Dawnsbury Days 4.30 (balancing and technical staging update)

This is a bit of a miscellaneous update so I had a hard time naming it ^^;

Major notes:

• Fixes rules engine crashes related to using group movement with Large creatures.

• Enemy casters will now select spells to cast a bit more intelligently, and will select targets for multi-target spells such as electric arc a bit better to maximize expected value.

• The save DCs of some enemy abilities will now scale more properly if the enemy's numbers were scaled by difficulty. Some abilities still have imperfectly set DCs and will be fixed in a later patch. Overall, this will mostly make the Easy and Medium difficulties a bit easier, and the Hard and Insane difficulties a bit harder, but overall not by much either way, I think.

• The Final Dusk (the final base game encounter) has been a notable difficulty spike. This update reduces its damage resistance on Hard from 5 -> 2, and removes it entirely on Easy and Medium difficulties.

• This update also add a bunch of mod extension points that should enable modders to use stable base game APIs instead of Harmony rewriting for some features. This way, such mods are much less likely to break when the base game updates.

Full patch notes:

Theme:

• AddedThemeThe parchment theme becomes the default for new players who haven't opened Dawnbsury Days before. Players who have played Dawnsbury Days before still default to the original green-and-yellow color scheme. (Overall, my sense is that the community thinks the new theme is on balance better than the old one by a significant margin, though there are benefits to the original color scheme as well. Still, because the new scheme seems better to me now, especially if you haven't gotten used to the old scheme yet, I'm now making the switch to new scheme for new players.)

Major bugfixes:

• FixedCrash (group movement)Fixed a rules engine crash that could happen when using group movement to move large creatures, such as animal companions.
• FixedCrash (S5E2)Fixed a rules engine crash that could happen when using group movement on the Swamp map when clicking "Move up" when an encounter triggers.

Steam:

• Removed achievement "Scrolls only". (Reasoning: The achievement has become more trouble than it's worth. It was cute when Dawnsbury Days was a small short game but as the amount of character options and encounter types exploded, it started happening more and more that people would earn the achievement accidentally, e.g. by using kineticists or by completing an encounter without fighting at all. We could patch these out, but even then, the achievement isn't all that great. The easiest way to complete it is to just buy a scroll of fireball and blast the two kobolds in the first encounter of the first campaign, which isn't something that's particularly fun or interesting. Thus, we're removing the achievement entirely.)

Character content:

• New spells: airburst, blazing armory, impaling spike, life-draining roots

Enemy tactics:

• Tactics: Enemies with multi-target spells such as electric arc or multi-target abilities such as Claw Frenzy will now usually attempt to reposition in such a way so as to have the most impact possible For example, when moving, a kobold dragon mage will prefer to move into a position from where it can hit two targets with electric arc rather than one. This is generally a smart tactic, and so this will increase difficulty, though in some cases it may also cause spellcasters to run into more attacks of opportunity.

User interface:

• RemovedMain menuRemoved the button that leads the player to the PDF manual. (I will still maintain the PDF manual, and it is still distributed with the game in its main folder, and it's still available from the Steam Store page, but the main menu won't direct the player to it anymore. The in-game rulebook stays.)
• FixedTextFixed that breath weapon stat blocks didn't contain the size of the area they would affect.
• AdjustedUser interface (overhead)Reduced the overhead storm for critical specialization effects and simplified the battle log for them and some other effects.
• AdjustedUser interface (overheads)Improved the spacing between overhead flyouts so that they're more readable if there's many of them.

• User interface (overheads): Overheads for Strikes now don't use the full prosaic name of the weapon but just the short name ("Strike (rapier)" instead of "Strike (+1 striking flaming rapier)").

• User interface (overheads): Overheads now get out of each other's way better instead of sometimes overlapping each other.

• FixedUser interface (tooltips)Fixed that tooltips sometimes appeared for things that were "under" the topmost layer of user interface elements, such as if your mouse cursor was over a condition icon hidden by the loot report or a dialogue line.

• User interface: The initiative order will now scroll instead of running over the combat log if there are too many creatures on the battlefield.

Balancing:

• RemovedEncounters (S4E5)The Final Dusk's resistance to all damage reduced from 5 -> 2 on Hard difficulty, and removed entirely on Medium and Easy difficulties. It stays at 5 on Insane.
• AdjustedMonsters (Adult Fire Dragon)Reduced Speed from 250 feet to 150 feet.
• AdjustedMonsters (Erinys)Reduced action cost of Furious Fusillade: 3 -> 2 actions.

• Monsters (breath weapon): Breath weapon damage is now affected by difficulty adjustments.

