MATT: It's pretty great. So you're now at seven hit
points with four armor slots. TRAVIS: This is the best
character you've ever seen. You can just say it. MATT: It's pretty great.
TRAVIS: You heard it here first. (wheezing laughter) ♪ (fast tempo music) ♪ MATT: Hey, guys!
I'm Matthew Mercer! TRAVIS: (laughs) I'm Travis Willingham! MATT: Ah, and we're here
to talk about Daggerheart, specifically do an example
of character creation as we sit here
and I work with you to build out Bertrand Bell.
TRAVIS: Yes. MATT: In Daggerheart.
TRAVIS: The myth, the man, the legend. MATT: So as we go
through this, we're going to be
creating him at level one. If we're feeling a
little fancy at the end, we'll go ahead and jump to,
maybe up to level four, and see how the character
advancement goes within the first tier of the
character advancement system. As a reminder, everything
here is an Open Beta, so some things are
liable to change, shift, tweak before
the final release. But if you have any further
questions around this, we do have our How to Play
Daggerheart video, which you can see linked, somewhere around this
video where links are. So you know where to find it. TRAVIS: It's up here.
MATT: Yeah, I think so. TRAVIS: It's down here. MATT: Let's start first by choosing Bertrand's class. So of the classes we
have here, just-- I'd probably go through these
first for people that are here. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: We have the Bard, the Druid, the Guardian,
the Ranger, the Rogue, the Seraph, the Wizard, we
have the Sorcerer, which is-- TRAVIS: Definitely
a Sorcerer. Yes, he's definitely
got magic in his blood. MATT: Pretty sure
that's not the case. TRAVIS: Yep. MATT: We have the Warrior,
which uses Blade and Bone, which I think leans more in
the direction of your build, but we have a few different
options here to work with them. TRAVIS: Don't tell me
what to do, Matt Mercer. MATT: I'm not telling
you what to do, but you have options here. Where do you think
Bertrand sits in here? TRAVIS: I think it is
probably a Warrior. I love seeing how
Sorcerer has Midnight and also the Rogue
has Midnight. MATT: Each class is where
two different domains overlap. TRAVIS: Intersect.
MATT: They all intersect in a circle
for the base game. TRAVIS: Yeah, I think
it would be Warrior. MATT: Okay, cool. All right,
now that we've got the actual character class
chosen for Bertrand Bell, now we get to work out
the foundation you choose. Now the foundations
are the various paths, the various subclasses
you can take, and the foundation
is the initial, level one card
of that subclass. So the two foundations you
have to choose for a Warrior, you have the Call of the Brave
or the Call of the Slayer. The Call of the Brave enables
you to stay brave-faced and endure in the
face of true danger. The Call of the Slayer
gives you some benefits to actually slay
things a little nicer. So if you want to
take a look at those and choose what you
think best fits Bertrand. TRAVIS: I'm going to slay.
MATT: All right. TRAVIS: 'Cause,
let's be honest, BB totally slayed in the day. "On a roll with Hope,
you may choose "to place a single 1d6
Slayer die on this card "instead of taking a hope. "You can store a number
of 1d6 Slayer dice "equal to your proficiency, "and can pick up any number
of these dice and roll them "when making a weapon
attack or damage roll "to add their value
to your total." MATT: Path.
TRAVIS: Slay! MATT: Before you is the
Call of the Slayer. All right, so--
TRAVIS: Beautiful. MATT: With that foundation
card chosen of your subclass, let's jump into choosing
your heritage. ♪ (percussive music) ♪ MATT: Heritage is a
combination of your ancestry and the community
that you come from. So the ancestry involves the various
fantasy ancestries, many of the classics that
you've come to know, the humans, which Bertrand
Bell, I believe, was. TRAVIS: I'm a human.
MATT: I think so, yeah. TRAVIS: I'm a boring human.
MATT: No, not boring. We'll get to that
in a second. TRAVIS: Thank you.
