Knights of the Chalice 2

Knights of the Chalice 2
N/A
Metacritic
71
Steam
46.5
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
25 March 2022
Steam reviews score
Total
71 (81 votes)

Knights of the Chalice 2 is a 2D RPG with turn-based combat. Create six Adventurers and set forth on an epic adventure against Evil. Overcome the odds with superior tactics. Enjoy a whole new dimension of complexity and variety based on the 3.5 ruleset! Includes a Module Editor.

Show detailed description

Knights of the Chalice 2 system requirements

Minimum:

  • Storage: 2 GB available space

Recommended:

Recommended requirements are not yet specified.
Similar games
DLC
Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
限界突破OL宇宙へ行く
限界突破OL宇宙へ行く

solid combat,awesome.
but why not allowing buffing before the battles?
also rogues are kind of dull because they just can't be stealthy unless with a invisible magical item.
enemies always gain the whole spell list while PCs don't.
hope there will be multiclassing and prcs.
----------------------------------------------------
after dozens of hours,enemies just gang up on you like tides.
New enemies just keep showing up EVERY turn and you cannot tell if the last one is coming,
Tracing back on the map also triggers enemies randomly generated from nowhere,kinda punishing too much,
Also if a hostile caster readied a counterspell move,your spell is almost doomed because enemies have EVERY spell of the level on their spellbooks.
----------------------------------------------------
me kick door
smash monstur
bein ambush
wizad make monstur spin
me keep smash
waaagghh
me rest, me kep smash, me happy

but there no bomfire
me angry

Adventurer
Adventurer

This is a weird one.

The game is still supported with regular updates so it may be a decent product in years to come. Who knows? As it stands, it isn't.

The reason it isn't are multifold - starting with the character generator. To spend the price of an AAA game and not even get a SPRITE that looks like the race you are designing should be a refund on the spot. They're all "human," breaking immersion immediately.

Further than that, encounters are set up to be unfair and play like an old nintendo game or something, where you are whisked away just as you thought the fight was won and suddenly you're in another, deadlier fight with your party battered already.

Low Magic Age is the best 3rd ed, INDIE dnd game, and it's fairly priced, too.

KotC2 needs a lot of work to make it worth buying at the price it's at now.

LivingVitae
LivingVitae

Starts out fun, but very much hampered by cheese tactics employed by game. For example, you're walking down a corridor and then all of a sudden a blank screen and you find yourself standing in a room surrounded by a group of enemies - and of course you're surprised. Or how about numerous groups of enemies that the player can't initiate combat with, who when you get close enough, enter dialog, force battle, and, of course, you're surprised. Frankly, it doesn't feel strategic and becomes very annoying after a while. Just not worth continuing.

Hero
Hero

To those who say the game is to hard and unfair, scaring away potential players (Almost scared me out of buying it). I beat the game on normal difficulty first time with two reloads. Took me 25 hours though some of this is because i left it open, probably closer to 20 hours. So no the game is not very hard on normal or easy if you have some familiarity with 3.5. I'm a pathfinder guy so i am familiar with 3.5 rule set though there are some bonkers design decisions and plenty of trap feats. Overall fun game but a little short for the price tag. The puzzles are hit and miss with mostly misses. The A.I feels like a fairly ruthless GM with its tactics which leads to tense combats. Overall the price is hard to swallow for the content and this is the type of game to never go on sale. So if price is a concern skip but otherwise its a strong addition to the limited games in this sphere of gaming.

Hobojoe
Hobojoe

A mixed bag, on one hand it's a pretty decent battle simulator for 3.5 D&D and I've no doubt modders could perhaps make a decent campaign with it...unfortunately the mod that ships with the game is of a very low quality, not particularly immersive or well written in the few hours I played it, the graphics are also very subpar, this leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when balanced against the games current price tag.

Will perhaps give it another shot should it ever go on sale.

Samurai Shampooh
Samurai Shampooh

Do not buy this game. The negative votes are absolutely right about this travesty, dont waste your money. it is incredibly, unnecessarily difficult even on light settings. Not fun, there is challenge and there is ridiculous. I played dnd for years but this unaccepable! fighting in the tutorial a wizard, mummies, a fighter that does over 20 damage to a party member and you are level 2? screw you man, screw you.

MrQuincy
MrQuincy

Worth every penny.

I got this game as a gift from my son who's a veteran of RPGcodex. I did not want to play it. I thought it looked horrible and there was a lot of stuff to learn since I was coming from Pathfinder.

I procrastinated for days spending just a few minutes on it periodically reading the help screens and theory-crafting builds. I didn't want to search message boards for builds and wanted to learn it for myself. So I started creating characters and playing mini-sessions figuring out what worked well together and what didn't.

About 200 hours later I finally beat the game. On hard difficulty. And it was a blast. I started over a billion times. Seeing how far I could go in a day then deleting my characters and creating a new party to see how far I would go on the next. I've never played a game where I would enjoy doing that before. Literally getting to chapter 2 - going to sleep - then playing the next day with a whole different squad.

Ultimately, I decided on building a mostly-pure caster party for my latest play-through. Cleric, Evoker, Geomancer, and Psion with a Rogue and Ranger to round things out. My rogue was a dex-based assassin (I refused the popular idea of reach+strength). And I beat every fight. Spider queen and all.

I could go on and on about how much I loved this game but you get the point. This was an incredibly addictive, tightly focused, combat-heavy D&D game with great AI.

