[D&D 3.5e] Realms Beyond - a turn-based cRPG based on SRD 3.5e

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Greetings everyone,

I would like to present our upcoming computer roleplaying game called Realms Beyond.



Realms Beyond is a classically inspired fantasy role-playing computer game with turn-based combat and a party system that allows you to control up to six characters at any one time. Whether you yearn for an open world to explore at your own pace, tactical combat that allows you to plan your moves carefully, or want to lose yourself in the rich fabric of our world, trying to survive and make your mark, Realms Beyond offers endless choices, lands to travel, monster-infested dungeons and a host of storylines to follow. Adapting and responding to the player's interactions with the world, you will find a depth and richness for your adventures that combines the very best of traditional gameplay with modern-day technologies. The result is a game world that comes alive, brimming with undiscovered stories, content, mysteries, and challenges.


Key Features:

• Turn-based combat, featuring many favorite spells, feats and actions, based on rules described in the (3.5e) Revised System Reference Document (SRD) covered by the Open Game License v1.0a (OGL) by Wizards of the Coast, Inc
• Custom-built, isometric graphic engine that combines zoomable 2D and 3D technology to bring to the screen a never-before-seen amount of detail
• A bustling open world, spanning entire continents, replete with believable NPCs, complex cultures, factions, societies and a fascinating history
• Create a party of up to six characters, with customizable appearance, ranging from 7 different races and 8 different classes
• More than one hundred spells, each with unique, stunning visual effects
• Thousands of individual items to use and interact with
• An epic storyline, massive quests, uncounted missions, hordes of monsters and a world that is steeped in lore and mystery
• Create your own adventures, campaigns or even entire worlds using the UrWelt RPG Engine framework

Concept Art




Screenshots








Videos





Further information can be found on our official webpage.

Feel free to ask my anything about the project - I would be very glad to hear your opinion and answer your questions.

Regards,
HobGoblin42

 

Looks amazing! I'd like to see some survival elements ala The Long Dark added into a Top down RPG like this.

 

We started end of 2016 and now, we're in Pre-Alpha stage which means all tools and ingame systems are operating and implemented but still require features&polishing. Currently, we're working on finalizing the first iteration of the combat system. Some months ago, we started the content production e.g. world and level design.

Yes, survival and strategic resource management (e.g. food rations, water, mounts) will be quite important.
You can read our blog post related to this topic here.

 

Looks pretty cool. Is there a particular reason why you've decided to go for 3.5 OGL instead of something like Pathfinder OGL which has improved upon the core rules in many respects?

 

Actually, we could use the ruleset of Pathfinder under the Open Game License but not much else. The Pathfinder universe and all its intellectual properties and trademarks are not free to use and require a licensing by Paizo. And there are already three Pathfinder computer games in development or on the market.

Technically, it wouldn't take much effort to create a Mod for our game to enable Pathfinder specific rules/classes/feats/items/spells, but we will focus on implementing the System Reference Document 3.5e first.

 

I am aware. Even the extended license for PF compatible products that allows the use of additional material unfortunately doesn't extend to video games.

But as much as I enjoy the world of Golarion and many of its stories, I was referring specifically to the core rules. I honestly can't imagine ever going back to pure 3.5 at this point, because even though Pathfinder is just as broken, it does remove many of 3.5's ails, like XP penalties for multiclassing, level adjustments, dead levels in core classes, cross-class skills, etc.

And these are all things that are tedious in PnP but become ever more pronounced flaws when translated to a video game. Just 2¢ from the guy who spent almost a decade trying to fix 3E rules.

 

True, we cannot simply adapt 1:1 the SRD rules into our game and that's it. Like Pathfinder did, we also have to modify, remove and add elements for every character class.
One notorious flaw is the imbalanced Wizard vs Fighter power gap on higher character levels, where fighters become meaningless in almost every combat.
Prestige classes and multiclassing are two more critical issues to address. The need for Wizards to memorize specific spells before resting is something we already had to change which resulted in merging the Sorcerer with the Wizard class, etc. etc.

 

I was NOT expecting that answer! Sign me up, or direct me to your kickstarter page and I'll donate.

 

I did quite a lot of rebalancing in that respect, but the problem lies at the very core of the system, so unless you revamped all mundane classes to gain powerful and versatile abilities like casters do (in a fashion akin to Tome of Battle for 3.5 or the equivalent Path of War in PF), there is really only so much you can do about the massive gaps between class tiers.

