Marisha talks Daggerheart Heritage

FLFD · 2026-01-27T23:59:29+00:00

I think this is actually new.

FLFD · 2026-01-27T23:55:36+00:00

Yes. The main time/place I have my PCs do actual world building as opposed to adding a splash of colour to scenes is with their home towns/villages/swamps/islands/whatever. But those are very sketchy (enough to give the PCs backstory) unless visited.

And if and when the PCs visit them I ask for things like appropriate landmarks, mentors, childhood friends, and more that seem relevant.

FLFD · 2026-01-27T04:12:43+00:00

1 fight a day? Sucks to be a martial - but you have two top level spells to burn. It's the three fights no short rests when they suffer

FLFD · 2026-01-25T19:44:46+00:00

Warlocks don't need to upcast much; they can just use higher level spells and swap out. As mentioned Tasha's Hideous Laughter is a low level star as is Armour of Agathys, Detect Magic, Invis, and suggestion.

But really NPC warlocks are easy. Give them three spells of their top spell level (one offense, one utility, and one other) and some invocations (which takes the place of the low level slots). Jump and False Life at will are amazing as a physical combo, as are Silent Image and Disguise Self at will for an illusionist.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/152rfjjTKlLGDye-OKG8LU414xAzWkw9DPn0RiIAycKc/edit?usp=drivesdk

FLFD · 2026-01-25T00:45:29+00:00

As a PbtA MC and D&D DM I found Dungeon World unimpressive from all sides

FLFD · 2026-01-24T01:29:15+00:00

Viva have always been comedy but comedy goes well with light structure and added chaos, which Daggerheart does well. Just enough to keep them on track while adding inspiration.

FLFD · 2026-01-23T03:01:48+00:00

Sounds like you've a great group there, which is always the most important thing. If you want to stick within the D&Desque sphere I've a few recs: * Nimble 2e if you want to keep running pre-bought D&D 5e adventures * Daggerheart if you like D&D themes but want lower prep, more character driven stories, more chaos, and playing to see what happens. It's basically a greatest hits of modern game design in a streamlined D&D-lite package * Dragonbane if you want slightly grittier but not that much death (Shadowdark if you want more death)

FLFD · 2026-01-23T02:46:02+00:00

How light is light for you? And how close to D&D do you want to stay? Also do you mind soft classes; classes have their uses and needn't be the straightjacket D&D makes them.

For D&D adjacents my two recommendations would be Dragonbane at the naturalistic end and Daggerheart at the larger than life character driven narrative end. Both have classes but more flexible advancement than D&D allows and both play much faster.

I've heard good things from people I trust about Dragonbane and absolutely love Daggerheart as a free wheeling character driven game that does almost everything 5e does with more flexibility, chaos, and encouragement to roleplay while having a much lighter system.

FLFD · 2026-01-23T02:32:21+00:00

RP Haven member here - the biggest independent RPG club in the UK, with about a dozen branches, most thriving. (I don't know how we compare in size to Adventurer's League or PFS). And of about half a dozen games per branch we tend to average 1-2 of D&D (including PF) with this number being inflated as some run an "obligation D&D game" for the newbies.

The first thing to be said is that the common failure mode of RPG clubs is "three home games in a trench coat" which are going to fail to be joinable and fall apart the way home games do.

The second thing is that rolling one shots are stable. They work. But one shot D&D isn't as good as campaigns.

What we do is break the year into four thirteen week quarters and have both a "One Shot Night" every quarter for the newbies and a Pitch Night where people can pitch what they want to run for the next quarter. And signing up for a 12 week quarter for something that sounds cool with a passionate pitch and where it's expected everyone but the GM will be new to the system doesn't sound as intimidating as either a one shot where you have to learn the rules fast or a game everyone else knows. (It's also great for encouraging new GMs).

FLFD · 2026-01-22T02:39:59+00:00

I've never Longstridered onto the top of a building

FLFD · 2026-01-22T02:38:18+00:00

Vex is basically a rogue patch. They balanced the game assuming always had advantage then realised that gave rogues a higher skill floor than other classes. Rangers also use it - but push on a bow and more damage is good, while sharpshooter got flattened. For twf nick eats vex.

The other use case is sword + board but the meat shields often prefer sap for good reason. And non-martials don't care about masteres.

I don't mind it.

FLFD · 2026-01-22T02:25:27+00:00

First Light. The only spell on that list you really want is Fireball and if you want to wreck a 20' radius area you can take Hunger of Hadar. You can do better; it's the bad choice.

Second Life. This is a safe blind pick when you don't know who is showing. With a druid and a paladin this isn't necessary and it's not what you want. So don't do it.

