Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Rainbow Scissors]

That isn't what DH is doing though. They want to make differences in Thresholds and HP meaningful, and the system they settled on does that very well.

My group does not share that opinion.

+The steps were not difficult. The mental load for doing the steps is mostly easy.

Whether they are meaningful is probably better suited for discussion in the other thread.

 

[overgeeked]

-In Daggerheart, I am not sure that I understand generating big numbers just for the sake of generating big numbers and then including another step to make the big numbers into small numbers. Just give me the smaller numbers. Give me cool fiction-first effects or things that alter the ongoing scene to keep me interested rather than throwing a bunch of numbers at me that don't really mean anything.

That is an odd one. I think it's a hold over from 5E, honestly. Big numbers good and all that. They seemingly wanted to resolve hit point bloat, which they did. Trouble is they mostly shifted that bloat from HP to thresholds. I'm the same as you on this one. I'd much rather they skipped the separate damage roll for big numbers and went straight to dealing HP. Like success with fear, 1 HP; success with hope, 2 HP; critical, 3 HP. Or something. The whole damage roll vs thresholds thing, including the weapons and armor thresholds subsystems, just seem like a pointless extra step. Well, maybe not pointless. A lot of people really like chucking a lot of dice and saying how much massive damage they did.

Related to that, my group found that the Tag Team moves sometimes end up doing less than if two characters had done things separately. So, the game is presenting that as a possible extra step to (in theory) get more reward from an action, but the end result is taking extra steps but getting less reward. It did not happen a lot, but it did happen enough that it was a buzzkill for the group. When it worked to produce more damage, it was cool. Spending limited resources and taking extra steps to get nothing was not so cool.

Yeah. Thresholds again. Say they're 8/16. If you deal 1-7 damage, that's 1 HP. 8-15 damage, that's 2 hp. And if you deal 16-infinite damage, that's 3 HP. There's an optional rule to deal 4 HP if you double the highest threshold, but the point still stands. Tag teams makes it more likely you'll deal 3 HP rather than 1 or 2 each...but you lose out on the possibility that you could each deal 2-3.

 

[Teemu]

If you go separately there’s a good chance that the GM goes in between the PCs, or just does it by spending Fear. Tag team rolls help guarantee a big hit in high stakes situations.

 

[dbm]

Tag team attacks give two attack rolls, where the players can choose which one to go with for both attackers. They then add the damage together.

So while the potential HP done by each PC individually might sum to more than the combined hit in a situation where both do hit, the combined hit is more likely to succeed (including more chance of Hope and crit success) and is much more likely to generate max damage.

That’s a pretty good benefit IMO. The key is identifying when to use them and when solo attacks are best. Which sounds like a meaningful choice, too.

 

[zakael19]

That is an odd one. I think it's a hold over from 5E, honestly. Big numbers good and all that. They seemingly wanted to resolve hit point bloat, which they did. Trouble is they mostly shifted that bloat from HP to thresholds. I'm the same as you on this one. I'd much rather they skipped the separate damage roll for big numbers and went straight to dealing HP. Like success with fear, 1 HP; success with hope, 2 HP; critical, 3 HP. Or something. The whole damage roll vs thresholds thing, including the weapons and armor thresholds subsystems, just seem like a pointless extra step. Well, maybe not pointless. A lot of people really like chucking a lot of dice and saying how much massive damage they did.

Yeah. Thresholds again. Say they're 8/16. If you deal 1-7 damage, that's 1 HP. 8-15 damage, that's 2 hp. And if you deal 16-infinite damage, that's 3 HP. There's an optional rule to deal 4 HP if you double the highest threshold, but the point still stands. Tag teams makes it more likely you'll deal 3 HP rather than 1 or 2 each...but you lose out on the possibility that you could each deal 2-3.

Thresholds at least let you do balancing without having the “0 damage” outcome that’s pretty common in PBTAs that use a damage die + armor stat. I think that always abrading adversary and player resources on a hit (or a miss for Stress abilities) is a good thing. And it makes abilities that can set to 0 feel powerful and unique.

Plus the thresholds are a nice way to play with tankiness without having to dial up HP bloat.

 

[TwoSix]

Thresholds at least let you do balancing without having the “0 damage” outcome that’s pretty common in PBTAs that use a damage die + armor stat. I think that always abrading adversary and player resources on a hit (or a miss for Stress abilities) is a good thing. And it makes abilities that can set to 0 feel powerful and unique.

Plus the thresholds are a nice way to play with tankiness without having to dial up HP bloat.

One thing I like about thresholds is that they make cranking up a PCs damage output strong but not obviously optimal. As long as a PC does enough damage to regularly be doing 2-3 HP of damage, there's not a major gain in bumping your damage from 4 dice to 5 or 6.

 

[Arilyn]

Thresholds at least let you do balancing without having the “0 damage” outcome that’s pretty common in PBTAs that use a damage die + armor stat. I think that always abrading adversary and player resources on a hit (or a miss for Stress abilities) is a good thing. And it makes abilities that can set to 0 feel powerful and unique.

Plus the thresholds are a nice way to play with tankiness without having to dial up HP bloat.

I feel like my Guardian PC is taking the hits in a way that feels right. At the end of a hard combat, she's battered, tired, has taken a hell of a lot of damage but still standing, if barely. And as you say, without just upping hp.

 

[Vael]

One thing I like about thresholds is that they make cranking up a PCs damage output strong but not obviously optimal. As long as a PC does enough damage to regularly be doing 2-3 HP of damage, there's not a major gain in bumping your damage from 4 dice to 5 or 6.

It also allows for some fun dice pools for rolling damage because it does get capped on both ends. Rolling d20s for damage, like in the Codex Fireball spell is just going to be fun.

 

[zakael19]

how have people been finding the encounter building math? Putting together some potential things for the party to deal with and wondering how much I should stick to the guidelines etc.

Probably a little under, or avoid leaders/solos for the first couple as we learn the system? I’ve heard that solos need a second phase or like a couple minions to really be “solo” tho?

 

[overgeeked]

how have people been finding the encounter building math? Putting together some potential things for the party to deal with and wondering how much I should stick to the guidelines etc.

Probably a little under, or avoid leaders/solos for the first couple as we learn the system? I’ve heard that solos need a second phase or like a couple minions to really be “solo” tho?

It's a bit weird. For the fight to be a challenge to a group, you need to use most of if not the whole budget. Even then, the game favors the PCs. You will really feel it if you're shaving more than 1-2 points off the total. I have found that using the +2 damage bonus for 2 battle points thing is a great way to eat up points and not have too many opponents on the map at once.

Throwing just a solo at a group is going to fall flat. It's not quite as bad as 5E's action-economy problem with solos, but it's in the neighborhood. Solos alone are just too easily overwhelmed by groups. Which frustrates me to no end.

I've found minions to be a pain to run. Hordes fill the same niche but are easier to use at the table.

Leaders seem to have more complicated mechanics than solos. If you're going to avoid one, I'd hold off on the leaders until you're more familiar with the system. Solos mostly just have higher stats and you can spend extra fear to activate them 2-4 times in a row.

I've only run a couple of playtest sessions with a group of four, so take the above with whatever size grain of salt you think is appropriate.