Honestly I think they just need to kill the armor point system, and shift their initiative / action system to be closer to Burn Bryte (free open order, but you cannot make consecutive Tests, and you have a disadvantage per Test you’ve already made in this Round). Those two cuts will streamline and push things tremendously. I think they can also axe the proficiency dice system and change the damage to be based on high roll or hope die, to tighten even more. A lot of the game has a pretty flashy fun skeleton, just with a lot of vestigial clunk and spaghetti at the wall. D&D5E is already on the higher end of crunchier, slower, and repetitive on the spectrum of modern-design heroic fantasy ttrpgs, and for daggerheart to add clunk steps in comparison is baffling
I don't think their initiative system bogs things down, but I'm sure there are some groups where it does. The armor and damage threshold stuff is slower and pulls you out. I wouldn't be opposed to that being streamlined or totally combined to one roll. I do like the narrative focus, backgrounds, and lots of the hope/fear/stress mechanics, but definitely still room for reworks in general!
Great video and awesome spreadsheet that you've made. It kind of speaks to the point I've made a few times about just how opaque the entire armor and damage system is in the game. Nothing is immediately obvious and, often times, players will end up taking options that are strictly worse for their character because of the lack of clarity in the system. I think Daggerheart does A LOT of things right and it's super fun to play but damage and armor just feels like it has missed the mark. I know you've never heard me say this before though :P
Yea I agree. I think I needed time to work out the numbers myself, but glad we came to the same conclusion. Damage is very different and I'm not sure about it honestly. But the fact I needed to go through such lengths to figure things out (and am still not 100% sure on these methods) means the average player won't really know what's best to wear or what level up choice is right for them. It does feel opaque in that way.
This kind of reminds me of armor in GURPS. In GURPS heavy armor is always superior to its lighter counterparts due to its higher damage reduction. This is balanced out by GURPS characters having incredibly strict weight limits for their gear, a weak spellcaster in full plate will have greatly reduced movement and evasion whereas a strong front liner should have nearly all of their movement available.
I've never played GURPS, but that does sound similar in some regards. Losing agility means you'll be less mobile, but only slightly. I don't think it'll be a big problem for most builds, but having a high armor score has a big impact.
This is a terrific video. Analysis can be tricky and you had me at “spreadsheet”. I love dice and rolling lots of dice is exciting for me. To look for those ‘sweet’ numbers, without calculations or table references. Maybe that’s why I like simple dice pool mechanics. Better still, I prefer that the dice are integral to the character, object and objectives.
@@DndUnoptimized I have pointed out the flaws in AGI being used to give you better AC there and that PDR (damage reduction) should not be negated with heavy/brutal hits and maybe only crits, if at all. There should be other ways to negate PDR like specific weapons or enemy features: Would like to see those 2 things specifically being looked at. Also thanks for the great video on Daggerheart!
The way you’re apply armour automatically to every attack is not the best way to use it. Probably especially for lighter armour, which might make up the gap you’re seeing. You used an example of 1, 6 and 12 as the thresholds and 2d8 as the typical damage at tier 0. So if you’re in a gambeson, and only intending to use one armour slot per hit, using it on 2 damage makes sense, it reduces the damage to under your minor threshold, don’t mark any HP. Then at 7, 8 damage again, because it knocks it under your major threshold, so it’s mark 1 HP instead of 2, and again at 13 and 14 damage, for other damage amounts, it’s a waste. If you’re in full plate, spending armour on every hit is a much more viable strategy - up to 8 damage you mark no HP, then there’s a chunk up to 14 when you mark 1 and a little bit at the top when you mark 2. However, you’re 15% more likely to get hit on an otherwise identical build, and armour slots aren’t infinite, it’s probably not a winning strategy to spend an armour slot every time you get hit - spend more than four between short rests and you can’t repair all your armour. Spend more than two and you’re really limiting your other choices like clearing stress, restoring hope, clearing HP etc.
You are 100% correct. Because you can decide when and how much armor to use each hit, you can make it more effective than what I've done here. I'm sure there's a better way of doing that part of the math. So for lighter armor, you'll either be burning through armor quicker in order to bring it down more, or you'll end up just taking the hit without armor. For these calculations, light armor will perform the exact same as judicious use as long as we don't use all armor slots, once we use up all armor slots then light armor is under represented here slightly. Heavier armor has the same caveat, but due to the high armor score, it is less affected by that problem.
I won't judge anyone for screwing up basic TTRPG math, I do it all the time haha. But DH is more crunchy than I expected for Critical role's style since they are so role play heavy. I've seen them struggle to learn their own abilities for a long time, and that one I do judge them for considering how long they've played and that it is their job.
The system seems like its trying to emulate war games where there is an armour value you have to beat "to hit" and a separate value you have to beat "to wound". If the damage thresholds were generally static with only rare and expensive ways to alter that value I'd consider it balaced. With how youve explained it though, every player has access to this resource and it's relatively free to use and abuse. Lowering "to hit" chance is never worth it in any game unless you can get in to the 10% range easily. You always take damage reduction otherwise.
Yes the to hit chance and damage reduction are always a tough line to get right. I don't mind the idea of damage thresholds, but it does kind of take you out of the narrative with a bunch of mental math you have to do, which is against what they say Daggerheart is created to be.
The damage threshold looks like a more complicated version of brace in the system I'm making. When you brace against an attack you take half damaged rounded down. You can stack more than one brace as well but to get more than just a regular brace you need to use abilities or equipment. How my system works is you have 3 types of defenses (dodge, brace, and mental fortitude). Mental fortitude isn't used unless your abilities or the ability of your attacker would say so. Normally when attacked you'd choose to either dodge or brace against the attack with a small number of abilities forcing the decision. An example as to an attack that would force a decision would be attacking a creature with a web blast. You can't brace against sticky webbing logically speaking
Sounds like a interesting system. Somewhat matches the armor slots here like you said, but sounds easier to conceptualize from a "what would be best for my character generally speaking" point of view. I think doing a bunch of calculations when you get hit to decide what would be best to do takes you out of the game. As long as the analysis between dodge and brace doesn't do the same then it sounds good to me.
