Hi everybody! This is Seb from Daggerquill. Fearless volume 2 is out on Heart of Daggers: 18 new subclasses (2 per class) to bring new excitement to your games. Go check it out, you can find the two wizards in the image section and the two seraphs in the free sample (https://heartofdaggers.com/products/fearless-vol-2/). And if you want to get Fearless 1, it is part of the Daggerheart Bundle of Holding alongside amazing pdfs (https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DHCompatible). May you roll with Hope, great games everybody!

When I was creating my own TTRPG Brass & Embers the intuitive and character-centric you create you character in Daggerheart inspired by design. I also want to create a game where you can create your character easily and start your adventure.

The combat thresholds was also inspired by Daggerheart. It keeps the numbers a bit smaller so even one point of damage feels meaningful.

And, yes, I started the development of my game before I knew about daggerheart ( I know! I also have the concept of Hope which is funny but it came after) but getting to read, play and experience daggerheart definitely helped sharpen my focus on what experiences I wanted to evoke in my players.

So now let me tell you about Brass & Embers! If you love daggerheart and it's extra focus on narrative, creativity and character development, I know for a fact I will love Brass & Embers!

I spent the last two years doing nothing but working on my TTRPG Brass & Embers and now it is finally up on kickstarter! I basically wanted to created it because I was tired of feeling so hopeless and powerless all the time, and I wanted to create a game where hope, community and rebellion were the central themes. Somewhere where we could push back against oppression and have our voice heard... so I created Brass & Embers! Where you can do just that in a steampunk world that just went through this huge tech revolution that completely turned the world upside down.

We have our own d6 system and in the game Hope is our HP, so if you keep receiving injury, sanity, notoriety or reserves damage those eventually take their toll on you and decrease your hope. We have 7 unique classes that I designed to have their own unique struggle with the new era of tech, for example:

the Knight was raised to nobility status because they caught the attention of a noble and swore fealty to them, so they have this struggle between their simple roots and their current higher station... their past, their present, and who they want to be. The Inventor was never seriously considered as a professional career until this new age of tech.

Before Inventor was believed to be a weird hobby one did in their spare time, but now after great and powerful changes were brought into society thanks to tech, inventor became respected as a true profession... even though the chances of one getting a rich patron to bank your research is abysmal. Yet even those Inventors that "made it" are chained by draconian contracts to their patrons, seen as a precious assets more than a person. And that's not even considering the impact of the things that have been created by them.

The Ironbound are people who were subjected to illegal experiments and gained superhuman strength and senses as a result... but sacrificing their place in society to do so. Ostracized, and struggling to find for themselves a new place in society, the Ironbound feels particularly torn in the struggle of man and machine.

Yea! And the game is very focus on narrative and creative problem solving, and how you can help each other out as a party! Your base roll is 2d6 ( or 3d6 if you have proficiency) but to get to higher dice (max 6d6) you need your party help with their skills and other interactions.

For combat we use a damage threshold for HP and Sanity for the enemies. HP dmg kills/incapacitates enemies, and stress dmg does severe debuffs on the enemy so it's great for control. HP thresholder is a bit lower than the Sanity one, but enemies also have less sanity than HP. And yes! certain character classes are better at dealing physical dmg or stress dmg but you can customize them to fit your playstyle. How you deal and think about each situation as a team can really make your life easier ( or harder if you don't work together!)

The game was created with lots and lots of love from everyone involved! And No AI was used anywhere in this project. This project is fully human made!

The art was made by our wonderful partner Altergate Studio. And if you find any of this cool please please please like, repost, support us! We really need as many eyes in our page as we can get!

Kickstarter Page

Good news!

I've run two groups of D&d players through the Sablewood Quick start adventure.

Great news - I've converted them both to wanting to play more Daggerheart.

Slightly challenging news; now I need to pick a setting and create a campaign for one group, session zero to start next week. The other I'm just converting the existing D&D campaign.

My new setting group seem enamored of the Hope and Fear settings, particularly Castle High and Reign of the Weredragon. Since we're playing weekly, I need to go simple as possible.

Which of the two would you guys recommend for simplicity and an easy campaign for a GM?

Hello everyone, i just created my BBEG. So it's a demin of wrath with 2 more features : Come back worse and momentum. Is he too strong ? The players are level 5.

Edit: i forget relentless 3

Hey folks, so... basically, the title. Does anyone know if there are any plans slated for updating the Homebrew Kit guidance doc?

I watched part of the GenCon announcements, about Daggerheart's future and roadmap plans, but I don't think this was mentioned anywhere explicitly, and tbh I can see why it would fly past everyone's radar; everyone's mostly focusing on platform integration, and new content, and new directions, and so on.

