Sword Coast Legends

It appears a new Dungeons & Dragons game is coming to PC in 2015. Developed in collaboration by n-Space and Digital Extremes, Sword Coast Legends will allow parties of up to four human players to cooperate in adventures managed in real-time by human Dungeon Masters.

With obvious inspirations from the module formula of Neverwinter Nights, the goal is to create a mutually satisfying play experience tailored to a particular group's tastes. If a party of players is looking for a particular challenge, the DM will be incentivized to provide it, but they’ll also be equipped with tools which allow to help the players out of jams and advance the story. And apaarenly it will also include campaign mode tools allowing Dungeon Masters to create larger customized scenarios. In order to prevent Chtulhu wannabes trolling master, Dungeon Masters will be rewarded for creating and conducting engaging adventures.

But that's not the whole point of the game, there is a single player campaign mode , leading a group of adventurers composed of allies recruited within the game. It seems there will be effort put into the campaign, so that people unintrested in the tabletop formula will think about buying it.

"with a deep narrative developed by a team of long-time industry veterans and a partnership with Wizards of the Coast, the single player campaign of Sword Coast Legends brings the world of Faerûn home like never before."

Here is the website. What do you guys think? Does it have potentional, or is it too ambitious for its own good?

edited 13th Feb '15 3:21:02 AM by YoKab

As someone who GMs games on existing virtual tabletop sites, I'm not sure this game will manage to pull players and GMs away from those sites.

It may get another wave of videogamers interested in Dungeons & Dragons, which is possibly the point.

I'll be interested to see how it shapes up.

Potentially interesting, but I need more information to form an actual opinion

I can't say much as the announcement was recent, but they'll be giving out more details in the coming days. They're currently encouraging discussions in the forums so that they can set thier vision. Digital Extremes is a pretty comptetant developer that made some good games in the recent years, except that rushed Star Trek one, yeah...

One of the most important things, to me, is that the cempaign needs to be a good one. It's why people got invested in the Neverwinter Nights modules, because the story mode gave them a great impression. If they can improve on the forumla it can work cout well. I wonder who's gonna write the campaign, Chris Avellone is pretty busy with Pillars of Eternity and Torment so he's out of the list.

And yes Arutema, that was actually the point of developing the game. You got it right!

edited 13th Feb '15 3:21:59 AM by YoKab

The only real reason I paid attention to that game is because I'm more of a Digital Extremes fanboy than I'd like to admit.

But even then I'm not even sure I could even get 4 people to play a tabletop simulator. If I did, I'd be interested in giving it a real shot.

Looks like Jay Turner would be the writer of the campaign. He wrote Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins and the Mass Effect games except 3 since he left around that time. Judging the history I think there's gonna be a solid plot at least.

So this is less of a video game, and more of a prebuilt campaign simulator?

That's a shame. I love the Sword Coast and I was hoping we were finally getting a Dn D cRPG set there that fits my weirdly specific tastes.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Which edition? Though I'm kind of expecting 5ed...4ed never see a game at all...might be because the rules are way too similar to video games?

Give me cute or give me...something?

Yup, it's Fifth Edition rules, mentioned in the official site. Besides most classic RPG games went with the latest edition at the time I think.

edited 15th Feb '15 2:40:42 AM by YoKab

Is this the quasi-sequel to Baldurs Gate that was talked about earlier this season, or are in fact two different DND-video games in the making?

Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!

Forgotten Realms

Ugh. Fuck.

Also, only 5 races and 6 classes? Guessing some of them are getting the shaft.

edited 15th Feb '15 7:48:28 AM by CobraPrime

Five races? I didn't see that part.

So... Humans, elves and dwarves have to stay. That leaves half-elves, half-orcs, halflings and gnomes. I wouldn't have a problem with half-elves getting cut, but I can't decide which of the remaining three would be most likely.

As for classes... Fighter, Mage, Rogue and Cleric need to stay. That leaves two spots... I'm going to guess Paladin and... Bard?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

^ And no nature casters? I think at least Druid would be in...6th slot I'm not sure, but for some reason I think the Monk would be in to pull Avatar The Last Airbender style thing...also man, Fighter / Mage / Rogue in would mean high number of arcane casters...

edited 15th Feb '15 10:38:48 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

It would? How?