@@DndUnoptimized dodge you have to move but you take no damage. The downside is if you can't move or the area is too large for you to move out of then you still take damage. Brace you don't move making it easier to use but you still take some damage each time you're hit. It's meant to be less about the calculations and more about them requiring different strategies and playstyles Edit: the part about the large area makes things interesting as it becomes worth it to develop large area attacks even against single enemies. Due to how spells work and that different aspects are changed with modifiers that you have to develop increasing the size to catch those dodge characters is done at the sacrifice of damage. It's possible to get damage up pretty high to be useful against bracing characters but then you're sacrificing utility against dodge characters Another thing is due to how the numbers work there's more that goes into defense than attack so it's expected for defense to work more often then not. The idea is to leverage abilities or strategy to overcome defenses. One example of this is there might be one spell that has a base damage of 1D10 and another that has a base damage of 1D4 but because the one with 1D4 has a trait called crushing that ignores a brace they actually do the same average damage if the target braced against the attack Second edit: your dodge and brace are numbers built from your character sheet so other than times the choice is taken from you (situation or ability prevents using one or both) or if you built your character specifically to be able to switch it up (able to switch between being a skirmisher or guarding a door for example) the choice is pretty much determined before combat anyway
That is definitely true, and this video was meant to discuss how to do analysis on DH and how that is difficult. I don't think it's rules heavy, but overall not rules light either. It's got a mix of the two, which is different. Damage thresholds makes players do a lot more math than 5e in session too though, whether they are running cost benefit analysis on whether to spend armor slots, or doing subtraction to see how many they should spend
The daggerheart rules are heavy regardless of how you analyze them. Damage thresholds contain too many 'magic numbers' that then are changed as you level up to other 'magic numbers'. These magic numbers were chosen to be balanced with the magic numbers on monsters magic items you design, and make balancing of newly designed monsters and magic items very difficult to do well, as the math's very difficult to predict. Dnd5e in comparison defines monsters and players with a much smaller set of numbers (just AC/hp/+tohit/dmg), that all have a very simple relation to how they will perform in combat.
I alway hate when people say dagger heart is rules light. Its literally harder to play and dm than 5e. It just has no initiative, but even then its replaced with more book keeping so even that is not really more simple. It might be fun to play, but its not rules light.
Yes, not quite as rules light as it appears to be. Some parts are really light weight (like conditions and damage types), but others are quite heavy, like damage thresholds and even fear hope bookkeeping. I do think it's fun, but could do with some trimming for sure.
It's definitely rules-lightER than 5e You don't have to bookkeep all those PB/LR features separately, nor 9 pool of uses for your magic, and the weight of your stuff and the languages and tools and how many feet and spell components... And I can keep going So, lighter? Definitely. Light? Debatable
@marcos2492 I don't even really know about that. That stuff wasn't really removed, it was replaced with hope, armor slots, and a bunch of other things to track. Plus in 5e, you have the option to play a class like the rogue and have nothing to track, and take asi instead of feats. Is there a class in dagger heart that doesn't care about hope?
@@gloryrod86 I mean, yeah, you can try to make the simplest 5e character and it would have the same amount of stuff to track than the most complex DH character you can make. I'm not fanboying, but in terms of bookkeeping 5e wins by A LOT
I use to think of daggerheart damage thresh holds as hit dice and you are just tracking the hit dice instead of the HP values. Eg. Mages and rogues in osr used to use Xd4+ConHD. so a hit dice average would be 3-4. This means you can make damage thresholds 3-6-9 or 4-8-12. Then if a damage dice on basic one hand weapons were 1d6 per proficiency’s +dmg mods you need to roll the dice and high roll to do 1 harm. But if you have 2 proficiency rolling above average is ~ 2 harm but can high roll 3 harm and low roll 1 harm. Tanks could have d8 hit dice meaning 4-5 for their thresholds like 4-8-12 or 5-10-15. Now they basically mumbled it all up and they don’t really represent hit face any more and are just pulled out of their ass a little
I'm hoping they have some things they are taking into account that I'm not. But even if somehow the evasion armor score thing is perfectly balanced it is still not obvious to me which armor each build "should" be wearing. Maybe there is a way to simplify these damage thresholds without tossing the whole system out. That's what I hope ends up happening.
ב"ה I would say it is 3-24 rather than 2-24, since 2 is always a critical success anyway (so the worse you can roll is actually 3). About armor, heavy armor is better when you have armor slots to spend, but on days where you are attacked a lot more times than you have armor slots then evasion score matters more and lighter armor become better. So I would say it depend on the amount of combats in an adventure day, and amount of healing available.
If you are calculating hit chance, then yes, there isn't a 2, but at that section I was just talking about how the dice roll distribution works. As for heavy vs light armor. Obviously it depends on the evasion score, but if you wear light armor, when you get hit you will be losing more HP. But if you wear heavy armor, you will lose more armor slots. Armor slots are easier to get back on short rest, but HP is likely easier to be healed by abilities. But if you have a bunch of HP healing in the party then the heavy armor users can use less armor and lose more HP to take advantage of that.
I feel like theres some flaws with your data analysis. The two biggest things I found were not taking into account that often different damage values will end up in the same result, and that higher armor only helps as long as you have armor slots available. For instance, if you are able to reduce the damage by 1 every time you use your Gambeson armor, and you do the same thing with leather armor, then the net result is to lower the damage taken by 6 for both, which means the the Gambeson wins out because your hit 5% less of the time. Now that being said you'd THEN have to calculate against the & chance of having a sitation where damage would be reduced, and using that number to then calculate how many hits you would take given damage reduction But THEN, you'd have to calculate into things like health potions and healing effects Even after you do all that you still have to factor in situations which might lead to armor slot depletion. such as: doing a fight, running out of armor slots, and then having another fight with no armor slots (and now a 20% difference in your chances of being hit Or factoring in things like having an expected hard encounter, and thus not using armor slots in a first, weaker encounter. In the end, the variables don't clean up as nicely as you'd expect them to across multitudes of situations. The system is built in so that different challenges will require different keys to unlock. Its not a straightforward damage calculation, because player decision impacts the output. Players can make optimal choices in a given moment, but not have those plan out when normal things that happen in a campaign happen.
