Promising indie Early Access Strategy RPG Solasta: Crown of the Magister is dropping a big update to keep players busy over the holiday break. The new content includes hours worth of new quests, new character creation options, and new ways to do battle. The team has also incorporated fan feedback by toning down some house rules that were deemed too punishing.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is made by a team of D&D fans using the SRD 5.1 ruleset. This gives it the same basic elements of D&D gameplay, but with a new spin on the setting and characters. This, along with its Early Access status, makes it a homebrew campaign that the players actively help shape. Emphasis is mostly on combat, and the video game platform allows battles to achieve a certain verticality and complexity that's hard to get from tabletop play.
That complexity has also been the subject of discussion, however, due to the way Solasta handles lighting. Fighting in the dark can disappoint in regular D&D, with the rules separating between dim light and darkness. Darkness obviously means you can't see, but dim light simply makes it harder to do Perception rolls. Actual combat isn't affected by dim light. This makes lighting conditions less tactical than you'd think.
Solasta tried to change the rules to lighting by imposing a penalty when you attack in dim light. This made it so that players really had to be on top of keeping torches lit or suffer serious setbacks. However, many players found this too punitive. In light of this, the Solasta devs have reverted the darkness mechanics and taken away the dim light disadvantage.
On the brighter side, the Solasta campaign also has a few hours worth of new content. These new quests add new locations and offer the change to fight mysterious new monsters. Rewards come in the form of new magic items, but the team is keeping it vague so that players get a pleasant surprise.
Also of note is a general wealth of new options. The character creator got a literal facelift, and NPCs can be seen sporting new looks that incorporate these new details. Players can also now hide and deploy poison as rogues, and casters get new utility spells to work with. Overall the winter update is a lot of new, and it shows that the team is dedicated to making Solasta a quality tabletop/video game hybrid experience.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is now available on Steam Early Access and GOG. A sale running through December 22 puts it at 20% off, making it $27.99.
Source: Solasta