Lord Soth Reviews: The Stone Prophet, Pt. Two
The spellcasting system in the game was surprisingly robust, with a large number of utility, defensive, and offensive spells for the priest and wizard classes. Available spells for both classes capped at 6th level, though by the end of the game you would almost certainly be at or near 20th level.
The issue Strahd's Possession had with level-draining undead and the lack of any effective means of restoring lost levels was resolved by simply not including any level-draining monsters in the game. In addition, unlike Strahd's Possession and more in line with Menzoberranzan, there were no monster spawns in Stone Prophet.
Instead, dungeons included a large number of traps and a greater number of roaming monsters. During dungeon instances, these roaming monsters would travel up and down the corridors and attack your party if they happened upon you.
This, combined with the large number of floor plate traps had a humorous interaction where in many dungeons the roaming monsters would repeatedly set off traps that would then proceed to kill them. This meant that as you navigated these dungeons you would get messages about a monster being slain - and you would get the experience for killing that monster, since the game's engine gives you the XP when a monster dies whether they died thanks to you or at the hands of a dungeon hazard.
I'm sure the playtesters who ran through the game once upon a time said "lol" at this phenomenon and left it in.
Unlike in Strahd's Possession, a cleric's Turn Undead power now caused undead to flee from the party if it didn't destroy them outright, instead of making them spin in circles. Less funny, more correct.
The game's unique mechanic is a thirst meter; this meter is drained slowly as you travel (I believe the rate is dependent on a character's Constitution score) and replenished by consumption of water skins, or by use of the cleric spell "Create Water". This makes Thirst a largely ignorable mechanic if you have a Cleric in your party and something you need to seriously keep an eye on if you don't, because if your thirst meter runs out... you die pretty quick.
The character options in the game were a slightly simplified version of the Player's Handbook standard; Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Gnome, with character class choices of Fighter, Mage (Wizard), Cleric, and Thief. I believe Gnomes could be Illusionists, which in 2E were a wizard with more potent illusion spells and the ability to spot illusions (in this case, illusionary walls) - however they also had some restrictions, in this case being shut out from most of the game's damaging wizard spells. They were, in essence, a more challenging choice.
You also have the option of taking multi-class characters. For you young'ns, if not playing a human in AD&D 2E you had the option of playing a character that advanced in two or more classes at once, with the caveat that XP earned was split between your classes, so overall you advanced slower. But you could for instance play an Elf who was a Fighter/Mage or a Dwarf who was a Fighter/Cleric.
You can also import characters from Strahd's Possession, thus rewarding you for completing the first game in part or in full with more powerful characters with a significantly higher level, and many of their magic items retained (not all, but most).
Otherwise, your characters begin around 5th level, give or take.
Character generation in the Stone Prophet may be the most stylish of any D&D computer game ever - like Strahd's Posession, character gen takes the form of a Vistani seeress casting Tarokka cards, but is more atmospheric with the seeress making comments at the selection of each card. Menzoberranzan replaced this with Matron Malice getting a vision of her enemies from Lolth, but it was clumsy with a lot of primitive CGI, which Stone Prophet chose to use in a more sparing manner.
The game introduces you as Hellriders of Elturel (much as you were in the Stone Prophet). When the city is confronted with yet another weird reality flux, the city's lord sends you to investigate. Unfortunately you are once more caught and pulled into another realm; the sandy wastes of Har'Akir, as walls of searing heat well up, trapping you within the domain.
...Then you come face-to-face with the Vistani seeress who guided you through character generation lying in the sand, about to expire from a horrible plague. She directs you to the village of Muhar, before dying horribly. This is a very effective, very horrific way to start the game.
Since this is a review and not a walkthrough, I will wrap up this portion of things by summing up thus - the character generation? Stylish and fun. The beginning of the game, atmospheric and horrifying.
What you'll quickly realize? While you're pointed in a specific direction, you can wander off in whatever direction you want. Stone Prophet is a proto open-world game, less linear and more open than Elder Scrolls: Arena, which came out a year before it. Daggerfall would come out the same year as stone Prophet, in 1995.
Next time: Sand, sand, SAAAAAND! *musical flourish*
