What do YOU plan on doing with Daggerheart?

[Ruin Explorer]

Um. 2e (my first edition), 3x, and 5e contained all the elements I'm talking about. All three of those editions contained tons of stuff that weren't geared solely to combat encounters, as well as many very social traits.

4E has "tons of stuff" that wasn't geared solely to combat encounters also - there's nothing you can do in 2E/3E/5E that you can't do in 4E, that I'm aware of. The same goes re "many very social traits". 4E has basically everything 3E had and more! 2E has almost nothing there - it's just on the players to RP (and occasionally Kits suggested stuff but 4E has Feats and similar for that). 5E is similar to 3E and 4E - I can't see any obvious way its different.

I get that you didn't get to see it properly and thus had a negative impression but it's just wrong to suggest 4E didn't have these things just as much as those other editions. That's what I'm saying here. There's no real "4E vs other editions" difference in the areas you're describing (whereas there is a big difference in combat), particularly not re: social elements, even if that wasn't initially obvious.

EDIT - as an example, let's look at social skills:

3.5E has

Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidate
Sense Motive

4E has

Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidate
Insight

5E has

Persuasion
Deception
Intimidation
Insight
(Arguably) Performance

These are functionally identical skill lists! They had similar mechanics too in the end.

 

[Faolyn]

4E has "tons of stuff" that wasn't geared solely to combat encounters also - there's nothing you can do in 2E/3E/5E that you can't do in 4E, that I'm aware of. The same goes re "many very social traits". 4E has basically everything 3E had and more! 2E has almost nothing there - it's just on the players to RP (and occasionally Kits suggested stuff but 4E has Feats and similar for that). 5E is similar to 3E and 4E - I can't see any obvious way its different.

I get that you didn't get to see it properly and thus had a negative impression but it's just wrong to suggest 4E didn't have these things just as much as those other editions. That's what I'm saying here. There's no real "4E vs other editions" difference in the areas you're describing (whereas there is a big difference in combat), particularly not re: social elements, even if that wasn't initially obvious.

EDIT - as an example, let's look at social skills:

3.5E has

Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidate
Sense Motive

4E has

Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidate
Insight

5E has

Persuasion
Deception
Intimidation
Insight
(Arguably) Performance

These are functionally identical skill lists! They had similar mechanics too in the end.

It's the games tones and presentations. They may have similar rule sets, but are presented in very different ways. And the way that 4e was presented was not appealing to me.

Look, here's the 4e and 2e dryads:

The 4e version, to me, is combat monster. You see this thing, you fight. It's a tree with boobs attacking you! Did you have to fight when you saw a 4e dryad? No, of course not--but you wouldn't know it from the illustration, information, or flavor text. You had to know it from previous editions or from mythology. (that's one of the few problems I have with DH--the adversaries could use a few more sentences of flavor text.)

Whereas to me, the 2e version of the dryad is a clearly a nature spirit of some sort. Combat is a possibility, of course, but it's clear that's not her main purpose in either the game or the world. An encounter with her could be violent, could involve fae trickery, or could involve negotiations or diplomacy. The way 3x and 5.14 presented the dryad are similar in their own ways.

That's not the only monster I had issues with, but it's definitely one of the most egregious examples I can think of. And I'm not saying that the 4e art is bad, either--it's certainly good enough and evocative enough for what it is, even if the boobs are unnecessary. But it doesn't make me think dryad.

And it's not just the dryad. The 4e bard may indeed be the best bard in all of D&D--I don't know, obviously, but I'm willing to accept the possibility--but the fact it wasn't in the main PH indicated to me that that sort of social character wasn't the game's main goal, at least not when it was first released.

So that's what I mean. It wasn't (just) the mechanics. It was the way the game presented itself, which was not in a way I wanted to explore. And it's why I like Daggerheart, because they did bring in the exact sort of elements I love.

 

[Vael]

To thread the needle ... 4e has one of the best combat engines in any edition of DnD. It's where the game shines, IMO. But to say it lacks non-combat is also untrue, skill challenges actually provided a system that has been iterated on and used later on for managing social and exploratory encounters.

And yes, playing a 4e Bard was a revelation and a lot of fun, though I also like the 5e Bard. Both of those Bards were among my most memorable PCs.

And, to bring it back to Daggerheart, the Bard also looks really fun. Getting access to the Codex domain is sweet. Combined with Grace, they might have the best domains in the core?

 

[zakael19]

The other thing which I felt differentiated it from most PtbA games I'd played was that, weirdly, mechanical resolution of stuff out of combat seemed to be actually faster and smoother - not something I expected - an awful lot of PtbA games have a like "Roll the dice then look at this list specific to that move" (and sometimes you also have to work out which move actually applies) sort of approach, which I didn't realize was taking up time and/or being clunky but apparently was. DH uses this 5-position resolution system for everything, with no specific moves (success with hope/fear, failure with hope/fear, critical success), which doesn't require all this looking at lists and deciding which thing(s) happen or what you want to know or the like. It's slightly more simplistic but also somehow slightly less limited and smoother? I think for precision evocation of very specific moods and themes PtbA's specific moves are ahead but for a fast-moving heroic fantasy RPG? This is a better way. Or at least that's what I think right now.

IMO, the resolution mechanic feels a little closer to BITD's Actions, with how they've grouped stuff under each statistic. Plus your Experiences are like conditional +1d abilities in certain circumstances.

 

[Professor Murder]

Short term, get a copy and see what I can tear out and use elsewhere.
Longer Term? Who knows. Hopefully run a game with it someday.

 

[zakael19]

A lack of non-combat illusions.

Just FYSA: all those non-combat spells are under Rituals, or as Feats that allow casters to use alternate bonuses for social skills. It's actually a really clever way to handle it, so you can balance the abilities for combat across all classes / encounters, and then leave everything else for fiction-first storytelling (and skill challenges).

DH refines this in an excellent way forward, but 4e really did do a lot of this stuff first despite the perception/common wisdom.

 

[Reynard]

. Plus your Experiences are like conditional +1d abilities in certain circumstances.

I have said before, I think that Experiences are more like Fate Aspects.

 

[dbm]

I find it interesting that the book recommends you make one of your experiences combat-related, but none of the characters in the live play seem to have done that and I don’t see people discussing characters built that way online, either.

 

[Aldarc]

Just FYSA: all those non-combat spells are under Rituals, or as Feats that allow casters to use alternate bonuses for social skills. It's actually a really clever way to handle it, so you can balance the abilities for combat across all classes / encounters, and then leave everything else for fiction-first storytelling (and skill challenges).

DH refines this in an excellent way forward, but 4e really did do a lot of this stuff first despite the perception/common wisdom.

It's incredible how misconceptions still abound for basic things about 4e.

 

[Imaro]

I find it interesting that the book recommends you make one of your experiences combat-related, but none of the characters in the live play seem to have done that and I don’t see people discussing characters built that way online, either.

I believe the book recommends that if you can't think of anything else... the thing is with Daggerheart not having codified skills and the characters having a nice selection of pre-fabricated combat choices in the form of their powers... I think most players are going to want to define non-combat areas of their characters with experiences.