Incline KotC (Knights of the Chalice) is awesome

[Crooked Bee]

Saying "D:OS can be steamrolled hence its mechanics are not sound" is just retarded, so I won't even comment on that.

KotC on the other hand is less flashy, but remains interesting throughout the duration of the entire game by forcing you to put thought into your build and how you approach each encounter.

Which has to do with its encounter design. The mechanics are just standard D&D stuff that may or may not work depending on the encounter design; in KotC's case, it does, which is what makes it stand out -- not its mechanics.

 

[Ulminati]

It's not just the steamrolling, through the number of I win buttons does trivialize a lot of things. The main sticking point me and undead phoenix ran into on our bro-op was how mobs 3 levels above us were basically impossible to hit because level difference was factored into hit chance. The value of skills is also all over the place.

D:OS has a lot of things going for it. And it has interesting mechanics. But they're not very robust and prone to breaking.

 

[mindx2]

KotC v. D:OS, which is better and why? Discuss........

 

[Ulminati]

If I had to pick one to replay, I'd go for D:OS once the EE is out. It's fun even with shoddy mechanics

 

[SCO]

KotC ingame documentation is stellar and the best since ToEE. The transparency and complexity of the rules set doesn't even compare to D:OS, which besides the elemental combinations doesn't have much to recommend it. And KotC has other things that D:OS doesn't (?) like grapples (and actual balance and encounter design and itemization).

Then there's the fact that D:OS difficulty depends on HP bloat and level scaling (instead of grognard hard counters, whatever, i disagree with Saywer on this). Maybe the new remaster will be better. Maybe...

I really really disliked the way D:OS gave every skill you wanted like candy and depended on levelups of stats to make them effective, and much prefer to have skills accessible per level or as a quest reward (a single! quest reward) instead of vendor trash.

D:OS took all the bad and good things from divine divinity added a few good things and called it a day. Don't get me wrong, i love-like DD, but i can't help but be a little disappointed they obviously consider some of this stuff good things like random loot, especially since the self-proclaimed spiritual antecessor ultima avoided them (unfortunately spell vendor trash is a ultima tradition - but at least they had transcribe spell and scrolls in some too).

 

[TigerKnee]

D:OS has a lot of things going for it. And it has interesting mechanics. But they're not very robust and prone to breaking.

I feel like this would have more impact if the other side of the comparison wasn't a 3.5E D&D game.

 

[ArchAngel]

D:OS has a lot of things going for it. And it has interesting mechanics. But they're not very robust and prone to breaking.

I feel like this would have more impact if the other side of the comparison wasn't a 3.5E D&D game.

3.5e works very well in turn based cRPG. It only totally breaks apart in pnp environment due to splatbooks.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Saying "D:OS can be steamrolled hence its mechanics are not sound" is just retarded, so I won't even comment on that.

KotC on the other hand is less flashy, but remains interesting throughout the duration of the entire game by forcing you to put thought into your build and how you approach each encounter.

Which has to do with its encounter design. The mechanics are just standard D&D stuff that may or may not work depending on the encounter design; in KotC's case, it does, which is what makes it stand out -- not its mechanics.

Encounter design and player feedback are both excellent. I love that at a glance I see the results of all the rolls right on the battlefield in status notifications, hit/miss, spell effects and ability use and success/failure of all checks. No need to check a log.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I'm going to have to start my game all over. I have three saves, but all of them are in the Orc Stockade after the exit gets blocked off. My knight, cleric and two mages are all level 6 and just keep getting slaughtered by this guy, even with my making some fireball wands for the mages. I also have a chaos wand, but it only has a 10% chance of effecting him and his magic resistance is also too high to penetrate. I can't leave to level up somewhere else, and I can't beat him with my current party. I was getting pretty cocky up until now, too.... damn.

 

[Gregz]

I'm going to have to start my game all over. I have three saves, but all of them are in the Orc Stockade after the exit gets blocked off. My knight, cleric and two mages are all level 6 and just keep getting slaughtered by this guy, even with my making some fireball wands for the mages. I also have a chaos wand, but it only has a 10% chance of effecting him and his magic resistance is also too high to penetrate. I can't leave to level up somewhere else, and I can't beat him with my current party. I was getting pretty cocky up until now, too.... damn.

