Critical Role: Heroes of Exandria Design Primer, Volume II

Hey there, UniVersus Fighters! This is Tim Frie again, bringing you more insights into the Critical Role: Heroes of Exandria set for Universus. Last time, I touched upon our approach to Character Classes and how that would translate in this booster set. We’ll begin with that, and follow up with a few more interesting tidbits about the set.

While there are a slew of new Character Class traits in this set, we initially focused on just a few. One of the big things was to not only assign a Class, but to associate that Class with a particular resource symbol.

Brute
Brutes are all about PAIN! Dealing pain, feeling pain, all of it! The common symbol for Brutes is Fire, while the mechanical theme shared by both Brute characters is Rage tokens–gaining and spending them for different uses.You’ll find examples on each card type with Fire.

Champion
Champions let you know what’s coming! They play fair, but they still bring the heat. Just because you know a big honkin’ attack is coming doesn’t mean you can do much about it. Champions share the Order symbol.

Entertainer
Prepare to show something spectacular to the audience! Entertainers like to flaunt their cards to the world. Another Class that centers around the Order symbol, you’ll be revealing parts of your deck or hand to your rival throughout the game. This really felt like a great way to explore the idea of people that want to perform in front of others.

Healer
Healers heal! They’re all about regaining health and staying at full power to keep their benefits going. As you’d imagine, Healers are themed around the Life symbol.

Inventor
The Inventor class is all about using their resources to modify or create. Inventors are associated with the Air symbol in Heroes of Exandria. All of the Inventors share a cost of removing cards from the game to fuel their abilities. There are some synergies built into the set to help foster this idea, as well as a loose connection of using Tech cards to further their game.

Mage
Mages are all about knowledge–learning about the primal, chaotic forces of existence, and using that knowledge to affect the world around them. However, hoarding knowledge and sitting on the sidelines is for librarians–Mages go out and change the world to their whim with action, which is why the primary Mage characters are designed around the use of Action cards! I really wanted to try and push forward the idea of some decks making strong use of Actions. Mages are tied to the Chaos symbol.

Pactbound
Would you like to bargain for power? The Pactbound have a loose theme of giving up something to gain power of some sort. The symbol this felt most correct for in this set was Death. The theme of paying a price comes in myriad forms, from sacrificing Foundations and Backups to sealing your own Foundations.

Thief
The common theme for Thieves is denial. Deny abilities, deny resources, even deny cards in deck! Void was a perfect match here, as it is the symbol most associated with saying “no.” As a subset of that, there’s a slight mill theme that’s been moved to Void to help accommodate this.

Warden
Wardens are protectors of the natural world who excel at restoring the land. This translates in gameplay to unflipping their own Foundations. Wardens are concerned with the stage in multiple aspects, but they gain more power when they bring a bit of regrowth to the world. As you’d imagine, Wardens are associated with the Earth symbol.

These are the classes we explore deeply, but hopefully you’ll be able to pick up some of the breadcrumb trails we laid out with the minor classes. 

Boss Fights

We introduced PvE Boss Fights with the Briarwoods, which we launched as an in-store event to go along with the release of the Critical Role Challenger Series last spring. That was a great experience, and we had a lot of fun developing that. When we sat down to begin work on Heroes of Exandria, we knew we wanted to incorporate that experience into the booster set. Heroes of Exandria has Boss Fight cards as box toppers, with a variety of memorable enemies to fight. There are six to collect, with an even number split between the two campaigns.

I knew that we should make sure that even new fans would want to experience the Briarwoods, so I made sure we would have them return as one of the six boss encounters. Our current format for boss fights is very fun, but I still feel like there’s more development to it that can make such iconic battles even better. So I made the decision to make some different choices, in the hopes that one day I’ll have the honor of making even better experiences to allow you to take part in the fight against such foes.

There’s some interesting new abilities for some of these enemies, and I think we did a good job of trying to make each experience feel unique. I would definitely recommend beginning with the Manticore, and working your way up to some of the more difficult bosses. But don’t ever let your guard down, each encounter can be deadly! The full rules will also be hosted on our website, with the instructions for each fight available.

The world of Exandria is full of adventure, including plenty of loot. In addition to some smaller scores, a nice big addition to this set is a heap of treasure in the form of the Vestiges of Divergence. These powerful artifacts are special gear created by the Prime Deities, then lost to time. Each Vestige of Divergence will have strong abilities to help aid you in a number of adventures. Uncover these rare treasures and increase your strength today!

Want more Critical Role: Heroes of Exandria? Don't forget to check out these awesome character reveals from your favorite content creators! Heroes of Exandria releases on March 7th, so be sure to sign up for a prerelease event to get an early look at this exciting booster set!