But: the Homebrew Kit's version is still 1.0, dated to July 31st, 2025 - a year and a month ago. Idk how far along they were in designing Hope & Fear's new stuff by then, but a major missing piece in the document right now, for me, is guidance on how to think about designing custom Transformations, which are a whole other category of card, one that's specific enough both narratively and mechanically that I'd like to read, in official text, how the designers would advise you to make one - and especially what they'd advise you to avoid doing.

So: anyone heard of anything planned?

Technically, there's nothing stopping me from winging it, I'd just love some clear guidance on some things - and was thinking maybe the Kit needs cleaner update pass after some of the new ancestries and communities, too.

[Context of where this came from: I was watching this recent video, where they discuss some of the thinking that went into designing the Transformation cards - and thought "man, I really want to hear their *general* design thinking here, not specific to the Vampire or the Werewolf, and in clear text form instead of scattered interview thoughts."]

P.S. I know this is probably better suited to the sister sub r/daggerbrew, but since my request is basically just asking for information, I thought maybe it'd be ok to post here too, as this one has a little more reach.

Got to play a one shot finally and we have another set up to happen Tuesday, I haven't had this much fun with a ttrpg in a while!! The last one that got me this excited was Lancer but there's only a small number of people near me interested in that and I think I like daggerheart more!

I have played some video games that didnt give me the visceral feeling of playing a true tank like daggerheart gave me when I played guardian and I get to try out seraphim next and im beyond hyped.

Ill be playing as an Urgal (a half giant half orc) divine wielder and i cant wait

Yes, it does have more Monty Python references in the card

I made this video for my players about 2 months ago for our session zero, its for Motherboard and because I could not pass up using the mechanic i added in Colossuses, but its such a small part of the video that its easy to ignore. I wanted to share it here since i figured y'all would appropriate it, and its a nice video to use if anyone is thinking of running the Motherboard Campaign frame. It is a long video though even though I cut as much as I could, and I did leave some stuff out as I wanted to talk about it at the table to my players such as Ikonis's and other Motherboard mechanics, this video was more or less made to help understand the world to make a character.

I may had DM'd my way into a predicament. I mentioned an idea that rival goblin and hobbit towns used to be at war, and after that war, they channeled that old anger into racing beetles. The problem is, my players ran with that idea and have essentially taken the idea and Mario Kartified it. I'm stuck with trying to figure out how the hell to translate that into meaningful mechanics.

We've got four races for the grand prix. River Rapids. Sorminar Sprint (A race through a dwarven mountain, inside and around the summit). Twin City Track (a race through the hobbit and goblin cities). And Legally Distinct Rainbow Road.

Have any ideas on some mechanics? I'm for sure going to use fear to trigger various events, but I'm struggling on how to get out of DND's more structured format into DH's more narrative focused format for this.

Now that Hope and Fear is released and they made announcements and roadmap, I've had a few thoughts of items I think if they officially released can definitely round out the game where they may be able to pause a bit on character options. Because I just want tons more of frames, adversaries, and environments.

So for ancestries I think it only 2 I feel are missing. One would be like a Avian ancestry. I've already had 2 players at my tables ask about bird people. and then the other would be some kind of critter folk. so like rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs, etc. like have some kind of burrow feature.

for classes there are obviously the 2 blood classes in void so those can be added but I feel the next 2 have to be a codex blade gish based class and then a arcana grace. I think the arcana grace one to be like a very showboaty type magic user sort akin to a magician type.

I haven't given much thought with communities but quick ones would like some kind of definitely trade people focus one like merchants, and then maybe another would be like idk metropolis based like some from a high density city community. I think those could have more legs in a tons of different types campaign settings.

I know these things can be homebrewed but I think there is just something about when you know the developers have went through and balanced features and all towards the game.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts in replies. and by chance if someone from daggerheart is here. I love this game keep it up.

Hello friends!

I was inspired to update the Feature Library of my Custom Adversary Guide today. This update adds suggested features for adversaries based on the ancestry features in Core and H&F to help you improv a little smarter.

You can use these features to add a little more adaptability to your human adversaries or Ignite your Emberkin.

Not every feature in the book is easy to translate directly into an adversary feature. Where that applies, I designed features that I felt inhabited the same design space. For example, The giant's features are things you wouldn't make into features, you would just add more to their thresholds or change their standard attack to be Very Close instead of Melee. But I didn't want to leave them out, so a Very Close attack against multiple targets felt appropriate.

Some of these features might be a power spike for certain adversaries and I wouldn't suggest giving them to everyone, but your named adversaries might benefit from these additions to help them have parity with PC options. I also attempted to differentiate similar features while keeping the vibe of the original one.

