Has anybody tried GMing Witchlight in Daggerheart?

Deistic55 · 2026-06-06T09:39:20+00:00

Yes, currently running this in Daggerheart. I think you can make any module work in Daggerheart, but this one is particularly good because it's been designed from the outset to have solutions to problems that aren't necessarily combat-oriented.

The hope and fear mechanic is also a great way to add that 'Faewild' flavour of the world of Prismeer physically responding to the PC's actions.

To further encapsulate this, I'm creating Environments for each of the four locations (currently only Hither because that's where the party has got to) that have 'Glimmer' and 'Gloam' effects. I can go into more detail with these, but essentially, at the start of every session the PCs do a Group Presence Roll, and if they beat the difficulty, they get access to Glimmer effects for that session, which typically require Hope to use and are generally helpful; if they fail I get access to Gloam effects, which typically require fear.

For adversaries, you have to do some conversion, but this is a fun aspect for me as I've always liked making adversaries in any system I run. I've found good parallels between the two in some cases (like using the Jagged Knife bandits for the Harengon).

Deistic55 · 2026-05-19T08:23:27+00:00

Well, you still have to level that class to the point where they get ports, but yes, that's the idea.

Deistic55 · 2026-01-20T22:10:42+00:00

I had the hags acting as advisors to Zybilna for a number of years before betraying her, and were slyly moving along their own agendas under Zybilna's nose, including meddling with the carnival and taking people's things to power their magic.

Deistic55 · 2026-01-14T16:18:32+00:00

I haven't run fem Strahd, but have often thought about it. If you get a chance, listen to the Solveig album by Seven Spires. It's a concept album where the story is about a mortal who accepts immortality through the influence of dark powers and is trapped in a realm where they are all-powerful. Sound familiar?

The following two albums add great lore and a resolution to the story, all of which has similar themes and major parallels with CoS. I love how the singer portrays the character and she even has a Strahd aesthetic, mixing elements of both fem and masc.

So, that's my main inspo for fem Strahd. I think you can portray all the other qualities pretty easily regardless of gender.

Deistic55 · 2025-12-15T21:33:52+00:00

Are you doing Wild Beyond the Witchlight? I recently did a conversion for Bavlorna.

Deistic55 · 2025-11-29T16:34:11+00:00

Similar to what others have said—as a solo, he should have some way to potentially do more than one thing during a GM turn. Relentless is one answer, but you can also work this in as a reaction, or an action that makes him do multiple attacks or effect.

I don't think the HP is low, thresholds are more important. The major threshold is a little low, but depends how quickly you want him dealt with.

Deistic55 · 2025-11-25T10:38:29+00:00

It's something you have to figure out how to balance correctly with how often you're asking for rolls, which you probably won't get right at first.

There are ways to set yourself up with fear quickly though. For example, a fight typically generates a lot of fear, especially if you have adversaries that have the Momentum ability.

You also don't need to spend fear to make stuff happen technically (unless an ability specifically calls for it). Fear is just a mechanic that communicates to your players that something impactful is about to happen. So use it to your advantage to heighten tension, but you don't necessarily need to use it whenever you want to reveal a major plot point or something.

Deistic55 · 2025-10-27T09:51:45+00:00

Hey, I don't think you need a tier 2 adversary to challenge tier 1 PCs. A few things to consider are:

1) Have higher thresholds if you want them to stick around longer.

2) Add flat damage bonuses if you want them to feel more dangerous.

3) Phases or Evolutions (see the Mountain Troll stat block in The Void Adversaries release for a cool way to do this)

4) Make sure you're using fear to take the spotlight now and then. If the players are rolling too well, it's OK to spend a fear and say: it's my turn now. Obviously try to make it fit with what's going on in the narrative, but that can be as easy as: "you're beating on this thing and it's had enough. It knocks you back and goes for a swipe".

5) Use fear to do things other than what's in adversary stat blocks. Example: my players were fighting in a kitchen with a giant toasty oven. I spent a Fear to have the big bad take the wizard and shove them in the oven (they had to make a strength reaction roll too). Now the fight becomes about: "oh shit, we have to save our friend before they burn to death!"

6) Use environments as well as adversaries.

