The Iron Oath Update #30

This month’s Kickstarter update for Curious Panda’s turn-based RPG The Iron Oath has quite a lot to share. First, we get a few paragraphs about all the newly added and reworked combat mechanics, like flanking and line of sight. Then, we’re treated to a sampling of new animations and abilities. And finally, we also get a brief update on the game’s audio, a glimpse of the popular these days lore tooltips, and an overview of the features the developers have been working on recently. A few snippets:

Combat Mechanics

We’ve added a couple new combat mechanics and tweaked some of the existing ones in order to achieve the tactical depth that we want out of the game. None of this is set in stone and will still require further tuning but we’re happy with the premise of each.

First up, we’ve added a new ‘Swap’ mechanic for every character. You can now use your turn to swap positions with any adjacent allied character. This allows you to move someone out of harm’s way quickly, and avoid them suffering an Attack of Opportunity. There are a few situations where using Swap is not possible, such as when the target is Stunned, Feared or Taunted. Enemies can also take advantage of this function so it’s important to plan accordingly.

We’ve removed our Backstab mechanic and reworked it into a Flanking mechanic, one that is easier to understand and execute within the context of the game. Previously, you were able to control the direction that your characters were facing at the end of their movement, and any attacks at their rear would be considered a Backstab. However we decided that the mechanic was a little unclear, annoying and clunky to deal with. A character is now considered “Flanked” whenever there are 2 enemies on opposite sides of his or her location. The Flanked debuff reduces Defense and Evasion for all attacks against that character, whether they are from the flankers, or elsewhere on the field.

The final combat addition is a Line of Sight mechanic, which places an increased importance on your positioning for both attacking and defending. For certain classes and abilities, the game will now check to see if the target is valid(due to LOS) and whether or not any accuracy penalty will be applied. If a character or object lies on a direct path(horizontally or diagonally connected hexes) between the attacker and the intended target, the target will be deemed untargetable due to the attacker having No Line of Sight. Full Line of Sight(no characters or objects blocking the path) would obviously incur no penalties and the attacker could freely attack the target within the limits of their abilities. Anything in between is classified as Obscured Line of Sight, and the attacker will incur a moderate accuracy penalty against their intended target.

Of the three, this mechanic has the potential to change the most as it hasn’t been fully implemented yet and will need a proper round of playtesting to ensure that it’s beneficial to the game’s tactics.

[…]

Overworld Updates

Outside of combat we’ve also made a lot of updates and additions. For dynamic encounters, we added the ability to highlight certain words or phrases, allowing players to get additional information about the world whenever they want. This is just the first phase of this feature. Eventually we’ll expand on it so you can learn more on each topic(like codexes in other games).

Here’s a round-up of some other features we’ve been working on :

• Added a system for showing dynamic world event notifications when on the world map
• Quest Tracker on the world map
• Level editor additions like placing Boss Encounters, chests, locked doors, etc
• Support for showing graphics and playing animations during cinematics
• Implemented the ability to use items in and out of combat (like potions or bandages)
• Skinned several UI menu screens
• Bug fixes! Yay!