I also just looked at your data, and there's some errors/assumptions with your calculations that cause it to give impossible results. For Example. A Guardian, who uses 1 Armor slot for both Gambeson and Leather armor can NEVER reduce the incoming damage taken by more then 1. Meaning that if I input 1 Slot being used as a scenario, since Gambeson gives you more evasion, you should take less HP loss on average. However when I put "1" into the "Slots Used" category on both, I got a lower average damage for Gambeson, which is literally impossible. If one slot is used, 1 HP loss was negated for both armor sets. The error is coming from the fact that your not saying how many times attacks are being made against the target and are using the damage threshold percentages as the output for EVERY hit, not just ones where a slot was used. But there are going to be times where a character would not use an armor slot, or can't us one effectively, or where they may use more then 1, or where they are out of armor slots.
Upon further FURTHER review (I am a Math Nerd and can't help it) I realized your data is actually looking at the damage taken PER HIT. your not calculating for number of hits, AT ALL. This vastly misunderstand how Armor Slots is a finite resource.
Thanks for looking at this so intensely, I appreciate it. First, this is a white room calculation, so it obviously doesn't apply to all situations. Second, you are right about the user deciding when to use the armor. So they won't use 1 armor slot if it won't reduce the damage, they will either use more, or none. This spreadsheet doesn't take that into account and I think that's the biggest failing. It applies to all types of armor, but lighter armor will be impacted more. As for armor slots, the spreadsheet does take then into account. First we see how much HP you'd expect to lose per attack, then uses that into you run out of armor slots, then if you are still alive, uses the raw damage thresholds. I'm not sure I get the example you use. When I use 1 armor slot as guardian with gambeson and leather, the expected HP lost per attack is lower for leather. It's not calculating how much HP you saved, but how much expected HP you'd lose. Maybe I'm missing your point.
@@DndUnoptimized The point I was trying to make goes to my misunderstanding that I thought you were calculating "Armor Slots used before you go down" not "Armor Slots used each attack". You're calculating for "average expected damage" but I believe thats an invalid metric to even look at because your not going to use an Armor slot when HP Taken wouldn't be reduced, meaning a Player will only use an armor slot when it actually reduces HP taken. Thus a Guardian with both Gambeson and Leather armor using 1 Armor Slot will ALWAYS reducing incoming damage by 1 per Armor Slot used. The only difference being how often that scenario actually occures, which is *sortuv* what your math is checking, but its really not. What you should be looking for is something like "assuming optimal uses of Armor Slots, how many hits on average will it take before the Guardian goes down". Which is harder, but still possible to calculate. Average damage assuming all incoming damage is being reduced is an unhelpful metric, because thats not how Armor slots are used
Agreed. It is not taking into account optimal usage of armor. Definitely more complicated but not impossible. Maybe I'll make another version of this spreadsheet that takes it into account, but I don't think it negates the point. I would have to run those numbers to be absolutely certain, but then of course it is all dependant on that damage distribution being correct, and that's still up in the air. If damage distribution is much higher than what I used, then evasion becomes much more valuable. The point is that everything is quite complex to account for, and extremely difficult for a player to make a knowledgeable decision.
My problem is that I'm invested in roleplaying games to ... oh ... play a role. I'm not looking to WIN in any combat scenario I encounter. I'm more interested in the story than the math. So sad. My bad.
@@DndUnoptimized, it is just that I have been playing TTRPGs since I got out of college (Dungeons & Dragons was first released), and I have never worried about math or about min/maxing. That has yet to be my table style over the past four decades. That is also why I appreciate Daggerheart.
Haha, you don't need to do this kind of math to play, just to analyze. It is a fun system with interesting ideas, just the damage thresholds need a little bit more math than 5e.
They aren't too heavy, but it does kind of pull players out of the moment as they try to do calculations in their head for how much armor they should use and trying to balance that against losing HP. Also, getting hit with a huge attack doesn't feel the same because players can fully negate it if they want to. So I'd say it's not really rules heavy, but it does feel like a lot of numbers compared to other parts of DH which are more relaxed and lightweight.
The fanbase reaction to the ogl "scandal" was blown way out of proportion - for one thing, the only people that would supposedly be affected negatively, i.e. the top three larger publishers with their own presses, have secured deals to publish their content through DDB - but it's funny how people again and again said the core rules of 5e were something totally disposable and anyone could come up with something better. As someone playing rpgs since the 90s, I can't stress enough how 5e is a beauty of game design. It has lots of flaws, but the balance it strikes - rules making some intuitive sense for new players while also giving room for optimizers, classes having some recognizability while also not being too restricting etc. - is really what made it so successful for streamers. I'm all for new RPGs getting developed, but it seems like most of the attempts to make the "d&d killer" are just scams, trying to get people's money by feeding on their manufactured hate.
That's a fair take. I agree that the OGL reaction was too extreme and a bunch of people decided to create their own version of D&D but "better". I'm interested in trying a lot of them, but in my mind, it's gotta be significantly different to earn a spot. DH is trying to cut out a niche for itself and I think it's got enough new and different ideas that I feel fine with it's existence. I really like 5e, and it's got flaws but it's a well designed game for the most part.
@@DndUnoptimized I agree that DH is at least trying something a tad more different (I guess they had to, because they're the ones that already had a partnership with DDB and an animated series of their d&d campaign so they had to be more tactful). But, probably because I'm south American, but it really upset me that on the effort to "diversify" the ttrpg landscape the answer was to give more power to the biggest third party creators or to paizo (all in north America, all led by a bunch of already successful white American people). Not a single of those people, with huge platforms, thought to use the opportunity to boost RPGs from other countries.