I mean, if they're cutting the class list down to six, I just imagine they'd go with the most "famous" ones. They could just as easily replace bard with barbarian or paladin with druid.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

I agree four are going to be Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue. They're pretty much the base classes, though I personally wouldn't mind sacrificing one for another class. I wouldn't really expect Warlock, and Sorcerer isn't much better (if only because Wizard's there). None of the rest would surprise me and I'm not going to rule them out, but for the sake of a random guess: Bard and Ranger? *shrug*

From the races, yeah, human, elf, and dwarf are near-definites. My first instinct was Halfling and Half-Elf, but 5e, so I wouldn't rule out Tiefling. If it's really down to five, I wouldn't be shocked to see Gnomes get the short stick.

I don't think it'll be Bard, bard wasn't even a class in old D&D, and 4E shows it's a class WOTC is willing to put on the back burner.

Fighter Cleric Wizard and Rogue are garanteed, and I figure the last two might be Ranger and Paladin. Warlock and Druid also likely, as Warlock has become really popular in later editions. Sorcerer I doubt we'll see as they are too similar to Wizards.

Really depends on how lazy the makers are, Paladin and Ranger would require the least amount of works since they'd be least effort to implement, being essentially hybrids of existing classes. Druid and their Wildshape would take extra effort to implement. Monks run on their own separate mechanics since they eschew weapons, but that might not be too hard to implement.

As for race, I figure Human, Dwarf, Elf, there's what looks like a Tiefling pictured on the announcement so I guess they are in, with Halfling as the last ones. I'm guessing all the "Half-" race are those left out.

Still wish they'd chose an interesting campaign setting.

edited 16th Feb '15 6:55:15 PM by CobraPrime

Rangers have animal companions, though. And Paladins have the whole falling, thing. So I think they'd be just as difficult?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Paladins are not limited by alignments in 5e and Animal companions just require AI controlled critters which would be in the game anyway. Or animals you control as party members. Which again won't be an issue (Especially since Wizards and Clerics have the ability to summon monsters in some forms). Falling they can just chose not to implement, as many D&D games have before them. And if they do there's a version of the fallen paladin in the DMG that is more or less identical to regular paladin, called the Oathbreaker.

edited 16th Feb '15 6:54:30 PM by CobraPrime

@Mukora: Because 5ed have Fighter and Rogue with arcane specialization...innate gish build if you will.

But yeah, Warlock would also be interesting choice, but still, too many arcane casters IMO...though I think the Druid may also be in, still.

@Cobra Prime: The monk thing isn't a problem. Everyone can fight unarmed anyway, monk will just get special treatment...and really, a lot of their abilities in The Way of Shadow and Way of the Four Elements are basically spells as class ability...then again monk would also be a gish build...

edited 16th Feb '15 8:40:45 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

This is going to be a full Baldur's gate style game. It can also be played with up to 4 people and has a mode were DM's can make their own stories.

I think the reason they went with Forgotten Realms was because it's now the easier bet as it's the official setting, for example if Planescape was the official setting now I think they would have gone with it (but again in that case people will demand a writing as fantastic as Planescape: Torment). Forgotten Relams is perfect for a writer as they can throw any story in there without worrying about doing the setting proper justice, there aren't much big consistency risks (hence most classic RPGs going with it at the time).

edited 17th Feb '15 12:47:06 AM by YoKab

I... don't... know what that means. But okay!

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

@Mukora: Basically each class in 5th edition can choose a specialization from the list of 2-3 per each class. These specialization gives unique benefits to the class and help differentiate even the member of the same class into more different roles. For example, monks have 3 specialization, 1 make them more powerful in close combat, like 3.5 monk, 2nd give them ability to do stealth more effectively, give them ability to use Ki to cast stealth-related spells, and 3rd one basically turn them into the Avatar, using Ki to cast various elemental spells. Fighters and Rogues each have a specialization that give them ability to cast arcane spells...yeah.

^^ I wish there's more games set in Eberron tho...

edited 17th Feb '15 6:31:06 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Oh. Okay.

Though, I imagine if they're limiting themselves to only 6 classes, those specializations might not even make it in at all.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Hopefully, if the tools are great and open, a thriving modding community might manage to create other settings for the game. But at the end, it all depends on the overall reception, you gotta have a good game first!

Altough I suspect additional races, settings, and classes might end up included as bonuses in expansion packs by the developer, if not as updates...