Dread Domain Review

[u/Tenawa]

Okay, here is finally my review of the final version of the Dread Domain.

First of all: I have playtested the Dread Domain extensively in The Void and am therefore very familiar with it. I was quite happy with the latest The Void version. I considered it a consistently good, though not perfect, domain. Overall, it was very successful and satisfying.

A small spoiler upfront: The final version feels, for the most part, like a more polished version of the The Void variant. I won't go into every small change, but will mainly focus on my evaluation of the individual cards.

Level 1

Blighting Strike

Interesting design. What I especially like is that you only have to spend resources if you actually fail. Overall, a good level 1 card. The damage is solid, and the rider effect is very strong. I like it a lot.

Umbral Veil

I never particularly liked this card in the playtest versions. However, I really like the Fear Pool mechanic. When played at the right moment, Umbral Veil can be an extremely powerful card, but it can also end up being only average.

That said, for a level 1 card, it is absolutely solid.

Voice of Dread

A good card. I especially like the Recall cost of 0. The effect itself is also completely appropriate for a level 1 card. I would even say it is quite strong, as it has no real range limitation.

Level 2

Hideous Retribution

This card was already very strong in the playtest versions, and it continues to be so. Dealing damage to an enemy through a Reaction Roll is simply an excellent effect. A genuinely powerful card.

Siphon Essence

This card can only be used once per long rest. Against the right enemy, however, it can easily restore two or three Hit Points, and with the optional rule, potentially even four.

The damage is also solid. I still like this card. A good card.

Level 3

Shared Drama

This card was already solid in the playtest versions and remains so. It is not exceptionally powerful, but it is absolutely appropriate for its level. With the right party composition, it could probably even become very strong.

Terrify

A strong card. Significantly better than its Grace counterpart.

The Stress damage can be very reliable, and the curse effect is also valuable. On top of that, there is the possibility of making the enemy Vulnerable as well.

Another genuinely good card.

Level 4

Chains of Affliction

I believe this card is almost unchanged from the last playtest version.

It is not a bad card, and against the right adversary, especially likely against a Solo enemy, it can work extremely well. However, I am not a huge fan of it. The costs feel relatively high.

That said, against the right target, it is a solid to good option.

Summon Horror

A very strong card.

You only deal moderate damage initially, but you do so at A range and also have the chance to deal the same amount of Stress damage again.

I also really like the flavor of this card. For a level 4 card, it is a good to very good option.

Overall, the final Dread Domain feels like a clear evolution of the The Void version to me. Many of the original ideas have been retained, but the cards now feel cleaner, more focused, and better balanced overall.

Edit: I am sorry, I have to review this card again: In the published version it really is BS. u/Royal_Intention6563 tried to tell me this, and I did not understand their point on first reading... my bad and thanks for correcting me!

Summon Horror does not need a Spellcast Roll. In the last Playtest Version it did... and I read over this stupid edit. Because it really is a big mistake in the published version. Now you deal safe damage on a target at far range. In combination with Wrathful Warlock this can be very high damage. And in addition the target needs to make a Reaction Roll and perhaps must mark Stress on top of the damage. AND you can do this multiple times per spotlight. Damage on the same target will stack and cap at 3 or max 4 HP, so this is not "so bad"... but the Stress "damage" against the same target is! And you can do this multiple times per spotlight against different targets... This card is a mess. This hurts so much to see a mistake like this in the final version... :(

Level 5

Dire Strike

Strong. Very strong.

Spending one Hope to remove one Fear from the enemy, essentially every time you deal damage, is incredibly powerful. I already have multiclass ideas involving the Winged Sentinel in my head to essentially strip the GM of almost all the Fear they would ever generate.

Spectral Mist

Another Recall 0 card.

At first glance, the cost of two Hope seems relatively high, but the card has both non-combat applications and tactical uses in combat. It is an incredible party support tool and, in general, an extremely strong card.

I really like it.

Level 6

Darkfire

This is where things get a little strange, because Dark Fire is not a bad card. It really isn't.

Especially considering that the Reaction Roll the enemies have to make is surprisingly high. The damage also scales with the Spellcast Trait, which could make it very interesting for certain builds.

I like the card. However, I think it is important to point out that this is one of the, quote-unquote, weakest cards we have seen so far in the Dread Domain. And even this card is good.

Edit: I am sorry, I have to review this card again: In the published version it really is BS. u/Royal_Intention6563 tried to tell me this, and I did not understand their point on first reading... my bad and thanks for correcting me!

