Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Imaro]

It doesn't, it doesn't list budget amounts at all, there's only one budget.

I'm talking about the default encounter in DH. In terms of how dangerous it potentially is, it's equivalent to Deadly+ in D&D terms, because a default encounter is quite capable of wiping of killing PCs, and you don't have to increase the budget to create a boss encounter (you just focus it on fewer participants, usually).

The mitigating factor though is Fear spend. By spending more or less Fear you can make an encounter more or less dangerous. I'm assuming for the above that you spend maybe 4-8 Fear (a little more than the book indicates but the book seems to underestimate Fear gain IME) and that the players roll pretty averagely.

Im not sure this is correct... Im not even sure you can make a general comparison about budget like this with Daggerheart since that same budget depending on the creatures chosen and the randomness of Fear and hope generation can create vastly different encounters (though in my experience nothing I would call outright deadly for a group playing well)

I specifically remember that Matt said he had to go over budget in AoU to make the encounters deadly for his player's chatacters...which seems to go against your assumption.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Im not sure this is correct... Im not even sure you can make a general comparison about budget like this with Daggerheart since that same budget depending on the creatures chosen and the randomness of Fear and hope generation can create vastly different encounters (though in my experience nothing I would call outright deadly for a group playing well)

I specifically remember that Matt said he had to go over budget in AoU to make the encounters deadly for his player's chatacters...which seems to go against your assumption.

is honestly all I can really say to all of that.

YMMV. Also, uh, hate to say it, but I don't think Matt Mercer is actually very good at DH rules-wise... just putting that out there. He's an incredible DM in a lot of ways and I wish I was a fraction as good but mechanics/design/balancing isn't one of them. I feel like this is strongly supported by uh, every mechanical design he was involved in/approved for 5E, most of which I think about 30% of this forum could have done a better job with (including me, and probably you and certainly people who are actual game designers).

 

[nyvinter]

If I read the book and then look at Matt's encounters, the feeling I get is that he should have gotten more adversaries. They seem understaffed for the amount of players — especially since solos are "only" elite and not real solos.

 

[Retreater]

I haven't commented in this thread yet. I just wanted to share that I ran a one-shot of Daggerheart on a gaming podcast. I've been asked by a few of the members on a regular basis to run a regular Daggerheart game. They had so much fun they "haven't been able to stop thinking about it."
I think we'll start next month. I'll pitch Witherwild.

 

[Imaro]

If I read the book and then look at Matt's encounters, the feeling I get is that he should have gotten more adversaries. They seem understaffed for the amount of players — especially since solos are "only" elite and not real solos.

Well i know he released the monsters he used during his run as a pdf... I haven't had a chance to look at them but it would be interesting to see where they land concerning budget.

IMO Daggerheart combat is pretty swingy based on numerous factors and relies on GM force through the spending of fear to kind of balance it out whether thats making sure it's not a boring cakewalk or avoiding a depressing tpk... both of which can happen using the same encounter budget.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

IMO Daggerheart combat is pretty swingy based on numerous factors and relies on GM force through the spending of fear to kind of balance it out whether thats making sure it's not a boring cakewalk or avoiding a depressing tpk... both of which can happen using the same encounter budget.

I will say I think a boring cakewalk is a lot less likely than a TPK in a full-budget encounter if you were just spending Fear in a slow, robotic way, like say, just spending Fear you earned in that encounter immediately after you earned it.

But yes the entire design of DH does rely on the GM deciding how hard to press the gas at any given moment, with Fear preventing them from pressing it excessively (to some extent) but also the Fear cap encouraging them to press it.

Well i know he released the monsters he used during his run as a pdf... I haven't had a chance to look at them but it would be interesting to see where they land concerning budget.

Someone has been collecting them on the subreddit, but I don't seem to have the link.

 

[nyvinter]

The Umbra adversaries are on the website.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Umbra adversaries are on the website.

I guess we'd also need the encounters themselves to see if they were overbudgeted or under.

On paper none of those guys seem particularly unusually dangerous (not that it was claimed they were AFAIK), just looking through without double-checking the numbers. There are some which maybe have pretty good synergy, others which seem a bit ineffectual, but that's to be expected. I would say his Tier 1 solo is less dangerous than the two-stage Tier 1 solo I used.

I think the main thing is there's really a lot of "marking a Stress" from monster attacks (and similar) so any PC whose class/Domain cards rely on marking Stress to do stuff will be significantly disadvantaged compared to any PC where that isn't the case - and that is something that's not evenly distributed. It's quite possible to largely avoid "spend a Stress" stuff and have an effective character.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yes this is pretty noticeable.

That's not been my experience, but even it's true for some (I'm assuming it was for you? If you haven't played and are speculating I think you'll be surprised) I think it's important to note that an "on-level" combat in DH, i.e. a full-budget encounter, is the direct equivalent of Deadly+ encounter in 5E. Not like, far, far Deadly+ but Deadly+.

My personal experience on this has been inconsistent. In situations where I am DMing, combats either tend to go faster or simply “feel” faster (I’m not there with a stopwatch evaluating the respective durations).

However, my son ran a couple of “by-the-book” combats, and they tended to go longer. He was however, explicitly using up all Fear that he was gaining and using leaders that spotlight multiple monsters and bruisers that generate Fear on successful hits. Whereas I tended to use Fear as more of “adventure-scale” resource, leaving Fear on the table for more minor fights and ramping up its usage:
1. When the players were on a roll;
2. Outside of combat;
3. For boss battles.

That being said, I think my son’s usage of Fear was more typical of a less-experienced GM porting over from 5e.

The other caveat I want to advance is that I’ve only run level 1 combats. D&D combats slow down at higher levels and I am unwilling to generalize my experience of Tier 1 DH combats to higher tiers.

 

[FrozenNorth]

is honestly all I can really say to all of that.

YMMV. Also, uh, hate to say it, but I don't think Matt Mercer is actually very good at DH rules-wise... just putting that out there. He's an incredible DM in a lot of ways and I wish I was a fraction as good but mechanics/design/balancing isn't one of them. I feel like this is strongly supported by uh, every mechanical design he was involved in/approved for 5E, most of which I think about 30% of this forum could have done a better job with (including me, and probably you and certainly people who are actual game designers).

I would add that Age of Umbra has 7 player characters, so that definitely impacts balance concerns in a meaningful way compared to tables with 3 or 4 PCs.