Dawnsbury Days News

Dawnsbury Days will release on Steam on Friday, March 8th.

The game is feature-complete, reasonably balanced, and contains enough character content and encounter content. I am proud of it and I am happy to release it, though final polishing is still in progress.

What happens post-launch?

I'll pay close attention to the game in the first few weeks post-launch.

In the first week post-launch, until the initial spike of interest subsides, I plan to only release critical fixes (crash bug fixes and progression-breaking bugs) so that I don't accidentally introduce new bugs while there are a lot of active players.

It is possible that players will report new noncritical bugs or feature requests: I would work on those in an experimental branch and deploy them after the initial interest subsides a little. In the same branch, I would continue working on any features requested by modders to help them with modding Dawnsbury Days.

After that, I'll continue to provide some technical support, and look into bugs, but I expect to take a little break from hobby game development afterwards. I consider the game a standalone complete singleplayer game, not a continuously updated live service game, and with this, the development will be over.

There is of course, always the thinking of "could there be a sequel". Never say never, but I really would prefer to take a break from development for a while after this is done.

[h2]Features[/h2]

• Code mods on Steam Workshop. You can now upload code mods to the Steam Workshop and subscribe to them. The first time you load a new code mod from the Steam Workshop, there will be a warning and you must approve the mod.
  
• Variable-action and variant spell improvements. Spells with a variable number of actions and spells with variants now display more specific rules blocks when you hover over each option, such as the stat block of the summoned creature or the specific range and effect of a spell with multiple action costs. It is now also possible to create spells that use 1-2 actions, 2-3 actions, or 2-3-or-6 actions, in addition ot the basic 1-2-or-3 variable cost.
  

[h2]New character content[/h2]

• Items: fluid movement elixir
• Spells: divine wrath, circle of protection, march of the tsunami, enervation, soothe, heroism, searing light, boneshaker

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• Encounters (S3E3): Reduced difficulty on Insane.
  
• Encounters (S3E5): Reduced difficulty on Hard and Insane.
  
• Encounters (S4E1): Reduced difficulty overall, replaced Tail Lash with Attack of Opportunity, added helpful items for S4E2 and S4E3.
  
• Encounters (S4E2, S4E3): Reduced the monster's statistics and saving throws.
  
• Encounters (S4E4): Increased difficulty on Insane.
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Classes (Kineticist): Fire Elemental Blasts can be used underwater.
  
• Classes (Kineticist): The Timber Sentinel provides flanking.
  
• Classes (Magus): After using a Spellstrike, you can't enter Arcane Cascade.
  
• Classes (Monk): Dragon stance has wrong statblock text, it does not give +1 to AC. This is true for all monk stances.
  
• Classes (Monk): Fixed multiple issues with Stunning Fist (remaining issue: Stunning Fist triggers even if you didn't deal damage).
  
• Classes (Monk): Stunning Fist should state the DC.
  
• Classes (Monk): The fonts in the extra encounter Elemental Crucible can't be targeted by a monk's unarmed attacks.
  
• Classes (Monk): You can't use Dragon Stance kick while having your hands occupied.
  
• Classes (Ranger): Hunt Prey causes you to lose undetected, even if you retain invisibility.
  
• Classes (Rogue): Brutal Beating applies even if the target is already dead
  
• Classes (Rogue): Critically succeeding on a feint as a scoundrel doesn't display that the target is flat-footed to everyone.
  
• Classes (Sorcerer): The Infernal bloodline blood magic triggers also when you sustain flaming sphere.
  
• Classes (Strategist): Declare person of Interest and Devise Stratagem make you lose invisibility, hidden and undetected.
  
• Documentation: Added additional keyboard shortcuts and options to the manual.
  
• Documentation: Links in the rulebook are disconnected when spread across two lines.
  
• Encounters (S2E1, S2E3): Morning Dewdrop should flee the closest target at the moment of her turn instead of immediately.
• Encounters (S2E4): The indestructible object had a meaningless Armor Break.
  
• Encounters (S4E1): On a 1080p screen, the rain effect behaves and moves around weirdly.
• Encounters (S4E1): Some of the monsters ignore Grease.
  
• Encounters (S4E2): The game crashes when you kill the enemy and only then the enemy's summon.
  
• Encounters (The Web): In The Web, the Demon Webspinner gains Fire Resistance when it transforms, but it also keeps its fire weakness, which just leads them to cancel each other out.
  