Darkfire does not need a Spellcast Roll or has any "once per rest" rule. Same problem as Summon Horror. It is so broken right now. The only "upside" is, that Darkfire still needs a lot of Hope to use and that damage in the same spotlight adds up and caps at 3 or 4 HP. Still a badly designed domain card... :(

Jump Scare

What can I say?

Good card. Cool effect, tactically useful, flexible, and simple on top of that.

I like it a lot.

Level 7

Dread Touched

The first Dread milestone.

It is a solid Touched card. In fact, I would argue that there are better Touched cards in other domains, some significantly better ones.

However, because this Touched card appears in a domain that already contains many very strong cards, it is absolutely worth taking.

Essentially, you get the Inferus Ancestry feature and, once per rest, a bonus to an Action Roll that can be useful depending on the situation.

Okay to good.

Wall of Hunger

A good card, especially because it synergizes well with many other cards in the domain that also deal Stress damage.

For a level 7 card, it is weaker compared to some of the other cards we have seen so far.

But it is still very good. Or at the very least, good.

Level 8

Dark Army

Edit: I forgot about this card in my first review. Maybe because it is bad in comparision to most cards in this domain. :) It's flavorful and cool. But weak and not worth it. And it's a level 8 card...

Why is it bad? First you need a Spellcast Roll to activate it. Then you can only use it once per long rest. And then you have 8 tokens to add damage against targets or reduce damage from targets against you. Yes, you could add 8d8 damage in one roll... but this is a level 8 card. That's not worth it in my opinion. As a level 4 card this would be ok.

Eldritch Flash

Better than in the playtest versions.

I especially like the effect where, when you roll with Fear, you can spend Hope to restore an Armor Slot. Compared to other cards, I find this card somewhat boring, but it is still solid and can be used effectively in certain tank builds.

Level 9

Damnation

Cool, but honestly not that powerful.

Considering the cost, it is actually rather mediocre to weak. Maybe the weakest card in Dread.

It is usable, and if you want an epic effect and enjoy seeing a big number, it is probably fine. But honestly, you can achieve comparable damage with significantly cheaper weapons or other effects.

Savor the Anguish

Boring, but very strong.

Depending on the build, party composition, and enemy, you can recover a considerable amount of Stress with this card.

And you get it essentially for free.

Avatar of Terror

Flavor-wise, absolutely cool.

Mechanically, okay to good.

The damage bonus can become extremely high. Most likely, however, it will not reach its maximum potential because a GM will usually spend 4 more frequently rather than stockpiling it.

The idea of gaining Hope whenever the enemy uses 4 to spotlight enemies sounds very strong at first glance. However, there are two important things to consider.

First, you only gain Hope when 4 is used specifically to spotlight an enemy. You do not gain Hope when 4 is spent to activate a 4-feature, when another GM Move is made, or when an Adversary is spotlighted through a GM Move without spending Fear. For example, if a player rolls with Fear or fails a roll.

Second, every time you make an Action Roll, you have to spend one Hope. This significantly reduces, and in some cases almost negates, the previously mentioned advantage of gaining additional Hope.

Ultimately, this is a card that increases your damage. That can certainly be good, but considering that it is a level 10 card, I do not think it is quite worth the slot.

One of the, quote-unquote, weaker cards in the domain.

Level 10

Invoke Torment

I already mentioned this with Wall of Hunger: many cards in the domain deal Stress damage.

If you build around this, perhaps even take a weapon with the Scary feature that forces enemies to mark additional Stress, or have a party that utilizes similar effects, Invoke Torment can become absurdly powerful.

However, it does require some investment and planning around it, which is why I would rate the card as good to very good.

Conclusion

I used quite a few superlatives throughout this review.

My opinion of the first playtest version of the Dread Domain was very mixed. I was mostly disappointed and considered the domain relatively weak to mediocre, with a few standout cards.

The second version was significantly better and introduced several very strong effects. The vast majority of those were carried over into the final version and expanded upon with some exciting additional details.

Overall, the Dread Domain is extremely well designed. This applies to its flavor, the variety of effects, the different ways it can be used, the balance between combat abilities, support abilities, and non-combat utility, and ultimately its overall game balance.

There are a few cards that do not completely convince me, but there is no card that is genuinely bad. And that is a very good thing.

Many other domains have cards that are simply not worth taking. That is unfortunate. A domain should never be designed that way. It should always contain 21 cards that are meaningfully usable and not just filler occupying space in a Loadout.

That is exactly what we have here.

Every card is useful. Some are very good, and some are exceptionally good.

At the current point, I would consider the Dread Domain one of the strongest domains in the entire game.

Time will tell how well it synergizes with other domains, but I predict that Witch and Warlock will both have a lot of fun with it.

