleric healed all but the extra hitpoints her con+2 boots granted her.

-The first time I entered the hobgoblin camp there was no introductory cutscene, I reloaded to rest and buff, so I got to see it the second time around.
-I think a hobgoblin sniper used a stealth attack on my wizard who had just casted a spell on him so they were face to face. Maybe I was mistaken?
-A confused enemy did an attack of opportunity on me. That seems silly.
-Deeqin's stuff, I see what you did there.

-BTW....will the game have a quest log?

Sorry for another annoyingly long post. And here's my final error log.

Errors.txt

 

[Kaelan]

Spoiler

Also, I did meant combat expertise, I was having bad luck with my cleric so I thought about incresing her survibability with it, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oh, haha. That's definitely in the game. Tactics category, the big yellow gauntlet icon on the top right of the grid

I think a hobgoblin sniper used a stealth attack on my wizard who had just casted a spell on him so they were face to face. Maybe I was mistaken?

Nope! That's a feature! (actually a feat, haha). Hobgoblin snipers have the Telling Blow feat:

and are built to have high critical hit rate. That's just part of what they do

I'll take a look at the rest of the bugs!

 

[R4B]

This is beyond amazing!

How did you get your hands on all those Neverwinter Nights assets?

 

[Kaelan]

@R4B NWN has a pretty big modding community and the developers are pretty reasonable about allowing access to the game's resources. This isn't really the right forum to discuss that sort of thing though.

Updated to v0.2! See main post for download link.

• Running the game should no longer require MSVCR110.dll
• Fixed a crash when casting Barkskin
• Fixed a graphical issue when right-clicking in the save menu
• Fixed a crash when selecting empty slots in the shop menu
• Fixed a bug causing the last item to be selected when clicking on an empty slot in the inventory, items, spells & feats menus
• Fixed a bug causing items to stay selected when moving the mouse over empty inventory slots
• Fixed a crash when triggering an Attack of Opportunity after failing to Trip an opponent
• Characters can no longer make Attacks of Opportunity while confused
• Changed the priority on the confusion AI. Confused characters who are also fascinated or prone will first try to stand up (if prone) or do nothing (if fascinated) before running the 'confused' AI behavior.
• Characters can no longer move with 0 AP when Slowed
• If a character's action is interrupted by an Attack of Opporunity and the attack causes them to no longer be able to perform that action, they will no longer attempt to do it anyway.
• Fixed a couple of typos in the Tutorial
• Fixed a bug allowing players to select feats they did not have prerequisites for by going back and forth between the spells and feat selection menus
• Fixed an issue preventing the inventory window from scrolling correctly
• Fixed a bug that prevented HP gained from CON bonuses from being recovered when resting
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to use hotkeys and open menus during spell animations.
• Fixed a crash when attacking with double weapons in combat
• Fixed a crash when confused opponents attempt to find a random target to attack
• Fixed a crash when playing with less than a full party after killing wounded adventurers
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the final boss cutscene to not be triggered
• Thumbnails of autosaves made during map transitions now show the correct image
• Monks now correctly gain their standard D&D AC Bonus (from Wisdom and from levels)
• When using a weapon with the 'Trip' property, your Trip range is now the same as the weapon's attack range. When unarmed or using a weapon without the 'Trip' property, your Trip range remains 1 tile.
• When gaining effects that increase Max HP, current HP will be increased accordingly
• Spell tooltips now display which school of magic the spell belongs to
• The spell selection window now displays spell duration (for spells which have a duration)
• Increased the overall strength of most enemies in the latter half of the demo

 

[Kaelan]

Edit: Next version is out! See the main post for the updated download, as usual. Full changelog:

Spoiler

v0.3 [12-21-2014]                                                    

• When leveling up, you can now store up to 5 unused skill points, which can be spent on later levels
• When targeting spells, the game now shows a preview window indicating the spell's success rate, damage and additional effects
• Added a label tooltip to the level-up spell selection window, so you don't have to click on each spell to see what it is
• Text pauses are now ignored when text is skipped. Added an option to permanently toggle instant text display to the options menu.
• Added support for 1024x768 monitors. The minimum resolution has been bumped down to 1024x768 and all menus have been adjusted.
• Increasing INT/WIS/CHA through items will now also give a corresponding increase to Spell Points. The amount gained varies with class level and only applies to the main casting stat used by your class (i.e. CHA for Bards, INT for Wizards, etc.)