• Encounters (multiple): Citizens have the subtitle "Mentor of the Dawnsbury Four"
  
• Free encounter mode: Fog of war doesn't show up in Free Encounter previews, spoiling the area & tokens underneath.
  
• Items (Versatile P): Versatile-P weapons don't prioritize piercing during underwater combat.
• Modding: Added the trait Trait.SpecificMagicWeapon which excludes items from being automatically generated with itemModifications.
  
• Rules: Sustaining some spells triggers an attack of opportunity, even though it doesn't have the manipulate trait.
  
• Spells (Grease): Flying doesn't make you immune to the Grease balance check
  
• Spells (Invisibility): You shouldn't be able to Hide if you're already invisible.
  
• Steam: Custom data, esp. portraits, aren't part of the Steam cloud saves.
  
• Steam: Custom portraits are saved with full filenames instead of relative to Steam origin.
  
• Steam: The game crashes if it tries to load a nonexistent custom portrait.
  
• Story mode: The load/save dialog window ignores corrupted saves or saves that use noninstalled mods.
  
• Story mode: You can access Dawnsbury before you completed your level up.
  
• Story mode: You can sometimes enter an encounter even if you don't have complete character sheets.
  
• User interface: If you have more than 14 characters, the character library overflows.
  
• User interface: The camera doesn't always focus on an acting character's token if they're only just outside the edges of the viewport.
  

Features

• Rules: Characters now refresh all focus points instead of just one point on a medium rest.
  

Character content

• New class: Monk. Added the final, twelfth class, the monk.
  

Balancing

• Balancing (S3E4): On Insane, this encounter is too hard.
  

Bugfixes

• Classes (Psychic): Tooltip for Telekinetic Rend says "In a nearby space" but doesn't say how big the area is (2x2 squares, or 5ft burst) or how far away you can target it.
  
• Classes (Rogue): Nimble Dodge reaction trigger dialogue when scaping from Grab (bonus AC not useful in this case)
  
• Classes (Whisper Elf): The flavor text contained debug text.
  
• Classes (Wizard, Sorcerer): You could activate Bespell Weapon multiple times a turn
  
• Encounters (S2E5): There is now an overhead text and a log entry when you Seek and find the secret door.
• Encounters (S2E5): You can now also Seek to unmask the mimics.
• Encounters (S3E4): Improved the tactics of the demon and rebalanced the encounter, though issues still remain.
  
• Feats (Quick Draw): Clarified wording.
  
• Items: Insight coffee should be red for everyone except strategist.
  
• Items: Shootist bandolier should be red for everyone that is not competent with repeating hand crossbow.
  
• Modding: Medium rest flavor text element is ignored
  
• Rules (Hide): You can still Hide even if there are no more enemies to hide from.
  
• Rules (thrown weapons): Dagger doesn't calculate distance increments when thrown
  
• Spells (Divine Lance): The spell can be cast in all 4 alignments even though the respective deity doesn't have the correct alignment
  
• Spells (Harm): Harm 3 actions shouldn't affect the caster.
  
• Spells (Mage Armor): Mage Armor can now be cast from a scroll as a free action at the start of an encounter.
  
• Story mode: After you import a character into story mode, the character description text along with the ability to rename the character or change the voices "sticks" to the custom character even when returning into Free Encounter mode.
  
• Story mode: Crash when importing an incomplete character into story mode.
  
• User interface: Using the mouse to control the combat log scroll bar does not work properly
  

[h2]Features[/h2]

• System: In preparation for release, removed the ability to manipulate dice rolls using the "Roll manipulation" option.
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• Rules: Exchanging an item in hand with an item in backpack now only costs a single action (configurable in settings).
  
• Balancing (S3E3): The undead arrive too late.
• Steam: You no longer need to win the "Training grounds" scenario to qualify for the Extra credit achievement.
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]

• Modding: You can now change the flavor text of the medium rest when creating a custom adventure path.
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Steam: The Magus achievement does not work.
  
• User interface: The deny reason for picking up items while picking up a two-handed weapon says "You don't have a hand free," when instead it should say "You need two free hands to pick up this weapon."
  
• Spells (Dirge of Doom): The Fighter's bravery improperly overrides the effect of Dirge of Doom.
  
• User interface: The text composition engine places extra spacing after an "f" if it's at the beginning of a second-or-later line of a multi-text paragraph.