From what I understand, during the OGL scandal they would push to see where the boundary was at and then backpedal whenever it caused to much controversy. Ultimately, the exact terms of changing the OGL weren't important. The important was they broke people's trust by showing they were willing to change the OGL at all. No wants to build a castle on sand.
@@leotamer5 the draft they presented, and was leaked, forcing publication before it was ready, had 2 major changes: The ogl shouldn't apply to other media. Which was fair, people didn't had it in mind when it was made. And the top 3 major third party publishers should pay a percentage of their profits to WotC. Which is not only fair, but good for the game. The third party business shouldn't be concentrated on the hands of a couple of owners. There were flaws, sure. But there were no nefarious plan, nor a brake of trust (unless you talk about third party creators breaking WotC trust by leaking the draft) since the most affected parties were notified before the changes happened.
I think this has been discussed a bit, but if I'm being honest, the idea that the heavier the armour the better, is actually good for the game, because the math of how armour works is so insanely complex that players shouldn't really bother with it anyway. So, in my opinion, keep it like that and make armour be better the heavier it is, but just impose strict requirements, especially STR-wise that define what kind of armour you can wear. A Wizard with Heavy armour being really good is super cool when you have to invest in STR for your Wizard (which naturally doesn't fit well, so it's a niche build that is mechanically rewarded in terms of defence, but you lose in other aspects).
Yea, I'm down for that. It's usually the case that you grab the strongest armor you are able to use, so if heavier is always better but there are restrictions on how heavy you can go, then it isn't a problem. The problem is when the math is so obfuscated that people have no idea what armor to choose that is best for them. Not even from a min max perspective, just even a "what the heck am I MEANT to wear" perspective.
This game just a mess of random mechanics barely tied together. That what happens when there are too many people involved in development with almost no experience in the field. It has no vision or design goals other than to male dnd-killer. And worst part that it will sell, a lot, because of the mercer fans and ogl-mad-normies, while actually good ttrpgs will stay in shadow forever.
@@DndUnoptimized because thresholds are just second armor class and nothing more, it doesn't solve anything and serve no purpose. You roll dice once, than once again, than interact with meta resource and all that to just deal 1-3 damage. It is ridiculous. While dnd ac is abstraction that represent both armor and evasion, here we have whole 5 numbers doing all that and none of those at the same time, it makes no sense. ADND books should be mandatory read as bear minimum for all those "designers", because if your game is more complicated and confusing than 50 years old one and don't provide any benefit for that level of complexity- you are failed.
@@DndUnoptimized here how you do it. Goals: easy to understand and fast to play stream, that still let you use different abilities and differentiate weapons. Let say we stick to the thresholds idea. 1) Thresholds are the numbers you should roll on your attack roll, replacing difficulty. 2) Minor- represent dodge the number that was a difficulty before, major- represent armor and define how serious is hit, and severe- critical, usually calculated like "22+ expected to hit bonus of player at this level" aka 11+ on bout d12, dealing 4 damage instead of 3. 2:51 For that skeleton those would be 10 14 24. We just reduced amount of rolls to 1 and size of stat blocks by 2 lines. And you don't need any other dice than a d12. Major threshold represent literal armor or toughness, so if DM want to give the skeleton some armor he can easily modify it like that: 10 18 24. Now we need solve class identity armor and weapon differences. 3) If you rolled above major threshold you deal 2 damage AND apply your weapon of choice bonus, like push, knock prone, poison, 1 extra damage etc. Same with enemies, activating there special attack properties only if they hit above major threshold. 4) For armor we just turn it into static bonuses. Light- slightly increase major threshold. Medium slightly decrease minor threshold but noticeably increase major threshold, Heavy increase major and severe but significantly decrees minor. So in heavy armor you will take hits more often but only for 1 and wont suffer from extra effects, so it benefit classes with higher hp, lettings them tank. Same with light armor, benefiting from high minor threshold of evasive classes. Here, it took me 3 minutes to fix.
Yea, I kinda just don't think the crit role team are very good designers. If you look at their dnd content it's a mess, abilities that do practically nothing, abilities that are blatantly op, stuff that no one knows how it even works. They have some interesting ideas, but a very bad track record with their implementation. I don't really have much hope for dagger heart.
@@DndUnoptimized Hey thanks for the reply, it's no slight on you, my eyes just glaze over when I see spreadsheets for D&D games. I just wanna explore exciting dungeons, fighy deadly orcs and avoid fiendish traps, maybe get some treasure at the end of it.
Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19ReZhl3zwCBTrTEG8CucY-8tE6liG0Xq7QJ12lZtUR8/copy?usp=sharing
Honestly I think they just need to kill the armor point system, and shift their initiative / action system to be closer to Burn Bryte (free open order, but you cannot make consecutive Tests, and you have a disadvantage per Test you’ve already made in this Round).
Those two cuts will streamline and push things tremendously. I think they can also axe the proficiency dice system and change the damage to be based on high roll or hope die, to tighten even more.
A lot of the game has a pretty flashy fun skeleton, just with a lot of vestigial clunk and spaghetti at the wall.
D&D5E is already on the higher end of crunchier, slower, and repetitive on the spectrum of modern-design heroic fantasy ttrpgs, and for daggerheart to add clunk steps in comparison is baffling
I don't think their initiative system bogs things down, but I'm sure there are some groups where it does.
The armor and damage threshold stuff is slower and pulls you out. I wouldn't be opposed to that being streamlined or totally combined to one roll.
I do like the narrative focus, backgrounds, and lots of the hope/fear/stress mechanics, but definitely still room for reworks in general!
Great video and awesome spreadsheet that you've made.
