Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades News

[p][/p][p]Greetings Mercenaries!

Following from our previous devlog, we are publishing a series of blogs related to the enemies of Pathbreakers: The Roaming Blades. The aim is to highlight all of the opposing factions that we will encounter during our journey.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Today, we are taking a deep dive into the Clansmen, a set of barbarian tribes that have inhabited the Stormtossed Isle for a very long time. Although they may seem like wanderers of the uncivilized lands, we will discover that there’s a lot more to them than meets the eye.
[/p][p]
[/p][p]The Clansmen are primitive humans who have inhabited some of the most treacherous areas of the isle. Over time, they've been pushed out of the more fertile lands by the main factions of the Isle, forced to live in the near-inhospitable and scorching Badlands. A few have even pushed north as far as the terrible Wastes, a barren land filled with deadly Uzghuls and strange crystal-wrought creatures. The clans are mostly too fractured and infighting to be much of a threat to the other factions, although lately there have been whispers of a chief who is uniting the clans under his banner.
[/p][p]While the clansmen tend to be savage and wild, many resorting to raiding and banditry, over time, some of them formed their cities, boasting a capital and outlying towns.[/p][p]However, these settlements still tend to be more primitive than the Kingdom's towns, with fewer facilities and less wealth. However, as a warring people, they excel at weapon smithing and can provide unique goods.
[/p][p]The marauding clansmen tend to give their people just as much trouble as they give to merchants and outsiders, so there is no love lost between the two types. As such, taking out the wild marauding raiders will increase the player's standing with the various clansmen towns.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The clansmen are divided into numerous clans, each with their warrior traditions. Below are some things you can expect to see scattered across the badlands.
[/p][h2]The Steppenwhelv Clan [/h2][p]Uses domesticated whelvs and features an extensive array of weapons. Their fighting style is to surround and focus on vulnerable targets, with their elite Ambusher units able to leap into enemy lines from afar.[/p][p]
[/p][h2]The Bonemonger Clan[/h2][p]The most aggressive clan they are mainly composed of brutish warriors. This clan favors large and heavy weapons. Their Ritualists are versed in various spells that use bones to protect and enhance their warriors.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]The Snakeskin Clan[/h2][p]A clan of nimble warriors with a versatile array of weapons. They are generally not well-liked by other clans, due to their association with the swamp-dwelling Ophidians. Their mingling with these snake-folk has granted them minor regenerative properties, but it has also left them with hideous, noseless, reptile-like faces. Snakeskins often coat their weapons with poison, and their Serpent Priests have access to healing powers.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The Yellow Star and Stonethrower clans are the only clans that managed to establish a presence up North in the Wastes. This feat was, in part, managed by taming and befriending powerful creatures native to the Isle.
[/p][h2]The Stonethrower Clan [/h2][p]Composed of brutes who sling rocks and tamers who control enslaved giants called Ghatheris.
Ghatheris are hulking, gigantic monstrosities, each as strong as a score of men. They are often led by a chieftain who helps coordinate their attacks and focus on already-injured targets.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]The Yellow Star Clan [/h2][p]The Yellow Star clan is often associated with witches and has an affinity for magic. Their units tend to have a defensive frontline of unskilled and expendable acolytes, followed by magical leadership in the form of hags, witches, and Chanters, each with their blend of dangerous magic.[/p][p][/p][p]In essence, although the clansmen may seem uncivilized brutes, they are quite organised, and each faction presents strong traditions and social structures that define their population. Hence, it is not uncommon to find clansmen of different groups fighting each other. This means that we can take their skirmishes to our advantage to gain the favor of some clans by aiding them in the conflicts.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Follow us on socials and join our Discord Server to discuss the latest news of Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades and be the first one to know when the next devlog is released![/p][p][/p][p]X - [/p][p]https://x.com/6EyesStudioLLC
[/p][p]6 Eyes Studio Website -[/p][p]https://www.6eyesstudio.com/[/p][p][/p][p]Facebook - [/p][p]https://www.facebook.com/6EyesStudio/
[/p][p]Pathbreakers on Steam - [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]YouTube: [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]
[/p][p]Subreddit - [/p][p]https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathbreakers/[/p][p][/p][p]
[/p]

Hey everyone!

Today’s devlog is centered around the enemies you will face in Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades!

Since there is much to cover on the various types of foes and what defines them, we will be releasing separate devlogs for each major topic to provide a better understanding of the dangerous creatures (and humans) wandering around the Stormtossed Isle! Meaning that this devlog will act as the introduction to the type of enemies that you will come across during your adventure, and what makes them different from each other!

