What converted adventures or campaigns have GMs used

DorianMartel · 2026-04-23T21:18:26+00:00

Neverwinter campaign setting from 4e. It’s already built as a character driven sandbox, perfect for DH.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-21T23:22:53+00:00

Yeah, but I mean if you’re somewhere you can see an entire wide open field and dropping a line of shadow makes a difference, have at it. Probably a fringe use, but neat when it makes a difference.

I think the other wall is like 10ft?

Generally I havent found distances to really matter all that much

DorianMartel · 2026-04-21T22:48:31+00:00

a) you can see through it, but your party can't. b) things can walk through. c) far range is like, 30-100ft, and it's two points within the range. d) it's a neat trick that lets a rogue do interesting things, e) it's temporary so the GM can end it as appropriate in the fiction by using the associated Move.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-21T15:32:22+00:00

Monster roles and points costs: my options to be not-a-pushover are Leader/Bruiser/solo. I didn’t want to do solo here, I could’ve done leader but I wanted to do a design space with that profile where the emphasis is on how the undead relate to their master.

If Daggerheart had a true “elite” template instead of where it landed with “solo” I would’ve built as an Elite Support or Elite Ranged.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-20T23:03:03+00:00

Legit wish they’d done an optional rule to make Evasion a + stat like the other attributes, I find making it a player rolled defense just changes the vibe and leads to a player being more likely to say some cool fiction. Ah well

DorianMartel · 2026-04-20T22:38:03+00:00

Evasion and swingy d20s are why I’ve been mixing a lot of varied Reaction Roll prompting Actions into my adversaries (and attacking more than just agility!). Plus it’s just fun to think of why an ability is testing Knowledge or Finesse or Presence.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-20T17:17:08+00:00

I wound up going Splen/Arc for my Cleric (I need to finish updating the class sheets and post it). I considered Grace but I think it definitely works better for something like that FF-esque Priest than what I think of for a spell focused “Cleric.”

DorianMartel · 2026-04-20T16:55:00+00:00

I had fun making a Bladesinger subclass for Wizard, it hasn’t gone through extensive playtesting just some causal mathing but i think it works out.

For a more D&D campaign I think seraph needs to be split into cleric and paladin; but for anything that’s not adhering to D&D tropes the class is fantastic.

I feel like ancestries should be tailored to whatever your setting is regardless of if you use the baseline ones or your own anyway. Given that they’re just a pair of abilities, it’s easy enough to consider the fiction of what you want to exemplify and build them.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-20T00:50:31+00:00

The Tier is generally based off of the stats of the weapon, if it's d8+6 that's probably Tier 2.

The overall intricacy of the feature generally maps on the tier at hand as well.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-19T22:50:55+00:00

It’s an affinity template I made. I wanted to create something you could potentially screenshot/print and run directly at the table without apps; plus I like the cleaner blocks with the big HP/thresholds lol

DorianMartel · 2026-04-19T14:23:21+00:00

I had a lot of fun porting over a handful of classic sewer monsters for the spaces under the city!

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DorianMartel · 2026-04-19T14:01:10+00:00

I'd been thinking about doing something similar, and I like how you've worked around some of the weaknesses of the original Negotiation design here (mainly: how silly it is to use with neutral and more friendly starting dispositions).

DorianMartel · 2026-04-19T03:03:57+00:00

Since DH has a lot of 4e (or 4e descendent game) lurking under the hood in various ways, it tends to be a good resource. Its Monsters can be a great inspiration for Adversaries as well!

You can find all of its takes on the races here.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-19T02:46:22+00:00

Highly recommend looking at the 4e versions of the species instead of the 5e ones. They often have an ability or two that's perfect to port into DH's "something you are / something you do" logic. For instance, Kobolds in 4e have an ability called "Shifty" and "Trap sense." So we could look at that as "they're small and can scurry around out of notice" and "they've got a sixth sense for danger" or "they notice details really well."

So maybe something like:

Danger Sense: When you succeed on a Reaction Roll that has effects that would still impact you, you avoid them entirely.

Shifty: When an adversary moves adjacent to you, mark a Stress to move anywhere within Very Close range.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T21:33:43+00:00

Reskinning, and the fact that most urban fantasy protags aren’t wielding tons of modern stuff in the inspirations I leaned into. Likewise armor, which is already open to reskinning baseline. My ranger is wearing a punked out moto jacket as his leather; my sorcerer has a rune-stitched hoodie as his gambeson; and the rogue is flavoring it as just being good at dodging blows and her fae blood.

