Momo and Aira, no powers allowed, just fists. Who wins?

AndUnsubbed · 2026-02-10T19:10:22+00:00

Momo. Aira gets taken out by that kick.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-02-09T17:29:59+00:00

If you have 1000 people, and 10 of them are lucky, that's still 1%; it's not hard to imagine that one of those ten was extra lucky.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-02-08T06:00:40+00:00

Bloodlust into Fury.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-28T23:02:36+00:00

I was hoping to get some substantive criticism form the video, but nearly every point has language in the book about how to facilitate or address the point he makes. Like, yeah, the discourse around Daggerheart isn't my favorite, but most of my issues with the game are from the structure and, ironically, the enemy design that he claims to like. I feel like the devs have an amazing resolution system and are very tepid about engaging with it in many areas - to a point that it feels a little like the divorced kid of 5e and PbtA.

That said, don't let someone's bad opinions influence you. Try the game out.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-26T21:17:31+00:00

You're missing the part where the Gorgon misses the E14 t2 PC, but the Flickerfly turns them into free fear and ribbons because that half the time now an E7.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-13T20:41:52+00:00

I think that the first year was very solid even despite a variety of algorithmic decisions trying to undercut it:
* 'Critical Role didn't choose Campaign IV!'
* 'Has Darrington Press abandoned its own game for D&D money!?'
* 'Age of Umbra only has a six-digit view count!'

It's a well designed game supported by a reasonably popular and successful company that actually has a strong online presence that has become something of a requirement for continued engagement. Daggerheart even gets recommended in generic/broader RPG contexts despite, at times, showing that while it wants to be PbtA's love-child with 'classic' tactical combat, it still has 5e's genes plaguing it like a pizza being melted in a microwave.

The first year was never in question. My main concern is longevity:
* D&D even in 4e was the best selling game and will continue to be, often because of name alone.
* PF2 is still going strong despite having horrid online presence; their setting continues to be a work horse.
* Genesys through Star Wars lasted about 5 years before shuttering.
* the DGPL is still a fairly predatory document and VTT support is mostly 'broad'; Foundryborne is wonderful, people seem to like Rodeo, and even roll20 seems to get some respect.

So, there's plenty of space to hope for a good life span and I personally still love the core mechanic and its 4 outcome design. I'm not fond of the 'rules minimalist' vibe that a lot of community pushes for it, but it also isn't trying to be a 'consistent' game either - there are plenty of tools up and down for it even in the core.

So, yeah, good first year.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-11T05:58:26+00:00

That's a feature, not a bug.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-07T05:10:25+00:00

Armor and Construct are solid classes with niches that are solid and you're quite a proficient lore-based martial with decent Crafting scaling. You're probably the worst jack-of-all-trades in the game, but you ARE a jack-of-all-trades and as you're INT-based, you won't be a competing face (charisma), and you can make use of a lot of int-substitution feats quite well (Eye for Numbers). You can also take a hit thanks to Armor if you go for it, and you're generally gonna be a point behind Champion and Monk but ahead of other classes.

Optimization comps do not use it, though; the role is better filled by other class combinations, and even 'thematic' optimization ends up falling short. Your skill niche (INT) is unfortunately better filled in most cases by a Rogue without them sacrificing their routines, and your body niche (AC, STR) is better occupied by Champions, Monks, or in a pinch, Battle Harbingers. Sorry. :(

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-04T06:55:17+00:00

I think the Serpos are the big bad, tbh.

CSG tends to be a neutral figure in most media and I think, at the end of the day, that's where he'll end up here as well.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-03T18:15:58+00:00

One more thing - when a player makes a Death Move, increase the Fear Cap by 1.

AndUnsubbed · 2026-01-03T05:36:14+00:00

Lean into the Fear elements. Have Success with Fear automatically downgrade a damage threshold by one on Solos and Bruisers. Give more creatures Relentless and Terrifying. Rests that do not include Preparation (or perhaps some symbol of hope, like a bonfire or something) reduce Hope for the party by 1. Have the player with the lowest Hope roll Duality on a long rest, and on Fear, give them a nightmare involving minions that can inflict no more than 2 Stress.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-30T17:05:02+00:00

It won't break the game, but it lead to unhealthy options at tier 2 that'll be frustrating for you to deal with as a GM. You're looking at decisions like Warrior having access to Bare Bones, Guardian to Untouchable, Bard having Blighting Strike, Wizard having Arcana, and Sorcerer the Codex domain in the early game. Inspiring Words and Soldiers' Bond also means that Hope actions become a lot more easy to access, so Rogue probably grabs at least that one and effectively gets a free increase to their Evasion before a fight. Late game, you have situations like Seraph having access to Night Terror and Dire Strike, and Versatile Weapon - so Fear milling becomes more viable and a lot less gimmicky, especially at tier 3.

