Knights of the Chalice II - Development Update

Blue Salamander (HeroicFantasyGames) has posted a public development update on Knights of the Chalice II:

Combat Engine, New Subraces, New Classes, New Class Features

Hello, turn-based RPG fans!

Between questions of health, nutrition, sports and a fridge breaking down on me, in the last few days my attention has constantly been diverted away from the good stuff, which is KotC 2 development.

Nevertheless, here is the promised update with lots of new screenshots and new design pages for your consumption.

Regarding combat, as I mentioned recently, I have finally implemented the most basic actions: moving in combat, taking a five-foot step, ending one's turn, delaying, standard attack, full attack, charge attack and attack of opportunity.

My plan is to continue implementing combat actions one by one, fixing bugs as I go. Today, while preparing this update, I harvested a good number of fresh bugs that I will have to correct first.

After that, I will focus on ranged attacks, opening the inventory in combat, grapple, bull rush, the other combat manoeuvers, the basic spells, ready versus spell, ready to counterspell, using a magic item in combat, using a class or racial power in combat, and using a spell-like ability. Spells, their interface and their graphical implementation will of course be a big part of the job. Afterwards comes the artificial intelligence. [...]

New Subraces, new Classes, Skills

Now let's talk a bit about design stuff. I've been thinking that it would not be too hard to create subraces, so I created the design for a whole lot of them, as well as the new Half-Salamander race. You can read about subraces and races in the associated web pages. The Subrace page is brand new. It also provides class recommendations for each subrace.

I have also been designing eight new classes. Most of them are hybrid classes - I did not want to create new spell books or spell systems.

A proper class illustration will be created for each new class. On that subject, I have finally uploaded to the web pages the new class illustrations from the graphic designer Roman. The illustrations include a brand new one for the Ranger, as Roman wanted to create a picture of a higher quality than the previous one.

The new classes are the following (click on the class name to open the corresponding Class web page):

Samurai - a high-BAB combatant, master of the single-sword style
Gladiator - a high-BAB combatant with blinding strike and wide weapon knowledge
Bishop - a medium-BAB cleric benefiting from additional domain powers
Warlock - a low-BAB wizard who can also use psionic powers
Psychic Healer - a low-BAB psionicist who can also use cleric spells
Champion - a high-BAB combatant who has access to cleric spells
Mage Knight - a high-BAB combatant who has access to wizard spells
Storm Warrior - a high-BAB combatant who has access to druid spells

[...]