(Author’s Note: this post was written based on the Daggerheart Open Beta v1.5)
A few weeks ago, I began my Daggerheart adventure by running the one-shot The Sablewood Messengers. I enjoyed it myself, but I barely had to ask about playing again when my players were planning for a followup. Naturally, I queued up The Marauders of Windfall, which was designed as either a standalone or follow-on adventure.
Unlike The Sablewood Messengers, this adventure does away with a lot of rules explanations. I myself have a better handle on the rules as well, so here’s how it went for me.
Setting up battle maps
With The Sablewood Messengers, the outdoor forest spaces were easy enough to fudge. This time, I asked my players to create Roll20 accounts for battle maps. I presumed that the airship is a flying boat. I wanted to make sure that the battle maps showed those actual details.
I honestly am not quite ready to build the terrain with my players as the reles suggest. Maybe it would work better in-person, but map editing online can be finicky, and doing it collaboratively sounds even trickier. However, I do want to try it out with my players to see what they come up with.
The wyvern chomps
The wyvern fight went well. There were big dramatic fight moments, and everyone got into the narration and story.
However, I will focus on my gripes.
First, I felt like I was railroading this fight and clearly reading out of a book. My players asked me:
- How did no one see these wyverns coming? Uh, it’s a cloudy day.
- Do the sailors need help with the wyvern on the other deck? Nah, they’re fine.
- What are we doing with the wyvern’s dead body? Woah, look at that, it’s time to move on
There are probably good answers for all of these: I just wasn’t prepared for it.
Second, the wyvern’s “Crushing Bite” ability is powerful and narratively accurate, but I really had to pick on one player to make it meaningful. I kept chasing them around to knock them down, then chomping and chomping. Fortunately, they survived thanks to the intervention by the Guardian.
An awkward dinner
I get it: dinner is supposed to be awkward. The players are supposed to feel uncomfortable with the situation. However, the situation is naturally awkward tending towards silence rather than conversation.
It’s just not obvious why the players should be curious in the first place. There are plenty of characters and backstory in the room for the players to engage with. However, the players’ mission doesn’t really involve figuring any of that stuff out: the flight is just a step in a journey to their actual goal.
If I were to run this adventure again, I would try to setup more motivation beforehand for the players to gently interrogate the crew.
Maybe they have a secondary mission to assess the design of the ship or efficacy of the crew for future usage.
Maybe they get a clue during the wyvern fight that something untoward is happening.
Maybe the crew gets a little testy during dinner that makes the players want to push back.
They just need something. Otherwise, we’re all just waiting for the Calliope to show up and save us from an awkward silence.
Clumps of minions
Area of Effect abilities are really, really good against minions. I think this is intentional: it feels good for players to blast away a bunch of monsters at once.
However, it does make some of these fights somewhat trivial. And this problem is exacerbated by the fact that the “Group Attack” action is designed to group up the minions so they can all get squished together.
In particular in this fight, all of the pirates are coming off of a single ship. This crates a clear choke point that a single character (like Khari Nix) can just hold seemingly forever.
I actually had to have Calliope swing in over the riggings above to get onto the ship. In retrospect, perhaps I could have used that same explanation for how the pirates were scattering about elsewhere on the ship
Despite a bunch of criticism, I did like when Calliope announced her intention to free a prisoner. Instantly, one of my players asked, “Does anyone get the impression that we’re the bad guys?”
To free or not to free
I thought the decision to free (or not to free) Dell Ponde was fun. The players actually debated amongst themselves, tried to gather more information, and imagined what their characters would do.
I just wish that their choice actually mattered.
It probably doesn’t really matter whether there would be a different outcome: the players don’t know the difference. However, as a GM, I was impatient. In my mind, it didn’t really matter what they decided because it would lead to the same outcome, which probably isn’t right.
Final thoughts
Despite the criticism, the group again had a great time playing, and we’re starting a campaign on the back of this. This adventure features both what the Daggeheart rules support and some imagination into the worlds one can play in.
Elsewhere in Daggerheart
I hadn’t seen it before, but the creator of Daggerstack posted an update on reddit with some recent improvements. I haven’t tried it out yet, but more tools out there is only a good sign for the broader community support.
The Motley Crusades has started an actual play series for Daggerheart. Given that DH comes from publisher associated with Critical Role, it makes sense that the community is following in their shoes.
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