Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!

By Blood and Steel!

While the others out there are playing around with forces they cannot comprehend, Fighters are your good old reliable - give them a weapon, any weapon, and point them at the enemy. With their D10 HP die (only second to the Barbarian), the ability to wear any type of armor and their extensive weapon proficiencies, Fighters make for perfect frontliners. And although high-level Monks can attack 5 times through Flurry of Blows with unarmed strikes, Fighters are also the only class with the ability to strike up to 4 times with a single Attack action. 

… And that’s without taking Action Surge into consideration! Do you want to attack even more? Pop that Action Surge and lay down the pain. Put a powerful magic weapon in a Fighter’s hands, and watch your enemies melt. Within the 2024 D&D Rules and the new Paladin Divine Smite restricted to once per turn, the single target nova potential of the Fighter may be the highest among martial classes. 

Now for those who may not know, nova is a term used when someone goes all-in to deal massive amounts of damage in one go, burning down their resources in order to do so (like a Supernova blowing up and dying down). It used to be that Paladins could quickly burn through their spell slots by attacking multiple times and using Divine Smite on each blow in D&D 5e 2014, but this is no longer possible in 2024 D&D thus limiting their nova potential. The Fighter, on other hand, still scales fantastically well with weapons that deal extra damage such as Flametongue - a sword that deals an extra 2d6 fire damage on hit. At level 11 with 18 STR and a Flametongue Greatsword, you are looking at 6 attacks with Action Surge, for a potential 24d6 + 24 of single target damage (without counting any other flat bonuses)! Wowwee, whoever is on the receiving end is in for a world of pain. 

And that’s not all the Fighter has, far from it, especially looking at the 2024 upgrades. Second Wind keeps you in the fight by giving you a multi-usage self-heal. Weapon Mastery allows you to add all kinds of effects to your attacks to ruin the day of your foes, from slowing them down to making them easier to hit. Tactical Mind allows you to add 1d10 to any failed ability check, improving the Fighter’s capacity to perform outside combat. Indomitable almost guarantees that you turn a failed saving throw into a success by allowing you to reroll it with a bonus equal to your level, making you much less vulnerable to save or suck spells. At last, Studied Attacks gives you advantage on your next strike when you miss one, lowering the odds of your target eluding you too many times. One last thing that we didn’t mention yet - Fighters also get feats more often than any other classes. While almost all classes gain those at level 4, 8, 12 and 16, the Fighter gets two extra at level 6 and 14. More chances to raise your ability scores or grab those nifty feats! 

Actually we lied, there's another thing we forgot to talk about. While most picture the Fighter wearing heavy armor with a sword and shield, the beauty of that class is that it’s very customizable. Dexterity Fighter sporting dual blades and light armor? Sure. Longbow Fighter banking on their extra attacks to provide massive ranged damage? Go for it. Want to swing a Greataxe or a Maul with indiscriminate violence while protected in heavy armor? You’re on!

So, are you ready to roll a Fighter? Just don’t name them Bob and you’ll be fine. 

The Fighters of Solasta

Alright, now let’s see how our armored folks fared in the first opus of Solasta. Considering Crown of the Magister was very combat-focused, the gap between spellcasters and martial classes tended to be less prevalent. 

The Champion (SRD)

It is hard to be more “vanilla” than the Champion Fighter. With almost all of their features being passive upgrades, the Champion is just… an extension of the core Fighter class. After writing all these retrospectives about 4 classes and their 20 subclasses, it’s funny that we’re getting stumped by the Champion of all archetypes. 

We start with Improved Critical, increasing your critical range to 19-20, which gets further improved later with Superior Critical for a range of 18-20. Now don’t get us wrong, rolling a crit is fun. It is exciting! So, rolling more crit isn’t bad per se - no, the issue mostly lies in the fact that critting with a regular weapon isn’t that impactful. Rogues love crits because their Sneak Attack already makes them roll a truckload of dice. Paladins love crits because it also doubles the impact of their Divine Smite. Fighters don’t really have something of the sort to take advantage of their crit. 

It used to be that in 3.5e there were crit-fishing builds (the term used to try and “fish” for a critical hit), as there were special weapons, feats and features that would complement each other well for that purpose. We even found builds (although we didn’t verify if they were legit) where you ended up critting on a 9+, but even then most people would argue that crit-fishing wasn’t really good. It was fun, that’s for sure - but you could probably get more out of your character with a non crit-centered build.

Going back to 5e, there is much less support for crit-fishing than 3.5e - making a niche build even less viable. Gone are the days of Keen Kukris on Psychic Weapon Master. So you can imagine why for many more veteran players, Improved Critical just didn’t feel very exciting in the end. 

Unfortunately for the Champion, the next few features were no more exciting. At level 7, Remarkable Athlete allowed you to add half your proficiency bonus to STR, DEX or CON checks - but only if you did not already use your proficiency bonus. A strictly worse Jack of All Trades that all Bards get at level 2, with the only upside being that you could jump a little further. Thankfully in the 2024 version, this feature instead unlocks as soon as level 3, and changed to grant you advantage on Initiative Rolls (which is huge!) and on Athletics checks. Additionally, you can now move for free without provoking Opportunity Attacks after scoring a Critical Hit - boosting the interest of Improved Critical by providing synergy. Huzzah! 

The Champion also gets an additional Fighting Style (at level 10 in 2014 / level 7 in 2024), allowing them to further specialize or keep their options open. Now at level 10 in the 2024 ruleset, they get an archetype defining feature - something that the old Champion truly lacked outside being able to crit a little more often than others. Heroic Warrior gives them Heroic Inspiration at the start of each of their turns! This allows them to reroll ANY die after they rolled it once per round. You missed that last decisive strike on the big bad? Reroll. The evil wizard managed to use Charm Person on you? Reroll! The Champion just. Does. Not. Fail. EVER! This is the perfect flavor for them - they are THE Champion after all. Just remember that Heroic Inspiration doesn’t stack, so make sure you use it when you can.

The rest of the Champion’s features remain relatively the same after that, with Superior Critical at level 15 and Survivor at level 18 - the only upgrade in 2024 being that Survivor gives you advantage on Death Saving Throws and also makes your 18-20 crit range work when rolling them. Once again, a perfect fit for the Champion’s fantasy - you don’t miss, you don’t fail, and when you fall your rise again. Ah, let’s not forget to mention what Survivor did in the first place: While under half-HP (bloodied) and above 0 HP, you regain HP at the start of each of your turns. 

Final Verdict? Honestly, Champion went from a fairly bland and weak archetype to something that’s genuinely fun and exciting with a strong flavorful identity. If we were not so limited in the number of Subclasses we could implement in Solasta 2 (due to team size and time), it’d definitely be one of the more interesting choices to select. 

Mountaineer (Crown of the Magister)

Aaaah the Mountaineer, one of our first subclasses ever designed. We imagined the Mountaineer as this axe and shield dwarven fighter holding out waves of monsters inside tight tunnels underground. This one went all-in trying to bank on the shove feature - something that started as very interesting and filled with potential, but that tapered on the later you get in-game. Why is that? Well, turns out most larger creatures that you start encountering at higher levels are immune to shove and prone from Medium size creatures (hint: that’s you). 

They start out with Shield Swipe, giving advantage on shove rolls when wielding a shield, and Tunnel Fighter giving them a flat AC bonus when next to a wall. You can see here the idea of fighting in confined spaces with very little room to manoeuvre, where controlling where the enemy position with shove can really change the flow of the battle. Fun fact, in the very early conception stage of Solasta 1 (waaaay back, even before we started working on the Kickstarter demo), the game had a much smaller scope. We’re talking 4 classes, no character creation, and a focus almost exclusively on dungeon diving. Here, let us share an early Concept Art from that time to illustrate what we mean.

Just pulled that one from the Solasta 1 art vault. Our party of 4 adventurers are about to square off against a troll on a tight hanging bridge in the dark.

As you can imagine, that changed quite a bit (notably with the success of the Kickstarter), and Solasta 1 grew into the game we all know and love nowadays; with a Character Creator, all 12 classes, and a vast world with diverse locations not limited to caverns and corridors… Which means the Mountaineer just became a lot more situational! Dang it!