Worth every penny.

aqua
aqua

the developer has basically no idea about what does Tutorial means and how to set difficulty correctly. I meaning the tutorial fight against dark elf necromancer. so basically, the necromancer has 4 summons, and himself has ultra high dex, dealing about 10 dmg on melee without crit, or throwing chromatic ray each round

also the game keeps crashing when entered the main champain

Arcanist
Arcanist

Challenging game, and possibly the most interesting crpg I played in a while, the difficulty can be adjusted by starting with a higher level party, and the strategic possibilities of each class and build are also notable. It's very important (and rewarding) to complete the tutorial module as all the multitude of most tactics are very well explained there. I recommend this game to old school rpg enthusiasts and to those in search of hidden gems. It also plays wonderfully on the Steam Deck.

c.scott.johnson
c.scott.johnson

I have played this game for 77 hours at this point. I'm writing from the perspective of someone with long experience in D&D from 2nd through 5th edition and also Pathfinder. Recently, there have been quite a few negative reviews coming up about this game. I do understand why these reviewers hold their opinions, however I agree and disagree. I agree that the main storyline, Augury of Chaos, is quite difficult and you have to choose a certain party composition to even have any chance at playing through the game. The AI for the game is the best I've ever seen in any RPG and that's why jt's so hard. Where I disagree is that this means the entire game is not worth playing. There is a mod for the game called "Hearkenwold" that has very reasonable difficulty and a good story. It makes the game very enjoyable and playable. One more thing. This game makes great improvements by adding it's own classes, races, feats, spells, etc and there are more character building options than you'll find in almost any computer RPG game. Right now, I'm playing Hearkenwold with a party composed of a Dwarf Gladiator, Half-Giant Samurai, Elf Mage Knight, Half-Elf Rogue, Elf Psionicist, and Halfling Druid and it's the most fun I've had in a long time. Try the Hearkenwold mod. It will improve your experience with an already solid game.

[FUA] Scruffer
[FUA] Scruffer

Awesome rpg game. dont be put off by the simplistic graphics, the game is deep and has plenty of tactical options and is loosely based on 3.5 edition of D&D though there certainly are differences. I love it already. I wish there were more fan based modules created with the extensive editor it comes with.

Jatea
Jatea

So I've played the previous game KOTC1, that game was brutal in difficulty (and it did have some unfair fights where your party was surprised) In this game, even the tutorial module is tough in certain places! I have yet to play the main module Augury of Chaos, but playing through the compact Tutorial module was a neat experience!

This game definitely has a lot of information to process, so it might take you a while to understand the game! It's definitely more of a niche game, and the price point is a little difficult to bear, (I got this game on a 10% sale mostly because I enjoyed KOTC1 a good amount and wanted to see how KOTC2 felt) but there's certainly value in this game! I think that having several options for character creation and even a fully-fledged Module Editor is awesome!

Hope that the future modules in development (from the developer and from other fans) go well!

trephoenix
trephoenix

This is the most faithful adaption of the D20 rules set in a CRPG to date. The tutorial is superbly executed and will kill you on normal difficulty (a lot), but this teaches you how to adapt your party and tactics. The AI is outstanding and doesn't simply rely on high stat blocks (looking at you Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous). Enemy mages will cast grease near braziers in order to set up their summoned skeletons to Slide your party members into swift, fiery deaths. Graphics are old school and the sticker price is high for an indie game, but worth it if you enjoy game mechanics and challenges.

Deepockent
Deepockent

Look, I appreciate what the devs were trying to do, but it just falls flat. The UI and UX are very reminiscent of technical placeholders, and I'm not sure why that didn't get brought up or fixed .. ever? They've clearly got a strong fondness for 3.5 and CRPGs, they need to do a full rework of how this game presents itself. Who decided to lock audio sliders at 5%? I just .. please have people playtest your games.

Nocker
Nocker

A terrible UI and an atrocious character generator ruin what could be a great game.

EDIT: I wish I had more than one negative recommendation to give. Because I'm a sucker for RPGs and d20 games, I decided to ignore the terrible UI / UX issues and give Knights of the Chalice 2 a decent try. Doing that, I noticed that the game has deeper issues than just "looking like ass".

Even after "cheating" by enabling several house-rules that should never be needed on a properly balanced game (perfect ability scores, more feats) it comes a point where your party is level 14 and the game is throwing bullshit fights at you, like one versus a room full of high level spellcasters led by a 500+ hp level 20 arcane caster that's immune to melee crowd control and is scripted to just appear at the room: even if you know where it'll arrive, there's nothing you can do to proactively deal with it, until it appears and destroys half your party with two level 8+ spells / round, because its first action is to cast "accelerate spellcasting".

After several attempts at the fight, each one lasting 10 minutes or more, I managed to kill all the "weak enemies" down and take the level 20 spellcaster down to "just" 200hp, when I noticed that the game also scripts heavy enemy reinforcements coming through. That's when I decided to uninstall.

I mean, at that point, I could optimize the party positioning a bit more, since I know from where the reinforcements will come and then lose several hours more hoping for another fight where the RNG aligns just right and then I could probably win, but what's the point? A few hours in, the game is not a d20 RPG anymore, but a pointless exercise in reloading and reloading until you know from where the reinforcements will arrive and several hard to make saves align properly. It's just pointless masochism.

oddeyedl
oddeyedl

Absolute shytfest. No balancing. Left too hard behind a long long time ago.
Is actually so poorly made I wonder if the dev has dementia.

Emmanuel2
Emmanuel2

I've finished the game's first module, Augury of Chaos, on Archmage mode and so felt that I can make a more proper review.

For the Augury of Chaos module: it is a lengthy pure dungeon crawl with very minimal fluff and several puzzles to solve. Encounters are built to challenge your mastery, party composition and your character builds. With the last two chapters really testing the limits of your party with certain restrictions in place alongside dubious traps/encounters forcing proper prioritization. I never used the 2 extra party slots for NPCs past chapter 1 as I felt 6 is the sweet spot and gives a more satisfying challenge.

