You're a superior Foundry wizard, but I did make a "Simple Worldbuilding" world for Daggerheart. Demiplane is obviously as good as D&D Beyond (simplifies everything) but it doesn't have a VTT! The next version of the playtest releases tomorrow, so I'm hoping to update my world with their notes and maybe you'd like to give it a shot? Thanks for your Daggerheart review!
@19:42 When I was working on Backgrounds for my own game system, I went for a very similar, open ended version like Daggerheart, but once I play-tested and fleshed it out, the more I came to realize exactly what you are saying here. Too much work on the DM on top of having to make constant rulings of whether a skill check counts or not, as well as someone's specialty could be completely useless in the campaign, whereas another's could theoretically apply to literally everything. As such, I'm currently rolling back to a hard list of skills until I can think of something that works. It's basically the DnD list, but with some merged together, but also applying open-ended sub-skills (using an example list of 2 for each Skill Category) like Pathfinder's Lore "X" skill for each as areas of specific focus.
Oh interesting! I like the 2 sub skills idea cuz that'd allow for more creativity/personalization on the players part, but you can still rely on some solid foundation skills/backgrounds from a premade list.
@@nattertot It's still a work in progress, but the primary example I have is that Dexterity (being good with hand-eye coordination) replaces the Slight of Hand DnD skill, and the two example subskills are Trickery (equivalent to Slight of Hand) and Crafting (temporary term for arts and crafts. Crafting as in making armor, weapons, and items would have multiple skill checks, one physical and one knowledge). These two are to give a general idea of specific avenues for players to put expertise into the general area of Dexterity.
Shadow Stepper doesn't specify making a roll, but I think it's implied by the mention of the Spellcast trait that you're supposed to make a Spellcast roll in order to do it. That means: It can potentially fail because you're trying to cast a spell. There's no DC so I'd interpret it as the GM's discretion; a smaller or less dark shadow might be more difficult to teleport to. The total cost is 1 action + 1 stress, which is quite high at first glance, but the stress is to encourage careful use. It gives the GM an action token the same as any other spellcast action. It can grant Hope or Fear. The player gets to make a move action before/after the cast the same as any other action. You could treat it as a sort of Misty Step rather than a strictly combat/damage setup. You can use it as a quick escape that costs 1 stress instead of potentially taking damage. You can use it to quickly position yourself or sneak past NPCs by teleporting to a shadow then ducking out of sight without being noticed (making use of the Wildborne Community's silent movement for example.) You can use it to jump into the shadows of rafters or a vantage point to co-ordinate attacks with other players. It doesn't say that any enemies who see you teleport have any idea *which* shadow you jumped to. It has plenty of uses outside of combat that don't involve giving the GM an action token, and I'd narratively explain the stress as literally moving through 'darkness' instead of through normal space which has a lot of implications; if you're enveloped in shadow to the point where you transcend physics, what do you see in that pocket-dimension of absolute darkness? What lives there and sees you pass through, where your terrestrial eyes don't have any light by which to see *it*? I'm not totally sure about the value proposition of an action plus a stress during combat as a frequent positioning ability but it's got lots of cool uses for traversal, ambushes and escapes.
I personally don't mind the experiences. I like that it's meant to be vague and that players will push it. Because to me then they role play an aspect of their character. I don't need to clearly define the boundaries because when they're overusing it or pushing it too far then you can always say no.
Lol, the comment on shopping taking up entire sessions. My players spent a literal 5-hour session shopping and haggling in our Pathfinder Campaign. And I do allow and make time for off-session shopping if they end a session in town. But they still prefer to wait. Silly players.
Kind of a bad date for this video, considering that version 1.3 of daggerheart is announced for April 9th... So, tomorrow the game gets updated. About the rule, IMO nightwalker doesn't work like that . The action tracker and action roll rules only ask for a tracker when you use the duality dices, meaning you never really should use an action if there is no roll involved. So there are "free" abilities/spells in the game, but they tend to come with side costs, like marking stress, giving fear tokens or at least having limitations like once per long rest. Also, I'd interpret that the player can't actually act outside of an "action", even if they are just moving or doing something free, which is why they give the token first, before rolling. So the order would be, give action tracker token, move and/or do any free actions then do the action roll which ends the "action" (this is more like a turn, honestly).
Yeah I planned on putting this video out MUCH sooner, but due to my schedule I had very little time to sit down and edit it, hence the unfortunate timing. 😅 But if I'm remembering correctly, I think the confusing thing for me and my players regarding the Shadow Stepper ability was the use of the word "move" in the description, because we weren't sure if the ability interrupted Hide or if using the ability counted as far movement on top of the stress point if the creature was far away (because when my player tried to use it they were within "far" distance.) But after your explanation and now that I've had more time to read over the rules and get more familiar with the game system, I think we were just overthinking it.😆 And thanks for the explanation! 👍 It was greatly appreciated.
