Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Neonchameleon]

Basically, yes.

One GM move is one free action for a monster. Solos get to make multiple actions if the GM spends fear. To match the PC's action economy, the PCs would need to roll with fear or fail exactly 50% of the time. So if you're going into a so-called solo fight with capped fear, it'll probably work out...if not...well. Fear and free moves help with the action economy, but the big problem is HP. With a party of PCs beating on a single target, that single target is going to drop fast. Even with the beefed up stats of a so-called solo. And because the so-called solo can't match the PCs' action economy, they're not going to present anywhere near what could reasonably be considered to be a challenge to a party of PCs.

In general you roll Fear 46% of the time which is two GM actions (one for the spotlight, one for the fear). And the gap is made up by Fail with Hope. The action economy is pretty balanced.

The only problem comes when you spend too much fear on the fear abilities; a Fear ability needs to be worth two NPC actions (which it normally is - it's normally an AoE0. On the other hand most of the Solos other than the Hydra can generate Fear; have Momentum (fear on making a successful attack - brutal with AoEs) while for example the Patchwork Zombie Hulk and Flickerflies have AoE attacks that generate Fear

The Patchwork Zombie has an AoE. I used that monster in my playtest. It was effective once or twice. Didn’t get to use it a third time because he died. The AoEs will help. But the HP and stress is where they’re hurting the most. Phases or doubling HP and stress are the easy fixes.

Yeah, this is the core problem with solos in Daggerheart. They can keep up with parties while they survive but 10hp just isn't enough to challenge a party. That said I'm partial to the idea of the zombie hulk that falls apart into a bruiser and a zombie horde.

 

[zakael19]

That said I'm partial to the idea of the zombie hulk that falls apart into a bruiser and a zombie horde.

That's great.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

How? Tag team takes up one player’s turn, not both players’. Plus, tag team increases the chance of succeeding with Hope, which denies the GM a turn.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

Solos alone are good “speed bump” encounters where you are looking to burn some player resources before a more important fight.

Also a good GM move on a failure that’s bad, but not too bad.

 

[FrozenNorth]

From what I'm reading, it sounds as though Daggerheart Solos suffer some of the same issues as D&D 4E Solos. Is that an accurate?

It’s a less serious problem than 4e. The problem with 4e was that solos got one or two attacks against the PCs 4 or more. A DH solo gets attacks about 50% of the time, more if the GM spends fear.

The problem is solos have much fewer HP than PCs, so they don’t last.

 

[darjr]

FYI

Thread 'Incredible Creatures: Adversaries for Daggerheart on Kickstarter'

Jul 15, 2025

I just backed Incredible Creatures: Adversaries for Daggerheart

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/icv1/incredible-creatures-adversaries-for-daggerheart

• darjr
• Replies: 0
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

• 

 

[RenleyRenfield]

In general you roll Fear 46% of the time which is two GM actions (one for the spotlight, one for the fear). And the gap is made up by Fail with Hope. The action economy is pretty balanced.

We have run into issues with this and found balance to not be true at all.

Each player has seen rolls of about half the time we roll with Fear.
With 4 players each rolling once, we saw the GM with 2 to 3 Fear, and 1 or 2 players with 1 Hope each.
After 10 rolls per player, we saw the GM nearly unable to spend all of the Fear they were getting. it was VERY unbalanced.

To make matters worse, each time we took a short rest to refresh abilities, the GM got 1d4 more Fear.
There was not a minute in a 4 hour game where the GM was not constantly spending Fear.

To make matters worse, we saw that some of our abilities cost 2 Hope. Which we saw that a player needed to roll about 4 times to get 2 Hope, of which 2 Fear was also generated.

So basically we have found Daggerheart to be a game where players became more and more adverse to rolling dice = they actively avoided the system because it so often meant that the GM got Fear

Now, while Fear does not TPK or utterly ruin a character's efforts = it was a tedious slog. To try and be earnest with the system and use its rules as they were intended, we saw the GM in a painfully adversarial role of constantly looking for ways to cause complications with the overflow of Fear they had.

We play a LOT of PBTA, and Daggerheart has over five times more flow of Complications into the game.

And to make matters worse, the Success results are normal D&D success results. So you roll with fear success, you get complications, you fail with fear you get complications, you Roll with Hope, and the GM spends Fear to add complications.

Like, hecken what.. this game is nothing but complications all the time.

 

[overgeeked]

We have run into issues with this and found balance to not be true at all.

Each player has seen rolls of about half the time we roll with Fear.
With 4 players each rolling once, we saw the GM with 2 to 3 Fear, and 1 or 2 players with 1 Hope each.
After 10 rolls per player, we saw the GM nearly unable to spend all of the Fear they were getting. it was VERY unbalanced.

To make matters worse, each time we took a short rest to refresh abilities, the GM got 1d4 more Fear.
There was not a minute in a 4 hour game where the GM was not constantly spending Fear.

To make matters worse, we saw that some of our abilities cost 2 Hope. Which we saw that a player needed to roll about 4 times to get 2 Hope, of which 2 Fear was also generated.

So basically we have found Daggerheart to be a game where players became more and more adverse to rolling dice = they actively avoided the system because it so often meant that the GM got Fear

Now, while Fear does not TPK or utterly ruin a character's efforts = it was a tedious slog. To try and be earnest with the system and use its rules as they were intended, we saw the GM in a painfully adversarial role of constantly looking for ways to cause complications with the overflow of Fear they had.

We play a LOT of PBTA, and Daggerheart has over five times more flow of Complications into the game.

And to make matters worse, the Success results are normal D&D success results. So you roll with fear success, you get complications, you fail with fear you get complications, you Roll with Hope, and the GM spends Fear to add complications.

Like, hecken what.. this game is nothing but complications all the time.

So it matches how stories actually work. That’s a ringing endorsement.

 

[zakael19]

you Roll with Hope, and the GM spends Fear to add complications.

Why would the GM do this? One of the principles is to not undermine success. There’s also an awful lot of fairly soft moves the GM can do, and tons of ways to spend fear that aren’t “screw the players” but “add drama/excitement.” The one time the GM is supposed to spend Fear to seize the spotlight is when the players have a run of great rolls and you need to give some adversity via a GM turn.

 

[Arilyn]

It takes a little practice to get the flow moving but it's worth it. If you have a pile of fear but players are struggling and combat is tense, don't spend it. It really doesn't matter if GM has a fear pile. Once the players start swinging to the top, you've got fear to power abilities and grab the spotlight.

Players will improve their tactics as well. I've noticed that after a few sessions, my players became very savy about their abilities, cooperating more effectively, team ups, etc.

As a player, yes, it's tense watching the fear pile up but my GM doesn't use it in an adversarial manner, so we are not nervous about rolling or not taking rests when needed. The fights have been a mix of close calls, pretty balanced and ones where we had the edge. Sometimes we're overflowing with hope... sometimes not.

Its your table too, so you can tinker with the hope/fear and points spent on encounter building.