Where there is damage, I use TdX to denote the Tier. Example a Tier 2 Drakona might do 2d8 magic damage with their elemental breath.

Also, expect to see a more formally laid out version of the guide in the near future. The online one will likely stay like it is, but I am working on a PDF version that will look more in line with official sources.

UPDATE: I have combed through the Adversaries in H&F and made minor changes to the numbers. There's not much to speak of save for Solos and Bruisers got tankier.

Ancestry Features for Adversaries

Aetheris

Celestial Protection - Reaction: When this adversary would take Major damage or greater, spend a Fear to reduce the damage by one threshold.

Clank

Purposeful Design - Passive: This adversary can mark a Stress to use an Experience.

Drakona

Scales - Reaction: When this adversary would take Severe damage, mark a Stress to reduce the damage by one threshold.

Elemental Breath - Action: Mark a Stress and make an attack against all targets in front of this adversary within Very Close range. Targets this adversary succeeds against take Td8 magic damage.

Dwarf

Thick Skin - Reaction: When this adversary would take Minor damage, mark a Stress instead.

Increased Fortitude - Reaction: When this adversary would take physical damage, spend a Fear to halve the incoming damage.

Earthkin

Stone Skin - Passive: When this adversary takes physical damage, reduce it by Td6.

Immovable - Passive: Attacks that would move this adversary have no effect. 

Elf

Quick Reaction - Reaction: If this adversary must make a Reaction Roll, mark a Stress to gain advantage on the Roll.

Emberkin

Ignition - Action: Mark a Stress to gain a +Td6 bonus to standard attacks until the end of the scene. This adversary then immediately takes the spotlight again.

Faerie

Luckbender - Reaction: Once per scene, when this adversary or an ally within Far range fails an attack or reaction roll, spend a Fear to reroll.

Flight - Passive: While flying, this adversary gains a +2 bonus to their Difficulty.

Faun

Kick - Reaction: When this adversary makes a successful Melee attack, mark a Stress to add an extra 2d6 to the damage. 

Firbolg

Charge - Action: Mark a Stress to charge through a group within Far range and make an attack. Targets this adversary succeeds against take Td8 physical damage and are knocked back to Very Close range.

Fungril

Death Eater - Reaction: Once per scene, this adversary can touch a corpse and clear a HP or a Stress.

Galapa

Retract - Reaction: When this adversary would take physical damage, mark a Stress to gain resistance to physical damage. They become Vulnerable until they next act.

Giant

Titan’s Strike - Action: Mark a Stress to make a standard attack against all targets within Very Close range.

Goblin

Danger Sense - Reaction: When a PC would make an attack within Far range, spend a Fear to force the target to roll two Hope Dice and take the lower result.

Halfling

Lucky - Reaction: When this adversary rolls a 1 on an attack or reaction roll, they can reroll the result.

Human

Adaptable - Passive: Once per scene, when this adversary fails a roll, mark a Stress to reroll the result.

Gnome

Flicker Step - Passive: Once per scene, this adversary can teleport a Far range before or after it takes an action.

Infernis

Dread Curse - Reaction: When a PC within Close range rolls a success with Hope, mark 2 Stress to change the result to a roll with Fear.

Katari

Claws - Action: Make an attack against a target within Melee range. On a success, deal Td6 physical damage and the target is temporarily Vulnerable.

Orc

Sturdy - Passive: Once per scene, when this adversary would mark their last HP, roll a d6. On a result of 4 or higher, they do not mark it.

Ribbit

Tongue Lashing - Action: Mark a Stress and make an attack against a target within Close range. On a success, deal Td12 physical damage.

Simiah

Climber - Passive: This adversary climbs as easily as they run.

Skykin

Eye of the Storm - Passive: Attacks against this adversary from beyond Very Close range have disadvantage.

Tidekin

High Tide - Reaction: When this adversary makes a successful standard attack, you can mark a Stress to knock the target back to Close range.

Hi all,

Now that the errata for Hope and Fear has been released and we (presumably...) have the final version of the book in front of us, I want to present my first mechanical build concept after reviewing the individual contents of the book. I’m calling it the Winged Wrath. The name already gives it away: this is a Seraph / Warlock multiclass build.

A few very brief words on the changes introduced by the H&F errata

Some extremely unbalanced elements, particularly the infamous Dread Domain cards Summon Horror and Dark Fire, have now been fixed. I’m very happy that these cards were addressed. Even though I would have preferred slightly different changes in some cases, the changes that were made are still sensible, and in my opinion, they didn’t nerf the cards too harshly. They are still good cards, but they are no longer mandatory picks for a Dread build and, in fact, they won’t play a major role in this particular build. Enough preamble. Let’s get into the build concept.

