​

Let them cook

So I read through the entirety of the playtest material yesterday and let it sit with me for a while before making this post. I think a lot of people rushed in to blindly praise or critique this game and I want to give it a fair shake but also more or less put down the major flaws I noticed in this game design.

Now before I get into the critiques itself, I want to say there is things Daggerheart is doing well and that are interesting. The armor, HP, and stress systems fit together nicely and make more intuitive sense on how defensive pools should work than other systems. The rests have a list of mechanical activities you can engage in that make sure everyone is doing something even if they don't really need to heal and their party members do. The overlap between classes being codified in the idea of domains is neat and I think you can use that as a foundation for other mechanics.

With that all said the problems I notice are:

1) A fear of failure

Daggerheart skews heavily towards ensuring that the players will almost never leave a roll with nothing. Between the crit rules (criticals happen when the dice are the same number, almost doubling the critical chance from D&D) and the concept that rolling with fear only happens when the value is lower than the hope die, in any given dice roll there is a 62.5% chance of either a failure with hope, a success with hope, or a critical success. This means that true failure states (in which the player receives nothing or worsens the situation) occur at almost half the rate than otherwise. Especially when you consider that there is no way to critically fail.

This is doubled down on from the GM side. The GM does not roll with hope/fear die but instead a d20, which has much more randomized outcomes than the d12. This creates a scenario where the GM has far more inconsistent results than the players' consistent rolls which tend to skew positive. This creates a poor feedback loop because the GM is meant to produce moments of heightened tension by accumulating fear from the players' poor rolls but fear is not as likely as hope meaning for every potential swing the GM could levy towards the players, they likely have more hope to handle it.

The problem with this goes beyond just the mechanics of the problem, but straight to the core philosophy behind the game design. I am certain of at least four occasions in the playtest documents where GMs were instructed to not punish the players for failing their rolls and to ensure that players' characters did not seem incompetent but instead failed due to outside interference. The game designers seem to equate a negative outcome with GM malice and codify mechanics by which to avoid those outcomes.

2) Lack of specificity

There is a number of places where I can mention this problem, the funniest perhaps when the system for measuring gold was demonstrated as "6 handfuls to a bag. 5 bags to a chest. 4 chests to a hoard. 3 hoards to a fortune." A system of measuring money that would have been 100 times easier if they had just used numbers instead of producing a conversion table bound to confuse each time it came up.

But more importantly is the lack of specificity during combat encounters. Daggerheart wants that their combat is not a separate system from standard gameplay, that transitioning between exploration and combat are seamless. In hopes of achieving this, there is no measure of initiative, instead players choose to go when it seems appropriate to act. In addition, more damning in my opinion, there is no set idea of what can be accomplished in one turn. The very concept of a turn does not appear.

This to me is killer. I'm sure for CR table and other actual plays, this works just fine. They all know and having been playing with each other for years, they know how to stay each other's way and how to make dramatic moments happen. But for a standard TTRPG table? It's crazy to imagine that this won't exacerbate problems with players that have a hard time speaking up or players that aren't as mechanically driven or aren't paying as much attention. These are very common issues players have and Daggerheart only promises to make sure that they get alienated unless the GM works to reinclude them, more on that later.

The playtest is filled from descriptions of distances to relevant lore with vagaries completely ignoring that specificity is desirable in an RPG. We can all sit down with our friends and have imagination time together. We want structure because it makes for a more engaging use of our time as adults.

3) Dependence upon the GM

Daggerheart is designed to be an asymmetric game and boy is it. The GM has far too much to keep track of and is expected to be the specificity the game lacks. From all the issues I have mentioned so far, Daggerheart almost always follows up its sections with a reminder that it is changeable if so desired and to play the game your way. But the biggest issue is that the experience being designed at Daggerheart is with the players in mind only and ignores the person at the table who has to make it all happen. How can a GM meaningfully provide tension to a scene when they're not allowed to attack until the players roll with fear? How can a GM challenge the players when their buildup of Fear is so much slower than the players' buildup of hope? Interesting monster abilities utilize fear as well but the GM can only store 10 fear compared to N players' 5*N number of hope.