 

[bgillisp]

Yes! Finally its at a resolution I can play at. Will download it so I have something to play while traveling this week (feedback will probably be after 12.29, when I get out of the internet vortex of doom).

 

[Unkown]

This happens when I try to open the inventory now^^ (Your autosave saved me my 47 minute exploration of your skills/feats.... good feature XD)

Well I think I should make it without the inventory... at least I hope so xD 

Spoiler

If you level up as wizard and select a spell like I did with Summon Undead 1 and Magic weapon you can aquire them again if you - for an example - level up with the spellcaster and select them again^^ Dunno if you wanted that^^

Back to playing^^

 

[Kaelan]

That's intentional, if you level up different spellcasting classes with the same spells, you can take the same spell multiple times if you want. If you look at the tooltip, it tells you which class the spell came from, and when you cast it, it will use the stats for that particular class (i.e. if you're Wizard/Bard, your Wizard Glitterdust uses your INT and your Bard Glitterdust uses your CHA). There's no real reason to do that right now, but it will be important later when I add prestige classes and you can level up in a class like Mystic Theurge, which lets you get spells from 2 different spellcasting classes at the same time on every level up (so you could be Wizard + Cleric, for example)

Can you send me the error log for that crash? (should be an Errors.txt file in your game folder - just sending me a PM with the text also works if it's not too big)

Edit: Found out what the problem was. Apparently RPG Maker never bothers to check file extensions when it's encrypted, so it kept crashing trying to load an image that wasn't a .png, when there was a .png in the folder with the same name -_-

Fixed the download, shouldn't happen if you re-download the game. Old saves are still compatible, so you should be able to keep playing where you left off. Sorry :<

 

[Unkown]

No problem^^

So you will add such "classes" as well..~

This will be awesome for me since I am the type that loves it to get a lot of spells....♫

Guess the feat "Able Learner" will be extremly good later on for this.... would be funny if I could make a stealthy, necromancer cleric.... lol

 

[Kaelan]

Started working on the crafting system. It'll be a little while before it's ready to be used, but it's off to a good start:

Edit: Updated the download to v0.4. Changelog:

Spoiler

v0.4 [12-23-2014]                                                    

• Improved the game's performance in the Rules and Options menus
• Increased Inspire Competence's skill bonus from +2 to +5
• Characters under the effects of 'Magic Weapon', 'Magic Fang', 'Greater Magic Weapon', 'Dragonfire Inspiration' and 'Holy Sword' can now hit incorporeal creatures as if their weapon was magical, even if it normally isn't.
  
• Characters will play a sound cue when their weapon is ineffective against a target due to concealment (e.g. using a mundane weapon against an incorporeal creature)
  
• True Strike now properly ignores concealment
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltips to be displayed when they shouldn't in the inventory
  
• Fixed a crash when learning Creeping Cold
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented paralyzed characters from casting Stilled spells. The spell menu should now more clearly display when spells can and cannot be cast in the character's current condition.
  
• Adjusted the character names in the save menu so they never get shrunk down by RM's text drawing
  

 

[Jesse - PVGames]

Holy - I can't believe I've never seen this before. This looks amazing! Really terrific work with all the menus and the combat and just everything!

