Critical Role Announces Age of Umbra Daggerheart Campaign, Starting May 29th

An 8-part Daggerheart miniseries is coming from Critical Role. Announced today, Age of Umbra is a new Actual Play series featuring Matthew Mercer as game master and co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham as players. The new miniseries will take up the bulk of the summer months, providing more of a break to the core cast ahead of an assumed fourth full-length D&D campaign.

Daggerheart is a new TTRPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press. Although the base game is intended to be a high fantasy RPG, the game includes several "campaign frames" that add additional rules for specific types of stories. Age of Umbra was developed by Mercer and draws inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Tainted Grail, and Kingdom Death: Monster.

The miniseries will air on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube, with episodes airing every Thursday. The first episode debuts on May 29th, with Session 0 airing on various Critical Role platforms on May 22nd.

The full description of the series can be found below:

Age of Umbra

is an eight-part Daggerheart mini-series from Critical Role of dark, survival fantasy, debuting May 29 on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube. Set in the Halcyon Domain, a world abandoned by gods and consumed by darkness, the series begins by following five people from the isolated community of Desperloch as they fight to protect their own in the face of rising horrors.

The Halcyon Domain is a lethal, foreboding land where the souls of the dead are cursed to return as twisted, nightmarish forms. A dark, ethereal mass known as the Umbra roams and holds these fiendish monstrosities, further corrupting anything it touches. Sacred Pyres keep the corruption at bay, and small communities endure through cooperation. Out in the beyond, whispers speak of ancient secrets and powers, wonders of a lost age, ready for discovery to those brave enough (or foolish enough) to seek them.

Game Master Matthew Mercer leads fellow Critical Role co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham in a high-stakes actual play exploring hope, sacrifice, and survival in a world where death is only the beginning.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm guessing not because I find it hard to believe you could say "DH combat looks slow in this" if you had. This is lightning fast compared to how they do 5E combat.

I haven't watched much of their 5e stuff, but it's certainly slower than 5e combat in my own games (which is itself a lot slower than 1e combat). So the pacing is down to the performance, not the rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I haven't watched much of their 5e stuff, but it's certainly slower than 5e combat in my own games (which is itself a lot slower than 1e combat). So the pacing is down to the performance, not the rules.

Just because it's slower than your group playing 5E, it does not logically follow that the performance is the sole or main issue. In fact, I would suggest Occam's Razor says the players and their aptitude with the rules are most likely to be the main issue - and if you've seen their 5E stuff (and I understand you're saying you haven't), you'd know these guys and gals and non-binary pals are... well... most like that player some groups have who just never quite learns the rules. Is just never that fast at adding stuff up. That keeps forgetting how certain abilities work. The performance factors in, but I think that's more of a flat rather than multiplicative issue, whereas DH vs 5E rules? That's multiplicative (or divisive? you know what I mean! I think!) - I speak from recent experience. My players are fairly experienced with 5E, and competent, for the most part, and DH was literally 5x or more faster, rules-wise, even new to them. But obviously describing actions and so on (the performance) isn't any faster.

 

[Imaro]

You know with the magic of YouTube we have actual times to compare. My theory is that people are comparing high level D&D fights with these low level Daggerheart combats... when if you actually look at some of the numbers... the times are around the same range... also I'll note there is alot more joking, goofing around and side talk in the D&D games during combat than in the AoU. So yeah not sure where this idea that DH is blazing fast when compared to D&D is actually coming from. Maybe we'll see it as they level up but at least at low level the two games run comparable by CR.