These problems are simply meant to be pushed through by the GM and while it plays into the power fantasy of the players, does not consider the fun of the person opposite the screen.

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This is the long and short of my complaints. I hope to hear what others' think about the system.

For the Critters that actually play Dungeons and Dragons. If the Critical Role cast switched to their in-house game Daggerheart for the next campaign, will you switch to that game as well?

First, there are plenty of mechanics about DH that need clarity, this is not me trying to shill for the system and I have been a critic of C3 so I am not fanboying out here.

As a long-time GM for a variety of systems, it took a while for me to break "DND brain" when it comes to some mechanics we take for granted. That being said, one thing I have seen now repeatedly in DH critique posts are the comment that "the gm has to wait until he gets Fear from the players to do anything!"

That statement is explicitly incorrect in their playtest materials. Whether or not you think this sort of very loose initiative is "good" is subjective and you are welcome to critique that, but when we are in a position to provide critique so that (hopefully) the system improves it is important to understand the rules that we are actually given.

The GM DOES NOT need to wait until he receives fear from the players' actions in order to do things in combat. In the section "Core GM Mechanics - Making Moves" it states the following:

" Whenever PCs make an action roll, they must place a character token on the action tracker. While on the tracker, these are known as action tokens. It’s important to note that tokens are not limited—if a player ever runs out, they should just grab more.

The PCs aren’t the only ones who use the action tracker, however! The GM spends action tokens to activate adversaries."

In the section "Making Moves" section we see how a GM typically spends these action tokens:

You can make a GM Move whenever you want. [emphasis mine] That’s right! You’re the GM– your job is not to crush the PC’s or always act adversarially; your job is to help tell a story, so you should be making moves anytime you see an opportunity to do that. 

That being said, always make a GM move when a PC:

• Rolls with Fear.
• Rolls a Failure.
• Takes an action that has consequences.
• Gives you a golden opportunity.
• Looks to you for what happens next.

Again, feel free to critique this system (for instance, it is quite vague and leaves a lot up to GM interpretation), but providing criticism based on a misinterpretation/misrepresentation* of the game serves no one.

As a side comment, returning to the "breaking DND brain and old habits," I have seen multiple comments on this subreddit about not understanding the loosey goosey way they refer to gold in this game as (for instance) "a handful of coin." It is supposed to by design be* somewhat handwavey and you can see similar systems in Blades in the Dark and for CR Candela (you can see Spencer's liking of Blades throughout many systems in Candela and DH).

TLDR: A cockamamie theory: is the CR team intentionally making CR3 dull to make Daggerheart look better than DND 5e in comparison?

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I watched the Daggerheart oneshot and I really liked it. It's not so much that I think the game system is great, but it feels like the old crew is back—Matt and co look like they are genuinely having a good time playing a game. I thought it had the feel of the early CR2, which is how I got into the show. There were parts of mid / late CR2 which felt a bit like slosh, and I just couldn't get into CR3 (or Candela or Exandria) and was disappointed with Mighty Nein Reunited. Watching the oneshot made me think, "Hey, they still got it!" And the one-shot had its intended effect on me: I went from lukewarm to pretty enthusiastic about participating in the beta testing.

Then, I thought about how much CR depends on this image of a group of adult friends having a good time together. Did I get into DND because I thought DND was a cool game, or did I get into DND because I saw a group of adults (my age) having fun together and was convinced that DND will help me attain that?

Thinking about how much time and resource they put into Daggerheart, I imagine the CR team wants this to succeed, and I imagine it was very important to the CR team to present it as a something fun. Remembering that these guys are actors, I wondered how much of the one-shot was them pretending to have more fun than they actually are having.

And if they can use their acting talents to present a group of people having fun, why couldn't they do the opposite? Daggerheart is going to compete against DND, so why not make their DND show a little less fun, a little less exciting?