 

[Kaelan]

@Jesse I should be thanking you Jesse, your art's been a huge help in getting the right look for the game (when are those Wild Steam sprites coming out ehh? )

Updated the game to v0.5. Some fairly large changes this time around:

Spoiler

v0.5 [12-27-2014]                                                    

• Added missing sound effects for Sleet Storm and Ice Storm
• Adjusted range of potions and scrolls so they match spell ranges properly
• Fixed a bug in how the engine determines whether a unit is flanked. Sneak Attacks should be easier to get now.
• Attack previews will now tell you whether the attack would be a sneak attack, and include sneak attack damage in the total damage shown
  

• Some wildshape forms will now increase the character's size
  
• When opening the equipment and status menus during battle, they will now initially show the character whose turn it is, rather than the leader of the party
  
• Fixed various voice cues that did not play properly when triggered
  
• Rebalanced the Weight mechanic:
  
  Simplified the carrying weight formula. Max carrying capacity is now 5 lb. per point of Strength. So a 10STR character can carry 50 lb., 20STR => 100 lb, etc.
  
• A character has a light load when at less than 50% of their max capacity
  
• A character has a medium load when at 50% ~ 75% of their max capacity
  
• A character has a heavy load when at more than 75% of their max capacity
  
• No penalty for light load
  
• 2/3 movement speed at medium load. Half run, withdraw and charge distance.
  
• 1/2 movement speed at heavy load. Can't run, withdraw, charge or flee from battles.
  
• Characters cannot wear equipment that would put them above their max capacity
  
• Adjusted item weights. Heavy armor and large weapons should be harder to wear and require a substantial investment in Strength now.
  

[*]Can no longer Smite or Charge with ranged weapons

[*]Changed the color of damage text pop-ups based on the elemental type of the damage

[*]Adjusted number of attacks made when under multiple effects that increase number of attacks per round (i.e. Haste, Rapid Shot, Double Shot, etc.)

[*]Added new item type: Tools

• Tools occupy the same equipment slot as Ammo
  
• The provide a variety of bonuses, usually geared towards skills, like Concentration, Sabotage and Perform. They're primarily meant for characters that will not use their ammo slot for ranged attacks.
  

[*]Added new item type: Wands

• Wands function like spell scrolls, but they can be used multiple times.
  
• Each use consumes a charge. A wand can contain up to 50 charges of a spell.
  
• Like scrolls, they require the Use Magic Device skill to use if your class cannot normally learn the spell contained in the wand. 
  

[*]Added new weapon type: Rapier

• Added Item Properties
  
  Unique weapons and armor can now be found in the game, with a variety of properties.
  
• Each property has a "star" value, from 0 to 5. A single piece of equipment can hold up to "10 star"-worth of properties.
  
• Weapon Properties: 
  
  ( - ) Trip: Attempting to Trip with this weapon will not trigger an Attack of Opportunity. Your Trip range is extended to the weapon's attack range.
• ( - ) Joust: 2x damage when charging
• ( - ) Finesse: The weapon can be used with the "Weapon Finesse" feat
• ( - ) Requires Arrows: Some ranged weapons can't be fired without arrows equipped in your Ammo slot.
• ( - ) Requires Bolts: Some ranged weapons can't be fired without crossbow bolts equipped in your Ammo slot.
• (★) Keen: 2x critical hit rate
• (★) Maiming: +1x to critical hit damage multiplier (2x damage on crit => 3x damage on crit, etc.)
• (★) Smiting: +1 Smite/day, +2 Attack & Damage on Smites
• (★) Defending: Instead of increasing Attack and Damage, the weapon's enhancement bonus increases Armor Class.
• (★) Deflecting: Make a DC20 reflex save when targeted by a physical ranged attack. If you succeed, the attack misses.
• (★) Valorous: 2x damage when charging
• (★) Berserker: +2 enhancement bonus in Rage
• (★) Fury: +(1 - 8) damage in Rage
• (★) Deadly Precision: +(1 - 6) damage on Sneak Attack
• (★) Illusion Bane: Attacks ignore miss chance from illusion spells and mirror images, allows targeting hidden/invisible units and has a chance to dispel illusion effects (such as Blur and Ghostly Visage) on hit
  
• (★) Harmonizing: +6 Perform skill, +CHA modifier to duration of Bard songs used by this character
  
• (★) Harmony: +2 Attack when flanking
  
• (★) Magebane: +2 enhancement bonus and +(2 - 12) damage vs. mages
  
• (★) Silent Strike: Silence on hit (DC15 Will save to avoid)
  
• (★) Sweeping: +4 to Trip checks. Trip weapons only.
  
