Did anyone try this game? how is it? and most importantly can one port a game from 5e, PF1e or PF2e to this? My group wants to translate our current game to it but from a glimse my entire char doesn't seem feasible in this new systemSuper fast super jumpy Monk in case you're wondering
no, haven't tried it, sorrydidn't the creator abandon it immediately or something? kind of put me off trying itI doubt you'll be able to port pathfinder 1e to it, since that had so much content>super fast jumpy monkthat sounds fun, hope you have good luck with it
>>97458964I’ve played a couple sessions of it, the big thing I noticed is that the devs are SO allergic to math that they’ve actually ended up making the game more complex to avoid it. Like when my GM explained how hit points and armor worked my first reaction was literally: “That sounds like flat armor damage reduction with extra steps.” I’m sure there’s other idiosyncrasies. But that’s the big one I can think of. It has the skin of a narrative game but very little of the freedom of expression those games normally try to give.
>created by mercer and critical role>they didn't even play itkek that tells you everything you need to know
>>97458964When porting systems, don't get hung up so much on translating mechanics and capabilities. Keep the important bits. Personality, motivations, ambitions, and backstory. Dump the mechanics and start fresh with that.
>>97458964>can one port a game from 5e, PF1e or PF2e to thislmao, no
>>97459052I assume that should be the easy part, what I find hard is going unarmed and unarmored without dying, because while rules for it exist in the system they seem like a big ass penalty more than an option. Either I'm understanding the rules wrong or its suicidal...and that was a big part of my character, the unarmored/unarmed part, not the suicidal partAs for super fast and jumpy pretty much gave up on that. I just don't want to go "full armored paladin with a great hammer" and say I'm punching people while naked, at that point I'll just a different character
>>97458977Holy ESL
>>97459100oh so you're a powergamer, ok then fuck off.
>>97459107Lurk moar
>>97459117
>>97458964why does that purple worm knockoff have claws only going down one side?
>>97458964>I am incapable of skimming a readily available PDF, will you please vomit a ready made opinion in my mouth, like how a momma bird feeds a baby bird? Chronic masturbation and YouTube have ruined my ability to form an opinion for myself, I need to know what the worst site in the Internet thinks instead.
I think that, ultimately, it is rather PbtA-adjacent. If you dislike PbtA, you are probably going to dislike Daggerheart. If you like PbtA, there is a decent chance that you will like Daggerheart.For context, I have played Dungeon World, GMed Homebrew World (with the follower rules from Infinite Dungeons), played and GMed Fellowship 1e, played and GMed Fellowship 2e, and GMed Chasing Adventure.Last July, I GMed the Daggerheart quickstart to completion. I went a little further with a bonus encounter against the colossus Ikeri, a spellblade leader, and an Abandoned Grove environment, during which Ikeri was one-turn-killed: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/95975566/#95994135I wrote up an actual play report, during which I concluded that Daggerheart just is not for me, even relative to other PbtA games. I have been sitting on it for a while, and I have been hesitant to release it.I started up a new Daggerheart campaign some time a couple of weeks ago, and am thus GMing it once again.I think that Daggerheart is very much a success/failure spiral game. The party lives and dies by their first several rolls in an adventure; a pile of successes with Hope early on leads to smooth sailing, while several Fears in a row leads to a rough time that is hard to bounce back on. I strongly dislike this aspect of the system.
