This update makes improvements and fixes to many parts of the game, including much of the core logic.
These improvements will enable the expansion (coming autumn 2025, wishlist now! ^^), but there is of course risk of regressions when hitting the core logic. If you notice any new bug in the game, please I'll be very happy if you report it!
Features:
You can now press Q, left-click or right-click during any movement or animation to skip through it.
Mid-encounter saves are now more reliable.
Story mode: Fixed that save games sometimes displayed "Dawnsbury" instead of the name of the level
Story mode: Fixed that some mid-encounter saves couldn't be loaded and desynced.
Story mode: Made mid-encounter saves more resilient to version upgrades and modlist changes.
Story mode: Mid-encounter saves made from now on will contain a copy of your gameplay-relevant settings, such as house rule settings, and restore them on load. This way, even if you change your settings in between saving and loading a mid-encounter save, it will be possible to fully load that save.
Modding: You can now override any image in the game with your own .png files by putting your replacement files in the folder CustomReplacementIllustrations. Steam Workshop mods can also use this to override base game art. The intent is to enable talented modders to create "asset packs" that allow you to use a different style of art for monsters etc.
Character content:
New feat: Combat Reflexes
New spells: disrupting weapons, ghostly weapon, polar ray, wail of the banshee, cataclysm (Now, Dawnsbury Days has at least one spell of each spell level!)
New item: potion of animal speech
You can now prebuff your kineticist with Armor in Earth, Metal Carapace or Hardwood Armor.
Audio:
Audio: Added sound effects to some actions that didn't have them.
Encounter (S4E1): Added an ambient rain noise.
Enemy tactics:
Tactics: Enemies will no longer prioritize low-level targets such as summoned creatures solely because they are of lower level.
Modding:
Modding (reversal!): Illustrations are now loaded in order of "last loaded wins". So, if you have two mods that both override the same base game illustration or both add a modded illustration of the same name, the mod that's the last in mod load order "wins out" and its illustration is used. To ensure your mod is later in the mod load order than another mod, add to your mod either a hard dependency on the other mod using Steam UI or a soft dependency by adding the mod ID of the other mod to your optional-dependencies.txt file. This is a reversal from previous functionality where the first loaded mod won out and is intended to allow asset pack creators to override default art of content mods.
Modding: Added CombatAction.WithDescription.
Modding: Added QEffect.OfferExtraReaction.
Modding: Added ModManager.RegisterNewSoundEffect(string audioFilename, float volumeAdjustment)
Modding: Added Trait.Repeating6 and Trait.Repeating8 and WeaponProperties.RepeatingMagazineSize for arbitrary magazine sizes.
Modding: Added Trait.Thrown30Feet, Trait.Thrown40Feet, Trait.Thrown50Feet and Trait.Thrown60Feet and WeaponProperties.WithThrownXFeet(int squares) for arbitrary thrown ranges.
Modding: Added Trait.Volley20Feet and Trait.Volley50Feet and WeaponProperties.VolleyRange for arbitrary volley ranges.
User interface:
Classes (Kineticist): Character sheets now show impulse DC and attack bonuses next to the Impulse section like the spellcasting section does.
Classes (Magus): Added subclass specific details to the hover over description of Arcane Cascade
Classes (Magus): Improved context menu display of Spellstrike.
Items (runestone of shock): The explosion from Runestone of Shock now no longer inherits the properties of the triggering strike on a crit.
Map: Dropped items now display with their art instead of the generic "pouch" art on the battle map. If there's two or more items on the same tile, this is still displayed as a pouch.
Spells (Breath of Life): An explanation of why you were unable to cast this spell now appears in the log, so you can see why you lost the game even though Breath of Life might have been available otherwise.
Spells (Reaction Spells): The following spells now specify their spell level when asking the player if they want to cast them: blood vendetta, deflect critical hit, shadow projectile, rebounding barrier, breath of life.
User interface: Action icons used to have a white jagged edge on some resolutions (thank you @Coopo for cleaning this up!)
User interface: Creature statblocks now display special movement mods, such as flying or swimming, at the top.
User interface: Fixed that skills sometimes displayed in too large a font in creature stat blocks on some resolutions.
