[p]This is a substantial update, both in terms of content and improvements for players, but especially technically, on the behind, in terms of what the underlying engine is capable of.[/p][p]Most importantly, creatures can now occupy more than one square:[/p][p]
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[/p][p]This update adds four free encounters at character level 9 into the base game, all of which are against Large or Huge creatures, such as you see in the above screenshot of a fight against a troll king and his minions.[/p][p]But you can also benefit from this new engine capability by summoning large creatures, having a large animal companion or using the spell
enlarge.[/p][p]Next, I updated the visuals of the spellcasting menu:[/p][p]
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[/p][p]This is probably not yet the menu's final form but you can see what I'm going for: At higher levels, the buttons became too narrow and it became somewhat difficult to read the names of the spells. If Dawnsbury Days continues to higher levels still in the future, the menu will get further updates to accommodate that.[/p][p]Another update in this patch are a bunch of new feats for the alchemist (especially for non-Bomber alchemists) and for the monk (specifically, the level 6 feats that enhance your existing stances).[/p][p]The update also makes some performance optimizations, and fixes bugs, especially within DLC2 (Good Little Children). And it implements many of the changes that players asked for on Steam forums, in the Discord server or when filling in the feedback form, such as better filtering when selecting feats, spells, and items.[/p][p]Finally, I want to say that this update touched a lot of core logic throughout the codebase. I now have a good set of automated tests, but despite that, I'll be happy for any reports of bugs you encounter that may have been introduced by this update.[/p][p]Thank you for your interest in Dawnsbury Days![/p][p]
Full patch notes follow.[/p][p]Feature:[/p]
- [p]Large creatures. Creatures can now occupy multiple squares and be of Medium, Large, Huge, Gargantuan size or even higher (Colossal) sizes. Large and larger creatures have greater natural reach, which they can further boost with a reach weapon. They flank with the center of their space. They determine whether they have a clear shot based on the square in their space that's the most beneficial to them; but conversely, attackers who attack Large or larger creatures determine whether they have a clear shot by aiming for the least-well-covered square of the target's space. Large creatures count distance based on the square in their space that minimizes the distance. Large creature emanate aura, emanations, cones and lines from the corners or edges of their space.[/p]
- [p]Some maps aren't made for large creatures. If you use a Large ancestry (such as from a mod) or have a Large animal companion, they will become Medium instead for those encounters. This applies to the full chapter 2 (Elements of a Crime), S3E1, S3E2, S3E4, S4E5, S5E5, S6E2, S6E4, S6E5, S7E5, S7E6, S9E2, S9E3 and the free encounter Hotel of Serenity.[/p]
- [p]This is a complex feature that required a redesign and rewrite of core code and of hundreds of spells, feats and features. It is likely that there are some rules inaccuracies, and possibly even bugs and regressions in functionality. Please report any bugs or issues you encounter, whether they relate to Large creatures or not.[/p]
[p]New free encounters:
(you will find all of these under High-level encounters)[/p]
- [p]Unusual Trolls (level 9 low; a two-headed troll and a troll who isn't weak to fire)[/p]
- [p]Dominated Trolls (level 9 low; bulky trolls supported by an undead evoker)[/p]
- [p]Troll King (level 9 moderate; featuring a troll who's louder than the others)[/p]
- [p]Adult Fire Dragon (level 9 extreme; a Huge threat; he starts with a level 4 invisibility and a level 6 fireball before he goes for the breath weapon...)[/p]
[p]Character content:[/p]
- [p]New alchemist feats: Combine Elixirs, Bypass Poison Immunity, Pinpoint Poisoner, Sticky Poison[/p]
- [p]New general feat: Titan Wrestler[/p]
- [p]New monk feats: Gorilla Pound, Wolf Drag, Mountain Stronghold, Dragon Roar, Crane Flutter[/p]
- [p]New spells: enlarge, shadow blast, shadow siphon, summon dragon[/p]
[p]Usability:[/p]
- [p]Encounters (Hotel of Serenity): You can now use Group movement in Hotel of Serenity when out of combat.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S5E2): You can now use Group movement in the Swamp when out of combat.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S5E2): When you encounter a cutscene, your current movement is now disrupted so that you stay closer to the rest of your party.[/p]
[p]Rules fidelity:[/p]
- [p]Rules (reversal!): Easier long reach. Dawnsbury Days now uses a different rules interpretation for flanking with reach. Now, if the line between the center of your space and your ally's space cuts through the precise corner of an enemy's space and any of the two lines opposite that corner, you count as flanking that enemy. This is only relevant if at least one flanker has a reach of 10 feet or more because the situation can't happen at a reach of 5 feet. Dawnsbury Days is making this change in part to align with FoundryVTT's interpretation, and as a preparatory step towards introducing Large creatures later.[/p]