• (★) Crushing: +50% base damage, but 2x Weight and all weapon damage becomes bludgeoning
  
• (★) Ornate: +6 Rhetoric and Intimidate skills.
  
• (★) Silent Moves: +5 Stealth skill
  
• (★) Hunting: Doubles damage bonus against a Ranger's favored enemy.
  
• (★) Flaming: +(1 - 6) fire damage
  
• (★) Frost: +(1 - 6) ice damage
  
• (★) Shock: +(1 - 6) electric damage
  
• (★) Corrosive: +(1 - 6) acid damage
  
• (★) Screaming: +(1 - 6) sonic damage
  
• (★) Consumptive: +(1 - 6) negative energy damage
  
• (★) Sacred: +(2 - 12) damage to undead
  
• (★) Ghost Touch: Ignores miss chance on incorporeal creatures.
  
• (★★) Ghost Strike: Ignores miss chance on incorporeal creatures. Also allows Sneak Attacks and Critical Hits on incorporeal creatures.
  
• (★★) Seeking: Ignores all concealment  (ranged weapons only)
  
• (★★) Explosive: On hit, +(2 - 8) fire damage to all units in 1 tile radius (DC15 reflex save for half)
• (★★) Vampiric: +(1 - 6) damage, heals user for amount of extra damage done. Only works on living creatures.
  
• (★★) Collision: +5 damage
  
• (★★) Eager: +5 initiative
• (★★) Blurstrike: First attack each round treats opponent as flatfooted
  
• (★★) Fierce: Your body armor's DEX bonus to Armor Class is removed. Your weapon damage goes up by that amount.
  
• (★★) Grasping: +2 to Trip and Disarm checks. Disarm doesn't provoke Attacks of Opportunity. (melee weapons only)
  
• (★★) Skillful: The weapon can be used without its required proficiency feat. Your base Attack Bonus improves to 3/4 your level if it's lower. (melee weapons only)
  
• (★★) Composite: Adds STR bonus to damage. (bows only)
  
• (★★★) Smoking: +20% concealment
  
• (★★★) Banishing: On hit, summoned creatures make a DC24 Will save or die.
  
• (★★★) Shadow Striking: Ignores all damage reduction. (melee weapons only)
  
• (★★★) Wrathful Healing: Recovers HP equal to 1/2 damage done (melee weapons only)
  
• (★★★) Knockback: Attempts to Bull Rush targets on hit, with a +8 STR bonus. (ranged weapons only)
  
• (★★★★) Brilliant: Ignores target's armor and shield AC, but the weapon can only hit living targets.
  

