Building Your First Dungeon Saga Hero

Making your first hero for the Dungeon Saga boardgame is really easy.  It is pretty much just choose your race and your profession.  This is a fun dungeon crawl and not a mini max type of thing so just find the mini you want to use and match him to those two parameters.  That is almost it.  When you look at the races and profession pages in Adventurers Companion there is both the starting information and the advancement information which makes it appear slightly more complicated than it is.

For the races the listings so you a stat bar with your movement, combat dice, armor, and how many wounds before you are injured.  Some also have a red box that has an ability.  These are what you need for your starter hero. All of them also list a racial feat and a table labeled 1 through 10 with skills and stat boosts options.  These are for advancement.  Starting Heroes are Level 0 so they are pre table.  Starting characters also do not have a feat.  This is a little surprise if you look at the Heroes for the campaigns who all seem to have one at the start.  I have Bolded abilities and Italicized Schools of Magic.

The Base Stats for All Heroes Are:

Move: 7      Combat Dice: 2       Armor: 1    Wounds to Injury: 1

The Racial Modifiers and Abilities:

Dwarf: -1 Move, +1 Wound to Injury
Human: Versatile (Bonus Die for Downtime Rolls)
Elf: +1 Move
Halfling: -1 Move  (Balance Adjustment: Nimble Ability Added)
Gladewalker: -1 Move, +1 Wound to Injury, Earth
Naiad: +1 Move, Water
Salamander: -1 Move, +1 Combat Die, Fire (Balance Adjustment: Replace +1 Combat Die with +1 Armor)
Sylph: +1 Move, Air
Abyssal Lord: -1 Move, +1 Wound to Injury, Essence of Flame, Fire 
Abyssal Dwarf: -1 Move, +1 Wound to Injury
Ogre: -1 Move, +1 Combat Die, +1 Wound to Injury, Large 
Goblin: Nothing
Orc: -2 Move, +1 Wound to Injury


The elemental aligned Heroes all have an elemental ability that allows them to reroll 3 defense dice that do not beat their armor against the magic school aligned with their element, causes a -1 armor for attacks from the opposing element, and gives them a 2 die short range line of sight magical attack with their aligned elemental schools.

Next You need to choose a Profession, the professions show modifiers to the base racial stats and some have additional abilities as listed in the same box, then comes a 3 column table from 1 to 10 with 2 options available during level advancement.  Since characters start at Level 0 these are not used at this point.

Here are the Professions and associated stat modifiers and abilities:

Barbarian: +3 Combat Dice, +1 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury
Bard: +1 Move, +1 Combat Die, +1 Armor, +1 Wound to Injury; Singer of Songs , 2 Songs
Cleric: +1 Combat Die, +1 Armor, +1 Wound to Injury; Holy, Spell Caster, Divinity, Petty Magic, 3 Divinity Spells
Demonhunter: +2 Combat Dice, +1 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury; Null ( RAI Modification +2 Shooting Dice (Short))
Druid: Spellcaster, Druidism, Petty Magic, 3 Druidism Spells, 2 Power 1 Crystals
Warrior: -1 Move, +2 Combat Dice, +3 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury  
Ranger: +1 Combat Die, +3 Ranged Dice (Long), +1 Armor, +1 Wound to Injury
Dervish: +1 Combat Die, +2 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury; Frenzy (2)
Paladin: -1 Move, +2 Combat Dice, +3 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury; Holy, Spellcaster, Divinity, 
              Petty Magic, Minor Spell Healing
Thief: +1 Combat Die, +2 Shooting Dice (Short), +1 Armor, +1 Wound to Injury; Lockpicking
Wizard: Spellcaster, One Initial School (Sorcery, Necromancy, Aeromancy, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Pyromancy), 
             Petty Magic, Minor Spell Crystallize, 3 Petty Magic/Initial Schools Spells, 2 Power 1 Crystals

If you do not have spells or songs to choose you are almost done but if you do  The rules for choosing spells and songs are all very similar.  First you take all the spells of the school(s) that the spells are from (or all the songs), you then draw 6 at random and choose 2.  If you have another spell to learn you can then choose it from all the unlearned spells in the school(s).  Note that for Clerics and Druids they are only able to learn Divinity and Druidism spells during this selection process while Wizards are drawing and choosing from the combination of their initial school and petty magic. (RAI Modification Clerics and Druids may pick their one free choice spell from their primary school or Petty Magic)

The final rule step is to pick your bonus from +1 Move, +3 Gold, 1 Random Magic Item, 1 Random Spell chosen from all the spells in the schools you know, or 1 Random Song. 

Name him and you are done.  When picking things at random it is important to remember that spells, song, and magic items have minimum levels to use so you could end up with something you cannot use for a few levels but learning a spell or song is worth essentially a whole level if you get one you want at some point. If you do a race plus class that yields a -2 Move the +1 Move is the best choice and a good choice overall.

That is all there is to do.  Now You are ready to go and slay some minions as you are only Zeroth level.  Probably takes longer to pick the mini than make the character.


Examples:

Salamander Barbarian 
Move: 7      Combat Dice: 2       Armor: 1    Wounds to Injury: 1
Salamander: -1 Move, +1 Combat Die, Fire Ability
Barbarian: +3 Combat Dice, +1 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury
Bonus: Move 

Final Results
Move: 7    Combat Dice: 6      Armor: 2    Wounds to Injury: 3  
Abilities: Fire

Elf Paladin:
Move: 7      Combat Dice: 2       Armor: 1    Wounds to Injury: 1
Elf: +1 Move
Paladin: -1 Move, +2 Combat Dice, +3 Armor, +2 Wounds to Injury;
Holy, Spellcaster, Divinity, Petty Magic, Minor Spell Healing
Bonus: 1 Random Spell from Petty Magic + Divinity Combined Decks

Final Results:
Move: 7    Combat Dice: 4      Armor: 4    Wounds to Injury: 3 
Holy, Spellcaster, Divinity, Petty Magic
Spells:  Healing (Minor), 1 Random Spell from Petty Magic + Divinity Combined Decks

If anyone has any more things they want me to try to go through from Dungeon Saga let me know.