The Red Prison - roguelike based on 5th edition D&D

[pat]

The Red Prison is a roguelike adaption of the Basic Rules for the 5th Edition of D&D. It’s been in development for about five or so months and it’s quickly progressed to a fairly advanced playable prototype.

Download: http://patjw.itch.io/theredprison

Every week I upload compiled builds for Windows and should be playable for Linux through Wine.

The game features four classes (fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric) and four base races with subraces (human, mountain dwarf, hill dwarf, wood elf, high elf, lightfoot halfling and stout halfling). Currently most low level content is in the game along with an ever expanding bestiary. I’m in the process of working on mid-level content and high level features is an eventual goal.



The game features auto-explore, detailed character creation and party selection. All classes and races are complete enough to be playable. There is a real focus on party mechanics and you and your allies can be revived by others after being knocked unconscious if your team manage to win the battle before you die. You can meet and recruit other NPC’s in the dungeon and there are a few different types with different skill sets to explore, although magic-using allies are still a work in progress.

Another feature is a detailed lighting system combined with some races having darkvision and others going without. You will need to decide whether you use an offhand equipment slot for a torch or whether you explore in the dark or ask your allies to light their torches for you.

The game follows the rules as closely as possible so the Basic Rules double as a quasi-manual. All of the various statistics about weapons, armour, monsters and spells are faithfully created in-game from those rules. They’re included with the game but available here for download: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

Some features of 5e D&D don’t translate well to roguelikes, such as initiative, bonus actions, reactions and some other things but hopefully players will find that the game aims to be as accurate a conversion as possible.

I’ve only really posted about this game in the roguelikedev subreddit to date but I’m starting to realise that I need more playtesters to help me shape things with the benefit of fresh eyes and more importantly, I think the game is fun enough now to be worth distributing!

The general development goals from here are to keep adding the more complicated features (such as attacks of opportunity and grappling etc), along with more spells, more items, more monsters, more detailed party interactions and a much more sophisticated encounter system where monster distribution makes more sense than just random placement of enemies in a random dungeon.

If anyone is keen to give it a go and give me some feedback, I’d be very appreciative!

[getter77]

Sounds extremely promising.

[Troubler]

Didn't the Incursion guy do a similar thing but was really careful not to reference D&D for legal reasons?
You might want to look into that.

[pat]

I’ve looked into it in great detail, and I’m a lawyer myself. Incursion is a similar concept in relation to 3.5e but a much more complicated project. I’m not sure what licensing issues (if any) Julian came up against, but I’ve been careful to comply with the law with this game.

Everything in the game is part of the SRD and the Basic Rules are mostly a very stripped back version of that. Where something comes up which isn’t part of the SRD then I remove it. There’s only a few instances of that so far and the game follows the Open Game Licence, the text of which is distributed with the game.

[getter77]

Should be fine, 5e's orientation on SRD/OGL is more straightforward compared to the 3.x era---and even that era was still ample enough to give rise to Incursion, Knights of the Chalice and the soon to be sequel, Low Magic Age, etc without them chafing overly much on adaptation.

[Skeletor]

Well done and very ambitious project, heaps of content in D&D 5th Edition.

[pat]

There's been plenty of progress over the last week and as always, I've uploaded the latest dev build for download at: https://patjw.itch.io/theredprison

* To resolve issues with content in the SRD under the OGL, the Stout race has been removed and has been replaced by the Stoutheart race based on the original work of Julian Mensch in the game Incursion based on OGL 3.5e d20 - Stouthearts are a hardy race of halflings although implemented but not finished in the final version published by Julian, they were enabled once the source was released.

* Wood elves and mountain dwarves have been removed and replaced by versions inspired by wood elves and mountain dwarves published under the OGL as part of the 3.5e D&D SRD.

* Added extra attack per turn to veteran.

* Created new NPCS: archmage (spells unfinished), assassin (assassinate ability unfinished), bandit captain, cult fanatic, gladiator, scout and spy.

* Fixed bug with missing challenge rating data for new NPC's.

