10.3 Progress and Emily Ability Poll (Patreon)

Greetings! I hope you enjoyed 10.2 - the scene was a touch sad in the beginning (which I didn't exactly intend) but hopefully you thought it was fun by the end. I did enjoy writing the awkward conversation toward the middle - it might've detracted from the scene's hotness a little, but I definitely thought it highlighted Shiri's sweet character :)

Since you last heard from me, I've been at work on 10.3, the first Commercial District update. I've already planned out which quests will be included in this one - the first of which will obviously be the one to reopen the district! All the planned stuff needs a place to happen, though, which is why I've been at work mapping the new district. It's the biggest district, and has the most shops and other places to explore, so it's a fair bit of work. I'm also trying to do a better job with the mapping and make the place look and feel more impressive than the rest of Ogremarsh. The rest of the city has a sort of border town/fortress vibe, and the Commercial District will have some of that, but it should also feel a bit posh.

New Abilities for Chapter 11

While I'm working on that stuff, I figured it would be a good opportunity to put out a poll on what abilities our heroes should get in Chapter 11. As decided by a previous poll, Alex is slated to get a group heal spell. I was going to do Ana next, but I realized I was only really considering 1 option: a strong single-target attack.

As things stand, Ana's only strong attack strikes 2 targets at random. Many fights thus far have involved either selectively attacking something or selectively not attacking something, and in my playthroughs I found myself not using Ana nearly as effectively as I could have because I couldn't control what she would hit. This began to feel kinda dumb after a while, so I decided to remedy this by giving her a strong single-target attack. It'll probably either slightly weaker than 2 of her other ability's hits but cheaper in TP, or stronger than her 2-hits but more expensive. I might also make it scale better with attack power - not sure, still figuring this part out. Might also have it do something else at the same time, but it's primarily intended as a strong single target attack.

Since Ana's new ability is decided, that leaves Emily.

Emily Ability Poll

I have a lot of fun ideas for Emily - she's DPS and they tend to be more fun as a rule. Had a hard time narrowing it down, but here are the choices:

AoE Attack - This ability would consume a large amount of TP and do moderate damage to all enemies (more than Subtle Strike but less than Eviscerate.) Probably call it "Fan of Blades" or something.

Expose Vulnerability - Name isn't finalized, but this one would build a moderate amount of TP, do a modest amount of damage, and place a debuff on the target that causes it to take more damage from physical attacks (including Ana's) for 3 turns or so.

Damage over Time - This would cost no or very little TP and place a debuff on the target that causes it to take damage every turn. 3-4 turns, probably. Called "Bleed" or something similar.

Cheat Death - Still working out some details, but this is an instant ability (meaning you can take another action in the same turn) that would make Emily unable to die for 1 or possibly 2 turns. Any damage that would reduce her HP below 1 would instead reduce it to 1. This is intended for those situations where you've almost got the boss beat, and you could do it if you could get in just a couple more hits, but - BAM! Everybody dies. I'd want her to survive 1 turn guaranteed, but I'm not sure whether to make the 2nd turn a sure thing or a 2/3rds chance - I want to make it useful, but not too overpowered. I may make some fight mechanics that would still be able to kill her, but this would be very rare. This ability could only be used once per fight.

Which one sounds most useful to you? Please let me know any thoughts or suggestions you have on the abilities. Oh, and in other housekeeping news, I've been made aware of a few bugs, so I may put out a bugfix release for 10.2. Thank you for your support!