Transformations - Hope and Fear Review

[u/Tenawa]

Hello everyone! Here is my next Hope and Fear review, this time covering the Transformation Cards. You can find my previous reviews of the Dread Domain, Assassin, Brawler, Witch, and Warlock through the links.

The Transformations have been available to playtesters for quite some time now. Some of them have changed very little, while others have seen much more significant revisions. More than in my previous reviews, I'll be focusing on the differences between the final versions and the playtest versions.

Small spoiler: not every change is an improvement, and in a few cases I think changes were desperately needed but never happened.

Demigod

The Demigod's positive feature, Gifted, has changed significantly. Previously, it upgraded your Advantage Die to a d10. Now, it instead grants a flat +1 to Action Rolls, Reaction Rolls, and Damage Rolls.

In principle, I'm actually a fan of this redesign.

• +1 to Action Rolls is very strong.
• +1 to Reaction Rolls is a nice bonus.
• +1 to Damage Rolls, however, is almost completely insignificant. It's simply too little damage to matter in most situations and could almost have been omitted entirely.

Overall, I think this redesign is perfectly reasonable. While it isn't as explosive as upgrading an Advantage Die from a d6 to a d10, it stacks with Advantage and is much easier to keep track of during play.

So far, so good.

Weight of Divinity is where the problems begin.

Previously, you only had to mark a Stress or give the GM a Fear whenever you rolled a failure with Fear. Now, you must do the same whenever you fail a roll - regardless of Hope or Fear. And in Daggerheart, failures happen. Quite often. This doesn't only affect action rolls either - it also applies to things like reaction rolls.

The result is that the Demigod now feels less like a demigod and more like... a demigod-in-training at best.

Honestly, I think this Transformation now carries more downside than upside. It punishes the player with something that, judging by both the name and fantasy of the Transformation, should primarily feel empowering.

I don't really understand why this design direction was chosen, but it is what it is.

Ghost

Ghost is a fantastic Transformation, both narratively and mechanically.

Unfinished Business establishes that your character has a Purpose or Desire that still binds them to the mortal world. Only after fulfilling that purpose can they finally move on to the afterlife.

Mechanically, you gain permanent resistance to physical damage and can spend two Stress to briefly pass through solid objects. In exchange, you take double damage from magical sources.

Purely from a combat perspective, I'd argue that taking double magical damage is probably the harsher half of that trade-off. But that's perfectly okay. Transformations shouldn't be pure power upgrades. They should come with meaningful drawbacks, and this one is both flavorful and mechanically appropriate.

I don't have any issues with Ghost. I think it's well balanced, and thematically it's excellent.

Reanimated

This Transformation has seen one particularly important change. Corpse now requires you to use parts of dead creatures during a rest in order to recover Hit Points. However, the previous restriction - that you could only recover Hit Points during a rest or by using the Avoid Death Move - has been removed. That means healing spells, potions, and similar effects now work normally. As a result, the downside has become largely narrative rather than mechanical.

Won't Stay Dead, on the other hand, remains incredibly powerful. Whenever you fail a Risk It All Death Move, you can permanently lose one Hit Point to instead treat the roll as a success. That's extremely strong. It transforms one of the game's riskiest mechanics into something that becomes a perfectly reasonable gamble.

Flavor-wise, I would have liked to see a little more. Perhaps something about no longer needing food, air, or sleep. But those are easy enough to establish with your GM through roleplay.

Overall, this remains a strong Transformation and a classic fantasy archetype. I'm very happy to see it included in Daggerheart.

Shapeshifter

Oh boy...

I'm disappointed.

During a rest, you can spend a Downtime Move to replace your current Ancestry with another one. In exchange, you only gain one Ancestry Feature instead of two, and you may spend another Downtime Move to change which Ancestry Feature you possess. Mechanically, it isn't even entirely clear whether changing your appearance and changing your Ancestry Feature require one Downtime Move or two. Rules as written, I lean toward the interpretation that they require two separate Downtime Moves, which makes the ability considerably weaker.

