Critical Role's 'Daggerheart' Open Playtest Starts In March

On March 12th, Critical Role's Darrington Press will be launching the open playtest for Daggerheart, their new fantasy TTRPG/

Using cards and two d12s, the system plays on 'the dualities of hope and fear'. The game is slated for a 2025 release.

Almost a year ago, we announced that we’ve been working hard behind-the-scenes on Daggerheart, our contribution to the world of high-fantasy tabletop roleplaying games.

Daggerheart is a game of brave heroics and vibrant worlds that are built together with your gaming group. Create a shared story with your adventuring party, and shape your world through rich, long-term campaign play.

When it’s time for the game mechanics to control fate, players roll one HOPE die and one FEAR die (both 12-sided dice), which will ultimately impact the outcome for your characters. This duality between the forces of hope and fear on every hero drives the unique character-focused narratives in Daggerheart.

In addition to dice, Daggerheart’s card system makes it easy to get started and satisfying to grow your abilities by bringing your characters’ background and capabilities to your fingertips. Ancestry and Community cards describe where you come from and how your experience shapes your customs and values. Meanwhile, your Subclass and Domain cards grant your character plenty of tantalizing abilities to choose from as your character evolves.

And now, dear reader, we’re excited to let you know that our Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest will launch globally on our 9th anniversary, Tuesday, March 12th!

We want anyone and everyone (over the age of 18, please) to help us make Daggerheart as wonderful as possible, which means…helping us break the game. Seriously! The game is not finished or polished yet, which is why it’s critical (ha!) to gather all of your feedback ahead of Daggerheart’s public release in 2025.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

It’s not a d20 game, right?

it is for the DM.

 

[FrogReaver]

it is for the DM.

Well then!

 

[Zaukrie]

Who has tested this? Did your players just take turns in combat? If so, how is that different than normal init (other than the DM being allowed to jump in)?

 

[overgeeked]

Could someone explain to me why Evasion scores of martial classes are low? Especially the Guardian, the supposed tank, and Seraph, somewhat magic fighter are low. Warrior is just 1-2 points above casters.

I would think that the first step toward mastering melee is not to get hit. And only the second to would be to reduce it/heal it.

The Guardian is the tough, slow moving archetype. So low Evasion but high HP, damage threshold, and HP are designed in or assumed. Look to the rogue for the fast-moving (mostly) martial archetype.

 

[SteveC]

It’s not a d20 game, right? If so 2 points in a 2d6 or 2d10 style game is typically much larger than in a d20 game.

I'm sure some people in this thread won't know this: the players roll 2D12. The GM rolls 1D20. So the GM has a different method and set of probabilities than the players. And I suspect that some may not like that. The expectation with fighting characters with low Evasion scores is that they will wear and use armor.

 

[ruemere]

The Guardian is the tough, slow moving archetype. So low Evasion but high HP, damage threshold, and HP are designed in or assumed. Look to the rogue for the fast-moving (mostly) martial archetype.

I get the stereotype. I just hoped the meme of big dumb warrior* was not applicable here and that I was missing something.

* Yeah, a guy making a life out of surviving melee gets a whole ten points. It's that the tank guy gets 6, with an opportunity to raise the stat by 1. Oh well.

 

[overgeeked]

I get the stereotype. I just hoped the meme of big dumb warrior was not applicable here and that I was missing something.

There's nothing indicating the Guardian is dumb. Just slow in the physical sense, as seen from their low Evasion.

 

[ruemere]

There's nothing indicating the Guardian is dumb. Just slow in the physical sense, as seen from their low Evasion.

That equals to being dumb, you know. Before I get into details, I watch anime and I know the stereotype. I read books, and I get that there are masochists who just love bleeding, spitting broken teeth and who cultivate bruises and scars.

However, also as a former MMORPG fanatic, and also hateful antifan of Game of Thrones franchise, I would insist that damage prevention is as important as damage mitigation, and that the first step in the damage prevention area is not to be there when the blow lands*. After all, shields break - just not in D&D, though they might do so in Daggerheart (ref. armor slots).

* The true tank mantra:

• kill them before they strike,
• control their actions so that they cannot strike,
• avoid their blows so that their strikes don't land,
• lessen the damage of the strikes that were not avoided.

So, you have a guy whose job is to tank, i.e. to stop and to prevent damage, and despite their expertise, they are worse at this than a warrior:
Rogue: starting Evasion score is 12.
Warrior and Ranger: starting Evasion score is 10.
Guardian (the default tank class): starting Evasion is 6.

So I looked for their damage mitigation abilities:

• Unstoppable class feature - usable 1/long rest - basically, it's a Barbarian Rage that also prevents damage to an extent, but goes down every time you deal damage.
• Stalwart foundation feature - +2 to damage thresholds. This does prevents the damage, making it lower but not preventing hits.

All in all, this just means that Guardians are to be killed by minions.
A skelly from the quickstart adventure has no attack modifier, so their chance to hit goes like this:
Guardian - 75% .
Warrior - 55%.
Rogue - 45%.

So, to summarize. In my opinion, based on the research the Guardian base Evasion score should be at least equal to that of a Warrior, with abilities that would raise it higher. Otherwise, the Stalwart Guardian is likely to go down due to being overwhelmingly easy to hit.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

That equals to being dumb, you know. Before I get into details, I watch anime and I know the stereotype. I read books, and I get that there are masochists who just love bleeding, spitting broken teeth and who cultivate bruises and scars.

However, also as a former MMORPG fanatic, and also hateful antifan of Game of Thrones franchise, I would insist that damage prevention is as important as damage mitigation, and that the first step in the damage prevention area is not to be there when the blow lands*. After all, shields break - just not in D&D, though they might do so in Daggerheart (ref. armor slots).

* The true tank mantra:

• kill them before they strike,
• control their actions so that they cannot strike,
• avoid their blows so that their strikes don't land,
• lessen the damage of the strikes that were not avoided.

So, you have a guy whose job is to tank, i.e. to stop and to prevent damage, and despite their expertise, they are worse at this than a warrior:
Rogue: starting Evasion score is 12.
Warrior and Ranger: starting Evasion score is 10.
Guardian (the default tank class): starting Evasion is 6.

So I looked for their damage mitigation abilities:

• Unstoppable class feature - usable 1/long rest - basically, it's a Barbarian Rage that also prevents damage to an extent, but goes down every time you deal damage.
• Stalwart foundation feature - +2 to damage thresholds. This does prevents the damage, making it lower but not preventing hits.

All in all, this just means that Guardians are to be killed by minions.
A skelly from the quickstart adventure has no attack modifier, so their chance to hit goes like this:
Guardian - 75% .
Warrior - 55%.
Rogue - 45%.

So, to summarize. In my opinion, based on the research the Guardian base Evasion score should be at least equal to that of a Warrior, with abilities that would raise it higher. Otherwise, the Stalwart Guardian is likely to go down due to being overwhelmingly easy to hit.

all this, and also the armor a guardian would want to wear (chainmail/plate) also reduces their evasion EVEN FURTHER.

ah yes, i would like an evasion of FOUR on my FRONTLINER, PLEASE.

 

[overgeeked]

That equals to being dumb, you know.

No. It really doesn’t.

The tank’s job is to take the hits so the rest of the group does not. That can be through either high defenses (Evasion), high damage resistance (damage threshold, armor), or high health (HP). Insisting on all three at once shows a failure to understand niche protection and basic game design.