Adversary Balance
As adversary/system balance is a work in progress, this section is under heavy development and might not fully reflect the current ruleset and math in the previous chapters. Use at your peril.
Scaling Attack Modifiers
When creating or scaling adversaries, you can default their attack modifier to the tier you’re creating them for and adjust up or down depending on how likely you want them to be to hit and the evasion scores of your party. An adversary’s attack modifier might be as much as 4 points lower or higher than their tier when the foe is meant to be especially likely or unlikely to land a blow. You might balance an adversary with an especially powerful attack by giving them a lower attack modifier (especially if they’re a Bruiser-type) or give an adversary that doesn’t do as much damage a higher attack modifier so that they wear the PCs down a bit at a time.
Baseline attack modifiers by tier:
Tier 1 (level 1): -4 to +5, averaging at +1
Tier 2 (levels 2-4): -3 to +6, averaging at +2
Tier 3 (levels 5-7): -2 to +7, averaging at +3
Tier 4 (levels 8-10): -1 to +8, averaging at +4
Minion adversaries often have a lower attack modifier than the average, with a Tier 1 minion often having a -3 or -2 modifier. Leader, Solo, and Skulk type adversaries often have a higher modifier than the average, with a Tier 1 leader having as much as a +4 or +5 modifier.
Scaling Damage
In Daggerheart, you’ll find yourself needing to create a dice pool for damage from a threat or foe that you hadn’t already prepared. In these situations, here are some guidelines to follow:
Tier 1 Damage
At level 1, most classes have damage thresholds of Major 7, Severe 14 or below.
Recommended damage pools to reliably deal Minor, Major, and Severe damage. For a quick choice, take the bolded option.
| Minor Damage | Major Damage | Severe Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 1d6+1 | 2d4+5 | 3d4+10 |
| 1d4+2 | 2d6+3 | 2d8+5 |
| 1d8+1 | 1d8+7 | 2d6+8 |
In a group of tougher characters (Guardian, Seraph, Warrior), the average damage needed for each threshold is higher. Add +1 to all values to get the same results in a group where the average threshold is 8/15.
Additionally, class, foundation, and heritage features can impact HP thresholds, so keep those in mind when tailoring adversaries to your game’s needs.
If you want an attack to have a high variance of damage and a high ceiling, consider using a smaller # of dice that have a higher number of sides (d10s, d12s, or d20s), and avoiding flat damage bonuses. Note that this higher range of results can reduce how consistently useful armor is.
If you want an attack to hit consistently within a certain range of damage, use a larger # of dice with a smaller number of sides (especially d4s, d6s, and d8s). Alternatively, adding a flat bonus to damage can help more consistently deal damage with a minimum result.
If you want to ensure that an attack cannot do Severe damage to any characters in your party, set the maximum damage value of that attack to be lower than the party’s lowest Severe threshold.
To ensure that an attack will always deal at least Major damage, set the minimum damage value of that attack to be equal to or greater than the party’s highest Major threshold.
In a party where the highest Major threshold is 8, you can ensure a hit will always deal Major damage with a dice pool of 2d4+6, since 8 is the lowest possible result.
In a group with a large spread of damage thresholds (a Stalwart Guardian in a group with a Wizard), the damage needed to cause Minor damage (1 HP) to the Guardian might cause a Major injury (2 HP) to the Wizard. You might want to use dice pools that will generate more reliable averages to avoid swingy results that could deal an unwanted Severe blow to one of the more fragile characters. However, in a group with this large range of thresholds, characters with protective instincts/abilities have the opportunity to shine by protecting their comrades.
Damage at Higher Tiers
As characters grow in level, their damage thresholds increase as well. Characters’ damage thresholds will diverge more over time through players choosing different advancement options as well as through special items and abilities. But here are some tips & benchmarks for scaling impromptu damage.
Find below a chart for Tiers 2, 3, and 4, with suggestions for damage pools that will usually deal Minor, Major, or Severe damage, respectively.
