The Iron Oath: Dark Turn-based Tactical RPG

Character Attributes and Stretch Goals!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 07:22:03 AM

We are now 60% funded in just under a week. Again, we cannot thank you all enough for the support you have shown us, it’s been incredible! As mentioned yesterday, we will be unveiling a few stretch goals which you can read further down in this update. But first, we’re going to be talking about character attributes.

Before beginning, I’d like to note that while the existence of every attribute listed is set in stone, its influence or the way it’s calculated may change down the road for balance purposes.

Every character in the game that is available for you to recruit has 6 primary attributes and 11 secondary attributes. The primary attributes are as follows:

Strength(STR): Strength determines a character’s ability to Block, their Critical Damage and has a small influence on their Health. It also comes into play during missions, specifically when encountering any object that needs to be moved or destroyed(pushing a boulder, smashing a door etc).

Dexterity(DEX): Dexterity determines a character’s Bonus Accuracy & Critical Chance, along with their Dodge. Dexterity is also required to pick locks in dungeons and for other actions that require deft hands or quick feet.

Constitution(CON): Constitution is a measure of a character’s vitality and fortitude. As a result, it determines a character’s Health and Defense.

Charisma(CHA): Charisma is a measure of likability and the ability to influence and control other beings. If a character’s Charisma is high enough, they gain a trait granting immunity to mind controlling conditions such as Taunt, Fear and Charm. A higher Charisma also lowers the chance of gaining a negative trait when Spirit is low for an extended period.

Wisdom(WIS): A measure of mental fortitude and spirituality. Wisdom determines a character’s Critical Damage & Perception. It also increases resistance to any attacks that target a character’s Spirit pool. Wisdom is used when interacting with mysterious objects.

Intelligence(INT): Intelligence is the measure of a character’s knowledge. Intelligence determines a character’s Bonus Accuracy & Critical Chance. It is also used to decipher languages found in texts or other mediums.

Of the 6 primary attributes, each class generally focuses on 2 main stats that are used to determine the effectiveness of their abilities. In saying that, this does not mean that the other 4 attributes are neglected; most classes will be proficient in at least 3.

• Paladin: Wisdom & Strength
• Pyrolancer: Intelligence & Strength
• Stormcaller: Intelligence & Wisdom
• Valkyrie: Strength & Charisma
• Grappler: Dexterity & Wisdom
• Hellraiser: Charisma & Wisdom
• Shifter: Wisdom & Intelligence
• Sage: Wisdom & Intelligence
• Warden: Strength & Constitution
• Nightstalker: Dexterity & Strength
• Trickster: Dexterity & Charisma
• Troubadour: Charisma & Strength

The majority of secondary attributes are determined by a character’s primary attributes. The secondary attributes are:

Health(HP): A character’s health is determined by their Constitution & Strength(the latter to a lesser extent).

Spirit(SP): All Abilities expend Spirit on use. Every character has a base Spirit pool of 100(we will be talking in-depth about Spirit in a future update!).

Attack Power(ATK): Attack Power is the damage output of a character’s basic attack before any other calculations(like Critical Chance or Defense) take place. To determine the value, it takes into account a character’s weapon and main stat. For the calculation of an ability’s effectiveness, a unique modifier is multiplied to the Attack Power value.

Perception(PER): Perception functions much the same as it does in D&D. It is derived from Wisdom and is used for spotting traps, sensing dangers and uncovering hidden passages.

Speed(SPD): A character’s Speed is determined by their class. It determines combat order and how often a character gets to act.

Movement(MOV): Movement is also determined by a character’s class. It controls how many hex cells one can move during their turn.

Defense%(DEF): A character’s defense is derived from their Constitution and determines their base damage mitigation against all attacks, traps and hazards.

Evasion%(EVA): A character's chance to evade is determined by Strength or Dexterity. Depending on their class, they will either Block(STR) or Dodge(DEX).

Bonus Accuracy%(ACC): Bonus Accuracy is derived from Dexterity or Intelligence, with the higher value being used. It is added to an ability’s base accuracy to determine the overall accuracy.

