Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Seramus]

Can you hack the game to do something it wasn't designed for?

Like with people who try to hack D&D into something else, there are hundreds of other games out there that already do exactly what you're after. It'll be easier to find and play those than push, shove, hack, and tweak this game to do something it wasn't designed for. You're absolutely free to do so, but it seems like a waste of time.

While I've got more players than I could ever need, their range of interests tend to be narrow in the sense that I can barely get them to try new systems. To date, I still haven't managed to get enough players interested in Geist: Sin-Eaters, FATE, Masks, Monster Hearts, Godbound, or a dozen other systems I would love to try. Daggerheart was a rare example where I had a LOT of people on board with trying the game out, for whatever reason (CR fans, boredom with 5E but not willing to deviate significantly, etc).

So at least in my case specifically, it's absolutely not easier to find and play those other games, and hackability has a higher priority.

That said, I haven't hacked anything yet because all my current Daggerheart games are focused on experiencing the game as intended. I just see the potential for hacking.

 

[SteveC]

A note for my Foundry friends out there: v1.0 of the Foundry module for DaggerHeart was just released. Of course it needs v13 of Foundry, which I haven't upgraded to yet, but this may prompt me to do this. So have more VTT fun.

Note: I believe this is already an option for Roll20, so if that's your flavor of VTT, you can do that too!

 

[Scribe]

How tight is the game in its balance/encounters/math?

Closer to 5e 'loose' or PF2 'tight' or 'balance what?' OSR?

In my overheated state last night I was looking over the SRD and stuff and I really want to play a Goblin/Monkey Wayfinder, focusing on the Sage domain. Heat exhaustion fever dream, terrible idea, or genius, I have no idea yet.

 

[overgeeked]

How tight is the game in its balance/encounters/math?

Closer to 5e 'loose' or PF2 'tight' or 'balance what?' OSR?

Definitely on the looser side while still existing. I've only run it a few times though.

In my overheated state last night I was looking over the SRD and stuff and I really want to play a Goblin/Monkey Wayfinder, focusing on the Sage domain. Heat exhaustion fever dream, terrible idea, or genius, I have no idea yet.

The races and mixed-race rules are fantastic. I absolutely love them. The homebrew kit makes the point about not mixing top-line and bottom-line features. But other than a few odd interactions, it doesn't break anything to ignore that.

 

[John R Davis]

We have had asl session zero using Sablewood as our frame. We added some meat to it's outlines and I will use the QS adventure as a base intro as it's new to all the players. I'm sure it will be tweaked as we play it out

 

[Zaukrie]

Just read twenty pages......

I've used a similar initiative system in DND, and it's great, imo. Which is funny because I feel like whenever I talk about getting rid of traditional initiative, people here get turned off.

I feel like having good cards helps any game.

I am intrigued by a lot of what this game offers, so we'll see if we try it fully someday.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How tight is the game in its balance/encounters/math?

Closer to 5e 'loose' or PF2 'tight' or 'balance what?' OSR?

In my overheated state last night I was looking over the SRD and stuff and I really want to play a Goblin/Monkey Wayfinder, focusing on the Sage domain. Heat exhaustion fever dream, terrible idea, or genius, I have no idea yet.

I'd second that it was closest to 5E of those possibilities, balance-wise (which is still a lot more balanced than most RPGs through history, note, especially between the relative capabilities of PCs, which is, imho often the most important area of balance).

I don't see any reason Goblin/Simiah Wayfinder Ranger focused on Sage would be either weak, in fact they look good!

I'd probably take "Ignore disadvantage on Agility rolls" (among other things, bow and some 1h sword attacks are Agility rolls) and "Permanent +1 to Evasion" as my racials (but I could see a case for the other two), because those are both obviously pretty great (and more Evasion is likely be to be particularly funny with the +2 Evasion from Elusive Predator from Wayfinder).

BTW The L1 Sage Domain ability Vicious Entangle is pretty nice, forcing one spotlight to be used to dump the first restrain, and thus unless that enemy has Relentless (2) or similar, they can't even go at all until the next GM turn (i.e. next roll with Fear or failed roll), and potentially burning another spotlight for the GM (most likely costing a Fear token) to dump the second restrain if you spend a Hope. It is balanced by being notably weak on damage beyond T1 as it's 1d8+1 damage rather than (proficiency*die type) damage like a lot of spells are.

The other two L1 Sage abilities are also excellent utility/story-pushing abilities (in general Sage is well-designed imho).

 

[Scribe]

I'd probably take "Ignore disadvantage on Agility rolls" (among other things, bow attacks are Agility rolls) and "Permanent +1 to Evasion" as my racials (but I could see a case for the other two), because those are both obviously pretty great (and more Evasion is likely be to be particularly funny with the +2 Evasion from Elusive Predator from Wayfinder).

Yeah that was my thinking exactly, as I looked through the domain powers as the capstone for Bone also has one that (I think) was every time you are missed clear a stress, if no stress, gain a hope, which with all the other Evasion stuff, seemed pretty nice.

Then again, it was 3am, I was sweating, and here we are.

Oh, and Wanderborne, because it made me think of Tasslehoff from the original trilogy having random (stolen) goods in his pouches.

 

[zakael19]

Got my Deluxe Edition in today from the extra-stock resupply. Total impulse buy, very silly of me, but the Hope and Fear rocks are very sparkly.

I'm sure it will be tweaked as we play it out

I posted a while back about extracting the bones / beats of play from the QS adventure and going a lot looser. There's some great potential there to give players space to make choices that they just didn't run with in their constrained setup (eg: why not make that first merchant's wagon something that's needed for the ritual, have the bandits have run off with it which would be a great intro to the larger faction if you're using the entire Sablewood Location, and give the players open space).

 

[BruceWright]

Got my Deluxe Edition in today from the extra-stock resupply. Total impulse buy, very silly of me, but the Hope and Fear rocks are very sparkly.

For folks who bought the Core set and have FOMO about the sparkly rocks, search Amazon for "plastic rocks for vases colors". These are the same ones in the Deluxe Edition, and you can get a ton of them for like $6.