>>97459285To expound, spending Fear to make GM moves in the first place puts the PCs in a situation where they will have to roll to fight back.We see a few examples in the core rulebook, p. 156:>• Introducing new adversaries to a scene when their appearance hasn’t been foreshadowed or lacks context.>• An adversary activating a powerful spell or transformation to deal massive damage or boost their capabilities.>• An environment exerting a strong negative effect on the party.These are all situations wherein the PCs will have to make rolls to fight back.More examples can be found in the environments, which offer the GM the ability to make a GM move (possibly with a Fear cost) to make an enemy appear. The tier 1 Abandoned Grove comes with a GM move that costs 1 Fear to make a Minor Chaos Elemental appear as an enemy, for example. The tier 1 Outpost Town comes with a GM move that costs 1 Fear to make a bunch of Jagged Knife criminals accost the party, and so on and so forth.I do not think the enemy balance in Daggerheart is all that good. Two enemies with the exact same point cost can vary wildly in power level. I am not the only person who has observed this; see these threads for examples:https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1lruylw/psa_be_very_careful_with_dire_wolves/https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1qf7xvu/my_review_after_running_daggerheart_up_to_level_5/
>>97459297Druids are straight-up overpowered due to their mechanics, and characters multiclassing into druid at level 5, doubly so. This has been covered extensively in several threads across the Daggerheart subreddit, such as these:https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1lgoyid/taming_the_beast_why_druids_beastform_needs_a/https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1ljv9tn/for_those_who_agree_druid_balance_is_a_problem/https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1lmfeyw/level_1_strength_druids_seldom_miss_tier_3_druids/https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1oy65wo/question_about_multiclassing_into_druid/One odd quirk of Daggerheart that I hardly see anyone is just how important Minor Health Potions and Minor Stamina Potions are to character survival, and yet they are swingy. This is a game wherein squishy bards and wizards have 5 HP, tanky guardians and seraphs have 7 HP, and everyone else has a middle ground of 6 HP. This is a game wherein everyone has 6 Stress. (At baseline, anyway, slowly increasing in increments of 1 if the player specifically spends upgrades on them.)A Minor Health Potion heals 1d4 HP, and a Minor Stamina Potion heals 1d4 Stress. This is hugely, hugely swingy. Rolling a 1 can be a serious complication, while rolling a 4 can bring a bard or wizard at 1 HP up to full!This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some players and GMs might consider this a feature, rather than a bug. But me, me personally? I do not like healing being this swingy.
>>97459297I just can't really get behind the idea of the GM having to use a meta point in order to do things that the GM should just be able to do. In my mind, that's why playing facing meta points exist: in order to momentarily wrest control of the world away from the GM. The GM is already controlling the world, spending points just seems unintuitive to me.
>>97458964>>97459100For an unarmored monk, you will want to be a Brawler:https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Brawler-v1.5-The-Void.pdfYou have access to the Bone and Valor domains. Make Strength your highest trait. At level 1, take Deft Maneuvers from Bone, which increases your mobility considerably. Also at level 1, take Bare Bones from Valor, which makes you great at fighting unarmored.Assuming Strength +2 at level 1, Bare Bones gives you a base Armor Score of 5 and base damage thresholds of 9/19. For comparison, full plate has a base Armor Score of 4 and base damage thresholds of 8/17 (while also debuffing you with −2 to Evasion and −1 to Agility), so this is just plainly better than full plate: but only at tier 1. Actual armor gradually catches up later on.>>97459351Yes, I have not been too great a fan of it myself. I am more accustomed to, for example, Fate Core/Accelerated/Condensed: the GM has their own pool of fate points, but these are relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, since the GM is just free to deploy threats as the GM pleases.Or even just regular PbtA. In the great, great majority of PbtA games, the GM does not need to spend a resource to deploy threats as necessary.
>>97459382>the GM has their own pool of fate points, but these are relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, since the GM is just free to deploy threats as the GM pleases.Yeah, it's the same way with Savage Worlds: the GM has a stash of bennies, but they're used the same way player bennies are (mostly rerolls, ending shaken and soaking damage.) Ditto with Edge of the Empire; if I recall correctly there might be something about using dark side points to introduce new enemies or something, but in practice when I ran it I just either made the enemies rolls easier or the players rolls harder.
>>97459382>BrawlerNo idea this existed, from the manual our GM showed me there wasn't that class and unarmed/unarmored was pretty shitty there. This seems like an option, I might have to multiclass to imitate the mystical ki powers I had but this is shaping up better than I thoughtThanks
>>97458964This will never not be funny to me>shitty popular podcast plays d&d and baits a ton of morons into buying d&d who will likely never play>wotc in their infinite hubris tells podcast they need to pay a huge percentage to use d&d in their games >podcast says fuck you and pays some people to ghostwrite them a new rpg>wotc drops their demands because of the outcry from all the podcast fans to avoid another pathfinder situation>the ghostwritten rpg comes out and it is such a fucking piece of trash that nobody will ever play it>podcast plays d&d anyway on the next seasonMakes me laugh just thinking about it holy shit lol
>>97459451Yes, and what is odd is that Daggerheart has the usual PbtA wording about the GM getting to make a move when the players "give you a golden opportunity" or "look to you what happens next," so... really, what is the point of the Fear mechanic?>>97459529You are welcome.Multiclassing happens only at level 5+. Multiclassing into druid is probably the single most broken build in the entire game, especially as a Strength-based character with Bare Bones.