Moving on, at level 7 they got Close Quarters which gave them the ability to swap position with an enemy with a bonus action and gain advantage on attack rolls against it. An interesting feature, unfortunately hindered by the prerequisites to make it work: it only worked on creatures of your size or smaller (medium), and you needed to win a contested shove roll (albeit with advantage thanks to Shield Swipe). Close Quarters itself is an interesting idea, but its limitations made it very situational - especially later when many enemies are bigger than Medium size.

At level 10 they got Shield Push, another buff to their shove by making it a bonus action - once again putting all eggs in the shove basket without giving a solution for larger creatures. And finally at level 15 they had Pack Strider, which basically gave you the equivalent of Pack Tactics - giving you advantage on melee attack rolls if you have another ally next to the target. 

Wew! Now that we know the weaknesses of our dear Mountaineer, how did we rework it in the Sourcebook? Well, we kept the initial idea of this shield-focused fighter, but without the whole shoving theme as it would quickly become size-gated - and the Mountaineer is no Path of the Giant. 

At level 3, we start with Shield Expert instead of Shield Swipe, giving you the bonus of the Shield Master feat with a bit of extra on the side - being able to use the shield as a 1d4 bludgeoning weapon and strike with it as if it were a light weapon with your bonus action. We also get Close Quarters instead of Tunnel Fighter, which now both allows you to move through the space of any creature of a larger size than yours (making it useful against bigger creatures) and to swap place with creatures of your size instead of shoving them if you so desire (keeping it useful against smaller creatures). 

At level 7 we see the return of Tunnel Fighter, which only sees a little update in its wording to clarify that the bonus AC is granted when next to an obstacle that can grant total cover (so not limited to walls). At level 10, Shield Push is replaced by Shield Bash, giving you the ability to force enemies hit by your shield to roll a CON save or be… Dazed? Wait, that doesn’t exist! But you’ve got the idea - we didn’t want to hand out too many hard CCs when making our subclasses, so Shield Bash would only halve the target’s speed and prevent them from using Bonus Actions and Reactions until your next turn.

At last, at level 15 you would get Watchful Sentry instead of Pack Strider, allowing you to use your reaction to swap places with an ally next to you that is getting attacked (and forcing the attack to target you instead). After all, with the Mountaineer archetype being all about defense, positioning and control - we had to make it so they could protect their allies properly! 

Final Verdict? The Mountaineer is a real window into the very first drafts of Solasta 1 - its entire theme born from our original game plan: a deep delve into dark caverns with a small party of four: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric. The theme of the Mountaineer was good, its execution needed a little bit of readjusting but overall we believe that there’s a lot of room for a shield-focused archetype for the Fighter.

Spellblade (Crown of the Magister)

The Spellblade is where we start to get into some design struggle - we want a Fighter that can cast spells, but that’s already the turf of the Eldritch Knight. Does that mean there is no room for something new? No, of course not! But theme-wise we are bound to have some similarities because they both fulfill the same fantasy, a magic wielding fighter. Small funny anecdote: we remember seeing a comment about the Spellblade that made us laugh quite hard. “This is not a fighter, this is a rogue running on fighter hardware”. 

Let’s forget the Spellblade for a moment and think about the idea of a spellcasting Fighter. What does a Fighter want to do to be relevant in a fight? Well, they need to be attacking to make use of all their extra attacks, which is the main draw of the class. But that means spending a turn casting spells is not a good thing, right? Well then, how do we make it work? There are a couple of solutions. First of all, spells are also useful outside battle - that’s one of the main reasons why people complain about the spellcaster vs martial gap at higher level on tabletop. Spells can give a lot of utility, like helping to sneak into a castle with Invisibility and Sleep, preventing combat with Suggestion or illusion spells, and so on and so forth.

But as you already know, Solasta 1 is mostly combat focused. So that doesn’t work out for us. The second solution is bonus action spells and reaction spells, which allow them to keep their main action to attack. Problem is, there are only a few of them (wizard spell list) - such as the well known Shield spell which is already something the Eldritch Knight has. The third solution is encouraging spellcasting by giving something in return. For example, Eldritch Knight’s Eldritch Strike makes your opponent roll their next saving throw with disadvantage if you manage to land a weapon attack on them - encouraging you to cast spells by making them more likely to land. 

Now let’s go back to the Spellblade. When we started working on this archetype, we hadn’t come to such conclusions quite yet, so we were mostly testing things around to see what stuck. At level 3, Magic Weapon made your weapon be considered magical against creatures resistant to non-magical damage. Honestly, this one was completely a filler feature - something that quickly became irrelevant as you would find +1 weapons while adventuring. 

At level 7, Into the Fray made you able to use Melee weapons as spellcasting focus and the ability to cast somatic spells even while wielding such weapons - as well as allowing you to cast ranged spells without disadvantage while in melee. This feature was much more on point, as one of the biggest issues for spellcasting martial classes is the inability to cast somatic spells if both of their hands are occupied, with the only option being to drop a weapon to cast or to be playing Two-Handed weapons. 

At level 10, Spelltyrant was a strange telekinesis power which allowed you to shove enemies from afar with a bonus action. While interesting, it didn’t really synergize with the rest of the Spellblade’s features - and a 5’ shove rarely mattered anyway. 

At last, at level 15 they got Arcane Escape, which made Spellblades get the benefit of Dodge whenever they cast a spell. This was a strong feature which fell into the 3rd category - giving you a reason to cast a spell by rewarding you with something significant. Normally, dodging would take your main action anyway - so being allowed to cast a spell for that is just cherry on the top! 

After all of this, and looking back at it, when we started writing the revised Sourcebook Spellblade was one of the archetypes that we decided to completely rework. Into the Fray got moved to level 3 so that Spellblades could immediately start casting somatic spells when they got their subclass going. At level 7, they get Arcane Conduit which makes them imbue their weapon until the end of their next turn whenever they cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, making it deal an extra 1d10 force damage. With the amount of attacks a Fighter can dish out, this bonus damage would quickly stack up.

At level 10 Arcane Shield now gave them temporary HP when casting a spell, allowing them to stay in the fight longer. And at level 15, they would get Swift Cast to change the casting time of a spell that used a main action into a bonus action once per short rest (while still getting the benefit of Arcane Conduit).

As you can see, the Spellblade now had a much clearer pattern of play - one that was easy to understand. Unlike the Eldritch Knight that would cast spells and still attack thanks to War Magic, the Spellblade was supposed to alternate between spellcasting on one round to receive buffs and attacking on the other to spend them. Later on they would get the ability to cheat once per short rest by cutting the first round of spellcasting with Swift Cast, vastly improving their initial impact on the battle. However, the pattern remains simple: cast a spell to get damage buffs and temporary HP, then go slap the baddies with indiscriminate violence. 

Final Verdict? The Spellblade wasn’t terrible in its first iteration, it got two good features for two mediocre ones. Previously an “okay” archetype, it fortunately became quite a lot of fun to play around with thanks to its rework, and managed to find its own identity!

Commander (Lost Valley)

With the Commander the aim was to provide a non-spellcasting support archetype, not unlike the 4th edition Warlord. Rallying the troops while standing beside them, without any divine blessings or magic shenanigans - just pure unadulterated guts. The fact that you could now have a strong frontliner who could also empower the rest of the team was a godsend for many players, who really enjoyed the addition of the Commander in Lost Valley.

At 3rd level, the Commander gains proficiency in Intimidation and Insight, as well as Rousing Shout - a bonus action to give all nearby allies (including themselves) advantage on their next attack. This feature can be used multiple times per short rest, allowing the Commander to heavily lower the chances of his party missing during combat, giving them a good use of their bonus action.

At level 7 they get Coordinated Defense, where they can sacrifice one of their attacks to grant any ally (or themselves) Dodge - again boosting their action economy by making Dodge usable without having to sacrifice a main action, and massively increasing the survivability of their teammates. 

At level 10, Invigorating Shout increases the range of Rousing Shout and now also grants a small amount of temporary hit points, which over time considering the high amount of uses this feature has adds up to quite a lot, further enhancing the team’s tankiness. And at last, at level 15 Lead by Example marks enemies that you hit - making them additional damage any time someone makes a successful weapon attack against them.