[*]Armor Properties:​

• ( - ) Darkwood: -5% Arcane Spell Failure, -1 Armor Check Penalty, 1/2 Weight. (Shields only)
• ( - ) Mithral: -10% Arcane Spell Failure, -3 Armor Check Penalty, 1/2 Weight, +2 Max DEX bonus, armor category lowered by 1 (Heavy -> Medium, Medium -> Light). (body armor only)
• ( - ) Adamantine: Gain damage reduction. Amount gained is +1 point on Light Armor, +2 on Medium Armor or +3 on Heavy Armor. (body armor only)
• (★) Wizardry I: +10 to max SP.
• (★) Shadow: +5 Stealth skill.
• (★) Ghost Ward: Incorporeal creatures can't ignore your Armor Class with melee attacks as they normally would.
• (★) Wild: When transforming into a Druid's Wildshape form, this piece of armor is not removed and its equipment bonuses are retained.
• (★★) Herculean: +50 Max Weight capacity.
• (★★) Fortified: Immune to critical hits.
• (★★★) Blindsight: All attacks ignore concealment.
• (★★★) Evasion: Gain the benefits of the Evasion feat.
• (★★★★) Splitting: Turns every arrow fired into 2 arrows (or every bolt into 2 bolts). (Ammo only)
• (★★★★★) Freedom of Movement: Gain immunity to all status effects which reduce movement speed, as per the spell. Walk through tiles that hinder movement (such as those covered by a Web spell) at normal speed. Does not affect movement reduction due to wearing heavy equipment.
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) [Element] Resistance: Adds 10 points of damage resistance to a specific element per star.
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) +[Attribute]: Adds +2 to the given attribute per star (i.e. +2 STR for 1 star, +4 INT for 2 stars, etc.)
• (★ ~ ★★★) +[Saving Throw]: Adds +3 to the given saving throw (Fort / Reflex / Will) per star
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) Saving Throws +X: Adds +1 to all saving throws per star
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) AC (Natural) +X: Adds +1 to Armor Class per star. Doesn't stack with any other Natural AC bonus (such as Barkskin).
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) AC (Armor) +X: Adds +1 to Armor Class per star. (Only on armor that has no AC, such as Robes)
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) AC (Deflection) +X: Adds +1 to Armor Class per star. Stacks with everything.
• (★ ~ ★★★★★) Spell Resistance X: +X to spell resistance. Star cost varies based on amount added.

[*]Due to the above item changes, all items found in the demo have been changed, including items in shops. Some enemies have become stronger to keep up with the item changes.

 

[Nirwanda]

Wow! 0.5 already? Very nice changes all around. I played a little bit of 0.3, and had some lame feedback about it. (I've excluded the stuff that I know has already been fixed, though, there might be some unreported fixes that slipped through.)

Spoiler

- Typo?: In the opening, the Coach driver starts a sentence by saying:- ''not much of a fighter..
- After, the opening dialog, the coach driver talks to you again with his "Are you sure you should be talking to me...?" line. That seems like something he would say if you clicked on him again after the first dialog was done. At first, I thought I had  spoken to him by accident, but he seems to do it every time you start a game.

- Personal opinion 1: Did the original version had the stat boosting backgrounds? I didn't press the arrow back then, so I don't know. They're pretty good, too bad they have little competition. Aside from my bard who got extra songs, I used them everyone else.

Sorry for being so repetitive about it, I won't bother you with this again.

- Personal opinion 2: I was just checking some feats, and noticed how weird Mettle is. You must have weapon focus to succed in a saving throw? I kind of get the idea that you're blocking the attack with your weapon... is that the reasoning behind it?

Besides it's wildly different from what I assume is it's pen and paper counterpart: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Mettle_Training_%283.5e_Feat%29

- In the previous version, I thought the stat screen looked messed up because of the resolution issues, but even now, it still does. Is it a problem on my end?

I made a Baldur's gate themed party:Kivan/Jaheira/Garrick/Imoen. Though I wasn't so faithful with stats...and I'm pretty sure Kivan was a full elf.

-  I noticed that on the video, turns were automatically terminated at 0 ap, instead of having to chose end turn. Any reason why that isn't an option any more? Or am I an idiot and just missed the menu option, like other times?
- Typo: Rat companion's feat list "Improved Evason"
-  Is it intentional for thoughness not to have retroactive effects? That's kind of punishing...
- Maybe there should be some hint about the hiding spot on the goblin camp? I only noticed it because of the video,
- Would it be impossible to have a secondary weapon for quick change, like in the Infinity Engine games?
- The ranger's spell list  has both endure elements and resist energy. That's pretty redudant.
- When I tried to learn Barkskin with my druid, it still seemed to be bugged.

- Personal opinion 3: if you have Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace and so on. What's the point of Animalistic Power? I can't think of any situation where a minor general boost would trump a larger, more specialized one...
- A small interface problem: I can't see the the resulting AC of a new armor because of its own description.