MATT: But you have the classic elves, dwarves. We also have some fun weird
ones to throw in there, like the fungril, the fun
little mushroom fungus folk. You have the clanks, which
are the automaton robotic folk in a fantasy realm. And, of course, ribbets. TRAVIS: (laughs)
I think everybody. MATT: Ribbets, the cunning at
the very least, tiny frog person. TRAVIS: Everybody's made a ribbet.
(laughs) MATT: They're pretty great. They're pretty great.
TRAVIS: Swimming in it so far. MATT: But going with
Bertrand Bell, we'll grab
the human card here. TRAVIS: Oh yes. MATT: So the ancestries
and the communities both give you abilities,
depending on what ones you choose. What is the human
ability here? TRAVIS: It says Perseverance. "When you fail a roll that
utilized one of your Experiences, "you may spend
a Hope to reroll "and you must take
the new result." MATT: Yeah. ♪ (lively folk music) ♪ MATT: Now we get
to choose your communities
that you come from. So we have a lot
of choices here. They all represent
the communities that you grew up
or shaped you. Here, you look through here.
TRAVIS: Seaborne? This is not Fjord. MATT: Wanderborne, Underborne,
these can be applied to pretty much any community,
specifically in a setting or a place you want to
create in your mind that's where your
character came from, you can.
TRAVIS: Nope. MATT: What do you, what have
you got it down to now? TRAVIS: Highborne, it says,
"Being part of a Highborne community "means you were born
into a life "of elegance, opulence,
and prestige, "usually within the upper
echelons of the cities." The other one that's
interesting is Slyborne because it says, "Being
part of a Slyborne community "means growing up in
the underbelly of a society, "surrounded by criminals
and con artists." It says, "Scoundrel, you
have advantage on any rolls "where you're negotiating
with criminals, detecting lies, "or finding a safe place
to hide," which is pretty good since
he is such a coward. MATT: I mean, you tell me.
TRAVIS: Let's do, let's do Slyborne,
just 'cause. I'm not saying this is canon,
it's just what we're doing. MATT: All right, Slyborne it is.
TRAVIS: We're building a character. MATT: Exactly.
TRAVIS: We're taking chances. MATT: So between human
and Slyborne, your ancestry and community,
that is your heritage. So you get to write down
on your character sheet under Heritage.
TRAVIS: Great. MATT: You are
a Slyborne human. TRAVIS: Slyborne human. ♪ (lively folk music) ♪ MATT: Character traits
are agility, which is your ability to
sprint in and out of danger, to make big leaps
from place to place. You have your strength, which
is your ability to break, smash, push, lift, crawl,
and hit things harder. Finesse, which the ability
to do more controlled, direct, dexterous sort
of maneuverability. TRAVIS: Very specific. MATT: As well as pinpointing
and precision. Your instinct is your ability to instinctually understand
the world around you, being able to follow
your gut, if you will. Your presence is your
ability to affect and change people's opinion
based on your presence, whether that be
your charisma, whether that be your strength
of words, your boldness, whether that be.
TRAVIS: Your humor, your charm. MATT: Yeah. That's your presence.
TRAVIS: Okay, cool. MATT: Then knowledge
is the knowledge that you've accrued
in the world around you that can also help you
to analyze challenges and details in the
world around you, and try and pick up the pieces
of mysteries and puzzles. Now across the board here, everyone starts with
a number spread that you get to
decide where they go. It is a minus one, two zeros,
two plus ones, and a plus two. It is a minus one, two zeros,
two plus ones, and a plus two. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: Great. TRAVIS: So I've got a
zero in knowledge, (laughs) a zero in finesse,
plus one in agility, plus one in instinct,
plus two in presence, and a negative one
in strength. MATT: Oh man, those years are creeping up on him.
TRAVIS: Because he's a silver fox. Yeah, it's rough, it's rough.