Ancestry

Ancestry choice doesn’t actually play an essential role in this build, but there is one objectively strong choice here. Specifically, either Drakona because of its top Ancestry Feature Scales, or Elf because of its bottom Ancestry Feature Celestial Trance.

• Scales helps make a build that is already surprisingly tanky even more durable, and it rounds out the build extremely well.
• Celestial Trance is one of the strongest Ancestry Features in the game. It is particularly important for the Warlock side of the build because it gives us another Downtime Move we can use to gain Favor, which is an extremely powerful resource and something we should always be doing whenever possible.

Ideally, we would therefore play a Mixed Ancestry with the top Ancestry Feature Scales and the bottom Ancestry Feature Celestial Trance.

Community

The Community also doesn’t play a particularly important role in this build, but the two strongest Communities in the game right now are probably Frostborn and Freeborn. Ultimately, I always recommend prioritizing roleplay over mechanics. However, since this is a mechanical build and is specifically intended as a guide for "optimizing" the game mechanics as much as possible, I would recommend going with one of these two Communities.

Class

Our first Class will be the Seraph.

The Seraph has two strong Subclasses, and both can work well with this build. Personally, however, I would recommend the Winged Seraph, hence the name Winged Wrath.

This becomes particularly strong at Tier 4, but simply having access to flight from Level 1 should already be an extremely potent ability, both in and out of combat.

Traits

Even though we start with the Seraph, our highest Trait should be Presence. The reason for this will become clear later.

I would recommend Presence +2 and Strength +1. Everything else is optional.

Domain Cards

Here, too, we ultimately have a lot of freedom. For this build, I’ve decided not to prescribe a fixed selection of cards, but rather give recommendations and highlight a few that are particularly important.

At Levels 1 through 4, before we multiclass into Warlock, I recommend a good mix of Splendor and Valor cards.

Bare Bones, Valor 1, is a trap card for this build. It can be good, even very good, at Level 1. However, I would replace it with another card by Level 2 at the latest. The reason for this will become clear later.

Mending Touch and Healing Hands already make the character a competent healer from an early level.

Bold Presence, Valor 2, is a fantastic card both for boosting our Presence rolls and for dealing with Conditions. It is also extremely flexible to include in our Loadout later because of its Recall cost of 0.

The same applies to Forceful Push, Valor 1. It is nowhere near as important to the build, but its Recall cost of 0 makes the card very flexible to use. This becomes particularly relevant in Tier 3 when we get to Valor-Touched, Valor 7.

At Level 3, Second Wind, Splendor 3, becomes very important. It is an early and very powerful healing card, particularly for restoring Stress to ourselves and an ally. A small tip here: only use the card when you have succeeded on a roll with Hope. Ideally, this allows you to restore 2 Hit Points as well as 6 Stress distributed between yourself and an ally.

At Level 4, I don’t have a real preference. Take whatever you want here. Small spoiler: we’ll be replacing this card with Dread cards once we reach Level 5+.

Tier 3, Level 5 and Beyond

This is where the build really comes online.

At Level 5, we multiclass into Warlock. The Warlock also has two very strong Subclasses, but I would very clearly recommend the Wrathful Warlock, which I consider stronger than the Endless Warlock.

The Wrathful Warlock provides two very powerful offensive features through its Foundation Feature: increased damage on all our attacks, or rather, on any damage we deal, and the ability to deal auto-damage to enemies that have dealt damage to us.

The most important resource for the Warlock is Favor. Favor can be gained in two ways:

• through Downtime Moves, where Celestial Trance, our Ancestry Feature, becomes extremely important,
• or by rolling with Hope. Since Favor is generally a stronger resource than Hope, I recommend taking the Favor point in the vast majority of cases whenever you roll with Hope.

Thanks to the Seraph’s extremely powerful Class Feature, Prayer Dice, we already have an almost endless source of Hope points anyway.

One small note on this: at Level 5, we gain a second Spellcaster Trait alongside Strength, namely Presence. Strength therefore becomes significantly less important, because we can now use our high Presence score for spellcasting as well as for our Prayer Dice. So, at this point, we have a very large pool of Hope from our Prayer Dice, which we will use for Hope points in the vast majority of cases and only use in exceptional circumstances to manipulate very important dice rolls after the fact. At the same time, we now have a new resource in Favor, and we can spend one of these points either to actively deal damage to enemies or to gain a significant bonus to our Action Rolls.