>>97459382Fuck off porkeye
>>97459575Nah my char couldn't into beastforms nor I like them for him
>>97459575The point of the fear currency in daggerheart is to be training wheels for dnd GMs who never touched pbta games. If you know what you're doing you can completely ignore them.
>>97459709>If you know what you're doing you can completely ignore them.Sounds like advice for Daggerheart as a whole.
>>97459318>Druids are straight-up overpowered due to their mechanicsSilver lining: At least its not Wizards this time?
>>97459925CoDzilla was always a thing, wizard is just the obvious in your face one, but Cleric/Druid were the really BS, though it takes knowing the system a little more to realize that
>>97459925Wizards are fairly good in this game, too, though it takes a few levels to get their above-the-curve Codex and Splendor cards going, and they still do not break the math as much as druids (or, heavens forbid, characters multiclassing into druid at level 5+) do.Interestingly, while there is a paladin analogue in this game, the seraph, there is no cleric analogue. It is actually the wizard that shares the Splendor domain with the seraph, offering healing and support and such.
>>97459285>>97459297>>97459318Here is a follow-up gripe of mine, which I personally observed at several points: ranged attack privilege is a bit annoying compared to what melee has to put up with. A longbow is not much lower-damage than two-handed melee weapons, and yet a longbow can attack out to Very Far ("100–300 feet away"). There is no downside to shooting in melee, whereas a melee character trying to move more than Close ("10–30 feet away") has to make an Agility action roll. If the character rolls a failure, or a success with Fear, then the GM gets to retaliate with a GM move; and rolling with Fear also means the GM gets a Fear to work with.Indeed, the example of play in the core rulebook, p. 95, is showcasing the many, many things that can go wrong as a melee-focused character makes a movement roll! A ranged weapon would have allowed the character to ignore all of this hassle.This is partly why the druid's Pouncing Predator is so strong: it greatly eases the process of closing in with an enemy. This is also why the Bone domain's level 1 Deft Maneuvers is a great help.It is also discouraging how the bestiary has several hosers of melee PCs, like the gorgon, and virtually nothing that punishes a ranged PC specifically. (Speaking of which, it is also unfair how a decent amount of enemies resist physical damage, but hardly anything resists magic damage.)
>>97459962>>97460152pork-eyeblog.com
>>97459028I've seen claims that they didn't use it, because Mulligan DMs their new campaign and wasn't familiar enough with the system over D&D or something, but even if that's the case, they gotta realize how it looks, right?>here is our own new system>anyway, we're gonna keep using D&D
>>97459578>>97460228what exactly do you think you're doing, newfag
>>97459285I've seen this post before
>>97460459>newfaglol tell 'em porkeye
How do you feel about the idea of collaborative storytelling? I'd be down to let the players shape the world map in session 0 but stuff like "you open the chest. What do you find?" is a bit hard to stomach for me
>>97458964Can anyone here comment on how the turn order/"spotlight" system plays out? Seems like a nightmare for autists & introverts
>>97460975Mixed bag overall. I've run full >everyone makes the game world togethergames and stuff with various pbta style fill in the blanks, reverse the question on the player sort of stuff and if everyone is on the same page it works but can quickly go off any sort of sensible narrative if 'yes and' just keeps happening. I think it can be fun for players used sparingly, but more often than not I have noticed they tend to dislike it or get bored when it happens too often or it becomes obvious bullshit. >the chest's engravings remind bookish character of a legend about a great serpent, what is it? gives them a bit of input and gives me an idea to use later. Just asking them what's in the chest is kind of lame.