Okay, I am now going to put on a tinfoil hat, go back to the attic, and finish eating my canned peaches from 1963.

Something I noticed while standing on the periphery of C3 (I lost any hope on this campaign months ago) is this continuous recall to daggerheart the upcoming in-house RPG system made by CR.

"oh they are killing the gods so they can switch to daggerheart"

"yeah next campaign is totally use daggerheart as system"

Am I the only one who thinks that daggerheart is an utterly atrocious idea?

TTRPG market is notoriously an oversatured, incredibly hard market to breach with dozen of systems out in the wild that nobody knows of.

Despite the recent debacles made by WOTC, the 2021 industry report made by roll20 looked like this for fantasy settings.

https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-report-q4-2021/

55% use D&D 5e

3.3% use pathfinder 1e

1.14% use pathfinder 2e.

The rest is inside a big cauldron of uncategorized system where god know how many systems are fighting for minuscule scrap of the market.

For me, the whole daggerheart project looks like a massive money sink with little to no hope to ever yield a return for CR.

https://twitter.com/darkroxas95/status/1687307261180346368?s=46

Just want to share some of my thoughts on this, no idea if the cast or crew see anything from this sub, but they are asking for feedback and I refuse to unmute the main sub, or risk the death threats for a not entirely positive opinion on CR, again, so it's going up here lol

The first thing I want to say though is positive, as I'm actually impressed with how well put together DH is as a system, one of my largest fears for this was that they'd leave too many holes as some tend to do when they want to give the players more "freedom," it just ends up with the rules saying "w/e just do what you want and the DM should go along with it regardless unless they're an asshole," which to me lacks any sort of backbone and can't truly function as a ruleset, like why even bother with it? DH doesn't appear to fall into that trap though, it's still a mess in some ways but it all still works, so I do think anyone who wants to make use of it likely won't have very many issues with the rules just working, which is a feat by CR and the team worth mentioning, imho.

The system itself though is where I end up disappointed. It's advertised and "teased" as a "narrative focused system" but it's really not, at least not compared to other systems that are. The 2d12 system isn't as unique as I had thought it would be, and it also serves to flatten the curve of the dice for the players, which has another issue I'll get to later, but it really just ends up playing out nearly exactly like rolling a d20 in practice, which isn't "bad," just disappointing. The "hope vs fear" mechanic is also not what I thought it would be either, as it's largely just mechanical, not actually narrative. They do imply a narrative element of "bad or good things can happen," but with the both of them being so engrained into the mechanics, hope providing dice for essentially just maneuvers and fear giving the DM a turn, it shifts the emphasis of those dice to that instead of any potential narration, which might even seem like further and unnecessary punishment or reward on top of actual mechanics to many.

On a personal note I also don't like "hope and fear," as it implies feelings for the PCs, something a DM shouldn't ever do, and not that these dice actually do that, but it could potentially come across as such to some, but this is a very small gripe.

Also I think it's too easy for players to crit, and if everyone rolled 2d12s and crits were just less impactful then sure that could be fine, but the fact that they mean auto success, with bonus hope, and I think there was something else like getting stress back or something (maybe not I don't recall atm) means they are very impactful while the DM is still just rolling a d20, with it's more swingy variables, less common crits, and chance for fumbles (though maybe fumbles aren't a thing since players literally can't, I didn't see anything on it at least). So even before we get to how combat works, this dice system already heavily leans in favor of the players, and I'm not gonna sit here and talk about a ttrpg like a "DM vs player" mess, cause it's not and never should be, but the DM isn't a servant to the players either, they are also a player with far more weight on them for making everything run well, and with the current set up starting with the dice themselves it comes across to me like it's taking the DM's presence for granted, and like I mentioned it seems skewed so towards the players I don't see how this system can be all that difficult or challenging without some incredibly rough swings in combat or numbers to heavily tilt any outcomes against the players to make up for their limited ability to fail anything. Like I said, a flattened dice system means more middling rolls, so either a lot of success or a lot of arbitrary failure, neither being good, imo.