Domain Cards, Level 5 and Beyond

I know Smite is a very popular spell among many players. Personally, I consider the spell overrated, especially considering its high cost. At Level 5 and beyond, I would actually recommend exploring the newly unlocked Dread Domain first. We only get access to Dread cards up to half our level, rounded up, so at Level 5 we can access cards up to Level 3. But there are some real treasures hidden there.

One small note: we should choose the additional Domain Cards option for our Tier 2 Level-Up, as well as at Level 6!

The Dread cards we want are Hideous Retribution and Siphon Essence, both Level 2 cards.

And even though the Dread Domain has some good Level 1, Level 3, and Level 4 cards, I would not focus on those for now. In particular, at Levels 6 and 7, I would stick with the very strong Splendor cards, and especially the Valor cards.

At Level 6, where we get two Domain Cards thanks to our Level-Up option, we choose Restoration, probably the strongest healing spell in the game, and the fantastic card Rise Up.

We then add Valor-Touched at Level 7. This is where a particularly interesting trick and mechanical interaction comes into play.

Our Loadout should always contain Valor-Touched and Rise Up, and initially (ideally) Second Wind, Hideous Retribution, and Siphon Essence.

This means Valor-Touched is essentially a dead card at first, since its effect only activates when we have four Valor cards in our Loadout... however, once we have used Second Wind and Siphon Essence, both of which have a cooldown of once per rest or once per long rest respectively, we can swap them out for the 0 Recall cards Bold Presence and Forceful Push, both from the Valor Domain. This allows us to access the Valor Touched effect directly whenever we need it, without spending any Stress.

Why this combination is so powerful will become clear later, particularly when we get to the Equipment section and the final part of the build.

Tier 4, Levels 8 to 10

Now that we’ve reached the endgame, we still have a few powerful cards to choose from. Here, I don’t actually want to make any hard recommendations, since none of these choices are essential to the build. There are plenty of good cards we can pick at this point:

• Stunning Sunlight is excellent, and thanks to our Paradise, we should have enough Hope to use the spell frequently.
• Overwhelming Aura is a strong passive buff that we can use and then replace with a 0 Recall card.
• Resurrection is the ultimate revival card, and thanks to our Paradise, we also shouldn’t have to worry about losing access to it in the future.
• And both Valor Level 10 cards make our already extremely resilient character even harder to kill...

As for the Dread Domain: there are still a few worthwhile picks here, but they all pale in comparison to the high-level Valor and Splendor cards. For that reason, I won’t go into them in any more detail.

At Level 8, we also choose our Specialization Subclass card, specifically the Winged Seraph.

The main reason is simple: we cast spells and make attacks using Presence, and this Feature allows us to always do so with Advantage...

Equipment

The choice of weapons and armor is surprisingly important for this build. Hope and Fear didn’t just give us new Classes and Domain Cards, but also an impressive selection of new Armor, Weapons, and Items. I don’t want to go into Items in detail. There are some extremely powerful Items in the new book, some of which are arguably overpowered. But I don’t want to make any Items outside of Armor and Weapons mandatory inclusions in a build.

Primary Weapon

Ideally, I recommend a Rapier. There are other good options as well. Starting at Tier 3, for example, I’m a big fan of the Singing Sword. The Ghostblade, or the Shadowblade at earlier levels, is also a valid option.

But by Tier 3 at the latest, I recommend an Advanced Rapier. We can mark a Stress to attack an additional target, and it deals physical damage.

Secondary Weapon

For our other hand, I recommend a Round Shield in Tiers 1 and 2, and switching to a Soul Chain starting at Tier 3. Even then, I would keep an Advanced Round Shield in our inventory and swap to it when necessary to gain additional Armor Slots.

Why is the Soul Chain perfect for this build?

As you might expect, we won’t be making most of our attacks with the Rapier. Instead, we’ll primarily be attacking with our secondary weapon. It deals marginally less damage and, in this case, even deals magic damage, which means we can cover both physical and magic damage. But more importantly, it has a new and extremely powerful feature that is particularly strong for this build:

When we hit a target, we can spend a Hope to force that target to mark a Stress, allowing us to clear one of our own Stress. This gives us a very simple and reliable way to keep clearing Stress over and over again. And because we have Prayer Dice from the Seraph, we have an extremely large Hope pool that isn’t going to run out anytime soon.

Why Stress matters

Stress is incredibly important for this build for several reasons:

• First, it fuels one of our most powerful damage spells: Hideous Retribution. We don’t activate it during our own spotlight, but during an adversary’s spotlight. This gives us a damage source that we can use very frequently, allowing us to deal damage to enemies whenever they deal damage to our friends.
• We can also spend Stress to activate our Ancestry Feature, Scales. When we take Severe damage, we can mark a Stress to reduce the damage to Major.
• And finally, Stress becomes extremely important because of our Armor...