Below, we’ll talk about the wide range of enemies, which include human units similar to the player's own roster, other hostile humans such as clansmen and bandits, and various beasts and monsters.



[h2]The humanoid foes[/h2]

When developing the enemies for Pathbreakers, the goal was to provide the player with a wide variety of opponents that have diverse strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. Facing off against regular “player class” units is a known situation: the player knows what these units are capable of and where they might be weaker. But at the same time, human units have the greatest options for customization, so things might not be as simple as that.

Other hostile human (or humanoid) classes are more akin to monsters. They have a specific set of moves that is more thematized and tied to their place in the world. The most notorious ones are clansmen, mantus, or bandits. Clansmen are Neanderthal-like primitive humans that are split into 5 different main clans, each with their own units. They have distinct abilities and styles based on their tribe: some are feral beast tamers, while others rely more on magic and rituals, for example. Mantus are an insectoid race and have only one main clan, but several different units such as drones, warriors, and scholars, each with distinct styles and abilities.



[h2]The monsters[/h2]

There are a great number of different monsters in Pathbreakers. Their families include plants, beasts, magical beings, aberrations, humanoids, and “mighty” types (bosses and elite units). Every monster has its own set of abilities, which are thematized and often quite powerful, but that usually come with various means of counterplay. This type of foe isn't as smart as their human counterpart, although some can have extra cunning, so they tend to be more straightforward in combat. Their powerful abilities make up for it, though.

Monsters might be a bit of a surprise to some players: while their growth over time doesn't always match that of humans (mainly since they can't upgrade to better equipment), they tend to come front-loaded with all of their available abilities from their early levels, displaying more options from the start of the game.

Your Pathbreakers journey takes place on the Stormtossed Isle, which has rich and diverse biomes, despite being an island. Monsters, clans, and bandit groups tend to gather in certain specific biomes, so as you travel throughout the land, different encounters and enemies await you. You'll need different strategies for different groups and enemy types. Plains, beaches, forests, farmlands, snowlands, badlands, rocky taiga, and the inhospitable volcanic wastes are all different biomes you will encounter in Pathbreakers, each inhabited by various types of enemies, be they monstrous or humanoids.



There is much more to unpack regarding the dangers of Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades! Follow our socials and join our Discord Server to be notified when we will drop the upcoming devlogs, where we will take a deep dive one-by-one for all of the monsters’ categories you will meet during your journey!

Your Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades adventure takes place on the Stormtossed Isle. The island hosts several cities and settlements allied with numerous different factions.

Pathbreakers has two basic game modes: the first is the Story Mode, in which you select a character with their own origin story and play out their campaign on the Stormtossed Isle. The island is a large map with much to explore. It's a sandbox, with each character’s story determining your goal and victory condition.

The other mode is a Scenario Map, where you'll select the map size (small to huge) and several generating options. It's a vast open-world experience with no characters’ stories involved. Adding new scenarios is fairly easy, and modders can create new factions, enemy units, events, contracts, and other elements to customize and create new gameplay experiences.



[h2]Cities & Factions[/h2]

Since Scenario Mode allows you to customize the whole world when you start your adventure and, therefore, always have a different experience, we'll be focusing on the Story Mode for this devlog.

The world map is a large, generated, playable area, although it has a few constant features tied to the story. It will have a large number of factions that are tied to the world’s events.
The Stormtossed Isle will have many cities, dungeons, enemy lairs, and unique spots to discover and explore. The island has varied climate zones that include snowlands, volcanic wastes, dry brushlands, lush plains, and coastal scenery. Different enemies, factions, biomes, and cities can be found in each of these different landscapes, making the Isle an ever-changing environment for mercenaries to operate in, full of opportunities to gather information and experience from different cultures across the land.

Towns are an essential hub for mercenaries: it's where they can pick up new contracts, bolster their numbers, purchase much-needed gear, rest up, and train. The world will have many cities, each offering different services and goods. Many will be easy to find and access from the Isle's roads, but remote and isolated settlements will require you to gather your party and begin an exploration.

Each metropolis is part of a faction, which controls several burgs. You'll be able to join one of the coalitions of your choice and get access to special perks and contracts reserved for faction members only.

Each city offers numerous contracts of varying difficulty - the more dangerous the job, the higher the reward.



[h2]The dangerous lairs and dungeons[/h2]

Lairs are smaller pieces of land controlled by bandits, beasts, and various monstrosities as bases of operations. Usually, they are situated far enough away from cities that local militias won't find them, but close enough for raiding parties to make a nuisance of themselves. Dismantling them might well yield some rewards. However, there’s also plenty of risk in dealing with this danger.