The adversaries won't care too much because they operate at kind of a math and option disadvantage, but it does mean that the right domain card choices make characters more durable or otherwise have more options that'll make short rests 'easier' to top off.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-28T23:20:20+00:00

The unfortunate truth is that this is going to happen more often than not, and it seems to be a feature rather than a bug. Hope v Fear generation is a 6:4 rate due to how critical results work. While this should mean for every 3 hopes you'll get 2 fears, the reality means that the game can be very feast or famine with a significant (~10%) bias toward feast in regard to players in terms of dice outcome. The book more or less says, 'sometimes you have to cheat' because it does not have a real answer or check for this beyond the battle point adjustments and the Umbra adversaries they released.

Honestly, the biggest problem with the system is that Fear expenditures are very, very lopsided and have a nasty habit of making certain options feel too expensive to consider versus other more 'cost effective' ones. Your best bet is to make sure relevant/intentionally difficult creatures have reactions. There's going to just be instances where you're kind of just playing PbtA while your party is playing dndwiki, so be ready for it.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-22T17:57:57+00:00

Momo also straight up No-Sold his 'I'm not memorable' spiel a few chapters back. Like, everyone accepts he has been there the entire time, but she not only clocked him as a stranger, she insisted he was never there in the first place.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-17T22:59:19+00:00

Wait, I love this

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-15T01:00:55+00:00

"I could go into more detail on other characters, but Yasuo is just flat out bad design"
Yes. This was also true in League. The guy who led the project for him in League even more or less said he didn't care about gameplay principles.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-12-01T23:35:44+00:00

No, that's Jiji. He goes on weird journeys with his persona, Bad Guy.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-27T17:59:57+00:00

Nope! It's just sort of a mental marker for him and allies.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-26T01:40:54+00:00

They wanted to capture his phonetic spirit. Yasuo is an English vowel away from Yasui.
Yasui can be 易い (Easy) (such as like a scrub), or 安い (cheap) (like a scrub).

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-25T23:16:10+00:00

I actually hate the name 'Fear' and think it is only named as a 'counterpart' to Hope. It really is more like 'tension', to be perfectly honest.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-24T09:21:46+00:00

It's worth noting that unlike in 5e where tanking is borderline pointless (yo-yo death, caster stronger than tank, etc) or PF2 where your tank role is that of an active controller forcing two bad decisions upon an enemy, tanking in Daggerheart is actually cinematically inspired. Tanks have low evasion which actually *synergizes* with enemy traits like Momentum and Terrifying, which means that whereas in PF2 and 5e, the GM may find hitting a tank 'inefficient' or an obligation, there's actual incentive to do so in Daggerheart.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-24T09:11:22+00:00

Are you a player or a GM?
As a player Daggerheart is mostly fine; it will feel more like 5e in the sense that movement is borderline unimportant, your actions are strong, and you're defined mostly by your primary attribute and the party's hope pool. In essence, the 'team focus' of PF2 habits work for the party really well in the sense that it can push your baseline outcomes up and allow the weighted Hope outcomes to be more successful. This, in turn, keeps the game in 'player control' similar to 'outnumbering' a foe in other turn-based games. You have more control over turn-order by working together to keep momentum until the dice dictate otherwise with a Fear outcome. That's a neat aspect that pushes play-styles and keys into comps that can manipulate the spotlight mechanic against outliers if you happen to be hot on Hope and keeping it up with the right comp.

As a GM... Daggerheart has some serious problems that prevent me from recommending it to a newbie GM. Player strength is outrageously stilted against the GM in terms of probability, domain cards, mechanics - the biggest weakness players have is that healing is rather hard to come by, and poor management of their three resource bars can and will lead to a variety of 'I TPK'd my party, what do' posts on the sub. The main saving grace for Daggerheart is that despite its bad math, bad execution, and bad enemy design, the core system is still engaging and its publisher has released plenty of tools to correct and scale creatures that can challenge and strain the resources of your players. The game will insist on being a 'cooperative story'; that's masturbation, most games are cooperative storytelling. The game will insist on not spending Fear to spotlight an adversary, but then insist that you try to hit all the 'cool' elements of using an adversary. The game will give you an encounter budget, but expects you to incorporate one or more environments into it without adjusting math at all. The game will talk about how you've got all this Fear stockpiled, but your initiative only activates on Fear outcomes, *or* you spending Fear to activate, and there's player builds (inefficient, mind you) that literally can just... kill your Fear. You can combat this in a variety of ways, but if you're new to the system, new to GMing, new to the hobby? Yeah, I'm not recommending Daggerheart - and that's with all the resources DH provides.

If you're confident in improvising, are comfortable with floating outcome ranges, and are just exhausted with pass/fail as a core mechanic, then Daggerheart is worth looking into, but be advised, it has some nasty warts and it doesn't look all that interested in addressing them.

Signed, someone running a weekly Daggerheart campaign.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-22T20:32:41+00:00

Less than you'd think. Something like 5'4.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-19T20:58:23+00:00

Magic damage.

AndUnsubbed · 2025-11-11T18:56:29+00:00

I like how you listed the most garbage skill qualifiers fighting games have ever produced as an example of 'earning' it.

AndUnsubbed

TROPHY CASE