User interface: Improved scaling of icons in a context menu.
User interface: Items held in hands displayed stretched out over the bottom-left portrait of the active creature.
Balancing:
Pregenerated characters (Sorcerer): Level 8: Chaotic Spell -> Spell Resistance
Pregenerated characters (Sorcerer): Level 9: Bard Dedication -> Rogue Dedication (Religion, light armor, Terrified Retreat)
Encounters (S6E1): On Medium difficulty only, removed one Ochre Jelly.
Animal companions: Capybara now has swimming.
System:
Feedback: Added DLC2 information to the main feedback form.
New house rule: Added a house rule to always succeed on out-of-combat skill checks.
Performance: When you press F3, you can now toggle in-game FPS and UPS monitor (and later, other performance metrics) to help debug slowdowns.
Steam Cloud: All device-independent settings, such as enabled house rules, are now stored in the Steam Cloud and will now be the same on all devices you use.
Steam: Added achievements for the Good Little Children Never Grow Up expansion.
System: Added automated system tests that verify actual gameplay functions as expected, in the hope that this will prevent future regressions that would require hotfixes.
Removals:
Removed the "Drop prone" action. It occupied extra space in Settings, and I've never seen anyone use it.
Removed the house rule that causes swapping items to cost 2 actions instead of 1 because barely anyone used it.
Removed the option to preload everything immediately because that takes up too much memory now and makes memory crashes too frequent.
Performance:
Performance: Moved recalculation of lines of sight onto a background thread to speed up opening doors.
Performance: Improved performance through reduction in string operations and reflection.
Performance: Reduced Dawnsbury Days load time, story mode load time, character library load time and save game load time through optimizations in deserialization.
Performance: Reduced FPS pressure and memory consumption through an optimization in text layout processing.
Performance: Reduced FPS pressure from the display of rain droplets on rain maps.
Performance: Reduced FPS pressure through elimination of an imperceptible gradient-style draw.
Performance: Reduced FPS pressure through elimination of unnecessary lower-phase draws.
Performance: Reduced the time-to-draw for entering the Free encounter mode.
Bugfixes:
Ancestries (Oozekin): Immunity to precision damage didn't appear in Immunities block.
Animations: Fixed that smart-center didn't always zoom towards the exact target if it was close to the edge of the map.
Classes (Bard): Fixed that Bard incorrectly received Resolve at level 1 instead of level 9.
Classes (Bard): Fixed that Bard incorrectly received bardic weapon expertise at level 1 instead of level 13.
Classes (Kineticist): Lava Leap can be used as a pacifying impulse.
Classes (Kineticist): The Kineticist's Extract element impulse now correctly grants enemies with immunities resistance equal to their level.
Dialogue: Fixed that you couldn't open the in-game menu when prompted to select a dialogue choice in a noncombat event.
Encounters (S2E3): Fixed that Scarlet didn't have armor even though she joined Anna on her watch.
Encounters (S5E2): The locked door in the shrine said that the Thievery DC is 22, but the game actually checked your roll against a DC 24. The DC 22 is correct and is now used.
Feats (Battle Medicine): When you're only trained and not expert, you should only get DC 15 option, not DC 20 option.
Monsters (incorporeal creatures): Fixed that incorporeal creatures could be grappled by monsters' grab ability.
Monsters (incorporeal creatures): Immunity to precision damage and combat maneuvers didn't appear in Immunities block.
Rules: Chests can no longer take damage, and they don't make saving throws.
Spells (Dominate): Multiple instances of the controlled condition can now stack without causing errors. Monsters will also be less likely to dominate the same creature twice.
Spells (Elemental Form), monsters (Hamatula), NPCs (Talia): Fixed that effects that say "movement doesn't provoke reactions" didn't prevent reactions caused by you standing up.
Spells (Elemental Breath): Fixed that the metal variant of the spell could sometimes crash the rules engine.
Spells (Flame Strike): Fixed that casting the spell against fire-immune enemies could sometimes crash the rules engine.
Text (S5E3, S7E4, S9E2, S9E3, S9E5, Bard, Champion, Cleric, Oracle, Bodak, Nabasu, Lesser Death, rules blocks, Primal Caltrops): Removed extra spaces.
