What does starting level 1-12 mean?

[Aria Athena]

Talking about the Palace of Ice campaign. Is it 1 or is it 12?

I'm currently going through the Lost Valley with a starting level of 1, and that certainly feels like a lie to me.

[ajfusch]

Palace of Ice is meant to be playable with your exported party from Crown of the Magister, so it's 10-12 starting level.
If you start with new characters, they'll get boosted to level 10.

Dunno what you mean about Lost Valley, though. It's for level 1 characters, just like the main campaign.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by ajfusch:

Palace of Ice is meant to be playable with your exported party from Crown of the Magister, so it's 10-12 starting level.
If you start with new characters, they'll get boosted to level 10.

Dunno what you mean about Lost Valley, though. It's for level 1 characters, just like the main campaign.

Thanks.

Lost Valley starts with level 1 chars, but when you are level 1-2, you are facing enemies for a level 3 party, and when you are level 3 you are facing enemies for a level 5 party. It should had started at 3 and boosted you to 5 before it sent you to fight 2 trolls and their friends. I would say something about the random encounters too, but I am overly familiar with them.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

Originally posted by ajfusch:

Palace of Ice is meant to be playable with your exported party from Crown of the Magister, so it's 10-12 starting level.
If you start with new characters, they'll get boosted to level 10.

Dunno what you mean about Lost Valley, though. It's for level 1 characters, just like the main campaign.

Thanks.

Lost Valley starts with level 1 chars, but when you are level 1-2, you are facing enemies for a level 3 party, and when you are level 3 you are facing enemies for a level 5 party. It should had started at 3 and boosted you to 5 before it sent you to fight 2 trolls and their friends. I would say something about the random encounters too, but I am overly familiar with them.

not when i played though it ... granted in D&D games sometimes they through characters / monsters higher or lower CR then your level but like 1-2 of em or some other thing to even the playing field usoly unless its a boss fight or such...

[ajfusch]

We played on authentic with basically a single tweak and that was full HP since I hate rolling for that. We had no problems.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

good gawd

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by THAC0:

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

Thanks.

Lost Valley starts with level 1 chars, but when you are level 1-2, you are facing enemies for a level 3 party, and when you are level 3 you are facing enemies for a level 5 party. It should had started at 3 and boosted you to 5 before it sent you to fight 2 trolls and their friends. I would say something about the random encounters too, but I am overly familiar with them.

not when i played though it ... granted in D&D games sometimes they through characters / monsters higher or lower CR then your level but like 1-2 of em or some other thing to even the playing field usoly unless its a boss fight or such...

Most things in the first encounters have two attack and everything that doesn't, has pack tactics. It's not like I had the numerical advantage. Before I reached 5 I was facing off things with 3 attacks per round and these trolls are certainly for a level 5 party, especially with how much health they had.

For the first few areas I usually felt I was lagging 1 level behind.

[Bunston]

It's because DnD is balanced around a human running the monsters. In Solasta the AI runs them, and AI's are easy to trick and manipulate, so the game needs to have harder monsters to compensate. If you find the game too hard there are tons of difficulty options to tweak.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by Bunston:

It's because DnD is balanced around a human running the monsters. In Solasta the AI runs them, and AI's are easy to trick and manipulate, so the game needs to have harder monsters to compensate. If you find the game too hard there are tons of difficulty options to tweak.

Right, but it's nowhere near equally balanced. After level 5 all the encounters feel appropriate for your party. By level 8 I am still facing the same enemies like trolls, bersekers and orcs, but their 100+ hp is no longer a mountain to climb like when I was level 4. Not to mention that enemies have similar attack, with few exceptions. You haven't only gotten stronger, the game has also given you a chance to gear up.

[Wirewing]

You can adjust difficulty on the fly, including hp and enemy attack rolls.

Lost Valley is best to start at 3-4 for Cataclysm settings unless you have reliable (ranged, non-potion) heals in your party comp. I liked Lost Valley but, it is the least fun of the three vanilla campaigns. It was far too easy to miss things and to end up getting ahead of the story.

Palace of Ice is best to start at 10, which is what they start you at, as mentioned. It's the best of the campaigns with the most variety of battlefields.

I think they just had a lot of pressure to release DLCs because people kept demanding more races and classes so they rushed Lost Valley, then learned their lessons by Palace of Ice.

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by Wirewing:

Lost Valley is best to start at 3-4 for Cataclysm settings unless you have reliable (ranged, non-potion) heals in your party comp. I liked Lost Valley but, it is the least fun of the three vanilla campaigns. It was far too easy to miss things and to end up getting ahead of the story.

I laughed at the giant crows. I wasn't laughing during my second attempt.

I haven't played the Palace yet, but I liked the original campaign more than the Valley. I've already gotten accidentally locked into fighting for the rebels and I've found the same fort area 4 times.