Do boulders, etc., block the Burst effect of Acorn Bombardment? There's no hit points on King Oakenheart? How can you tell if you're winning? It's a bit subtle to rely on a giant victory banner.
Yes, burst requires line of sight to the centre, so you can take cover behind blocking terrain. King Oakenheart had so much health that we didn't have a proper counter for him. That's a bug that will get fixed.
I'm going to lose many night of sleep over this....I can feel it. This looks like the exact game I've always wanted to play, and these last diaries have confirmed that for me. Thank you. <3
"Manoeuvre" . . . "maneuver" . . . you're toying with us. Okay, cool, I like the details on overall campaign setup. Trying to get your eight-battle thing down to six. I can work with six: At first, I was concerned that the sequence of "saplings -> maple trees -> monkeys" was going to immediately end at "-> boss fight," which would have felt anticlimactic. That is, "Wow, this amazing tree-themed module gives me a grand total of two times to battle TREES before the boss!" But no, six battles would be enough to have that theme streamlining stuff you mentioned hold actual merit, establishing patterns before you break said patterns. I dig it.
One thing I've only seen mentioned tangentially is battle objectives. Is the focus of every encounter to "beat all enemies," or are there alternative goals? I'm assuming since the game is still in development, that you're sticking with the one victory condition for now. In the future, I could see some pretty neat encounters/stories told with objectives such as "survive X turns" or "get your team across the bridge before it collapses." On the subject of story, while we're obviously not privy to how fast encounters play, six seems like a good number for play length, and a short number for story length. Are there "adventure paths" planned? Something like "Oak Tree's Revenge?" In contrast, is narrative secondary to play, relegated to being sandwiched between adventures? Finally, is there an issue with using terms like Burst and Line of Sight that are legally in contrast to WotC IP? I imagine they're fairly generic terms, but who knows with large companies?
I'm sure that a lot could be said about victory conditions, but I'll just weigh in on this topic: "Line of sight" isn't merely generic; it predates WotC. It predates tabletop gaming, for that matter, since it's just the phrase you use for that concept. And even though single words like "burst" do, in fact, have the risk of being copyrighted like phrases, this one likewise has been in gaming since before WotC. If you're going to feel nervous about terms like these, you'll need to feel the same about any arbitrary verbiage like "fireball" or "goblin." In other words, save your concern for "mind flayer" and suchlike, which have implementations that are recognizable and definite (and jealously guarded).
Whats interesting is he confirms line of sight. Honestly i didn't expect that to be added. Makes me wonder if our heroes will have abilities to block line of sight (Dwarf warrior pulls a big rock from the ground and throws it in front of him blocking line of sight, then precedes to flex and talk about how manly he is) Makes me wonder if they also added rough terrain which you move slower in.
So can you travel through or over shrubs? Because otherwise it looks like those characters pretty much can't go anywhere. Do shrubs reduce or alter your movement? Perhaps I missed the answer in the diary. I'll check. Carry on.
I remember asking about rough terrain in the forums after seeing the board editor preview: I imagine that's how shrubs behave.
I've been lurking in the forums for awhile but I had to post in agreement with Althezel. Really looking forward to this
Well, hooray on seeing faces around. Good to get to know the locals. Before we eat them alive on the battlefield.
