Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[zakael19]

DH really needs a artificer type class though that can be reflavored for post apocalyptic junk engineering.

I’m taking Codex and making it into a tech-priest domain. If we don’t need to worry about “wizard as Swiss Army knife” I think that sort of theme fits a tech tinker better.

 

[innerdude]

So doing my first serious read through of the rules this morning and so far I am SERIOUSLY impressed.

Somehow the smattering of ideas taken from a bunch of systems I really like (Genesys, BitD / AW / Ironsworn, + all of the d20 stuff) come together to become something greater than the sum of the parts.

Also see the influence of Fate, with the whole "Experiences" as a substitute for "skill tree monkeying".

Biggest standouts to me so far:

• Downtime procedure -- feels very elegant, and love the fact that resting is NOT a "net neutral" in that the GM gets fear tokens when the party rests. Holy cow, that's brilliant.
• Character advancement procedures -- elegant, easy to follow. It keeps the "fun" of character advancement for the players without turning it into a huge "hunt the rulebooks for every possible net bonus" exercise. The power/domain cards obviously make a difference here.
• An overall sense that despite there being a number of interlocking "mechanical bits," it feels like the individual components have been tested for use across the various gameplay experiences. It feels "holistic" or "whole" or "functionally complete" in a way that many systems simply don't.
  • As a side note, this is definitely NOT a rules light system, certainly not anything like an "index card" game or Tiny D6. The rules for a JUST ONE character combo of race + background + class + domains would be 8+ pages more rules than the entire Tiny D6 "rules". I'd put it very much in "rules medium" territory with Savage Worlds and FFG Star Wars / Genesys.
  • *Edit: As an additional side note, this "holistic" feel makes it seem like this would be a FANTASTIC system to introduce new players to roleplaying generally. It's so well presented, easy to follow, and with clearly outlined procedures. It really is just so well put together.

One question for the audience -- I'm very, very familiar with Ironsworn / BitD / Dungeon World's actions and the basic method for initiating a "move." For players that choose to wield two one-handed weapons, there doesn't appear to be any particular bonus or penalty for "multi-attacking," other than some combinations of one-handed weapons give some particular bonuses or narrative effects.

In cases where a player would declare, "I make one attack with my sword, then go in for second attack shield bash," as GM that obviously becomes two attack rolls made by the player.

In this case, is the expectation that the downside for the player is the possibility of rolling with Fear? As far as I can tell there's no player-side penalty to declaring an attack with both weapons as a single move and making 2 action rolls. So it seems the reasons NOT to make attacks with both weapons as the player is ultimately the possibility of adding Fear on both or either roll, + failure, + potentially triggering existing GM Fear moves via the fiction + die result. Does that sound about right?

 

[zakael19]

One question for the audience -- I'm very, very familiar with Ironsworn / BitD / Dungeon World's actions and the basic method for initiating a "move." For players that choose to wield two one-handed weapons, there doesn't appear to be any particular bonus or penalty for "multi-attacking," other than some combinations of one-handed weapons give some particular bonuses or narrative effects.

There's not really such a thing as a "multi-attack" apart from a handful of abilities. as you note, an attack is a single Action Roll so you always have the chance to flip the spotlight. You only make one Action Roll at a time, check the result, and if it's a Success with Hope the players side retains the Spotlight and you could follow-up if you want (mostly my players hand it off to somebody else).

Think of it as a very small-scale BitD Skirmish exchange, your offhand contributes generally by a specific flat bonus and not additional attacks; or gives you the ability to keep attacking if the GM makes a move that involves taking your weapons away (I need to do this more when fictionally appropriate).

In fact, in general the DH Action Roll maps pretty well onto the FITD Action Roll flow; with the caveat that the GM calls for them outside of combat / abilities vs player actively identifying them (but there's no reason you couldn't let players affirmatively volunteer a fictional action + Action Roll).

 

[innerdude]

There's not really such a thing as a "multi-attack" apart from a handful of abilities. as you note, an attack is a single Action Roll so you always have the chance to flip the spotlight. You only make one Action Roll at a time, check the result, and if it's a Success with Hope the players side retains the Spotlight ......

Think of it as a very small-scale BitD Skirmish exchange, your offhand contributes generally by a specific flat bonus and not additional attacks; or gives you the ability to keep attacking if the GM makes a move that involves taking your weapons away (I need to do this more when fictionally appropriate).

Thanks for the insight, I'll have to look at the rules more closely. I thought there was a different table for one handed weapons being wielded as non-primary.

 

[zakael19]

Thanks for the insight, I'll have to look at the rules more closely. I thought there was a different table for one handed weapons being wielded as non-primary.

There’s explicit secondary weapons, but generally they just give you the listed Feature benefit (a shield gives you extra armor slots, a short sword gives you +2 bonus damage to your main hand, etc). When you make an attack roll, it’s with a single weapon unless you have a domain or class feature that says otherwise.

Now let’s say you’re a Finesse focused character and have a dagger MH. You can pair with a dagger Secondary for the +2 damage to your main attack; or a Hand Crossbow to choose to make ranged attacks.

 

[innerdude]

There’s explicit secondary weapons, but generally they just give you the listed Feature benefit (a shield gives you extra armor slots, a short sword gives you +2 bonus damage to your main hand, etc). When you make an attack roll, it’s with a single weapon unless you have a domain or class feature that says otherwise.