- My druid seems to be crouching as regular battle pose despite being at full health, I think it started when she summoned her animal companion.

...Yeah, I forgot to pick up one character. On my defense, they're kind of easy to miss. Some kind of visual cue or message when you run into them wouldn't hurt.

- (Pictured above-check the battle log and whose turn it is) Despite being dualwieding, during that whole battle Kivan attacked only once per turn. Saving and realoading solved it, though.

- There's no ingame information about a bardic song's duration, aside from the tiny prompt when you're already under it's effect. (Also: Fascination is awesome. I butchered the ogre with it.)
- VERY nitpicky: It would be cool if the spell popups appeared outside of battle too.

- While learning the Poison spell with my druid, I got a CTD.

Sorry, this one was not only messy, but filled with my random opinions.

Downloading 0.5, now. I hope I don' get burned out of the game by the time the final version comes out.

Idiotic edit: Hey! This is my 100th post!

Errors.txt

 

[Kaelan]

Spoiler

Personal opinion 1: Did the original version had the stat boosting backgrounds? I didn't press the arrow back then, so I don't know. They're pretty good, too bad they have little competition. Aside from my bard who got extra songs, I used them everyone else.

Yeah, I haven't changed backgrounds since the first version. I don't really mind if some are more useful than others. They're mostly there to provide options for every play-style than anything else (like going for the smite background if you want to make a Smite-oriented Paladin build).

Personal opinion 2: I was just checking some feats, and noticed how weird Mettle is. You must have weapon focus to succed in a saving throw? I kind of get the idea that you're blocking the attack with your weapon... is that the reasoning behind it?

Actually, it's the Hexblade Mettle. I added it as a general feat because I really like the feat, but I don't really like the Hexblade class, and I wanted a way for it to be obtainable in-game without costing you class levels. You're right about the requirements though, they don't really make any sense. I think it might be a bit better to have Toughness and Steadfast Determination as a requirement.

In the previous version, I thought the stat screen looked messed up because of the resolution issues, but even now, it still does. Is it a problem on my end?

Looks like you're missing a font. The font used in that screen is Gabriola. I thought it was a default Windows font, but looking it up, I guess it's only been included since Windows 7 / Office 2010, so you might not have it if you're on an older version of Windows. I can probably update the download for that next version.

Maybe there should be some hint about the hiding spot on the goblin camp? I only noticed it because of the video,

It's a secret! I'm actually surprised more people hadn't found it yet. If you keep watching until the end, there's a surprise to reward you for exploration

There will be several more of those in the final game.

Is it intentional for toughness not to have retroactive effects? That's kind of punishing...

Actually, that's a bug, it's supposed to. I'll fix that.

I noticed that on the video, turns were automatically terminated at 0 ap, instead of having to chose end turn. Any reason why that isn't an option any more? Or am I an idiot and just missed the menu option, like other times?

That's probably my fault, I don't think it's actually mentioned anywhere in-game. You can press space as a shortcut to end your turn. 

Would it be impossible to have a secondary weapon for quick change, like in the Infinity Engine games?

I'm not too sure what to do about this yet. It's not too much work to have the actual weapon swapping itself, but I it's a bit of work to add the extra UI stuff to show it / toggle it / etc. I've been thinking about whether I should add equipment swapping in-battle, so if that existed and you could hotkey weapons, it might make things easier?

Personal opinion 3: if you have Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace and so on. What's the point of Animalistic Power? I can't think of any situation where a minor general boost would trump a larger, more specialized one...

You're right about that, there isn't too much of a reason to have that right now. That's mostly a holdover from when I was planning on having most buff spells not affect animal pets (like in NWN2), so you'd need spells like Animalistic Power, Magic Fang and Jagged Tooth. I ended up scrapping the idea and removing most of the animal spells, but I left that one in for whatever reason. Not sure if I should remove it as well or find some other use for it right now.

A small interface problem: I can't see the the resulting AC of a new armor because of its own description.