* Implemented opportunity attacks. Now on every move, a check is done of adjacent creatures and compared to adjacent creatures after you have moved. If this results in a creature not being adjacent to the second tile, it is assumed that you have moved away and they get an opportunity attack on you. Amended the attack function to allow for this to enforce only a single attack on this reaction and to show the text (OA) when it takes place.

* Added 3 new vault templates for the map generator.

* Made poisonous monsters poison upon a successful attack.

* New monsters: lion, lizard, lizardfolk, mammoth, manticore, mastiff, medusa, merfolk, minotaur, mule, mummy, nothic, ochre jelly, octopus, ogre.

* Fixed bug with being able to give orders to and recruit unconscious NPC's. You could knock them out, then ask them to join you before reviving them, which has now been removed.

* Fixed bug with ordering allies to light and put out torch. Sloppy coding led to me assuming that all allies had the same torch status, while now it properly checks each one.

* Tweaked colours for lit and dark floors to make it easier for stealthy players to stay in the dark.

* Blindsight wasn't doing anything at all so now it actually works and it's practically much the same as darkvision for now. A lot more monsters will be able to see you in the dark.

* Any key press now interrupts autoexplore. Previously it just kept going until it ran into an enemy, ran out of areas to explore or experienced an error for some reason.

* Much like the only OGL martial archetype was champion for fighters, the only domain for clerics is life. So all cleric's are now life domain and get the preserve life channel divinity power at level 2 along with being able to turn undead (both of which are works in progress).

* Implemented new ability menu accessible by pressing 'a'. Updated help screen to reflect this.

* Changed talking to monsters by making it able to target any creature in sight. I don't see why you can't yell out at an NPC to ask them to join you or die rather than having to stand next to them. Same with giving orders - it should work at a distance and it now does and this is consistent with how group ordering works as well.

* Realised that there was a bug where you could ask ANY monster whatsoever to join your party and not just NPC's. Fixed by adding an NPC flag to all monsters to check against. Updated various messages to reflect this new possibility.

* Implemented second wind ability for fighters. Can heal 1d10 + character level hp, but need to rest before can use it again.

* Part of implementing abilities was this involved needing to deal with removing effects on creatures after a long rest was taken. This was done in a general sense by the creation of an instance of Condition which can have a wide range of effects and basically deals with all buffs, maluses and misc effects on creatures. I added a new flag for this 'remove_on_rest' and went through and removed all those conditions from all creatures on a long rest.

* Added action surge ability for fighters. Grants an extra turn on the next move but can't be used again until another rest has been taken.

* Tidied up bugs to do with action surge and it works properly now. It doesn't take a turn to activate and allows the player to effectively make a free move once at a time of their choosing - ie. two attacks or two moves or a combination of that or other actions.

* Implemented turn undead. Cleric can channel divinity to turn undead once per rest (twice after level 6, thrice after level 18). Created new AI type for scared creatures which means that they move away from the cleric on every turn if possible upon a failed wisdom saving throw. Undead are now scared for 20 turns upon successful turn undead - the rules as written say this expires when damage is inflicted, but I think it's more fun to be able to herd monsters into a corner and slaughter them while scared. Effects all creatures in sight with the 'undead' trait. Implemented temporary conditions to record the use of channel divinity because the number of uses per rest is also used for the purposes of the yet-to-be-implemented preserve life ability.

* Changed giant weasel colour because it was too similar to giant rat and shared the same character.

* Implemented preserve life. Also uses the same channel divinity system as turn undead. Allows the user to select as many targets in sight as they like (excluding undead and constructs, but not excluding enemies otherwise). It then goes through them removing duplicates, before healing them in order. Total healing power limited to 3 x user level and can only heal up to half of the max HP of the target creature.

* Made healing word not take a turn to use, although it is restricted to one use per turn. It is meant to be a bonus action in the rules as written but this concept doesn't exist neatly in game, but that workaround seems to be good enough.

* Fixed bug where incapacitated creatures would take opportunity attacks.

* Made it so that any source of healing is enough to wake up an unconscious creature and give them 1HP before applying the healing effect.

* Fixed bug with poison spray cantrip - somehow an error snuck in where it caused a crash.

* Changed colour of title screen to red to fit the name of the game.

* Fixed bugs with recently added game state variables not being initialised upon loading games. It caused a crash when games were loaded previously but should be working now.

