Dawnsbury Days News

This is the backup release candidate! I intend to continue developing Dawnsbury Days actively until the feature freeze on February 29th but in case too many bugs are introduced in that development, and no critical bugs are found in this one, then this one could reasonably be used as the backup build for release on March 8th.

Features

• Rules (GM's judgment): Added an optional rule to have beneficial actions unaffected by concealment, turned on by default.
  

Audio

• Audio: Performed a manual loudness normalization update on top of the auto-normalization to -23 LUFS.
  

Balancing

• Balancing (S4E5): Increased the boss monster's weapon proficiency by +2 on all difficulties.
  
• Rules (GM's judgment): Demoralize is now unaffected by concealment.
  

Bugfixes

• Ancestries (Orc): Added additional orc portraits.
  
• Classes (Kineticist): If you have multiple kineticists, start-of-combat kinetic aura whoosh should only happen once.
  
• Classes (Kineticist): Ocean's Balm should also reduce the DC to 10
  
• Classes (Wizard): The spell you get back from Drain Bonded Item is never removed from your mind and can be cast infinitely.
  
• Encounters (S2E6): If you finish the encounter by killing an enemy, that enemy will resurrect at the beginning of the closing cutscene.
  
• Encounters (S2E6): You can attempt to attack-of-opportunity "Forest Canopy" during the cutscene, which crashes the game.
• Encounters (S4E1): Drake Riders are using Draconic Frenzy while Calm Emotions is up
• Encounters (S4E3): If second poet was supposed to have any death lines they got interrupted by the end of combat cinematic
• Encounters (S4E4): The summon elemental sound effect is too loud.
• Feats (Reactive Shield): If an enemy rolls 20, you're still asked if you'd like to use reactive shield to downgrade it to a success, which won't necessarily work.
  
• Feats (Shared Stratagem): The prompt should be skipped if useless because the target died
  
• Free encounter mode: The "weak" difficulty modifier of the Easy difficulty applies to encounters that don't support variable difficulties
  
• Modding: Add the option for assisted persistent damage recoveries.
  
• Spells (Sanctuary): Sanctuary temporary attack-ban effect still remains active even if the attacker is dead
  
• Story mode: If you import characters into Story mode as you begin a campaign at level 1, it says "expected maximum: 140gp" at the bottom, instead of the expected maximum of 15gp.
  
• Story mode: When you move from Custom start screen to Campaign screen, the main theme music briefly plays for half a second before it's replaced by the character editor music
  

• New spells: flourishing flora, pummeling rubble
  
• New item: gate attenuator
  
• User interface: It is now slightly easier to differentiate used up actions from active actions
  

Bugfixes

• Ancestries (Orc): Orc Ferocity causes the game to crash if it triggers in response to persistent damage.
  
• Rules: Bonuses to damage to Strikes are applied twice.
  

Damage subsystem redesign
The damage subsystem has been rewritten. Now, in general, a single "damage event" will show up as a single line in the combat log and trigger reactions as a whole. Multiple Strikes within the same action (such as Flurry of Blows or Double Slice) now count as separate damage events, and their damage is combined only for the purposes of weakness, resistance and hardness.

This redesign fixes several bugs:

• Classes (Monk): The Stunning Fist procs even if you miss on both Flurry of Blows attacks.
  
• Classes (Monk): The Flurry of Blows does not combine damage for the purposes of weaknesses and resistances properly.
  
• Feats (Ferocity): If an enemy orc is dealt an attack that does multiple damage types, they'll use ferocity after the first damage type but before taking the second type. For example, a raging Dragon barbarian will trigger ferocity with its slashing damage, then knock out the orc with the elemental damage.
  
• Feats (Dangerous Sorcery): "BonusToDamage" QEffect (such as of Dangerous Sorcery) applies after critical/halving save changes for impulses and spells.
  
• Spells (Acid Splash): Acid Splash incorrectly dealt 2d6 damage on a crit, instead should have just dealt 1d6.
  
• Classes (Barbarian): Draconic Rage didn't always trigger if the target wasn't weak to that damage type
  

Modding

• Added CalculatedCharacterSheetValues.AdditionalClassTraits and TrueFeat.WithAllowsForAdditionalClassTrait to allow modders to more easily create archetype feats.
  

Bugfixes

• Classes (Psychic): Fade into Daydreams and Calculate Threats should be unusable if you've already used them this turn
  

Balancing

• Encounters (S2E4): Anna or Scarlet should explain how to disable the elemental gate.

Audio

• Encounters (S1E1): Scarlet is missing a voice line in this encounter.
  
• Encounters (S2E6): Anna is missing a voice line in this encounter.
  
• Volume (S4E5): The monster's voice lines are too quiet.
  
• Loudness normalization: Loudness adjusted for the tutorial and chapter 1. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 still need some work.
  

Modding

• Added QEffect.WhenCombatEnds.
  
• Added the option to double-click a mod in the approve dialog to open its folder.
  
• You can now mod in creatures. Instructions are in the file CustomMods/Dawnsbury.Mods.Creatures.Scarecrow/ABOUT CREATURE MODS.txt. An example mod, "Scarecrow's Field", is now distributed with the game as well as on the Steam Workshop.
  

Bugfixes

• Modding: Fixed that ModdedIllustrations from the Workshop would fail to load.
  
• Modding: Fixed that modded sound effects from the Workshop would fail to load.
  
• Modding: Missing art or sound effects will now result in empty art or a placeholder soundeffect instead of crashing the game.
  
• Classes (Ranger): Fixed that United Assault didn't have flourish.
  
• User interface: Removed simple tile compositions display option.
  
• Modding: When you add a modded spell or item to your character, then remove the mod from your game, the game will destroy your character library instead of stripping out that single spell.
  
• Modding: Modded spell icons do not seem to render when picked for spells known.
  
• Story mode: The victory narration happens only after the credits roll.
  
• Classes (Kineticist): Using a Burning Jet to travel across water should fail
  
• Classes (Kineticist): Burning Jet should allow you to stop early
  
• Classes (Kineticist): Using a Burning Jet when the target square is water or lava and you aren't flying will cause the game to crash
  
• User inteface: Sneak missing a description.
  
• Feats (Swipe): Swipe description doesn't match what it does in terms of attack rolls/damage rolls.
  
• Feats (United Assault): United Assault lacks the Flourish trait.
  
• Encounters (S3E4): Reactions can interrupt cutscenes.
  
• Shop: Armor should be sorted by minimum strength, then by AC bonus; shields should be sorted by gold cost.
  
• Modding: Downloading Acidic Burst off of Workshop crashes the game because the assets already exist
  
• Spells: Six-action spells should not make attack rolls or saving throws.
  
• Spells (Boneshaker): When Boneshaker save is crit failed and kills the target, it still asks if you would like to slide them which is completely harmless to have as the slide is interrupted by death but the prompt to pick a slide tile is still given
  
• Items: Versatile piercing weapons are still affected by underwater combat.
• Classes (Psychic): When amped, imaginary weapon does not use an animation.
  
• Free encounter mode: Encounters without difficulty settings give out the "Hard" and "Insane" trophy based on your selected difficulty.
  

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.