Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Ruin Explorer]

Are they Magic card sized?

Yes almost exactly MtG sized and coloured right to go in MtG-oriented coloured sleeves. I'm told they are like a millimetre too large to be double-sleeved, but single-sleeved works.

 

[Scribe]

Yes almost exactly MtG sized and coloured right to go in MtG-oriented coloured sleeves. I'm told they are a fraction of a millimetre too large to be double-sleeved, but single-sleeved works.

Most excellent, I've missed sleeving up and shuffling a deck for some time.

 

[zakael19]

My main issue remains that I'm kind of regretting doing an Age of Umbra campaign not a sort of "More fantastical Buffy/Angel" kind of deal, but maybe I can slooooowly transition from the former to the latter. Supernatural basically managed it, transitioning from "alarming gritty vibes jump-scare horror" in S1 to "jolly magic buddies against the apocalypse" by like, S8 maybe?!

I'm really looking forward to running the Modern Urban Fantasy thing I've been putting together. Coming from more of the book side of inspirations (Rivers of London, Alex Verus, Twenty Palaces, Matthew Swift, October Daye, etc), been re-reading a bunch to get into the mindset of urbanized magic.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm really looking forward to running the Modern Urban Fantasy thing I've been putting together. Coming from more of the book side of inspirations (Rivers of London, Alex Verus, Twenty Palaces, Matthew Swift, October Daye, etc), been re-reading a bunch to get into the mindset of urbanized magic.

Please tell us about it when you run it so I can live vicariously lol.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Reading a review, for those who have played, do you believe this is accurate in regards to DH being 'this'?

To emphasise, it picks three traits

• Fast
• Strategic
• Thematic

Using 5e as a baseline

Fast: Daggerheart feels much faster than 5e. In reality it is only slightly faster than 5e under the condition we assume that the 5e group is full of players who know their character sheets, are ready for their turns,and the DM can almost effortlessly juggle their monsters and where the GM is throwing twists within the scene. In other words in terms of clock time Daggerheart with an average group three sessions in is comparable to a group of multi year veteran 5e players with similar level PCs (although L1 DH is at least L2 5e) who are all continually engaged and have all learned their characters, with a good and fluid DM. And it feels faster than that because what the rules spotlight is more character interaction heavy, more thematic, and more dramatic.

Strategic: I'm honestly not sure what they mean here. It is not D&D 4e, Lancer, Draw Steel, or PF2e if that's what you mean by strategic. And "builds" aren't really a thing. Instead the strategy is mostly around resource management (you have hit points (plus armour points), stress (stamina), hope (mana), and limited use abilities) and teamwork. And that it's about resource management is why builds aren't really a thing; at level up you can expand resource pools which matters most for what you run low on. And teamwork is a big thing.

Thematic: Definitely! Daggerheart (at least in the core rules; I believe it will be drifted hard in future) is a lighter genre-emulation if 5e but it's pared back anything that doesn't enhance themselves or character interaction and emphasised what does. Daggerheart is dripping with theme and flavour

 

[clearstream]

Reading a review, for those who have played, do you believe this is accurate in regards to DH being 'this'?

That chimes with the response from the two players in our group who've come straight from D&D.

It does play reasonably fast, there is strategy that I think groups should quickly pick up on, and all through it is thematic. There is much there that makes it very accessible to D&D players.

Daggerheart is the sort of intelligent synthesis I've been hoping to see.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Strategic: I'm honestly not sure what they mean here. It is not D&D 4e, Lancer, Draw Steel, or PF2e if that's what you mean by strategic. And "builds" aren't really a thing. Instead the strategy is mostly around resource management (you have hit points (plus armour points), stress (stamina), hope (mana), and limited use abilities) and teamwork. And that it's about resource management is why builds aren't really a thing; at level up you can expand resource pools which matters most for what you run low on. And teamwork is a big thing.

People thought about positioning, teamwork (not just the specific move) and general tactics vastly more in the fights we ran than D&D. Part of this, I think, is because with D&D, people have got into pretty standardized strategies which I don't think will ever quite happen in DH simply because it doesn't work that way - you can't predict things like kinda-clockwork re: initiative, actions, etc. because there is no initiative and the spotlight moves (and potentially unpredictably).