I didn't mention in the update notes, but I made a few changes to how tooltips are displayed too. You should be able to see your stats when mousing over anything in your inventory in v0.5.

My druid seems to be crouching as regular battle pose despite being at full health, I think it started when she summoned her animal companion

That's just her regular idle battle pose, she slouches forward a little bit more than the other characters.

Despite being dualwieding, during that whole battle Kivan attacked only once per turn. Saving and realoading solved it, though.

There were a few bugs with how the number of attacks were being calculated before. In the current version, you should always get the right number. 

When I tried to learn Barkskin with my druid, it still seemed to be bugged

While learning the Poison spell with my druid, I got a CTD

Both of those should be fixed in the current version
[SIZE=14.3999996185303px][/SIZE]

 

I hope I don' get burned out of the game by the time the final version comes out.

Haha I'll try my best to keep it interesting

I have a couple extra big features I want to add to the demo and get feedback on over the next week or two. After that, I'm probably going to slow down updates and start working on Chapter 1 (first 1/4 or so of the game). Then there probably won't be another major update until Chapter 1 is done.

Edit: Updated to v0.6. Mostly minor adjustments and bugfixes.



v0.6 [12-31-2014]                                                    

• Changed the Mettle feat requirement to Toughness + Steadfast Determination
• Changed Weapon Finesse requirement to 13 DEX
• Changed Zen Archery requirement to 13 WIS
• Changed Combat Insight requirement to 13 INT + Combat Expertise
• Added Martial Weapon Proficiency to Clerics and Rogues
• Added a missing font for players using a version of Windows older than Windows 7
• The Toughness HP bonus now applies retroactively
• Fixed a bug that prevented Natural Leader and Aura of Courage from applying to party members you didn't have when you learned the ability
• Fixed a crash when casting Fear spells
• Fixed a crash when casting healing spells in Easy Combat mode
• Fixed a crash when inflicting Shaken on a creature who is already Shaken. Doing this will now correctly make them Panicked.
• Fixed crashes when running away from certain scripted fights
• Fixed crashes on some PCs caused by trying to draw invalid UTF-8 characters

 

[Kaelan]

It's been a while since I've updated this thread; been doing a lot of work on various back-end things before I continue adding more gameplay / maps / etc. I've moved the entire project over from the RM editor to an external script editor (thanks to Tsukihime and Galenmereth for helping out with this). This helps me keep things more organized, helps me make progress faster and makes the game easier to debug.

Another thing I'm in the middle of is removing all of my note tags. Up until now, I've been using note tags to define all of the properties of items, weapons, armor, enemies, feats and spells. Besides being incredibly cumbersome to edit thanks to the tiny non-resizable note window in the database, this is also really really bug-prone. I've already had a ton of bugs caused by a minor typo in one of these, or from copying something from one tag and forgetting to set its value properly in another tag. So now that I have a better editor, I'm in the middle of moving over all of that note tag information into individual .rb files. So something like this:

Is now more like this:

It's a lot easier to work with, I can comment my fields, and I have syntax highlighting and some basic checking to make sure I'm not misspelling a word or forgetting a comma or something.

Another thing I've been working on is updating the HUD. I haven't really gotten many complaints about this, but I've always felt the HUD and some of the tooltips take way too much space on screen. So I'm currently trying to make things a little more compact. I have several changes planned, but here's a sneak-peek:

More changes coming soon. Stay tuned~

 

[Pine Towers]

Is this still alive? Sorry for necrobumping, but this is just marvelous.

 

[Clangeddin]

This is so awesome it's unreal. I'm afraid this may also be on a long hiatus. *cries*

I finished the demo and really had a blast with this.

I may say there's some overpowered stuff in the spells (the durations are very long on their own, and extend/persistent meta feats may be redundant because of this) and bard's inspirations (for example they stack, whereas in NWN2 they don't and don't consume a song either, they're just a toggle, but can have only one at a time) if I really had to give some feedback.