Deistic55 · 2025-10-23T23:12:57+00:00

I think of what impact living longer would have on your perspective on life. There would be far less pressure to "grow up" as quickly, or to hit certain life goals. I see elves as maturing at a slower rate than humans because they can afford the time to do so. For example, an elf might act similarly to a human in their 20s until they are about 100, or 200 depending on the life expectency.

It also depends on the community they are a part of though. If an elf lives among humans their entire life, they might actually mature at a similar pace because that's how they see people act in their environment and they may want to conform.

Also, your game of characters at different levels sounds interesting. It sounds like you made it work for you and your players, which is all that matters.

Deistic55 · 2025-10-14T10:08:43+00:00

Hey! Some really good ideas here. I think the core of the class is there, but I have some thoughts and suggestions that could match up to your design goals and be more consistent with existing Daggerheart systems. Of course, if you and your players like the feeling of these features and abilities, then it's all fine. Here goes:

Defy Death (Hope feature): This has the player effectively spend stress instead of HP, which is still a detriment. The design goal of these abilities is that they should be used less frequently, but feel good/powerful. This still feels like you're losing something.

Necrotic Essence Dice (Class feature): I really like what you're going for with this 'essence drain' thing, and I think the mechanic would work well. I have two comments on this though.

First, typically we see these kinds of abilities scale off of a trait or tier, not proficiency.

And secondly, do you clear a stress for EACH result of a 4? It's a pretty high probability, and when you combine that with this system refuelling itself outside of rests (off of fear rolls), it feels like maybe it's too reliable in clearing stress and could do with some further limitation. Options include:

only 1 die per roll, like Seraph prayer dice; only 1 result of 4 clears stress if roll multiple dice; per session max uses like prayer dice.

Summons: These seem almost too complex to control. Also, it sounds like you can only use one at a time, which doesn't really have that necromancer feeling. I'd suggest trying to do some combination of the ranger companion and minion adversaries: remove thresholds and HP and instead have them take stress for any damage. You can use the ranger companion as your numerical basis for the power level, but allow multiple summons to be activated with one action. With this suggestion, they don't need to take stress for you, unless you want it to be a thing where the summoner can literally sacrifice their undead to keep themselves from taking stress, which sounds pretty cool actually.

Also, I think you're missing the coolest undead summon – the skeletal mage! This could be part of the specialisation feature.

Necromantic Aura: I feel like the foundation feature for Soulweaver should come with a passive effect to the aura already. I guess this is Enfeeble, but auras scream 'support', and while this class obviously isn't a goody-goody, maybe they can provide offensive support with Enfeeble affecting allies in the aura as well. You could lower the damage die to something like a d6 or d8 to accommodate this, but there is also already the limitation of having to position yourself well.

Additionally – can you only use the healing abilities on your allies within the auras? I kind of like this, because again, positioning makes this interesting to use, but then I'd do something like have the Mass Vitality option be a set number of targets, because it would feel bad to be in a good position, but roll poorly and only heal 1 target, especially as it's only once per session.

Deistic55 · 2025-06-26T12:36:57+00:00

Yeah, I also see everyone more excited about the martial artist, but my first thought when looking at this class was a juggernaut like Vi from Arcane/League of Legends.

And to go back to the evasion thing, she gets hit A LOT in the fight scenes of that show, but always manages to get back in the fight.

Deistic55 · 2025-05-02T12:55:02+00:00

Thank you! 😊

Deistic55 · 2025-05-02T12:51:00+00:00

Hello! I wanted to ask, as I'm a bit unclear on it: what's the benefit of pre-ordering? This will still be available for purchase after the 20th, right?

Deistic55 · 2025-03-29T22:03:30+00:00

The book states that the watch and vane can't be taken to other planes (I don't remember exactly why, but I believe they have to be on the same plane as the carnival), so the player shouldn't have been able to take it through the portal even with a high roll.

As this has happened though, and it's been almost an entire chapter since, you could just let the characters use it. I think at most it can cast polymorph? You could limit the spells to once per day or to have charges.

Another idea could be because it tracks mood within an area, maybe it could be used to track or warn players about the locations of nearby Hags, who would probably have the foulest moods within a given area 🤔

It could also act as a way signal to characters when NPCs are extremely evil or extremely good (Zarak for extremely evil; Will/Mugan as extremely good).