It kind of speaks to the point I've made a few times about just how opaque the entire armor and damage system is in the game. Nothing is immediately obvious and, often times, players will end up taking options that are strictly worse for their character because of the lack of clarity in the system.
I think Daggerheart does A LOT of things right and it's super fun to play but damage and armor just feels like it has missed the mark. I know you've never heard me say this before though :P
Yea I agree. I think I needed time to work out the numbers myself, but glad we came to the same conclusion.
Damage is very different and I'm not sure about it honestly. But the fact I needed to go through such lengths to figure things out (and am still not 100% sure on these methods) means the average player won't really know what's best to wear or what level up choice is right for them. It does feel opaque in that way.
This kind of reminds me of armor in GURPS. In GURPS heavy armor is always superior to its lighter counterparts due to its higher damage reduction. This is balanced out by GURPS characters having incredibly strict weight limits for their gear, a weak spellcaster in full plate will have greatly reduced movement and evasion whereas a strong front liner should have nearly all of their movement available.
I've never played GURPS, but that does sound similar in some regards. Losing agility means you'll be less mobile, but only slightly. I don't think it'll be a big problem for most builds, but having a high armor score has a big impact.
I've been meaning to do something with GURPS but every time I open the book I get turned off quickly again lol
This is a terrific video. Analysis can be tricky and you had me at “spreadsheet”.
I love dice and rolling lots of dice is exciting for me. To look for those ‘sweet’ numbers, without calculations or table references. Maybe that’s why I like simple dice pool mechanics. Better still, I prefer that the dice are integral to the character, object and objectives.
Glad you liked it! Analysis is very tricky for sure!
Can you analyze DC20 next? Thanks!
I still haven't played it, but hoping to get to it soon! I'll definitely do a video about my thoughts once I've tried it. Thanks for the suggestion
@@DndUnoptimized I have pointed out the flaws in AGI being used to give you better AC there and that PDR (damage reduction) should not be negated with heavy/brutal hits and maybe only crits, if at all. There should be other ways to negate PDR like specific weapons or enemy features:
Would like to see those 2 things specifically being looked at. Also thanks for the great video on Daggerheart!
Ok interesting, I'll keep that in mind when it comes time!
Very interesting. The devs ought to watch this!
Wait wha?
you really think the devs have no idea about this?
This is like intro basic game design 100.
@@miked.9364yes, yes I think they don't know, the design speaks for them
The way you’re apply armour automatically to every attack is not the best way to use it. Probably especially for lighter armour, which might make up the gap you’re seeing. You used an example of 1, 6 and 12 as the thresholds and 2d8 as the typical damage at tier 0. So if you’re in a gambeson, and only intending to use one armour slot per hit, using it on 2 damage makes sense, it reduces the damage to under your minor threshold, don’t mark any HP. Then at 7, 8 damage again, because it knocks it under your major threshold, so it’s mark 1 HP instead of 2, and again at 13 and 14 damage, for other damage amounts, it’s a waste. If you’re in full plate, spending armour on every hit is a much more viable strategy - up to 8 damage you mark no HP, then there’s a chunk up to 14 when you mark 1 and a little bit at the top when you mark 2. However, you’re 15% more likely to get hit on an otherwise identical build, and armour slots aren’t infinite, it’s probably not a winning strategy to spend an armour slot every time you get hit - spend more than four between short rests and you can’t repair all your armour. Spend more than two and you’re really limiting your other choices like clearing stress, restoring hope, clearing HP etc.
You are 100% correct. Because you can decide when and how much armor to use each hit, you can make it more effective than what I've done here. I'm sure there's a better way of doing that part of the math.
So for lighter armor, you'll either be burning through armor quicker in order to bring it down more, or you'll end up just taking the hit without armor.
For these calculations, light armor will perform the exact same as judicious use as long as we don't use all armor slots, once we use up all armor slots then light armor is under represented here slightly. Heavier armor has the same caveat, but due to the high armor score, it is less affected by that problem.
Seeing the the CR actor struggle with basic math in the live streams i wonder how this will go
I won't judge anyone for screwing up basic TTRPG math, I do it all the time haha. But DH is more crunchy than I expected for Critical role's style since they are so role play heavy. I've seen them struggle to learn their own abilities for a long time, and that one I do judge them for considering how long they've played and that it is their job.
The system seems like its trying to emulate war games where there is an armour value you have to beat "to hit" and a separate value you have to beat "to wound".
If the damage thresholds were generally static with only rare and expensive ways to alter that value I'd consider it balaced.
With how youve explained it though, every player has access to this resource and it's relatively free to use and abuse.
Lowering "to hit" chance is never worth it in any game unless you can get in to the 10% range easily. You always take damage reduction otherwise.
Yes the to hit chance and damage reduction are always a tough line to get right. I don't mind the idea of damage thresholds, but it does kind of take you out of the narrative with a bunch of mental math you have to do, which is against what they say Daggerheart is created to be.
The damage threshold looks like a more complicated version of brace in the system I'm making. When you brace against an attack you take half damaged rounded down. You can stack more than one brace as well but to get more than just a regular brace you need to use abilities or equipment. How my system works is you have 3 types of defenses (dodge, brace, and mental fortitude). Mental fortitude isn't used unless your abilities or the ability of your attacker would say so. Normally when attacked you'd choose to either dodge or brace against the attack with a small number of abilities forcing the decision. An example as to an attack that would force a decision would be attacking a creature with a web blast. You can't brace against sticky webbing logically speaking
Sounds like a interesting system. Somewhat matches the armor slots here like you said, but sounds easier to conceptualize from a "what would be best for my character generally speaking" point of view. I think doing a bunch of calculations when you get hit to decide what would be best to do takes you out of the game. As long as the analysis between dodge and brace doesn't do the same then it sounds good to me.