The module does not pull any punches and I advise not pulling any of yours either.

For the "game" itself: It is an amazing adaptation of the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e OGL with changes that are very welcome.

If you're not someone who's already familiar with the ruleset, the game has an ingame help feature with extensive documentation of the mechanics at the press of a button (F1) alongside handy hyperlinks within text and can also be accessed through rightclicking terms and menus.

It features many classes with the balance between martials and casters being better than how 3.5e handled it. Martials become much more valuable while casters have some options removed but still stay at the top of versatility and how many encounters they can answer with a spell or two. Hybrids outside of Ranger still stay problematic and will be hard to justify taking in a high optimization module like Augury of Chaos.

Gameplay-wise, the options are extensive for combat: Disarm, Sunder, Trip, Bull rush, Slide, Pull, Grapple, height differences, reach weapons, ignite web/grease, blow fog away, etc. It is very satisfying utilizing the options you have to resolve the encounters the first module give you.

The UI and lack of resolution + scaling did make it hard for me to get used to the game at first. I recommend checking playthroughs out first to see if you'll manage to get past these downsides

Overall, I really enjoyed my time and wholeheartedly recommend it to people looking for a hard dungeon crawl, or to people looking for a 3.5e adaptation but with positive changes.

night4
night4

This is a tactical turn based fantasy CRPG with a heavy emphasis on character/group creation and combat using a variation of D&D 3.5. If you don't have some idea of what that means, this game probably isn't for you.

Pros
- Well designed and very challenging tactical combat. This is, after all, the most important thing about the game by far
- Some of the craziest, most intense turn based fights I've ever seen (and I've a lot of them) but you can always win them one way or another
- Will probably give you 100+ hours of enjoyment if this is your genre (look at my play time)
- Enemies actually do fairly intelligent things in combat
- Huge class list
- Many options to customize your game experience
- Many dialogue options that depend on your class/stats/etc
- Psionicists are bonkers. Literally now one of my favorite classes in any CRPG I've ever played.
- Fantastic quality of life features like in-game encyclopedia links everywhere, visual warnings regarding spell scrolls and learning spells, and complete breakdowns in the combat log. The Pathfinder games could learn something from KotC2.
- Fantastic puzzle design, very creative and usually just challenging enough to figure out without too much effort but still satisfying to do. You can skip any/all by using the in-game hints, too, so you won't be stuck. Again, other devs need to take note of this because this is how you do puzzles correctly.
- Dev read and responded to suggestions in the forums here and actually implemented my suggestion within a couple days. I'm impressed

Cons
- Price tag is maybe a little high for what it is
- Writing isn't great, but it's good enough
- Sound design is a bit simplistic, but it's good enough
- Inventory management becomes annoying

I would only recommend this to more hardcore CRPG/tactical RPG players with a background in D&D/Pathfinder. And even then, mostly to those that like really challenging fights. You can adjust the difficulty in a number of ways, but if you make it too easy you're really taking away the one thing the game does extremely well.

ilyusha
ilyusha

This game caused me write my first ever steam review. And then edit it. And then edit it again, as I struggle to get some value out of this game.

TLDR: It's a "fail to rng, reload the game" simulator, catering to fairly niche group of D&D "git gud" masochists.

The good - This game has likely the most clever and adaptive AI in any tactical D&D crpg. Same as in the previous game.

There are a lot of class-specific dialogue options, which is nice.

The neutral - Makes a lot of changes to the D&D 3.5 rule set. The new mechanics breathe a new life into a stale rule set (similar to pathfinder). It's a mixed bag; some of the changes are reeeaaally questionable.

The bad - the previous game was difficult, but fun. This game is difficult and tedious. It's difficulty relies on the following: numerically deadly encounters, frequent restrictions on resting, and random reinforcements that appear out nowhere, immediately surrounding your party. To even have a chance of winning, you have metagame, using your advance knowledge from previous failures. The combat can drag on for hours, and you're only a few bad rolls away from having to redo the whole combat all over again. This is true even on the lowest difficulty.

Most of the 20+ classes/subraces might as well not exist, because they will not survive the combat encounters. There are only a handful of actually viable builds.

The obtuse, garish interface with tiny icons, should also get a special mention. Hire a UI designer please, have pity on your collective players' eyesight.

Somehow, this 2d game also lags. The game will sometimes stutter to 4fps when trying to calculate pathfinding. Enemy casters will often think for 20 seconds between moves. There are a ton of them later in the game.

This pinnacle of a gaming experience will set you back $45. At this price point, you could expect a fully-voiced, 3d, AA game. Even if you're not particular about graphics, this thing looks like you're playing BG2 in microsoft excel on windows 98. Was the price tag also randomly generated?

To sum up - this game is unsuitable to the general crpg audience. It's designed strictly for dnd masochists, and assumes a 3rd edition system mastery from the player, even on the lowest difficulty.

This is coming from one of the masochists. I finished the previous game on the hardest difficulty, and could probably run a 3rd edition game without looking at the rule books.

This game is designed to wear out your "load savegame" key. It's ctr+L by the way. Enjoy.

Never Should Have Come Here
Never Should H…

hands down the best tactical DND game ever.

The tutorial dungeon alone is already better than most CRPG encounters.

B!
B!

This is the real deal, deep character building, hard tactical battles, excellent encounter design, incredible AI (this is something you mostly don't see in games), the whole package.

Buy it, spend many hours creating characters and then go get destroyed, it will be fun

SunnyTornado
SunnyTornado

Hope Pierre can stop eating roots after the release.