- [p]Rules (reversal!): Buffed resistance to all. Dawnsbury Days now uses a different rules interpretation for group resistances such as "resistance to all", "resistance to physical" and "resistance to ranged attacks". From now on, such resistances apply to each damage type separately, but still apply only once to each source of damage. For example, a magic missile is still resisted only once, but a flaming longsword is now resisted twice: once for slashing damage and once for fire damage. Similarly, if you use Double Slice with, say, a slashing and piercing weapon, resistance to physical will now apply against each weapon separately instead of only once. This new interpretation is more faithful to the tabletop rules. Overall, it has the effect of making incorporeal monsters stronger. Monsters with hardness are unaffected by this and still resist the entire thing only once, regardless of how many damage types are involved. The champion's reaction still reduce only the total damage taken, not each damage type separately. This may get changed in the future.[/p]
- [p]Rules (reversal!): Buffed forced movement. When you're pushing a creature, you can now choose what square the target is pushed into, as long as each square of movement moves the target further away from you, even if it's not in a direct line, counted by Chebyshev distance (the greater of horizontal and vertical difference), and as long as you never move the target closer to you along either axis. This is similar to the interpretation of forced movement used in the 4th edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game, and we think it will lead to more intuitive results, especially with large creatures.[/p]
- [p]Animal companions: Mature and savage animal companions now grow in size as expected. They will also have a 10-foot natural reach in their large from. A literal reading of the rules would suggest that Large animal companions should not have an extended reach because nothing specifically grants it to them, but for consistency with expectations from enemy monsters and for consistency with the spell enlarge, Dawnsbury Days grants them the extra reach as well.[/p]
- [p]Animal companions: The bird, bat and capybara are now small creatures.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Alchemist) (reversal!): Dawnsbury Days now uses a different rules interpretation for interaction between perpetual infusions and additives. If you add an additive to an item you have selected for perpetual infusions, you still won't consume any reagents. You still can't use perpetual infusions with the Combine Elixirs feat.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Cleric): Nerfed healer's blessing so that it affects each spell cast only once. For example, if a hero benefits from both healer's blessing and fast healing from hymn of healing, they will get the healing bonus from hymn of healing only once. (Any additional casts of hymn of healing would still get affected as normal.)[/p]
- [p]Items (armor): Full plate, half plate, breastplate, scale mail, chain mail, chain shirt and the Metal Carapace kineticist armor now count as metal armor for the purposes of Shocking Grasp and other electricity spells (though this doesn't appear on your stat block, it does apply).[/p]
- [p]Items (bag of holding): Fixed that you could place a bag of holding into another bag of holding.[/p]
[p]New deviations from tabletop:[/p]
- [p]Rules (squeezing): As a concession in implementing Large creatures, Large and larger creatures are unable to squeeze and so utterly unable to enter certain locations on certain maps. Maps with Large enemies are designed such that this is not a problem, but it could be a problem for player characters who use enlarge. This limitation may be lifted in the future.[/p]
- [p]Rules (tumble through): As a concession in an effort to implement Large and larger creatures with reasonable performance, from now on, creatures will be able to tumble through multiple creatures in a single Stride. Each such creature still requires its own Acrobatics roll, all such rolls must succeed, and each movement through an occupied square still counts as difficult terrain.[/p]
[p]User interface:[/p]
- [p]Combat log: Log now highlights attacks of opportunity.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S9E2): Added a visual indicator on the stairs when it's possible to use them to climb up.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Added a search textbox to spell preparation pages of prepared casters.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Alchemical items are now categorized under their own tab in the shop and are sorted into subcategories (bombs, elixirs, mutagens, and poisons). Bombs are further sorted into lesser, moderate, and improved.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Character editor now shows a preview of granted spells such as innate ancestry spells at the level you'd receive them instead of at your maximum spell level.[/p]
- [p]User interface: If an enemy is immune to all damage, the overhead flyout now says "immune" instead of "-0 (resisted)"[/p]
- [p]User interface: Improved the display of the movement range line on nonbasic resolutions.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Increased gap between character inventories to make it clearer where one inventory ends and another begins[/p]