@@DndUnoptimized dodge you have to move but you take no damage. The downside is if you can't move or the area is too large for you to move out of then you still take damage. Brace you don't move making it easier to use but you still take some damage each time you're hit. It's meant to be less about the calculations and more about them requiring different strategies and playstyles
Edit: the part about the large area makes things interesting as it becomes worth it to develop large area attacks even against single enemies. Due to how spells work and that different aspects are changed with modifiers that you have to develop increasing the size to catch those dodge characters is done at the sacrifice of damage. It's possible to get damage up pretty high to be useful against bracing characters but then you're sacrificing utility against dodge characters
Another thing is due to how the numbers work there's more that goes into defense than attack so it's expected for defense to work more often then not. The idea is to leverage abilities or strategy to overcome defenses. One example of this is there might be one spell that has a base damage of 1D10 and another that has a base damage of 1D4 but because the one with 1D4 has a trait called crushing that ignores a brace they actually do the same average damage if the target braced against the attack
Second edit: your dodge and brace are numbers built from your character sheet so other than times the choice is taken from you (situation or ability prevents using one or both) or if you built your character specifically to be able to switch it up (able to switch between being a skirmisher or guarding a door for example) the choice is pretty much determined before combat anyway
The fact that the meta analysis is harder does not automatically mean its rules heavy. Players are not meant po to the stats analysis on everything.
That is definitely true, and this video was meant to discuss how to do analysis on DH and how that is difficult. I don't think it's rules heavy, but overall not rules light either. It's got a mix of the two, which is different.
Damage thresholds makes players do a lot more math than 5e in session too though, whether they are running cost benefit analysis on whether to spend armor slots, or doing subtraction to see how many they should spend
The daggerheart rules are heavy regardless of how you analyze them. Damage thresholds contain too many 'magic numbers' that then are changed as you level up to other 'magic numbers'. These magic numbers were chosen to be balanced with the magic numbers on monsters magic items you design, and make balancing of newly designed monsters and magic items very difficult to do well, as the math's very difficult to predict.
Dnd5e in comparison defines monsters and players with a much smaller set of numbers (just AC/hp/+tohit/dmg), that all have a very simple relation to how they will perform in combat.
I alway hate when people say dagger heart is rules light. Its literally harder to play and dm than 5e.
It just has no initiative, but even then its replaced with more book keeping so even that is not really more simple.
It might be fun to play, but its not rules light.
Yes, not quite as rules light as it appears to be. Some parts are really light weight (like conditions and damage types), but others are quite heavy, like damage thresholds and even fear hope bookkeeping.
I do think it's fun, but could do with some trimming for sure.
It's definitely rules-lightER than 5e
You don't have to bookkeep all those PB/LR features separately, nor 9 pool of uses for your magic, and the weight of your stuff and the languages and tools and how many feet and spell components... And I can keep going
So, lighter? Definitely. Light? Debatable
@marcos2492 I don't even really know about that. That stuff wasn't really removed, it was replaced with hope, armor slots, and a bunch of other things to track.
Plus in 5e, you have the option to play a class like the rogue and have nothing to track, and take asi instead of feats. Is there a class in dagger heart that doesn't care about hope?
@@gloryrod86 I mean, yeah, you can try to make the simplest 5e character and it would have the same amount of stuff to track than the most complex DH character you can make. I'm not fanboying, but in terms of bookkeeping 5e wins by A LOT
I use to think of daggerheart damage thresh holds as hit dice and you are just tracking the hit dice instead of the HP values.
Eg. Mages and rogues in osr used to use Xd4+ConHD. so a hit dice average would be 3-4.
This means you can make damage thresholds 3-6-9 or 4-8-12. Then if a damage dice on basic one hand weapons were 1d6 per proficiency’s +dmg mods you need to roll the dice and high roll to do 1 harm. But if you have 2 proficiency rolling above average is ~ 2 harm but can high roll 3 harm and low roll 1 harm.
Tanks could have d8 hit dice meaning 4-5 for their thresholds like 4-8-12 or 5-10-15.
Now they basically mumbled it all up and they don’t really represent hit face any more and are just pulled out of their ass a little
I wonder how this spreadsheet compares to Matt Mercer's team's math.
I'm hoping they have some things they are taking into account that I'm not. But even if somehow the evasion armor score thing is perfectly balanced it is still not obvious to me which armor each build "should" be wearing.
Maybe there is a way to simplify these damage thresholds without tossing the whole system out. That's what I hope ends up happening.
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I would say it is 3-24 rather than 2-24, since 2 is always a critical success anyway (so the worse you can roll is actually 3).
About armor, heavy armor is better when you have armor slots to spend, but on days where you are attacked a lot more times than you have armor slots then evasion score matters more and lighter armor become better. So I would say it depend on the amount of combats in an adventure day, and amount of healing available.
If you are calculating hit chance, then yes, there isn't a 2, but at that section I was just talking about how the dice roll distribution works.
As for heavy vs light armor. Obviously it depends on the evasion score, but if you wear light armor, when you get hit you will be losing more HP. But if you wear heavy armor, you will lose more armor slots. Armor slots are easier to get back on short rest, but HP is likely easier to be healed by abilities. But if you have a bunch of HP healing in the party then the heavy armor users can use less armor and lose more HP to take advantage of that.
If I would make RPG system I would use Into the Odd's no roll to hit. That or consequence on miss, like enemy hitting you back.
I feel like theres some flaws with your data analysis. The two biggest things I found were not taking into account that often different damage values will end up in the same result, and that higher armor only helps as long as you have armor slots available.
For instance, if you are able to reduce the damage by 1 every time you use your Gambeson armor, and you do the same thing with leather armor, then the net result is to lower the damage taken by 6 for both, which means the the Gambeson wins out because your hit 5% less of the time.
Now that being said you'd THEN have to calculate against the & chance of having a sitation where damage would be reduced, and using that number to then calculate how many hits you would take given damage reduction
But THEN, you'd have to calculate into things like health potions and healing effects
Even after you do all that you still have to factor in situations which might lead to armor slot depletion. such as:
doing a fight, running out of armor slots, and then having another fight with no armor slots (and now a 20% difference in your chances of being hit
Or factoring in things like having an expected hard encounter, and thus not using armor slots in a first, weaker encounter.
