Daggerheart Discussion

[zakael19]

Well, I challenged myself to get something playable and I did. v0.1 of the player-side stuff for "Shadowheart," my lower powered swords & sorcery hack of Daggerheart is done. Heavy inspiration from Shadowdark's attempts to strip things back to their basics, but also bringing in a lot more of the PBTA side of the house for actual action design and framing (especially Freebooters on the Frontier, which is higher-GM authority PBTA dungeon play).

• Stats mathed out to be rather more fragile than DH base, but without going full "oops you're dead."
• The 4 classic classes to start.
• Simple Action difficulties (easy/standard/hard/extreme), achieved by stepping possible modifiers down and leaning into ADV as the primary source of bonuses beyond a max of +3 from trait.
• General flattening of stats. Lower thresholds to allow for classic dungeon monsters to be easily converted.
• Adding structure around time and the like, while keeping it looser then "turns."
• Morale, Reaction Rolls (classic type), a stricter "Bite the Dust" death action, SD inspired Spellcasting (leaning into Stress / Recall to give you a chance to try to cast even when you fail).
• No more domains, spells or abilities by class.

Now I need to finish play sheets and get some of my players who enjoy dungeon crawling to give it a shot with me!

 

[zakael19]

I need to check the math a bit, but I converted the Scarlet Citadel monsters over to the flattened design for Shadowheart. Minimalist actions, and HP/Thresholds that should roughly line up with the damage to kill of a classic D&D game. Yes, I converted Evasion over to a PC rolls thing, why do you ask...

Spoiler: Basic profiles

Beastman
Defense: 13 | Offense: 13 | Damage: 1d6+1
HP: 3 | Threshold 3/6| Stress: 2
Drive: to keep quiet and live

Jabber and jab
Gang up on a foe
Twist the point

Ettercap
Defense: 14 | Offense: 14 | Damage: 1d8
HP: 5 | Threshold 5/8 | Stress: 3
Drive: to amass more precious gems

Launch a sticky poisoned web
Skitter up walls and ceilings
Unnerve with so many eyes

Darkmantle
Defense: 13 | Offense: 15 | Damage: 1d4
HP: 2 | Threshold: 4/6 | Stress: 3
Drive: to protect their territory

Fly forward dripping ink-like mist
Extinguish all light in close

Skeleton (shortsword or bow)
Defense: 14 | Offense: 13 | Damage: 1d6 melee / 1d4 far
HP: 4 | Threshold 5/7 | Stress: 2
Drive: to slay the living

mindlessly crowd forward
enact bone-deep memories of life
clatter creepily

Minotaur
Defense: 15 | Offense: 17 | Damage: 1d10 axe (VC), 1d12 horns
HP: 8 | Threshold: 7 / 13 | Stress: 4
Drive: to slake its bloodthirst

Charge forward far and gore (Agil Reaction Roll or d12+3)
Toss a foe back
Stomp and issue a rage-filled bellow

Cave Creeper
Defense: 13 | Offense: 14 | Damage: 1d6 bite, 1d8 tentacle (toxin: str or paralyzed, try again on rolls w/Hope)
HP: 5 | Threshold: 4 / 9 | Stress: 3
Drive: drag away struggling prey

Thunder along walls
Seek out light and snatch it up
Drag them away

Wight
Defense: 14 | Offense: 13 | Damage: 1d10 bastard sword
HP: 5 | threshold: 6/10 | Stress: 3
Drive: To quench light and life

Sap their vitality (1d4 Stress)
Ignore attacks from physical weapons
Suck out light sources (spend a Fear for magic)

Ochre Jelly
Defense: 11 | Offense: 14| Damage: 1d6+1
HP: 6 | Threshold: 4 / 8 | Stress: 2
Drive: to mindlessly feed

Split into two when cut (3HP each)
Ooze through tight spaces
Envelop from the legs up

Animated armor (3x rolls with hope)
Defense: 15 | Offense: 14 | Damage: 1d8
HP: 4 | threshold 5 / 9 | Stress: 2
Drive: to follow their animating command

Appear like a statue
Clank and pursue
Radiate angry magic

 

[TheHand]

Yes, I converted Evasion over to a PC rolls thing, why do you ask...

Nice, thanks for sharing those. When players roll for Evasion, do you treat it like a Reaction or do you count with Hope and Fear?

 

[zakael19]

Nice, thanks for sharing those. When players roll for Evasion, do you treat it like a Reaction or do you count with Hope and Fear?

Inverted, so they roll +Evasion (now treated as a stat) to try and meet or beat the difficulty of the adversary. Nat 1 is a crit failure, which feels appropriate (take extra damage); 20 is a critical evade which I'm treating like a critical on a reaction roll (avoid any effect it would deal on a success).

I shifted the Fighter to +0 evasion base to make for neat math, where the base game assumes a -1 basically (usually -2 / 8 for most likely heavy armor wearing classes like a guardian/seraph); so I'm starting the it at "meet or beat a 12" and not adding evasion penalties into armor to avoid subtraction.

Stripping Experiences out in favor of limited bonuses or advantage lets me play around with simple effects - like the Thief being able to choose a Hope Ability that's "Roll Evasion with Advantage" instead of +2.

 

[TheHand]

Ahh! I understand now!

 

[zakael19]

Back to mainline DH commentary:

While my Thursday group did some creative stuff to avoid / stave off a bunch of dangers last night, they did finally just walk into a magitech control room where a pair of demons were hanging dormant from the ceiling (after talking themselves out of a totally different way to achieve their goal).

Id written those guys up as a paired-hp encounter, so basically a Solo with Relentless, but with two different adversaries to activate and move around for dynamism. Players really liked that - especially since I could use the "Grab with chain and fling" ability to make things feel real dangerous, but also run it softer (ask how they try and catch themselves, allow a Reaction Roll).

The profile I wrote in my notes was this:

Fleshy-stone figures (x2) with chains wrapped around them, dormant and waiting.
Difficulty 16, shared HP: 9. threshold 11/23, atk +4, stress 5,
Damage: 2d12

Spend a stress to flail (all targets w/VC of each)
Wrap with chains and fling
Shattering wail (Fear)

I've been finding keeping things nice and simple like this and just building off the core damage expression or knowing what the Tier expects as a range of damage for a profile means you can be way more creative in the moment to enact the fiction you want to tell without designing out a whole bunch of mechanics.

Just spend a Fear and call for Reaction Rolls; or mark the Stress and shatter their armor on a Fail w/Fear; or w/e. It works!

 

[Reynard]

Are we expecting to hear any announcements during con season of any of the big projects in the works, like Baker's setting or whatever Crawford is cooking up?

 

[Vael]

Are we expecting to hear any announcements during con season of any of the big projects in the works, like Baker's setting or whatever Crawford is cooking up?

I've heard nothing, but I'd expect to have some announcements at Gen Con, and probably some more Hope & Fear previews later this month leading up to release.

 

[Reynard]

I've heard nothing, but I'd expect to have some announcements at Gen Con, and probably some more Hope & Fear previews later this month leading up to release.

I feel like DH could use a big momentum boost from a big setting or adventure.

 

[MichaelSomething]

In other news, I signed up for a live let's play of Daggerheart for a small convention. I never played Daggerheary before but that should be no problem for an Enworlder such as myself.