D&D 5E Solasta - is it worth playing?

[Oofta]

Solasta is an old school dungeon crawl module, they simply didn't have the resources to hire better voice actors or writers. Having said that, I still enjoyed it. Positioning, including moving around the map by jumping or other means, is important as is light. Even with darkvision, they enforce dim light.

It's not the best in-depth campaign, then again I have pretty low expectations for even AAA games when it come to story lines. Some of the limits - positioning, lighting, attacking ranged monsters, and so on - are part of the challenge. I found it interesting to figure out tactics and options so it works for me.

Nowadays I still fire it up every once in a while and load up one of the free custom modules and play through them when I want to play something I don't need twitch reactions or simply don't want "deep" campaigns.

 

[Larrin]

I find it a very enjoyable way to play with the 5e rules-set, but the dialog and plot are for sure low-lights. Ignoring them is mostly what I do. But the rules implementation and combat is very good.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ah... I understand the lighting issue now. Everyone in the party I made had darkvision so I didn't experience this.

Darkvision has limited range, so for ranged attacks you sometimes to place a light source near the targets.

In the battle the OP is referencing, the trick is to use the Sparkle cantrip (which is a bonus action) to light the torches on the walls near the bad guys.

I love Solasta. No, it’s not playing real D&D with your friends. Nothing is.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

For people without a prior relationship with the 5e rules set it is a pretty middle of the road crpg. Obviously games with rules built for computer gaming are going to have more potential to be good computer games, and Solasta has extra ugly facemorphs and pretty anemic voice-acting (not necessarily the fault of the voice actors), wrapped around a bog standard fantasy plot.

The reason to play it is that fundamentally every player of a TTRPG with substantial character building options never gets to make as many characters as they would like to. Solasta, especially with the proper mod to let you do multiclassing, lets 5e players fulfill their unfulfilled needs to roll up characters (albeit without most official subclasses) and try them in some fights. It's pretty cool on that front. The game beyond that is serviceable enough not to get in the way of your fun if you have that core desire to roll up 5e characters and take them for a test run. If you don't it's probably going to be unimpressive.

 

[MoonSong]

I went to check the Solasta page to check it's price. Not expensive at all ($40, 20 on my local currency) and it might be worth a shot for that amount. Sadly, Kingmaker is $6 right now and hard to pass by. n_n

 

[Bill Zebub]

The reason to play it is that fundamentally every player of a TTRPG with substantial character building options never gets to make as many characters as they would like to. Solasta, especially with the proper mod to let you do multiclassing, lets 5e players fulfill their unfulfilled needs to roll up characters (albeit without most official subclasses) and try them in some fights. It's pretty cool on that front.

Yeah what I hated about the BG3 early access is that you had to fill 3/4 of your party from five pregens. I really wanted to roll my entire party to try it in different ways. (Not to mention that the pregens are super annoying.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I went to check the Solasta page to check it's price. Not expensive at all ($40, 20 on my local currency) and it might be worth a shot for that amount.

I've seen is significantly cheaper. I would shop around/wait for a sale.

Kingmaker is good and all, but it does show up that that 3rd edition D&D combat is worse than 5e D&D combat.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Darkvision has limited range, so for ranged attacks you sometimes to place a light source near the targets.

In the battle the OP is referencing, the trick is to use the Sparkle cantrip (which is a bonus action) to light the torches on the walls near the bad guys.

I love Solasta. No, it’s not playing real D&D with your friends. Nothing is.

Also, in the Necromancer's Castle, the widows are boarded up. You can smash the boards with a missile or spell to let the light in.

 

[S'mon]

I liked the combat engine, but the railroad plots were abysmal and no fun. AFAICS they could have made a decent sandbox for the same effort.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I liked the combat engine, but the railroad plots were abysmal and no fun. AFAICS they could have made a decent sandbox for the same effort.

The Lost Valley was an attempt to make a sandbox. The engine really doesn't have the tools you need to support it (such as tracking variables in dialogue).