* Fixed bug with autoexplore where target wasn't reset upon changing levels.

* Changed colour of bugbear because it looked like black bears.

* Fixed bug where protection applied to allies even when defender was unconscious.

* Changed 'guard location' order to allies to a more general 'move to location'. Amended the function which allows selection of an unexplored and out-of-sight target as a destination. It can be in walls and a blocked square and the allies will still try and get to it. They deliberately don't pathfind to the target because that'll ruin dungeon exploration a bit, but they'll try to dumb-path their way there, so it can be used to send allies into unexplored rooms and the like which is helpful if you're a non-combat build.

[pat]

* Reversed display order of weapon name and to-hit bonus. It occurred to me that it was back to front.

* Reduced rest counter from 100 to 50.

* Started work on level 2 wizard spells - darkness, flaming sphere, hold person, invisibility, magic weapon, misty step, shatter, web.

* Started work on level 2 cleric spells - aid, lesser restoration, prayer of healing, silence, spiritual weapon, warding bond.

* Finished darkness spell. Allows caster to target a tile and darkness effect applied to that tile and every tile within 3 steps of that spot. Overrides all illumination effects and creates an artificial dark pool. Required changes to the Effect class to allow for invisible effects and dark effects and also changes to the light calculation routuine to look for these new dark objects.

* Added changes to the general effect system. Previously it was only used for the torches seen on walls. They weren't items in the usual sense but rather an abstract effect which had the illumination tag attached. Darkness was the first effect which wasn't permanent so that meant that different issues came up with durations, effects taking turns to count down duration and finally, removal of spent effects. All these issues sorted which opens the door to a pretty useful system for things like flames, clouds, gases, caltrops, oil on the ground etc.

* Added darkness spell to all characters with the preset Human Wizard start for testing purposes. Otherwise 2nd level spells don't appear in-game yet because spellbooks are on the to-do list.

* Finished flaming sphere spell. Like for darkness, current version has it added as a spell for the preset Human Wizard for testing purposes. Creates an immobile object on the map with the illumination property. Added a special case for the Effect class take_turn function which searches for all creatures adjacent. They make a saving throw against the caster's spell power (saved in the flaming sphere object as a special variable). On a successful save, they take 1d6 damage. On a failed save, they take 2d6 damage. Fire immune creatures are not affected.

[pat]

Pretty solid development week with a lot of work being done on new spells - I finished the basic set of level 2 spells for wizards and clerics!

Hopefully this means that the gameplay for casters is a bit more nuanced now with a few more tools at your disposal. Spellbooks aren't in yet, so if you want to try out these spells use the premade Human Wizard template to start with them all.

This week that will change though because I've built the foundations for magic items, so hopefully by this time next week I'll have spellbooks done alongside a few other items.

* Fixed bug in companion AI. An error in the code made NPC's jump around rather than walking tile by tile when trying to heal. Should now be working properly.

* Finished hold person spell. On a failed wisdom save, replaces the AI with a held person AI for 20 turns or until they make a successful wisdom save. Available for all clerics and as for testing purposes on premade Human Wizards.

* Fixed bug where I forgot to make flaming sphere cause damage.

* Fixed bug where player can kill themselves with a spell area of effect, and double their XP as a result.

* Fixed bug in companion AI where still tried to path to player after they were dead.

* Finished invisibility spell. Applies a condition to caster or another creature within touching distance which lasts 100 turns and prevents all other creatures from seeing them. Creatures with the blindsight trait can still sense them. Gives advantage to an attacker who attacks whilst invisible against an unaware creature. Changed attack function to remove invisibility condition upon any attack. Changed spell function to remove condition upon casting as well. Doesn't take into account magical detection abilities but they don't exist in-game yet.

* Updated opportunity attack function to make invisible creatures not take these. It cancels invisibility automatically and that's probably not something that I want people to have unwittingly happen.

* Updated UI to show whether proficient or not in equipped armour and shields.

* Fixed bug where creatures were taking opportunity attacks against unseen actors.

* Updated display functions to take into account hidden and invisible monsters.

