So this may be a silly question. Long time ago I played D&D with friends. We had a good DM, and had a great time as a party of friends roleplaying an interesting adventure. Fast forward to now, where life, family, work and all not easily allows to currently play with a great roleplaying group.
So, looking to fill in a bit of the fun, I was looking at doing some solo RPG with FoundryVTT and the Mythic Game Engine. However, focusing more on D&D 5E mechanics in combat I discovered the game Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It looks like it provides a great environment to do some ‘quick’ D&D combat sessions with some light roleplaying. Also, it allows people to create their own adventures and share them. So, on paper it should tick many of the boxes of solo D&D.
Has anyone played with Solasta? What did you like from a D&D perspective? And what not?
BTW, I’m also playing BG3 (100hrs currently into the game).
Solasta is a pretty fun story light DND game. I enjoyed it, but I never finished anything other than the original campaign. It’s pretty generous with long rests and short rests, which kind of ruins dnd’s precarious balance.
Personally I’m super tired of DND specifically. I’d love something like solasta but with a different system .
What kind of system would you like? Maybe Pathfinder 2E? Or something completely different?
Whenever someone suggests Pathfinder over DND I’m reminded of that blues brothers joke “we’ve got both kinds of music here. Country and western”
Anyway it depends on if you mean for tabletop or computer.
For tabletop I’d want something that takes advantage of human creativity like Fate. Or Mage: The Awakening (2e). People will say that DND let’s you be creative because “you can do whatever you want” and that’s technically true, DND doesn’t really help you out. You can make your own spells, but there’s not much guidance (pun intended). Same with classes. Aside from that, stuff like “spend a fate point to declare a story detail” isn’t something computers can handle yet.
For computerized, something written from the ground up to take advantage of that. Tabletop games need to have simple math that players can do in their head. You couldn’t practically do like “randomly pick 100 numbers from 1-100, and count how many match.” at the table. The computer can do whatever weird math you want to get whatever outcome shape you want.
For either, there’s like a three page scried in me about all the dnd’isms I don’t like. I should probably just write it once so I can repost it when it comes up. I’ll spare you unless you really want to know what some rando online dislikes about DND specifically.
We would like to start playing some tabletop with a few friends, none of us played any game of the genre, what would you advice us to do? Is DnD a good choice for beginners given that it doesn’t have as much customisation as others, as I understand?
This is kind of a tricky question.
You are correct that DND doesn’t have as much customization. A lot of character choices are kind of eclipsed by the big 1d20 random factor, too. Like, it doesn’t matter a lot if you have +2 or +5 if you’re adding 1-20 to it and looking for a result of 13. You’re going to hit it a lot either way.
As to what you should play instead, that’s really hard to answer from here. What is your group like? What do they want out of the game? Is it really a bunch of people who have never played anything before?
Personally, I really like Fate and think it’s more intuitive. But it requires your players to be a little more bold and creative than DND. If you have a bunch of timid wallflowers it’s not going to be great. But if you have a bunch of fun storytellers it can really sing. Also it’s free and only uses standard d6 dice. But if no one’s played anything before you might struggle, and might want to look into sourcebooks for sale.
Powered by the apocalypse games are also really popular. Some of them are meh, but that’s sturgeon’s law. They tend to be a lot more narrative and less concerned with “you can move exactly 15 feet”.
Blades in the dark is also really popular. It’s about heists. Pretty easy to pick up. Probably I’d recommend this one if the theme is interesting. It’s a decent system and doesn’t have any dndisms.
There’s also a whole universe of dnd-likes, but to my knowledge most of them aren’t different enough to be worth it. Most of them bring a lot of dnd-isms with a handful of tweaks. I don’t see the point.
I personally really like the Chronicles of Darkness games. They can be a little crunchy, but I started them many years ago so they have a soft spot in my memories. If you wanted to play a game about being a vampire or werewolf or mage in modern day, they have you covered. They do require more reading and investment though.
Which goes back to not knowing your group. Most groups have at least one person who’s not going to read or learn shit. Some have more. How many do you have?
Tldr: fate is awesome. Pbta is worth checking out. Blades in the dark is good.
I thank you for your very detailed reply.
We are all beginners in the world of tabletop, as for what we want out of the game, I think we don’t have enough knowledge of what the different games out there entail to really know what we may want. I think everyone in the group is willing to learn how to play, but most won’t be going as deep as me, but that’s OK.
