Well folks, this is it. Big changes are coming!

Ever since the announcement of Solasta II, many of you asked us if we would ever consider updating our game’s ruleset from D&D 5e’s original 2014 version described in the SRD 5.1 to the new 2024 version. To which we answered - let’s wait for the new SRD to be released… which did eventually happen on April 22nd, a little more than one month ago. Since then we’ve been working tirelessly to see if we could make that change happen! Verdict? Well, it’s today’s entire article!

Wake up. Tactical Adventures finally announced the switch to the 2024 ruleset. The wait is over!
Before we start diving into our usual wall of text, we’re sure many of you have burning questions regarding the switch to the new 2024 ruleset. This is why we will be hosting a Community Stream with our CEO (Mathieu), CTO (Karim) & Game Director (Xavier) alongside yours truly (Emile, Community Lead) right after this post is released, in about an hour. And for once, we'll be live both on Twitch[www.twitch.tv] and YouTube at the same time!

[www.twitch.tv]Starting at 9 am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6 pm CEST, we will be here to talk about the changes and take questions from all of you. We might not be able to answer everything in a single session, but know that we will take note of every question - and we’ll tackle those that we didn’t have the time to answer in a later update (alongside those that we already answered, for those who don’t necessarily have the time nor interest of joining the livestream).

If everything that we wrote so far sounded like arcane gibberish to you, worry not and let us explain. Our first game, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, used the SRD 5.1 ruleset - an extract of D&D 5th edition core system, also known as the 2014 version, as the core rulebooks were released in 2014 (that’s now 11 years ago, holy guacamole). If that’s too many acronyms being thrown around, just think of Solasta 1 as using the 2014 ruleset.

Now, about 3 years ago Wizards of the Coast announced and then released a new version of D&D, initially called One D&D during playtest and then later changed to D&D 2024 (its first sourcebook’s release date). This new 2024 version is stated to be compatible with the 2014 version, and share most of its core components. However, it also introduces a lot of improvements that many D&D fans always hoped for - such as more combat options for martial classes with the Weapon Mastery system, and reworking some features that just felt too conditional like the Ranger’s favored terrain (enjoy playing your Forest Ranger when the campaign takes you to the Underdark…). This, to make it simple, is the 2024 ruleset - presented mostly as an upgrade to the 2014 ruleset.

Of course, due to the release of this 2024 version, many Solasta fans started asking us if we would use this new ruleset in Solasta II, which is what this article is about. Hopefully that makes it a bit clearer if you aren’t following D&D!

You have a good eye! For those who played the Solasta II demo during February’s Steam Next Fest, you already noticed that it was using the same ruleset as Solasta: Crown of the Magister - the 2014 version. So! If the 2024 ruleset is already available, why isn’t Solasta II using it?

Keep in mind, Tactical Adventures is not using the D&D ruleset per se - we are using the System Reference Document which Wizards of the Coast kindly provides to all creators, containing most of the rules necessary to play D&D. This means until now, there were three main points that prevented us from implementing the 2024 ruleset:

1. The new SRD was not available yet, meaning we could not legally implement the new ruleset to Solasta II
   
2. We did not know its content, we did not know what would be included in the SRD or not.
   
3. We did not know its release date, so we couldn’t know if we would be able to change our ruleset in time for Early Access (and the demo).

For those following the scene, you know that the SRD 5.2[www.dndbeyond.com] was released on April 22nd of this year - and yet we’ve been silent so far as to whether or not we’d make the change to 2024. This is mostly due to point #3 - updating our game’s ruleset is no simple task, and we needed to make sure we could commit to it before making any announcement. Can we implement those changes and still make it in time for Early Access? Do we need to sacrifice something to make it fit the schedule? Is there anything in there that doesn’t work well in a video game?

So, can we definitely say now that we’re committing to the 2024 ruleset? Like everything in life, rolling a 1 is always possible even though we don’t wish for it. But yea, we have started converting our system to follow the SRD 5.2, a.k.a. the 2024 version - so that’s a 99% sure in our book!

If you know nothing about the 2024 update, you are in for a treat! While we won’t cover everything that changed (the SRD 5.2 is 364 pages long, we’d probably be able to talk about it for days on end), let us share two highlights of what you can look forward to:

Weapon Masteries
Each weapon now has a special Mastery that can be used by martial classes. When a Cleric hits you with a Mace, you’re going to feel that 1d6 bludgeoning damage the next morning. But when a Fighter hits you with a Mace, you're going to have disadvantage on your next attack roll on top of the damage you just received! Rude!

There are a total of 8 weapon masteries: Cleave, Graze, Nick, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple and Vex - each of them granting more utility to martial classes on top of the damage they already bring. Look forward to playing around with this new feature!

Class Upgrades
Most classes have received a new paint-job and feel fresher than before! The Cleric for example no longer have their Heavy Armor tied to their Divine Domain, instead they can choose at level 1 between being a Protector (unlocking Martial Weapon & Heavy Armor proficiency for a more frontline role) or a Thaumaturge (for a more spellcaster playstyle).

The Sorcerer now gets some exclusive new shiny tools like Innate Sorcery, similar to the Barbarian’s Rage but for spellcasting, increasing their save DC by 1 and giving them advantage on spell attack rolls. The Fighter gets more non-combat utility with Tactical Mind allowing them to use Second Wind to succeed ability checks. And that’s just scratching the surface!