• AdjustedMonstersVarious abilities with fixed DCs now have those DCs adjusted based on difficulty. This affects breath weapons the most, but some other abilities as well. On balance, this nerfs monsters further on lower difficulties and buffs them further on higher difficulties, but mostly it makes their numbers a bit more consistent.
• AdjustedSpells (Divine Wrath)Greatly reduced the monsters' preference for using this spell. (Due to a bug, they were casting it even when the expected value was very low in comparison to their other options.)
• AdjustedSpells (Painful Vibrations)Reduced the monsters' preference for using this spell.

Rules fidelity:

• Ancestries (Goblin): Goblins are now Small.

• Ancestries (Leshy): Leshies are now Small.

• Classes (Oracle): Tempest oracles now receive fog vision as their mystery benefit instead of swimming.

• Monsters (incorporeal): Incorporeal creatures are now immune to critical specialization effects that would trip them or move them.

• Rules (large creatures): You can now cast friendly touch spells and take other actions that require an "adjacent" creature as against creatures who are within your natural reach. (You could already do this for spells that are against enemies. Now, it's for all such spells and actions. If any action that's genuinely supposed to be only against a really adjacent creature slipped through, please report it as a bug.)

Modding:

• Modding: Deprecated [c]Trait.Mod[/c]. Instead, each mod will now have its own trait which will display the mod name on hover.

  • It's possible you will now see two "Mod" traits on some rules items because some modders added their own mod traits before this automatic assignment was added in this patch. I expect that most such mods will now remove the custom trait and keep the one assigned by the base game.

  • The trait is automatically assigned to all feats, spells, kineticist impulses, monsters, and items you register automatically.

  • For anything else, such as combat actions generated on the fly, if you want to add it there as well, you can capture the property [c]ModManager.ModBeingLoadedTrait[/c] during your main method in static stroage and then use it later. Remember to capture it — never refer to [c]ModManager.ModBeingLoadedTrait[/c] directly during gameplay, because it will be null.

  • If a mod is dissatisfied with the default color, name, or rules text of the mod trait, you can adjust these by modifying the trait in your mod main method: [c]Dawnsbury.Core.Mechanics.Enumerations.TraitExtensions.TraitProperties[ModManager.ModBeingLoadedTrait.Value].[...] = [...];[/c]

• AddedModdingAdded [c]CommonFeatTemplates.CreateDuplicateFeatForDifferentClass[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]ModManager.Frontend.RegisterMainMenuRightSideButton[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]MovementStyle.FirstDiagonalCountsAsDoubleMovement[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]PathfindingDescription.AlternateTileOfOrigin[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]QEffect.ProvideBonusRaiseShieldPossibility[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]QEffect.RaisingAShield(bool shieldBlock, Item? physicalShield)[/c] and a QEffect with ID [c]RaisingAShield[/c] now contains the physical shield as a tag, if any, and expires when you no longer hold that physical shield.
• AddedModdingAdded [c]QEffect.UsedUpPermanently[/c]. This does nothing on its own — it's just a boolean property that isn't referenced by anything — but you may use it to keep track of whether a once-per-encounter ability was used up already instead of using tags or marker QEffects.
• AddedModdingAdded [c]QEffect.YourShieldBlockWorksAlsoAgainst[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]QEffectId.DoesNotBreathe[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]SpellVariants.WithAdditionalTraits[/c].
• AddedModdingAdded [c]TileTarget.WithTooltip(...)[/c] and [c]TileOption.ShowTooltipEvenForSingleTileOptionAlways[/c].

• Modding: Dawnsbury Days will now refresh basic pathfinding using a creature's speed after a canceled action if the canceled action did a floodfill on its own.

• Modding: Feats you select in a MultipleFeatSelectionOption now count as something you have for the purposes of meeting prerequisites of other feats you select in that same multiple selection option.

• FixedModdingFixed that [c]NaturalReachCreatureTargetingRequirement[/c] didn't count a creature with natural reach 5 feet as within reach of itself.

• Monsters: Rend now generates a Strike and invokes it as a success instead of dealing direct damage to account for qEffect properties such as 'YourStrikeMayDealPrecisionDamage' and 'AddExtraKindedDamageOnStrike'.