I will keep your recommendations close.
Me and a friend played it side by side, we thought it was an absolute blast.
Character creation is probably the most D&D aspect of the game. You get almost every race and class from the PHB, although Variant Human is unfortunately not there, and many of the subclasses are unique to Solasta. There are 12 backgrounds, most of which add side quests to the main story, and all of which give some benefit to the character. Stats are determined with either 4d6 drop lowest, or point buy, and there’s an option for unlimited points. The game won’t punish you for choosing 18s in every stat, but that’s kinda boring. Character customization is kinda barebones. There are a few faces to pick from, like 30 hairstyles, and a wide color palette for skin and hair colors. Imagine Skyrim, but only preset faces.
Your background and personality traits determine your character’s attitude, and what dialogue they say. The game is almost entirely voice acted, which is really nice.
From a D&D perspective, it takes the combat rules directly out of the SRD, and it plays explicitly RAW. No bending the rules for the new guy because he didn’t know he couldn’t make a bonus action attack after drinking a potion. No scooting someone’s mini one more square over so they can do something cool.
Also worth noting, thanks to the strict adherence to the rules, rangers are actually viable!
There isn’t a ton of roleplay, as your dialogue options are usually just “which character says something right now?” There are a few points throughout the campaigns where you have to make choices, and those choices do matter to an extent, but they don’t make an impact on the overarching story. The main campaigns are pretty much linear, you just decide how to kill the enemies the game throws at you. The side campaign has a lot more in the way of role playing, because you do have to pick a faction to work with.
The game is a lot harder than typical D&D, thanks in part to the strict adherence to the rules, and in part to the fact that they have to balance out the insane amount of loot you get. Seriously, by the end of the second campaign, we were leaving +2 weapons and Winged Boots on the ground because we had that Tier 4 drip. Everyone had 24 for their main stat. The paladin had 28 AC, and a Cloak of Displacement. The sorcerer could fly, and had a +like 15 to hit. The rogue had two daggers each dealing 4d4 damage, so them sneak attacks were crisp. The cleric… could heal, when the party needed it.
All in all, it definitely scratched the D&D itch for me and my friend. I recommend buying the game and the DLCs.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Seeing some gameplay footage I also noticed that Solasta shows all the dice rolls explicitly on screen, which gives it a nice touch of feel like playing D&D. The game sticking closer to the D&D rules actually is something I’m looking forward to, and it makes the mechanics of D&D combat indeed more explicit.
I’m going to give Solasta a try, and will pick up some DLC from the get go. Any DLC in particular recommendable? There are many packs available. Or should I just try to get them all.
For the DLC, it really depends on what catches your fancy.
Inner Strength gets you Warlocks, Bards, and Monks, all extremely fun classes to play, along with the Dragonborn race. Just like 5e, the breath weapon is a bit underwhelming, but the class makes for a fantastic Paladin.
Primal Calling gives you the Half-Orc race, along with Barbarians and Druids. Barbarians can be overpowered at times, especially the Path of Stone subclass, which was very fun to play. Druids are basically walking health potions–their only really viable subclass (at least that I could tell) is the Circle of Balance, which is an extremely strong healer.
The Lost Valley is a side campaign that’s somewhat shorter than Crown of the Magister, but has much more replay value because of the different factions. It also gets you one new subclass for most classes.
Palace of Ice is a sequel campaign to Crown of the Magister, where you play with the same characters as before. It also gives you the Tiefling and Gnome races.
I would recommend Inner Strength over Primal Calling, and Lost Valley then Palace of Ice, unless you really want to play a Tiefling or something. If you’re more interested in making characters, get the race/class DLCs first. If you’re more interested in playing through the stories, get the story DLCs first. But also, there’s nothing wrong with playing the main campaign before buying any DLCs. That’s what I did!
Thanks! I’ll probably start with the main campaign first. Unless there is a certain class or race that may be more fun to play, then I’ll maybe consider that as the first DLC.
Been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a lot of fun and the game is polished and great. But I miss solasta for how close it is to 5e rules implementation and how clear and concise the mechanics are. (It draws predictive line of sight for you as you consider where to move). I’ll be going back to solasta for more custom campaigns (and the UB Mod) when I’m done with BG3.
I am going to give Solasta a go once I’ve finished BG3. I read that the UB mod is more or less required.
