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D&D 5e has been around for six and a half years now, but there are essentially only two cRPGs based on the 5e ruleset, both in Early Access. Here, I’m going to take a look at one. No, not that one.
I wasn’t terribly surprised that it’s taken a while for there to be a 5e cRPG. I’m actually almost as surprised that we have any at all. Though there were many AD&D cRPGs and a few on later editions (more if you consider Pathfinder was based on 3.5), 4th Edition would have been one of the most boring (mechanically speaking) to play, and 5th Edition’s ruleset has been more focused on the RP aspects of the game over the combat – not to mention the current OGL only really covers aspects of the game necessary to create expansion material. Overall, the digital 5e support has been a mess since day 1; the original character creation tool got scrapped and the current version isn’t owned by WotC, so there’s little hope of not needing to repurchase physical materials if you want digital character creation.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister does a pretty impressive job of implementing the 5e ruleset. Character creation is limited (partly due to the OGL, partly due to the developing team being small), but support of rules is fairly comprehensive. Oddly, it defaults to rolling stats (because that’s what the PHB says) instead of just point buy, meaning the days of clicking “reroll” to get the numbers you want have not left us entirely. Combat is turn-based with no option for real-time (which makes sense), but will interrupt the current action if a reaction is available.
I haven’t gotten terribly far into the game yet (only played for a few hours), but the story seems fairly solid and I’ve only run into a few bugs – though the map has the same problem as in Pathfinder: Kingmaker where it is zoomed in just a little too far for comfort. The combats, on the other hand, have really shown how effective a computerized version of 5e can be when squeezing, verticality, cover, and more are all handled for you, though there’s still the occasional problem with making sense out of a mess of characters all in one location. It also doesn’t help that you instantly lose combats if anyone dies.
On the downside, there are few rules options – it’s the whole kit and kaboodle of 5e, for better or worse. Most frustrating are the lighting, encumbrance, and ammunition rules – though admittedly ammo isn’t terribly difficult to manage and there’s an in-game “guild” that goes around and loots the place once you’ve passed through and gives you a majority of the profit. It also takes the “6-8 encounters per day” rule and paces itself accordingly (you can only rest at designated campsites) – and they’re all combat encounters since that’s what the game supports. Finally, we still have to roll sleight of hand to open chests with a chance for failure instead of just having a set difficulty – one of my pet peeves since it is just a temptation to save scum if you see you rolled a 5. Perhaps some of this will change as the game progresses through Early Access, but we shall see.
For now, this will go into Tier One simply because I like cRPGs and this seems to be a pretty well-implemented one. The party banter is occasionally a bit much, but the combat is expertly designed and the dialogue options are fairly well thought out.