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Marking Stress
Learn how marking Stress works in Daggerheart RPG – from adversary actions to complications and moves.
When an effect requires you to mark Stress, fill a slot on your character sheet. When you mark your last slot, you become Vulnerable until you clear at least 1 Stress.
If all your slots are already full, you mark 1 Hit Point instead — regardless of how much Stress was demanded. If you'd take 2 Stress with only 1 slot left, you mark 1 Stress and 1 Hit Point.
During downtime you can clear marked Stress. As you level up, you can permanently increase the number of Stress slots you can withstand.
Sources of Stress
- Adversaries: enemy actions that demoralize, exhaust, or push your character's limits.
- Complications: the GM assigns Stress as a consequence when a roll doesn't go well, or offers it to avoid a different complication.
- Your own moves: some abilities cost Stress to activate. You can't stack Stress on the same feature, and you can't use it if you have no slots left.