* Added the ability for items to have temporary conditions applied to them. Added a check for every turn to loop through all items on map and all items in all actor's inventories to make those conditions take a turn. A fair bit of extra complexity but necessary for temporary effects such as the magic weapon spell.

* Changed message system for expiring conditions to allow messages to be given to player for effects on items in player's inventory. It also works for items in sight on the ground.

* Updated UI to reflect changes to items with temporary conditions. Updated combat routines to deal with items with temporary conditions.

* Updated UI to show whether proficient or not with armour and shields equipped. This wasn't clear before because the only outcome was disadvantage when attacking, so now it's clear.

* Reworked torches and their illumination quality. It was previously a trait but that was a bad fit, and instead it's not a permanent condition like other enchantments and effects on items.

* Finished magic weapon spell. Lets player choose an item in inventory. Creates a new effect which adds +1 to hit bonus and +1 damage for 100 turns before expiring. Doesn't work on anything which isn't a weapon.

* Finished misty step spell. Allows caster to teleport to any square within 6 tiles.

* Finished shatter spell. Area of effect damage 3d8 to anyone with 2 squares of target tile. Successful constitution save halves the damage.

* Finished web spell. Creates a new effect on each square within 2 squares of target. Web effect checks each turn for an actor on its location. If so, they must make a dexterity save. On fail, they are now 'stuck'. Stuck is handled by attaching a new condition to that actor which makes them make a successful strength saving throw before they are able to move. The duration of this condition is the same as the original effect, so they should both expire at the same time otherwise. Added checks to all move functions to account for this.

* Added check for unconscious status to remove if hp ever goes above 0 for any reason. This will hopefully catch any odd instances where hp's are added somehow in a weird way.

* Finished aid spell. 2nd level cleric spell which lets you pick 3 creatures and boost their hp and max_hp by 5 for 8 hours. There seems to be some conjecture about what happens when the spell expires and you need those 5 hp to stay alive, so I've gone with the view that you get to keep the current hp but not the max_hp. This avoids any of those weird scenarios.

* Finished lesser restoration spell (for now). Touch effect to remove a range of harmful conditions. The only one that exists in game right now is being poisoned, so it just cures that. Will need to revisit for deafness, blindness, and paralysation.

* Finished prayer of healing. 2nd level cleric spell which heals up to 6 creatures in sight of 2d8 plus wisdom bonus of HP.

* Finished spiritual weapon. 2nd level cleric spell which creates a new object on the map of the caster's faction which fights alongside the caster. The rules as written call for a high level of control over the weapon, but that didn't seem like fun so I gave it autonomy. It's effectively a flying sword with 100 HP (making it practically indestructible for our purposes) and with a to-hit bonus and damage bonus of the caster's wisdom ability modifier.

* Created a new 'summoned' condition to apply to creatures which makes them disappear after a certain duration and made this apply to spiritual weapons. Can easily be extended to any kind of summoned creature imaginable.

* Adjusted pathfinding to make allies slightly prefer going through doors rather than switching places with allied creatures.

[pat]

After receiving a fair few requests in a row for a graphical version, I decided to start fiddling around with the concept and it snowballed into some furious programming over the last few days.

I ended up ignoring my previous plans for the week and threw myself headfirst into implementing this new mode. After playing around with the libtcod graphical tile options, I decided that it was too limiting and brought bearlibterminal into the mix for the UI with libtcod for behind-the-scenes stuff.

This of course meant that I spent about two days completely rewriting the game's UI. At some points I regretted this immensely and it felt like I'd broken things irretrievably, but it eventually came together and I've grown to really like bearlibterminal. The next two days were spent doing the grunt work to get tiles into place and into the game.

Here's the current version:



I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with the resolution of the main map, but I'll leave it for a while to see if it grows on me. It's definitely harder to parse than ascii, but that was always going to be an issue and I think the masses don't care about that as much as I do.

[pat]

Tiles version finished and released: https://patjw.itch.io/theredprison

[pat]

New version released with ascii being back as an option, both in 8x8 and 16x16, along with a bunch of other changes. Biggest development is that party members now cast spells in attack and to heal which actually makes it a choice between veterans, mages and priests as companions.



* Reimplemented ascii mode as an option to toggle between with '`'.

