Daggerheart Core Set vs printing the cards yourself
The official Core Set is $59.99 for 279 cards and the rulebook. A printable SRD set covers 797 cards. Here's which you need, and why the answer isn't obvious.
Daggerheart is a card game with a rulebook attached, which is why the question “do I buy the Core Set or print the cards?” has a less obvious answer than it does for most games.
The short version: those are not competing purchases. They cover different halves of the table.
What is actually in the Core Set
The Daggerheart Core Set is listed at $59.99 MSRP and contains:
- A 366-page hardcover rulebook with an included PDF.
- 279 illustrated cards: 18 ancestry, two sets of 9 community, 54 subclass, and 189 domain cards.
- The box.
There is also a limited edition at $149.99 with extra art and components.
That is a well-made product at a fair price, and the domain cards in particular are the ones that get handled most, so having them professionally printed is worth something.
What the 279 cards are — and are not
Look at the breakdown again. Ancestries, communities, subclasses, domains. Every one of those is a player-facing card.
What is not in the box:
- Adversaries — the GM’s stat blocks, and the equivalent of a monster manual.
- Environments — the scene-as-mechanical-object pile, which is one of the system’s most distinctive ideas and has no D&D equivalent.
- Weapons, armour, loot and consumables — the entire equipment layer.
- Beastforms — shapeshifting.
Those exist in the rulebook as entries you look up. They are not cards you lay on the table.
For a system built around holding your options in front of you, that is a real gap on the GM’s side. The players get a hand of cards; the GM gets a book.
What a complete printable set adds
A full SRD card set runs to around 797 cards across ten piles — the 279 the Core Set covers, plus 129 adversaries, 19 environments, 192 weapons, 34 armour, 120 loot and consumables, and 24 beastforms.
The useful part is not the raw count. It is that the GM’s material becomes cards too. Adversaries you lay out and rearrange as a scene develops. Environments you put on the table so players can see what the scene is doing. Equipment you physically hand over.
Three practical extras that matter if you print:
Print duplicates. Two characters taking the same domain card is fine when you can print another. The Core Set has one of each.
Print per character. A player’s actual loadout rather than the full 189-card domain pile.
Drop the images into a VTT. Individual card files work as Roll20, Foundry or Owlbear handouts, which the physical box cannot do.
The sorting problem, either way
Ten piles of poker-sized cards on one table will get mixed. Colour-coding alone is not enough — it disappears in greyscale printing and is unreliable for colour-blind players.
The robust approach adds a second channel: a distinct spine pattern per pile as well as a colour, so sorting survives however you print and however you see. Named backs — each card printing its own name on the reverse — also let you sort a face-down pile without turning every card over.
More on that and on printing setup in Daggerheart is a card game.
The recommendation
Buy the Core Set. You need the rulebook, and the player-facing cards are the ones that get handled every session, so professional printing earns its place. $59.99 for the rules plus 279 good cards is not the thing to economise on.
Then print the GM’s half. Adversaries, environments and equipment are the piles the box does not cover and the ones that most change how the game feels when they become physical.
Print per player, too, once characters exist — their actual domain loadout is a much better object than a pile they search through.
Coming from D&D
If your group is crossing over from 5e, the adjustment worth naming out loud is that Daggerheart expects players to make narrative calls a D&D DM would normally make. Cards help, because the options are visible rather than buried in a book.
Our Session 0 guide transfers cleanly, and Pathfinder 2e for D&D players covers the other common jump if you are still deciding.
Frequently asked questions
- What is in the Daggerheart Core Set?
- The Core Set is listed at $59.99 MSRP and includes a 366-page hardcover rulebook with a PDF copy, plus a box of 279 illustrated cards — 18 ancestry, two sets of 9 community, 54 subclass and 189 domain cards. A limited edition version is listed at $149.99.
- Do you need the Daggerheart Core Set to play?
- You need the rules in some form. The Core Set is the standard way to get them, bundled with the cards. The Daggerheart SRD is published under a licence that allows compatible material, so card sets built from it exist separately, but a card deck is not a substitute for the rulebook.
- How many cards does Daggerheart actually use?
- The Core Set ships 279. The full SRD contains considerably more once adversaries, environments, weapons, armour, loot, consumables and beastforms are included as cards — a complete printable set runs to around 797 cards.
- Are printable Daggerheart cards legal?
- Card sets built from the Daggerheart SRD under its community licence are legitimate compatible products. They are not reprints of the official deck, and they do not include the rulebook.
- What size are Daggerheart cards?
- Poker size, 2.5 by 3.5 inches, so standard card sleeves fit. Files intended for a print-on-demand card service are slightly larger at around 2.74 by 3.74 inches because they include bleed that gets trimmed.
- Should I buy the Core Set or print cards?
- Almost certainly both, in that order. Buy the Core Set for the rulebook and the beautifully produced player-facing cards, then print the pile the Core Set does not include — adversaries, environments and equipment — which is the GM's half of the table.
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