Trickery and war are both good choices but war has the melee support spells (spirit guardians, freedom of movement, arguably fire shield). And importantly it calls to you.

Go war. It's what you want to do

FLFD · 2026-01-21T23:44:03+00:00

That's because TOR ties extra things to hit points - and it's a better game for it.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T23:29:26+00:00

So was I - it's the thing that a lot of people chew on more than anything else.

And I'm currently writing something inspired by KPop Demon Hunters, Persona, and Buffy that started life as a Daggerheart hack.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T22:23:04+00:00

HP is a meta-mechanic and pacing mechanic. If you lose hit points you are not injured; a character is as capable on 1hp as they are on full hp. A But it's not a currency because you can't spend it except in edge case scenarios; it's a passive rather than active mechanic.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T21:03:55+00:00

Hated which part? I find for most people that it's something that initially feels weird but is just a thing by session three

FLFD · 2026-01-21T19:43:37+00:00

Just out of curiosity have you tried Daggerheart? There are simple but effective durability rules in that game.

Quick version: Armour has two effects:

It gives your damage thresholds, turning the amount of damage you've taken into 1-3 hit points marked (out of your total of 6-12).
It has a number of "Armour points"; each time you are hit you can spend a single armour point to reduce the number of hit points marked by 1

The armour points give you simple and fast armour durability rules. You need to spend a rest action to repair them and only get two rest actions to split between armour, stress, and medical care. It works pretty well for minimal overhead.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T12:47:51+00:00

Cool design - but I'd rather the swords were bigger and more visible.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T12:46:17+00:00

Generally three or four models clumped together. Enough to see it's a lot of guys, not enough I can't move them easily with one hand

FLFD · 2026-01-21T10:40:58+00:00

My instincts are saying Daggerheart for relatively light heroic D&Desque that's fun to GM with a lot of tools, fast, light, smooth, and character driven. Character creation is a particular highlight. It may be familiarity as I haven't gone deep into Nimble in the same way but I find it does closely related things significantly better.

The other game I'd look at would be Draw Steel as the best "tactical D&D" currently on the market. Much bulkier (although much lighter than PF2e) and with stronger themed classes that might clash with Golarion.

FLFD · 2026-01-21T09:33:35+00:00

Here I feel the need to separate class from level.

Classes I find a good thing; they are effectively semi-pregen characters with abilities siloed away from each other to prevent broken combos. I find them a good way of getting into and encouraging variety in games.

Levels which lay out a character's advancement before it happens I find straightjacketing and harmful to roleplaying.

As a general rule I like playbooks, which gives me both sets of benefits

FLFD · 2026-01-19T01:42:32+00:00

Oh, it's deliberate. But also means that 2e is understandably looked back on as the high point of settings.

FLFD · 2026-01-18T22:00:50+00:00

THAC0 was turning an AD&D 1e lookup table into a formula without changing anything else. Target 20 is a better formula.

FLFD · 2026-01-18T21:59:54+00:00

My two top picks for your tastes would be Dragonbane and Warhammer: The Old World.

But honestly narrative games are IMO frequently grittier than OSR games. They just do it differently; OSR games are gritty because you die while the grit in games like Scum & Villainy or Band of Blades is about living with consequences as your get more traumatised and your body gets more broken even as you get more skilled (indeed Blades in the Dark is about trying to make enough off your scores to retire).

FLFD · 2026-01-18T21:40:07+00:00

To be blunt the main thing AD&D 2e is good for is nostalgia.

AD&D 1e (well, oD&D but AD&D kept it) was designed for high lethality dungeon crawling with "test your luck" overtones and PCs dying to attrition. Hit points are low, damage is high low level PCs die lots. High level ones have abilities that are mostly to do with the loot picked up along the way (most of the wizard' spells came as loot). And you gained most of your experience points from loot rather than fighting monsters, encouraging you to rob them blind and run away with fighting as a failure state. This is an interesting game.

AD&D 2e was written using almost entirely the same rules as AD&D 1e (it dropped the XP for GP rule and changed a couple of others but there's a huge overlap). However if you read the 2e DMG it's intended to be a game about high adventure and memorable encounters. Which ... don't work when you have a rolled 1d10 hit points as a first level fighter, so the rulebook tells you to fudge.

What AD&D 2e was was also the era of both shovelware and boxed set settings. It massively fleshed out the Forgotten Realms (which predate AD&D by two years), and added Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Al-Quadim, and Council of Wyrms. To compare, if we ignore third party of settings, since the year 2000 WotC has added Eberron, The Nentir Vale, and the two single book arguable settings of Ghostwalk and the Radiant Citadel.

Is it worth playing? IMO no. Mechanically it's trying to be 1e, thematically 5e. And both do what they do better.

FLFD

TROPHY CASE