Solasta: Crown of the Magister

Solasta: Crown of the Magister

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Shadows over Brightreach
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23 Sep, 2022 @ 6:56am
24 Jan @ 7:06am
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Shadows over Brightreach

Description
Description



A mysterious note promising riches found its way to the small village of Coldshade, in the Kingdom of Salvanneth. What was supposed to be a straightforward job to rob a wealthy lord residing in the city of Brightreach, takes an unexpected turn. Discover and prevent a diabolical plot which could plunge the land into absolute darkness. Gather your party, hone your weapons and prepare your spells to prevent the evil of a bygone era from rising again.

Shadows over Brightreach is a challenging campaign, starting at recommended level 5 and requires Lost Valley DLC. It takes place in the already established world of Solasta, fifty years prior to the events of the main story, although with homebrewed elements added to it. The city of Brightreach is located east of Carconnath (the capital of the Kingdom of Salvanneth), where the majority of the plot takes place.

A balanced and well optimized party is highly encouraged if one wishes to tackle on the toughest battles the campaign has to offer. Many enemies possess additional abilities, therefore preparation and proper positioning are of utmost importance. Overall combat difficulty (on Authentic difficulty with Deadly AI on) is similar to Scavenger of official campaigns, although you will be given a generous amount of resources to work with. Difficulties higher than Authentic have not been tested.

Crafting is a core part of the module, so have at least one person proficient with Manacalon Rosary or Arcana skill.

Updated for Inner Strength DLC to equip monk / bard / warlock.





Features



  • A higher level campaign, starting at recommended level 5, although you are free to start at any level above if you wish. The party will reach level 16.

  • Estimated playtime ≈ 35 hours.

  • 72 unique, well decorated areas to explore

  • 124 fierce custom enemies to challenge

  • Highly tactical and diverse combat encounters

  • Fully integrated quest and dialogue systems, using all the features of DM tool to the fullest

  • Dozens of custom weapons and other items

  • Fully implemented crafting systems: craft potions, poisons, bolts and arrows, weapons, armors or magical trinkets

  • Many merchants in the central hub areas, offering a plethora of items to choose from and equip your party before sending them off on the quest

  • All the combat and non-combat skills are useful. Some offer additional lore and information, while others can grant items, alter encounters, or allow you to avoid them altogether.

  • All sorts of thievery!

  • Fight in the Underground arena of Brightreach and defeat its reigning Champion

  • Lots of secrets to discover hidden off the beaten path. Your curiosity will be greatly rewarded. Usually...

  • Two super-secret areas in the later parts of the campaign, offering the best of the best parties Uber-Powerful-Bosses to challenge. Can you enter their secret chambers, uncover additional pieces of the story and live to tell the tale?


Notes


  • If you see [Next] in a conversation, it means that dialogue will progress further and you will be unable to choose other dialogue options afterwards. In other words, pick other options before hitting [Next] if you wish to exhaust all dialogue options

  • [Attack] in dialogues means that particular option will certainly lead to conflict

  • [!] in dialogues means that option might lead to combat, most likely if you fail the check

  • Some dialogues can be missed if you complete (multiple) quests or battles before visiting certain NPCs. If you wish to see all the dialogues and options regarding some NPCs, be sure to check on them before going on a mission (most notably Coldshade and Underground NPCs)

  • Clicking on certain bushes in Brightreach area will start a lockpicking check to unlock the nearby Town door (due to current toolset limitations)



Tips

  • Good party composition will immensely help you in your adventures. Have at least one strong frontline character who can take hits for the party and one AoE specialist

  • The starting side quests will provide you with good starting equipment and recipes. It is highly recommended to complete both of them

  • Crafting is a core part of the module. It is highly recommended to at least have one person proficient with Manacalon Rosary (Arcana item crafting)

  • Make sure you are never too worn out from combat when exploring. Rest between fights if possible

  • Read enemy descriptions! They will usually give you a hint, or outright tell you what kind of conditions they can inflict upon you

  • Don't forget to save before venturing into the unknown as some areas contain nasty surprises

  • You don't have to challenge each and every enemy group; there are sometimes alternate ways to resolve or bypass combat encounters


IMPORTANT!

  • When the campaign inevitably updates, you will receive a notification after loading your save.

    You need to hit FROM DISK from the two given options to properly update and continue playing.

  • Enabling mod option that increases Normal Vision Range can have unforeseen consequences. It is highly recommended to disable this mod option.

  • Enabling mod option that hides exits and teleporters if not discovered yet can make some of them become invisible. It is highly recommended to disable this mod option.

    Special thanks to the SolastaUnfinishedBusiness crew. Some features of this module would be impossible without their work.