Dorateen
Dorateen

As a backer of the kickstarter campaign for this project, I have been working with the Knights of the Chalice 2 editor for the past year and a half. In such capacity, I was able to gain a better understanding of the complex systems underlying this game. There is a solid foundation here for building classic Dungeons & Dragons style turn-based adventures. And that is what Augury of Chaos, the first official module released by the developer, represents. This aspect of the Module Editor is another side of the game and its importance must not be overlooked when judging Knights of the Chalice 2's value.

Using the same engine as Augury of Chaos, the Module Editor allows builders to create similar top down, 2D adventures incorporating the OGL ruleset. This is accomplished by designing maps that can either be created from scratch or by importing external images. Map tiles, tokens and icons are based on 64 x 64 dimension graphics, so it is an easy matter of sizing art accordingly. From there, a module builder has access to a number of additional props and functions, such as torchlights or interactive doors, which come with the editor.

Equally important to module creation, Knights of the Chalice 2 includes a Creature Editor, Item Editor, Weapons and Armor Editor, and Spell Editor. This is where a builder can flex a greater degree of creativity. But to make things easier, a function allows to import these files directly from Augury of Chaos. Thus the entire roster of monsters and equipment are at one’s fingertips ready to be edited and customized as desired. Something that is not present, is a feats or class editor, and these elements appear to be hardcoded. The finished module will still be using the same ruleset and character development system, so a builder should have an expectation of designing similar Dungeons & Dragons style scenarios. While there is enough latitude to add new artwork and change naming conventions, an attempt to make a sci-fi or modern setting could prove frustrating due to some of the engine’s internal constraints and limitations.

On the other hand, the possibility to recreate the infamously deadly encounters of Knights of the Chalice right out of the box has much appeal. In this sense, the editor represents a platform to build combat scenarios that can challenge players. The AI programming is retained by the creature templates, which of course can be further modified. And the map editor allows for designing terrain with altitude, damage squares and other effects that help shape tactical battlefields. This is a role-playing game celebrated for its combat and building a team of characters to tackle such, and that type of approach is the Module Editor’s strength.

Overall, this is a toolset that does not require advanced knowledge of scripting. It is designed to give a builder a canvass to import images and tinker with templates. At a fundamental level, this makes it simple to construct dungeons populated by enemies and their treasure to loot. Yet there are numerous customization options available to expand what a design could be capable of. A Help menu is included, which outlines some basic instructions about using the controls. However, the best way to learn is often by opening up another module and looking at how it works.

A wise man once said, the role of the Dungeon Master is not to tell a story, but to craft an adventure. Knights of the Chalice 2 allows just that.

ZEDTH
ZEDTH

It's not Knights of the Chalice as we know anymore. Rogue with spells, ability increases every level, feats every level, reflex penalties from armor, etc - it's not D&D 3.5 either.

nstepak
nstepak

Definitely for the hardcore old fashioned dungeons and dragons player. The graphics are dated, the game play is isometric and it is an utter throwback to an earlier style. It teminds me of a mix of arduin, home brew gaming, and old fashioned tabletop tactics. There is a lot to like here if you like super detailed custom characters and very hard battles.

This game is designed for the completist who is trying to get every bit of the game finished. It is very hard to play if you miss even a few details. I found it challenging in the tutorial to find everything. There are a lot of hidden bits that add up and make a difference. I was carefully to cover the whole map in the starter scenario to make sure I got everything.

So far the game has played well. It requires some more focus than the newer games like Pathfinder. Attention to detail in buying the right equipment and choosing the right spells is important. It is very easy to lose battles if you don't play tactically.

I spent almost a whole day playing the game. I had to redo several encounters to make sure my attack pattern is right. Even things like party formation matter. Background matters as well. Having the right mix of characters ensures that there is enough variety to complete the dialogue encounters. This makes details like the party composition important. This is a very detailed game which will be hard for people unless they slow down and look through their options carefully. You need to visit more than one merchant to get items to make things for example.

I am enjoying this game because I am an old fashioned completist who likes a lot of detail. It is not for everyone.

Sloul Des Tucs
Sloul Des Tucs

This is possibly the best tactical game I ever played.
This is also possibly the only D&D adaptation to a computer game that I don't find boring.
The game feels epic, and it starts with the music launcher reminescent of Conan the Barbarian main theme (mixed with pious/chivalresque tones).

This is the best thing I played since Archolos - Chronicles of Myrtana, and I have to say that I feel blessed for having two games of this magnitude released shortly the one after the other.
I do now believe in the resurgence of the rpg genre.

- Extremelly satisfying character and party creation (puts so many rpg to shame)
- A lot of tactical options during combats, martial artists are not just standing there idle waiting to get buffed in order to auto attack; They can wait in overwatch or rush to grapple, trip, disarm etc. to change the tide of battle.
- Size matters
- Speed matters
- Spells are many&wild
- This is not an adaptation of D&D 3.5, but a game heavily inspired by D&D 3.5 which means: new classes, new spells
- I am sure I forgot a lot of positive things to say, but keep in mind that your world is going to get a lot smaller when you set foot in this game (possibly the size of your living/bed/computer room).

There is no multiclassing system, but I would agree that the game is actually better off without it, in the first place because a replacement are hybrid classes and that they are well thought-out and tailored.
Like Storm Warrior a mix between a druid and a martial artist.

The graphics are possibly the worst thing here, there are multiple graphical options and I would rate the vanilla one the less interesting (moreover because it is unfinished).
I would advise any new player to play only with tokens.

Now if you'll excuse me, I got a cave to explore, creeps to beat and a paladin princess to satisfy with a psalm.