Dungeons are bigger structures, like cave networks, mines, and ruins. Dungeons typically feature creatures that do not explore beyond the threshold of the dungeon itself, meaning some rather unique beasts can be found within. This uniqueness implies that dungeons are far more dangerous than simple lairs. Secret rooms, traps, puzzles, and multiple enemy encounters await you. The way will be treacherous, but there's almost always a big prize to be found at the end of it. Legendary equipment, ancient wonders, powerful and magical artifacts, you name it.

As you explore the world, you'll discover many such locations and even more wonders. Charting and exploring the Isle and its locations is a good way to earn coin, as many cartographers will pay well for such information.



Join our Discord Server to be notified on the latest Pathbreakers news!

Greetings Mercenaries!

During your adventures in Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades, you will face many challenges, and sometimes your fighting skills will be your only path to survival.
Battles will play a significant role in your journey. While you can always concentrate on other aspects, such as exploration or trading, to minimize conflicts as much as possible, you must remember that you are leading a mercenary band. If you wish to gain experience and improve as a fighter, there is only one way to achieve it. Only you possess the power to determine your party’s path: will you earn more coin by slaying bandits and monsters, or will you acquire your gold through trading? Still, one thing is certain: there is no mercenary without at least one bloodstain.



[h2]Combat Overview[/h2]
Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades features turn-based battles on a hex grid. The player can field up to eight units and has a roster of 14 mercenaries.

We chose a hex grid system, which is a better fit than a square for our higher count of deployed units and gives more prominent weight to positioning during battles. Creating a smart formation, such as deploying a sturdy frontline to protect backline units, is sure to play a role in your victory. Combined with an attack of opportunity system and zone of control passives for tankier classes, it gives the player a broad set of tools for controlling the battlefield, picking the strategy that suits their playstyle and enhancing the party’s skillset.

Fights can be triggered from various situations, most notably on the world map when encountering other units, but also in dungeons (which we'll dive deeper into in a later devlog) and from raiding enemy lairs situated across the world of Pathbreakers.

Battles are turn-based, and each unit will roll initiative at the start of every encounter. Typically, each unit has nine action points they can utilize during their turn to perform various actions. Moving from hex to hex consumes action points, depending on the difficulty of the terrain and other factors, such as the presence of water, fallen bodies, or being in a zone of control. Attacking and using spells or special attacks also incurs a certain cost in action points.

This means that you need to be careful when planning your offensive. Every action you take has a weight that can define the fight's outcome.



Pathbreakers is filled with diverse passives and abilities, many offering various options for managing action points. These options can increase mobility, enable more attacks, or reduce the action points of your enemies. Naturally, your foes will possess their own options as well…

You will also have numerous abilities at your disposal, including magic and skills, each with a different action point cost. Some abilities have additional effects, such as elements, buffs, or debuffs; others have a larger area of effect, and some may restore HP rather than deplete it. The aim is to provide players with options for various play styles and strategies.

The most basic goal of a battle is to eliminate the enemy forces, although different contracts and story missions could have varying objectives.



[h2]The Environmental Effects[/h2]
Battles can offer some environmental interactions triggered by elemental attacks. Water-based attacks will leave puddles behind, which makes the terrain harder to cross and can be used as a conductive surface. Electrical attacks can be used on water puddles and will propagate electrical damage to all units in that puddle. They can also be used on a dry surface that will leave behind an electrical mote, which fire attacks can detonate. This will cause an explosion in a small radius, damaging everyone in that range and so on. Some passives will augment or reduce the effects of environmental interactions, so you'll have options to focus on them or not, depending on your play style.

The elemental environment system is meant to give the player more options for different strategies, but it is by no means the only or best way of winning. The environmental damage is being carefully tuned to ensure it creates interesting options and opportunities, but that it doesn't create overwhelming opportunities. It's simply one more fighting tool in your rich arsenal. With the large variety of classes, passives, and elements at your disposal, you're free to focus on strategies and playstyles that work for you. Just keep in mind that mercenary life isn't easy, so you'll have to pick your options carefully if you don't want to be trampled by your adversaries.



[h2]Status Effects[/h2]
Taking down an enemy might be the simplest way to deal with them on the battlefield, but it's not always the best way. Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades includes several status effects to give the player various options. For example, Poison will decrease a unit's max action points by a certain amount for three turns, severely reducing their options on their turn. A well-placed Stun can give you some breathing room by skipping a unit's turn entirely, and Rooting an isolated unit will be especially effective on melee units.