* Changed key code for ascii to F1 because I was having some problems on different systems. Experimented with a few different view options but opted against changing things for now.

* Fixed typo in message for talking to non-talking creatures.

* Changed tile for veteran into something a bit more menacing.

* Changed ascii map view to 16x16 font for more readability and played around with a few different font options.

* Tidied up references to colours which existed in libtcod but not understood by BLT.

* Fixed functions with targetting and different display systems so everything should be working now and look relatively neat.

* Added extra small ascii display mode, because I saw that Incursion did this with 8x8 font. Changed the terminal 8x8 font being used to the Incursion 8x8 font, which was very similar anyway.

* Fixed bug with displaying walls in line of sight but not visible in ascii modes. They were being drawn in black and not a shade of grey.

* Wizards now start with a choice of 6 level 1 spells. Considering that there is only 7 options, there isn't all that much choice at this stage. Human Wizard templates gets them all apart from thunderwave.

* Wizards get two spells of a level which they can cast on levelup.

* Changed player starting XP to 0 - this seems good enough when you have a party to keep you alive and level 1 monsters are not very threatening.

* Updated acid splash to show area of effect. Updated number of wizard spells to show projectile path.

* Added new AI type for magic using companions. Made this AI be allocated at NPC generation and when converted during the game if they have the 'magic' proficiency. Allocated that proficiency to all potential NPC types so that spell slots are allocated accordingly. Added artifical levels to these NCP's so they'll have the appropriate spell slots.

* Added ability for companions to use shocking grasp or inflict wounds when in melee range. This triggers 30% of the time currently if the spells are available.

* Added ability for companions to use fire bolt and sacred flame when at range. This triggers 30% of the time if spells are available.

* Added ability for companions to use cure wounds if near an ally at 25% health or less during combat. Outside of combat, will look for an ally in that injured and state and walk to them and cast heal.

[pat]

This week saw me do a bit of the background work needed for more items. Each weapon and armour type got its own unique tile along with a few other changes and bug-fixes. Items are still a work in progress and I hope to get a fair few more done in the next week along with magic weapons and armour. The systems for magic items is already builty but I've got a few issues to work out in terms of displaying them when compared to normal items.

* Added unique tiles for each armour and weapon type along with other miscellaneous items.

* Changed number of wizard starting spells to 3 level 1 spells along with 3 cantrips. Changed number of new wizard spells per level up to 1 per level.

* Fixed bug with magic missiles causing doubling up of targets because of AI being able to use the spell.

* Properly implemented benefit of constitution bonus for level up. Previously didn't recalculate this for all pre-existing character levels. Fixed this by tracking the unmodified base max HP from character creation and recalculating this from scratch on each level up by adding the HP bonus per level arising from constitution (and dwarvern toughness).

* Implemented potions of healing. Added custom graphical tile. Fixed some old bugs to do with items which can't be used as equipment which have lingered because this is the first non-equipment item to be implemented.

* Implemented vial of acid. Thrown one-use projectile which causes 2d6 damage.

[pat]

The Red Prison is now open source! The code is horrible but it's yours...



* Fixed XP distribution. Now only happens on monster death, not KO. This should avoid scenarios where player can exploit KO'ing NPC's for free XP.

* Fixed bug where player would not be drawn as being red when dead and waiting for new game. Used a special variable in the unconscious condition to track which monster was the attacker for XP purposes if death follows. Changed around the order of a few things because with XP being awarded only at the last minute, some features of dead monsters needed to be tracked longer.

* Added more information for magic missile spell to make sure it's clear that you can select multiple targets.

* Started work on mob generation. Basically the plan is to pick a few iconic and fun monster types and make them generate in groups. One is picked as the leader and the rest have the companion AI much like player companions. Currently there is a 1-in-10 chance of generating a mob in a vault rather than the usual monster generation routine. Special factions created for mobs named after their monster name which means that they'll be friendly to each other but hostile to the rest of the dungeon. The idea is to progress from here to giving certain mob members templates to mix things up a bit - orcs might become shamans, kobolds might become mages, and gnolls might become thugs.