It's definitely not 4E or Lancer, but there was a lot more engagement with thinking about tactics and dealing with annoying enemies and so on. Another piece here is that in general in DH it's much more likely a PC can just go and "take out" an enemy, where in D&D 5E if you don't roll great you might be stuck swinging at some archer or similar who you just can't quite kill for quite a while. In D&D even an unimportant enemy might have so many HP 2+ rounds are required to dispatch them even best-case which is rarely true here and rounds are much more fluid - if you rolled good you can keep the spotlight and then finish the enemy off, and we saw that happen. The fact that you can do this makes people think more about actual tactical moves.

Re: builds I think we will see them emerge a bit as PCs level up - depending on how you spend your level up points you could definitely make certain Domain card choices work better or worse. But most D&D builds are ultimately defined by their Feats, something this game simply doesn't have.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have to second everything @overgeeked just said and add ... cards. Cards are great. We only have two copies of the Daggerheart book for a table of 6. And one has stayed shut almost all the time. When leveling up and character generation, there was no passing around the books over and over.

Just to second this the cards are generally great and they plus the character sheets with basic class information on them are a literal game changer for character creation. The normal logjam for character creation is that everyone wants the rulebook to look up their stuff - but with the subclasses, ancestries, cultures, and domain abilities all on cards there is never any waiting around for the rulebook (other than a single weapon and armour table page that I have printed as part of the GM pack) or scrawling semi-legible character rules on sheets.

With this I can have (and have had) a group of complete newbies through character creation and into playing a one shot inside half an hour - with the thing that took the longest being discussing the character connections.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just to second this the cards are generally great and they plus the character sheets with basic class information on them are a literal game changer for character creation. The normal logjam for character creation is that everyone wants the rulebook to look up their stuff - but with the subclasses, ancestries, cultures, and domain abilities all on cards there is never any waiting around for the rulebook (other than a single weapon and armour table page that I have printed as part of the GM pack) or scrawling semi-legible character rules on sheets.

With this I can have (and have had) a group of complete newbies through character creation and into playing a one shot inside half an hour - with the thing that took the longest being discussing the character connections.

Yeah I sent the PDF to everyone so they could read the rules and literally no-one even looked at it until there some question about how exactly something worked in our second session. They managed to actually internalize the rules just from the character sheets and me explaining them once! Incredible feat for these guys, not normally something they typically manage (we sure didn't with Achtung Cthulhu! later that week!) The way I explained the rules too was simply to go through the book and explain as I went (I was also refreshing them in my mind). It really is very well-arranged for explaining the rules, as much as that arrangement slightly annoys me lol.

 

[zakael19]

People thought about positioning, teamwork (not just the specific move) and general tactics vastly more in the fights we ran than D&D. Part of this, I think, is because with D&D, people have got into pretty standardized strategies which I don't think will ever quite happen in DH simply because it doesn't work that way - you can't predict things like kinda-clockwork re: initiative, actions, etc. because there is no initiative and the spotlight moves (and potentially unpredictably).

It's definitely not 4E or Lancer, but there was a lot more engagement with thinking about tactics and dealing with annoying enemies and so on. Another piece here is that in general in DH it's much more likely a PC can just go and "take out" an enemy, where in D&D 5E if you don't roll great you might be stuck swinging at some archer or similar who you just can't quite kill for quite a while. In D&D even an unimportant enemy might have so many HP 2+ rounds are required to dispatch them even best-case which is rarely true here and rounds are much more fluid - if you rolled good you can keep the spotlight and then finish the enemy off, and we saw that happen. The fact that you can do this makes people think more about actual tactical moves.

Re: builds I think we will see them emerge a bit as PCs level up - depending on how you spend your level up points you could definitely make certain Domain card choices work better or worse. But most D&D builds are ultimately defined by their Feats, something this game simply doesn't have.

Also, thinking narrative first we’ve had two combats in a row now where the players taking out the clear leader meant a surrender/negotiation with the enemy. Because there’s no initiative order and the game keeps nudging me that way, it feels more natural and “allowed” to just grab the spotlight and tell the players how the adversaries throw down their crossbows and sue for mercy and such.