- [p]User interface: Increased the highlight of the creature on the battlefield when you hover over it in the initiatve tracker.[/p]
- [p]User interface: The line "Click anywhere to continue..." will no longer show up on cinematic lines after you've clicked through a line at least 20 times, with the understanding that by that point, you probably remember what to do.[/p]
- [p]User interface: The spellcasting menu now presents spells vertically to allow for more readable text when you have a large number of spell levels available.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Using Ctrl+Backspace in textboxes now deletes word-by-word instead of letter-by-letter.[/p]
- [p]User interface: You can now use "-" at the beginning of search terms such as "-two-handed" and "-attack" to filter out list options that contains the given text.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Your dying status numbers now appear on top of status indicators on character tokens if you're dying.[/p]
[p]Balancing:[/p]
- [p]Items (aeon stone of shielding): Replaced "Your shield spells prevent twice as much damage." by "Your shield spells prevent 5 more damage."[/p]
- [p]Tactics (S9E5): Reduced the frequency with which Grandmother Demay uses her Harsh Scolding ability.[/p]
[p]Modding:[/p]
- [p]Feature: Source code is now included embedded in the PDB file so that modders have to do less fiddling with the decompiler. (Note that Dawnsbury Days is not open source; and the source code is not for redistribution or reuse -- it's just to assist modders in making Dawnsbury Days mods.)[/p]
- [p]Modding: Added Citizen to creatures in the base tileset.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Added [c]CombatAction.Origin[/c] which shows the affliction, persistent damage QEffect and ultimate source of an action that's rooted in a pseudocreature, such as persistent damage or a poison affliction.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Added an overload for [c]WithRulesBlockForSpell[/c] which allows you to specify spell level.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Fixed that DLC2's tileset wasn't available via CustomMaps.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Fixed that the tile "PowerCrystal" wasn't usable.[/p]
- [p]Modding: From now on, if the base game later adds a feat with the same technical name as a modded feat, it will automatically replace the modded feat by default. For example, this update replaces the Crane Flutter feat from the More Dedications mod with the base game Crane Flutter feat.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Made all classes public.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Spells and kineticist impulses cast as a reaction now contain all the spell's traits in the reaction traits array. Mods can use this to make extra reactions possible in response to specific types of spells.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Fixed that there might not be enough space in Story mode menu for all of your adventure paths if you were subscribed to too many of them.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Mods are now shown in a scrollable list box, so that you can view them and their licenses even when you have a very large number of mods.[/p]
[p]Audio:[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S9E5): Removed the lyrics from the final encounter and replaced the music with the instrumental version of the song.[/p]
[p]Bugfixes:[/p]
- [p]Ancestries (Dwarf): Dwarven Weapon Familiarity now works correctly with proficiency of dwarf weapons (there are no such weapons in the base game, but mods may add them).[/p]
- [p]Classes (Alchemist): Fixed that you could affect poison-immune creatures with alchemical poisons.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Cleric): Rapid Response now only applies to living allies.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Fighter): If you have both Reactive Shield and Quick Shield Block, then Reactive Shield now allows you to raise a shield even if it wouldn't help you for the attack roll, so that you can use Quick Shield Block for the attack.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Fighter): Reactive Shield now takes existing circumstance bonuses to AC into account.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Fighter): Reactive Shield now takes existing circumstance bonuses to AC into account.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Magus): Emergency Targe now takes existing circumstance bonuses to AC into account.[/p]
- [p]Classes (Ranger): Fixed that the rules engine would crash if a ranger using Twin Takedown dropped unconscious after the first Strike but before the second (e.g. because of a hamatula's reactive attack or an archon's retributive strike).[/p]
- [p]Conditions (confused): Fixed that mindless creatures, as well as the Protector Tree, could become confused.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S4E5): The Final Dusk's incorporeal resistance shouldn't protect him from negative damage.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S9E2, S9E3): Fixed that the timber sentinel moved with the party when using Group movement.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S9E3): Fixed that the timber sentinel could "protect" the wooden statuette.[/p]