Critical Chance%(CRC): Critical Chance comes from Dexterity or Intelligence, with the higher value being used. It is the base percent chance to critically hit with an ability. The damage multiplier of a critical hit is determined by the Critical Damage stat.

Critical Damage%(CRD): Critical Damage is derived from Wisdom or Strength, with the higher value being used. It is a multiplier that determines how much additional damage a critical strike inflicts.

(Note: although unmentioned, almost all primary and secondary attributes can be altered via gear and traits)

I know this probably wasn’t the most exciting read(maybe you enjoyed it though!), but we figured it would be best if we followed some sort of progression instead of jumping all over the place with features! In tomorrow's update we’ll be going over Damage Types, Conditions, Vulnerabilities and Resistances, in addition to breaking down how damage is calculated.

It’s now time to unveil a couple of stretch goals that we’re really excited about! With every goal achieved, another will be revealed so you’ll always know what’s coming up next! Here are the first two:

Guild Council($55K): Council members can be recruited from all over the world, but not all will be equal in ability. Each member will offer you advice and has a number of tasks that they can perform for the guild.

The Master at Arms is in charge of your warrior classes, he or she is able to train them either as a group or individually, and you can also send them on missions to various destinations to find promising new recruits. The Archmage functions in the same fashion, but is instead charged with your mages.

The Emissary is your guild’s chosen representative for improving your reputation with other factions. When assigned, they will slowly increase your reputation over time with the targeted faction. In addition, they will bring a variety of missions to your attention that the target requires assistance with, allowing you to further increase your reputation and get rewarded in the process.

The Master of Intrigue is your main advisor and functions as your eyes and ears throughout the world. They will bring important matters to your attention that you may otherwise never hear about(such as a plot to kill a liege) in addition to any unsubstantiated rumors that may be worth looking into. They also have the ability to disrupt relations between factions of your choosing, potentially providing the spark that leads to an all out war.

As a bonus, when a character of yours retires from active duty, you will be given the chance to keep them around by offering them a position on your council. If their loyalty rating is high enough, they will likely accept the job.

Sea Travel & Encounters($65K): Every major coastal city will be given a port from which they can trade and send troops along numerous sea-routes. You can pay for passage across these routes in order to save time, but much like on land, there is a possibility of Encounters. Many different types of sea encounters exist, such as being boarded by pirates(in which combat will take place on the ship’s deck), spotting a tradeship, or even crossing paths with an entire fleet.

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Hopefully you’re as excited about the first two goals as we are, and we hope we get to share some others with you. Please feel free to ask us any questions, as we’d be more than happy to discuss them :)

Lastly, we’d like to point out that we’re oh so close to reaching a couple of Social Goals(and the first reward!). So make sure to check out that section of our campaign page and help spread the word on Twitter & Facebook! Thank you everyone!

Damage, Resistances, Vulnerabilities and Conditions (+Epitasis)
over 6 years ago – Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 08:42:14 AM

Time for a late-night update! Yesterday we went over primary and secondary attributes. Today we’ll be covering damage types, resistances, vulnerabilities, conditions and how it is all calculated. We’d once again like to note that a couple details may be subject to change down the road. Let’s begin!

Damage Types, Defense, Evasion

As of now we have 11 damage types in the game, they are: Earth(Nature), Force, Fire, Frost, Holy, Dark, Necrotic, Lightning, Slashing, Piercing & Blunt. Most classes have only one damage type assigned to them. Originally, the hybrid classes(such as the Paladin and Pyrolancer) were able to deal two types of damage, but for balance and clarity reasons we decided to reduce it to one.

Rather than have individual resistance values for every damage type, we chose to simplify things a bit(and we think for the better!). Every class and enemy in the game has one Defense stat(derived from Constitution, and any applicable traits or gear) that determines their base damage mitigation. Therefore, more heavily armored characters, and those with high Constitutions will have a greater Defense.

As of now, each class is designated to either block, or dodge, but they cannot perform both. We chose to do this to save some time on animations and we may change it later on, but it doesn't have a huge effect on gameplay. Both block and dodge are rolled into an Evasion stat(derived from Strength & Dexterity) that determines a character’s chance to avoid taking damage. If a class uses dodge, the attack will be avoided entirely. Blocking functions mostly the same, but shields have a damage threshold(some low, some high) which means that if an attack is strong enough, some damage can still be suffered.

