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A problem I have with 5e, even more with 2024e, is the superhero feel. Each class just gets more and more, and it becomes more problematic for a DM to build encounters. In your opinion, does DC20 overpower players? Yes, this is subjective.
Excellent question! If 5e feels too superhero-like for you, DC20 will likely have a similar vibe, especially at higher levels. While Dungeon Coach has recently added a Novice and Level 0 character options to help balance power early on, later levels will likely feel just as epic or superhero-like as 5e. If you're looking for something different for your fantasy game, you might enjoy systems like RuneQuest (BRP d100 rules), Mythras Classic Fantasy (Mytras d100 rules), Realms of Peril (d20, rules-lite PbtA meets OSR game), or Dungeon World (2d6 PbtA rules). These games don’t have the same escalating hit points, which is a big factor in that superhero feel. We will have upcoming episodes talking about (or playing) more DC20 and many of the games I just mentioned. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
The biggest change I'd like to see is getting rid of "consequences" rolls with Fear/Hope/critical success. It feels like if you have a game where a lot is supposed to happen, you'll run out of good/bad things for Fear/Hope, and I've never been a fan of critical success rolls (just for attack rolls in combat). I'd just say that Fear/Hope rolls give the GM/player resources to do things, and a crit roll (doubles) should just count as a 24 on the dice (like, you make a +3 finesse roll to pick a lock and get 2 4s, it's a 27 and you get a Hope). Sometimes you just want to break down a door, entertain a crowd, or sneak out an open window. Ya do or ya don't.
I completely agree. To get around this, I often just take a fear and don't give consequences like you say. Sometimes I make the result bad enough when rolling fear that I don't take a fear token too.
I simply loove the fact that the 4 action points are refrshed when your END your turn. So they are available through the turns of everybody else. But every point you expend on somebody else turn is deducted from the 4 you get to expend on your turn. So it means that players can be more awake through the whole round and with less points in their turn suffer less analysis paralysis.
Honestly, I like the "by 5" rule a lot, but I think the action system is probably what I like most about it. DC really figured out how to allow the most choice without giving choice overload each round.
Heh, I guess you guys didn't hear about the update for the final version. It aired the day after you guys posted it, and a lot of your comments about armor are changed. Also it looks like the GM moves a lot more with the changed rules of getting rid of the action tracker. Also they have several campaign settings they are launching with. No, it's not Exandria, and I'd guess that's intentional to start something new with their new system. We may see a peek with the December live show. Also you may find it's a lot easier to track stuff with something like I did. I made a strip that has a spot for HP, Armor, Hope, and Stress. And I can just put a token on each area, or have a die with the number the area has. There are example monsters for all tiers in the 1.5 manuscript. You can peek and see how damage will scale. However, with the rework on armor in the final form those numbers will likely change as well. (And no doubt some of the abilities too.) The GM D20 isn't just for higher variability, it's because the D12 is connected to Hope / Fear, which the GM does not generate. You aren't forced to do the "connections" section when creating characters. That's just there because they assume the majority of players may be playing with strangers and those people are only going to play one or two sessions, but since the group should be a cohesive unit CR is providing a 'streamlined way' for the characters to have connections. Nothing is stopping you from playing from the very very start where players are strangers if you have a regular group and have the time. DH test isn't "level" 1-2, it's TIER 1-2, so that's lv 1-4. When comparing to D&D, effectively double the DH level.
Wow, great feedback. Yep, I heard about the final version video after we posted haha. Totally agree with the connections part. I don't think we'd do it for a long term campaign. However, for a long term campaign, I'd still use the collaborative world building. That part is awesome. I need to find some better tokens, or find a roll of pennies or something :D
This system combines the skill of the opponent to determine whether you hit or not. No other dnd system had this. You just need to bypass their armor class then damage them. Their combat skill had no bearing on whether you hit them or not. A 20th level fighter with a loincloth should smoke a 1st level fighter with full plate armor.
This is as great observation that I missed when discussing it (probably because only level 1-2 are released.) Indeed combat mastery is included in the defense calculation... interesting.
I'll point out that this mechanic is taken from Pathfinder 2e. DC20 just turned the scaling down, adding half your level instead of your full level like PF2E does. I'm glad DC20 uses it too, since it's a great system, but it isn't something "no other dnd system had".