* Removed ability for mob companions to talk because it was annoying. Removed ability for mob companions to revive because it slowed down the AI checking. Moved around part of companion AI to try and fix bottleneck impacting on game speed.

* AI companion pathfinding was too inhibitive for bigger mobs, so introduced an AI constant of path_finding_chance. Player allies always use pathfinding but monsters only use it 20% of the time.

* Added orc mobs (made up of 3 to 5 regular orcs for now) and undead mobs (made up of 3 to 5 undead out of skeletons, ghouls and zombies).

* For some reason my AI changes have broken pathfinding and I can't figure out why so reverting to old versions from a couple of days ago.

* Fixed rare out of bounds bug in basic monster AI.

* Turned pathfinding altogher for monster mobs because of the bottleneck that it creates. This might result in a few monster being separated from the rest of the pack but that's not the end of the world.

* Added bandit mobs led by a bandit captain.

* Fixed bug with shield proficiency not being displayed properly.

* Made names of corpses appear red in the list of objects within sight for clarity.

* Created templates for orc and kobold mages and shamans. 10% chance of each monster as part of those mobs being given these templates. Spells and magic proficiency given to each one along with special magic user AI.

* Tweaked moving routines to try and make things cleaner.

[pat]

Big changes for the week:

* Magic weapons and armour are in! There's a chance that every item in these categories generated in the dungeon will have an enchantment and then there are different varieties with different rarities ranging from +1 (uncommon) to +3 (very rare).

* Enemy mobs have new support with ranged fighters joining their ranks. Kobold slingers, orc chuckers and bandit archers now appear and can be very dangerous. This adds a whole new element of light management to the game, because they can't shoot you if they can't see you in the dark so consider extinguishing your torches as you sneak up on your enemies!

* New keyboard shortcuts to streamline play - walk into doors to open them instead of always pressing 'o'; 'F' to fire last projectile at last target (if they're still alive); 'M' cast last spell at last target, but warning, this might be a bit screwy because some spells don't easily fit into categories which will work with this but the game might let you try anyway.



Full change list:

* Amended targetting with +/- to give a choice between targeting hostile or friendly creatures first. Makes ranged combat and casting a lot faster.

* Fixed bug with casting bless and failing to select a proper target caused a crash.

* Fixed allocation of cleric spells. 2nd level spells are now all awarded at character level 3 when you get your first 2nd level spell slot. Will be maintained as higher level spells are implemented.

* Fixed allocation of wizard spells. On each level up, you can only select a new spell which is castable for your level. This stops the player picking uncastable level 2 spells from the start etc.

* Added quick fire command as 'F'. Player will attempt to make a ranged attack against the last target if that target is still active and not incapacitated.

* Added quick cast command as 'M'. Player will attempt to cast the last spell against the last target is that target is still active and not incapacitated.

* Amended all possible spells with a simple target to be passed so they work with quick casting. If a spell doesn't take a target in that way and a quick cast is attempted to use it, then it will hopefully just work like an ordinary spell.

* Fixed out of bounds bug in companion AI.

* Added basic functions for adding permanent conditions to items to enchant them. Implemented routines for adding these conditions to weapons and armour. Added name overrides to make sure that the base item name isn't changed but the enchantment is displayed on screen. Added name prefixes and suffixes as well.

* Implemented random chance of every armour and weapon found in the dungeon to be enchanted.

* Implemented distribution of higher enchanted items - 10% of any enchantment at all. From there: 5% chance of +3, 20% chance of +2, 75% chance of +1.

* Implemented monsters with range attacks. New AI type which will fight melee at close range or at distance will not approach but rather 50% of the time will make a ranged attack. Added new base stats for monsters which will be able to make ranged attacks. Started with kobold archers and they are implemented with a 10% chance of each kobold in a mob being an archer. Added flag to pass to attack routine to make sure it knows to look for ranged attack stats as opposed to normal stats in the stat block.

* Redid movement functions to hopefully iron out some kinks by resorting to excessive long if statements.

* Changed kobold archer to kobold slinger. Added orc chucker and bandit archer to the respective mobs.

* Fixed bug where incapacitated enemy in line of sight was preventing ally from reviving.

* Added open door on an attempt to move into a closed door rather than having to use the 'o'pen command.