You're a superior Foundry wizard, but I did make a "Simple Worldbuilding" world for Daggerheart. Demiplane is obviously as good as D&D Beyond (simplifies everything) but it doesn't have a VTT! The next version of the playtest releases tomorrow, so I'm hoping to update my world with their notes and maybe you'd like to give it a shot? Thanks for your Daggerheart review!
Oh cool! Sounds intriguing. 🤓
@19:42 When I was working on Backgrounds for my own game system, I went for a very similar, open ended version like Daggerheart, but once I play-tested and fleshed it out, the more I came to realize exactly what you are saying here. Too much work on the DM on top of having to make constant rulings of whether a skill check counts or not, as well as someone's specialty could be completely useless in the campaign, whereas another's could theoretically apply to literally everything. As such, I'm currently rolling back to a hard list of skills until I can think of something that works. It's basically the DnD list, but with some merged together, but also applying open-ended sub-skills (using an example list of 2 for each Skill Category) like Pathfinder's Lore "X" skill for each as areas of specific focus.
Oh interesting! I like the 2 sub skills idea cuz that'd allow for more creativity/personalization on the players part, but you can still rely on some solid foundation skills/backgrounds from a premade list.
@@nattertot It's still a work in progress, but the primary example I have is that Dexterity (being good with hand-eye coordination) replaces the Slight of Hand DnD skill, and the two example subskills are Trickery (equivalent to Slight of Hand) and Crafting (temporary term for arts and crafts. Crafting as in making armor, weapons, and items would have multiple skill checks, one physical and one knowledge). These two are to give a general idea of specific avenues for players to put expertise into the general area of Dexterity.
Shadow Stepper doesn't specify making a roll, but I think it's implied by the mention of the Spellcast trait that you're supposed to make a Spellcast roll in order to do it. That means:
It can potentially fail because you're trying to cast a spell. There's no DC so I'd interpret it as the GM's discretion; a smaller or less dark shadow might be more difficult to teleport to.
The total cost is 1 action + 1 stress, which is quite high at first glance, but the stress is to encourage careful use.
It gives the GM an action token the same as any other spellcast action.
It can grant Hope or Fear.
The player gets to make a move action before/after the cast the same as any other action.
You could treat it as a sort of Misty Step rather than a strictly combat/damage setup. You can use it as a quick escape that costs 1 stress instead of potentially taking damage. You can use it to quickly position yourself or sneak past NPCs by teleporting to a shadow then ducking out of sight without being noticed (making use of the Wildborne Community's silent movement for example.) You can use it to jump into the shadows of rafters or a vantage point to co-ordinate attacks with other players. It doesn't say that any enemies who see you teleport have any idea *which* shadow you jumped to.
It has plenty of uses outside of combat that don't involve giving the GM an action token, and I'd narratively explain the stress as literally moving through 'darkness' instead of through normal space which has a lot of implications; if you're enveloped in shadow to the point where you transcend physics, what do you see in that pocket-dimension of absolute darkness? What lives there and sees you pass through, where your terrestrial eyes don't have any light by which to see *it*?
I'm not totally sure about the value proposition of an action plus a stress during combat as a frequent positioning ability but it's got lots of cool uses for traversal, ambushes and escapes.
I personally don't mind the experiences. I like that it's meant to be vague and that players will push it. Because to me then they role play an aspect of their character. I don't need to clearly define the boundaries because when they're overusing it or pushing it too far then you can always say no.
Lol, the comment on shopping taking up entire sessions. My players spent a literal 5-hour session shopping and haggling in our Pathfinder Campaign. And I do allow and make time for off-session shopping if they end a session in town. But they still prefer to wait. Silly players.
Kind of a bad date for this video, considering that version 1.3 of daggerheart is announced for April 9th... So, tomorrow the game gets updated.
About the rule, IMO nightwalker doesn't work like that . The action tracker and action roll rules only ask for a tracker when you use the duality dices, meaning you never really should use an action if there is no roll involved. So there are "free" abilities/spells in the game, but they tend to come with side costs, like marking stress, giving fear tokens or at least having limitations like once per long rest.
Also, I'd interpret that the player can't actually act outside of an "action", even if they are just moving or doing something free, which is why they give the token first, before rolling. So the order would be, give action tracker token, move and/or do any free actions then do the action roll which ends the "action" (this is more like a turn, honestly).
Yeah I planned on putting this video out MUCH sooner, but due to my schedule I had very little time to sit down and edit it, hence the unfortunate timing. 😅
But if I'm remembering correctly, I think the confusing thing for me and my players regarding the Shadow Stepper ability was the use of the word "move" in the description, because we weren't sure if the ability interrupted Hide or if using the ability counted as far movement on top of the stress point if the creature was far away (because when my player tried to use it they were within "far" distance.) But after your explanation and now that I've had more time to read over the rules and get more familiar with the game system, I think we were just overthinking it.😆
And thanks for the explanation! 👍 It was greatly appreciated.