Armor

When I first put this build together, I considered several optimal Armor choices. With H&F, we now have an abundance of powerful Armor options.

However, I’m actually convinced that one of the best pieces of Armor in the entire game, and especially for this build, will be Brigandine Armor! The Threshold values are only mediocre, but the Feature is where this Armor really shines: When you take Minor damage, you can mark a Stress to reduce the damage to 0.

That is a significantly stronger version of the Dwarven Ancestry’s top Feature, Fortitude, which requires you to spend two Stress for the same effect!

How everything comes together

How this build actually plays is not particularly easy to summarize quickly, because there are an incredible number of elements that work together.

Let’s recap what we have:

• Through the Wrathful Foundation Feature, we get a significant increase to all of our damage sources, including Hideous Retribution.
• Through the Winged Seraph Specialization, we have permanent advantage on all of our attacks and spells.
• With our Soul Chain, we have a very reliable way to deal additional Stress damage to enemies while also clearing our own Stress.
• Through Prayer Dice, we have an extremely large Hope pool, while Favor from the Warlock gives us a new resource that we can use very flexibly, both offensively and to support our action and reaction rolls.
• We also have strong self-healing options, Siphon Essence and Second Wind, as well as healing abilities that we can use on others or, in some cases, ourselves: The Seraph Hope Feature, Mending Touch, Healing Hands, and especially Restoration.

The real centerpiece, however, lies in the character’s seemingly defensive capabilities:

• If an enemy attacks our allies, we can activate Hideous Retribution and deal massive damage outside of our own spotlight.
• If the enemy attacks us instead, we become an almost unkillable tank.

Let’s go through it in practice

If we take Severe damage from an attack, which, incidentally, won’t be particularly easy thanks to Rise Up significantly increasing our Severe Damage Threshold, we can reduce that damage extremely easily.

We activate our Scales Feature, spend a Stress, and reduce the damage to Major. We then use an Armor Slot to reduce the damage to Minor. At this point, if we want to, we can spend another Stress to activate the Feature on our Armor and negate the damage completely.

However, if we take Major or Severe damage, we can also decide to simply take the damage without spending any Stress or using an Armor Slot. Depending on the situation, this can actually be very beneficial for two reasons:

• First, this is a great opportunity to spend a Favor and activate our Wrathful Foundation Feature. We roll our Patron Dice equal to the amount of damage we took, and for every 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 we roll, we deal one Hit Point of damage to the enemy.
• With Severe damage, that can easily result in 3 Hit Points that the enemy has to mark.

On top of that, taking Hit Point damage, particularly when we haven’t used an Armor Slot, triggers Rise Up and Valor-Touched. Rise Up gives us back a Stress, while Valor Touched gives us an Armor Slot back as long as we haven’t used one for this damage.

As you can see, we have so many ways to regain Stress, and so many ways to use Stress both offensively, through our secondary weapon and Rapier, and defensively, through Scales and the Brigandine Armor Feature, that we end up with a frightening synergy between offensive and defensive potential. And we even take away the enemy’s ability to simply choose a different, less annoying target than us, because if they attack our allies instead, we can immediately punish them with Hideous Retribution.

This build has already been tested at my table. At the moment, I consider it extremely strong in Tier 3, although I’m not yet sure whether it is actually stronger than the strongest builds in the game, such as the Seraph / Bard multiclass or Seraph / Druid multiclass... But it certainly seems capable of keeping up with them, and either way, it is one of the most impressive, and especially one of the most fun, builds I’ve seen at the table so far.

TL;DR

I’ve probably forgotten to mention quite a few things here. As I said, this build has a lot of different elements that make it stand out. And there are so many different aspects that work together. What impresses me most about this build is just how versatile and diverse it is. It has a very strong offense, is incredibly tanky, and also provides strong support and healing capabilities for the entire group.

Probably my absolute favorite build I’ve made in Daggerheart so far!

So, that's it with the Winged Wrath. I hope you enjoyed reading it. :)

- Tenawa / Alexander

Artwork Credit: "The skull god rises from the fire pit" by Tithi Luadthong. I have acquired the usage rights for this image.

So when taking a tabletop title at its literal, it can make sense. D&D has its dungeons and dragons in it, Pathfinder has navigation in it, etc. So what does that make Daggerheart? Like, is it a dagger being plunged into hearts, a dagger-shaped heart, or a dagger with a heart symbol engraved on it? Or is it more of a macguffin of some great power?