MATT: That's a tough go. TRAVIS: When that
cartilage goes. MATT: Okay, now that we got
the traits figured out there, we move on to your
character's damage thresholds. Now the thresholds are unique
to each class at level one. You can see here
on the sheet, under your hit points
and stress, you have your minor
threshold starts at five, major starts at a 10,
and severe at a 15. Based on certain domain
card choices you make as you level up, and as well as points you
get to spend as you level up, those can adjust
and get higher and give you a better
ability to soak damage. Like the minor damage
threshold itself, anytime you take damage,
you look and see if it's above or below any,
some of the thresholds here. So if you take seven damage, that's between your minor of
five and your major of 10, which will only cause
you to mark one hit point. TRAVIS: Sweet.
MATT: If you take damage above, equal to or above a 10,
but below a 15, between your major and your
severe, you take two hit points. Anything that's
equal to or higher than your severe damage
threshold is three hit points. Things can get deadly
pretty quick if you're
not paying attention. But you don't have to do any
math when you take the damage, you look to see
where it lies, and then mark the hit
points accordingly. Now every class has
its own base evasion. Warriors are fairly
combat-centric, so they actually started a
10, which is not bad at all. TRAVIS: I can just put it in? MATT: Yeah, just put
a 10 right there. That can be adjusted
based on different factors, like the equipment that
you carry might weigh you down and lower your evasion, certain effects in the game
can improve or decrease that. Next step, we're going to fill out your character's Hope. So Hope is
an expendable resource and a constantly-regenerating
resource in Daggerheart. But you get to spend the
hope on all sorts of abilities that you can use to
help out your friends, as well as to fuel
certain domain card abilities that you can choose
as your character advances. So since Hope can
max out at five, and it regenerates
fairly often, depending on how often
you roll in your game, you don't want to
sit on it too much. You consider it
a fluid resource. But you do start with two, so you can fill in
two of those there. I'd recommend lightly since
you'll be erasing in them and filling them in often through the game.
TRAVIS: All right, all right. MATT: So now that we've
gotten your traits figured out, and your Hope and
your damage thresholds, we can look into
getting your equipment, starting with your
starting weapons. ♪ (lively folk music) ♪ MATT: So I'm going to get this equipment sheet
here for you. This is the spread
of basic equipment available to you
at level one. So any of these weapons
you're likely to choose, you can see up
beyond their names, it tells you what
trait they utilize. You get to add the bonuses
or penalties of the trait that are present
for each weapon, based on how you
did your trait spread. It tells you
the range of them, you know, melee, very
close, far, very far. You have your primary
physical weapons and your primary
magic weapons. Tells you how much
damage they deal, the type, and then of course
the burden. TRAVIS: Killer, so I can get a
arcane gauntlet for Bertrand. No, because he's not magic. But I want it, Matt. Look at these weapons,
this is my favorite part. MATT: What was Bertrand's
main weapon in the game? TRAVIS: He had the Gambler's
Blade, which was a rapier. MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: So is there
a rapier there? TRAVIS: There is.
MATT: What's its trait? TRAVIS: It's presence, which
I have a plus two in! You can't write this stuff.
MATT: Nope, it's like, it's like-- TRAVIS: God, I'm the best.
MATT: (laughs) I wish we had planned that. But it's like he
knows his character. (laughter) TRAVIS: Okay, so now
I'm going to do rapier. I can put it here, right?
MATT: All right, cool. TRAVIS: The top one?
MATT: Go ahead and put rapier for the name of your
primary weapon. TRAVIS: Then presence
is the trait. MATT: Presence for the trait,
and then the range is melee. You put that next to
it in the same spot. TRAVIS: Oh, right next to it?
MATT: Yeah. It's a one-handed weapon. So you can fill in
that one hand there. It does have a feature,
it's a small weapon, so it adds a plus
one to agility, so you can write that
under "Feature" there. TRAVIS: Amazing. MATT: If you wanted to have
a secondary starting weapon in an offhand, you have
these, like round shield. You can have a shortsword.
TRAVIS: Shortsword. MATT: A whip.
TRAVIS: A whip, grappler, hand crossbow.
MATT: Or just none. TRAVIS: <i>Nada</i>?
You know what? I'm going to throw
a dagger in there because I feel like he
wants to look cool, like sitting around the fire.