Dr. Bloo D. Ninja
Dr. Bloo D. Ninja

This game is clearly made by a mathematician. The first riddle in the game for you to solve is literally just the The Pythagorean Theorem. Very little goes into the story or writing. The difficultly of the game is super spiky. One fight will be a complete joke, and then the next will be next to impossible, for no real conceivable reason.

The game gets a lot right though. It gives you the option to just cheat in the character creation screen so you can build whatever crazy nonsense you want. Rpg options arent tied to a d20, if you have the qualifier, you can just do it. Riddles have a "show answer" option so you don't get stuck. Hands down the best crafting system I have ever seen for magic items.

TL;DR If you are a TRPG whore like me then you will like this game. Don't expect any story worth a shit. Do expect difficulty. Craft 2 +5 Keen Vorpal Bastard swords for your 2-handed, dual-wielding, Improved critical strike, half-giant Gladiator.

Gzar
Gzar

Very in-depth adaptation of D&D 3.5e with some liberties taken in places, the changes are good and necessary improvements to the base ruleset. Game is very difficult but overcoming the challenges is also rewarding. Feels like a real tabletop RPG adventure with lot of flavor and options both in dialogue and in combat. Overal very interesting experience for hardcore gamers.

Qiox
Qiox

My party is level 5 and I'm a little ways out of the first starting town area. I like it. There's enough fine tuning options for difficulty settings to make the game feel right. I picked the highest difficulty then changed a few settings: Changed Feat gain to ever 2 levels instead of every 3 levels. Turned on the option for more camp spots where you can rest. And turned on the option that your party regains 10% of max health at the end of each battle.

I find just those 3 changes puts the difficulty at a spot I like. And it is still quite hard for some encounters. But there's usually options available. Some encounters you can simply avoid via dialog choices. Others, it is just a matter of doing something else and coming back at a higher level or with some gear upgrades. The starting area has enough options on what you do, but it is important to make hard saves so that you can back out if a chain of encounters are too hard.

Character creation is great with a huge variety of classes. races, sub races, feats and skills. And itemization is also great in this game with a very wide variety of gear and consumables to be found, bought, and even crafted.

So far so good.

Anonymous
Anonymous

After enjoying the first game, I was enticed to purchase this sequel. Many of the reviews eluded to the extreme difficulty of the game which gave me pause. It did not take long before I began experiencing the sadistic intentions of the game creator. For example, encountering an enemy party almost ten times your party number composed mostly of mages. The game allows you to modify some of the difficulty, but it hardly feels like an improvement. Overall, it feels less like a game and more of the developer's infatuation in overwhelming the player. Unfortunately, the balance is too far off to be any pleasure for me and I will most likely avoid any more productions from this developer.

GAME GOD FLUENT
GAME GOD FLUENT

Wow. Pure stat-heavy, pen and paper style CRPG "STUFF" going on here! If u like vintage D&D and D&D style CRPGs then this is a MUST-PLAY. Hopefully plenty of modules will be made for it, it's got a seriously impressive array of features! Instant classic.

Shotagonist
Shotagonist

I was enthusiastic about this game for a bit. I knew it was going to be hard challenge but I was prepared to be careful and pay attention. I read the guide and built a party with the help of the feedback on the discord. I come to the first town and clear out the surrounding area from wildlife. I do very well and take little damage.

I enter the tavern and get a quest from the bartender to take care of a few rowdy dwarves who were drinking. I used a persuasion skill and make them leave without a fight.... I thought.

One of the dwarves said they will only leave if I beat a Large Earth Elemental which I couldn't back out of. Not only does it have a lot of HP and damage reduction, it can also cast an AoE Quicksand spell which stunlocked my entire party for 4 turns straight. This was on the easy difficulty.

Oh you just finished up a quest and wanna return it for a rewards? SIKE you actually get teleported into an even harder encounter!

This game will just spring bullshit on you without any warning and no chance for you to prepare. If you don't want to lose, you have to either memorize the game or follow a guide meticulously. There is no real way to flex numbers high enough to overpower the challenges in this game and all of the difficulty in this game comes from being required to know ahead of time what will kill you. It isn't fun, it doesn't feel strategic, you're just expected to know what kind of bullshit the module will pull out of its ass to make your day worse.

At the end of the day I just feel discouraged to even try anymore. Exploring quests in the wrong order makes the game exponentially harder and you have to run into wipes just to have enough intel to even know what to look out for.

Chances are, if you aren't already deep into 3.5 optimization and heard of this game years ago, you probably aren't the audience here. This game is meant for a small group of hardcore enthusiasts and if you aren't into it, you will find nothing here that is any fun.

Randominion
Randominion

Tough but perfect for them 3.5 hardcores.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The best D&D adaptation I've ever seen. Looking forward to custom modules, especially the ones from RPGCodex.

Tequilaman
Tequilaman

I wasn't looking for this game, but it actually surprised me as being a very good adaptation of D&D 3.5 rules (OGL) with neat little homebrews that actually make a lot of sense to me.

Mind you, the time I have spent was mostly on character creation and leaving the game open, although I'm not even halfway through its main module.

PROS
- D&D 3.5 OGL system, with neat homebrews like feats that make combat maneuvers move/swift actions
- Very deep and interesting customization of races and classes (for example, one of my characters is a mantis psychic warrior with 4 arms/weapons)
- Tactical battles that award looking at the enemies stats and planning ahead for the terrain
- Characters in your party affects the skills you can use which are widely available in many story interactions (like say your wizard has flying familiar, that can help you fetch something up high)
- Nice use of puzzles in the game
- Soundtrack is simple yet strangely addictive
- Difficult, you definitely to look up help files, understand the rules and manage resources well

CONS
- Obviously this isn't next gen graphics but it brings out old school vibes and for that style it's pretty decent
- For the Archmage difficulty (which is like core 3.5 rules) it wants you to play with gold to level up. I'm not a huge fan of this since generally you're behind in levels due to lack of gold needed, even though you have the XP. It is growing on me though as it does add more strategy to it (ex: at certain levels I'd rather spend gold on X character to level first since he gets a lot more powerful than Y at that particular level). This can be toggled off.
- Story is ok but not really what gets the itch going here.