>>97460975If a group enjoys, cool, right on, but it's not something I'm interested in, as a player or Game Master.
>>97460975Thumbs downThere's a reason why most writers don't sit down with a copy of their own books for a relaxing eveningI would never want to play in a game I'm running, though I am jealous of the games I run when I play in some shit game someone else is running.
>>97458964>Did anyone try this game? Some have, but even Shitical Role didn't think it was worth using as the system for their main campaign, which should tell you a lot.>how is it? The general consensus, once you cut through the fanboyism and the youtuber shilling, is that it's mediocre and at odds with itself. It claims to be more roleplay and story focused, but actually it's just as focused on combat as D&D... but at the same time, the combat is a broken mess because of the initiative system which lets players run roughshod over their opponents without ever giving them a turn. There's also the hope and fear system which is supposed to be cinematic, but it really just shackles the highly game-y mechanics to an arbitrary meta-currency system.>and most importantly can one port a game from 5e, PF1e or PF2e to this?Oh, absolutely not. I'm sure you could achieve the broadstrokes of a character, but not copy over their abilities and features 1:1.
>>97460453Darlington Press makes a new system every couple years. Don't let them make you forget Candela Obscura. This is nothing more than keeping the business, well, busy making worthless schlock that can make them an easy buck.
>>97460975I love it, but there's an art to it. Knowing when and what to let players fill in makes all the difference. Responding to every question about anything with "I don't know, *you tell me*" isn't witty or interesting, it's just boring and stupid.
>>97460975>How do you feel about the idea of collaborative storytelling?The GM is free to do as much or as little of it as they prefer. I prefer doing so only sparingly myself, even while running Daggerheart.>but stuff like "you open the chest. What do you find?"This is a bad example, because Daggerheart has five pages of loot tables to determine precisely what might be found inside a given treasure chest or whatnot.>>97461007Like in PbtA, essentially.Core rulebook, p. 89:>Players should follow the natural flow of the fiction to figure out what happens next, bouncing the spotlight around the table to whoever it makes sense to focus on in that moment. However, all players should keep in mind who has recently had the spotlight and try to find opportunities to give every character a chance to act.There is a variant rule specifically written for players and GMs who would prefer to codify this:>OPTIONAL TOOL: SPOTLIGHT TRACKER>If your group prefers tactical play or structured player turns, you can limit the number of actions each PC has available to them at a time. We recommend that you start with three, but you can increase or decrease the number as your table prefers.>If you use this system, when a battle begins, every player places action tokens on their character sheets to represent how many actions they can take. Players then act as usual, and each time they make an action roll or perform a significant action while in the spotlight, they remove 1 token from their sheet. Collaborate with other players to pass play around the table, making moves and telling the story together. Even if you have multiple action tokens, see if any other players want a chance to act before you spend more than one in a row.>Once every player has used all their available tokens, players refill their character sheet with the same number of tokens as before, then continue playing.
Tried it after accumulating enough frustrations with 5e over the years both as a player and as a DM, felt like it was a pretty solid fit for me as it solved the problems I had with that system. I found it it far easier to onboard new people with too, which is invaluable to me (might not be of importance to you).I disagree with the frequently raised argument that the lack of initiative in Daggerheart is a problem, especially when the conversation shifts toward the notion that 'shy players will be left behind'. For starters, I feel it does the whole table a world of good to talk openly about making sure everyone participates without anyone hogging the spotlight.Nevertheless, the book actually offers an alternative spotlight tracker ruleset for tables that want to absolutely make sure everyone gets a turn every once in a while (it might be important for younger players, maybe? I don't know, never really run into that problem).5e proposes three pillars of play (exploration, roleplaying, and combat) and only offers initiative for one of them, yet you don't see people claiming shy players won't get to enjoy 5e's social encounters and dungeon delving shenanigans.
>>97458964It's fun and I love it
>>97460453Honestly seems worse if that's the only reason and not some shady payout from WOTC or something. I feel like a someone whose career is built around playing ttrpgs should be able to learn a new one pretty easily. I genuinely think a lot of people would end up preferring actual rules-lite systems that are more flexible than DnD, but if the biggest professionals in the hobby can't be bothered to learn a new system, why should entry-level hobbyists?
