Solasta 2 is committed to implementing a D&D 5E rule that Baldur's Gate 3 dismissed

Solasta II - Early Access Date & Cast Reveal - YouTube

Solasta: Crown of the Magister was a more combat-focused take on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition than Baldur's Gate 3, and so it included a couple of tactical options that Larian's narrative-heavy RPG didn't. Dodge, for instance—an action that gives all attacks against you disadvantage and also gives you advantage on Dexterity saving throws—was an option in Solasta.

So was "ready action", which let you prepare an attack or cantrip to use on an enemy when they came into range. Basically, it was overwatch. In tabletop Dungeons & Dragons though, readying an action can be used for anything your heart desires ("I ready an action to feed my potion of healing to the paladin when they drop" or "I ready an action to push the boulder off the cliff when the ogre is beneath it," for instance), and while that level of freeform planning isn't realistic in a videogame, Solasta's designers want more options available in Solasta 2. As the developers at Tactical Adventures say in the latest dev update, "we aim to have most actions compatible with Ready Action over time."

The first of these is single-target leveled spells. They give some examples of how that'll be useful: "Can't reach your wounded buddy? Prepare a Cure Wounds and have them run to you on their turn. Worried that the Berserker next room might run in and cleave you in half? Prepare a Hideous Laughter and drop him as he rushes past the door (just pray that he fails his saving throw). That pesky crossbowman keeps popping in and out of cover to spray you down with bolts? Let's see how they like a little Guiding Bolt to the face next time they try to do that."

One limitation will be that readied actions can only be set up during combat, rather than as part of your complicated whiteboard goblin ambush plan. As Tactical adventures explain, "we would have loved nothing more than to make it exactly like on Tabletop and give you all the possibilities you could imagine on how to trigger Ready Action… but this would be a liiiittle overwhelming—if we did, we'd have to code a puzzle game inside your tactical CRPG, and as much as I love Baba is You we are not aiming to create the next Action is Readied."

Solasta 2 will launch into early access next month. When it does, you'll be able to ready "only single target spells and weapon attacks" with more options to come in later updates: "in the future, we plan to have AoE spells and multi-target spells (like Magic Missile) be usable too with this feature. Our Tech Director even tells me that he would love to add different conditional toggles if we ever have the time, such as not triggering Ready Action if you currently have disadvantage, or if the enemy is beyond a certain range… But no promises here—it's no secret that there's a lot we want to do, but only so much time to do it!"

Solasta 2 will arrive in early access via Steam on March 12.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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