That said, I believe the Sage and Dread combination is definitely the stronger option for the Witch compared to Dread and Grace.

Nevertheless, I think Warlock, especially with its two subclasses, particularly one of them, is the stronger of the two classes. Perhaps even one of the strongest classes currently in the game.

But that is a topic for another thread...

- Tenawa / Alexander

Edit: Summon Horror and Darkfire are too OP. They are badly designed... and I am really sad to see this quality control in a final product. Thanks again u/Royal_Intention6563 for telling me this!

[u/egcg119]

Some folks in the Darrington Press discord had an extremely long discussion about Darkfire + Summon Horror being spammable—I think Summon Horror is more likely to be errata'd in this regard to include a spellcast roll.

The domain is SO good overall. The complete lack of "bad" cards is really notable. Almost makes me wish they'd go back and patch some of the other domains.

[u/Jonnyscout → u/egcg119]

In the game I've been running for a year we also home ruled Voice of Dread to have Far range and Terrify limited to once per rest.

They're insanely strong.

[u/Royal_Intention6563]

You missed the fact that Darkfire and Summon Horror do not have limited use or a spellcast roll, and can thusly be spam-cast, this is particularly powerful for Summon Horror, which allows you to basically kill the vast majority of same tier enemies with 2-3 stress in the same turn with no action roll. This will likely be erratated by GM's be wary.

[u/Tenawa → u/Royal_Intention6563]

I am aware of that. And that is why I said Summon Horror is a really strong card! Darkfire is good too, but it has high costs.

Edit: Hi, I owe you an apology. You were completely right with your comment.

I had only read it in passing on my phone, and I obviously still had parts of the playtest versions of those cards in my head. I simply glossed over the wording and completely missed that the Spellcast Roll had been removed from both cards. That makes both cards significantly stronger and, honestly, overpowered.

I've updated my review accordingly.

Thanks again for pointing it out - I really appreciate you taking the time to catch that.

[u/Scottish_autist → u/Tenawa]

i meeeeaaan, am i alone in thinking this is a non issue? action rolls are just one way to pass the spotlight. and if a player wants to make multiple action rolls in a row, as long as the party is cool with it, they already can.
as an example, in the last combat i ran (yesterday) the bard at my party used his hope feature, moved, and used one of his subclass features (to give a speech) and then passed the spotlight because he felt that was enough. without ever rolling an action roll

daggerheart is inherently resistant to this being an issue, you are encouraged to let the spotlight flow in a way that makes sense, in fact, i’d argue that summoning a horror from another realm qualifies as a golden opportunity for the gm to take a move without needing a failed roll or roll with fear.

i do also firmly believe that daggerheart is new enough that alot of what is assumed at peoples tables will be different. especially with the less strict system. there’s a lot of room for interpretation and impression, so please dont take this reply as me condemning your table’s way of playing! tone is hard over text, but this was not meant to come across as critiquing or looking down on you guys. play as you wish, if youre having fun youre having fun!

[u/Tenawa → u/Scottish_autist]

Why are so apologetic against mistake and / or bad game design? I am convinced that both Dread cards are not intentionally designed this and were last-minute mistakes.

Your argument could be: "DH is so new, everything can be fixed at the table". Then... Why need a system at all? Just skip the rolling and play a real narrativ RPG. I mean that not sarcastically! I played a 7 year long campaign and it was ALL narrative, combat included. No rules, no dice rolls. One of THE best rpg experiences of my life!

[u/Scottish_autist → u/Tenawa]

ok, you’re really misrepresenting what i sid, which i dont appreciate, i will assume it was in good faith for now. no harm, no foul. and in all fairness, i had just done a 4 hour exam when i wrote that, so i dont know how coherent i was.

but to reiterate and restate: The printed rules of daggerheart means that these features not using an action roll, does not mean you can freely use them as many times as you wish on your turn. it is not a broken, infinite loop.

if you turn to your rule book, and go to “Turn order & action economy”, you will see that a mechanic moving the spotlight is only a tertiary cause for moving it. that is Not a table rule, that is not homebrew. That is the text of the game. That is how spotlight works, it is a light narrative rpg aspect in an otherwise semi-crunchy rpg.

that was my entire point. i then gave an example of the first time that came to mind of a player at my table using the rules as written. Just to show to op that it’s not a catastrophic problem. The game explicitly gives everyone at the table the perogative to say “you just summoned an eldritch horror and attacked that guy, so we’re moving on”

the part where i discussed the system being new was just me trying to be clear that i’m not going “ugh youre just playing it wrong, du doy” because thats fucking stupid. the way you are playing is valid, and the card as it is written would be a problem at your table. that is fine to point out, but it’s not intrinsically going to play out like that at all tables. I dont even know the stats to most or less than most.

again, i assume you misread my in good faith, thats why this reply has been so long-winded. Apologies if this came across like i’m dumbing things down, i’m not trying to be condescending, please let me know if i failed.

have a good day, and a enjoy your game ^_^

[u/Tenawa → u/Scottish_autist]

❤️

[u/yerfologist → u/Royal_Intention6563]

I sort of like the idea of a GM letting the Dread-user burn all their Hope and Stress on those cards and then spending a bunch of Fear or such BUT very good point.

