Knights of the Chalice

Better than Baldur's Gate 3.

This game is soooo unfair. For example, every enemy cleric or mage knows ALL posibble spells for their class and level, but YOUR cleric and mage just gets a mere two new spells on level up. Or another example, your cleric can have only one summoned elemental at a time (which is clearly specified in spell's description, so it's all fine), but enemy cleric ? Of course, they can have as many freaking elementals at the same time as they want, because, well, **** you player. Of course these are just few of so many similar examples. And overally, encounters are just too diffucult. Seriously, you always get encounters with challenge rating at least few levels higher than your party level. And you can't grind in this game, so usually you'll end up reloading and reloading and reloading until you FINALLY get your lucky rolls. I really wanted to like this game, because it's not all bad. Combat itself would be good, if it would stay fair, and this game has THE BEST combat log I've ever seen in game. I know nobody cares about combat logs, but I like to keep track of everything that happens in combat, and here you can view EVERY single die roll. Combat UI is also very clear, I like how colors and sounds clearly indicates what type of damage was just dealt. But, unfortunately, instead of making fun, challenging tactical RPG devs have decided to make super-hardcore unfair unforgiving game that only the most dedicated die-hard D&D fans will enjoy. The rest will just uninstall this and play Battle Brothers or something else.

How do wolves know to attack my wizard?

(Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42150626-Jarl%27s-Game-Treasury/]my curator[/url] for more reviews like this) Knights of the Chalice is a great little D&D adventure using the OGL 3.5 rules and offering plenty of challenging encounters to fight your way through. It's all combat, with a little exploration that can lead to optional areas with usually harder fights that offer valuable rewards. In my review of Knights of the Chalice 2, I said that I consider it the best implementation of D&D 3.5 ever put in a computer game. KotC1 isn't quite as complete as its sequel, giving you only three classes (fighter, wizard, cleric) to play with, but there's still a large toolbox of spells at your disposal and the encounters are incredibly fun to fight. While challenging, KotC1 is much easier than KotC2, so I'd recommend newcomers to start with the first game. I've seen some reviews claim the difficulty to be unfair, so I'd like to address this. It's true that KotC is not an easy game: the majority of encounters will be a real test of your tactical skills. Usually, you'll have to reload and retry major encounters a couple of times. Oftentimes, you will encounter enemies above your current level, and enemies have tools that can really screw you over, like archers with arrows of slaying that can insta-kill any of your characters on a successful hit. But the game gives you the tools to handle its challenges. Unlike official D&D rules, spellcasters in KotC don't have to memorize specific spells. If you have 4 level 1 spell slots, you can cast four of [i]any level 1 spell you want[/i] without having to prepare them. That gives you a lot of tactical flexibility, allowing your casters to respond to any situation that may arise on the battlefield. The enemy archers keep shooting slaying arrows at you? Have your cleric cast the death ward spell, which makes you immune from their instakill effect. You're facing a group of frost giants? Throw a fireball. The next encounter has fire giants? Make it a cone of cold or freezing sphere instead. This flexibility is key to winning KotC's encounters. I recommend a party consisting of one fighter, one cleric, and two wizards. Especially by the lategame, your wizards will control the battlefield, while the cleric offers some support and the fighter deals massive damage with an enchanted weapon. Speaking of which - another tool in your box is the enchant items feat, which lets you enchant any weapon and armor with any effect up to a total value of +10, for the cost of experience. Max level is 20, and by the endgame I had enough exeprience left over to outfit my entire party with overpowered magic weapons. You can have your fighter specialize in a weapon with a high crit range, such as the scimitar (18-20), take the improved critical feat which doubles the crit range (to 15-20), and enchant a scimitar with the life drain effect which will [i]level drain[/i] an enemy on critical hits. Even in difficult encounters with dozens of enemies and strong enemy spellcasters that outlevel you, you can dominate the battlefield if you use your tools right. Once you realize that dragons are easily hit by enervation rays (which cause level drain) and the level 1 ray of enfeeblement spell (which drains strength), they stop being so scary. Your two wizards can cast rays of enfeeblement on a dragon until his strength becomes zero, at which point he's unable to act and you can kill him with a coup de grace. If enemy spellcasters keep wrecking you in a particular encounter, have your cleric cast silence to create a zone in which they can't cast their spells. If enemy melee fighters keep beelining to your wizards, cast web to get them stuck or force them to take a long walk around the battlefield to avoid the web (the AI will always avoid hazards on the floor if possible). Battlefield control is key, and the only game that does it better than KotC is KotC2. If you're up for a combat-focused dungeon crawl with competent AI, challenging encounters that feel satisfying to beat, and excellent wizard duels where both your and the enemy's casters keep throwing spells at each other, Knights of the Chalice is a must play.

The textbook definition of "unknown gem". KotC is as hardcore as a turn-based tactical RPG can get and possibly the greatest implementation of D&D(3.5e) combat in a video game. The story is bare bones and exists solely to showcase the various combat situations you find yourself in. Perfect for small chunks of play before you gotta go somewhere or for hours of dungeon crawling late into the night. The main challenge comes from the developer's fascination with seemingly impossible, overwhelming surprise attacks and the small stable of classes(Fighter, Wizard, Cleric) and races(Human, Half-Elf, Mul) you have to create your small party of 4. Looks and sound might divide some people here but I find it all so damn charming. The music reminds me of educational games from the early 90's and the graphics and controls are like Ultima 7!!! If you are thirsting for the multi-layered battle-chess goodness that is 3.5 D&D combat then you have hit the jackpot here. If you are looking for a long involved story then that itch will not be scratched here. But if you give this game a shot, play ball with it and it's difficulty, you will find one of the most rewarding tactical turn based games of all time.

Overall I liked this Reto game. Two down-sides are that you cannot change your party formation and your foes, all of them always attack your wizard 1st.

The balance of the battles in this game is worse than even the worst RPGMaker games.

Not as cool as Dark Sun Shattered Lands or Wake of the Ravager. Suffers from unbalanced combat.

It has simple graphics and is old school, but the execution is amazing. Probably my favorite D&D game as far as the combat mechanics. It is the real deal and the developer seems to know the rule system inside and out. Pays very close attention to game rule details. A lot of people complain that it's too hard at times, and it can be very difficult. What you learn is that you have to take advantage of the excellent crafting system to really thrive in this game. Before you head off into the unknown make sure you craft some wands of fireball, and cure critical wounds, and restoration, etc. Crafted wands, for example, give you 50 spell uses which is pretty generous! Once you're well stocked up on a few wands it doesn't hurt nearly as much when you encounter those areas where you have to fight your way out (as in no resting until you can escape the area). Anyway just my 2 cents. I personally really enjoy playing this game.