OVERALL
I'm very pleased with the game so far. It's a little gem that actually made me take a break from my Elden Ring experience. The deep customization of party at the beginning, plus companions you find along the way, will make you question your choices as you leap from battle to battle, find yourself with almost no health and little resources, and yet you will keep trying to survive against overwhelming odds and grow more powerful in return.

It's an old school vibes RPG with D&D 3.5 ruleset and deep mechanics and customization. If that catches your attention, buy this!

PS: I believe there are also user made modules being created. So in effect this can lead to a variety of new games in the future, or even make your own!

Turtle N a Tree
Turtle N a Tree

The witches are dangerous foes, but we are prepared this time. I've given half my party special helmets to protect themselves from their petrifying gaze. The helmets blind them, but that's better than turning into a statue. I position everyone else in the far back and start my attack.

My wizard creates a nauseating gas cloud on top of the witches to disorient them. The druid and mage knight cast webs and entangle on the left and right to trap their minions then retreat farther in the back. Next my sorcerer summons an etin to distract the gargoyles that have started their advance. Thanks to my choices, my storm warrior has a opening to grapple the nearest witch. My samurai follows his lead and attacks the witch that hes holding down.

Furious, one of the witches dispels the gas cloud. Another witch uses her gaze to petrify the summoned etin and the final witch drinks a potion to remove the effects of the gas. Gargoyles and slime's start to attack my storm warrior and samurai to free the witch they are holding down. If I don't do something, the free witches will start casting spells and advanced on my characters that don't have helmets. To make matters worst, giant skeletons have appeared from every corner of the room holding giant clubs.

This game is full of battles like this. I could go on and on about the interesting battles I have fought in this game. If you want to enjoy battles like this, give the game a try.

ywfn666
ywfn666

Best D&D combat ever. The sheer number of races/subraces, classes, feats, combat maneuvers, spells/powers, etc is ridiculous, and the enemy AI is unmatched. This first module, Augury of Chaos, is mostly combat-focused without much exploration or story, hopefully future modules bring more of that in. Difficulty is high relative to other games of this nature, be prepared for that.

lor1keet
lor1keet

Wow, this game has so much depth!

Got the Archmage Edition. It's filled with tons of information. Worth the extra money!

Looking forward to many many hours playing this game.

Notorious C.A.T.
Notorious C.A.T.

A future all-time classic - just like the first Knights of the Chalice - that I urge you to check out if you haven't. Let me put it this way - my credit card wasn't a type accepted by the Kickstarter the amazing and responsive Dev held... So I got a Different credit card.

No way I wasn't going to support such class.
Brings back the 90's in all the right ways! I've spent 3 hours and I've *almost* created my first party - it's just too much fun creating mixtures/classes and characters.

Can't recommend highly enough!!!

So I'm well into the first town of Finsbury - a perfectly balanced difficulty level - but really the key and hallmark of these games is:

VARIETY - you can deal with almost any encounter in many different ways - with violence, of course, or negotiation, or trading some other task/favor/item - you are not handicapped but instead have near total freedom.

That and the battles are PERFECT - not too many, not too few and all strategic and fun!

Anonymous
Anonymous

I absolutely love this game!! The pacing and difficulty are sublime. The developer packed a ton of content into this gem. Very addicitve - a true delight for CRPG fans!!!

Roguenbauld
Roguenbauld

Edit: Mainly with 1.33 the problems with save corrupted files are fixed, which makes me happy to say that now this game has alot of potential and feels rly good to play.

Earlier review before the fix:

"First of all I'm loving this game! Which is why it saddens me to have to leave a negative review on it. I'm currently on an awesome journey in the AoC module and playing it on Archmage Difficulty (yes I'm one of those masochists fellas out there). The Old school graphics are all right and the enviroment and sound settings are all okish. The AI is fantastic and gives me the all around feeling that there's no equal experience even if you replay encounters! That's the good part of it!

Now for the bad part and this is a HUGE ALERT for anyone who wants to buy this game.

It's has a lot of issues with corrupted save files and loosing hunches of your playthrough! Saving the game alot should be something to counteract that but guess what. When you save (this happened 3 times already) there's also a possibility of breaking the game which corrupts your save and looses you a hunch of your playthrough time!

Also quests: Some decisions you can take to solve many quests in the game actually breaks the game (yeah I know it`s a repetitive loop of breaking, but it`s less annoying to read it here than to experience it there).

The most frustrating thing for me is the fact that I wanna play this game, and unfortunately it`s not the ddifficulty settings that is keeping me away from it, but instead the possibility of having to redo a huge chunk of playthrough not because i want to, but because of those mentioned problems.

At last: Don`t ever try IronMan. I lost a 8 hours progression run because of this and there`s no way to tell when it`s gonna break or not, so using some save backup strategy also doesn`t work.

There you go! Dev if you`re reading this, know that I trully apreciate what you`re doing, but please fix it ASAP, because the worst thing would be taking this hidden gem out of question because of the frustration experienced by bugs!"

Zygolatz685
Zygolatz685

Played almost 150 hours, very good game. Some unfinished parts like character sprites etc but overall my type of game. Got about 3/4 through the game but it got way too hard. Ive got it on super easy mode but it is still way too hard. I will keep a watch out in case they release a lower difficulty level. Maybe the easier difficulty levels could have infinite resting at campfires? There are some who would really like to play but aren't really up to it. Anyway thanks for making it and well done.