- [p]Encounters (S9E5): Fixed that the Healing Hand ability of a cleansed possessed child showed to-hit chance against allies even though such an action succeeds automatically.[/p]
- [p]Familiars: Fixed that you could only take Restorative Familiar if you had a focus pool.[/p]
- [p]Items (alchemical poison): Fixed that alchemical items triggered even if you didn't deal any slashing or piercing damage to the target.[/p]
- [p]Items (bag of holding): Fixed that if you swapped a rune from within a bag of holding onto a weapon or armor, it could result in a duplicate non-removable rune on the bag of holding that you could "unattach" infinitely for free runes.[/p]
- [p]Items (bombs): Fixed that moderate and improved bombs still showed up with the word "lesser" in the Strike context menu.[/p]
- [p]Items (bracers of missile deflection): The item now takes existing circumstance bonuses to AC into account.[/p]
- [p]Items (keen): Fixed that as long as the game predicted a hit on a 19, the keen rune transformed the result into a critical success on all d20 results, not just on a natural 19.[/p]
- [p]Items (scrolls): Fixed that you could read scrolls while blinded.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Fixed that Dawnsbury Days preferred to use the CustomModsV3 folder even if it was empty.[/p]
- [p]Modding: Fixed that if you somehow had a resistance to a damage type and a resistance to a group of damage types that was greater than your resistance to the individual damage type, the smaller resistance would take priority.[/p]
- [p]Monsters (Lesser Death): Fixed that a simple Step provoked the Lesser Death's lurking death ability.[/p]
- [p]Player information: Fixed that you saw attack-of-opportunity warnings if an undetected invisible enemy was threatening an attack of opportunity.[/p]
- [p]Rules (attack of opportunity): Fixed that you couldn't make attacks of opportunity with unarmed reach attacks (such as the Frog Animal barbarian's tongue attack) at reach.[/p]
- [p]Rules (dying): Fixed that if you for some reason began dying at the beginning of your turn and you immediately stabilized, you would avoid dropping unconscious and instead were able to take your turn while at 0 HP.[/p]
- [p]Rules (grapple): Fixed the monster with reach couldn't reassert grapple at nonadjacent reach.[/p]
- [p]Rules (stealth): Fixed that a creature would become detected only at the end of an action rather than at the beginning (it still remains Hidden until that action is complete, though).[/p]
- [p]Rules (stealth): Fixed that if you summoned a creature, all enemy undetected creatures would immediately become detected.[/p]
- [p]Rules (stealth): Fixed that the "seen" overhead text sometimes displayed when you were invisible even though you weren't actually spotted by any enemy.[/p]
- [p]Spells (Bane): Improved description of mechanics of the bane spell, especially on maps without time pressure like S9E2.[/p]
- [p]Spells (Cloak of Colors): Fixed that the cloak triggered also on a miss, not just on a hit.[/p]
- [p]Spells (Dominate Undead): Fixed that you could use dominate undead on minions.[/p]
- [p]Spells (Friendfetch): Fixed that if you moved two allies, it sometimes happened that they could "get stuck" against each other, causing one of them to move less than expected.[/p]
- [p]Story mode: Fixed that the CONTINUE button didn't show up in Story mode if one of your save files was corrupted.[/p]
- [p]Story mode: Fixed that your divine and angelic blessings didn't carry over from the Profane Barrier into Good Little Children Never Grow Up.[/p]
- [p]Story mode: Improved the stability of loading mid-encounter saves.[/p]
- [p]System: Fixed a bug that if you started with the game running in the background, it would play music and handle mouse input anyway, even if it wasn't the active window.[/p]
- [p]Text: Fixed some text in dialogue.[/p]
- [p]Text: Improved damage stat blocks.[/p]
- [p]Text: Improved some stat blocks.[/p]
- [p]Text: Improved text of some stat blocks and dialogue.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Fixed that you could accidentally end turn by pressing middle mouse button when scrolling the combat log.[/p]
- [p]User interface: Fixed that you could pan over the battle map while scrolling a scroll pane.[/p]
[p]Performance:[/p]
- [p]Performance: Greatly improved performance of enemy tactics calculation.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Greatly reduced the filesize of DLC2 maps to reduce pressure on video card memory and reduce load times.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Improved performance of calculating possibilities.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Improved performance of creating creatures and actions.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Improved performance of drawing listboxes.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Improved performance of drawing the combat log and of drawing lines.[/p]
- [p]Performance: Improved performance of some basic internal operations, improving speed overall.[/p]
[p]External:[/p]
- [p]IMDb: Cast list and credits for DLC 2 are now available on IMDb as well.[/p]
- [p]Website: The official website https://dawnsbury.neocities.org/ was updated to reflect the release of the expansions.[/p]