As you can see, a very straightforward fantasy of a commander leading their troop to victory, by increasing both the offensive and defensive capabilities of nearby allies. There isn’t much to add since the Sourcebook version only saw minor tweaks, such as changing the name of Lead by Example to Take Them Down and increasing the additional damage from 1d4 to 1d6, and giving a name to the level 3 Bonus Proficiencies. It is now Gruff Authority, which on top of giving the 2 skill proficiencies also allows them to add their STR modifier to Intimidation & Persuasion checks.

Final Verdict? The Commander had an idea in mind when it was designed and they perfectly filled their role. A strong support martial class that can still kick ass on their own!

The… ??? (Solasta II)

In the demo, Neyra was a Cleric / Fighter who did not have the level to unlock her Fighter subclass, so there is very little that you could surmit from there. Let’s just say that we’re cooking something quite interesting, and we’re excited to see how you will like it!

Community Stream #09 Friday May 2nd

A little earlier than the other times, May’s Community Stream will take place later this week on Friday May 2nd! You’re many to have noticed the SRD 5.2 is now live, so we’re taking a deep dive into the document to discuss about the new content and what a passage to the 2024 ruleset would imply! 

See you on Friday, 9 am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6 pm CEST!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

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• Bluesky
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Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!

Of Quills & Ink - Let’s Meet our Winners!

It took us quite some time to sort through all your submissions as we did not exactly expect the amount of participants to be this high. To give you an idea, the amount of words we had to read through added up to several novels in length…

But enough stalling, who won? Now as there were a LOT of very good entries (and because it was our first Community Contest), we decided to select a lot more winners than we initially intended to. Here is the list of all 20 winners of the “Of Quills & Ink” Community Contest!

Hope you enjoyed participating in the contest! Don’t forget that there’s another one going on right now, ending next Tuesday.

Children's Tale:

• John Kui'tunn - An Unseen Horror
• Augustus Pindrop - The Mess that Grew

Adventurer’s Journal:

• Thea Morningdew - Reverse River
• Crikk - Faded Diary

Herbalist’s Journal: 

• Belmora Stormhammer - Fragmented Flora Log

Journal recounting events from Solasta I:

• Cyrania de Bergerac - Mage Tower's Library

Love Letter:

• Iela Valienne - Letter of Devotion
• Rune Sharstop - Tear-stained Letter
• Caedmon Delfias - Letter to a Daughter

Show or Circus Flyer:

• Rias Orde - The Circus is here!

Public Board Flyers:

• Milo Introcaso - Mushrooms Wanted
• Pym the Jug - Pogle’s Perfect Wigs
• Enialis Siannodel - Exterminators
• Valour - Sidekick Needed!
• Haris Murin - Looking for Maid
• Evan Boorthearth - Public Complaint

Complaint about a product:

• Rex Thunderquill - Delayed Doom
• Ragn Twinbeard - A poor ale delivery

Speculations about Shadwyn:

• Kaeroth Orinel - Dusty manuscript

Bogus research on Kobolds:

• Roth the Raucous - Horde Among Hoards

Just to be safe, we’ve elected to use the in-game pen name to announce the victors considering some people may have given us their real name to put in the credits. We’ll be sending the prizes later this week, so if you find your name up there make sure you check your emails! We’ll inform everyone on our Discord server once they are sent, in case you want to make sure you didn’t miss them

Important: Please note that not all of the above entries may be included in-game from the start of Early Access! Some books / scrolls are likely to be added to areas that will only be available in the 1.0 release.

Your Prayers are Answered

One of the OG classes of D&D when it was first released in 1974, the Cleric is technically the oldest and arguably the only remaining class of the original game. For those who are curious, the other two were the Fighting Man which later became the Fighter in AD&D 1e, and the Magic-User which became the Mage in AD&D 2e and then the Wizard in D&D 3e. Only our good old Cleric got to keep their name for more than 50 years! Surprisingly, their well-known cousin the Paladin appeared as early as 1975 in a Greyhawk supplement as a subclass of the Fighting Man, later becoming a standard class starting in AD&D 2e.

But enough history lessons you may say! Clerics! What are they good for? Absolutely noth… Scratch that, we meant to say absolutely EVERYTHING. As stated in the intro, playing Cleric is like ticking the “Fill Role” box when queuing for a game. 80% of the time you’re going to end up as a support, but you can still play any other role decently well (and with that we just lost everyone who never played a MOBA). Long story short, a Cleric may not be a better frontliner than a Barbarian, and they may not be as destructive as a Wizard when it comes to causing indiscriminate devastation from afar… but they sure stand a much better fighting chance than both a Wizard in melee range and a Barbarian unable to reach their target. And on top of that, think of all the support they can provide! Heals! Buffs! Resurrection spells! Even if you don’t specialize into it, every Cleric has access to those tools - simply getting access to these options make you an invaluable asset.

Now this is the moment where we would go “and you too could become one for the mere price of 150 gold coins”, but this merchant is no charlatan - simply head to the nearest temple and you too could become a Cleric. For as you may already know, they get their powers from the deity they revere - they are their god’s chosen. No matter how devout, only a handful of followers are given this privilege.

While all clerics have access to the same list of spells, depending on the divine domain they choose their Domain Spells will vary - sometimes even giving them the ability to cast spells from other classes, such as the well known Fireball for the Light Domain, or even Hypnotic Pattern for the Trickery Domain (both official D&D subclasses). It used to be that Domain also heavily influenced whether or not you would be more of a frontline cleric or a caster cleric, as in the original 2014 5e ruleset only some would get Heavy Armor proficiency, and their level 8 subclass feature would either be Divine Strike (encouraging you to swing your weapon) or Potent Spellcasting (encouraging you to use Cantrips instead).

In the 2024 version this is no longer the case as those subclass features got merged into the base Cleric powers instead, allowing each and everyone to choose at level 1 if they would rather be a Protector (with Martial Weapons & Heavy Armor proficiency), or a Thaumaturge (with an extra Cantrip and a bonus to Arcana & Religion checks). Similarly, at level 7 (instead of 8, one level early yay) they get to choose between Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting - it is no longer imposed by their Divine Domain. 

All and all, we believe that’s a good improvement - let players decide themselves what role they want to fill, regardless of the theme of their Divine Domain.

The Clerics of Solasta

Oh boy, this one is going to be massive. Unlike the other classes which each had 4 archetypes to talk about, the Cleric doubles that amount with 8 Divine Domains in total. But why?! Well, as gods were a fairly central theme for Crown of the Magister with all the focus on the Cataclysm, gods not being native to Solasta and their fight with Sorr-Tarr, we didn’t want each god to only have a single domain to lord over. So… we put some extra effort in creating more Divine Domains - some which worked better than others. 

Note: Before we dive further - please keep in mind that we may not be able to make the same exception for Solasta 2. Crown of the Magister released with 6 classes, each with 3 subclasses (except for Cleric with 7), for a total of 22 archetypes in total. If we manage to include all classes with 2 subclasses at the 1.0 release of Solasta 2, that would already be 12 classes each with 2 subclasses, for a total 24 archetypes (on top of implementing 6 extra classes). Now we repeat it often - with a studio of only 35 people, there’s a limit to the amount of content we can include!

Anyway, let’s not bore you with production constraints. To the subclass breakdown we go!

Life Domain (SRD)

As with most of the SRD subclasses, the Life Domain fulfills the base Cleric fantasy very well. Most people would look at the Cleric in any game and immediately think Healer or at least Support - well, Life Domain is exactly that. Be it Domain Spells or subclass features, everything from the Life Domain is about keeping your allies (and yourself) healthy and ready to party (and by party we mean punching foes in the face, if that wasn’t obvious enough). 

Immediately out of the gate, Disciple of Life squeezes more value out of your healing spells by healing more… With its well known 2014 loophole giving Goodberry incredible value on Life Cleric, as instead of 10 berries healing for 1 HP they would heal you for 4 HP each (for a total of 40 HP in exchange for a level 1 spell slot). This interaction has been removed in the 2024 version as the extra-healing only occurs on the turn the Life Cleric casts the spell, so no more bonus if an ally is healed during their turn or over time.