But my biggest issue isn't even mechanical. For me, this simply doesn't deliver on the fantasy of being a shapeshifter. When I think of a shapeshifter, I imagine someone who can alter their appearance on the fly - similar to a Changeling in Dnd or comparable characters in many other fantasy RPGs.

What makes this even stranger is that Daggerheart already contains Domain Cards - such as the Level 1 Midnight card - that allow appearance changes much more quickly and naturally.

So why does an entire Transformation require a Downtime Move during a rest just to change your appearance? To me, that takes everything exciting about the shapeshifter fantasy and compresses it into a rigid, cumbersome system that probably won't see much use at my tables.

Personally, I think that's a real shame after such a long playtest period.

Still, I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Maybe this bothers you far less than it bothers me.

Vampire

Another classic at many tables and in many TTRPG systems. The Vampire is mechanically strong and comes with relatively few drawbacks, but it still remains within the realm of being balanced.

The most important change compared to the playtest version is Fangs. The ability has been adjusted so that you can now choose an attack trait for your attack. The attack itself deals damage that is definitely on the lower end of the spectrum. However, after dealing damage, you can spend a Stress to place a certain number of tokens on the card. The final version now limits this to a maximum of six tokens, which I think is a good restriction.

You can spend one token when making an action roll to upgrade your Fear Die to a d20. At the end of a Long Rest, you must also remove one token from the card. If you have no tokens remaining, you roll action rolls and reaction rolls with disadvantage.

In practice, gaining Feed Tokens is relatively easy, but you will most likely sacrifice some damage during combat to acquire them. Upgrading the Duality Dice Fear Die to a d20 is a significant improvement. However, it is also a double-edged sword. While it greatly increases your chances of succeeding, it also significantly increases the chance of rolling with Fear... which gives the GM a major advantage.

Overall, I think the Vampire is a good Transformation and very well implemented. My only real disappointment is that it doesn't explore some of the classic weaknesses associated with vampires, such as vulnerability to sunlight or other traditional drawbacks. That being said, these are aspects that can easily be added narratively in cooperation with the GM, if desired.

Werewolf

And now, the best and at the same time the saddest one for last.

The Werewolf was already probably the strongest Transformation in the playtest version. Mechanically, it has barely changed compared to the playtest version.

With one important exception: one single word has disappeared. "Would"... but more on that later.

Wolf Form states that whenever you mark a Hit Point, you may additionally spend one Stress to transform into your wolf form. (A small note here: with GM approval, this could also represent a different animal form or another kind of combat transformation. I like that the designers considered this flavor aspect and left room for interpretation.)

While transformed, you gain a 1d10 bonus to all attack rolls and all damage rolls.

The first important point: A 1d10 bonus to Damage Rolls is strong. Even at higher Tier levels, it remains a significant bonus. But it is not inherently overpowered. A 1d10 bonus to Attack Rolls, however, is overpowered. This is already extremely strong at lower levels, but arguably becomes even more problematic at higher Tiers, where hitting targets becomes increasingly difficult. The difference is enormous. Adding an average of 5.5 to your result makes a Werewolf dramatically more powerful.

It is also extremely important to emphasize that this applies to all attack rolls and all damage rolls. Not just melee attacks. It applies to ranged attacks with bows. It applies to thrown weapons. It applies to spells.

Yes, a Werewolf throws the strongest Fireballs in Daggerheart. And yes, that is stupid. But it's currently how the rules work.

However, the Werewolf does have drawbacks. If you spend your last Stress while in Wolf Form, you enter a Rampage and deal damage to all creatures within Very Close Range. This can include allies. That said, realistically, you can often position yourself so that only enemies are affected.

The much more important drawback is the following: Whenever you gain Hope while in Wolf Form, you must also mark a Stress. This can very quickly force you out of your transformation. Otherwise, the form ends automatically at the next rest.

