Sword Coast Legends, the hotly anticipated new 5E Dungeons & Dragons-based CRPG with heavy DM tools had another live stream / demo today on their Twitch channel at http://www.twitch.tv/SwordCoastLegends

Here is a summary both of things that jumped out at me, as well as answers the Sword Coast Legends team gave during a Q&A following the live stream.

I have to say I am really looking forward to this game! It releases September 29th, but pre-orders will get early (“Headstart”) access. The SCL team clarified today that is ALL pre-orders, not just those before a release delay was announced. A Steam account is required. Read on for more!

NOTE: The stream just ended a few minutes ago. I will add an embed to the YouTube video when that is available.

WHAT I SAW / NOTICED

Sword Coast Legends reps: Ash Sevilla (Community Manager) and Tim Schwalk (Design Director)

Ash and Tim set up the “Lair of the Watcher” and then let players from QA challenge the dungeon. There’s also some pre-dungeon quest building shown.

First time “Lost Mines” is being shown outside of the press.

Not pressed for time so this is an extended version of what press have seen to date (this was the demo at Gamescom in Germany).

You can build / modify environments both inside and outside.

Quickly converted pre-built NPC to a vendor.

Interior environments can have multiple floors.

“Widest selection of rugs in RPG history”

German keyboards have more keys and some keys are swapped.

Dynamically change weather conditions and time of day.

Dynamically change dungeon lighting and atmosphere (also fog of war).

The DM die (spinning red d20) is not meant to limit the DM in a scene. It’s optional and simply there if you want to use its features.

Behold, there’s a beholder!

And an ogre named Biff.

“Absolutely ridiculous” (per Ash) how many weapons there are available in the game.

Loot placement is randomized (Ash states for “game balance reasons”, they don’t want DMs stacking the loot in dungeons or a similar statement). I wonder… with the high amount of customization in other areas of the tools why would they suddenly limit where DMs can place loot? Statements like this along with the fact you can’t place actual dungeon tiles but those are randomized really feel like they are saving some no-brainer, desired features for a future expansion.

DMs have “threat potions” (potions they can drink to increase their threat). Threat is a pool of points they can spend to make things more challenging.

Beholder model looks good. Individually moving eye stalks, etc. Beholder can be proned, at which point party can wail on it.

Ash confirms there is friendly fire depending on difficulty level. At medium difficulty there is a certain amount of friendly fire. At the press event lots of press were accidentally fireballing party members.

Player death. Sword Coast Legends uses D&D 5E rules for stabilization and party members can help stabilize each other. There are also revive potions that are rare. But basically it sounds like if a character dies, they are dead and there is no respawn.

Ash and Tim will talk about what happens on full party wipe at a later date.

Players rate DMs on challenge, story and fun on exiting a dungeon. DMs don’t see this screen.

Ash brought a portable corn dog back from Germany called a Bifi. Evidently he smuggled it like Han Solo.

ANSWERS GIVEN BY TEAM DURING Q&A FOLLOWING LIVE STREAM

Still no tile by tile [dungeon building] AT LAUNCH.

Yes, Level cap is 20.

Turning off threat when playing has been requested as often as turning off the wisp.

Ambient lighting/fog is set for the full dungeon. But can be changed at any time.

YES, all PC preorders get Head Start access. Details soon.

Collector’s Edition getting more? YES! Details incoming soon (initially collector’s edition got Head Start and not other versions).

6 character classes – fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric, paladin, ranger.

Collector’s Edition Upgrade? We get this one a lot. We should have more info soon. Currently, the beholder and lost mines are only with digital deluxe and above.

DM can’t currently customize colors of placed objects.

No, you can’t load your own images.

NPC alignment can be changed on the fly, yes.

Steam accounts are required to play the game.

Non-role played branching dialog is another highly requested feature that we are discussing.

No plans for persistent worlds.

Details on Rage of Demons DLC will be revealed at PAX.

Quest rewards can’t currently be customized, but the DM can choose the type of reward.

Type of Reward – Weapon, Armor, Gold, etc.

DM has access to the entire world map and can put cities/dungeon/locations anywhere they would like.

Yes, quests can absolutely be exploration based.

Yes DMs can transition players to other zones.