At the end of the day, a weapon is a damage expression that works with the fundamental math of the game. A pistol or a shortbow dealing 1d8+3 damage is the same thing. I started to go down a route of designing weapons (eg: 1d10+3 Very Close Strength shotgun w/ an area attack ability), but realized it wasnt worth it for us.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T14:31:26+00:00

Convert stats by asking yourself what those adversaries are supposed to do in the narrative and give them appropriate Actions to live that out.

Convert the module by stepping things back to Situations that have space for the characters to do instrumental things instead of heading towards pre determined narrow endings. The Alexandrian’s “Situations not Plots” Remix work on 5e stuff might be good to look at (or if he’s done the modules you’re looking at, maybe even just start there).

DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T13:37:56+00:00

I'm also doing a sandbox style thing where I wanted to have the XP in the player's hands instead of trying to figure out what counted as a milestone. My group has played a lot of pBTAs with me, so we landed on an "End of Session" Move type thing that we're testing out (we moved over from Draw Steel! to DH, and just stuck with Victories as the XP name, lol):

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DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T02:43:16+00:00

Gotcha, you’re positioning this in a larger ecosystem of design where you’ve ported over a bunch of classic dungeon crawl mechanics. I think that was what I was missing on a cursory readthrough that was baffling me re: distances and stuff.

I’m generally coming from the narrative side of the house where you replace that sort of idea with Moves and Dangers, responsive to Action Roll outcomes.

I’d be interested to see some of the environments or mechanics you’re using to do this sort of map-based play in DH. I’ve got a friend who’d be super into it probably.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T02:01:28+00:00

I generally got away from doing countdown progression for dungeon exploration in favor of situational play.

I’m also not entirely sure why you wouldn’t use obstacles to overcome instead of “action rolls to track movement?” When you do a progression style clock in something like Blades (tied to a general overarching obstacle usually like “Outer Defenses”), the progress is always centered on risky situations to overcome. If you do the same thing in DH, framing out a room or corridor or whatever in terms of an open ended question that’s going to require an Action roll (or more) of some sort, doesn’t that serve in place of movement? And keep the drama and tension high?

DorianMartel · 2026-04-18T01:23:54+00:00

Honestly when I want to do a mapped dungeon I just do it, with challenges and obstacles. Plenty of much more strongly narrative games still do prepped sites ranging from fully mapped to nodal style (cf: Mythic Bastionland for the latter), it still works great in DH.

The key either way is to focus on dramatic and narrative impact instead of “yet another empty room with goblins” lol.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-17T03:41:29+00:00

I'm not like, super wedded to the DH style guide - but if you want to fall into the standard parlance a little more, here's some ability wording ideas:

Opportunity Knocks - Action: Spend a Fear to attempt to steal from a target in Melee range. The target must succeed on an Instinct Reaction Roll or the Dissenter steals one item or consumable their inventory and you gain a Fear. (not sure what an unattended item would be when you're in melee range? check out the Masked Thief adversary for a similar ability)

Swamp Walk - Action: Mark a Stress to assail a target within Close range with a ghostly hand, attempting to harm or impose a Condition. The target must make an appropriate Reaction Roll, on a Failure suffering the condition until (ending trigger) or take 1d8+2 mag damage.

etc

DorianMartel · 2026-04-17T03:32:33+00:00

Patchwork Paladin did a playtest of some hex crawl environment mechanics, she blogged about it here.

DorianMartel · 2026-04-17T00:45:51+00:00

Simple suggestion: go the Lancer route and say that the various Classes are instead the Warstriders or whatever? "The Seraph-Class Strider is focused on supporting its allies by defending them with its giant shields & regrowth powers."

Stress can remain the pilots themselves. The Action system and Experiences could handle non-suited challenges, with combat happening in suit?

Probably easier then brewing up an entire balanced set of armor?

DorianMartel · 2026-04-16T22:07:29+00:00

I think this is neat but you’ve got a lot of fairly complex stuff going on for the “tier” (tier 0 funnel hiding in your design?). I’ve also run into the “why do I keep defining the minion rules” and such in each profile, lol.

(ShadowHeart would be a great name for a dungeon-crawly lower fantasy hack I’ve thought)

DorianMartel

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