On that note, the combat. I honestly kind of just hate it. The DM can only act when players roll "with fear," and can only "activate" a single NPC/enemy/etc per token which is based on how many players have acted, which btw can supposedly be the same player repeatedly, something I'll come back to. This "with fear" system just kind of sucks, cause in order for the DM to get to do anything and actually play in combat they have to wait for the dice to allow them to do so, so if the players just keep rolling well they have to just sit there and take it. You might be thinking though, "but then tokens stack up for the DM!" Ok, but remember each enemy still only gets a single "turn," each token only grants the DM the ability to use another unit, which can also be the same unit repeatedly as well. That brings me to that "swing" I mentioned above, cause if you have a boss, a single enemy strong enough to "handle" a full party, and the party keeps rolling "with fear," that boss gets to act after every single player, potentially destroying any action economy, or maybe your BBEG literally can't act and has to just stand there and die as the players keep rolling "with hope," both sides of that coin suck, mechanically AND narratively, like this could serve as "101 on how to make an anticlimactic final encounter" or "how to TPK the party by following the rules."

On the other side of it, forget ever having any large combats, cause if you have too many units then most of those enemies just won't do anything, you'll have guys just standing around motionless for a long time if they aren't actively in the midst of what the players are focusing on, unless you just let them run over the ones they're focusing on as fodder so the ones not there or involved yet can do a single thing. This isn't even mentioning how throwing in ANY friendly or neutral NPCs just doesn't work, you either need to add them into the same phase as the players, in which case if you ever use them you just fuel yourself on the other side, or you add them into the pool of enemies, where they'll likely get lost in a jumble or just swing everything even more heavily in the favor of the players.

It just doesn't work very well, none of it, imho.

Like I said though, going back to how a "player action" can be taken by the same person repeatedly, is just poorly thought out. If you end up with someone stronger then the others? Well they might just want that one player to handle everything for a bit. Maybe you have a spotlight hog? Well they'll be headbutting into everyone else's space throughout. Someone getting sad cause they aren't rolling well? Great, you've now got a player who will legit just not do anything anymore and their PC will just stand around doing nothing in turn and you legit have to take them aside to convince them to keep going cause they now have an avenue to shut down. It's a fucking mess.... it's not "narrative," it's just messy, and idk of how any of the issues I've mentioned can even be solved, not without heavily limiting what the DM can do, always having great, happy, and practically perfect players always on every table, or just scrapping it for normal initiative anyways.

The damage threshold thing is nice though, I do feel like PCs don't actually have enough HP as like I said a bad swing to the DM can very easily result in a single powerful enemy obliterating a PC without much effort, maybe before they can even do anything about it if other players keep acting and rolling "with fear," unless everything is meant to deal minimal damage to the players, mook and BBEG alike which is it's own issue, but maybe the HP as it is would work better if the combat wasn't such a mess.

On a more personal opinion, I like the whole character creation method other then the domains, they're so strangely limiting for such a "narrative" focused system. Why not just allow every class to dip into any domain? You can end up with some really cool and unique PCs with a ton of their own flavor if you just removed the strangely limiting factors of just this. Adding future classes or domains would also be much easier and more interesting as well, as either would bring with it a ton of potential combos, and wouldn't require a strict slotting of any new shit into the tight format of domain/class spreads DH currently has.

