Solstice (now at v0.0.44b Alpha)

[getter77]

v0.0.43     Stealth ARRP 2014

New features
- Extended quest line a bit; lots more quest framework coded.
- New Mindblade skill - Pyrokinesis - To address the Mindblades ineffectiveness against mindless creatures, I had to relent and add a direct damage ability which is somewhat in line with his sychic flavor, yet is effective against most creatures. Pyrokinesis allows the mindblade to start a fire with his mind, either inside the body of a creature, or somewhere in the environment (assuming there is something combustible there.)
- New Engineer skill - Smoke Bomb - An engineer can toss out a small, burning sphere that rapidly produces a large volume of smoke. The smoke spreads fairly naturally, and limits vision where densest. Enemies caught in the smoke become confused, and can attack even their allies, being unable to see very well. A side effect of a large amount of dense smoke is it makes ranged attacks nearly impossible. Finally, creatures within the smoke have improved stealth. These features make this an effective escape tool for the engineer, or allow him to approach dangerous ranged enemies without taking constant fire. (Note that confusion as a result of smoke is not magical in nature - as soon as the creature moves to an area they can see they will no longer be confused, assuming they aren't under some other form of magical confusion)
- Related to the above, some sources of fire now emit smoke.
- <Intelligent> creatures now how their own discrete pathfinding grids, limited to their perception range. If you walk around a corner, you will be followed - if an intelligent creature is set on fire and there is water in view, he will run to the water to douse his flames - if he is unarmed, he will actively search for a weapon, etc. Animals still use scent tracking where appropriate, and generally speaking, attack the nearest threat instead of intelligently targeting enemies.
- Related to the above, perception of the player no longer exclusively requires sight (some creatures can smell, or sense the player in other ways), meaning you can be tracked even though you aren't seen.
- Necklaces are finally fully implemented.
- Creatures now gain benefits from all equipment.
- Added discrete ACID and PSYCHIC damage/resistance types, with associated effects.
- Some new items and creatures (and creature abilities).
- New item enchantments (speed, stats, etc.)

Balance changes
- All basic weapon skills are unlocked for all classes; certain weapon skills (notably guns and unarmed combat) are now tied exclusively to certain classes at the start.
- Utility skills are now unlocked for all classes. Crafting skills require either starting with the skill or finding a trainer. All classes have the scavenge skill unlocked; classes which start with a crafting skill get a free point of scavenge.
- Call Lightning now always works indoors in the Infinite Dungeon. Regular game mode still requires at least level 2 for through  a roof, and level 3 for underground.
- The mechanics of the Endurance meter  have been changed. Previously, drinking or eating would indiscriminately fill the bar. Now, there are separate stats for thirst and hunger, but you can't see them. You have still have a general indication of fatigue/endurance with the yellow bar, and you will receive messages that you are hungry or thirsty, but its intentionally hard to tell beyond that. As a consequence, if you are extremely hungry, but bloated from drinking over and over, drinking more water will do nothing for you - your endurance meter will still reflect your hunger, so you must balance your intake. Note that water is a more pressing need than food. Currently, you can't die from dehydration/starvation, but I will likely implement it in the future when the balance gets worked out. You ARE given a clue as to being hungry, thirsty, or both.
- CTRL-TAB now only cycles through friendly targets, while TAB cycles through enemy targets (previously TAB worked the same, while CTRL-TAB would cycle through ALL targets.)
- After some consideration, Agony has been changed to Share Pain. The psychic link part works the same, the target just now takes a percentage of the damage that you do. Increased skill increases the amount of sympathetic damage the target take, eventually being amplified above your own damage taken. Smarter creatures will figure this out and try to break the link; animals generally wont figure it out.
- Minor display change to speed - higher is now better (it doesn't functionally work any different, I just wanted to be consistent in how numbers are presented so players don't think a high speed value was good when in reality it was bad).
- You may now carry weight above you max limit, but this results in an increasing penalty to speed, melee speed, and ranged speed.
- The Infinite Dungeon is now 2-way (you can go back up a level if you wish), and no longer technically 'infinite' (although I doubt anyone will reach level 999.)
- Targeting an enemy will now color the enemies name based on their threat level to you (and no longer displays the creature level) in the bottom of the right side status bar.

Bug fixes
- Fixed a variable reference bug in several skill functions.
- Fixed a bug where creatures targeting a monster that died had their target shifted to the next creature in the list (even themselves.)

[getter77]

v0.0.44b   

New features
- New Centurion skill - Slash - Slash give the Centurion a passive chance to strike foes directly next to his current melee target with a sweeping slash attack. If activated, the Centurion can complete a 360 sweep around him, striking ALL nearby foes. After executing the active 360 sweep attack, the passive bonus is inactive until the skill recharges. Higher skill levels improve the chance of hitting with the passive attack, as well as the damage and recharge rate of the active attack. Damage type is based on the main hand weapon.
- New Centurion skill - Charge Attack - The Centurion charges forward in a bull rush, using the weight of his armor as a weapon, knocking enemies to the ground, or possible simply using the ability to escape tight situations. Increased skill level improves the distance the Centurion can run, and the amount of damage done on impact.
- New general skill - Iron Will - A passive skill which improves general toughness in the following ways: Reduces your need for sustenance/water (but will never eliminate them), improves your resistance to poison and disease, and gives you a modest (retroactive) health bonus. Actual constitution value is unaffected
- New general skill - Ether Link - A passive skill which reduces the cost of mana based skills and improves mana regeneration rate.
- New weapons and armor.

Balance changes
- Damage reduction is now a flat, guaranteed reduction percentage (rather than blocking a random amount), and is displayed on the inventory and character screens next to defense rating. Each point of armor provides a diminishing damage reduction amount as you approach 100%. As before, armor only affects normal melee and ranged damage; elemental/magic/poison/etc. damages are mitigated by their respective resistances.
- Both armor proficiency and strength now play a factor in reducing the evasion penalty when wearing heavy armor.
- Improved ally targeting (previously, allies were limited to targets in their own visual range, meaning a target at the limits of your vision would not be seen by a trailing ally; makes more sense for your team to communicate threats, so allies have knowledge of what their team mates can see, within limits of how far the allies are from each other.)
- Reduced the steepness of the experience curve.
- Frost Armor now provides a resistance to ice attacks when active, as well as a chance to chill melee attackers.
- Pyrokinesis no provides a passive resistance to fire attacks.
- All classes now start with Armor Proficiency unlocked.
- All classes can now equip small shields (bucklers) without training, though bigger shields require points in the Shields skill.
- Shields now provide more defense per size level.
- Rather than tediously pick up corpses and select them from the menu to chop up a corpse with scavenge, you can simply stand on the corpse and press the Scavenge hotkey to automatically butcher it.
- Leap attack no longer strikes enemies during the leap or kick phases.
- Dual wield has been reduced in effectiveness slightly (it was essentially a 50% always-on damage buff against even level enemies even at low levels.)
- Increased the chance of Shadowstepping successfully (although there is still a minor chance you will fail to step to the desired location that decreases with each skill point invested.)
- Range indication now shows a target line if the player will be moved when executing the action (eg, Leap Attack or Shadowstep.)

Bug fixes
- Target threat color was incorrectly reversed.
- Fixed a bug with range attack distance modifier.
- Leap attack was incorrectly passing a turn for ever creature struck.

[Samildanach]

Looks like it's been abandoned but just on the off chance the Solstice guy is still around, the newest (October 2014) version throws up this error every time I try to camp, which makes it literally unplayable.