To my normal audience, this one is a bit different. We’re plunging into some TTRPG discussion today.

Homebrew is a thing bound to happen in any TTRPG.  Daggerheart is one year young, and as more people get into this system, more and more homebrew is going to come out.  Especially for those that are coming over from other fantasy systems like D&D.  Maybe you’re transferring a current party or you have veteran players that love the feel of certain subclasses.  No matter the reason, at some point, someone is going to want their character class to feel…different.

At my table, I came up with a simple system to flavor the Daggerheart classes that I feel is a great solution for both ease of implementation and maintaining balance.  One of my personal favorite Ranger subclasses from D&D is the Gloomstalker.  So, I went about trying to figure out how to make that flavor a reality within Daggerheart, and this is the outcome:

Taking the base class – in this case Ranger – you will use all their class stats and abilities.  Then you pick one of the domain decks from that class – in this example, I picked the Bone deck.  Then, decide what other domain best matches what you’re trying to do.  For me, that was the Midnight domain.  It gets that shadow magic and extra stealth action you find in the Gloomstalker Ranger.  And there you have it.  That’s it.  Keep your initial class and one of the decks, swapping another in its place.  In this scenario, that would mean the other Ranger deck – Sage – is no longer available to choose from for that character, keeping play fair and balanced.

What about multi-classing, you ask?  My solution for that is simple: you can only choose from the classes that your new domain deck belongs to normally.  In our example, that is Midnight, which usually belongs to Rogues and Sorcerers.  Multiclassing means getting access to a new domain deck, which means they can choose to take the other deck available to the new class, or deciding to pick up the second deck they were meant to have with their original class – in this case, choosing from Grace (if going Rogue), Arcana (if choosing Sorcerer), or Sage (for either choice).  Again, you’re not gaining any extras by choosing to homebrew flavor the classes in this way, so you retain a balanced game.  It’s still the same multiclassing rules, just going about getting the decks in a different order.

I’ll give you another example of one I worked out with a player.  They love Oath of Ancients Paladins, and play them as staunch nature-defenders that wouldn’t be amiss around Rangers and Druids.  We chose the Seraph class sheet.  The base domain deck they chose was Valor, as they are more interested in being a tank that takes damage to protect others.  Then comes the flavoring.  In this case, we went with the Sage deck, as it connects them to nature and being gifted abilities through their vow of protecting natural spaces.

If they ever wanted to multi-class, they would only then be able to choose from Ranger or Druid – which either one would work well with a nature-defending Paladin.  They would then be able to choose between the Bone domain (if choosing Ranger), Arcana (for going Druid), or they could choose to tap full into their Seraph side and pick up the Splendor domain.

And there we have it.  Two examples for a simple way to change up the flavor of a class in Daggerheart.

Stay Magical, Wolfe Pack!