Next comes Preserve Life, one of the least understood Channel Divinity out there - and for a good reason, it is quite convoluted. You can heal a number of HP equal to 5 times your Cleric level, distributed as you wish between multiple allies… but only up to half of their HP. Design-wise, this is likely because Clerics regain their uses of Channel Divinity on a Short Rest, meaning that if you could Preserve Life to heal allies to full health you easily keep your party at max HP without having to spend any Hit Dice or Spell Slots, completely bypassing those systems. Still, not a bad Channel Divinity at all considering you can heal multiple allies from range, which can save the day when things go south and you have multiple friends downed and you don’t have Mass Healing Word at the ready.

The rest of the features are as straightforward as the previous ones. Blessed Healer grants you minor healing when you heal others, reducing the chances of you needing to spend your turn healing yourself because you took too much damage. And finally Supreme Healer simply removes the need to roll your dice when healing, automatically making it as if you rolled the maximum score. Technically speaking this is quite insane as variance is a very big part of D&D - so bypassing it as a passive feature without a limited amount of uses is very, very powerful. 

Final Verdict? What’s to say, really? It fulfills the healer fantasy and makes healing others feel good, instead of waiting for them to go down before dropping them a single Healing Word and pushing back into the action. With Life Domain on top of the buffs to healing spells in 2024, proactive healing may actually be pretty good! 

Battle Domain (Crown of the Magister)

Like many of our fans would say, “That’s Battle!”. The Battle Domain is very well liked by Solasta players as it fits the fantasy of the “Cleric fighting on the frontline next to everyone else”. Put them in Half-Plate Armor with a Morningstar in one hand and a Shield in the other, and let them run wild. 

While they did not have access to Heavy Armor, they did get Martial Weapons proficiency and the ability to cast Somatic & Material spells even if they had both hands occupied. Now, not every table plays with spell components - in fact, when Solasta 1 Early Access came out many were confused as to why they couldn’t cast some spells (turns out quite a few have somatic components) - so this may not appeal to everyone, but for some the ability to cast spells without having to drop or sheathe your weapon every time was a god-send (haha). Divine Fortitude also granted them a large pool of temporary HP once per day, giving them more staying power when diving into danger. 

Now, the rest of the subclass features were a little controversial - not from an external standpoint, as stated above people loved the Battle Cleric - but mostly from a design perspective looking back at our own creation. First came Decisive Strike, their Channel Divinity - which gave them the ability to attempt to stun an enemy on hit… which stepped on the Monk’s foot (Stunning Strike). In the Sourcebook, we would rework that into Incapacitation instead of Stun. 

Next came Herald of Battle, at level 6. An aura which gave nearby allies +1 to attack rolls, damage rolls, AC and Saving Throws. Once again… biting into another class’ design, this time the Paladin. Now the difference was that Herald of Battle only worked when next to the Cleric (5’ radius only), but still. On top of that, flat +1 bonuses are usually not very common in 5e design as it both threatens bounded accuracy and creates complexity for tracking - anyone who played 3.5e knows that you would often have to calculate god knows how many +1s and +2s and -2s to add before you rolled your D20. Entangled? -2! Flanking? +2! On higher ground? +1, but only for melee attacks! Sun in your eyes? Believe it or not, that will be a -1 because we’re the DM and we make the rules! 5e generally did away with all of that by simply giving advantage or disadvantage depending on the situation, and with both cancelling each other out no matter how many there are. 

And finally, the Extra Attack. Instead of the classic Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike, the Battle Cleric was the only one getting an Extra Attack just like a Fighter or a Barbarian would (although at level 8 instead of 5). For many, that was the selling point of the Battle Cleric - you get to attack twice! In all situations, an extra attack is better than Divine Strike too - two attacks means less chance of missing and dealing 0 damage, and even a regular non-magical morningstar would still be 1d8 + STR modifier, so you get a little more than the flat 1d8 damage from Divine Strike. This is where the issue lies - while it is great and gives a strong identity to the Battle Domain, this feature is just better than what the other Cleric domains offer. Balance-wise, this isn’t a great thing to do. 

It is difficult to know how the Battle Domain would change with the changes to Clerics in the 2024 ruleset - but one thing’s for sure, the Extra Attack feature would probably need to be reworked. Maybe they will still be able to attack twice per turn, but not without a cost!

Final Verdict? A great domain beloved by many, fulfilling the promise of a strong “frontline full caster” fantasy. Inside though, a domain that likely borrowed a little too much from other classes, and which would need a few tweaks going forward!

Elemental Domain (Crown of the Magister)

Woowee this one was a bit of a mess! The Elemental Domain was effectively three very similar Domains: Fire Domain, Ice Domain, Lightning Domain. Half of their features were excellent, and the other half were fairly terrible. Let’s dive into it. 

First, the Domain Spells: almost none of them are from the Cleric spell list, granting them a lot of additional options. Area of effect spells such as Lightning Bolt and Thunderwave, mobility spells such as Fly and Misty Step, utility with Fog Cloud and Conjure Elemental… this was a huge boon for those looking to play a more “caster” type cleric.

On top of that, you got Primal Harmony immediately granting you Resistance to either Cold, Fire or Lightning (depending on your domain). This was only possible because Crown of the Magister did not have multiclassing - otherwise the level 1 Elemental Cleric dip would be insane. You also got an extra cantrip, which may not seem like much but those of you who had to spam Sacred Flame during the entirety of Solasta 1 know that it was very welcome.

Now at level 2, if you remember what we wrote about in our Sorcerer article about the Haunted Soul… a similar issue can be seen here. All three Channel Divinity Lightning Blade, Fire Burst and Ice Lance were just bad spells turned into a power instead. Lightning Blade dealt a laughable 1d8 damage, but could potentially stun for 1 round. Fire Burst dealt an okay 3d8 damage… but with no other effect. Ice Lance dealt a meager 2d8 damage and had the potential to… push 10 feet. That’s all it did. And all of those powers were single target on top. That’s pretty bad! 

Level 6 gave you a neat power that allowed you to use your reaction to absorb damage from your domain type, healing you instead of harming you. We envisioned the Elemental Cleric stoically standing in a Dragon’s Fire Breath and coming out unscathed. What we got instead were Fire Clerics running into the fray and Fireballing themselves to both destroy enemy packs and healing themselves in the process. Looking back on it, it was pretty obvious that this would happen. 

Level 8 also had the mistake of not following the standard 2014 cleric subclass progression, with Herald of the Elements taking the place of Potent Spellcasting… and once again giving very mediocre spell-like powers. Lightning gets a 2d8+WIS mod AoE that can restrain for one turn. Fire gets a 1d8+WIS mod single target spell that can shove 5’. Ice gets a 1d8+WIS mod single target that can restrain for a turn. Yea, Fire got completely shafted there (and Ice too). 

As you can see, not our best work! Mostly because it was created at the very beginning when we were still running to get a few subclasses implemented and having very little time to change anything afterwards, but still - the three Elemental Domains were quite a mess. Which led to us reworking them into a single Elemental Domain in the Sourcebook afterwards. No longer would you choose Fire, Ice or Lightning - the Elemental Cleric is blessed to master all elements!

First, as Multiclassing needed to be considered, Primal Harmony and its level 1 Damage Resistance had to go - instead giving the Cleric the ability to change the damage type dealt by their spells to Fire, Cold or Lightning when they so desire. The bonus cantrip also went from being pre-selected to allowing them to choose any cantrip from any class as long as it dealt fire, cold or lightning damage.

The bigger changes came at level 2, with their Channel Divinity now offering them three choices (instead of being locked to one). Call upon Thunder is a teleport that deals AoE damage on arrival with a potential deafen. Call upon Wind deals damage in a line with a potential shove and prone. Call upon Ice deals single target damage with a potential restrain. And all of them deal the standard 2d8 + cleric damage which scales with levels, making this feature much less terrible (on top of giving them versatility since they can use all three). 

At level 6 the feature also changed to needing a use of Channel Divinity as it was too strong to have unlimited uses. And instead of healing, using your reaction would grant you immunity to either Cold, Fire or Lightning damage until the start of your next turn, and then grant you Temporary Hit Points equal to the damage that you would have taken plus resistance to that damage type for 1 minute. 