Text: Added additional uses of various skills to the skill descriptions in preparation for the release of Good Little Children Never Grow Up.
Text: Fixed various errors in stat blocks, feat and spell descriptions.
Text: Improved text and display slightly in places across the game.
User interface: Fixed that Gaia objects HP bars didn't show lost HP properly.
Good Little Children Never Grow Up patch notes (3.51):
The following text contains spoilers for the upcoming expansion, and if you're not part of the playtest, it probably means nothing to you anyway. If you are interested in participating in the playtest, I plan to open registration for it publicly in September. I will post about it here.
Art: Improved the art of all maps of Good Little Children Never Grow Up: Less jagged borders on paths, brighter beach and water, marked difficult terrain, improved marking of doors in the orphanage, removed extra obstacle art that wasn't a real obstacle, replaced some decorations, added a fireball blast mark underneath the wooden statuette, added the text "Don't move the rocks" written into the boys' dormitory, made full obstacles feel more solid, added cobwebs to the secret hallway, made the main entrance a double door.
Audio: Updated music for Good Little Children Never Grow Up.
Balancing (S9E2): Calm down the hound DC: 24->21
Balancing (S9E2): Exorcism DC: 26->24
Balancing (S9E2): Food Poisoning Fortitude DC: Medium 26->24, Hard 28->26, Insane 30->28
Balancing (S9E2): Food Poisoning damage: Insane: 5d6/10d6/15d6/20d6 -> 4d6/8d6/12d6/16d6
Balancing (S9E2): Pet the hound DC: 24->21
Balancing (S9E2): Rotting Banquet Will DC: Medium 28->26, Hard 30->28, Insane 32->30
Balancing (S9E4): Hard: All adventurers: Level 9->8
Balancing (S9E4): Insane: Revenant Fighter, Rogue and Ranger: Level 10->9; Sorcerer: Level 9->Level 8 (though retains level 5 spells), removed level 5 Cold Hands (retains 1 level 5 Cone of Cold)
Balancing (S9E4): Medium: Removed the Revenant Rogue
Balancing (S9E5): Grandmother: Superiority removed
Balancing (S9E5): Grandmother: Unknowable Display DC: 30->28
Balancing (S9E5): Grandmother: Unknowable Display now once per encounter instead of once per 1d4 rounds
Balancing (S9E5): Hard: Grandmother Normal -> Weak
Balancing (S9E5): Insane: Grandmother Elite -> Normal
Balancing (S9E5): Insane: Possessed children are no longer supreme
Encounters (S9E2): Renamed Lava hazard to Ember hazard.
Encounters (S9E2, S9E3): Fixed that the animation of an explosion when you trigger a trap by opening a chest would sometimes come from a different chest.
Encounters (S9E2, S9E3): Unconscious heroes no longer move when using Group movement.
Encounters (S9E3): Allowed canceling of Planar Binding mid-cast.
Encounters (S9E3): Fixed that the Planar Binding ritual caused the game to crash if you didn't have at least 2 pieces of the ritual.
Encounters (S9E3): Fixed that the hamatula's attack of opportunity didn't trigger on incoming melee attacks, and that the hamatula didn't have Combat Reflexes.
Encounters (S9E3): If Azor joined your party, he now enters initiative at the beginning of the encounter as normal.
Encounters (S9E5): Fixed that even if you were promised assistance from Lenka, you didn't get the ability to cleanse domination from the Tarnak children and from Sable.
Encounters (S9E5): Fixed that if you were promised assistance from both Lenka and Lord Sinnthrix, you would receive neither.
Encounters (S9E5): Fixed that the contract devil didn't plane shift out when reduced to 20 HP or less.
Monsters (contract devil): The devil can now grapple with its binding contract, including at reach. It's also now skilled in Athletics.
Monsters (devils): Fixed that damage resistance to non-silver was always 5 instead of the appropriate number.
Monsters (zetogeki): Fixed that the zetogeki sometimes cycled between tilting scales and untilting scales without doing anything effective.
Text: Fixed text issues in noncombat skill checks.