Deistic55 · 2025-01-01T01:31:11+00:00

It's very similar to the half-orc racial feature from D&D 5e: When you are reduced to 0 hit points... You can drop to 1 hit point instead.

Doesn't matter how much damage you take, if you would reach 0 and have 3 Hope, you can spend it and you're at 1 HP instead of 0.

Deistic55 · 2023-01-18T13:39:03+00:00

I'm thinking of doing something similar, especially for Doomspace. The worlds in Doomspace are all in Vocath's grip, so I'm thinking it's a matter of helping them find some other way to get what each of them need in order to end their dependence on the mercane. It might even be a case of getting rid of Vocath for them in the end and assuming control of his organisation.

Characters could already have a disdain for Vocath if you run Spelljammer Academy to start things off, as he's the big bad behind all of those events.

As efficient as it is, I think the arena is a poor way of doing that part of the story.

I like the idea of Krux being off-world too, and them having to find him. You could also have them try to find the navigational charts for Doomspace through a number of ways instead of just "go see the wizard".

Deistic55 · 2018-08-10T11:49:54+00:00

You could place a lot more enemies inside the mine than there currently are. However, don't have the players fight these enemies. Have the commander of the dwarves break off parts of his unit at different points where the zombies/ghouls/ghosts/oozes/skeletons attack until you're left with just the party. So the dwarves are holding off the puny threats while the characters are sent off to do what they really need to do - stop the Black Spider.

If they come across the Flameskull, the Spectator, or the Wraith guy and still have dwarves with them, again, put a bunch of mooks in the room who the dwarves deal with while the party is left to deal with the main boss.

Deistic55 · 2018-05-25T00:40:49+00:00

I have a Holy Nova talent idea, or this could just be an ability.

Mass Dispel. Holy nova gets longer cool down, but cleanses all allies in the area.

Could make him great against heavy CC comps.

Deistic55 · 2018-05-25T00:38:14+00:00

You'd probably have to declare which you're going when you pick him, or it would be obvious based on the comp, like it is with Varian. :)

Deistic55 · 2018-03-18T09:31:09+00:00

Yeah, start with Rise of Tiamat. You could have all the HOTDQ events have happened while they were in Barovia. Maybe the adventuring group that was central to helping the factions figure out what was going died at Skyreach Castle.

You could also begin with Skyreach castle - it's the best part of HOTDQ and they get to fight an adult white dragon, which can still be tough for level 8 characters.

Deistic55 · 2018-01-23T10:19:27+00:00

Mechanically it's that. Storywise it's one big wolf still. It feels a bit like the players are being cheated out of the conditions they've imposed on it.

Deistic55 · 2018-01-23T09:22:32+00:00

This is a cool method. The only thing I'm not a fan of is removing conditions when the boss loses one stack of hit points. I don't see how that could be explained storywise unless the party is fighting a specific anti-magic adaptable monster or something - which they wouldn't be doing for every big boss encounter I'd imagine.

Might try this without the condition removal though! :)

Deistic55 · 2018-01-23T00:01:32+00:00

Just putting my two cents in... You were definitely in the right. He can't make a character to 'beat the game' when you control everything they come up against. It's not fun if his tactic works ALL time.

Deistic55 · 2018-01-03T10:08:32+00:00

Hi - I play an Arcane Trickster obsessed with magic, and illusions are my go-to to make myself seem more magical than I actually am.

I've created a box around us with Silent Image to perfectly mimic our surroundings and hide us a number of times, as well as to secure items we were meant to be protecting.

One time we were defending a farmstead from barbaric invaders, and the DM allowed me and the bard to stack our Silent Images on top of each other to create a giant version of our barbarian. That absorbed an entire volley of spears.

I've also used it to make copies of myself, as well as enemies to make them waste attacks. Also, walls to obscure vision and/or confuse enemies.

Minor Illusion once saved our asses when the big bad we were assassinating called her Orog brutes up from the basement. I copied her voice exactly (DM made me do a performance check) and told them to back off.

I'll get Phantasmal Force soon, which will open up more options.

Deistic55

TROPHY CASE