1. Set 'always able to run away' to TRUE
2. farm overland encounters until lvl 15
3. steamroll the story all the way to end game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I'm going to have to start my game all over. I have three saves, but all of them are in the Orc Stockade after the exit gets blocked off. My knight, cleric and two mages are all level 6 and just keep getting slaughtered by this guy, even with my making some fireball wands for the mages. I also have a chaos wand, but it only has a 10% chance of effecting him and his magic resistance is also too high to penetrate. I can't leave to level up somewhere else, and I can't beat him with my current party. I was getting pretty cocky up until now, too.... damn.

scrub

 

[deuxhero]

3.5e works very well in turn based cRPG. It only totally breaks apart in pnp environment due to splatbooks.

It breaks perfectly fine in core only, it's just that only full casters or item abuse can do it.

Splat adds silly tricks if you combine half a dozen books (locate city bomb), but almost nothing on par with chain gating solars or other core shenangians.

 

[ArchAngel]

It breaks perfectly fine in core only, it's just that only full casters or item abuse can do it.

Splat adds silly tricks if you combine half a dozen books (locate city bomb), but almost nothing on par with chain gating solars or other core shenangians.

That is only for lvl 17+
Most D&D campaigns are played under 10. Splatbooks break those.

 

[Scroo]

So I've started my Cleric / Wiz / Wiz / Wiz party and until lvl 5 you need to basically abuse the rest system a lot but afterwards it becomes laughably easy as I expected. I breezed through the slaver pens and the hill giants fortress, nothing really threatens me anymore due to having an endless supply of CC and aoe spells. And I haven't even crafted anything yet...

 

[TigerKnee]

The thought of doing that early-game is unbearable to me

 

[visions]

So I've started my Cleric / Wiz / Wiz / Wiz party and until lvl 5 you need to basically abuse the rest system a lot but afterwards it becomes laughably easy as I expected. I breezed through the slaver pens and the hill giants fortress, nothing really threatens me anymore due to having an endless supply of CC and aoe spells. And I haven't even crafted anything yet...

Slaver town and hill giant fortress were pretty easy areas in general. I played through a bunch of the slaver town content with only K K C since my wizard got petrified somewhere there. I did craft pimp ass gear for my party though. For me, the difficulty took a big nosedive after the hard fight in the caves leading to the slaver town (the one where you fall down). Don't remember, I might have started crafting around that time too though. Three wizards are bound to make the game easier but around that point, the game started becoming a little too easy even for a "standard" party.

 

[eXalted]

Sadly, the creator became insane shortly after release so we won't see a real sequel from what I know.

Wait wut?!

 

[Sjukob]

Wait wut?!

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...y-the-knights-of-the-chalice-ii-thread.86951/

 

[eXalted]

Thanks!

Updated my .txt

 

[Gregz]

So I've started my Cleric / Wiz / Wiz / Wiz party and until lvl 5 you need to basically abuse the rest system a lot but afterwards it becomes laughably easy as I expected. I breezed through the slaver pens and the hill giants fortress, nothing really threatens me anymore due to having an endless supply of CC and aoe spells. And I haven't even crafted anything yet...

I beat the game last week with that same party.

It's quite effective, but you will find that the end-game fights are still challenging.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

The thought of doing that early-game is unbearable to me

Funny enough, early game is challenging for any party and is pretty cool, if you like low level D&D.

I beat the game last week with that same party.

It's quite effective, but you will find that the end-game fights are still challenging.

I found the "boss" fight easy with all the firepower. The "other final fight" is more interesting, but if charm lands, also not very challenging.

 

[Incantatar]

I love the tactical battles but i have a grief with the encounter design. If my DM would throw one unavoidable surprise attack after another at me i would most certainly punch him in his fucking face.
I like to play my crpgs ironman so it's really an annoyance that it's practically a necessity to need so much meta knowledge of the game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The thought of doing that early-game is unbearable to me

Early game isn't actually that bad. The only really nasty fights are the first two. The elementals require some luck, and the goblins are actually pretty easy if you use the correct strategy (which is to spam sleep and Coup de Grace the enemies with heavy weapons.)

After you hit level 3 things are far easier, and once you get fireball things are pretty much trivial from then on.

 

[ArchAngel]

I love the tactical battles but i have a grief with the encounter design. If my DM would throw one unavoidable surprise attack after another at me i would most certainly punch him in his fucking face.
I like to play my crpgs ironman so it's really an annoyance that it's practically a necessity to need so much meta knowledge of the game.

PnP is played for roleplay first and combat second.

 

[Incantatar]

PnP is played for roleplay first and combat second.

I was talking about D&D.