What notes should I have readily available while gming and trying to do full improv? I don't want to flip through the pdf all the time, what are your most used pages I should bookmark?
>>97458964I haven't but talked to people who have. This is a "Streamer's game" not a TTRPG game. Basically this is meant for people who are tourists over those who play. Also the game is broken to hell and they made it so they can't even fix it with their combat wheelchairs.
>>97458964Can anyone of explain to me what's so enticing about this game? Why there are always threads about it? There's nothing in it that's particularly groundbreaking nor unique that you won't find in other, more dedicated, games with probably better design altogether. Makes only sense if you're a hardcore CR fan, but even then CR itself won't use DH for their games, which is ridiculous per se.
>>97462584Reddit/Bluesky wanted it to replace D&D since they hate the creator and the old fans even though WOTC went full woke. However as much as they push Daggerheart, it didn't really stick the landing enough to be the new D&D. Didn't help it was basically abandoned for D&D right after they release the game. The game was meant to be a "drama club" game for streamers and theater kids over a TTRPG to play. It got enough fanfare to push a good start. However, they basically found out they got the tourist's eyes not the gamer's eyes. Which means they will leave as soon as the nerd trend ends and the next trend begins.
>>97459100Yeah, they went so far into narrativism and "collaborative storytelling" its crippled character variety and power fantasy, ironically enough. Like the core skill resolution and damage system is decent enough, and then you step into some PbtA shit.Also, whoever drew the art for dwarves should be banned from drawing dwarves ever again.
>>97462741Don't forget they made "Combat wheelchairs" so OP. You can't be taken off them, no one can break them, and the GM can't even ban them from the table. (It's in the fucking book too.) They got so WOKE that they kind of broke their game with no chance of fixing it just to push that "they're a good person" shit to everyone. I like the idea of have a set of card for all your skills and abilities, and like that hope fear die shit. Great idea for pushing the story along but the game is just someone shitty homebrew that would be okay for a small group of 3 people but when it a major company like Critical Role and they could fix it by maybe playtesting the game fully. Then I can't give it any slack, especially since it just 8 TTRPGs rip apart and put together to play a game for streamers to play over players to play.
>>97462767they put the combat wheelchair in the core book did theythat's too bad
I would like to share a general-purpose utility build that works right from level 1. I call it the perfectionist, glamorous hellcow. I have used it myself to good effect, and I have recommended it to a player and seen them achieve great results with it as well. As a caveat, this relies on Void playtest material; I do not know how much playtest version 1.6 or the full release will change this, so the best I can do is work with what we currently have.https://www.daggerheart.com/thevoid/For our ancestry, we choose a mixed firbolg/infernis. Infernis Fearless lets us mark 2 Stress to turn a roll with Fear into a roll with Hope. This is rather good, especially when turning a success with Fear into a success with Hope, since then it denies a GM move. 2 Stress is a non-negligible cost, but that is where firbolg Unshakable comes in, giving us a 1 in 6 chance of shrugging off any Stress acquisition.Our best choice of community is, by and large, Freeborne. 1/session, we turn a roll with Fear into a roll with Hope.For a transformation, we pick Demigod. This turns our advantage die into d10. At bare minimum, this means when we Help an Ally, we give a d10 to an ally. A downside is that we take 1 Stress or give the GM 1 Fear whenever we fail with Fear. Fortunately, infernis Fearless and the Freeborne community insulate us for this.For class, we pick witch. Witch's Charm lets us spend 3 Hope to turn anyone's failure, including our own, into a success with Fear. Combined with infernis Fearless or the Freeborne community, we can turn a failure with Fear into a success with Hope! That is impressive.We choose Moon for a subclass, as though we were some sort of selenic demigod. Night's Glamour lets us mark 1 Stress to enhance our appearance, giving us "advantage on Presence Rolls that leverage this change." Our advantage die is d10 thanks to being a Demigod, so this adds +1d10 to all Presence Rolls where looking more striking could help. Not bad at all.
