Daggerheart Discussion

Thomas Shey said:

Having only read the SRD, I would not feel qualified to make that argument with any authority,

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Not dipping into the 'is it this or that style' debate per se as I haven't been reading along very much.

But Daggerheart is one of those books where the most valuable part of the book is not in the rules, and thus not carried over into the SRD.

I suppose that can lead to a valid debate over what kind of game it is - when readers of the book have a very different set of information than readers of the SRD. Does all that added info just count as flavor text or is it substance.

I personally think the book is a good buy even for people who never want to run or play it because as far as a guide to 'how to be a better GM' and 'how to be a better player' - it's better written than every last book I've read intended to actually address those topics.

Then again it's also written to favor my own preferences so bias is in play there. But I did not have those preferences before I read the book.

Vael said:

In general, Daggerheart does this well, the damage threshold mechanics allow everyone to roll a lot of dice and get impressive results and then it's a few checkmarks for the DM to mark down.

It's... dare I say it ... elegant?

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You roll a bunch of dice, of potentially different sizes, needing to add them together + also add a modifier together and then tell the number to the GM who then compares this to a small table to get a number from 1-3.

I would say this is the absolute opposite of elegant.


I can see that it is less tracking (although tracking damage with ticks (of 5) is not that much more complex), and I can see that it fulfills the player desire of "rolling many dice", but elegant is when you do the absolute minimum to get this result.


And getting a result from 1-3 can be done A LOT easier, like rolling a single dice. Or drawing a single card.


You even need up to 6 dice of every size you can deal damage, because damage dice scale with proficiency, so the game not just needs 2d12 +1d6 but 6d4 + 6d6 + 6d8 + 6d10 + 6d12 (+1d20).


Even doing it with "rolling many dice" could be done easier. Just say you have 6d12 in total (or 7 with special abilities).

Then depending on your attack (and proficiency) you roll a different number of d12, and depending on the enemy defense you need a different target number. The number of dice rolled (up to max 3, min 1) with this number of higher gives the damage. No addition needed, still rolling same number of dice. Also not 6x of every dice size needed just from the d12.

Tigris said:

You roll a bunch of dice, of potentially different sizes, needing to add them together + also add a modifier together and then tell the number to the GM who then compares this to a small table to get a number from 1-3.

I would say this is the absolute opposite of elegant.

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There may be some people not familiar with Daggerheart in the thread, so I thought I'd clarify this in case they don't know.

Characters have an ability called proficiency that determines the number of dice they roll for damage. Proficiency starts at 1, and increases to 6 by the highest Tier.
Weapons have a damage die and a mod. When you hit, you roll your proficiency in dice and add the mod once. That's the damage you cause.

Opponents have three damage thresholds: Minor, Major, and Severe. You take a look at the damage you cause and if it causes any damage, that usually does minor damage. If you do Major damage or more, that's 2 HP, and Severe is 3 HP.

The GM I played with used a rule where, as soon as you did Major or Severe damage, they told you what the Threshold was, so you'd know next time how many HP you caused and could just tell them. I used that with the Quickstart, and it seems like a good option.

Now, some abilities just cause a set amount of damage, and if you crit, you cause max damage + rolled damage.

And those are the basics.

In the demo version leading up to the actual release, this was more complicated (and players I played with hated it), but the final version flows well once you experience a combat or two.

SteveC said:

There may be some people not familiar with Daggerheart in the thread, so I thought I'd clarify this in case they don't know.

Characters have an ability called proficiency that determines the number of dice they roll for damage. Proficiency starts at 1, and increases to 6 by the highest Tier.
Weapons have a damage die and a mod. When you hit, you roll your proficiency in dice and add the mod once. That's the damage you cause.

Opponents have three damage thresholds: Minor, Major, and Severe. You take a look at the damage you cause and if it causes any damage, that usually does minor damage. If you do Major damage or more, that's 2 HP, and Severe is 3 HP.

The GM I played with used a rule where, as soon as you did Major or Severe damage, they told you what the Threshold was, so you'd know next time how many HP you caused and could just tell them. I used that with the Quickstart, and it seems like a good option.

Now, some abilities just cause a set amount of damage, and if you crit, you cause max damage + rolled damage.

And those are the basics.

In the demo version leading up to the actual release, this was more complicated (and players I played with hated it), but the final version flows well once you experience a combat or two.

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Good summation.

Kichwas said:

Not dipping into the 'is it this or that style' debate per se as I haven't been reading along very much.

But Daggerheart is one of those books where the most valuable part of the book is not in the rules, and thus not carried over into the SRD.

I suppose that can lead to a valid debate over what kind of game it is - when readers of the book have a very different set of information than readers of the SRD. Does all that added info just count as flavor text or is it substance.

I personally think the book is a good buy even for people who never want to run or play it because as far as a guide to 'how to be a better GM' and 'how to be a better player' - it's better written than every last book I've read intended to actually address those topics.

Then again it's also written to favor my own preferences so bias is in play there. But I did not have those preferences before I read the book.

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This is all legitimate, and I do have it on my wishlist at some point, but on mulitple levels its not a game I'd find it likely I'd ever run, so full price makes no sense.

That said, I tend to find a game I can't get at least a fair idea of how its supposed to play from just the rules is probably not doing an entirely good job of supporting its play style. But as I said, I'm fairly dubious of games that offload too much off the effective flow of play on the GM; besides me thinking its a bit lazy design, I'm not fond of the failure states it will throw if it throws one.

After playing a couple demo games, including the QuickStart, my main D&D group decided to fully switch to Daggerheart a few months ago with no regrets. The games are actually set in 2e-era Planescape, but we found Daggerheart’s environment guidelines map nicely to planar effects and the concepts of Hope and Fear work well with the idea of “Belief” being able to influence the Multiveree.

As the GM, I’ve been prepping outlined story beats with the players having the ability to jump in, narrate and create their own NPCs, locations and story threads in so far as they are comfortable doing. So we’re maybe splitting the difference between a fully emergent “play to find out” and trad-GM storytelling but we’re happy with the results.

As far as tactical games, it’s not nearly as tactical as say 3rd or 4e, but the combat powers, team-work mechanics, and dynamic nature of “initiative” have likewise found a happy medium in our group, where some players are more tactically minded than others, but none of them are bored in combat.

I’m looking forward to more content coming with the Hope and Fear expansion. After that I’d love to see more monsters, more environments, and more power cards for the existing domains.