Ravenknight
First Post
I just saw that it was released yesterday in the states, anyone tried it? I have preordered a copy but it´s not released in europe for another month. 
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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Anyone tried DnD tactics yet? (PsP)
- Thread starter Ravenknight
- Start date
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Hopefully this weekend. I was going to pre-order online, but in order to get it right away, I'd have to pay $10 for shipping (which is too much). Otherwise it arrives either on Friday or Monday, by which time stores have it, so might as well get it there.
2WS-Steve
First Post
The Onebookshelf site change produced a windfall cash out from DriveThruRPG for me, so I was able to score a PSP -- largely for the purpose of getting D&D Tactics! (But Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and Metal Gear Acids are really cool too).
I've been holding off posting any sort of review since I just picked up Tactics yesterday, but here's preliminary stuff:
The tactical play and chargen are very authentic -- you can tumble through ZOCs to set up flanking attacks, have access to a full array of special maneuvers like bull rush -- free actions seem to be handled well.
You can play all of the core classes in the PHB plus a psion or psychic warrior -- I'm doing my main char as a psychic warrior. Despite the in-game text for "Burst" being wrong, the game actually handles it just right -- swift action to activate, then pump my stubby dwarf legs up to 30 ft per round.
Unlike most of the bloody D&D conversions, Tactics uses the actual durations for spells, so, just like in your tabletop game, Mage Armor lasts.
However, due to the nature of play, this makes 1 minute per level spells very effective. Once you drop into an adventure you typically play through the map very quickly in terms of in-game time (actual play time can be longish, maybe an hour or 90 minutes for the two 2nd level adventures I went on). You spend some time in explore mode, which allows you to wander around more free-form -- but you quickly go into tactical mode and run things by rounds.
The turn-based combat with the PSP controls is more work if you're used to a mouse on the PC. But it works pretty well overall, and I'm willing to make some sacrifices for good game-play.
I had one very fun fight across an elven tree-top pathways map -- and some of the other maps seem to be nicely thought out for their tactical flavor too.
Inventory management and character screens is definitely more work than for a PC game since you need to do a lot of scrolling and going to different management screens. I think this is something they probably could have streamlined and helped reduced the amount of clicking and going back and forth between menus.
25 pt pointbuy for stats but dice rolls for hp at 2nd level and higher.
Due to its tactical nature, all your feats and skills have some sort of combat application -- so no Diplomacy and Bluff is just for feints in combat. Knowledge skills help give you info on the monsters you face.
The biggest change is that it seems that there's no multi-classing allowed. Maybe I'm just not finding the rights keys, or maybe prestige or multi-classing becomes available later -- but nothing right now. That will actually increase the replay value since I'll want to try different classes -- but I was a bit surprised. Also, they still mention racial favored classes, but I don't know what they'd do in this version.
Magic items are available at DMG prices -- each town has it's own list of stuff for sale and those lists don't seem to overlap. Travel between towns isn't timed and works more like a kind of menu, so that does a solid job of letting each town act like it's own shop.
There are a few changes to the rules it seems -- spellcasters need one hand free (unless they're carrying a staff?) which I suppose is part of the normal rules, but since everything is explicit in the computer game, you need to re-arrange stuff. I picked up the still spell feat for my casters, which seems to allow you to cast with hands full, doesn't require prepping spells specially, but also doesn't let your wear armor.
I'm wondering if other metamagic feats are going to provide a constant benefit too, as opposed to the official way. So far, the feats are fairly tame: silent spell allows casting under silence effects, then there's the double duration or +50% area spells, which I always thought weren't worth both a feat and a +1 to spell level in D&D, so this might actually be better.
Humans aren't quite as good if you don't have a stack of 12 books from which to pick your extra feat.
The one big rules error (and I'm pretty sure this isn't an intentional rules tweak) is that mage armor stacked with worn armor. The bad guys don't seem to use it so I just forego the rather tempting effect.
It'd be a nice cheat, but I already reload if I roll anything less than average for level up hit points (I haven't made players roll for hit points in my game since Reagan was president!)
I've been holding off posting any sort of review since I just picked up Tactics yesterday, but here's preliminary stuff:
The tactical play and chargen are very authentic -- you can tumble through ZOCs to set up flanking attacks, have access to a full array of special maneuvers like bull rush -- free actions seem to be handled well.
You can play all of the core classes in the PHB plus a psion or psychic warrior -- I'm doing my main char as a psychic warrior. Despite the in-game text for "Burst" being wrong, the game actually handles it just right -- swift action to activate, then pump my stubby dwarf legs up to 30 ft per round.
Unlike most of the bloody D&D conversions, Tactics uses the actual durations for spells, so, just like in your tabletop game, Mage Armor lasts.
However, due to the nature of play, this makes 1 minute per level spells very effective. Once you drop into an adventure you typically play through the map very quickly in terms of in-game time (actual play time can be longish, maybe an hour or 90 minutes for the two 2nd level adventures I went on). You spend some time in explore mode, which allows you to wander around more free-form -- but you quickly go into tactical mode and run things by rounds.