Example damage pool suggestion:
| Major Damage |
|---|
| 2d6+3 (5-15) |
At Tier 2, the damage pool of 2d6+3 will generally deal Major damage. The (5-15) listing shows the full range of results for that damage pool, where the lowest roll on 2d6+3 will be 5, and the highest result will be 15.
Tier 2 (Levels 2-4)
Characters will have Damage Thresholds that rise to an average of Major 8 / Severe 19.
| Minor Damage | Major Damage | Severe Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 1d8+2 (3-10) | 2d6+3 (5-15) | 2d6+15 (17-27) |
| 2d4+3 (5-11) | 2d10+4 (6-24) | 2d8+12 (14-28) |
| 1d6+2 (3-8) | 1d8+3 (4-11) | 2d10+10 (12-30) |
Tier 3 (Levels 5-7)
Characters will have damage thresholds that rise to an average of 10 or 11 Major and 26 Severe. Use the following chart for damage suggestions, with each column suggesting damage pools to deal Minor, Major, or Severe damage, respectively.
The numbers in the parentheses show the range of results for that damage pool.
| Minor Damage | Major Damage | Severe Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 2d4+3 (5-11) | 2d4+7 (9-15) | 2d8+20 (22-36) |
| 1d8+4 (5-12) | 2d10+5 (5-25) | 2d10+18 (20-38) |
| 2d6+2 (4-14) | 4d6+5 (9-29) | 2d12+15 (17-37) |
Tier 4 (Levels 8-10)
Characters’ damage thresholds are likely to have diverged substantially, but the benchmark for this tier is 15 or 16 Major / 39 Severe.
| Minor Damage | Major Damage | Severe Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 1d8+6 (7-14) | 2d6+10 (12-22) | 2d8+30 (32-46) |
| 2d6+4 (6-16) | 2d8+8 (10-24) | 2d10+25 (27-45) |
| 2d10+3 (5-23) | 2d10+6 (8-26) | 2d20+12 (14-52) |
| 2d8+3 (5-19) | 4d6+8 (12-30) | 4d6+20 (24-44) |
| - | - | 4d8+20 (24-52) |
Scaling Difficulty
An adversary’s difficulty sets the standard target PCs will need to meet to succeed in actions against them. If your party is level 4 (the top of Tier 2), you might use a higher difficulty and higher thresholds than if you were making the adversary for them at level 2. Most adversaries should have difficulty numbers that the party can consistently succeed against over 50% of the time.
| Adversary Statistic | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Difficulty | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 |
If the adversary has a passive feature that adds to their difficulty in certain situations, it’s usually best to give them a slightly lower default difficulty.
GM Difficulty vs PC Evasion
Difficulty for NPCs and Evasion for PCs have some cross-over, but their main difference is functionality. The PCs have an entire character sheet and hand of cards that define the scope and power of their characters, and Evasion is a way to measure how often they are hit by an attack. As a GM, you’re often creating (or improvising) many characters throughout the course of a session that interact with players in a multitude of ways. Therefore, NPCs have a simplified Difficulty as a catch-all for any rolls made against them, and you can add their relevant Experience for anything they are particularly adept at. So, in a way, Evasion is bundled into Difficulty for the GMs to help make your job running the game easier.
Scaling Damage Thresholds
Adversary damage thresholds represent how much damage is required to deal HP to them. The chart below gives some benchmarks per tier depending on whether you want an enemy to be more fragile (like a Skulk, Social, or Ranged adversary), average (like a Standard, Horde, or Support type), or tough (like a Leader, Bruiser, or Solo type).
| Tier | Fragile | Standard | Tough | Extra Tough |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Major 5 | Severe 10 | Major 7 | Severe 12 |
| 2 | Major 8 | Severe 16 | Major 10 | Severe 20 |
| 3 | Major 15 | Severe 27 | Major 20 | Severe 32 |
| 4 | Major 20 | Severe 35 | Major 25 | Severe 45 |
Things to Keep in Mind
- If an adversary has a healing ability, consider dropping their damage thresholds to reduce the chance of the fight dragging.
- If your party does not have any abilities that grant temporary proficiency bonuses, they will have a hard time hitting the Severe thresholds of Extra Tough enemies without a critical success.