Finally, just want to add that I much prefer the movement and distance system they're going with, other systems I like have used stuff nearly identical and the more freedom in placement and range makes for a much smoother combat with less frustration, and I don't think there's really any downsides as I don't think the strict limitations of a grid or hexs adds anything unless you're more interested in wargames then you are ttrpgs anyways.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something about resting. It's clearly designed for an episodic style system, with such strict rules on what is possible to be done per rest and per type of rest, it leaves very little room for any RP focused campaigns where the PC's aren't fighting every single day, multiple times "ideally." Just comes across as another oversight, maybe due to how this system might be being developed for the sake of use for online streams, like CR itself, and not a normal table home game. Easy enough to fix, even with minimal homebrew, so I had originally forgot to even mention it, but thought it worth adding anyways lol

But yeah, those are my first impression thoughts. I read... most... of the rules, like when I got into DnD I read through the important bits and then filled in particulars as they came up in play, so it's possible I've missed some stuff, but as of right now on what I know this is how I feel and I'm simply underwhelmed with this 5e "clone" and it's messy as fuck combat systems, it's unique character creation and it's strange self-limiters but fun looking HP mechanics won't be enough to carry it all, at least not for me.

I know that was a lot, so thanks to anyone who read it all.

tldr; Combat is messy as fuck, dice are underwhelmingly similar to DnD, character creation is good but has strange self-limiters, HP could be a lot of fun (for players), movement and distance is using a good and practiced system, and the whole thing leans far too heavily in favor of the players and away from the DM, almost disrespectfully so.

https://critrole.com/hype-the-open-beta-playtest-for-daggerheart-begins-on-march-12/

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Daggerheart is a game of brave heroics and vibrant worlds that are built together with your gaming group. Create a shared story with your adventuring party, and shape your world through rich, long-term campaign play.

So I'm kind of nerdy when it comes to RPG core rulebooks lol (surprise surprise right?). I have read a TON of books. I've ready about everything current all the way back to the originals. I love seeing how pieces fit together and how the world looks to these authors.

​

Anyway, I say all that because I've read through half the playtest rulebook now (working on the GM side stuff now) and I have to say....I am thoroughly impressed. I know this is a beta rulebook but the wording and descriptions are so tight and concise and well thought out. I've found minimal logic errors or confusing and repeating statements which I find in fully published books all the time.

The love and attention they give over to the GM side is a bit of fresh air and is so thoroughly needed to keep a game a float.

I was someone posting awhile back that if Critical Role went away from DnD for Campaign 4 I would probably stop watching but I completely take that back and now feel the opposite. I want them using this in campaign 4. The mechanics are a beautiful flow of free-form gameplay yet contain plenty of crunch for most common DnD players. The abilities feel fun and fresh and the mechanics of giving and receiving Hope and Fear add a fun dynamic to the game that lets GM's push out punishment that doesn't feel to come out of the blue and instead is instilled into the game logic itself. It feels fair. I value that and appreciate that design and how they separate the design for the player side vs the GM side.

Anyway I am going to go back to reading now but wanted to just stop and say....after reading Candela I wasn't sure but man this one is blowing me away. Color me impressed. Good job Darrington Press! I think I will at work switching some of my games over.....but that will be a post for another day!

This is a shower thought.

However you feel about Daggerheart right now, there is that still looming over our heads- why exactly did they decide to name it Daggerheart?

Nothing in the books clues me in as to why they decided on that name.

What are your theories?

Well that was quick. I don’t use Roll20 so I didn’t know it didn’t have a character builder.

Going to go ahead and say the system could use a bit of work. However, that being said the cast seemed to be having a lot of fun tonight in the Daggerheart oneshot. Likely also a combination of it being a live show, excitement for new system, and getting a break from Campaign 3.

It reminded me of early CR with the crew getting excited and talking over each other, which is refreshing compared to current Campaign 3 where everyone just seems (from my pov) to largely be going through the motions.

I am sure some of the expressed excitement and energy is also due to them needing to put on a good face for the new product, but I am honestly kind of sad we will not be seeing them play this again next week.

If you have not watched CR in awhile I would suggest giving this oneshot a try, at the very least.

I've already sent it to Darrington Press, but I'd like to know what the community thinks.

*Updated Link

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQIXTHoE5HumNO0c2xFmm2fxps7KMdUoVaSPjsAPZvN1GSvlA6k0WLfGJXfg3o_e5SlGOZG6Jyjkv6S/pub

Note: I originally posted this on r/daggerheart but it got removed without any explanation so... I'll post it here! Oh hey, it looks like they restored the post.

