there needs to be a playguide for this game. not all of us are expert PnP 5e players. though I do have some 2e expertise. would like to print something out and sit down and read the hell out of it. been playing a half elven ranger and well, I find it however it was the best choice in the past it is not in 5e rules. even a human can out match a half elf and a half elf makes a better paladin, although a +2 bonus to CHA is negligible compared to the +1 bonus to ALL stats for a human paladin.

If you open your journal ("J" key), click on the "Tutorial" tab, then look at the right side of the screen, you will see a button you can click on to download the 300+ page PDF of the systems reference document that has probably all the info you might be looking for.

https://5thsrd.org/

realize too, there are some "house rules" that are not strict application of the SRD rules. That is pretty much unavoidable.

More can be found on the Tactical Adventures SOLASTA forums:

https://forums.solasta-game.com/

I'm in the same boat with the OP here, though I've gotten more familiar with Pathfinder due to the Pathfinder Kingmaker game (I think that is similar to 3.5e rules? at least it feels similar to other games I played with 3.5e rules like Neverwinter Nights 2).

Certain things aren't really explained well at all, for example Advantage & Disadvantage should have it's own tutorial (rolling two D20 dice and picking the best or worst of those two rolls repectively), since this is crucial to the game mechanics (eg combat attack rolls, skill checks, etc):

For example:
Boots of Elvenkind
Advantage on DEX (Stealth) ability checks

You can be forgiven for wondering "what kind of an advantage, where are my numbers!" because that is exactly what I thought when I posted here asking something similar. A little more research later and I find that 'Advantage' and 'Disadvantage' are game rule terms and not descriptions.

Another thing I've learned about is that certain spells require concentration to be maintained, so if I have Haste casted on my Ranger, but my caster gets hit and loses the concentration check, I lose haste on my Ranger.

On a related note some spells that require concentration to be maintained for a duration, can be re-used without recasting until that duration runs out or concentration is broken. For example the Ranger's Spell Hunter's Mark, can be use on another target rather than disappearing once the marked target dies, as long as you maintain concentration on the spell and the duration of the spell effect hasn't expired.

There are some misleading descriptions though...I chose Hypnotic Pattern as a spell for controlling crowds, specifically as it indicated that it dealt with enemies only by the description:

Hypnotic Pattern
"Charms enemies to make them harmless until attacked."

All lies!, it affects everyone in the radius, both friend and enemy alike :(

Also the other spell I was weighing it up against was called Fear, which from my reading of 5th edition rules, suggested that those affected drop their weapons...unfortunately this is not true for the game, so even having the D&D 5th edition reference doesn't always help, and so I need to test these abilities to see how they work in game.

The spell Slow is an example of a spell that avoids friendly firing your allies, but it doesn't tell you this in the description.

physics are kind of weird too. some characters who have plenty of strength or whatever refuse to jump chasms without the monkey climbing around and wasting my time akin they do not roll a dice at all! Where as others(of varying strength weak or strong) get the die roll and can do the the jump, and /or climb quicker because of more jumping bypass! and it seems little to do with strength or athletics but rather a random factor WTF. also inconsistencies with certain behaviors. I wonder on some of my people if the attribute bonuses are just there for looks as numbers and mean nothing in the way of what task they are supposed to do. if a mage can hit better than a paladin WTF! a better example of this: we come across some strange artifact in the "Marches" it is some kind of edifice that requires "knowledge archana" to decipher. my mage is standing right there like a dolt. she says nothing and my ranger(shadow tamer) and my dolty dwarvan fighter strike up a conversation something like "what do you think this is" my ranger says he knows nothing! he is not a mage, my fighter who knows even less does the check(how stupid) knowledge arkana dice over his head I find it ludicrous fails of course and says "how in blazes should I know?" or something like that. why then did my mage a high elvan who has training in academy background sits there starry eyed like a dumbfounding noob says nothing at all. would it not be logical for her to hear the conversation and pitch in. not in this game! I think the character with the higher ability should be the one who rolls, not the lowest common denominator! why else have the ability on ANY character other than "bragging rites" in the character sheet!
my Shadow tamer ranger, who has the "spy" background I placed skills for him to be thief-like(even if he is not an actual thief) never succeeds in disarming traps, not even the tutorial one where he flies solo! and yet my cleric did! again, this is out of character for both!
the slot 1 does this slot 2 does that dialogue is also odd. and it is not just the initial tutorial which I could understand(I guess...) it is other situations too! lots of them in the main game! should that not be based on who your character is? like are they paladin, mage, thief ect and what the back ground is? not what "slot" they are in at the game start?!

is a general link to the forums that is already present in the in game journel. The information about specifics is not present. The game is obviously in need of some polish. as some of the cause and effect is just not there at all at this time. I've been playing for several hours playtime already. I don't think they plan on fixing Dark Vision for non-human races, even if most of us will probably be playing non-human unlike most games humans do not have much benifit but why x- darkvision. humans are kind of a dump race here too, maybe make more incentive to play them as paladins and give the others especially true elves and halflings(marsh) dark vision and better advantages!

This is my first introduction to D&D 5E (coming from Pathfinder Kingmaker) and a lot of the rules seemed to be slimmed down (maybe to speed up the board games) in comparison. It is a bit weird that your fighter/mage/cleric pretty much start with the same fighting capability...in fact if you happened to put more strength on your cleric than your fighter you may find that they do better in combat; or if your Elf Wizard has higher dexterity then your Ranger they will be better with a bow (at least until level 5 where fighting classes Ranger/Paladin/Fighter get an extra attack).

As for those ability checks that are used in conversation and not using the character best suited, I have noticed this a few times; it almost seems like a bug though, where sometimes your characters personalities seem to change for no rhyme or reason...I really, really hope that they fix the characters bipolar personalities since it can really ruin some of the banter in the game. My Orcish speaking high elf was all cordial and friendly with the Orcs, then suddenly decided she was all murder every last of them for no reason whatsoever, completely ruined the moment as I was starting to get attached to the character personalities at that point.

With Rogues, I'm pretty sure thieves tools help for you to disarm traps, but the perception skill (finding the trap) is tied to Wisdom, so while a little weird, your Cleric may spot traps before your Rogue. Still I would think the thieves tool should give a much bigger bonus to disarming traps then your Cleric without the thieves tool would...I probably need to look it up though since I don't really know.

https://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/traps/
Reading this it seems like you do need Wisdom (Perception) to detect the trap, Intelligence (Investigation) check to see what needs to be done to disable it and then a Dexterity (Thieves tools) check to sabotage the trap...but I don't know what parts are implemented in the game, since the character creation screen indicated that the "Investigation" skill wasn't implemented in the main campaign.

Do really agree on the polish point...this game shouldn't of been released finished in it's current form (ie released as an open Beta on GOG). There are mistakes with spell descriptions, non-working spells/items, problems with pathfinding using the Fly spell (one of the coolest additions to a turn-based RPG), equipment that will corrupt your save if equipped. I noticed reloading a level-up save with my Ranger will result in scrambling the Favoured enemy/terrain (I reported this bug though), and of course the broken dialogue; an early example is during the very first meeting with the council, one of your party members blurts out "Pipe Down!" for no reason at all, no one is speaking or anything, it was really rather odd.

They do have the beta 1.0.22 version, but unfortunately it is only on Steam, even with Beta channel on within Galaxy there isn't any update yet from 1.0.18F

see the play through I'm working on. I try and explain things in the game settings, and then through out the character creation process, how to detect magic, identify, etc

https://www.gog.com/forum/solasta_crown_of_the_magister/new_walk_through