As far as I am aware, damage works the way it does because they want to maintain the feeling of power that rolling lots of dice for damage provides at the same time as not doing the escalating hit-point thing that D&D does.
Totally. That's why at 10th level, you only get slightly more HP but your thresholds increase instead. Even then, you are at most only doing 3 HP per a hit (4 if you use the optional rule). Not sure what I think about that. Will have to test it at higher level. Have you tried it?
@@greghorvayI've tried it, it's *smooth as hell*. I've played other systems that are built similar to HP thresholds, and they used the terms "hit points" and "wounds". You could eat a LOT of HP damage but if you stack too many wounds you're done - and I always preferred that more granular system over D&D's generic hit points. Big hits still matter, completely, because tougher enemies have higher damage thresholds, so rolling a big damage hit still feels really impactful, like you're cracking through iron-hard defenses or whatever.
@@TherronKeen We tried playing with their new updates. We had to homebrew it a bit since they haven't released it and only talked about it on the live stream. It worked out WAY better. Dealing with Armor Slots now takes about 1 second and doesn't slow down the game at all.
One additional thing that is a bit awkward about Daggerheart that I forgot to mention is the fact that your armor becomes ineffective after using all the armor slots. It becomes a bit frustrating narratively as the paladin's armor keeps falling off each battle :D
@@greghorvayevery update I've seen from this game has addressed basically every complaint I've had. This is the best damn development cycle I've ever seen in a physical game product lol. It's impressive as hell
@@TherronKeen I agree. Never seen a group iterate on feedback so nicely. We tried playing with their new updates. We had to homebrew it a bit since they haven't released it and only talked about it on the live stream. It worked out WAY better. Dealing with Armor Slots now takes about 1 second and doesn't slow down the game at all.
Great video! Re: Overwhelming options, the latest DC20 Magazine introduced Novice and Level 0 characters to help introduce the game and get people used to the mechanics Re: Scaling, it’ll mostly be done through the SP/MP players get as they level, and each feature makes PCs’ AP expenditure more efficient and effective (as AP is the true bottleneck in terms of what a character is capable of)
I'm just curious what 'conversion' we're talking about for rolling a d20 to hit? I mean from what I read it's literally just adding a point of damage for every 5 over that you rolled. Need a 13 to hit. Rolled an 18? Get +1. No offense but that doesn't seem too hard.
I like the "by 5" rule as well, which I said on the video. I guess some people really do like the all-or-nothing aspect of 5e. When I go back to playing 5e, rolling an 19 feels so lame now :D
Did no one write down on their character sheet their PD & MD with heavy/brutal? There is a place for it! It's written just like this on the Monster Stat Blocks. eg. PD 12 (17/22); MD 8 (13/18) The only math you have to do is your Attack/Spell-Check Roll, look and your PD/MD and then if heavy/brutal add +1/2 to damage. That is a lot faster then having to add up damage dice, especial with crits, backstabs/ect. and spells adding more dice to dmg. I have a player that every attack has to add up 3 dmg die, and its 6 on a crit, now thats a lot of math. I will take adding a +1/2 over that any day.
I really like DC20, so I'm nitpicking here, but... I agree with you about the the heavy/brutal hits. My only problem is AOEs. I can only image a player throwing a fireball and hitting like 4 types of creatures. Now I have to look between 4 different normal/heavy/brutal numbers and it does slow down the game. Whenever I'm DMing and I have to take more than a second to write down damage, it bothers me; especially for a system that I think simplified damage everywhere else in the system.
@@cabbitcrossing As said by you guys in the show. It's not as good as the original and feels like more of a spin - off than a sequel. I quite enjoyed it so out of ten I'd probably give it a solid 8. The OG version was a solid 9 or 10.
Why do you believe you need ANYTHING to scale? What would increasing numbers add to the game at all? You assume scaling as an absolute necessity without explaining its value other than “What are you doing, man?” Is it just number bigger is better?
By scaling, I meant progress. How do you show a level 10 is more powerful than a level 1. 5e is mostly just about extra attacks/dice/HP. I'm curious what DC20 will do since there aren't extra attacks and the HP isn't crazy high like 5e gets.