I'm kind of curious how you went about tackling different things, but I'd probably just get mad that you're butchering the system in the wrong way.

 

Turn based combat, would that be more or less like in Arcanum?

Either way, it looks interesting, will have to keep an eye on this one.

Regarding the discussion about 3.5e rules, I'd be curious to your thoughts on how this was implemented in NWN, Keneth. In NWN I thought the fighter classes typically did quite well, mostly because they were reliably powerful, especially in HotU, where the many high-magic items could go a long way in making your fighter very powerful.

Sure, a mage could be more powerful even without the items, but it also took a lot more micro-management, and you'd have to rest after every other encounter (possibly also to do more micro-management on your spellbook selection). The resting was hardly a penalty in NWN, but the micro-management always felt like a pretty big con for spellcasters to me.

 

Less, because our paradigm for the combat is 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' (blog post here).
I really love Arcanum, but not so much for its combat system

 

I must say I've not played ToEE, though it's been installed for more than a year already. Perhaps two, actually. Though for me, turn-based doesn't necessarily equate with "tactical and strategic", but more with "reload until you get the desired outcome". And having many different save games. I'll need to see if I can't get CoE8 started again sometime and try out ToEE.

I mentioned Arcanum as it was the first game with turn-based combat that came to my mind that was also more or less set in something approaching fantasy. I'll agree with you that its combat is not its strongest point. And not tactical either, the way your companions just rush ahead into combat if you don't pre-empt them.

The best turn-based combat for me has always been Jagged Alliance 2, but that's a completely different game, of course. It's always very satisfying to play, though.

 

Power's not really the crux of the matter. I mean, in PnP you can easily min-max a fighter build that deals 1000+ damage per round, which is enough to take down just about anything, but the problem isn't that mundanes aren't powerful, it's that they're unnecessary later on. Casters will generally surpass them in every respect as they advance through levels, so why would you want to play a one-trick pony that can hit really hard when you can play a veritable god?

Class tiers are defined by the breadth of things that classes can do, plain power is just one small factor in that equation. Video games generally make this divide narrower by severely limiting the options of casters (sometimes intentionally, which is the wrong approach) and focusing more on combat and scripted events, whereas in PnP there are no such restrictions and even something as simple a prestidigitation cantrip can give a spellcaster infinitely more options than a fighter would have.

I was never a huge fan of NwN's implementation of the ruleset, but it did very little to mitigate the issue. I've always had effective mundane characters in my party, they just weren't very fun...

 

Last week, we wrote a blog post about a square vs hexagon combat grid.

That's our approach to convert the D&D table-top combat rules (based on square) to a hexgrid:



I would be very interested in hearing your opinion about the everlasting dispute square vs hex and possible pitfalls of our conversion.

Last but not least, there are two more screenshots which show a little bit more of our world (which is still under construction)

Spoiler

 

For turn-based combat, abandoning grids isn't really the best solution (I tried it, wasn't worth the time investment), so that's right out the window.

Square grids lend themselves really nicely to constructed areas (which is what most "dungeons" are), but that's more or less the only good argument for square grids.

I've been using hex grids with all of my groups for a very long time now (both for D&D and other games) and the only slightly awkward thing is the size of creatures. The only "natural" shapes on a hex grid are hexagons and triangles, but you usually don't want triangular creatures, except maybe for large size, so the area increases much faster (1, 3, 7, 19, 37 instead of 1, 4, 9, 16, 25).

On the other hand, I was never really a fan of cramming creatures into pre-set boxes, so I'm perfectly comfortable having a colossal dragon take up a 100x100 ft. area, whereas a colossal titan might only be 15x15 ft. at the base.

So yes, hex grids all the way. Anyone who's used both should understand that there's no argument here (aside from trying to stay "traditional").

 

I just wanted to drop another screenshot related to hexgrids here. Our approach to realize straight walls with 90° corners:

 

Seems like a pretty good way to do it. No clipping issues on the hexes intersecting the walls? And it's just a single guy per hex, like in Fallout?

 

Yes, it's usually one character per hexagon (only huge+ creatures span over 3 hexagons at once).

Exceptions to this rule are so-called "swarm creatures" which share one hexagon. But those are only visually separate units and their appearance is determined by their health (full swarm = full HP).

 

How do you handle tiny and smaller creatures then? Did you increase their effective melee range? If so, do they get attacks of opportunity around them now?