Ever since the discussion around 2024 started, some people have asked if it would be possible for us to include a setting to switch between 2014 and 2024 rulesets for those who prefer one or the other.

This is unfortunately not something we can do, as it would almost be equivalent to us releasing two games at once - Solasta at its core has a strong focus on tactical combat, and it is known for its faithfulness to the ruleset. Making sure our game works in two different rulesets (even though they share similarities) would take us an incredible amount of time, not to mention the massive amounts of mental damage it would inflict upon our small (and beloved) QA team. Design-wise, every monster, every class and subclass would need two different versions, and many spells no longer work the same. So… yea, this is just not a possibility for us.

But worry not, the 2024 ruleset is going to be fire. With us at the wheel, fun is and will always be mandatory!

We want to know what you think about it! Just like for Solasta: Crown of the Magister, we intend to make the game with you - our players - in mind. This is why we have a short survey ready for you! Make sure you leave your opinions for us to read.

[link.solasta2.com]And then… we wait. No but seriously, we are still cooking up the Early Access which is slated to release later this year (and this is still the plan!), so we’ll have to ask you to be a little more patient before we can announce the date. We want to make sure the game we release is up to your expectations!

In the meantime, make sure you drop by our Discord server and our Community Streams to ask your questions if you have any!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

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Hey there folks,

We’re back with the winner of the Trades & Sails Community Contest! This article will be a short one as we’re cooking something fierce for our next news - so keep an eye out for June 10th, which will hold June’s Community Stream at 9am PDT / 12 pm EDT / 6pm CEST.

Hey guys I just rolled 12 on my Stealth Check, do you think it’s going to be enough?

Without further ado, we present to you the winner of April’s Community Contest: Captain Tucker Stoutarm, aboard their ship The Sea Mermaid.

With its shipment mostly comprised of alcoholic beverages, the Sea Mermaid will make many locals merry and slightly less productive for a period of time.

Congratulations! We will be contacting the winner shortly by mail with the rewards.

As you all know by now, our line of communication has always been about honesty and transparency - so when we saw questions arise after announcing the results of the previous Community Contest in March, we decided that we’d go ahead and give everyone a little more context.

The main question we want to answer today is: “Hey, how do you actually choose the winners?”. A very fair question! After all, many of you put a lot of time and effort into participating in these contests, so you might want to know a little more about the process.

First things first! When a contest ends, we usually have a LOT of submissions to go through. Usually what will happen is that we’ll first quickly go over each of them to strike those we deem invalid - for example, referencing copyrighted material, not following the rules of the contest, being incomplete, asking for content that we wouldn’t be able to implement, etc etc…

Once those are removed, we are usually left with… a lot of entries still, which is not surprising since many of you put a lot of thoughts into your submissions (for which we are ever grateful). Now, from there we’ll have two different “types” of contests - those with long answers that are usually related to design or creative writing, and those with short answers that are usually more about names or images.

Of Quills & Ink, March Community Contest, is of the former type. In this case, we will read through every single remaining entry (that wasn’t in the first pass) and we make a rather large selection of favorites. Then a core group will step in, which usually consists of me (your community lead), our game director, our lead gameplay designer, our creative director and our writers plus sometimes others depending on the nature of the contest (for example if it’s a contest about designing a new subclass, we’ll involve our technical director as well to make sure that the subclass features are feasible). This group will make a final selection by voting to crown a winner.

Trades & Sails, April Community Contest, is of the latter type. Choosing between several hundreds / thousands ideas of ship emblems is much harder than judging someone’s creative writing or design suggestion, as we did not want to limit submissions to actual drawings (which would make it harder for non artists to participate). In this case since all the remaining submissions could be winners, the fairest way we found was simply RNG - we randomly pull a selection of twenty to thirty entries, and we vote on our favorite within that selection.

When you put time and effort into your submission, it is understandable to feel a little down when you’re not selected. We want to reassure you that not winning does not necessarily mean that your submission was “worse” - there is no objective way to judge here, there isn’t a right or wrong answer.

Sometimes we really like an idea even though the writer’s skills may not be fantastic, because it’s original or it resonates with one of us. Sometimes something oozes flavor, but unfortunately would be too costly to implement. Sometimes it simply comes down to preferences, or the reader’s mood! That also means - if you’re worrying that you’re not good at writing or that your English is bad because you’re not a native speaker, it’s alright! Writing is a medium to convey ideas and feelings, and you don’t need to do it perfectly to do so.

Let’s be honest, we’re constantly amazed by the creativity you have shown. To the question: “Why don’t you give more specific guidelines as to what tone/topic you want to see?” the answer is that it is not the point. The goal of our contests isn’t to replace our writers by giving you clear instructions about what WE want and have you write it - it is to let you write what YOU want so that we can add it to the game.

Long story short - don’t let failure prevent you from joining future contests. And with this, we’re out!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym

Follow us on:

• Discord[link.solasta2.com]
• Twitter / X[link.solasta2.com]
• Bluesky[link.solasta2.com]
• YouTube[link.solasta2.com]
• Twitch[link.solasta2.com]