The Iron Oath [Turn Based Tactical RPG]

• A large and dynamic overworld to traverse: 9 regions with over 50 towns and cities to visit. Cities can be overtaken, destroyed and rebuilt, and various factions can emerge, rise and fall. A playthrough can potentially last hundreds of years, resulting in many changes to the initial world state.
• In-depth roster management: Characters will age and die frequently in combat and you will be required to to recruit new members and keep them satisfied. Your guilds reputation in the world will shift depending on your actions, presenting the opportunity to create both allies and enemies.
• Variety of Classes: Each class has their strengths and weaknesses which you will need to take into account when assembling your party. We will be launching with at least 12 different classes, allowing for many different options when it comes to tactics.
• Hand crafted and dynamic missions to complete: Many missions will be generated dynamically based on the state of the world, but there will also be unique hand crafted questlines for you to play through, including the main storyline.
• Numerous environments to explore: Missions will occur in a variety of indoor and outdoor environments filled with a variety of enemies, secrets, traps and long forgotten artifacts.
• Tactical turn based combat: Combat occurs on a hex grid and you must figure out how best to navigate each enemy encounter. Proper party composition and resource management(from both items and abilities) is vital.
• Unique character development: Every recruitable character has their own personal backstory that shapes their motives, personality and traits.
• Decisions matter: Choices bear consequences in many forms. Choosing to assault a trade cart on your journey could result in a powerful faction sending assassins after you.
• A fleshed out world backstory to uncover: NPC's are not fountains of knowledge. Many secrets remain in the world and you will need to discover things on your own through context and other avenues.
• Dark orchestral soundtrack by Alex Roe: Alex(https://alexroe.bandcamp.com) is well known for his Dark Souls remixes and we're thrilled to have him in charge of our soundtrack.

sennin said:

Heh, I tried to edit my reply and put the introduction back in, but as soon as it saved and went through it got deleted aswell lol, so ya I guess it's getting flagged as spam. Guess I need to message a mod?

We actually are putting a big focus on all 3 of those aspects We have the backstory of the world already written out and a story that goes with it. Your characters have unique personalities & interact with each other and other NPC's(both neutral and enemies) that you come across during missions. Making choices will definitely bear consequence and can potentially affect the world and your characters loyalty to the company(they can approve or disapprove of choices you make).

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daveyd said:

I think I initially read too much into this line on your website "At its core, it’s a turn based tactical RPG with a focus on dungeon crawling."

Now that I've had a chance to read over the FAQ & what you posted here it's sounding far more interesting to me. I'll most likely back it. Is there any character customization (do you have choices over what skills / abilities to focus on, or does every class have a set skills progression)?

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beldurax said:

Really looking fwd to the KS on this title. This looks like a winner, IMO.

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wiretripped said:

I'm considering backing…

The KS states there'll be exploration during missions, but in the vids I don't really see that. Are missions (and dungeons) linear? Will they have branching paths, secret passages and such, or is it simply just always moving forward down the corridor?

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As for the exploration, yes and no. While for the most part you will always be generally traveling left to right(or the reverse), there is a bit of vertical exploration as well. A hallway can have some small rooms both above and below for you to explore(these are generally places where you would want to camp), and the halls can also open up into larger rooms where you may have to walk up or down a bit to get to find your objective or the next doorway.

Here is a shot of our current minimap(http://vvcap.com/img/mWCpdUAAL7O.png).

It's still a bit basic and doesn't yet signify when there are rooms adjacent to the hallways. It is "3D" in the sense that doorways may take you up, down, left, right or even to a different floor, but from your perspective you will always be going horizontally(aside from the elements mentioned above).

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Hey everyone, hope you all had a great weekend! Yesterday we hit 75% funding and are 3/4 of the way there with more than half of the campaign still yet to come! Your support has been incredible, so thank you again. As mentioned on the weekend, you’ve unlocked the first Social Reward by reaching 4 Social Goals, so without further delay, we present to you the Grappler class:

Grapplers thrive in close quarters combat where their fists, mind & reflexes are both a shield and a weapon. While wearing only cloth armor can leave them somewhat vulnerable, they are masters at blocking and countering attacks, and when wounded can slip into a meditative trance to heal themselves.

Here are a few abilities that the Grappler possesses:

Crippling Force: The Grappler cuts through the air with his fist and hurls a shockwave towards his target, damaging and stunning them for 1 round

Three-Fisted Fury: The Grappler dashes forward towards his target and lands 3 lightning quick strikes. If the target dies during the assault, the Grappler dashes to the nearest enemy within range and repeats the ability.

Hurricane: The Grappler delivers a powerful roundhouse kick to the target, damaging and knocking them back 2 cells. Any enemies caught in the knockback are displaced and suffer damage.

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Now that we’ve discussed the main attributes that make up each character(if you haven't yet, go check out the earlier updates!), it’s time to cover character progression. In part one, we’ll be going over some different ways for your characters to progress: aging, leveling up and ranking up.

Since the game is open ended and multi-generational, your characters will grow older until they either retire or die. But a character’s age is not just a number, and it actually has an influence on their primary attributes too. Every attribute in the game has an age bracket where it’s considered at its peak, and your character’s attributes will shift accordingly every time they grow a year older.

For example, a character’s Dexterity would peak somewhere around 25 years old, but their Wisdom attribute would not hit its peak until 60. This also plays a small part in determining when your characters choose to retire. A rogue class could be recruited as young as 16 but may choose to retire before they hit 50. Conversely, finding a young mage might prove difficult, but the ones you do recruit would likely stick around well into their 70s. I’d also like to point out that this does not mean that a character is useless before and after their peak; it’s best to think of their peak as an added attribute bonus like this:

The other way for characters to progress is by leveling up. Every level-up grants a character one attribute point and one ability point for you to spend. I probably don’t need to explain attribute points very much, except to say that you are free to spend them on any primary attribute of your choosing.

Ability points have a bit more depth to them and really allow you to customize your classes. Each class has 6 abilities, and each one of those has its own mini skill-tree of augmentations. Each ability tree is unique unto itself, and various augmentation options are available such as increased range, additional targets, lowered cost and even added conditions(like stun, snare etc). With these trees, two characters of the same class could end up quite different from one another, with each specializing in different aspects of their kit. One could be all about raw power and maximizing the damage on their most expensive ability, while the other may be more useful in hindering enemies by focusing on augmenting their utility abilities.

The last point to cover today is ranks and ranking up. There are 4 different ranks for a character to go through: Novice, Rookie, Veteran and Master(names subject to change). A Novice begins with 4 of the 6 class abilities available to them. Upon achieving the rank of Rookie they will earn a 5th, and becoming a Veteran will unlock the final ability. Once the rank of Master is achieved, that character is then able to become a mentor to another character of the same class. A mentor is able to pass on some of their more positive traits to their apprentice, in addition to boosting the rate at which they earn XP.

Tomorrow in part two, we’ll cover some of the other ways that a character’s stats can be temporarily or permanently altered: Traits, Injuries & Illnesses. Hope you enjoyed the write-up, and as always we encourage you to drop a comment below and let us know your thoughts; we’d be happy to discuss things further!

Thank you for reading and for your support. We're in the final 2 weeks now, and with under $10k to go we hope things can continue smoothly!

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