Finally, level 8 simply got replaced by Potent Spellcasting. Sometimes, simplicity is the best answer, and the level 2 Wrath of the Elements Channel Divinity already gave enough options to not need another three powers.

Final Verdict? An interesting base that was left a little undercooked - a bit of shame really, as a large part of the archetype already had a lot of good things going for it. Would love to revisit it in the future if we ever have the time to give it due diligence. 

Insight Domain (Crown of the Magister)

If the Elemental Domain was undercooked, the Insight Domain was simply raw. Sometimes you shoot and you miss the target by a little, sometimes the gun just blows up in your hand. And unfortunately, the Insight Cleric was more of the latter. Let’s be honest here, it was just bad. But why? Why, as its creator, are we so harsh on the Insight Cleric? 

Well, you have to remember that Solasta 1 was mostly combat-centric. With a small team such as ours, we had to make decisions as to what we would focus on - and for us Tactical Adventures, the choice was a given: Tactical Combat. That doesn’t mean we don’t intend to polish the other aspects of the game (especially now that we learned from Solasta 1), but when we started on our first project we had to make sure we got the core of our game right.

So, going back to the Insight Domain… which as you would imagine from the name, was mostly suited for social exchanges. Dialogues. Investigations. None of which were very developed in Crown of the Magister. To the point that some players started saying that choosing the Insight Domain was like trying to play a Cleric without subclass. Ouch. Fair, but ouch. Let’s take a look.

At level 1, they got Divine Intuition giving them advantage on Arcana, History and Nature checks - none of which are very useful in Solasta 1. They also got Inspired Diplomat to know the odds in dialogue choices, which is somewhat useful but often not required. Those were reworked in the Sourcebook to grant two extra skill proficiency and expertise in Insight, plus the ability to add your Wisdom modifier to any Charisma check when attempting to influence someone after observing them for 1 minute.

At level 2, Foreknowledge makes the first attack directed at you be rolled with disadvantage, lasting 1 minute. Doesn’t sound so bad, but the kicker here is… First, you need to use your action to activate it. Second, it can only trigger once per round. Not per turn, per round. And since it’s not a reaction, you can’t decide on which attack it triggers - so if a tiny goblin attacks you before a Giant tries to punt you to Narnia, you are very much boned. In the Sourcebook, this was changed to make the Cleric actively target a creature, making that creature have disadvantage on all attack rolls against them for 1 minute, or until the Cleric uses a bonus action to switch target. 

At level 6, Divine Eye gave advantage on rolls to detect traps, hidden doors and objects. Once again, a nice little bonus but nothing great really - and again, completely useless in combat, which is the largest part of Solasta 1. In the Sourcebook Divine Eye permanently gave the effect of See Invisibility and Detect Magic to the Insight Cleric, on top of doubling their proficiency bonus when making an ability check looking for traps, hidden doors and objects. 

Finally at level 8, Divine Lore allowed them to read / speak all languages, with the addition of being able to identify one magical item for free per Long Rest. Again, could be great if the game had more uses of different languages being relevant, but that was not the case. Sourcebook just replaces it with the standard Potent Spellcasting.

Final Verdict? The Insight Domain was just doomed from the very start. It carries an inherently social-heavy theme in a game that’s simply not very developed in the dialogue / investigation themes. We’d like to imagine it would have probably found a better home in a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, or Disco Elysium if it were a D&D game.

Law Domain (Crown of the Magister)

Now that the Insight Domain is out of the way, let’s talk Law Domain! This one is little more in the middle of the pack, a decent domain power-wise with a straight-forward theme: Protecting the innocents and pushing the guilty. The Law Cleric has access to quite some powerful tools but there are a few bits that needed a tiny bit more varnish. Let’s get into it!

First came their Domain Spells, with access to two of the most powerful ones in Shield and Counterspell. This alone already pushes the archetype to the top of the pack… if not for two little tiny problems. Remember when I talked about the 2014 cleric subclass design pushing you towards either being a frontliner or a caster? Well, the Law Cleric is more of a frontliner… meaning they are likely close to danger with a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other. 

But wait! Isn’t Shield a somatic spell? Uh oh… so basically you either keep one hand free to be able to cast Shield, but lose out on wearing a shield (-2 AC) or having a weapon out (your attack of opportunity deals almost no damage), or you keep both your weapon and shield and can’t cast Shield (losing on a potential +5 AC). Damn it! And what’s the other problem? Well, in Solasta 1 you need to succeed an Arcana Check to recognize the spell being cast by an enemy, meaning you need Intelligence. Not a big problem if you’re a Wizard, but if you’re a Cleric… you’re often going to end up casting Counterspell blindly without knowing if it's worth it or not. 

This in no way makes the Law Cleric bad (those spells are still amongst the most powerful ones in D&D), but it makes the experience a little less smooth than we’d have liked. Arguably the Counterspell one is fine (after all you aren’t learnt like the Wizards, so it’s only fair that you might have to do a little bit of guesswork), but the Shield one is painful. 

Jumping on the level 1 feature, Commanding Presence grants proficiency and advantage on Intimidation checks, and Unyielding Enforcer gives advantage on rolls made to resist being moved or shoved. In the Sourcebook we changed that to expertise on Intimidation (instead of advantage), kept the advantage against forced movement and also gave proficiency with Martial Weapons since it is a frontline archetype. 

Level 2 Holy Retribution is a reaction Channel Divinity, where getting hit with a melee attack allows you to strike back and deal psychic damage. Fun fact, there was a strange bug out there that sometimes caused Holy Retribution to damage the Cleric instead, leading some players to wonder why their Cleric decided to wack themselves. While quite powerful (as it used a reaction and not an action), one thing that felt quite bad was that you could completely whiff and thus “waste” a use of Channel Divinity. This is why in the Sourcebook we buffed it to deal even more damage and potentially frightening the target for one round, but looking at the 2024 rules it probably would have been better to simply add “you only expend a use of Channel Divinity if the attack lands”.

Another use of Channel Divinity at level 2 is Force of Law (for some reason we gave them two choices), which simply makes the target of your spell roll their saving throw with disadvantage. This one was removed in the Sourcebook as it was just Heightened Spell Metamagic disguised under a different name. 

Level 6 gave them access to Word of the Law, an action which forced the target to roll a CON saving throw against your spell casting DC or lose their concentration on their spell. The Sourcebook changed it to a bonus action (since anyone can make someone lose concentration with an action, that’s called bashing them in the face), and turning it into an INT saving throw as it was more a battle of will than a punch in the gut. Thinking back about it, would WIS be more suited than INT here?

At level 8 we continue on the non-standard streak with Anathema, a strange power that can be used once per short rest dealing minor damage each turn and restraining a target up to 1 minute. As with the other non-standard features this got changed to Divine Strike in the Sourcebook. 

Final Verdict? A strong divine domain with a lot of good tools under their belt, and only some little flaws to polish out. A solid choice!

Sun Domain (Crown of the Magister)

Onto the Sun domain! Considered by some to be the second strongest Cleric subclass in Solasta after the Battle Domain, it features strong AoE damage and debuff thanks to its Domain Spells, as well as good utility paired with great action economy. If that just sounded like a bunch of buzzwords mixed together, that’s because it kind of was - but long story short, it’s a very solid choice.

Starting with the Domain Spells, Sun Clerics get an early access AoE damage from level 1 with Burning Hands, and Faerie Fire is quite a good tool to have in Solasta against Soraks who always try to remain in the dark. Later on you unlock spells like Scorching Ray (good damage spell with flexibility to target one to three foes), Hypnotic Pattern (one of the best control spells as it doesn’t allow repeated saving throws), Daylight (great against Defilers and Broods) and Wall of Fire (great to control tight spaces like corridors) - quite a good arsenal as you can see!

At level 1 you also get Holy Radiance, which forces your foes to roll their saving throw against your Sacred Flame with disadvantage. While not a very flashy feature, Sacred Flame is often your bread and butter long range filler option as a Cleric in Solasta 1, so you’ll be casting it a lot - having a boost to help it landing adds up quite a bit over time.