Bugfixes:

• AdjustedClasses (Psychic)Fixed a regression where Tangible Dream psychic's improved shield consumed the reaction of the shielded creature instead of consuming the psychic's reaction.
• FixedClasses (Psychic)Fixed that Psi Strikes triggered on a mage armor cast as a free action ("retroactively") at the start of an encounter.
• FixedClasses (Rogue)Fixed that You're Next didn't count as a rogue reaction for the purposes of Preparation.
• FixedClasses (Rogue)Fixed that if you canceled the You're Next demoralize attempt, your reaction was still consumed.
• AdjustedCrashFixed a rare rules system crash when your position changed or zone changed at end of turn.
• AdjustedGM ModeReworked how Push, Knockdown, and Grab monster abilities work to make them easier to use in GM mode or if you somehow control such creatures as a player (e.g. with mods).
• FixedModding (scrolls)Fixed that spell scrolls of some modded spells, such as from Remaster Expanded, loaded as blank scrolls instead. (If you already saved a game with such a blank scroll, the scroll is lost forever, sorry. You can reload from a save before that happened, or accept that the scroll is lost.)
• FixedMonsters (Demon Webspinner)Fixed various issues with the monster, especially how its Flaming Rebirth ability interacted with Large creatures.
• FixedMonsters (Poltergeist)Fixed that a success against a poltergeist's Frighten ability didn't make you immune to it.
• AdjustedRules (trip)The 1d6 falling damage from a critical trip now counts as auxiliary (splash) damage and so isn't increased by Weapon Specialization and such.
• FixedSpells (Flesh to Stone)Fixed that the petrification process caused by flesh to stone couldn't progress beyond its initial state.
• FixedSpells (Protector Tree)Fixed that the spell always heightened to your maximum spell level instead of having HP appropriate for the spell level.
• FixedSpells (Wish)Fixed that even if the casting of a spell from wish (or the three similar spells) was reverted, the wish itself and your actions would be consumed.
• FixedTextFixed issues in some stat blocks.

Character content (beyond the level cap):

• New feats: Energy Ward, Greater Revelation (ancestral form, ash form, claim undead, flaming fusillade, heroic feat, life-giving form, moonlit ascent, tempest form)

• New items: greater gate attenuator, messenger's ring, greater messenger's ring

• New spells: eclipse burst, moonburst, prismatic armor, shadow raid, shock to the system, sunburst, telekinetic bombardment, tempest of shades

The Four-Leaf Clover:

• New chapter: The Phased-Out Spire (chapter 3, at character level 12). Teleport down to jungles of the Blooming South, and there, ascend the mysterious Phased-Out Spire to acquire the third piece of the Four-Leaf Clover before it falls into the wrong hands.

• New art: Izzy (human form), Gnoll Green Sorcerer

• AddedBalancing (Gnoll Green Sorcerer)Added "Fireball Lover" AI trait.
• AddedBalancing (Irivyrn)Added Draconic Frenzy (claw, fang, stinger).

• Balancing (Megadragon): Buffed various aspects of the the Megadragon to make its abilities more aligned to its level.

• Balancing (S10E7): On Insane only, + 1x Greater Shadow, 2x Skeletal Monstrosity -> 2x Elite Skeletal Monstrosity

• Balancing (S11E1): Fox Who-Sees-The-Future will now make better use of his spells, prioritizing flame strike if you're in fireball formation, then spirit blast instead of attempting to ineffectively cast summon dragon and divine wrath.

• Balancing (S11E1): If you want one round before accepting the distress teleport, additional gnolls will now teleport in. (Also Izzy will have less health, though that's only a visual effect.)

• Balancing (S11E2): On Hard only: 4x Greater Air Elemental -> 3x Weak Greater Air Elemental. Elite Song Elemental -> Song Elemental.

• Balancing (S11E2): On Insane only: Supreme Song Elemental -> Elite Song Elemental. One of the Greater Air Elementals is now a Weak Song Elemental.

• Balancing (S11E2): On Medium only: 3x Greater Air Elemental -> 2x Inferior Air Elemental.

• Balancing (S11E5): Frost Worm base HP 225 -> 298.

• Balancing (S11E5): On Insane only: Supreme Frost Worm -> 2x Elite Frost Worm.

• AdjustedBalancing (S11E6)Reworked numbers on all difficulties, making the encounter harder on Hard and Insane, and a bit easier on Medium.
• AdjustedBalancing (S11E6)The morrigna has a new and more threatening spell list and tweaked tactics. She has more area-effect spells, including, on higher difficulties, eclipse burst .

• Balancing (S11E6): The morrigna now has regeneration.

• Items (clover leaves): The clover leaf artifacts now correctly highlight which of their powers have activated.

• Loot (S11E3): Replaced greater soothing tonic with a +1 striking flaming greatsword (to match dialogue and for verisimilitude).

• FixedMansionFixed that completing or exiting side-content would sometimes put you into adventure path view instead of mansion view.
• FixedMansionFixed that you couldn't make mid-encounter saves in side-content.
• FixedMonsters (Ghost Pirate Captain)Fixed that the ghost pirate captain's attack rolls were +33 (instead of the intended +22).
• AddedStory (S11E6)Added a line to explain that as the morrigna dies, she is merely returned back to the Purgatory plane.

• Text: Renamed "Social encounter" to "Conversation"