Ok so I continued playing, rerolled a dozen or so times, loaded up with magic users. Somehow got through Chapter 3 then BAM, hit a brick wall on the start of Chapter 4. I really like the game, bugs and all. I dont even care about the sprites etc but there needs to be another difficulty level for people like me. Anyway, I have what I think is a maxxed party but im gonna have a break and come back to this. I will leave more comments below at a later date. For those who complain about price, I have 200+ hours on this game and have got way more satisfaction from it than many other games. Well worth the price.

I am updating this review as i work my way through the game. There is a setting which makes battle difficulty easier, that combined with giving my troops a bonus level at the start makes be think I can do this. I will report back later...

Ok, I am back after 286 hours and I need to move onto something else. I will definitely come back for expansion. Anyway my take is this:

I am not a kickstarter and just fumbled across this game. I do not know the developer personally.

The game is a series of preset encounters which on the surface seem very linear. Some people have even commented that the lack of open world or player ability to explore off the beaten track detracts from the game. I think it is perfect in this regard. Each scenario plays differently depending on the composition of your party. Eg: Shoot an arrow at a spell caster to get a free turn, bust a door down with half giant strength or pick a lock with rogue abilities. There are numerous ways to approach each encounter.

So I bring my party up to a section of corridor. I feel as though I have explored the map in full but one of my party members spots a button on the wall. After examining the button carefully to see if there is a magic aura or other devious trap, I decide to hit the button. Instantly I am teleported into another room where I am ambushed by a group of monsters. The composition of my party means that I am unable to avoid their ambush. After withstanding their initial assault one of my characters is dragged off and thrown into a fire pit where they burn away and lie prone awaiting their fiery end. I have a myriad of spells and abilities to help rescue my character however I have to choose carefully as the leader of the monsters is on a rampage and dropping my party like flies. I decide to take my warrior and grapple the unwieldy monster taking its focus and giving the rest of my party time to regroup. Instead of rescuing my fallen comrade I decide to let him cook for a bit in the fire (he can always be healed later right?) meanwhile I focus all my spell casters on taking the big baddie down. I end up taking the baddie down with a slice from my enchanted glaive (which I made myself) and victory is mine. As I drag my comrade from the fire pit, the room populates with more creatures, this time they dont get the jump on me and I am going to make them pay. Welcome to KOTC2 as these are the types of battles you are constantly encountering. I rerolled my party approximately 12 times to make sure I could get the most from the game. I really liked this.

I have spent hours adjusting the composition of my party. I am not a very skilled player but in the end after adjusting the settings I was able to make it through.

There is an issue with sprites in that they are not all made however I would like to say I am very glad the game was released in its current condition. As an example I have been looking our for Low Magic age. That game may have more polish in areas however it has been in early access for 10 years or so. The developer here made sure they got the good bits right and allowed an earlier release. I am glad it was released as I would probably be dead if I had to wait 10 years+ in early access.

Developer is active in fixing bugs and improving etc.

Pricing point is high but worth every cent. It is not a game to spend 10 or 20 hours on, for those this game appeals to will spend 100+ hours on it getting true value for money. It is a credit to the developer to hold up against the barrage of people wanting to cut the price.

I really look forward to any DLC and recommend this game to anyone looking for this type of tactical combat experience. I put Elden Ring on hold while I played this game so that says it all. A+

Korben_Sallad
Korben_Sallad

Love the game! Rule reworks are great and the classes are fun. Battles are fine too, there is no shame in playing on normal and maybe giving yourself that extra level before starting the module. I have only one big issue. The game have crashed five times during ironman play, there is no auto save and the saved games delete on every crash. what. the. fuck. Fix this.

Ronnie
Ronnie

While I appreciate the games focus, I cannot recommend this game. This game has been reported by many to have a lot of game crashing bugs that prevent the enjoyment of the game.

For $44.99 I would expect this game to have it all together, but it fails to meet its mark.

Among the bugs then we have the difficulty factor, In the tavern a side quest some dwarves summon a level 7 Golem for you to fight that literally makes your level 1 newbie party look like bugs only to be squashed with ease. This is a major balance issue and I know there are future fights that are similar.

I also finished the tutorial and did not even get a steam achievement which likely is a bug, It took what over 20 hours to just win the tutorial module? This is because of the crazy balance problems with the hard monster encounters and endless reloads.To me this is not how you add game content for hours invested as the player should be investing time enjoying the game vs re loading save games becoming a chore and the main game module only makes it worst.

The First recruit the Barbarian of whom will join near the start of the original campaign if you beat him for him to join in a duel it crashes every single time so there is no recruitment for him. This will instantly turn off a lot of people for wanting to play this game.

I have read on the forums of the developers forum of people piling up bug complaints about this game.

So is this game worth buying? Absolutely NO... The Above stated problems between bugs and balance encounter issues destroys the any potential good this game can provide. Sadly this game seems to lack a story as seen in traditional role playing games it is mainly a game about encounters. If somebody wanted that they are better off playing a wargame like Age of Wonders 3,Legendary Heroes Fallen Enchantress,Eador Masters of the Broken world etc.

Sadly the player will be forced to reload the save game dozens of times if not hundreds of times due to balance encounter problems. This is all without Iron man mode by the way. To even add Iron man mode for a game like this really is a joke in my opinion as I'd rather see experience lost or gold lost each time you need to reload instead of a broken iron man mode for a game that has unbearable encounter balance problems.

