Pescua [title work in progress!]

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Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Thanks both! I had more spare time than I expected this week in the end, so I managed to make quite a bit more progress.

I completed the tavern and town of Horngrim maps. I like the town, but I'm not sure about the tavern - the tiles I found are a bit too JRPG for my liking, so I might go back to basics and just make it a bit more abstract.

I finished all the wilderness maps I need for the chapter, and I'm enjoying just roaming around it all at present - it's about 30 20x20 maps, so it's quite a big space to explore but shouldn't be overwhelming. The quests will all come with directions and I'm adding signs into some of the maps that point to major landmarks.

I added a couple of encounters and had fun getting destroyed by trolls. There isn't enough experience in the chapter to reach level 2 yet, so the poor PCs don't stand a chance!

I wanted to add rain to an area, and I got playing around with Iceblink's weather editor. I've never really used it before, but it's great - the rain and fog effects really help the screens to feel less static. It's a nice addition. I've added it to all the maps at the minute in the "autumn" setting, but I'll probably fiddle with the settings a bit further down the line to make it more bespoke.

Next week I'm adding questing content. Looking forward to it! I'm not approaching it in a particular order, so I'll see which one I feel like doing at the time.
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Dorateen
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Dorateen »

Thirty areas of 20x20 maps sounds pretty spacious to me! It should be a pleasure to explore. I've been wanting to see the weather system in action, that will add a lot to the atmosphere. Keep up the good work!
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

I've been chipping away at quests this week. Completed the first one, which is a fairly simple murder hobo exercise you get right at the start of the mod - a local lighthouse has been overrun by monsters, and the players are sent to resolve the situation. Its nice to finally have some proper content in the module though. The player can now get the quest, make the journey across several screens (encountering a few encounters and NPCs on the way), clear the map, and return to the castle for a reward with their collected loot and XP. Result!

I'm about half-way through adding another quest, which is an optional one some players might not find. Inspired a bit by Knights of the Chalice, its a limited rest area - once you've started the quest you can't leave the area or rest until its finished. This makes resource management important, especially as the player doesn't know how many encounters are needed to clear the map. In this case, there are four in total - three routine encounters to chip away at HP and SP etc, and then a more challenging boss encounter.

Both of the quests have alternative paths if you pass skill checks. The lighthouse one is a fairly minor alternative (passing a "wilderness lore" check gives you a better starting position for a challenging combat encounter), but the optional quest is a bit more significant - passing a "bluff" check skips two of the encounters completely. I've been debating how to handle XP for that, and I think I'll give the party all the XP they would have otherwise earned had the fought the two optional encounters. I don't want to incentivise players to avoid passing skill checks. Its a tricky balance though - I want skill checks to (sometimes) feel meaningful, given players have given up on combat traits to take them - but equally, I don't want to make them OP or make too much of the content skippable.

So its slow progress, but progress all the same! I'm going to complete the optional quest next week and then maybe do one of the other three quests the player gets right at the start.
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Dorateen
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Dorateen »

I think the best solution is awarding the player the same XP for avoiding combat. It depends on how many fights you end up with. In a scenario where an area is combat heavy, then bypassing an encounter can be it's own reward.
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

Sounds like some great progress to me and I agree with Dorateen, giving the same XP rewards the player for investing and using those non-combat skills.
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Thanks both - yeah, that's the conclusion I came to as well. Hopefully it will work out!

I'm not claiming any credit for this, given the tiles all come from OpenGameDev and the weather effects are built into Iceblink :), but I like how all the animated effects are starting to stack up. The gif is of an area by a river where the rain effect has just kicked in alongside some early morning mist.

It reminded me how far the Iceblink engine has come over the years. Its a real pleasure to work with - easy and flexible and with so many options.

pescua rain.gif
pescua rain.gif (7.04 MiB) Viewed 4396 times
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

The GIF looks amazing! I love look of the tiles and rain selection, the art works well together.
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Dorateen
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Dorateen »

Pongo, are you working with the same selection of custom spells from the Eldarin Stone for this project?
Pongo
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by Pongo »

Thanks Slowdive!

Dorateen, no, not quite. I suspect they'll end up broadly the same as I'm trying not straying too far from D&D, but I'm doing them from scratch. Mainly because there are more classes in this mod and I need to work on balancing.

For example, this is the new bard song:
bard.png
bard.png (248.79 KiB) Viewed 4367 times
It works at level one, but I haven't added the other levels in yet (and you won't be able to get most of them in this module anyway). It makes it quite a bit more powerful than the D&D bard song - so I need to add restrictions to the class elsewhere. (Bard Song II is only available at level 3 - not sure about the other increases, but probably caps out somewhere between level 12 and 15).

Likewise, there are new spells for the Blood Mage class:
bloodmage.png
bloodmage.png (170.14 KiB) Viewed 4367 times
The other spells there are an armour spell for protection and an aggressive mage bolt type spell. I'm still working out this class - blood mages use HP to cast spells rather than SP and can't be healed by cleric spells, which makes them quite vulnerable. Their aggressive spells need to be a bit more effective as a balance. It would probably also make sense to give them a spell that specifically targets the reflex save to make the most of the Sticky Boots spell (in addition to slowing enemies so they can be taken out by archers in the party). And I'm now also thinking about giving them access to general mage spells, albeit with a much smaller SP pool to call on, because they just feel a bit too weak at low levels.

There's also the arcane archer to factor in - basically a magic user with some bespoke ranged bow attacks.

I haven't got the balance right yet, even amongst the level one spells, so I'm still tweaking them. Having said that, I'm not particularly bothered if one of the classes ends up more powerful than another, as long as they're fun to play and the difference isn't gamebreaking!
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slowdive
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Re: Pescua [title work in progress!]

Post by slowdive »

This is great! I love the background image, UI elements, font, and the spell icons. They work very well together. Once I get the vampiric type effects in, maybe the blood mage can use vampiric touch (which requires a successful attack roll) to gain HP back :P
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