Daggerheart Playtesting New Transformation Mechanic

This mechanic includes rules for playing as a vampire or werewolf.
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Daggerheart is testing out a new Transformation mechanic that allows players to incorporate several classic monster types into their player character. The new mechanic debuted on the game's "The Void" playtest page this afternoon. Six transformations are included, featuring werewolves, vampires, ghosts, reanimated, shapeshifters, and demigods.

Unlike ancestries or backgrounds, transformations are add-on character traits that can either be given out by the GM for narrative purposes or can be used in base character creation. Each transformation has a mechanical benefit and a drawback, both of which the player is responsible for tracking. For instance, the Vampire has to feed in order or make rolls with disadvantage, while werewolves have a Wolf form that has an extra damage dice but eventually triggers a Frenzy that attacks both friends and foes within range. Reanimated characters can only clear Hit Points if they have access to recently deceased remains, but they can permanently mark a Hit Point when they Risk It All on a death die. Shapeshifters can swap ancestries with another, but they only gain the benefit of one ancestry feature, ghosts have a Spirit Form that makes them immune to physical damage but eventually become ephemeral and dissipate, and Demigods have a higher tier Advantage die but grant the GM an additional Fear when they roll with fear unless they mark a stress.

Daggerheart has released several playtests in recent months, mostly featuring new classes and a new domain.

Players can only have one transformation per character and they do not count
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


The transformation is interesting in that each offers a boon and a penalty. The Demigod, for example, rolls a d10 instead of a d6 as an advantage die, but gives the GM additional fear.

I like this, conceptually. Simpler than the idea I had been noodling around for similar character themes.
 




Good general concept, but I think they're going to need another balance pass or three.

Vampire - Seems pretty balanced.

Werewolf - Pretty extreme curse for a less-great-than-it-sounds benefit. +1d10 attack/damage in werewolf form isn't much better than a lot of combat-oriented Druid forms, and taking Stress damage on 54% of rolls whilst not gaining Hope is... extreme. The explosion at 0 Stress is cute at least.

Reanimated - Never being able to regain HP except by downtime moves or Risk It All is pretty awful and not really balanced by being able to auto-win Risk It All for 1 permanent HP loss, which is literally the only benefit. Also weird because it turns HP into very literal "meat points", where there was no sign there was before. Like, if you a lost a bunch of HP because your Stress was maxed and you were suffering Stress damage, how are you going to use corpse parts to fix that? And indeed there are a ton of ways HP damage could occur without real clear injuries. I think they need to rethink this one to move away from meat points. They'd be better off making it a zombie/ghoul thing and having the flesh be eaten. That'd actually be more on-theme, I'd suggest.

Shapechanger - Seems decent though RAW you have to change ancestry to change appearance which doesn't seem like it should be the case. Permanently only having one Ancestry benefit seem fairly balanced here.

Demigod - Gain a moderate benefit and choose to either make a bad problem for yourself or a problem for everyone else! I feel like this is somehow appropriate to a demigod but also if they keep picking the latter option I think a lot of people are going to be pretty pissed with them lol.

Ghost - Well executed but two issues - first off, "take double magic damage" is a little more vague than it should be - they should have worded this "double the roll of magic damage", i.e. the inverse of how resistance works, because otherwise someone is going to think it means mark 2x as much HP from magic damage, which is very different. Second off, you are going to die pretty much immediately because you can never pick Avoid Death or Risk It All, and 2x magic damage means you're probably going to get absolutely vapourized the very first time you fail to consider that there's a spellcaster (or non-spellcasting magic damage dealer) in the enemy group and try to go Incorporeal. This is probably fine if the whole deal is that the PC already died and now they're dying the final time, but... I suspect "ooops vapourized by magic damage" will be funny rather than poignant!
 


Ghost - Well executed but two issues - first off, "take double magic damage" is a little more vague than it should be - they should have worded this "double the roll of magic damage", i.e. the inverse of how resistance works, because otherwise someone is going to think it means mark 2x as much HP from magic damage, which is very different.
To be fair, the concept of damage in Daggerheart is unambiguous as it always is separate from marking hit points. You take damage, compare it to your thresholds, and only then do you mark hit points (or armour slots). With that pervasive parlance in mind, there’s not quite as much confusion as one might think.
 

Good general concept, but I think they're going to need another balance pass or three.

Vampire - Seems pretty balanced.
Vampire my main objection is that I want to bite with finesse or presence not strength. Am suggesting the stat should be open.
Werewolf - Pretty extreme curse for a less-great-than-it-sounds benefit. +1d10 attack/damage in werewolf form isn't much better than a lot of combat-oriented Druid forms,
For a strength build druid, maybe - but it stacks and there are reasons the druid is considered the strongest class in the game. "Isn't much more powerful than the strongest feature in the game and stacks with any melee builds" is not minor
Reanimated
I'm making Reanimated and Ghost tie to death moves as cling to life options.
 

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