At level 2, Herald of the Sun is a Channel Divinity that damages a single target and can blind them for up to 1 minute. We felt that this was a little too weak so in the Sourcebook we gave a lot more flavour. You instead clad yourself in fire for 1 minute, shedding bright light in a 10’ radius around you with a small Spirit Guardians-like effect - foes take half your cleric damage when starting their turn or moving near you, while allies gain that amount in temporary HP.

At level 6, Indomitable Light gave the Sun Clerics another use of Channel Divinity - however considering that it was extremely similar to the spell Daylight we simply removed it in the Sourcebook. The star of the show at level 6 though was Soothing Hands, a bonus action that not only healed an ally for an amount equal to your Cleric level, but also removed either Stunned, Deafened, Blinded or Frightened. As you can imagine, that was too powerful compared to most other cleric subclasses, and also a little bit too similar to the Paladin’s Lay on Hands. So in the Sourcebook it no longer heals, and the conditions removed also got changed to not overlap with Lesser Restoration (blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned) - instead removing Charmed, Frightened and Incapacitated. 

Lastly at level 8 we changed Divine Strike to Potent Spellcasting in the Sourcebook. Many players did accurately point out that considering their other features, the Sun Cleric was more a long range spellcaster than a frontliner type, so it made more sense to give them Potent Spellcasting.

Final Verdict? Both very straightforward in theme and execution, one of the better Divine Domains we made for Solasta 1. 

Oblivion Domain (Crown of the Magister)

The last of the 7 original Divine Domains available at the 1.0 launch, the Oblivion Domain is interesting. Outside being a very solid Cleric subclass, it has one feature that made many claim that they are required for Ironman (no loading allowed, game over = run over) Cataclysm runs, thus catapulting its popularity amongst those seeking the hardest of challenges. What is that feature? Let’s take a look!

At level 1 Oblivion Clerics get Gatekeeper, a passive feature that gives every ally (including yourself) within 30’ advantage on their death saving throw. Not a great proactive power, but it can save a few runs when things go sideways and you’re either out of heals or can’t spare an action to heal a downed ally. 

At level 2 comes Herald of Pain, a Channel Divinity that can make all enemies within 30’ get disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks for up to 1 minute. When successful, it increases the survivability of your party by a significant amount as your enemies will be missing a lot more under its effect. But the feature that takes the crown at level 2 for those Ironman runs is Peaceful Rest - a very simple power that lowers the chances of being attacked at night on the world map and makes it impossible to be surprised during those encounters. And if you’ve played a good amount of Solasta 1, you know how deadly random encounters can be.

Fun fact, random encounters were reworked after the 1.0 launch as they were very inconsistent, and their difficulty was raised to make them challenging for freshly rested adventurers. After all, you enter a random encounter with all your HP and resources, and you long rest right after! Now that’s all good buuuut… The D&D 5e 2014 ruleset has an extremely powerful variable for any encounter… and that is getting surprised. In Turn-Based tactical games, there exists the concept of Alpha Strike - killing the enemy in a single round before they have the chance to react - and the 2014 ruleset made it possible to achieve in Solasta 1. Now in the 2024 ruleset surprise no longer makes you potentially lose your first turn, instead simply making you roll initiative with disadvantage which will significantly lower the variance created by surprising someone.

So how does that relate to the Ironman Cataclysm runs? Well, let’s just say that when you get ambushed by a deadly difficulty encounter at random while traveling on the world map, and with most of your party asleep… in the hardest game difficulty without the ability to load or run away, that’s often a death sentence. On top of that, we did go overboard buffing some of these random encounters, which made them very difficult to win even without being surprised. Most infamous at lower levels were the 8 bandits + 2 thugs (action economy hello), and at higher levels the twin Dragons or the Remorhaz trio (2 adults + 1 youngling). The biggest issue with random encounters in Solasta 1 was the variance added on top of the fact that unlike on Tabletop, we never implemented a feature to flee the encounter. 

Alright that’s enough for story time, going back to the Oblivion Cleric with Strike of Oblivion, which for some reason was a 1d6 Divine Strike at level 6 instead of 8, and Mark of Fate which was a sort of group hex on a single target (everyone who attacked them who deal extra necrotic damage equal to the Cleric’s WIS modifier). In the Sourcebook those were changed to Mark of Fate being moved to level 6, only triggering once per turn (to avoid having the target blow up when attacked by extra attacks or spells with multiple projectiles) and giving its target a saving throw on their turn to remove the mark (so it’s not 1 min of free pummeling on the poor chap). Level 8 saw Potent Spellcasting replace Strike of Oblivion as once again this domain is more of a spellcaster cleric archetype than a frontliner one. 

Final Verdict? Well, the Oblivion Cleric definitely does some things very well. While Gatekeeper isn’t great as it’s only useful when things go south (and even then usually Healing Word is a better solution), both their Herald of Pain and Mark of Fate are extremely potent at debuffing enemies or making sure that one target goes down fast. Peaceful Rest being what it is is less a testament of the Oblivion Cleric being good, and more a makeshift fix to a flaw that Solasta 1 had - namely, encounters being balanced for Normal Difficulty sometimes becoming a wall too tall to scale on Cataclysm, especially when layered with both the variance of surprise and the inability to run away. Not balancing for Cataclysm was intended (we simply don’t have the time for that), but we’ll be exploring options to lessen this feeling of inevitability in Solasta 2 (aka “the game decided that the run was over, without even allowing me a dice roll”).

Mischief Domain (Lost Valley)

Ah, the Mischief Domain! Last of the 8, introduced in Lost Valley with the addition of Misaye. It is… serviceable. Great domain spells, but the features don’t necessarily mesh well together. You’re encouraged to go in melee combat, but you don’t get Martial Weapons nor Heavy Armor proficiency. I guess Misaye does not only inflict mischief on others, but also on their own clerics! 

Mischief Clerics have a plethora of options to control the battlefield with their Domain Spells - Grease, Slow, Confusion, Mind Twist and the like, on top of getting also great spells to buff themselves like Blur or Greater Invisibility. The higher the difficulty, the more control spells become an invaluable commodity: it doesn’t matter how accurate your enemy is or how hard they hit if they can’t play!

At level 1 Mischief Clerics get proficiency in Stealth and Deception, and get Borrowed Luck which allows them to use their reaction to reroll a failed saving throw that was rolled without disadvantage. Doing so will force disadvantage on their next saving throw, a fun design that pairs well with the name of the feature. In the Sourcebook this changed a little, you still get Deception but you get to choose between Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Performance and Persuasion instead of being forced into Stealth. You also get to learn Vicious Mockery as the little mischief maker that you are. Borrowed Luck also changed to be usable on any D20 rolls without disadvantage, usable without drawback a number of times per long rest. You can decide to use it even after running out of uses, but then your DM gets to inflict you with disadvantage on one D20 roll of their choice for each time you do later down the line…

At level 2 you get Strike of Chaos, a Channel Divinity that inflicts a random condition to the enemy hit for up to 1 minute. As the Mischief Cleric wasn’t a frontliner archetype, in the Sourcebook this changed to Playful Whispers, with a similar effect but AoE around you and the condition only lasting 1 round, and making you go invisible for the same duration. 

At level 6 Elusive Target allows you to use your reaction to gain Dodge and Disengage until the end of your next turn after getting hit by a melee attack, making any subsequent attempts to target you less likely to be successful. At level 8 you get Divine Strike, later changed in the Sourcebook into Potent Spellcasting.

Final Verdict? A fun subclass, really. Borrowed Luck is plenty flavorful, the Domain Spells are fantastic and with the Sourcebook changes Playful Whispers just adds even more to the potential for mischief and control on the battlefield. Even before that change, Strike of Chaos itself could be devastating - at best it could paralyze an enemy for a full minute!

The… ??? (Solasta II)

Can’t believe we’re finally done. That article took ages to write, we’re nearing 7,000 words there! Now for Solasta II, it is possible that Clerics won’t get a new Divine Domain considering the pantheon doesn’t change. We have a few designs ready in case we decide otherwise, but there are a few reasons as to why we might be reusing the updated version of Solasta 1 Divine Domains.

And with that, we’re done! See you next week for the end of the Trades & Sails Community Contest!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

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Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!

