Initial early impressions of the new Solasta campaign:
- The campaign doesn't really waste any time with throwing major story beats at you, along with big setpiece fights. I've only done the first three scripted combat encounters, and the latter two felt like proper boss battles even though there weren't any named enemies. It also seems like guest party members that you have to protect that will result in a game over if they die may be a constant thing in this campaign. As far as their usefulness in combat goes between a scale of 'guests during the early base campaign/guests at the start of Lost Valley' and 'elf wizard halfway through the base campaign blasting everything to pieces after she got her plot upgrade', they are way into the latter category.
- As expected, it seems there's more ranged/spellcaster type enemies, compared to the base campaign mostly consisting of melee with very few threatening spellcasters. The third fight in particular I had to redo twice, as the spellcaster in that fight had some very brutal spells to deal with, along with innate flight making them difficult to reach in melee and truesight meaning you can't get advantage via invisibility. (Hint for anyone else having trouble against that type of mage: They have advantage VS wisdom saving throws along with a high wisdom modifier, so targeting them with such effects is pointless - but I found that they are very weak VS strength saving throws. A Greenmage Wizard in particular landing an Entangling Shot will drastically shift the odds in your favor, enabling all further ranged attacks to roll with advantage for the entire next turn.)
- The devs are obviously fully aware of the less than attractive character models. Some story dialogue won't involve a cinematic of your characters lining up to talk to NPCs, you remain in isometric view with everyone talking without going into cutscene mode. I wouldn't attribute this to a budget issue, it honestly feels better this way.