In the end, the variables don't clean up as nicely as you'd expect them to across multitudes of situations. The system is built in so that different challenges will require different keys to unlock. Its not a straightforward damage calculation, because player decision impacts the output. Players can make optimal choices in a given moment, but not have those plan out when normal things that happen in a campaign happen.
I also just looked at your data, and there's some errors/assumptions with your calculations that cause it to give impossible results.
For Example. A Guardian, who uses 1 Armor slot for both Gambeson and Leather armor can NEVER reduce the incoming damage taken by more then 1. Meaning that if I input 1 Slot being used as a scenario, since Gambeson gives you more evasion, you should take less HP loss on average.
However when I put "1" into the "Slots Used" category on both, I got a lower average damage for Gambeson, which is literally impossible. If one slot is used, 1 HP loss was negated for both armor sets.
The error is coming from the fact that your not saying how many times attacks are being made against the target and are using the damage threshold percentages as the output for EVERY hit, not just ones where a slot was used. But there are going to be times where a character would not use an armor slot, or can't us one effectively, or where they may use more then 1, or where they are out of armor slots.
Upon further FURTHER review (I am a Math Nerd and can't help it)
I realized your data is actually looking at the damage taken PER HIT. your not calculating for number of hits, AT ALL.
This vastly misunderstand how Armor Slots is a finite resource.
Thanks for looking at this so intensely, I appreciate it. First, this is a white room calculation, so it obviously doesn't apply to all situations. Second, you are right about the user deciding when to use the armor. So they won't use 1 armor slot if it won't reduce the damage, they will either use more, or none. This spreadsheet doesn't take that into account and I think that's the biggest failing. It applies to all types of armor, but lighter armor will be impacted more.
As for armor slots, the spreadsheet does take then into account. First we see how much HP you'd expect to lose per attack, then uses that into you run out of armor slots, then if you are still alive, uses the raw damage thresholds.
I'm not sure I get the example you use. When I use 1 armor slot as guardian with gambeson and leather, the expected HP lost per attack is lower for leather. It's not calculating how much HP you saved, but how much expected HP you'd lose. Maybe I'm missing your point.
@@DndUnoptimized The point I was trying to make goes to my misunderstanding that I thought you were calculating "Armor Slots used before you go down" not "Armor Slots used each attack".
You're calculating for "average expected damage" but I believe thats an invalid metric to even look at because your not going to use an Armor slot when HP Taken wouldn't be reduced, meaning a Player will only use an armor slot when it actually reduces HP taken.
Thus a Guardian with both Gambeson and Leather armor using 1 Armor Slot will ALWAYS reducing incoming damage by 1 per Armor Slot used. The only difference being how often that scenario actually occures, which is *sortuv* what your math is checking, but its really not. What you should be looking for is something like "assuming optimal uses of Armor Slots, how many hits on average will it take before the Guardian goes down". Which is harder, but still possible to calculate.
Average damage assuming all incoming damage is being reduced is an unhelpful metric, because thats not how Armor slots are used
Agreed. It is not taking into account optimal usage of armor. Definitely more complicated but not impossible. Maybe I'll make another version of this spreadsheet that takes it into account, but I don't think it negates the point. I would have to run those numbers to be absolutely certain, but then of course it is all dependant on that damage distribution being correct, and that's still up in the air.
If damage distribution is much higher than what I used, then evasion becomes much more valuable.
The point is that everything is quite complex to account for, and extremely difficult for a player to make a knowledgeable decision.
That's some good math!
I'd seriously be tempted to just give all the players the 'heavy armor' and ignore its penalties, so everyone gets their specific fantasy out of it.
Yea I guess that's an option! They are significantly reworking this part of the system though. I hope it becomes a lot simpler
This is being made by Critical Role? Like, the podcast voice actors?
Correct! I don't know exactly how much the players are involved in the game design, but I'm sure Matt Mercer is very involved.
My problem is that I'm invested in roleplaying games to ... oh ... play a role. I'm not looking to WIN in any combat scenario I encounter. I'm more interested in the story than the math. So sad. My bad.
To each their own! Haha jk, of course it's about the roleplay and fun. I just like the math too and DH math is quite different and interesting.
@@DndUnoptimized, it is just that I have been playing TTRPGs since I got out of college (Dungeons & Dragons was first released), and I have never worried about math or about min/maxing. That has yet to be my table style over the past four decades. That is also why I appreciate Daggerheart.
It's just so confusing...this makes me never wanna play DH lol
Haha, you don't need to do this kind of math to play, just to analyze. It is a fun system with interesting ideas, just the damage thresholds need a little bit more math than 5e.
I think damage thresh holds are rules lite, they are just complicate to explain a simplification of game play
They aren't too heavy, but it does kind of pull players out of the moment as they try to do calculations in their head for how much armor they should use and trying to balance that against losing HP. Also, getting hit with a huge attack doesn't feel the same because players can fully negate it if they want to. So I'd say it's not really rules heavy, but it does feel like a lot of numbers compared to other parts of DH which are more relaxed and lightweight.
The fanbase reaction to the ogl "scandal" was blown way out of proportion - for one thing, the only people that would supposedly be affected negatively, i.e. the top three larger publishers with their own presses, have secured deals to publish their content through DDB - but it's funny how people again and again said the core rules of 5e were something totally disposable and anyone could come up with something better.
As someone playing rpgs since the 90s, I can't stress enough how 5e is a beauty of game design.
It has lots of flaws, but the balance it strikes - rules making some intuitive sense for new players while also giving room for optimizers, classes having some recognizability while also not being too restricting etc. - is really what made it so successful for streamers.
I'm all for new RPGs getting developed, but it seems like most of the attempts to make the "d&d killer" are just scams, trying to get people's money by feeding on their manufactured hate.
