According to this here Kickstarter update for Heroic Fantasy Games’ Knights of the Chalice II, the OGL CRPG is now pretty close to its official release. But for the time being, the game’s backers can enjoy a new update that expands the tutorial adventure, makes spellcasting more convenient, and introduces a bunch of quality of life improvements.
Here’s what you can expect:
Hello everyone! Version 1.16 of KotC 2 Augury of Chaos is now available for download here for both Windows and macOS. The main additions to the game are the new shortcut system for spells and special abilities, feat suggestions, improved delay combat action, improved weapon enchanting, improved image search in the Module Editor, and extra content in the tutorial adventure.
The tutorial now ends after solving the door puzzle with triangles. Normally, I should be able to finish work on the tutorial in August. After that, I will focus on completing the village content and fixing any remaining bugs so that the game can finally be ready for its official release!
Quickbar Shortcut System For Spells & Special Abilities
I’ve just added the Quickbar shortcut system for spells, spell-like abilities, breath weapons and usable items such as wands, potions and scrolls. The Quickbar is displayed during combat only. It allows you to cast a spell or activate an ability with a single click.
Simply left click on any icon in the Quickbar to activate the associated spell or ability. You can also right click on any icon to display a bunch of options, including an option to remove the moused-over shortcut, an option to display the help entry for the moused-over spell or ability, and an option to make the shortcut permanent. A permanent shortcut is one that will not be overwritten when the game tries to add to the Quickbar the latest spells cast by your character.
The Quickbar can store up to 28 spells and abilities displayed over two lines, or up to 14 if you limit the Quickbar to a single line. Metamagic versions of spells will be marked with a small letter such as ‘M’ for maximised and ‘E’ for empowered. Psionic powers will be marked with a small number: the associated power-point expense. Potions will be marked with a tiny potion icon while scrolls will be marked with a tiny scroll icon. Wand spells will be marked with ‘Wd’, other items with ‘It’, breath weapons with ‘Bw’, gaze attacks with ‘Gz’ and spell-like abilities with ‘Sp’.
In the Game Options screen, under the ‘Display’ tab, there are three new options: one to display or hide the Quickbar, one to limit it to a single line, and one to add the spells and abilities activated by your characters to each person’s Quickbar automatically.
I’m thinking about adding a fourth option allowing you to add to the Quickbar the character’s latest spell picks on level-up, spells recently learnt from scrolls, and all special abilities and magic items automatically.
You can create your own shortcut icons easily. Simply mouse over any spell icon in the Character Sheet and press the Tab key to add the spell to the character’s Quickbar. You can also mouse over a special ability in the list of special abilities (shortcut key A) and press Tab to add that ability to the Quickbar.
List Of Changes In KotC 2 Version 1.16
- Added a new dialogue option in the village map. You can now start the goblin and orc attack by talking to the Bailiff. First ask him about ‘any missions’, then select ‘threat of invasion’, then click ‘let’s change the subject’, and the new dialogue option will be there: ‘we’re ready to help with defence preparations’. This is intended to prevent players getting stuck in the village. The attack on the village will still happen after resting a couple of times. Please note that the village is still a work in progress.
- Added Feat Suggestions in the Feat-Selection screen. The recommended feats will now appear in green at the top of the list of possible feats when creating a character and during level-up. The suggested feats take into account all of the relevant character information: class and race, ability scores, existing feats, known spells, the Wizard’s attunement, etc. Special Thanks to Juhani for the awesome help in compiling the list of suggestions for each character class!!
- Improved the Delay combat action so that you can now set your characters to act after a specific combatant, such as your Wizard if you want your Fighters to attack only after the Wizard has cast a spell like Sleep or Grease on the enemy. Also added a new option in the AI settings of each creature: ‘Delay until after full casters’. When this AI setting is turned on, the creature’s first action will be to delay until after the last allied full caster in the initiative list has acted, allowing them to act after the casters have finished casting their spells on the player’s party. See the stairway encounter in the Tutorial Module for an example.
- When enchanting weapons and armour, you can now select the colour of the weapon’s icon. This choice will also affect the colour of the weapon’s sprite in the main view of the game when creatures are being displayed using sprites.
- Added a new feature in the Module Editor allowing you to search for icons by typing some text. The search box can facilitate the selection of the NPC icon displayed during dialogue. This is very useful because there are now thousands of icons. For example, you can type ‘dragon’ (then press Enter) to display all of the dragon icons. I’ve made the search box available in a few more places, as well.
- Upgraded the decoding interface so that when you mouse over a symbol, it will be highlighted in both the left-side and right-side panels (not only in the left-side panel as was the case previously).
- Scripts can now check if the enemies were defeated quickly (e.g. if the battle ended in one round even though more enemies were supposed to arrive on round two or three). See the script command “Set in variable ~ the party’s ~” and select “Enemies Were Defeated Quickly status”. This can be useful when you don’t want the extra monsters to arrive if the player has defeated the original enemies quickly.
- You can now use the Share Potions button in the Inventory Screen to distribute consumable items like herbs to the party members.
- Bags will not be closed automatically when you sell an item.
- Expanded the tutorial adventure. As an example of what can be done with scripts, the tutorial adventure now contains a random encounter. It can be triggered several times until you’ve defeated all of the five groups in a random order. I’ve also included a coded text for the player to decipher, an image puzzle and a bunch of interesting extra encounters. For now, the tutorial ends around the time when you complete the puzzle with the triangles. Special Thanks to Guido for the awesome help concerning medieval artwork!!
- Fixed a bug concerning attacks against Incorporeal creatures. The game wasn’t applying the 50% miss chance even though the tooltip indicating the chance to hit was correct.
- Fixed the Bard feats Improved Healing, Improved Chaos, Improved Dance and Improved Silence and the Psionicist feat Crystal Range. These feats could not be selected in the Level-Up screen.
- Fixed a bug when leaving the Moon Crypt Death Snare where the dialogue with the Efreet would just repeat itself when selecting the option ‘I am not ready yet’ (depending on your party’s formation).
- Fixed a bug with the spell Contingent Greater Break Enchantment (both the Wizard and Cleric versions) not granting the correct bonus on the check to remove effects.
- Fixed a bug with the spell Animal Trance affecting humanoid creatures.
- Fixed a bug with the spell Protection from Arrows. It can now be cast out of combat.
- Added some code to prevent any future freeze due to a script tied to a square executing over and over.
- Fixed paperdoll images exceeding the window’s height when increasing the character’s height.
- Fixed the missing data for a shield held by a number of enemies in the Castle Map.
- Fixed a source of crash to desktop when loading a saved game.
