Character Creation

Step-by-step instructions to create your Daggerheart hero.

download Download Guidelines PDF
Step 1

Choose Your Class

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Select one of the 20 hero classes (such as Warrior, Wizard, Rogue, Guardian, Druid, Alchemist, or Gambler). Your class defines your main playstyle, active abilities, and core stats.

What your Class gives you:
  • Core Feature: A signature active power or spell list (e.g. Ranger's Companion, Wizard's Spellbook).
  • Standard Domains: The two magic or archetype domains you can choose cards from (e.g. Rogue uses Midnight & Grace).
  • Base Combat Stats: Evasion score and starting health thresholds.

Go to the tab to view and select your class.

Step 2

Choose Your Heritage

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Your heritage is made up of two distinct parts: your Ancestry (your lineage/species) and your Community (the environment in which you grew up). Together, they shape your features and cultural traits.

Step 2.1: Select Ancestry

Select your physical ancestry (e.g. Elf, Dwarf, Katari, Clank, Ribbet, Human). Each ancestry grants a unique feature:

  • Elf: Celestial Trance - Meditate to sense magic or avoid sleep.
  • Katari: Feline Reflexes - Move quickly or climb with ease.
  • Clank: Mechanical Build - Bonus resistance to poison/disease.

See the full species list under the tab.

Step 2.2: Select Community

Select the community where you were raised. Your community represents your culture and upbringing, giving you a special community feature. The nine official communities are:

  • Highborne: Raised in environments of elegance, wealth, and prestige.
  • Loreborne: Rooted in traditions of knowledge, history, and wit.
  • Orderborne: From societies defined by structure, discipline, or service.
  • Ridgeborne: Adapted to mountain life, granting carrying capacity.
  • Seaborne: Experienced in life on or near the water.
  • Slyborne: Associated with secretive, urban, or shadow societies.
  • Underborne: Subterranean societies; known for engineering and bravery.
  • Wildborne: Inhabitants of deep forests and wilderness.
  • Duneborne: Thriving in dry, arid desert environments.

See the full list under the tab.

Step 3

Assign Character Traits

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Your character has six core Traits that determine their modifiers for action rolls. Assign the standard trait modifier array to these traits.

Starting Trait Modifier Array:
+2, +1, +1, +0, +0, -1

Assign one value from this array to each of your traits in any order.

Trait Actions Associated
Agility Dodging, running, sneaking, acrobatics.
Strength Lifting, breaking, physical power, melee attacks.
Finesse Lockpicking, precise manipulation, ranged weapon attacks.
Instinct Perception, insight, wisdom, casting primal spellcasting.
Presence Persuasion, intimidation, leadership, perform.
Knowledge Investigation, magic theory, history, languages.
Step 4

Record Additional Information

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Calculate and note down your character's starting pools and passive defense stats. These are determined by your choices:

  • Evasion: Your base passive armor difficulty class (determined by your Class).
  • Armor Slots: Act as a resource to mitigate damage. The number of slots is determined by your equipped armor's Armor Score, NOT by your class. If you are unarmored, you have 0 slots.
  • Hit Points & Thresholds: Your starting health thresholds. When you take damage:
    • If damage is below your Minor Threshold: Take 1 HP of damage.
    • If damage is above Minor but below Major: Take 2 HP.
    • If damage is above Major but below Severe: Take 3 HP.
    • If damage is above Severe: Take 4 HP.
  • Hope: Start with 2 Hope (maximum 6). Hope is spent to help allies, activate experiences, or cast spells.
  • Stress: Start with 0 Stress (maximum 6). If you take stress beyond 6, you must mark hit points instead.
Step 5

Choose Your Starting Equipment

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Equip your hero with starting armor, weapons, and standard adventuring gear. In Daggerheart, characters have full freedom of choice with their equipment.

Standard Starting Loadout:
  • Weapons: Choose one primary weapon and one secondary weapon, or a two-handed weapon. In Daggerheart, there are no class restrictions on physical weapons; a Wizard can wield a greatsword and a Warrior can carry a staff. (Magic weapons, however, require a spellcast trait to use their magic properties).
  • Armor: Choose your starting armor. Any character can equip any armor. Your equipped armor's Armor Score dictates your active Armor Slots.
  • Adventuring Supplies: A standard pack containing rations, a bedroll, torch, and ropes.

Browse weapons and armor stats under the tab.

Step 6

Create Background

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Flesh out your character's identity. Give them a name, define their pronouns, and answer a few core backstory questions to ground them in the campaign world.

Backstory Prompts to consider:
  • Where did you learn your skills or magical arts?
  • What is your relationship with your hometown or family?
  • What is the one thing you are running away from, or searching for?
  • Who is a person you would risk your life to protect?
Step 7

Create Your Experiences

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Experiences represent unique chapters in your character's past. They are custom phrases you create that grant bonuses to action rolls when they are relevant.

How to Create and Use Experiences:
  1. Write down two Experiences, both starting with a +2 modifier.
  2. When you make a roll where your experience would realistically help (e.g. recalling lore as a "Former Librarian" or sneaking as a "Street Thief"), you can spend 1 Hope to add that +2 modifier to your action roll result.

Examples:

  • "+2 Raised by Wood-Elves" - Useful for tracking, nature knowledge, or survival.
  • "+2 Former Gladiator" - Useful for crowd coercion, armor repair, or combat tricks.
  • "+2 Cartography Guild Dropout" - Useful for reading ancient maps or finding path layouts.
Step 8

Choose Your Domain Cards

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Domain cards represent your spells, maneuvers, training, and special techniques. At level 1, your character starts with two level 1 Domain Cards.

Rules for Card Selection:
  • You can only choose cards from the two domains associated with your class.
  • Choose two Level 1 Domain Cards. You can select one from each domain, or both from a single domain.
  • These cards are placed in your active slots (loadout) on your sheet.

Browse, filter, and read domain cards in the tab.

Step 9

Create Your Connections

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Connections are relationships, bonds, or tensions between you and the other heroes in your party. They are established together with the other players at session zero.

How to Set Connections:
  • Check your Class sheet for starting Connection prompts.
  • Select a prompt (e.g. "I saved [Name] from a beast in the forest" or "I feel a deep rivalry with [Name] over our magical skills").
  • Assign the prompt to another player's character and discuss how it shapes your roleplaying dynamic.