Community Contest - Trades & Sails

Solasta II's second Community Contest is now live! Fancy yourself the captain of a merchant ship? This contest will give you the opportunity of having your boat anchored in the port of Caer Mar, one of the largest cities in Neokos. Name your captain, name your ship, let us know what goods you're carrying and describe the emblem on your sails!
 

What is this Community Contest?

Trades & Sails is the second of many community events where anyone can participate to get their ideas implemented in-game. Trades & Sails is about implementing a Merchant Ship that you will find in Solasta II anchored in the port of Caer Mar. The winner will have his boat implemented in-game and available for anyone to find.  

Want to participate? Simply click on the image and it will take you to the form!

What are the questions?

1. What name do you want to appear in the credits if you win
2. What's your Email Address (so we can contact you if you win)
3. What's your captain's name (needs to be high-fantasy friendly)
4. What's your boat's name (20 characters max)
5. Describe your boat's emblem (we will design it according to your description)
6. What's your emblem primary & secondary colors
7. What trade goods is your ship carrying (70 characters max)

These questions are all explained in more details inside the submission form.

When does it start, when does it end?

It starts now (Tuesday April 8th 2025) and ends in 2 weeks, Tuesday April 22nd!

What are the prizes?

Well, have we something for you! Winners get the following:

1. 1x Steam Key of Solasta II (playable once Early Access launches)
2. 1x PDF copy of the Solasta Revised Campaign Sourcebook
3. Their submission will be added in-game
4. Their name will be added in the credits of Solasta II as Community Contributor
5. The “Bard” role in our official Solasta Discord Server

What is it that you bring in this fine city, captain?

What are the rules?

1. Please do not participate more than once
2. Please do not submit text from existing books / games / etc.
3. Please note that we may slightly adapt the text you submit
4. By participating, you agree to Tactical Adventures using the content you submitted. The legal guidelines can be downloaded here, if you’re proficient in legalese and want to dig into the document. 

TL;DR: If you submit something, you allow us to use it! Please only participate if you’re fine with all of the above. 

How will I know if my submission is selected?

We will announce the winners in a future news post in the weeks following the end of the Trades & Sails Community Contest, and will reach out to them for the rewards around that same time! Again, we're almost done selecting our previous Community Contest Of Quills & Ink winners - it took us quite a bit more time than we originally expected due to the amount of submissions!  

Community Stream #08 Friday April 11th

We’re back with April’s Community Stream! As a reminder, we’re now down to one Community Stream per month until Early Access gets closer. For this stream, we're going back to dissecting Solasta & D&D 2024 Classes & Subclasses! Let's talk design and power level!

See you on Friday, 9 am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6 pm CEST!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

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Before we start, don't forget to wishlist Solasta II on Steam - it helps us a ton!

It’s just in my blood…

Ahhh, the Sorcerer. Always compared with the Wizard - and for good reasons! Both are arcane spellcasters with access to very similar spell lists, which can sometimes make them hard to differentiate for newer players aside from their theme: Wizards being the studious spellcasters who scale off their Intelligence, while Sorcerers are natural born geniuses who rely on their Charisma. 

The consensus has always favored Wizards over Sorcerers however, as the former can learn an infinite amount of spells and thus become incredibly versatile, while the latter is stuck with learning only two spells per level. It turns out these nerds have unlocked the legendary power of LITERACY - truly the most overpowered skill in existence. 

During the 3.5e era, this was counterbalanced by the fact that Sorcerers could cast more spells per day - but this is no longer the case in 5e. Instead the class now focuses on Metamagic by making the feature more easily accessible (previously it would require you to upcast the spell, meaning you had to sacrifice higher spell slots to cast weaker spells with metamagic). Sorcerer subclasses also often allow them to dip their fingers into other spell lists - with the most well known on Tabletop being the Divine Soul Sorcerer who can tap into Cleric spells. 

Now for those not familiar with it, Metamagic is a very powerful tool. While newer players may be attracted to Empowered Spell or Quickened Spell seeking to deal more damage, veterans often eye Heightened Spell and Twinned Spell to ensure their opponents end up skipping their turn paralyzed, charmed, frightened or affected by any sort of annoying debuff - a foe that’s almost dead can still hit as hard as one that’s full HP, but a foe that’s stunned is effectively non-existent until the condition is removed. 

The 2024 edition also further pushed the differentiation between Sorcerers and Wizards by giving them the Innate Sorcery feature. Long story short, the idea here is: Wizards are more versatile and have access to a wide array of spells, but Sorcerers are just better at casting theirs. 

The Sorcerers of Solasta

Alright, now that we’ve talked about the class, let’s take a look back at our subclasses from Crown of the Magister. How did they hold up compared to the rest?

Draconic Bloodline (SRD)

Usually when we look at an SRD subclass, it’s the “vanilla flavour” of that class. Think Berserker Barbarian who is the embodiment of “I use Rage and I hit people”, or Life Cleric filling the classic healer fantasy role. But for Sorcerers… there isn’t really a “standard” Sorcerer, is there? 

Draconic Bloodline is pretty close to that though - a clear ancestry giving them access to magical powers, brimming with prestige and strength (who doesn’t like dragons?). It is also easier to picture than more esoteric archetypes like Aberrant Mind or Storm Sorcerers (my grand-grand-grandpa was a Dragon vs I was born during a tempest on a sinking ship somehow infusing me with the power of wind and lightning). This thematic simplicity was a boon when it came to work on facial features exclusive to Sorcerers - just add some dragon scales! 

While we usually like to keep our SRD subclasses as close to Tabletop as possible, we decided to give Draconic Sorcerers Origin Spells. Origin Spells are an addition to more recent Sorcerer archetypes, helping to mitigate the feeling of being too limited in known spells (2014 Sorcerers know less spells at level 20 than Paladins, a half-caster class!) - and we thought that was a great idea to give that class a little boost.

Other than that, Draconic Bloodline is fairly straightforward - nothing overly exciting here. You basically get a permanent Mage Armor with Draconic Resilience, saving you a level 1 spell slot and more importantly allowing you to learn another spell instead. You also are a little beefier with +1HP per level, which is never bad when you’re rocking D6 Hit Dice. 

At level 6 Elemental Affinity and Draconic Resistance give you a little more damage and resistance when dealing with your ancestor’s element, and much later at level 14 you gain the ability to permanently fly (which in Solasta is pretty cool, it does put you out of reach of many more devastating melee attacks). Also before I forget: we did give them some of the best spells with Shield and Counterspell which turned Draconic Bloodline from an already pretty decent archetype to a really good one.  

Final Verdict? While not the most exciting subclass, Draconic Bloodline did its job very well. Some might say it lacked the fun and wonders of the other archetypes and didn’t give you many new tools to play with, but you could never go wrong with it - it was rock solid. 

Child of the Rift (Crown of the Magister)

Hohoho, the Child of the Rift. Where to start. Let’s say that most of you were very quick on picking up an oversight that came with Offering of the Rift. But let’s leave that for later and start with an introduction of the subclass.

Our initial idea regarding our sorcerer archetypes was that each would have an underlying connection to a type of magic: Arcane, Divine, Primal (which was something One D&D toyed with during their playtest, but ultimately dropped). Draconic Sorcerers being related to dragons whose greater intellect often allow them to become powerful spellcasters, were given Arcane Origin Spells. Mana Painters, who draw Mana from the very land they walk upon, would be given Primal Origin Spells. Finally, Children of the Rift, whose power comes from the very cataclysm that brought Gods to Solasta, would have access to Divine Origin Spells.

The first feature, Rift Magic, was an attempt at translating the supernatural instability that is the Rift into a power, allowing them to sometimes cast spells for free. However its low chance of happening and more importantly, its relatively low impact made it… not very satisfying. An immediate comparison that comes to mind is Wild Magic Surge, which solved both these issues: you can force it to trigger with Tide of Chaos, and its effect is much more entertaining - even if it’s not always positive, it’s sometimes to remember! On the other hand, “I can cast one more level 2 spell, yippee”... Rift Magic was just not enough in its existing iteration.

But let’s not be discouraged by one dud. Rift Deflection came next at level 2, giving you a proactive defensive power in exchange for sorcery points. Although powerful as it protected you against both attacks and spells with saving throws, it was balanced by not being a reaction, making you preemptively use a bonus action if you thought danger was coming your way. A very strong tool for survivability!