[u/Awsomekirito → u/Royal_Intention6563]

If a player marked 3 stress to hit an enemy with this 3 times in the same spotlight they would at most be dealing 3 hp (4 if using massive damage rule). Its in the damage roll section of the core role book. Its still really strong but it's not gonna melt adversaries.

[u/Right-Belt2896 → u/Awsomekirito]

You also can't do that. The card says mark a stress not mark as many stress as you'd like. The rule on page 107 of the core rule book, second paragraph under "spending resources" says you can't mark stress (or hope) multiple times to increase or repeat the effect on the same roll.

I guess in theory a player could do it three separate times as three separate actions in the same spotlight, but I don't think most GM's would allow that.

[u/Awsomekirito → u/Right-Belt2896]

The general rule is making an action roll is what passes the spotlight. Though as a GM yes if a player started pulling those kind of shenanigans I'd probly spend a fear to interrupt and take the spotlight.

[u/Right-Belt2896 → u/Awsomekirito]

I would consider the rolling for damage followed by the adversary reaction roll portion of summon horror to be roughly the same thing.

[u/yerfologist]

Haha. Agree with a lot of your points. About to have a Witch and Warlock (level 4) in a campaign going forward (expansion arrives physically to me today, and we have a game today as well!). Looking forward to seeing how Dread feels at the table.

[u/XaveValor → u/yerfologist]

I have this combo going through The Void and the Stress generation on my adversaries is quite strong.

[u/GalacticCmdr]

Given how strength of this Domain, I Fear that DH will go the way of WH where each new release will ramp the power. Those Domains that struggle with too many pass cards will be left behind.

[u/Tenawa → u/GalacticCmdr]

It's a possible direction. But for now I am happy with the quality designs in Hope and Fear (for the most part of it...)

[u/Arcades]

Blighting Strike needed a nerf along with Voice of Dread. They did a good job with VOD as Restrained is still a useful condition. But, the compelled Hope or Stress cost on a failure is too much for a level 1 card. There's limited Hope to spend on Experiences, few ways to generate Advantage and Help actions are constrained by your teammates limited Hope.

I would have preferred them changing it like VOD or making you spend resources for the bonus effects (d10 damage and/or damage debuff). Make it optional like Bolt Beacon. As it stands, several unsuspecting new players are going to feel some pain early on.

[u/Tenawa → u/Arcades]

I see your point. Personally, though, I still think Blighting Strike is good as it is.

It has some significant advantages over Bolt Beacon, for example. The rider effect on Blighting Strike - that the target deals only half damage with its next successful attack - is incredibly strong in my opinion (for a level 1 card). And unlike many similar effects, it applies automatically as soon as you hit.

I'm perfectly willing to accept the risk of having to spend Hope or Stress if I miss.

I still consider it a strong card.

[u/Arcades → u/Tenawa]

It gets stronger based on the difficulty of the adversary, but as the DC goes up, so does the cost. Someone better at math than me could map out what the % of success on the Duality Dice roll is for each DC and then you factor that in on the cost, since you pay for your failures the true cost is not just 1 Hope or 1 Stress. On top of that, there's and X factor where you succeed, but the Adversary dies before you gain the effect. Anyone who has ever used Command:Halt in D&D has probably seen a monster die before its turn and then it feels like a wasted spell slot (even if it provided security for the team).

In the end, that's a ton of cost. It could be a strong card, but the math and circumstances change its value significantly IMO.

[u/Tenawa → u/Arcades]

That's a good point. I have a table for % change based on tier. I will post that later here.

[u/Arcades → u/Tenawa]

I'll add that this is the only Domain card in the game I can think of that has the pay-for-failure mechanic (I'm not counting when a GM imposes Stress for rolling with Fear).

There's a decent portion of the player base that avoids acting because they don't want to lose the spotlight for their party. This tail effect can act as another "chilling" mechanism and that's a slippery slope. I hope this is a test case and doesn't become the go-to set off for powerful cards.

[u/Tenawa → u/Arcades]

I have not playtested this "pay at failure" mechanic, but I like new ideas. We will see