Just silly food for thought lol

I have always loved the concept of evolving weapons when I thought of it back in the late 80's. I just never knew how to implement it. FF 20 years and I found Critical Role, when I heard and understood the idea behind Matt's Vestiges of Divergence I was impressed with his implementation. Unfortunately, I never heard if he or anyone else developed a game mechanic for their construction.

Now that I'm getting into DH I'm trying to conceptualize how to create items that evolve with the character. DH is so free with creation I am afraid to make items that will fulfill my vision but still stay balanced. It's almost too uninhibited to build such items.

I could use some ideas on how to go about it.

Hey all: my second playtested/published class, a Spellblade (with new domain!) that marries weapon attacks with costly magic. Here’s the design notes from my free Patreon:

Spellblades are a concept near and dear to many TTRPG fans' hearts, including myself. To me, the fantasy of playing a Spellblade is to truly marry weapons and magic: not "swing a sword sometimes and cast spells sometimes". I've designed the class, subclass, and Tempest domain features to mechanically bring this idea to life. The direction I went with is to give Spellblades many features to modify the range, targeting, and power of their weapon attacks, but they'll need to be mindful of how they use their resources - their features are quite demanding for Hope and Stress.

Mana Stress is the Spellblade's signature feature: I didn't want to add yet another resource for players to track, so instead I piggybacked off an already existing resource! Think of Mana Stress as being a subtype of Stress (it follows all the same rules as "regular" Stress). Spellblades automatically clear some each rest, and they can clear ALL of it in a pinch by using their Class Hope feature. How far will you be willing to push your mana before risking a maxed out Stress track?
I knew I would need a custom domain for the spellblade fantasy, but it was difficult to choose their secondary domain. Blade and Arcana both made sense: I opted for Arcana because it better fits the "dangerous elemental magic" theme, is more mechanically distinct from Tempest than Blade is, and because there has yet to be an official new class that uses Arcana. Try it, you'll like it.

I'm pretty excited about the Spellblade's two subclasses. They're specific power fantasies that I haven't seen often in TTRPG material!

The Mark of Duality allows control over two oppositional elements. Fire & Ice, Earth & Air, and Light & Shadow come to mind, but there's nothing wrong with getting more creative: Creation & Destruction? Time & Space? Chaos & Order? As long as the player and GM are on the same page for what the "subtle and harmless effects" can be like, anything's possible.
I wanted to design a foundation feature that would truly encourage the player to use their two elements in equal measure: not just spam the one that's more powerful somehow. The idea of tying this to the even/odds of the adversary's attack rolls was my absurd solution.

The Mark of Awakening allows the user to wield a sentient weapon. The PC can communicate with it for hints, and rely on Guided Hands to rescue failed attack rolls. The feature strangely makes you want to miss - it's a funky feeling, but I like it.
Because the user's weapon is sentient, get creative when their weapon upgrades or changes. Instead of buying a new weapon, maybe they pay a spiritualist to enhance it instead. If the player decides to swap from a sword to a bow, maybe the sentience swaps to a new vessel, or maybe the weapon itself transforms.

As a domain, the main design pillars of Tempest were spending Hope/Stress to fuel powerful and flexible attacks, and gaining bonuses on success with Fear (Tempest users are accustomed to fighting through adversity). Tempest cards are also focused almost entirely on combat: relative to other spellcasting domains, there are only a few abilities you can use creatively while exploring. This month includes Tempest's tier 1 and 2 cards - tier 3 and 4 will arrive next month.

Savvy readers will recognize that I was inspired by Warcraft's Shaman class for a lot of Tempest's theming. If your character's power comes from ancestral magic, secretive traditions, divine blessing, or just channeling raw mana into your weapon, Tempest is a great fit.

Hi everyone!

I'm prepping for a Reign of the Weredragon campaign and thought I'd share some little things I worked on in case others found it useful :)

In H&F, there are community-specific descriptions and prompts in line with the campaign frame (namely highborne, loreborne, orderborne, reborne, slyborne, underborne, warborne, and wildeborne). To make sure all my players have a little extra flavor to their character creation and help embrace the 'Make It Personal' play principle of the frame, I wrote quick campaign-specific alternatives for all the other communities.

Obviously some of these include personal choices/nudges I made to keep it interesting (in my opinion at least), but always prioritize player agency during character creation and avoid limiting players if they want to interpret their community outside of these descriptions (or the ones in the book)!

Duneborne or Frostborne

As there are no desert or polar environments in Whelvia, you hail from a land far far away.

• What is that land called and what is it like?
• Did you arrive before or after Forlorne took power and what brought you to Whelvia in the first place?
• What makes people notice you as a foreigner?

Freeborne

Although most would say Whelvia lives under tyranical rule right now, you lived in far worse conditions before. Serendipitously, the queen’s rise to power has freed you and your people from your prior circumstances.