    If you wish to check how the campaign works in DM, or have a non-steam version of the game, you can download the module via Nexus following the link below.

    https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/220?tab=description
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430 Comments
HiddenHax  [author] 26 Jul @ 10:25am 
You can unlock the first vendor as soon as you solve the goblin quest, which is among the very first quests you can do.
As for the ruins battle, I believe you are referring to the bandit ambush battle. I deliberately made the difficulty spike there to know what kind of battles to expect down the line and whether one will find these enjoyable or not.
The campaign is geared towards more optimal parties, but there is no shame in tinkering with difficulty sliders. D&D is a highly unbalanced game and what one player stomps, the other will find nearly unbeatable, which is what devs are quite aware of and why sliders exist in the first place.
Grambo 26 Jul @ 9:27am 
Very tedious out of the gate. No vendors early, yet giant piles of things to cart around. Also, it felt very imbalanced against the party... unless you optimize your party very carefully, even early fights like the ruins battle are way too much.
HiddenHax  [author] 5 Jul @ 5:19am 
Thank you so much for such warm feedback. I'm super happy to hear you enjoyed it and especially since this was your very first custom campaign!
Unfortunately, the DM has quite a few limitations which we must circumvent one way or another. I tried giving as accurate quest descriptions as I could where it was fitting but I might have overlooked a few and could have done some things better, hands down.
Hopefully TA will grant us more flexibility with Solasta 2 when the DM comes out... somewhere in somewhat distant future.
Sol Martell 5 Jul @ 3:10am 
I just played through this as my first User Campaign after the regular game, and it severely heightened my expectations for the next ones. I loved the variation of the fights, the bits where you could explore for additional information (something I kinda missed in the main campaign), and that the three acts had such different vibes they each pulled off very well - my personal favourite was the second act though, the kind of murder mystery-esque setup and especially the mansion to sneak around in and explore. The overarching plot worked very well too and had a really classic DnD feeling to it. I truly had an amazing time playing this, thank you so much for the incredible amounts of work you must have put into this! <3
The only very small proposal I have would be maybe adding the function where it shows the direction of the quest objectives on the compass, this would have really helped me sometimes.
HiddenHax  [author] 30 Jun @ 1:29am 
Thank you for playing!
Trying to find the right spot for challenge while avoiding tedium is what was one of the most demanding parts of creating the module. I didn't want the party to steamroll everything, but neither did I want them to have a deadly encounter at every single corner. Both would grow old very fast.

But yeah... last fight could be perceived as a bit tedious as it's well... the last big fight. I did experiment and test that encounter for God knows how many times... I deliberately placed the monsters in cages to simulate their agony/pain while their master is harvesting their essence and to "immobilize" them so-to-speak, but this also opens an easy opportunity to cook them with walls of fire while taking cover and dealing with the rest of the monsters.
Overall I had the most fun with encounter design, which might not be up to everyone's alley, but I think it's ok for a challenging campaign all things considered.
Dwells in Basement 29 Jun @ 3:29pm 
Just finished the module. It was a great experience. This module is definitely one of the harder if not the hardest modules i've played. I think this module is the first one i've played where Orenetis' model was used as a normal enemy archetype you encounter at various times. His spell usage is refreshing in that I get to see different spells used than by the mage types you typically see in modules. I believe I played with 1.33 % enemy damage, 1.75% enemy health, +2 enemy saves, +2-3 enemy attacks, deadly AI. Battle Cleric tank/healer, dual wield barb, spell master wizard and raven rogue all with a free 1st level feat. The story was solid as well. I did reduce the difficulty for the end battle a little bit because I had a feeling it was going to be a long battle (and it was) and I wanted to finish the module.
HiddenHax  [author] 12 Jun @ 1:00pm 
To be as brief and without any spoilers ahead: nope, you didn't miss anything.
fish soup 12 Jun @ 8:04am 
I'm just starting to play this mod, i think this mod is good. And i find a brief jotting said there was dragon in the forest. But the only thing i found was two cave ogres. Do i miss something?
Zoli 16 Apr @ 11:53am 
The general expectation for the game is fighting, so do not expect anybody trying this.
You may mention this in a spoiler tag in the description, and any similar challenges if there are any.
Yes, they have nice loot, so it still worth to kill them.
Anyway I liked the unique spear. Cataclysm Visage, I think that's the name. It's quite rare that such an item is useful. I took the spear mastery feat because of it. My shield fighter became a terminator with it.
HiddenHax  [author] 16 Apr @ 10:51am 
A small spoiler perhaps, but something I implemented and never mentioned anywhere:

If you manage to avoid any fights throughout the entire manor, which only counts humanoid enemies iirc, you will be granted about 20% more XP than if you had killed all the enemies both inside and outside of the manor once you are done with that section.
Naturally, you wouldn't get any loot from kills via that method, but it's something worth considering and perhaps doing as a challenge.
I personally tested it without using any glitches/cheats and what not, not even spells, and it is entirely doable to pass the entire manor part without a single humanoid kill.