comments for Might & Manuscript
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First, I think there needs to be something changed with the player's health or enemies' damage. It is basically required that you are a paladin to heal in combat, because otherwise enemies' damage scales faster than you can gain max hp/heal
Secondly, and maybe I am just extremely unlucky, but I almost never roll 10-17 on the dice. So many single digit rolls, and then a suspiciously high number of 18+ rolls. Again though, maybe this is just an observation bias
Overall like I said, this is a good start. Hopefully this gets updates!
developer response: I'd definitely like to offer other ways to maintain your health through combat as there is a lot of luck involved with staying alive... that being said there are weapons and feats that can keep your health up without needing to be a paladin! Again though, luck is required!
As for the rolls, they are as random as the game engine allows! I know Baldur's Gate 3 has a 'karmic dice' setting that fudges rolls if you're rolling low or high too many times in a row so I might implement something similar in the future.
Thanks for the feedback!
But overall, the game is good and highly recommended. Mechanics are easy and understandable.
Would like an extended version of this game, it's tons of fun playing it
developer response: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wanted to see how something like this would be received but since it looks like quite a few people like it, I'll definitely be expanding and refining the idea!
developer response: Sounds like quite the adventure! From the looks of things, sundering might need some reworking...
developer response: I actually just started reworking the graphical style today so a dark mode will likely come soon!
Edit: Just for you JoeSchmoe I've darkened the interface 😌
developer response: That is a really good point about the lack of proficiencies. I'll definitely work on the skill check balancing but my thought was that players would be forced to try and pump 1 or 2 abilities to be able to pass some of the later checks.
As it's a roguelike, I wanted to give players enough options with how they build their characters. Trying to keep your abilities equal helps defensively, but pumping 1 or 2 abilities helps with some skill checks and offensive output.
developer response: AC is based on which ability you're using to attack. If you attack with Might, the enemy's AC is equal to their Finesse, if you attack with Finesse, the enemy uses their Smarts as their AC. You absolutely can miss with higher rolls depending on which attack you're using!
developer response: True..... On the other hand..... Getting a lucky feat or equipment pull in a roguelike should make you feel overpowered!
developer response: That's definitely just an edge case I didn't account for. I'll get that fixed in the next patch!
developer response: I'm still looking into this...
It seems the starting (second) feat is the most important part of the RNG. I've gotten a Dwarf Monk to win by starting with Big Back and then picking up good weapons (Blocking and Sunder).
My second win was Tinkerer + Side Effects, which is so overpowered that I don't need to mention that the next two feats were Precise + Unsatiable. (Final abilities: 39/38/39)
The main difficulty I had learning the game was that 1d6+4 doesn't actually add 4 to the damage. A 1d8+10 still hits for maximum 8 damage without any bonuses.
Conversely, getting a Prestine (2d6) weapon earlier is vital for gameplay, since a 2d6 at 50% hit numerically beats a 1d6 at 95%.
...on another topic, why do caves still growl when they have bees or snakes?
developer response: There's definitely a lot of math happening behind to scenes that can be hard to understand, especially if you've never played D&D before, but I'm glad to hear to managed to figure it out enough to play!
Caves growl because I'm a lazy solo dev and this was a demo so it's just a generic 'pre-battle flavor text' lol
(Also, tinkerer + side effects is definitely a fun build!)
developer response: Niceeee
That all being said I do think the game is entirely too easy, only having three stats and mythical weapons being pretty much guaranteed at some point means you can just fully throw yourself into one stat and it doesn't matter what the enemy stats are because you only need to hit once or twice in any given battle besides the final boss.
Some feats should be exclusive to different races. Thinks like Dwarf Monk make the game entirely free to play.
I don't know if you're going for a difficult roguelike, but I think in it's current state without updates it definitely needs to be harder (and longer). Good job, the game is an amazing concept and you did well :) Excited to see where it goes.
developer response: Thanks for the feedback.
I agree sundering will probably get some sort of rework, but I want to try and keep the current complexity just so it's approachable for people that have never played D&D before. I also plan on reworking some of the chances for the higher rarity weapons and changing mythic weapons from 4 damage dice down to 3 to help.
developer response: I can definitely add more detailed tooltips for those!
developer response: Good grief! That's definitely a combo I didn't foresee lol...
Balance wise, I agree with other comments that taunting is a bit strong. While I didn't get a run without it, I'd be a lot weaker if I had to split into 3 stats. The extra weapon and ability related perks are upsides, but since stats are so strong it's almost always worth taking. Maybe have it lower your overall dodge chance by an amount (like x0.8/0.9 mult). Likewise, I think sunder is a bit strong too. I got it on a weapon and it reduces the enemy's dodge, hit chance, and maybe their damage too. Maybe have it reduced to 20% or have it as a 50/75% chance on weapon hit.
I love the feel of the game though I think it could use a bit more replayability which is key for a roguelike nowadays. Having some way to raise the difficulty each run while unlocking bonuses/QoL features could be good. Also maybe some mechanic to help you keep track of which paths you took in random events in previous run could be nice as well.
developer response: I think eventually a lot of the feats and events will be unlocked the more you play to help with the replayability bit, as well as adding some way to see what your previous runs looked like.
Taunting is definitely strong, but you also have to be pretty lucky to get it (pulling from a pool of 40+ feats) so I'm not sure if I'll change the balancing or just let it be an OP feat.
Nerfing sunder will likely happen though. It reduces the enemy's ability scores which directly affects their damage, AC, hit chance, etc. so it is pretty strong, but again, you have to have a particular build to utilize it effectively.
Thanks for the detailed feedback!
Paladin with Unsatiable, Taunting and Momentum.
Ended with stats 41 / 34 / 40.
Got blessed with a Legendary Scroll and two Pristine weapons.
I rolled over all ennemies, even Boneclaw.
The could barely hit me.
I'll go for another session later but in this one, I felt like a demigod :)
developer response: That's definitely quite the stacked build!
Peace returns to %s as the %s silently falls... Peace that most of %s has been dreaming of for years. Congratulations warrior, you've earned some rest...
developer response: Ahhh, nice catch! I'll fix that in the next patch!
developer response: Glad you like it!
developer response: I'll definitely be expanding on it after seeing the response!
"Ragequit" option leads into a dead end: a black screen with the word "The" printed on it and no way out.
developer response: "Ragequit" doesn't really work in the web build since it's supposed to just quit the game entirely lol.
I'll likely be reworking the 'menus' at the beginnings of runs, but for now I just have enough 'menus' to get you into the meat of the game.
Edit: Menus have been reworked to have an option to take you straight to the character creation screen!