Knights of the Chalice v1.26 Demo and v1.25 Patch Released

Because we haven’t updated you on the status of Heroic Fantasy Games’ Knights of the Chalice (our 2009 Independent RPG of the Year) since version 1.20, I thought I’d point out that the game’s demo is now up to version 1.26 and the latest patch brings the standard installation to version 1.25. The notes beyond v1.24 don’t seem to be included in the team’s related forum post, but here are the provided changes since v1.20:

1.24

– When targeting damage spells, like Fireball, the expected damage for each target will be displayed. The expected damage assumes that the target does not resist (no spell resistance) and that it fails its saving throw. For example a fireball cast at level 7 deals 7d6 points and the expected (average) value is 24. Cast on a Frost giant, it’s 36. The game will display “Immune” or “Reverse” if the creature is immune to that spell or is healed rather than damaged by the spell.

– When targeting non-damage spells with a saving throw, like Confusion, the chance of affecting each target (by overcoming spell resistance and having the target fail its saving throw) will be displayed. However, spells requiring a ranged touch or melee touch will still display the chance to succeed on the touch attack.

– The bludgeoning damage part of Ice Storm will work on Frost Giants and other creatures immune to cold.

– Improved the special effect for Lightning Bolt.

– AI will be more careful not to wake up sleeping characters, and it will try to coup de grace them more often.

– Improved the AI for Bless, Bane and Prayer: clerics will move to a position where they can affect a lot of targets, rather than just cast as soon as they start their round.

– Added a small die symbol before d20 results in the rolls-history window (in the line giving attack bonus + attack roll).

– Changed the range of Scorching Ray from close to medium.

– Checked Vampiric Ray and it does drain only as many HP as the target has (although the animation displays the raw number of points of damage).

– It will be possible to reload a crossbow simply by clicking on a target. Provided your character can take a standard action after reloading, you will be able to reload then attack just by clicking two times.

– All key items will be marked as quest items (and won’t disappear when resting), even those that aren’t essential to winning.

– Control+S to save and Control+L to load will no longer work in Ironman mode.

– Swapping an item with yourself will say “no target selected” and will not destroy the item any longer.

– I had to convert the graphics code to work with a more recent DirectX Development Kit (it was a pain), so there may be remaining graphical glitches, please let me know if you spot any.

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New version 1.23:

– In the full game, fixed a bug in Taneliz’s casino script.
– In the demo, fixed a dialogue-repetition bug that occurred if you talked to the spider after defeating the bandits and not before.
– Changing the name of a character will automatically update names in the character’s description.

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1.22: Some minor changes.

– Turn undead will not appear in the list of cleric actions when no undead creatures are involved in the fight.
– A grapple will be automatically broken when it involved a dominated character, and the domination effect expired.
– The options to attack, bullrush and grapple will appear when a character is adjacent to a confused ally, not just when adjacent to enemies.
– Cancelling turn undead will display (cancelling action), not (cancelling spell).

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1.21:

– Added Turn Undead (to use it with your saved games, have the party rest first)
– Added new spell animations for Bless, Bane and Freezing Sphere.
– Fixed a AI problem with the Cure and Inflict spell-like abilities, and other problems with the spell Invisibility Purge and the Invisibility condition.
– Fixed a few remaining display issues with the new graphic mode.
– Fixed (webbed) condition (and other conditions) not disappearing after a character is killed or knocked out.
– Putting on a spider cloak will remove the webbed and entangled conditions immediately.
– Added a message in the spell casting screen reminding about Scribe Scroll, once all your high-level spell slots are exhausted.
– Corrected Harm and Heal so that they don’t do more than 150 points of damage or healing, or 75 points when saved against.
– Wearing a spider cloak will allow to charge into a web. Creatures with fire immunity will also be able to charge into a wall of fire, and creatures who can see through darkness will be able to charge through darkness areas.
– Dead or petrified spell casters in the party will not be able to learn scrolls, use scrolls or wands, or craft scrolls and magic items.
– Effects from Iron body will disappear at the end of combat.
– Multiple ranged attacks conducted in melee range will trigger multiple AOOs.

Other notes
‘¢ Checked Still spell with a 2-handed weapon and while grappled, didn’t see anything wrong there.
‘¢ Tried the battle with the salamander Pharixx but didn’t see any problem with his spell count (Archangel, do you have any extra details on how it happened? Was he muted/grappled/silenced/interrupted by a counterspell or ready versus spell action?).