In Conclusion I am suggesting folks to avoid this title and I would recommend playing Lords of Xulima, Wizardry 8, SSI Gold Box Games or some of the A+ title games that have no bugs and the balance is perfect and it feels like a great rpg experience. I never played the First Knights of Chalice, but after seeing what has become of this game I doubt I would be interested in playing that game. While this game does have some good sadly the bad just outweighs the good so it is not even worth going over that.

If the encounter balance problems get addressed actually having a story with a rpg experience I feel is needed, along with the bugs it might be worth a revisit, but as of right now I would avoid this game. Sadly if anybody decides to buy this game ultimately your just a beta tester since this game seems to be plagued with bugs and encounter balance problems. To me this lacks professionalism when releasing a game that took over 10 years to make.

Also when the Developer releases future modules I do not plan to buy them as I don't believe in paying to be a beta tester. I am ok with the graphics and it not being a A+ title,but the bugs and encounter balance with enemies and the lack of story has detoured me away from this game. I feel if the Developer has not got this stuff ironed out within the 10 years of making this game it obviously will not get done in a timely manner.

You can read from the developers mini latest updates saying thanks to others for pointing out bugs so basically people are paying to beta test this game which is confirmed. Again, I recommend folks to pass on this game unless your ok with beta testing a game at the price of $44.99. I do not mind the price tag if it delivers, but sadly this game has not delivered. That is ok as there are plenty of other games on steam to enjoy.

That about wraps up this disappointing review as I did expect something great with this title but it failed to make its mark with me.

亜樹子
亜樹子

Please fix the level editor it is just a dark screen which ticks me off

Blightor
Blightor

So far its been absolutely excellent. I must say I've been taken aback by how delightful the story/combat/graphics/sounds has worked together to make it hard to put down.

Took me a while to make a party, getting back into the 3.5 edition DND rules was a bit of a shock initially so thank goodness for the detailed help system they have. Also, I think allowing you to make characters with the maximum allowable stats (bearing in mind a few race restrictions still limit maximum points), was a good decision - similar to the gold box days, the game is pretty difficult, so having that not (seemingly) effect difficulty achievements made character creation that little bit easier knowing I didn't need to optimise the heck out of it.

I think I'm about 10 hours in or so, there are a few things that have surprised me. The biggest one being that the game is open ended, and you can very easily go down a path you might not entirely be ready for - its good in a way that it can really surprise you and be exciting, but just have some saves ready in case you think hey actually I reckon I need to do those other missions first!

Have not checked out the module editor yet, but I get the feel it could be substantial, I think they are essentially giving you their game engine and allowing you to sell your game with a 50/50 share. Not bad really. Not great, but not bad.

Anyway, off to do more adventuring!

Hellbishop
Hellbishop

Way too punishing and frustrating where it is no fun at all to play. My party got totally wiped out during the tutorial while missing ninety five percent of the time. Game does not allow the player's group to grow and mature into skilled adventurers it just butchers them from the get go.

Its too bad since i really love the graphical art style and the perfect music which sings of heroic adventure along with the incredible level of detail flowing with tons and tons of variety from spells to the classes you can play.

Another game which goes too much in the hardcore direction forgetting that a game is supposed to be fun. Guess its back to PATHFINDER WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS, BALDUR'S GATE III, DIVINITY series, PILLARS OF ETERNITY and SOLASTA for me. At least with those rpgs it is still fun when i die.

Gruhk
Gruhk

This game suffers from three major problems :

1) Total lack of balance. Crowd control is everywhere and far too strong. Melee characters become plain useless after the first third of the game.

2) Encounters are arbitrary and unpredictable. Waves of mobs spawn one after the other, so you basicly have to learn and retry. It's not really hard (moreovers if you play with 5 casters, includng 2 psionists), it's juste absurd and non-strategical.

3) Bugs are everywhere. Corrupted saves, mobs spawning with negative hp that wan't act but you can't kill, etc.

A pure dnd combat simulator would be a great idea if it was founctional and well designed, but this game is not.

Mostly_Harmless
Mostly_Harmless

Hardcore D&D game, very comprehensive (700 spells), excellent AI, hard but very rewarding.

Don't be put off by the graphics !

The Unknown
The Unknown

I find this game too difficult, even on easy, otherwise it could be a great game. Instead I just get frustrated, which is more annoying due to the high price tag. As an example, one of my characters had a 50% chance of hitting an enemy, and 6 misses later he is unconscious.

liberator0061
liberator0061

Great DND game for hardcore players, especially when ashes of fallen has failed us.

Genocidocles
Genocidocles

I'll be speaking of the campaign mostly.

While you're often thrown into shit without information on what you're going up beforehand without rhyme or reason, the maps can get a bit wonky when you get to Gleegold Keep, the writing is mid, all the enemy casters somehow have every single spell of their level, there's random immersion breaking riddle ghosts in the sewers you absolutely must interact with and they give you more gold based on your performance so you absolutely must sweaty tryhard for them to the point where it triggered grade 3 math class ptsd flashbacks, and late game mobs just all go grapple and hold you down like a horde of faceless men in a japanese pornographic cartoon, as a proof of concept Augury of Chaos is good at demonstrating what KOTC2 can do in terms of creating campaigns and the system itself is a fun 3.5 simulator.

Personally I'll be hype to see what the community comes up with in terms of content, less so the dev who needs to work on his DMing craft a bit, but improvement isn't impossible for anyone, so let's see what he puts out next.

Seriously what the hell is up with Augury? KOTC1's campaign was fun if super generic

Whispen
Whispen

The game is definitely hard and will require you to optimize your builds. But it's the right amount of hard if you're tired of games being too easy and letting you just stomp your way through them w/out having to prepare, carry consumables or optimize your party composition.

It still has some rough edges, but I'm nearly 80 hours in while my AAA titles gather dust.