Status effects are powerful and certainly worth using. To make sure they don't lead to problems, most of them will have the target build up an ever-increasing resistance to them the more they are used on the same target. So you'll be able to stun a unit but not stun-lock a unit, for example.

There is also a slew of positive status effects such as increasing damage, defense, or protecting from elemental damage. Some are more complex, like Invisibility or Mirror Image. A well-placed buff can open a world of options.

A unit could suffer an injury in battle as well. While status effects are usually only present during the battle and will vanish at the end, an injury is a special effect that will last for several days, although there are means of shortening that. If a unit falls in battle, they will suffer a major injury at the end of the battle. Major injuries don't wear off by themselves and will require the help of a specialized healer in town to be taken care of.

[h2]Post Battle[/h2]
Once a battle is won, you'll be rewarded with experience points for participating units and some spoils, including gold, trade goods, and equipment.
After a battle, most units will need to recover their expended mana and health over time, preferably using your caravan’s infirmary for faster recovery.


For players who want to see all the details and check what happened and how they can improve their strategy next time, every fight has a log of all actions taken and the rolls that happened during the battle.

Greetings Mercenaries!

The Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades staff is excited to present our first devlog! After an extensive design period, we’re ready to show our community, step by step, the various elements that compose the world of Pathbreakers.
Today, we are introducing you to one of the core aspects of our project: the Mercenaries.



[h2]Who are the Mercenaries?[/h2]
Mercenaries are playable characters in Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades. They can be recruited to become members of your party and accompany you throughout your adventure in the Stormtossed Isle.
You will be able to recruit Mercenaries at any local tavern. Once recruited, they will join your group and have up to two starter “traits”, which can be either positive or negative. As the name suggests, traits are attributes that characterize the Mercenary, making them unique from one another. They are tied to their class and can be modified by visiting a Trainer Building.
Completing dungeons and exploring the world of Pathbreakers: Roaming Blades will allow you to unlock more powerful traits. But beware: every Mercenary can have a maximum of four traits, so choose your cohorts wisely.

For new recruits, regardless of their level when you recruit them, you’ll be able to allocate their stats and skills from level 1, just the way you want. Other than being more expensive, there is no negative for recruiting a high-level unit, since they won’t start with preallocated attributes you might find suboptimal.
New units will start with randomized 'starter traits' and gear, so even though they all have the same potential, they might have some extra advantages.



Each mercenary class has a single base sprite, but you can change the skin and hair color of a mercenary, as well as select different colors for many parts of their armor and equipment in the customization section of the Tavern. Mercenaries' names can freely be changed as well.

Also, don’t forget that these people are mercenaries, and they will demand a salary for their services. It will ultimately be your choice to decide who is worthy of your group!



[h2]The Classes[/h2]
There are 8 different classes in Pathbreakers: Fighter, Knight, Scoundrel, Bard, Cleric, Mage, Ranger, and Monk. Your job as a leader is to find a synergy between these specializations depending on the situations you are facing and the duties that your Mercenaries will need to accomplish, from support to damage-dealing actions.

At every even level, the Mercenary will unlock a new active ability they can use in battle and a choice between 2 modifiers for said ability.
Ability modifiers can drastically alter how the skill works, allowing detailed customization options that will enhance your favorite approach during combat.

At every odd level, you can instead spend passive ability skill points. These have a wide range of effects and allow you to customize your Mercenaries uniquely.
Some passive abilities have simple effects, such as increasing damage or health. In contrast, others have complex effects, such as granting counterattack options, allowing a unit to survive a fatal blow, or equipping new gear.
At every level up, a mercenary gains a Stat Point increase to a specific attribute and another 2 points they can manually allocate to any 2 stats of their choosing. This allows you to direct their growth and specialty just the way you want.



In addition to having different abilities and passives, each class has different starting attributes, and will also differ in growth and the equipment they are proficient with.

Each of the 8 base classes has 2 different branches the player can take, leading to 16 advanced classes.
Basic classes can grow up to level 6, and then an advanced class can be selected, up to level 10, at which point their skill tree ends.

Starting at level 11, up to the level cap of 15, the unit becomes an elite unit. Each level gained past level 10 will not grant any more stat points, but the Mercenary will keep earning 1 skill point per level, which can be allocated to any passive they have.
Before that point, skill points could only be spent on passives gained at that level. This means that starting at level 11, a Mercenary can start picking passives that would have otherwise been mutually exclusive, unlocking a whole new level of customization.




Join the community conversation and offer us feedback on our official Discord server!
https://discord.gg/4nvNmasey2