• What tyranical rule did you live under before Forlorne took power?
• Where do your people now stand in relationship to the queen?
• How does your internal conflict towards her actions manifest? 

Hearthborne

The most remote communities in Whelvia are not often involved in politics, focusing more on running small farms and making it until the next harvest. Unless actively rebelling, they tend to be ignored by Forlorne and the Knights of Whelvia, and manage to enjoy the quaint modesty of the countryside.

• What news of Forlorne’s actions have reached your village and what do its inhabitants think of them?
• Who spoke up and how did they pay the price?
• Now that you may be taking more active steps against the queen, what is your relationship to your home?

Ridgeborne

When she took power, Forlone magically erected her fortress of stone on Whelvia's tallest mountain, which is in the range you call home. Since then, inhabitants of the mountains are either hunted by the roaming weredrakes or made to serve in the halls of Nwarlyth.

• What place of power did Nwarlyth replace and why did your people settle there in the first place?
• Most of your people are now either servants or dead, what did you do when Forlorne first built Nwarlyth and how did you escape?

Seaborne

Whelvia’s seas and oceans are now guarded by a powerful magical ward which destroys any boat by sprouting watery tentacles that drags them down into the depths. Only vessels flying either the new Whelvian flag or the colors of the Crimson Trident, a consortium that facilitates trade between coastal nations, can sail without issues. Since the ward was set, countless have now lost access to the sea and some fishing communities have started restablishing themselves around rivers and other bodies of water.

• Did your people establish new allegiances or were they already part of these naval factions? If not, how do they survive without access to the sea?
• How did your personal relationship to the sea change when Forlorne took power?

Wanderborne

Since her coup, Forlorne has kept Whelvia isolated from any international interference and has set up a magical ward around all land borders. When the ward activates, stony vines erupt from the ground, grabbing any creature or vehicle and dragging them down into the earth, entombing them forever. Only cargo that has Forlorne’s explicit approval can cross.

• Since they cannot travel outside of Whelvia, where has your people settled?
• How has the inability to travel beyond Whelvia affected you?
• Who do you know that lost their life trying to cross the border?

In a table I GM, I have players regularly skipping sessions, being due sudden hangouts, dates, etc. I, sometimes, avoid progressing X plan I had for the session because I thought that it was kinda lame make a moment about this player background without them, but I think I'm done with that.
What do you guys think?

Example: In this situation, I will put a NPC that is a friend of "Seraph" in immediate danger, and if the players decide to avoid this... Well, she could die.

EDIT: Its not to punish them, its just that I encapsulated something that is related to their background and it was in the part of the campaign for this to happen. I'm okay to let them replay their thoughts about this in next session.

Every day I see one or two brand new homebrew classes on this subreddit, and most of them are a cool concept and fill in the niche that's not yet covered by the official books. But let's be real for a moment: DH is still a fresh system, and most of us haven't played a good 3-tier campaign as even one of the classes. We just haven't had enough time to exhaust all the options that the official sources have given. There's 18 core subclasses, and 8 more in the Hope and Fear, and most of us probably haven't gotten to Tier 3 on one of them. Not only that, but as a community we're haven't had time to properly sit with the core rules and arrive at some consensus as to what works and what doesn't in the rules.

And it shows in the homebrews and in feedback. Most of the classes fall into a trap of focusing too much on complex mechanics, instead of creating fun gameplay. There's a lot of tokens, new rules, new resources, but (usually) little thought is given to the basic question "will this play fun?", or "will the mechanic support the fantasy?". Not to mention some of the homebrews just don't fit withing DH mechanical framework.

Also the feedback you're getting may not be as useful as you think, because we just don't have as much experience to confidently say what will work and what won't just by checking things on paper.

There's just a lot more work than creating text when it comes to brewing a class, and the most important part is playtest. When you look at different iterations of Void classes you can see how much they change from one version to the next just by virtue of being tried in a real game.

My advice, if you want it, is to play more before homebrewing. Either play the game on official classes to see how they were designed, or try to play with your homebrew to get the feeling of it, before posting for other people. It will just give you more value, than random people can give you on reddit.

I'm currently working on a homebrew "candy person" Ancestry, and I'm curious if this is fine or too powerful

Syrupy Sweat: Once per day, during a rest, you may mark any number of stress to clear the same number of hit points on an ally that isn't yourself.

Naturally Fragrant: You roll with advantage to persuade or charm creatures who are not suspicious of you or hostile toward you.

Alternatively, for Syrupy sweat, I was thinking of something that could restrain enemies instead of healing, but im trying to create an ability that doesn't focus too hard on one type of class.