Solasta Crown of the Magister | How does it compare to 5e Tabletop?

Jul 23

Solasta Crown of the Magister vs Dungeons & Dragons 5e

Looking to scratch that Dungeons and Dragons itch while you wait for your next session? Well, Solasta: Crown of Magister is here to relieve that uncomfortable irritation. We are going to delve into the game and how it compares to its tabletop counterpart, as well as what it doesn’t do quite well.

Solasta, what is it?

Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a tactical Turn-Based RPG developed and published by Tactical Adventures. Roll for initiative, take attacks of opportunity, manage player location, and the verticality of the battlefield in a game that is based on the SRD 5.1 Ruleset. Solasta: Crown of the Magister brings back the thrill, tactics, and deep storytelling of tabletop games. As you play, you'll feel yourself reaching for your dice and miniatures. It's time to dive into the world of Solasta. Roll for initiative!

Roll for initiative, take attacks of opportunity, manage player location, and the verticality of the battlefield.

Set yourself up for the finishing strike and possibly roll a natural 20 at that key moment of battle. In Solasta, you take control of four heroes, each with unique skills that complement one another.

Every hero expresses themselves in the adventure, making each action and dialog choice a dynamic part of the story. Players will create their heroes just as they would in a pen-and-paper game by choosing their race, class, personality, and rolling for their stats.

You make the choices, dice decide your destiny.

WHAT DOES SOLASTA DO WELL?

The combat in Solasta very true to the source material. It includes all of the SRD subclasses as well as some really fun new ones. Whether you want to be a Magebane barbarian who possess a profound hatred for magic and their users, or you want to delve into the Cleric Insight domain that focuses on learning, memory, and deductive skills. Solasta covers them all.

My favorite class they’ve managed to knock out of the park is the Fighter. Below is the details for the Commander fighter subclass. I really think they found a fantastic balance between offensive, and support. While we chose to build an entire Class with this theme (see our Warlord), I think this subclass was handled very well and gives a similar support/leadership role to the fighter.

Commander - Fighter Archetype

On the battlefield, victory is achieved through discipline, rigorous training and audacity. Solastan Commanders can often be seen leading the charge while bolstering their allies.

Level 3

Bonus Proficiencies. Gain proficiency in Intimidation and Insight.

Rousing Shout. You can use your bonus action to give all allies within 15 feet of you (including yourself) advantage on their next attack roll until the start of your next turn. Rousing Shout can be used a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier per short rest.

Level 7

Coordinated Defense. When you take an attack action, you can forgo one of your attacks to grant an ally within 15 feet the Dodge action until the start of your next turn.

Level 10

Invigorating Shout. Rousing Shout's range increases from 3 to 6 cells. Allies affected by Rousing Shout now also gain temporary hit points equal to your level for 1 minute.

Climbing and Light

Verticality and light are strong players in Solasta. I believe this was handled extremely well. Whether scaling up ladders, buildings, cliffs, whatever, it’s there. These two combined make for much-needed tactics to really ensure your victory. Without torches, light spells, or lighting up environmental effects, you will unassuredly get your d20 handed to you. That makes it perfect!

Overland Travel

The form that long-distance travel takes in Solasta, is honestly, one of my favorite mechanics. It uses a map to represent travel as the clock ticks away. Based on your skills characters randomly find loot, encounters or dungeons. While some won’t like this, I think it’s perfect for a game that isn’t all open world. Additionally, choosing travel pace really does affect a lot of things, from gathering resources, how easy you are to ambush, etc. One thing that really stood out, is you need rations for travel and rests. These subtle details mean Rangers get an opportunity to shine. The difference in travel with and without a Ranger is noticeable. Which is great for long travel.

Additionally, the simple form of the Travel Journal allows us a high-level view of character personas without always getting into the heavy wall of texts. Such as a character cleaning their boots, reading a book, carving a statuette out of wood, etc. This little, but awesome detail helps us to get to know them in a fun way. Additionally, the travel is treated as downtime, so they can get work on things such as crafting during this time. Thus, the travel feels meaningful without being boring.

WHAT DOES SOLASTA DO POORLY?

As with any video game, very little can be improvised from a character agency perspective. But this will be true of all video games as the available actions must be programmed. That is hardly an issue with the game design as it is with just video games in general. While this is poor, it’s not really Tactical Adventure’s fault.

No grapple!? This kinda upset me a bit but is minor. I believe that grapple is a powerful support ability, and to see this missing, was a bit of a letdown. I’m not sure if it is technical reasons or not, but in either case, this does reduce the already low combat options available to the martial characters.

Tremorsense, Blind Sense, and Truesight seem to be pretty worthless. With Truesight sometimes enemies still spawn and you get ambushed anyway. With tremorsense and blind sense, they seem to act the same way as Superior Darkvision. So you should be able to see walking creature in fog and darkness without any problem, but this is not the case.

Some of the sidequests seem like they were just added after the fact. Almost like an afterthought. Now, this isn’t a terrible thing, just a stand-out observation.