The turn-based combat with the PSP controls is more work if you're used to a mouse on the PC. But it works pretty well overall, and I'm willing to make some sacrifices for good game-play.
I had one very fun fight across an elven tree-top pathways map -- and some of the other maps seem to be nicely thought out for their tactical flavor too.
Inventory management and character screens is definitely more work than for a PC game since you need to do a lot of scrolling and going to different management screens. I think this is something they probably could have streamlined and helped reduced the amount of clicking and going back and forth between menus.
25 pt pointbuy for stats but dice rolls for hp at 2nd level and higher.
Due to its tactical nature, all your feats and skills have some sort of combat application -- so no Diplomacy and Bluff is just for feints in combat. Knowledge skills help give you info on the monsters you face.
The biggest change is that it seems that there's no multi-classing allowed. Maybe I'm just not finding the rights keys, or maybe prestige or multi-classing becomes available later -- but nothing right now. That will actually increase the replay value since I'll want to try different classes -- but I was a bit surprised. Also, they still mention racial favored classes, but I don't know what they'd do in this version.
Magic items are available at DMG prices -- each town has it's own list of stuff for sale and those lists don't seem to overlap. Travel between towns isn't timed and works more like a kind of menu, so that does a solid job of letting each town act like it's own shop.
There are a few changes to the rules it seems -- spellcasters need one hand free (unless they're carrying a staff?) which I suppose is part of the normal rules, but since everything is explicit in the computer game, you need to re-arrange stuff. I picked up the still spell feat for my casters, which seems to allow you to cast with hands full, doesn't require prepping spells specially, but also doesn't let your wear armor.
I'm wondering if other metamagic feats are going to provide a constant benefit too, as opposed to the official way. So far, the feats are fairly tame: silent spell allows casting under silence effects, then there's the double duration or +50% area spells, which I always thought weren't worth both a feat and a +1 to spell level in D&D, so this might actually be better.
Humans aren't quite as good if you don't have a stack of 12 books from which to pick your extra feat.
The one big rules error (and I'm pretty sure this isn't an intentional rules tweak) is that mage armor stacked with worn armor. The bad guys don't seem to use it so I just forego the rather tempting effect.
It'd be a nice cheat, but I already reload if I roll anything less than average for level up hit points (I haven't made players roll for hit points in my game since Reagan was president!)
Ravenknight
First Post
I can´t wait. Thanks for the information.
2WS-Steve
First Post
Just a short follow up --
I'm pretty sure that metamagic just provides a benefit to all your spells. I picked up extend spell and there wasn't any option to kick my first level spells to 2nd and extended. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to check the duration remaining on my spells in-game, so I can't be completely certain.
One other rule change is that there's no RUN action. Theoretically this removes one of the penalties for heavy armor (thus making it better) but the game is unique amongst D&D computer games in that it not only uses some big maps, but allows missile fire at PHB ranges. The upshot is that both you and those pesky goblins can be firing arrows 100 feet -- and trying to chug across that distance at 40 ft per double move makes you appreciate the Monk, Expeditious Retreat, Burst psion, and barbarian in chain shirt.
Again, this might actually be a good rule change since it makes ranged combat more than just a one round then they're on you thing, and makes you feel the pinch of having that maxed out AC. Medium armor of course gets the shaft -- but it gets the shaft in paper D&D too so we'll just have to see if they fix that in 4e.
I'm pretty sure that metamagic just provides a benefit to all your spells. I picked up extend spell and there wasn't any option to kick my first level spells to 2nd and extended. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to check the duration remaining on my spells in-game, so I can't be completely certain.
One other rule change is that there's no RUN action. Theoretically this removes one of the penalties for heavy armor (thus making it better) but the game is unique amongst D&D computer games in that it not only uses some big maps, but allows missile fire at PHB ranges. The upshot is that both you and those pesky goblins can be firing arrows 100 feet -- and trying to chug across that distance at 40 ft per double move makes you appreciate the Monk, Expeditious Retreat, Burst psion, and barbarian in chain shirt.
Again, this might actually be a good rule change since it makes ranged combat more than just a one round then they're on you thing, and makes you feel the pinch of having that maxed out AC. Medium armor of course gets the shaft -- but it gets the shaft in paper D&D too so we'll just have to see if they fix that in 4e.
Shawn_Kehoe
First Post
2WS-Steve said:
Sweet. I passed this up today to reserve Metroid Prime 3, but I'll have to make a return trip next week
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Got this today. I have to say, it's impressive, but at the same time, kinda daunting. I don't think the interface is bad, exactly, but the level of detail is almost too much for a console/portable.
One small annoyance, although the pre-made characters have long names, the ones you make can only have 8 characters. Not fair, and odd, given the PSP has a huge memory stick (mine is 2 gig, which I got for $30 I think), making save game sizes mostly meaningless.
One small annoyance, although the pre-made characters have long names, the ones you make can only have 8 characters. Not fair, and odd, given the PSP has a huge memory stick (mine is 2 gig, which I got for $30 I think), making save game sizes mostly meaningless.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Hmmmm, looks like Psions might be broken - I have one with an 18 Intelligence and at first level, he doesn't seem to be getting any bonus power points.
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