For calculating the success and damage output of an attack, an Accuracy & Evasion check is first performed to see if the attack will hit or be evaded. If an attack is going to hit, it’s then checked against the target’s Defense stat to see what percentage will be mitigated.

Vulnerabilities and Resistances

There is no strict hard counter relationship between the damage types. Instead, all enemies in the game are tagged with Vulnerabilities and Resistances that determine what they are weak or strong against. Some enemies may have none, while some can have many.

Character classes do not have any Vulnerabilities or Resistances attached to them, and by default they take normal damage from all enemy attacks. However, it is possible(and quite likely) that your characters will have Traits(or gear) with a Vulnerability or Resistance associated with it.

When a target is Vulnerable to a damage type, they take 1.25x damage. When they are Resistant, they take 0.75x damage and are unable to be critically hit.

Here’s an example of some that you would find on an enemy:

• Skeleton: Vulnerable to Blunt, Holy. Resistant to Piercing, Necrotic, Dark

Conditions and Immunities

Every class in the game has at least one ability with a condition effect attached to it. These conditions are: Bleed, Poison, Stun, Charm, Sleep, Freeze, Burn, Silence, Fear, Blind, Taunt, Slow, Root.

The potency of each condition is dependant on the ability it’s attached to. Some conditions also have an additional effect. For example, anyone who suffers a Bleed becomes more susceptible to critical strikes for the duration.

The successful application of a condition is determined by whether or not the ability finds its target. Unlike damage types, there are no resistances for conditions. Instead, enemies have Immunities which means they are unable to be affected by the condition. A quick example of this would be a Skeleton who is Immune to Bleed.

That about covers it! Hopefully you found it interesting, and as usual feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions or concerns to discuss.

Social Goals

We’re happy to announce that thanks to your help, we have crossed off a few Social Goals and will be revealing the Grappler class to you shortly! You can check out the Social Goals section on the campaign page to see where we’re at and what you can do to help unlock the next reward: Alternate skins for every class.

We’d now like to give some attention to a really gorgeous looking exploration-puzzle game here on Kickstarter.

 

Epitasis places you in the midst of a mysterious world filled with the remnants of an ancient alien civilization. You will come across cryptic puzzles, forgotten technologies and treasured relics that are scattered throughout a beautiful wilderness.

 

They are in the final 72 hours of their campaign and are extremely close to achieving their goal, so please give them a look!

Lastly, we’d just like to thank you all again for your continued support. We surpassed 1000 backers today(!!) and we are nearly 2/3 of the way there!

Official Fan Art Contest!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 11:02:35 AM

Another solid day and we're comfortably past 50% funded. Thank you to all of our new supporters! We're now happy to announce the start of our official fan art contest, which will run until August 28th at 12am EST.

Rules & Eligibility:

• All art must be made by yourself, either through digital or traditional methods.
• The artwork has to pertain to the game in some fashion. It can be a class(any of the 12 we have announced), an enemy, an NPC, the dragon or an environment.
• Anyone is welcome to participate, you do not need to be a backer.
• All art must be submitted by the deadline on August 28th at 12am EST.

Submissions:

• Submit your artwork with a tweet by mentioning @TheIronOath, along with your submission and the link to our campaign page: http://kck.st/2upMr0G. We will retweet all submissions.
• If you do not use Twitter, you may instead send us a message through Kickstarter with the link to your submission(imgur, deviantart, artstation are all acceptable).

Judging:

Shortly after August 28th we will showcase all entries and announce the winners in an update and on Twitter.

Awards:

• 5th-3rd Place: Digital copy of the game
• 2nd Place: Digital copy of the game + Soundtrack
• 1st Place: Digital copy of the game + Soundtrack + Discord and Beta Access

Good luck and have fun! We're looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Before signing off we'd like to point you in the direction of an awesome looking exploration thriller that's here on Kickstarter: The Lighthouse. 

 

They've already smashed their goal, and are now looking to hit some more stretch goals. There is only 10 hours left in their campaign, so be sure to check them out and try their demo!