Now let’s say you’re a Finesse focused character and have a dagger MH. You can pair with a dagger Secondary for the +2 damage to your main attack; or a Hand Crossbow to choose to make ranged attacks.

This makes sense, and is very much the type of approach Ironsworn takes. It's much more about the narrative effect rather than an explicit part of the combat action economy.

 

[Reynard]

I decided I would run a intro to Daggerheart game at one of the annual regional cons (TotalCon in Marlborough MA).
----------
Name: Auspicious Beginning
Every four years, neophyte adventurers converge on the hamlet called Verge at the edge of the ancient, vast, overgrown Forgotten City. Challenged by the Council of Champions, they compete to return with the greatest treasure they can recover from those awe-inspiring ruins.The group deemed to have found the most valuable prize is welcomed into the Explorer’s Guild and their journey to become true Heroes can begin.
Auspicious Beginnings is an introduction to the popular new Daggerheart Role-Playing game. No experience necessary. Characters will be provided. Everyone 12 and older is welcome.

 

[aramis erak]

So doing my first serious read through of the rules this morning and so far I am SERIOUSLY impressed.

Somehow the smattering of ideas taken from a bunch of systems I really like (Genesys, BitD / AW / Ironsworn, + all of the d20 stuff) come together to become something greater than the sum of the parts.

I concur, tho' the systems I like borrows from differ: FFG NDS (WFRP3, Star Wars EotE/AoR/F&D), D&D 4E, and apparently the Old School British attribute driven games (Dragon Warriors, WFRP 1e, GW Judge Dredd), and the d20 baseline.

Also see the influence of Fate, with the whole "Experiences" as a substitute for "skill tree monkeying".

That's a drawback for me, but not a huge one

• Downtime procedure -- feels very elegant, and love the fact that resting is NOT a "net neutral" in that the GM gets fear tokens when the party rests. Holy cow, that's brilliant.

• Character advancement procedures -- elegant, easy to follow. It keeps the "fun" of character advancement for the players without turning it into a huge "hunt the rulebooks for every possible net bonus" exercise. The power/domain cards obviously make a difference here.

Those are strong for me, too

• An overall sense that despite there being a number of interlocking "mechanical bits," it feels like the individual components have been tested for use across the various gameplay experiences. It feels "holistic" or "whole" or "functionally complete" in a way that many systems simply don't.
  • As a side note, this is definitely NOT a rules light system, certainly not anything like an "index card" game or Tiny D6. The rules for a JUST ONE character combo of race + background + class + domains would be 8+ pages more rules than the entire Tiny D6 "rules". I'd put it very much in "rules medium" territory with Savage Worlds and FFG Star Wars / Genesys.

It's considerably lighter in feel at the table than FFG SW/G... FFG SW is often 3-8 special case rules interactions per action - admittedly, from the very short blurbs on the tree. Especially once you hit 3rd specialty table PCs...
We're seldom hitting two special cases per action in DH.

Also important is that the writing is much more natural in tone - it says it in relatively plain text, and doesn't have multiple versions, unlike NDS... NDS has 2 versions of most abilities - the short blurb in the talent tree, the full text in the talents list; many wind up with a third, shorthand, version on their sheet.

• • *Edit: As an additional side note, this "holistic" feel makes it seem like this would be a FANTASTIC system to introduce new players to roleplaying generally. It's so well presented, easy to follow, and with clearly outlined procedures. It really is just so well put together.

I agree, it's probably a great system for new gamers. It's lighter than most — I'd say about 2/5 — in low level play. It climbs as more abilities get added, but it caps at 5 active ones, limiting the complexity in play.

One question for the audience -- I'm very, very familiar with Ironsworn / BitD / Dungeon World's actions and the basic method for initiating a "move." For players that choose to wield two one-handed weapons, there doesn't appear to be any particular bonus or penalty for "multi-attacking," other than some combinations of one-handed weapons give some particular bonuses or narrative effects.

AFAICT, There's no provision for PC multi-attack without enabling abilities from either weapon features or Domain cards. So...

In cases where a player would declare, "I make one attack with my sword, then go in for second attack shield bash," as GM that obviously becomes two attack rolls made by the player.

That's two moves. So clarify which is first and which is second. Sequencing matters because...

In this case, is the expectation that the downside for the player is the possibility of rolling with Fear? As far as I can tell there's no player-side penalty to declaring an attack with both weapons as a single move and making 2 action rolls. So it seems the reasons NOT to make attacks with both weapons as the player is ultimately the possibility of adding Fear on both or either roll, + failure, + potentially triggering existing GM Fear moves via the fiction + die result. Does that sound about right?

There's more than just the trigger of the adversary move.
Any ability roll result is supposed to also have an immediate GM move consequence; "with hope" a positive consequence, "with fear" a negative one.
So, ignoring the spotlight counting option, if you roll with fear on the first one, the GM's perfectly legit in imposing disadvantage or even a disarm vs the second attack... as the fiction supports.

Plus, on the second roll, there can be another movement

If using spotlight tracking (p. 89, LC COB), each action roll or significant non-rolled action is a spotlight used. So that multi-attack is not just two action rolls, but a separate activation with movement allowed, and thus 2/3 of the actions per round.