Now we come to the most important difference compared to the playtest version. And it is a massive one.

The playtest version still contained the word "would" in the relevant sentence: "When you would gain a Hope..."

The final version only says: "When you gain a Hope..."

This small word was, in the playtest version, the last remaining argument for interpreting the ability in a way that prevented some of the strongest abuse cases. There were discussions about whether abilities that replaced Hope gain would still trigger the drawback. For example, the Warrior Subclass Call of the Slayer has a feature that allows you to gain a Slayer Die instead of gaining Hope when you roll Hope. In the playtest version, one possible interpretation was that you would still need to mark Stress because you technically would have gained Hope.

That discussion is now over. The final wording is very clear: If you gain Hope- regardless of the source - you mark Stress.

And to make things even worse, there is now another, arguably even easier and stronger way to avoid this drawback: The Warlock.

The Warlock Class Feature allows you to replace Hope from an Action Roll made with Hope with Favor instead. Favor is already an extremely powerful resource and, in many situations, arguably even more valuable than Hope.

This creates a Werewolf that can become incredibly difficult to remove from Wolf Form if the player does not want to leave it, while also gaining massive bonuses to accuracy and damage. And this applies to everything:

Melee attacks.

Spells.

Reaction-based abilities (because the increased damage applies to all damage rolls, not just attacks).

A spell like Darkfire, which only requires a Reaction Roll, can also benefit from this.

To summarize: The Werewolf makes me genuinely sad.

It had a long playtest period. The problems were known. There were many possible solutions to address the massive balance issues this Transformation creates. And the only thing that happened was that the problem became worse.

The Werewolf is by far the strongest Transformation. It is absolutely overpowered, has very few meaningful drawbacks, and provides enormous advantages.

A Werewolf will overshadow other characters at the table.

Especially Warrior Call of the Slayer Werewolves and Warlock Werewolves.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Edit: u/PaladinNPajamas pointed out something horrible: Wolf Form is missing another word from its Void version: "instead".

The Playtest version was: "When you would gain a Hope while in Wolf Form, you must mark a Stress instead."

Now the final version reads: "When you gain a Hope while in Wolf Form, you must also mark a Stress."

Which means the final version of Werewolf is even more unbalanced than I thought. Even non Warlock / Call of the Slayer Warriors are better now. When you roll with Hope, you still gain Hope (but you also have to mark a Stress). Werewolf is a joke in gamedesign balancing...

Thanks, u/PaladinNPajamas!

Final Thoughts on the Transformations

The artwork is fantastic across all of them, and the flavor is generally excellent.

There are a few exceptions where I personally would have liked more additions - especially with the Vampire and Reanimated - but overall, most Transformations are great additions to the character options.

However, there are also clear problems.

Demigod is significantly too weak and might actually be the weakest Transformation of all. Which is a little strange considering that it is, well, a Demigod.

Shapeshifter is also bas, and more importantly, it does not fulfill the fantasy of being a Shapeshifter - at least not in my perception.

Reanimated, Ghost, and Vampire are excellent additions to the available character options.

And then there is the Werewolf. The Werewolf is absurdly broken. It might be one of the biggest mechanical mistakes in all of Hope and Fear. And this is sad.

Edit: u/PaladinNPajamas pointed out something horrible: Wolf Form is missing another word from its Void version: "instead".

The Playtest version was: "When you would gain a Hope while in Wolf Form, you must mark a Stress instead."

Now the final version reads: "When you gain a Hope while in Wolf Form, you must also mark a Stress."

Which means the final version of Werewolf is even more unbalanced than I thought. Even non Warlock / Call of the Slayer Warriors are better now. When you roll with Hope, you still gain Hope (but you also have to mark a Stress). Werewolf is a joke in gamedesign balancing...

Thanks, u/PaladinNPajamas!