@@greghorvay Ok. Aren’t more options and skill success probability enough to demonstrate a Character’s progression. That would show they are picking up a variety of trick from their experience. Additional talents also would suffice.
Great to hear feedback on this exciting system! I cannot say for certain, but regarding scaling, what I see so far is that the mastery increases at certain milestones will also add to damage (higher attack rolls). I'd also expect masterwork or magic weapons/items that add an increase to attack rolls, which add to overall damage as well. Flat damage increases on weapons would be very powerful magic items (say a fire sword that adds +1 fire damage to each attack). Besides that, I think class features will play a big role with scaling. I'm about to start a campaign for some friends and I share some of the observations you shared about the action economy. I'm hoping there isn't any analysis paralysis when it comes to "what should I do". I'm really hoping to master all of the 'maneuvers' (via cheatsheet GM screen) and just let the players describe what they want to do in natural language. I think once they catch on, it'll be fantastic and won't slow the game down much. As a player, I can tell you now that I would have that cheatsheet of maneuvers ready and available when planning my turns out. in 5E I would even write rules for how far my character could jump, or lift, or how many rounds I could breath underwater...all directly on my character sheet so I wouldn't have to look that stuff up when it came down to it...even if it wasn't likely to happen. It's a big hurdle to learn a new system, but it seems very intuitive so far. I'm looking forward to see where it goes.
That's my favorite thing about the system as well: It's very intuitive. The discord has a lot of cheat sheets as well. People even turned the maneuvers into cards and such there.
@@TTRPG_Quebec Completely agree. There are a lot of homebrew monsters on the discord, but I don't think there is a centralized document of them all which is unfortunate. It would be nice to have a way to share this stuff.
Interesting feedback. I am going to DM some DC20 soon. I will compare notes afterwards. I did play a self made and run solo adventure and I did not find the damage to be very challenging to manage. But maybe it is because I was DMing and playing at the same time not having to check if it was normal heavy or brutal hits. Let's see how it goes with my players.
Please let us know how it goes with your players! Very cool that you did a solo adventure. Solo gaming seems to be on the rise and it's something many of us have been curious to try.
@@cabbitcrossing Solo adventuring is nice, I used it for fun and as a way to better learn the game mechanics and hopefully smooth out the first sessions, I will be DMing.
@@cabbitcrossing I just DM a short session with my players. I had no trouble to "calculate" damage. I ran bandits stats block from the monster pack, the PD section shows the target values for normal, heavy and brutal hits. It was easy. To be fair none of my players had weapons with impact properties or whip weapon style. I expect it could be slightly more complicated for the first session maybe first 2 sessions but past that point I do not see it being a problem. I found damage handling calculation to be quite fast. As fast as rolling for hit and damage being calculate with digital tools for DND. My players did not have much analysis paralysis problem, with spells or maneuvers. They are far from being fluent with the system yet, but it went quite smoothly. In a very short 3 round combat encounter they used "help, shove, grapple" and used versatile weapon 2 handed. Overall it went very well and my players were excited for the system.
@@olivierhuet9860 Nice! That's great to hear! Thanks for letting us know how the session went. Did they like the use of action points then versus traditional action economy in 5E? Did you feel it kept their attention more? It sounds like it didn't cause analysis paralysis, which is great.
@@cabbitcrossing Yes, they enjoyed the action point system a lot more than the 5e action economy system and so did I as the GM. Makes it feel a lot more natural, it always annoyed us to discover that some spell are cast using a bonus action instead of an action in 5e. Action points resetting at the end of the turn kept them engaged a lot more I could feel it but one of them actually mentioned about it at the end of the session as well. We did not use spells enough to have a proper feel of the mana point vs spell slots issue.
As to the comment about streamlining combat. And that exactly sure what this individual is asking. It sounds like he's asking for flat damage across the board, which in my mind doesn't sound like a very fun system. Having the heavy and brutal hits actually adds a knob in which other features of the game can interact and turn with. If I was running the system I would have my armor class and my heavy and brutal threshold written down right there. There should be no downtime when somebody announces that they rolled a 19. You should know if that is a regular versus a heavy versus a brutal hit. And then you just tack on the extra flat damage that comes with those rules.