Daggerheart Ep. 1
-Skeletons & Oozes: 2:26 - 3:04 (38 mins) NOTE: The party flees in this battle before defeating the enemies
-Guardian 3:23 - 3:40 (17 mins)

Daggerheart Ep. 2
- 1 Corrupted Katori: 00:54 - 1:47 (53 mins)

Daggerheart Ep. 3
- 1 Corrupted Aryn: 00:10 - 00:50 (40 mins)

Daggerheart Ep. 4
- 2 Pain Beasts: 0:35 - 1:13 (38 mins)

Comparing to campaign 2 low level D&D

C2 Ep. 1
- Circus Tent Battle: 2:25 - 2:56 (32 mins)

C2 Ep. 2
-Don't believe there is any combat in this episode

C2 Ep. 3

• Zombies: 00:09 - 00:34 (25 mins)
• Devil Toad: 2:44:00 - 3:40:00 (56 Mins)

 

[Neonchameleon]

You know with the magic of YouTube we have actual times to compare. My theory is that people are comparing high level D&D fights with these low level Daggerheart combats... when if you actually look at some of the numbers... the times are around the same range... also I'll note there is alot more joking, goofing around and side talk in the D&D games during combat than in the AoU. So yeah not sure where this idea that DH is blazing fast when compared to D&D is actually coming from. Maybe we'll see it as they level up but at least at low level the two games run comparable by CR.

Comparing to Campaign 3 (again low level D&D and their most recent main campaign) the first 6 combats took 41 minutes, 39 minutes, 1 hour 11 minutes, 1 hour 38 minutes, 53 minutes, and 1 hour 34 minutes.

I'm not sure why Campaign 2 averaged at just over three quarters of an hour per combat while the other three were around the hour mark.

 

[nyvinter]

Worth noting is that low-level Daggerheart is not the same as in D&D 5e. DH tier 1 character is more first or second level 4e or 3rd level 5e powerwise.

 

[Reynard]

Comparing to Campaign 3 (again low level D&D and their most recent main campaign) the first 6 combats took 41 minutes, 39 minutes, 1 hour 11 minutes, 1 hour 38 minutes, 53 minutes, and 1 hour 34 minutes.

I'm not sure why Campaign 2 averaged at just over three quarters of an hour per combat while the other three were around the hour mark.

Matt has gotten more elaborate with his setups, I think. Complex terrain can add time as players try and utilize it.

 

[Imaro]

Comparing to Campaign 3 (again low level D&D and their most recent main campaign) the first 6 combats took 41 minutes, 39 minutes, 1 hour 11 minutes, 1 hour 38 minutes, 53 minutes, and 1 hour 34 minutes.

I'm not sure why Campaign 2 averaged at just over three quarters of an hour per combat while the other three were around the hour mark.

And I'm not sure why the DH combat with the Guardian (17 mins) and the combat with the Corrupted Katori (53 mins) have such a large variation for a single monster battle...

Yeah it's almost like both systems have variable factors that can increase or decrease the time a combat takes depending on how and what the GM/DM sets up, how focused your players are, what classes are played and so on... on top of the fact that one really hasn't been played enough to really pin down whether it is all out faster or not and whether factors in the game can change that. You know what I was saying earlier.

 

[Imaro]

Matt has gotten more elaborate with his setups, I think. Complex terrain can add time as players try and utilize it.

The Daggerheart terrain is set up much quicker than the D&D terrain... it's set up beforehand offscreen and he just brings the board over.

 

[billd91]

Comparing to Campaign 3 (again low level D&D and their most recent main campaign) the first 6 combats took 41 minutes, 39 minutes, 1 hour 11 minutes, 1 hour 38 minutes, 53 minutes, and 1 hour 34 minutes.

I'm not sure why Campaign 2 averaged at just over three quarters of an hour per combat while the other three were around the hour mark.

One possible factor is that a lot of early combats with the Mighty Nein are with 6 PCs instead of 7. Ashley was away on other work a lot during that time period while she's been on hand throughout Bells Hells consistently. Add to that the overall oddballness of Bells Hells chaos monkey PCs and Matt's terrains, and you've probably got a workable (at least partial) explanation.

 

[Imaro]

One possible factor is that a lot of early combats with the Mighty Nein are with 6 PCs instead of 7. Ashley was away on other work a lot during that time period while she's been on hand throughout Bells Hells consistently. Add to that the overall oddballness of Bells Hells chaos monkey PCs and Matt's terrains, and you've probably got a workable (at least partial) explanation.

This also brings up another point in that for most of the Daggerheart combats it's a smaller group... no Liam and no Laura until episode 4. I'm not saying DH definitively isn't faster than D&D... I'm saying I think it's premature to start claiming it runs 2x faster.