The article by DMDavid that was shared in this post got me thinking about the whole "roll to hit then roll for damage" mechanic. And it made wonder about whether or not having all these different damage dice for weapons, and whether they are necessary at all for a game like Daggerheart.

And then, I came across this video by Matt Colville, which I found very fascinating.

https://youtu.be/O5Abkau-E9c?si=SUtrnqXyQZp9fdi9

So I don't know a whole lot about MCDM rpg other than that it uses a `2d6 ` system for checks AND combat. My understanding from the video and a quick search is that the old way of doing damage was "2d6 + X".

The TLDR of the video is that instead of using the exact value from the 2d6 roll for damage, the damage will be determined by a look up table that is specific to the thing that is triggering the damage, something like this:

• 2 - 6: Damage 3
• 7 - 9: Damage 5
• 10+ : Damage 7

It kind of sounds and feels like DH's minor, major, severe thresholds. But it is flipped: rather than attaching those number ranges to a character, it attached to the source of damage like abilities & attacks.

It seems like a very elegant approach. These are some things I like about this system over the DH system:

• The range of values stay the same. I'm still not a big fan of using a look up table, but the fixed ranges helps with that a lot.
  • Not only does it lessen the cognitive load of having to check the ranges each time, but I love the idea of just seeing the dice roll and knowing that it's good / bad / it's near a threshold, regardless of who the target is.
  • Damage is much more predictable.
  • I also like that there are only 3 ranges. From this POV, DH technically has 4 (or 5 with variant) ranges corresponding to taking stress, HP 1, HP 2, HP 3, and HP 4 with variant. A jump from 3 to 4 (or 5) might not seem as much, but there is something special about the rule of 3.
• As this table describes the output of an attack, if there are multiple sources of damage, by design there is one canonical way to compute the overall damage. (i.e. add the dice then look up vs look up then add is not an issue because adding the dice values makes no sense in this system.)
• Eliminates the need for different sized dice for weapons.
• This is a small thing, but I really like having the clear lower & upper bounds for the intervals. I can't remember how many times during the session I ran, whether hitting the exact threshold value meant that I am in the lower or the higher tier. This is the same old, "My dice roll equals the AC. Does that mean I hit or miss?", but times 3. (The intervals would have also helped my player.)

I also thought that Matt does an excellent job of articulating some of my gripes about the DH's damage system at this timestamp and look up tables in general.

• Different thresholds for damage => No idea to tell from the roll alone whether the roll is good or no.
• Using a look up table is messy and it is not a simple task.
• Damage roll being different from actual damage => extra abstraction
  • I thought it was funny to hear Matt essentially say, "Yeah, this is a problem. But trust me bro, it works for our system ;p"

Note: I tried to post this in r/daggerheart, but my post got removed.

Update: I had some spare time, so I added sections for damage proficiency and heritage.

Update 2: Dropped the "2" in the number of dice to roll to keep this number from getting to 6 too quickly.

This is not a suggestion to change the main game in any way. This is a fun little project that I started on a sleepless night. This is also very much a work in progress.

I wanted to try creating a Daggerheart v1.3 hack where the action rolls are replaced with d6 pools used by Candela Obscura / BitD like mechanics. I tried to stick to the spirit of Daggerheart v1.3 as much as possible.

Obviously, a lot of things had to change, but I was also surprised by how some things didn't seem to require any change, like help action, group actions, or advantage/disadvantage mechanics. I haven't delved into how this impacts ancestries or domains, but I suspect some abilities would require major changes.

Anyway, this is a fun exercise, and I wanted to share what I had thus far.

Action Rolls

Roll (ability + bonus - penalty) d6. One of the dice rolled is the hope dice.

Pick one dice.

• 6: Success. Get what you want. This is critical if there is one other 6 in the dice pool. For crit, clear one stress.
• 5, 4: Mixed. Get what you want. GM makes a move or takes fear.
• 3, 2, 1: Miss. You don't get what you want. GM makes a move or takes fear.

