Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[zakael19]

I think, though this is a guess after only one session and some theory crafting, that a phased solo like the Volcanic Dragon can fit the bill as a legit solo threat. But normal solos are more like 4e elites.

Yup, this is what I’ve been saying and my experience yesterday bore it out!

The ones with relentless can be a good thematic “oh naughty word” challenge but not really a full boss. Which is fine! Sometimes you don’t want a near death encounter but do want a solo guardian or stalker or something. I think the “challenge” for the encounter math should probably have been a little better explained.

 

[zakael19]

The encounter math could give you two solos and be a slightly harder than normal fight. Your budget is 11 and that fight would cost 12.

But yeah, the solos not being solos still bugs me.

You subtract 2 from your budget with more than one solo. They have abilities and defenses that often scale higher than 2.5 standards IMO. Eg: the demon’s hope drain, plus fear gen, plus relentless, plus a 1d20+6 AOE.

 

[overgeeked]

You subtract 2 from your budget with more than one solo. They have abilities and defenses that often scale higher than 2.5 standards IMO. Eg: the demon’s hope drain, plus fear gen, plus relentless, plus a 1d20+6 AOE.

Yes, that’s what I said. Two solos is 5 each. Using two solos costs an extra 2. Hence 12 points. An “average” fight for 3 PCs is 11 points. I guess if you want to be pedantic it’s a cost of 10 and a budget of 9, but the result is identical. The fight is 1 point over the suggested “average.” But the book includes wiggle room for harder or easier fights.

 

[zakael19]

Yes, that’s what I said. Two solos is 5 each. Using two solos costs an extra 2. Hence 12 points. An “average” fight for 3 PCs is 11 points. I guess if you want to be pedantic it’s a cost of 10 and a budget of 9, but the result is identical. The fight is 1 point over the suggested “average.” But the book includes wiggle room for harder or easier fights.

I think that unless the players are rolling super hot, two solos are going to do some serious hurt (at least at T1). Especially if you pick a pair that synchronizes.

My read of how Solos generally up their threat level is by being able to put damage down against multiple targets up to the entire party. With a single Minor Demon, I ate up about 1/2 of the party's resources (hp/stress/armor). And I rolled terribly most of the time. It was the Area attacks forcing reaction rolls that really ticked things up, and I only did that twice in a dramatic way.

• Brusiers are 4pts and thresholds/hp similar, but can generally bring the hurt to a single target at a time.
• Leaders have efficient spotlight actions that activate a big chunk of an encounter.
• Solos tend to both bring the pain (generally they're going to get to Major damage by default), and have options to easily threaten everything around them. They also have high attack bonuses.

 

[Vael]

New Void updates. Changes have been made to everything currently in the Void, but now they've added transformation options for werewolf or vampire PCs.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, that can absolutely work with the right kind of players. But that's not everyone. A lot of gamers I've played with would just say neither and get mad.

Borrowing the terminology from the video linked up thread, there are theater kids and math kids. The theater kids would revel in that kind of choice, the math kids would rebel against that kind of choice. To me, the trouble with Daggerheart is it seems to want to split the difference. It's built on a solid theater-kid game foundation of PbtA, BitD, etc but has all the added math to also try to pull in the math kids. In my experience they are two separate and distinct groups with separate and distinct preferences that are not going to play well together.

The thing here is that the most popular TTRPG in human history is D&D 5e. The benchmark isn't some hypothetical RPG: it's an existing game.

Is Daggerheart better for theatre kids than 5e? 100% yes. I think Daggerheart is easily the best theatre kid D&D version I have ever seen although there are other TTRPGs

Is Daggerheart better for maths nerds than D&D 5e here? Autistic guy with trust issues and a degree in maths from a world class university who works with SQL for a living here. If there is a dichotomy I'm a math nerd although a flexible one. I certainly prefer it and it gives me significantly more to sink my teeth into with things like resource management, elegant design, and internal synergies. I'm a sample size of one, but the campaigns I'm running also include other maths nerds who are having a blast.

And honestly? The math nerds without at least a little theatre kid in them? In my experience tend to prefer Bridge, poker, boardgames, or computer games to D&D. The idea that they are entirely separate and distinct within the D&D community rather than it being a spectrum doesn't match my experience or even existence

Does this make Daggerheart better than e.g. Pathfinder 2e for pure math nerds? No. But 5e is much more successful than PF2e in part because it can cater to a much wider audience by appealing to both rather than being laser targeted on the math nerds.

Meanwhile Daggerheart is vastly better than 5e for basically the entire 5e audience that wouldn't be vastly better served by either PF2e or Shadowdark and doesn't have certain specific trust issues.

 

[Neonchameleon]

New Void updates. Changes have been made to everything currently in the Void, but now they've added transformation options for werewolf or vampire PCs.

Also I'm adding in death moves that lead to Ghost and Revenant (or whatever they called it).

And re:Solos, taking the endgame dragon as inspiration I'm using multi phase bosses which can work consecutively with the actions economy I recently ran the zombie hulk as a "welcome to the system" encounter that when they'd beaten the hit points out of it came apart into multiple separate zombies

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To me, the trouble with Daggerheart is it seems to want to split the difference. It's built on a solid theater-kid game foundation of PbtA, BitD, etc but has all the added math to also try to pull in the math kids. In my experience they are two separate and distinct groups with separate and distinct preferences that are not going to play well together.

100% hard disagree.

My experience is that there is absolutely huge overlap between the two groups. The idea that they have "separate and distinct preferences" doesn't seem even slightly true to me.

And that as @Neonchameleon says, the rare math kids who have zero theatre kid in them typically don't even like TTRPGs. They might tolerate them or even mildly enjoy them, but they prefer MMORPGs, CRPGs, wargames, boardgames, etc.

In my experience over the last 35 years, splitting the difference is absolutely a smart thing to do - further it's a big part of why 5E was so successful.

 

[overgeeked]

The Daggerheart license has been updated to include clarification on actual plays and a few other bits. In all some good changes.

Darrington Press Community Gaming License – Darrington Press

darringtonpress.com

 

[zakael19]

The Homebrew Kit is fantastic, and also drills down into adversary design a lot more. You've got some great step-by-step considerations for scaling adversaries down now, how to conceptualize damage vs thresholds and such, etc.

Edit: the Age of Umbra adversaries are interesting. Velk is basically pushing the limits of "here's a solo you might want to think twice about" since they've got both Relentless & Momentum, plus a movement and AOE attack.