>>97466429And that is the build. Equipment and domain cards are up to personal preference. It has worked for me, it has worked for one of my players, and I hope it works for you as well. Thank you for listening.>>97462767>>97465947Combat wheelchairs do not actually give any mechanical benefits above and beyond what regular characters have. It is effectively just flavor.The combat-wheelchair-exclusive weapon options still require inventory and weapon equip slots. They are so-so; I have not found any build for which they are outright optional.
>>97466354>>97466368>>97466429porkeye
>>97458964>My group wants to translate our current game to itWhy?
>>97459011>didn't the creator abandon it immediately or something?they didn't, they're even releasing the first supplement this year
>>97471999Why'd they wait so long? Won't the more than six months delay translate into less interest and lower sales.
>>97472414Same reason why AAA games used to take a year to produce and now take ten. Insane overhiring of completely worthless people, corporate structure and other parasites.
>>97471367some gms hate when their players start to become powerful so instead of making it obvious by rocks fall everybody dies they "want to try another system" in where the players go back to be poweless mooks
>>97462767>>97466436Combat wheelchairs were lazy virtue signaling. To put it in context all weapon categories have different scaled versions by tier. Like a tier 1 longsword, tier 2 longsword and so on. But there's also some unique alternatives per tier like a life draining weapon or a magic revolver. Except for wheelchairs. There's no uniques for them, only the basic tier upgrades. They probably spent too much text explaining how to be respectful they didn't have enough space or text to include those.
>>97472742It's always sad when a danger hair compromises their own vision of virtue signaling because they were too fat and lazy to write anything else.
>>97472758The only time and I saw the rules for one used was another player flavouring the arcane wheelchair (yes really) as a mech suit. That was kind of neat honestly.
>>97472770Much better than the original concept I will admit.
>>97461136>I would never want to play in a game I'm runningWhy do you run your games like that?
>>97472901>There's a reason why most writers don't sit down with a copy of their own books for a relaxing evening
>>97472960Why would you write something you don't want to read?
>>97460453The excuse was that planning shit for CR takes months of prep work and Daggerheart wasn't ready when the planning stages for the next CR campaign had to be done plus getting everyone familiar with the rules is another hurdle that will eat up time for the GM and the players, so even if the game was complete right before planning they would still have not used it for that reason. Makes sense to not showcase a product poorly if their name is attached to it.Note, this isn't a critique or an excuse. I do not give a shit about Daggerheart or CR at all. I got enough systems without another and I don't follow an actual play bullshit.
To the people who tried the game, what setting did you run? Obviously fantasy but what kind? Did you stick to the premade campaign frames or did you make your own with the players?
Honestly? This feels like PbtA failed to have a love child with D&D in a worse manner than DungeonWorld did. Which is tough.If I want to run theatre-kid communnal worldbuilding with real mechanics and just throw away the dice I'll use Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, the much better version of Amber Diceless.
>>97474252Me and another guy got the books so one of us is going to run it sooner or later, it's a race to who gets to do it first, but he most likely will because I'm planning something else as well.I would run another fantasy setting, probably a mash of something at the start, developed in a way that makes sense with what happens in the game. I would wager he's going to run it as written, he's still pretty new to RPGs and GMing, so he's still using premades or settings as they are.
>>97462584>Why there are always threads about it?It's Touhoufag's latest autistic hyperfixation.
Thinking of cringemaxxing and run a Zak s/Patrick Stewart setting with Daggerheart, probably a bad idea but who cares. The dark world setting and veins of the earth have a few contact points, might start from there
>>97474126The excuse is just a more elaborate way of saying>everyone on our cast is a braindead faggot who couldn't learn another system that isn't D&D even if we paid them to do it, so we have to keep running D&D
>>97474346Man, I want to run Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, but have you ever tried to sell entrenched RPG nerds on a diceless RPG?I'm going to see if I can get them to try an Enclave one-shot between campaigns since we're wrapping this one up.
>>97479123Do you people have ideas and suggestions for how to run this? Obviously have light=currency, darkness being extremely lethal, some kind of spelunking mechanics?
>>97459011>didn't the creator abandon it immediately or something? aren't all their one-shots done with Daggerheart? It's just the main campaign thats DnD at this point
>>97479130It's a shit excuse, really. There are crazy amount of other systems they could have used.
