Summary
InDaggerheart, Critical Role’s tabletop roleplaying game, there are 18 different ancestries you can choose to play as, giving players a plethora of options. However, beyond those standard 18, you can also choose to mix ancestries together to form unique combinations. After all, why just play a drakona or an elf when you can play half-elf, half-drakona?
When you do this, you must select one ancestry feature from each ancestry. If you want to have more than two ancestries, you may’t have more than two different features. Combining ancestries in this way can make for some really fun combos, which we’ve listed below.
Second Ancestry Feature
Retracting Claws
Katari, the cat-like humanoids in Daggerheart, have an ability called Retracting Claws, in which they can make an Agility Roll to scratch a target within melee range. If they’re successful, they make their target temporarily Vulnerable, meaning all subsequent attacks have advantage.
This synergizes nicely with the goblin feature Surefooted, which allows players to ignore any imposed disadvantage on Agility Rolls. So, if your GM is trying to make you roll an attack with your claws at disadvantage, you’re able to completely ignore it thanks to your goblin ancestry.
Fearless
Infernis, which are the equivalent of tieflings in Dungeons & Dragons, have an ability called Fearless that lets them mark two Stress to change any roll that they make with Fear to become a roll they made with Hope instead. This has a ton of benefits, as gaining more Hope throughout a session or your campaign allows you access to powerful class abilities.
Because marking too much Stress can subsequently cause damage to you as a player, selecting human as your other ancestry, which grants you an additional Stress slot at character creation, can be a tremendous help for any ancestry combination. However, it’s especially great for infernis thanks to their Fearless ability.
Efficient
Technically speaking, clanks can have the appearance of any ancestry, without really having to use mixed ancestry features. However, if you want to have a clank that resembles elves, you can choose to use mixed ancestry and gain access to two powerful features.
First, elves have the feature Celestial Trance, which allows them to choose an additional downtime move during any rest. Second, clanks have the ability Efficient, which allows them to take a long rest move instead of a short rest move when they take short rests. Between these two features, you’ll be able to maximize your downtime in surprising ways.
Danger Sense
Once again, the human ability to gain an additional Stress slot at character creation can prove to be really powerful in Daggerheart, since so many different abilities use Stress. Goblins also have a feature called Danger Sense, which allows them to mark a Stress once per rest to force an adversary to reroll an attack.
While, for this feature to work, your character has to be in Very Close range, because this ability resets on a short or long rest, and you’ll have an extra Stress slot, it can prove to be immensely helpful. You never know when you might need that one extra Stress slot to turn the tide of battle.
Adaptability
A clank’s other main feature that they get as part of their ancestry allows them to pick one of their starter Experiences and add a +1 bonus to it, giving thema starter Experiencemodifier of +3. This is already pretty powerful to begin with, but it can work amazingly with a human’s ancestry feature, Adaptability.
This human feature allows you to mark a stress to reroll a failed roll that you make using one of your Experiences, giving you more chances to use your improved modifier. This will make sure that you’re not wasting your Experience rolls when you make them, which costs a Hope to do so.
Long Tongue
Like dragonborns do in Dungeons & Dragons, the drakona in Daggerheart also have an elemental breath ability, which allows them to attack creatures within Very Close Range. Similarly, ribbets, which are amphibian-like humanoids in Daggerheart, can mark a Stress to use their tongue as a Finesse weapon, potentially dealing a d12 worth of damage using their proficiency.
These two features are great for close-range combatants, as this will allow you a diverse suite of abilitiesin close-quarters combatthat can hopefully overcome certain types of damage resistances (should any adversaries have magic or physical damage resistance, for example). The ribbet deals physical damage while the drakona’s breath weapon deals magic damage, so you may vary your strategy as you see fit.
Nimble
Faeries have natural-born wings, meaning that not only can they fly in combat and other situations, but they can also mark a Stress point after an adversary makes an attack, and they will gain a +2 bonus to their Evasion against the attack. Simiahs, similarly, have a feature known as Nimble that grants them a permanent +1 bonus to their Evasion at character creation.
Having the +1 bonus to Evasion right at the top is great. But, combine this with a Faerie’s wings, and at first level, you’ll have the opportunity to have a higher Evasion score than most first-level characters in Daggerheart.
Kick
Thanks to their sheer size and scale, giants in Daggerheart have a feature known as Reach, which allows them to treat any weapon or ability that has a Melee range as though it has Very Close Range instead. This means that melee weapons, spells, or other features can instead reach out to enemies about ten feet away.
Fauns have a melee ability called Kick, which allows them to mark a Stress and kick themselves off a target within Melee range, causing 2d6 damage to them, and pushing them back. When you combine these two ancestries, that means you’ll be able to use this ability for enemies within ten feet of you instead of five, expanding your attack range dramatically, as well as your mobility.
Shell
If you want to play an incredibly sturdy martial combatant in Daggerheart, you should consider using both dwarf and galapa as part ofyour mixed ancestry. First, select the Increased Fortitude feature for dwarves, which allows you to spend three Hope to halve incoming physical damage. Then, select the Shell feature for galapas, which grants them a bonus to their damage thresholds equal to their Proficiency.
Not only does this mean you may reduce damage that comes your way, allowing you to stay up longer, but you’re also far less likely to take Severe damage. Plus, even if you do, if you have enough Hope, you can reduce the damage. This mixed ancestry combination is great for anyone who wants to play up close and personal with adversaries.
Elemental Breath
Both fungrils and drakona have ancestry-specific abilities that rely on them to use or make Instinct Rolls. Fungrils have an ability known as Fungril Network in which they can communicate telepathically with other fungrils, while drakona have their breath weapon (as previously mentioned), which uses Instinct for the attack roll.
While these two abilities don’t necessarily synergize or buff one another, having two Instinct-based abilities in this way allows you to narrow your focus when it comes to selecting stats for yourself. If you have a high enough Instinct, you’ll be able to use these abilities quite a bit, thus diversifying your character’s overall suite of abilities.
