Deckbuilding in Daggerheart!? The Inspiration Deck (Patreon)

Today I'm sharing something very much in an early stage of development as a treat for higher-level backers. Once I've developed this idea some more, I'll share that draft more widely to all patrons.

Folks that have followed me for some time will probably know that I'm a big fan of deckbuilding games, especially Roguelike Deckbuilders like Slay the Spire, Griftlands, and Inscryption.

Daggerheart already has cards, but one night, while considering how cool of an idea the Wild cards that the Darrington staff were handing out at GenCon was, I asked myself what it would look like to add a deck-builder element to the game.

Enter the Inspiration Deck.

As I said above, this idea is in a very rough state, not even ready for playtesting at my own table. But I wanted to share something special for my highest-tier backers and this is something I'm really excited about, so here is a peek behind the curtain.

The idea is that when you start your campaign, you can choose to use the Inspiration deck, building the initial deck in Session Zero and then using and adding to it over the course of the campaign. Right now I have an inspiration card for each of the 9 core classes, and want to create a standard array of normal cards to be the draft supply for when the party adds to the deck.

The main goal of this deck is to provide some cool bonuses to the players in a more permanent/re-usable way than the (extremely cool) Wild cards and to let each party customize these bonuses over the course of the campaign. Additionally, adventures/modules could have specific inspiration cards, campaign frames could come with inspiration cards, etc. Right now, most of the inspiration cards give some degree of narrative control over the scene to the player, but within specific bounds both to keep things from going off the rails and to create boundaries/constraints in the prompt so that players aren't faced with the blank canvas problem.

Building Your Inspiration Deck
You’ll build your starting Inspiration Deck by telling the players to each add the Inspiration card for their character’s class to the deck. This should give you a starting deck with a number of cards equal to the number of players. If two or more players are using the same class, you do not need to add a duplicate of the that class’s inspiration card.

Use During Play
At the start of each session, set a countdown die at a value of 2+the number of players by the Inspiration Deck. Whenever a PC spends Hope, tick down this countdown by the number of Hope spent. When the countdown triggers, the PC that triggered the countdown draws a card from the Inspiration deck and the countdown re-sets. When the player that draws, they can then pass it to any player.

When played, cards go to a discard pile by the Inspiration deck. Shuffle the discard pile into the deck when a new story arc begins (this will usually be when the PCs level up).

Adding to the Inspiration Deck
· The first time each PC makes a death move, the PC’s player draws the top three cards from the Draft Supply and pick one to add to the Inspiration deck. Place this card at the bottom of the deck. Note that this is the first time each PC makes a death move period, not the first time per session/arc/level.

· When the PCs gain a level, draw a number of cards from the Draft Supply equal to 2+ the number of PCs. The group decides on which cards to select, adding 1 card for every 2 PCs in the party (round up). Place the drafted cards on the bottom of the deck. The group may then pick and remove one card from the deck.

I am considering having the Draft Supply divided by Tier, so that the cards grow more powerful/impactful as you gain levels.

Removing cards from the deck
Card removal is a key element of deck-builder games, so I want some kind of process for weeding cards out as your deck develops. My current notion is that when a PC dies, the group removes their class inspiration card from the deck. Additionally, the party may select and remove one other card from the Inspiration deck.

Currently, class inspiration cards form the core of the inspiration deck. I like most of these draft ideas, but again, this is all very early.

Class Inspiration Cards:

Bard’s Inspiration – Tell a story or do a performance to open a target up to a perspective they would not have imagined or tolerated and gain advantage on a roll to convince, persuade, or deceive them.

Druid’s Inspiration – Describe how an animal or natural phenomena intervenes in the scene to present you with an opportunity for action. Take advantage on following through with that action.

Guardian’s Inspiration – Describe a moment that makes you feel protective of an ally within Close range. Move into Melee range with that ally and you may each clear an armor slot as you prepare to fight side-by-side.

Ranger’s Inspiration – Select a target within Close range. Reveal a weakness of the target’s that you have discovered through close study. The target becomes temporarily Vulnerable when exploiting that weakness.

Rogue’s Inspiration – Flash back to a time within the last day when you made preparations for this moment. You may make one action roll in this flashback, which cannot override what has already been established in the story but can give it new context.

Seraph’s Inspiration – Describe a moment when you were overwhelmed by a feeling of something unexplainable or numinous and clear 2 Stress.

Sorcerer’s Inspiration – Share a story of a time when you accomplished something you didn’t believe you could do and reroll a Spellcast Roll or Reaction Roll against a magical effect.

Warrior’s Inspiration – Describe a fortuitous feature of the environment or an item that would help you accomplish an action. Make an action roll utilizing this addition, replacing your Hope Die with a d20 for the roll.

Wizard’s Inspiration – Describe how your unique perspective gives you a special insight about the scene or a target. Have your character share that insight to reduce the difficulty of the environment or target until a PC rolls a result with Fear.

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This text is not official content of Darrington Press or Critical Role and does not represent the opinions or stances of anyone other than Mike themself. This product includes materials from the Daggerheart System Reference Document 1.0, © Critical Role, LLC. under the terms of the Darrington Press Community Gaming (DPCGL) License. More information can be found at [https://www.daggerheart.com](https://www.daggerheart.com). There are no previous modifications by others.