That's a fair take. I agree that the OGL reaction was too extreme and a bunch of people decided to create their own version of D&D but "better". I'm interested in trying a lot of them, but in my mind, it's gotta be significantly different to earn a spot. DH is trying to cut out a niche for itself and I think it's got enough new and different ideas that I feel fine with it's existence.
I really like 5e, and it's got flaws but it's a well designed game for the most part.
@@DndUnoptimized I agree that DH is at least trying something a tad more different (I guess they had to, because they're the ones that already had a partnership with DDB and an animated series of their d&d campaign so they had to be more tactful).
But, probably because I'm south American, but it really upset me that on the effort to "diversify" the ttrpg landscape the answer was to give more power to the biggest third party creators or to paizo (all in north America, all led by a bunch of already successful white American people).
Not a single of those people, with huge platforms, thought to use the opportunity to boost RPGs from other countries.
From what I understand, during the OGL scandal they would push to see where the boundary was at and then backpedal whenever it caused to much controversy.
Ultimately, the exact terms of changing the OGL weren't important. The important was they broke people's trust by showing they were willing to change the OGL at all.
No wants to build a castle on sand.
@@leotamer5 the draft they presented, and was leaked, forcing publication before it was ready, had 2 major changes:
The ogl shouldn't apply to other media. Which was fair, people didn't had it in mind when it was made.
And the top 3 major third party publishers should pay a percentage of their profits to WotC. Which is not only fair, but good for the game. The third party business shouldn't be concentrated on the hands of a couple of owners.
There were flaws, sure. But there were no nefarious plan, nor a brake of trust (unless you talk about third party creators breaking WotC trust by leaking the draft) since the most affected parties were notified before the changes happened.
Incredibly rare accurate retelling of the OGL situation!
I think this has been discussed a bit, but if I'm being honest, the idea that the heavier the armour the better, is actually good for the game, because the math of how armour works is so insanely complex that players shouldn't really bother with it anyway. So, in my opinion, keep it like that and make armour be better the heavier it is, but just impose strict requirements, especially STR-wise that define what kind of armour you can wear. A Wizard with Heavy armour being really good is super cool when you have to invest in STR for your Wizard (which naturally doesn't fit well, so it's a niche build that is mechanically rewarded in terms of defence, but you lose in other aspects).
Yea, I'm down for that. It's usually the case that you grab the strongest armor you are able to use, so if heavier is always better but there are restrictions on how heavy you can go, then it isn't a problem. The problem is when the math is so obfuscated that people have no idea what armor to choose that is best for them. Not even from a min max perspective, just even a "what the heck am I MEANT to wear" perspective.
Calculating damage is so complex that you might as well just play for narrative and vibes 😂. So it does fix a problem there
Haha, what a power play by Matt Mercer!
This seems too complicated...
It isn't that bad when playing, but trying to figure out what thing to increase, or what armor to wear is NOT simple and intuitive.
This game just a mess of random mechanics barely tied together. That what happens when there are too many people involved in development with almost no experience in the field. It has no vision or design goals other than to male dnd-killer. And worst part that it will sell, a lot, because of the mercer fans and ogl-mad-normies, while actually good ttrpgs will stay in shadow forever.
I like a lot of the things they do, but the damage thresholds feel very complex, and it's intrinsically tied to the rules.
@@DndUnoptimized because thresholds are just second armor class and nothing more, it doesn't solve anything and serve no purpose. You roll dice once, than once again, than interact with meta resource and all that to just deal 1-3 damage. It is ridiculous. While dnd ac is abstraction that represent both armor and evasion, here we have whole 5 numbers doing all that and none of those at the same time, it makes no sense. ADND books should be mandatory read as bear minimum for all those "designers", because if your game is more complicated and confusing than 50 years old one and don't provide any benefit for that level of complexity- you are failed.
@@DndUnoptimized here how you do it. Goals: easy to understand and fast to play stream, that still let you use different abilities and differentiate weapons. Let say we stick to the thresholds idea.
1) Thresholds are the numbers you should roll on your attack roll, replacing difficulty.
2) Minor- represent dodge the number that was a difficulty before, major- represent armor and define how serious is hit, and severe- critical, usually calculated like "22+ expected to hit bonus of player at this level" aka 11+ on bout d12, dealing 4 damage instead of 3.
2:51 For that skeleton those would be 10 14 24. We just reduced amount of rolls to 1 and size of stat blocks by 2 lines. And you don't need any other dice than a d12.
Major threshold represent literal armor or toughness, so if DM want to give the skeleton some armor he can easily modify it like that: 10 18 24.
Now we need solve class identity armor and weapon differences.
3) If you rolled above major threshold you deal 2 damage AND apply your weapon of choice bonus, like push, knock prone, poison, 1 extra damage etc. Same with enemies, activating there special attack properties only if they hit above major threshold.
4) For armor we just turn it into static bonuses. Light- slightly increase major threshold. Medium slightly decrease minor threshold but noticeably increase major threshold, Heavy increase major and severe but significantly decrees minor. So in heavy armor you will take hits more often but only for 1 and wont suffer from extra effects, so it benefit classes with higher hp, lettings them tank. Same with light armor, benefiting from high minor threshold of evasive classes.
Here, it took me 3 minutes to fix.
Wow, that's actually a really good idea... Lol nice work! You should pitch that to them.
Yea, I kinda just don't think the crit role team are very good designers. If you look at their dnd content it's a mess, abilities that do practically nothing, abilities that are blatantly op, stuff that no one knows how it even works. They have some interesting ideas, but a very bad track record with their implementation. I don't really have much hope for dagger heart.
I've got no interest in Daggerheart
This is so tedious and boring. Just pay the damn game!
Can't blame you for that opinion!
@@DndUnoptimized Hey thanks for the reply, it's no slight on you, my eyes just glaze over when I see spreadsheets for D&D games. I just wanna explore exciting dungeons, fighy deadly orcs and avoid fiendish traps, maybe get some treasure at the end of it.