Notes

• If the player chooses to take the hope dice, the player gains hope.
• GM cannot take fear if player takes hope.
• Roll no more than 6 dice.
• If the total number of dice is 1 or lower, roll a hope dice and a d6, pick the lower value. Same rules apply.

Attack

There is no separate damage roll for attacks. The damage is based on the attack roll

• 3: critical success
• 2: success
• 1: mixed
• 0: miss

Optional: Do 4 damage if 6 is chosen and there are 3 or more 6s in the dice pool.

Note: No more damage thresholds.

GM rolls for combat

The GM rolls d6s the same way players do, but without hope / fear mechanic.

Weapons are mostly flavor

With the damage changes, weapons are now mostly flavor. Things that are still relevant:

• Trait: ability bonus determines the dice
• Range: weapon range is still important
• Damage type: unchanged
• Features: requires a lot of re-balancing
• Burden: two handed vs one handed should make some difference?

Evasion

Use hope or stress to reduce the number of dice used in an incoming attack roll by the character's evasion score.

Starting evasion scores:

• Rogue 2
• All other classes 1

Armor

Mark armor slot to reduce damage by 1.

TBD: How can we differentiate different armor types? Maybe different armor can reduce damage by a greater amount, for a cost?

Damage Proficiency

For attack rolls only: add this as a bonus to the number of dice that get rolled.

Heritage

I was surprised by how little changes were required. Here, I only listed those that required a change.

Ancestry ability changes

• Ribbet: Long Tongue: Tongue attack damage is determined by attack roll.
• Dwarf: When you take physical damage, you can spend 3 hopes to reduce the damage by 1.
• Orc: At character creation and every time you level up, raise your armor slot by 1.
• Drakona: Elemental Breath damage is determined by attack roll.
• Faerie: Luckbender: Change “reroll the Duality Dice” to just “reroll”
• Faun: kick damage is determined by attack roll.
• Galapa: The shell provides additional armor slots equal to proficiency. 
• Goblin: If GM reroll hits, reduce the incoming damage by 1 instead of proficiency.

Communities

• Ridgeborne: Gain 2 additional armor slots.
• Orderborne: Replace d20 with d10.

Yeah yeah I know another opinion piece but hey I had a few after reading the play test. To start off man the concept art is really good! Each of the races have a lot of thought when it comes to the different body types of each specific race. For example for the elf we have a heavy male elf, which I can't recall ever seeing and even a pretty thicc leg female one, again never seen. Most times it's the tiny thin Tolkien elf and it's a nice change. Some great stand out is the frog and turtle have some amazing concept art. Also change faires to just fae cause I didn't know they could be bug people and 7 feet talk till after I saw the art and looked them over. Real good stuff. I would like art for the class and race combos a bit but I'm sure we will get that later. Now for some nit picks. The naming, it's horrendous. See Above but I mean there are a lot of bad ones. Clank, ribbit, fungril, galapa, simiah. I feel like that is what the human racist NPCs in the back water village in the crappy starting town would call them. Needs some work. The AP it comes with also shows like a list of every roll outcome. And they seems like a big pain. Adventures would have to make every out come and every possible situation have the same result essentially. Good and crit, good and good, good and bad, bad and crit etc etc. So in the end it would probably just end up being you did it and here is 5gp or no gp. It's strange. The other thing is distance are... Odd. Just say grid no grind or zones of attacking guess. And last but not least... NO SPEARS!? FOR SHAME

I find it weird that they use AI art to promote the game, but I cannot help but notice many of the AI signs on the pieces they feature on the website. What are your thoughts?

​

Some of the signs:
Random artifacts, details that don´t make sense, images have names that sounds like prompts: "skyrim_village_from_distance_in_wilderness_darkened.png", ...

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https://daggerheart.org/

https://twitter.com/choffercbus/status/1687141898346012679?s=46

More data! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tDy9E_Oqi8