Unearthed Tips and Tricks

Monster Variant: Badlands Sunweaver

Name: Badlands Sunweaver

Origin: Spy

Lost Features: Hand crossbow, multiattack

New Features:

Creature Type becomes undead

Undead Fortitude. If damage reduces the sunweaver to 0 hit points, it must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5 plus the damage taken, unless the damage is acid damage or from a critical hit. On a success, the sunweaver drops to 1 hit point instead.

Strength of Ra. As a bonus action the sunweaver can call on the power of the sun god Ra. Bestowing upon it divine speed, agility and focus. This effect lasts for up to one minute. It ends early if it is incapacitated, dons armor or a shield. It can also end the effect at any time it chooses (no action required).

While the sunweaver's Strength of Ra is active, it gains the following benefits:

It gains a bonus to its AC equal to its Wisdom modifier.
Its walking speed increases by 15 feet.
It has advantage on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks and Saving throws.
It gains a bonus to any Constitution saving throws it makes to maintain concentration on a spell equal to its Wisdom modifier.

The sunweaver can't use this feature again until it finishes a short or long rest.

Spellcasting. The sunweaver's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14). The sunweaver can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:

At-will: dancing lights, light, sacred flame

1/day each: flaming sphere, misty step, sunlight

REACTIONS

Blinding Riposte. The sunweaver makes a melee weapon attack against a creature that missed it with a melee attack. If the attack scores a critical hit the weapon flares with blinding light and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the end of the target’s next turn.

Encounter: The Hunt for Hunisa - by Jackie L.

An elven lady named Indiris seeks a company of adventurers to hunt down and capture the remorseless killer Hunaisa. Moreover, the party must complete the quest without killing anyone.

Magic Item: Arcane Shieldstaff

Staff, rare (requires attunement by a spellcaster)

While holding this staff you have a +1 bonus to your AC.

The staff has 10 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC: mage armor (1 charge), shield of faith (3 charges), shield (4 charges), fire shield (6 charges).

This staff has 10 charges and regains 1d6 + 4 expended chargers daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1 the staff explodes in a burst of light, casting the globe of invulnerability, and is destroyed.

Dungeon Master Tip: Sun & Creatures as a Time Tracker

In many roleplaying games, we are constantly informed on the different tools used to set the scene using great narration. But for some reason, when the passage of time is covered, it’s not given as much importance. What we mean by that, is that mostly it comes in words like, its early morning, or midday, or even a very specific time. We can significantly improve our worldbuilding and narrative into the passage of time by using some easy, but specific details for reference. In this case, we are talking about the Sun and the creatures that inhabit the world.

Let’s consider the Sun first. Using this as a way to describe time passing is extremely simple, and is more narrative than just relaying a time on a clock such as Noon. Instead, describing the Sun as overhead casting almost no shadow gives a good sense of time, as well as the impact on the characters and potentially the story. A better example would be the characters attempting information gathering by eavesdropping on a conversation between two nobles. Noting that the Sun casts almost no shadow as above. So we might ask for a perception check or something similar. After the check you reveal what they overheard in brief detail and note that the Sun has begun to drop beneath the treeline and a long shadow stretches several feet. Without any other indicators, the players now have an idea that they were eavesdropping for quite some time, without coming out and saying it directly. Not only does this deliver us pacing in the game world, but reminds the players of the passage of time.

You can expand on this further by including creatures that appear around specific times. A great example of this is a roaster. Its loud cockadoodledoing is a great reminder of the early hours. While the appearance of erratically flying bats or other nocturnal creatures gives a clear sense of the night quickly coming upon the adventurers.

Player Tip: Shocking Containment

The Net “weapon” is hands down considered terrible. The net is a special thrown weapon with no damage, and a ridiculously short range 5/15 ft. Though, it does apply the restrained condition, the low AC and hp, lack of damage, and low Strength check needed to break it make it extremely unappealing…most of the time.

What if we used it on a creature that doesn’t do slashing damage? Well, then that removes one concern. By picking up the sharpshooter feet we can make our normal range 15 ft dealing with the second issue. There isn’t much we can do about the low AC, though, the fact the net imposes disadvantage on attacks by the target does help mitigate this somewhat, but what about damage? Well, that is where the lightning arrow spell comes in place.

“The next time you make a ranged weapon attack during the spell’s duration, the weapon’s ammunition, or the WEAPON itself if it’s a thrown weapon, transforms into a bolt of lightning”. *Loud Thunderstrike* Boom! Not only does lightning arrow turn your net into a track for 4d8 lightning damage, but the target and each creature within 10 feet also must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take an additional 2d8 lightning damage. Since the net restrains our target, they have disadvantage on the save. Then the net now turns back into a regular net when all is said and one.

Now, the target is restrained with movement of zero, attack rolls against it have advantage, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saves. This is an absolutely brutal combo, with one of the weakest weapons in the game.

If you want to get real creative, you can drop down the grease spell to force the target prone. Additionally, should your net get destroyed, just use the mending cantrip to get it all fixed up.

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