But wait a minute… A level 2 subclass feature on Sorcerer?! That’s not in the books! The story here is that early on we designed features using Sorcery Points, but only remembered later that they are unlocked at level 2 (since Sorcery Points = Sorcerer Level, we kind of glossed over that…). Now, we could have just removed those extra features, but considering the original Crown of the Magister 1.0 release was capped at level 10 and Sorcerers only unlocked Subclass Features at level 1 and 6… we decided to make a little exception and keep them so each archetype could build a stronger identity.

Now, you were waiting for it - Offering of the Rift came at level 6. By sacrificing max HP you could regain Sorcery Points, and you would only get those HP back after a long rest. Again, the feature drew upon the theme of the Rift requiring sacrifice and giving power in return… But then came the exploit. Greater Restoration removes any effect reducing one’s max HP. And you know what Cleric spell Children of the Rift get in their Origin Spells at level 9? That’s right, Greater Restoration! 

This effectively gave Children of the Rift infinite spell slots. You’d use up your spell slots, convert your Sorcery Points into new spell slots, sacrifice your HP to get Sorcery Points again, and cast Greater Restoration. There you go, as good as new! This incredibly overpowered loophole catapulted the archetype to the front of the power chart - as long as you got to level 9. 

The final feature at level 14, Riftwalk, gave you free Misty Steps with very minor force damage on arrival a few times per long rest. A nice little power as mobility is always great, especially when you don’t have to spend spell slots on it - but nothing really new. At the end of the day, the star of the show was Offering of the Rift and the Origin Spells. 

In the Sourcebook version we completely reworked the subclass to power it up while removing the exploit, slightly altering the angle from which we addressed its theme. Instead of honing into the raw, unstable and dangerous aspect of the Rift itself, we leaned into the idea that the Child of the Rift’s power came from the fusion of a soul from Solasta and Tirmar through the Rift. 

Rift Magic was transformed into Between Two Worlds. It now gave expertise in two skills, languages or tools of your choice, which could be changed after each long rest - the Child of the Rift would tap into souls from Tirmar and could therefore gain temporary understanding of any skill. It improved their versatility outside combat, which is always a good thing as the Sorcerer small spell pool limits their choices. 

Rift Walk moved to level 6 and now triggered whenever you used Metamagic to cast a spell, building upon the Sorcerer’s core identity instead of being another standalone power with its own resource to track. Rift Deflection moved from level 2 (since RAW Sorcerers don’t get subclass features at level 2) to level 14, changing from bonus action into reaction to avoid having to gamble your precious Sorcery Points away to prevent damage that may or may not come your way. In exchange, its power level was also lowered - it now granted damage resistance to a damage type of your choice until the start of your next turn, reducing instead of completely negating it (by making the enemy miss or by succeeding your saving throw). 

Final Verdict? Probably one of the best themes when you take into account Solasta and its history, and good ideas that probably just needed a little more time in the oven to make sure all the kinks were ironed out. The original version was obviously overpowered past level 9, but the reworked version has a lot of flair with a constant flickering around the battlefield to reward the use of metamagic. 

Mana Painter (Crown of the Magister)

The Mana Painters are a middle ground between the “safe but kind of standard” Draconic Sorcerers and “broken combo” Children of the Rift. Drawing their power from the mana swirling around them, they had access to a few Druid Spells in their Origin Spell List. 

As a subclass, Mana Painters had excellent survivability due to Mana Absorption, their level 1 feature which allowed them to use their Charisma Modifier for all their saving throws. This was only possible because Crown of the Magister did not have multiclassing in mind, as a level 1 dip Mana Painter would make any Paladin insanely powerful with both Mana Shield and Aura of Protection. This made the subclass very front-loaded, with its most powerful feature - and arguably their identity - at level 1.

At level 2, Mana Painters got access to Mana Drain, a high risk, unfortunately not high reward attack that would make them regain Sorcery Points if successful. While the idea was interesting (encouraging a range class to go into melee for a reward), the balance wasn’t good enough here: the damage was low and did not scale with levels, and it would only give back a single sorcery point. This made Mana Drain not worth using.

This is especially the case since at level 6, Mana tap would allow you to regain half your maximum Sorcery Points after a short rest once per day. Now you might start to see a pattern here - the Mana Painter was supposed to be the Sorcerer with an overabundance of Sorcery Points, since they constantly draw mana from the land. This defining feature was supposed to be their greatest strength, but unfortunately got overshadowed by the Child of the Rift infinite Sorcery Points exploit. 

The last feature was the level 14 Mana Balance, which would make them regain 5 HP per Sorcery Points spent. Again, the issue we ran into was that regaining HP is a reactive power, something you would want on a frontliner like a Fighter or a Monk, not a Sorcerer. And without the ability to generate Temporary HP, most of the time Mana Balance would do nothing. It was a nifty tool in case you got targeted and needed a bit of healing, but you had little control over it. 

In the Sourcebook version we had to make a few tweaks, notably to prevent the level 1 dip exploit. Mana Absorption was moved to level 6, requiring a significant investment to unlock (while also not arriving too late as it’s their archetype-defining feature), getting replaced at level 1 by Mana Shield which grants Temporary HP equal to 3 times the level of the spell cast, helping Sorcerers build a little buffer in case they get targeted (instead of waiting to get walloped and heal afterwards). Mana Drain moved to level 14 as a reaction, highly empowered to give more flavour to the subclass. It would weaken a spell you see being cast, halving its damage and allowing its target to roll saving throw with advantage, while also regaining a number of sorcery points equal to the level of the spell cast. 

Final Verdict? Again, a very interesting theme and good underlying ideas. A few tweaks and a buff to Mana Drain was all it needed to express itself fully. It’s just a shame the Mana Painter couldn’t shine with their overabundance of Sorcery Points due to the Child of the Rift exploit. 

Haunted Soul (Lost Valley)

Let’s be honest, Haunted Souls had a fair share of issues. While a lot of Lost Valley subclasses ended up being fan-favorites, we got a little stuck with the Haunted Soul. We had the theme figured out - drawing power from malevolent spirits, making them lean into Necromancy and Fear effects… but then realizing that not a lot of Necromancy spells were implemented in Solasta 1. 

This made us create very “spell-oriented” features for the Haunted Soul, as if they unlocked subclass-specific spells. Level 1 Spirit Visage would be a Bonus action “spell” that would force a target to succeed a Wisdom Saving Throw or be frightened until the start of your next turn. Level 6 Vengeful Spirits would be a Bonus action “spell” that was basically a long range Spirit Guardians that you could move once per turn. Only Level 14 Soul Drain broke the pattern by making you regain 1 Sorcery Point whenever you killed a CR1+ creature with a spell of level 1 or higher. 

In the Sourcebook, we tried to move away from that sort of design. Spirit Visage was replaced by A Helping Hand, giving you Chill Touch for free and allowing you to cast it as a Bonus Action whenever you cast a spell of level 1 or higher. That spirit haunting you is giving a hand, literally. 

Vengeful Spirit also changed into giving you resistance to necrotic damage and allowing you to use your reaction to spend sorcery points and haunt your attacker when you get damaged, making all attacks targeting them roll with advantage until the end of your turn. Clearly delivering on its name, Vengeful Spirits!

Lastly, Soul Drain was simplified to be a singular use power per day. By touching the body of a creature that died within the last minute, you could regain up to half that creature’s number of Hit Dice in Sorcery Points. A little more sinister and requiring a conscious action rather than passively draining Sorcery Points in the battlefield by mowing down enemies with spells!

Final Verdict? Honestly, although its original design made a little bit of a faux pas by filling it with spell-like features, Haunted Soul wasn’t bad at all. It did not scale well, but for Tier 2 campaigns it did its job well. Flavour-wise, we like it! Especially on Tabletop, we could see it thrive as it has a pretty juicy thematic. 

The… ??? (Solasta II)

Unlike Knut and Daisy who both teased the Solasta II Rogue and Paladin subclass in the Steam Next Fest demo, Joralas was a Mana Painter! Here’s a little secret: The Sorcerer’s new subclass oscillated between two different themes - so it needed a bit more time in the oven before we decided on which we wanted to go with. But this is a story for a future article!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

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