How are AoE attacks an issue compared to save DCs? Treat the attack roll as the DC, have players compare their number (without having to roll it), if they fail they take the damage, if they fail by 5 or more they take additional damage. The DM doesn't need to tell everyone exactly how much they took any more than they need to just tell them pass/fail, this much/half.
True. I could put it on the players. Even then you are going one by one. "What's your PD? You take 1. What's your PD? You take 3..." I'm not sure it's normal to do "They rolled a 17; figure it out and write down how much damage you took..." Image the other way around. A gang of different enemies gets a fireball thrown in the room. THat's a lot of book-keeping
I don't think AoE damage calculation is hard. Just tell everyone your total attack result. Then optimally everyone has at least two more smaller (lettersize I mean) Next to there PD for heavy and Brutal hits. Then they just need to compare those Numbers to the attackroll to see if it was a normal, brutal or heavy hit. If its a normal every 5 is +1 damage effect then all you as the DM have to do is tell they the base damage and everyone can add to it if they know they are heavily hit etc. If the effect has more complicated scaling just tell them the scaling effects and let the players to there own calculation. I did it like that and my player handled that easily.
For my character builds I make 6 different variations of my Turn/Action Points (Including availability for Reactions) so I can plug and play them in different situations and then, though happening more than not, when the situation isn't what I've already planned for I've done enough brainstorming through the development of the 6 variations that I can take my turn very quickly with an alternate/audible set of Action Points/Turn on the fly. I would propose doing this to speed up combat all around. On the point of managing AOE, the GM should have every Player Characters PD, PD+5 (Heavy), PD+10 (Brutal) & PD+15 (Beyond Brutal) as part of the inside of each of the GM's Player Character Initiative Tracker on the GM's Shield to quickly denote the damage differences (along with all other critical information such as HP, MD, MD+5, MD+10, MD+15, SP, MP & Death Threshold) as a quick reference. This will greatly speed up party damage calculations for AOE attacks and all other combat related issues enemies impose.
Yeah, more prep can always help. I was sorta hoping the system wouldn't require more prep though... As for prepping different actions one could take, I'm sure that would help. I think just playing a few more sessions would also get people used to it. I've DMed it about 4 times now, and it takes me seconds to plan out a bad guy's actions now; even if looking at their stat block for the first time.
The Prime modify mechanic making everyone have the same attack bonuses is a little jarring at first, but it's not really all that different from 5E at 1st level. Things like Paladins are an exception since they need so many different stats, but I see that more as a problem than a feature. I think we'll see more variation as higher levels get developed.
where is the dc20 game ? would liked to seee ya playing it on thing that really really speed up combat of DC 20 is just tell the playes the encounter DC which is the AC and the DC save of the monster. now when they roll they will check easily if its a normal hit or a brutal hit . all you need to do is to write the brutal hit and always check hey is it 10 higher than normal or 10 higher than heavy to see is if brtal or even heavy brutal . the couch just say the number of the attack and its up for the players to check if they are heavy hit or brutally hit
Thanks for watching and commenting! The DC20 game will start rolling out in just a couple of weeks. We record our sessions well in advance, so now that we've wrapped up our Tales of the Valiant adventure, we'll start airing the DC20 playtest. Keep an eye out-it's coming soon!
Yeah, I'm ok with it. The only exception I saw was when doing a big AOE and having to do that calculation on a group doing different amounts of damage on each
The damage boosts based on attack roll isnt as cumbersome to the speed of combat as Chaz claims. Eventually it becomes organic and you can math quite quickly.
Good analysis of the system. You will find combat goes faster and smoother as you get used to the system, and know what to do on your turn more easily.
Thanks for watching! We suspected that might be the case. We plan on playing more DC20, so we'll have a chance to see how much faster it gets with practice.
DC20 fan here to see what y'all think. 👍 Edit: Level 2 is losing a feature because it's getting too much currently. All the spells are getting a rework they are some of the oldest part of the document and after subclasses will be the focus.
I heard about level 2 losing a feature after this was recorded on one of his live streams. Good point! About the spells, good to know. Not sure how he's going to fix having to calculate against multiple defenses though...
Thank you! For that we used Adobe Premiere/After Effects and some third party tools. Our editing for the rest of the show is done with Apple editing software.