MATT: I dig that, yeah. TRAVIS: I don't even know
if he'll come into it. MATT: Go for it. So
secondary weapon, then. TRAVIS: So I'll do dagger. It's finesse.
MATT: Finesse, yeah. TRAVIS: It's melee
and then plus two. Oh! When it's paired,
a plus two to primary weapon. MATT: So you get to
write that down, plus two to
your primary weapon. TRAVIS: Amazing. Okay, great.
MATT: All right. TRAVIS: He'll put it
in his belt, it'll be more show than anything.
MATT: Perfect, if he needs it. All right, and
now that we have your starting weapons chosen, we can choose
your starting armor. So here we have the starting
armor for the game. We have leather armor,
breastplates, chainmail, full plate,
the baseline for it. TRAVIS: We did say
full plate. Can I put
Bertrand's old head sticking out of
a suit of armor? MATT: This is your
character to build. This is your version of
Bertrand to explore. TRAVIS: I want him to clank
around like an old bastard. MATT: Is this him
pre-Bells Hells, when he like, he got a weird, you know,
thing up his craw and decided to try
out a different way, rapier and full plate,
which is-- TRAVIS: (laughs) A choice!
MATT: A beautiful choice. TRAVIS: (groans)
MATT: Why not? Make it weird, man. Why not?
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: So to go over
the armor score, too, whenever you take damage, you have the chance of
spending an armor slot. Everyone starts with
three armor slots, and there are ways to repair
your armor during rests. But you spend an armor slot
to reduce the incoming damage by the amount of
your armor score. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: Which means if you take 10 damage, and
10 is your major threshold, you can mark an armor
slot to reduce it and take it into a
lesser threshold, and thus take less
hit point damage. TRAVIS: But look at full
plate armor, that's eight. MATT: It's eight, but
it's also very heavy, which gives you minus one
to evasion and agility. TRAVIS: (sighs)
MATT: So-- TRAVIS: I know,
but he would look like a little bean
in a spacesuit. MATT: If that's what
you want to make, man. TRAVIS: I kind of want
to do it now do it. MATT: Do it, do it.
All right, you got this. Bertrand's in full plate.
TRAVIS: We're doing it. MATT: For this particular
build, which is awesome. You go ahead and write
down full plate first. The armor score for
that is nine. The ability to get
this is very heavy. TRAVIS: Very heavy.
MATT: Minus two to your evasion. TRAVIS: (nervous laughter)
Minus two to evasion. MATT: And minus one to agility.
TRAVIS: Minus one, agility. MATT: So now your
evasion gets reduced to an eight from
the baseline 10. You're quite
a bit easier to hit. TRAVIS: Oh, it feels gross.
MATT: It's okay. But you can take the
hits a little better. However, you do still
have nine armor. TRAVIS: That's true.
MATT: Go ahead and put in nine armor for
your armor score there. All right, and from there, now we get to choose
your starting inventory. So there's a secondary leveling
sheet for each class here. This is the one for Warrior.
TRAVIS: Nice. MATT: So when you see up here
where it says under Inventory, write down the things that
you take automatically. Then a few things to choose to be added to that
starting inventory. TRAVIS: Torch,
50 feet of rope. Thank god!
You always need rope. MATT: Necessary stuff. TRAVIS: I like how it
says just basic supplies, so you can come up with what
that is in your head, right? MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Like the things that you would just generally have.
MATT: You don't want to, like, be doing your taxes when it comes to everything
in your bag just to survive. Then the final choice
you make is either the drawing of a lover--
TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: -- or a sharpening
stone, I mean, I mean. TRAVIS: This is incorrect.
Can we make an edit? MATT: Sure.
TRAVIS: Drawing of lover(s). MATT: There you go.
TRAVIS: Definitely. MATT: It's more of a
sketchbook really. TRAVIS: Yes, yes.
It's a calendar. (laughter) MATT: Okay, so with that,
your inventory is complete, and now you get to work on
your character's description. ♪ (triumphant brass music) ♪ MATT: So there's a list here
of options you can choose from. These, of course, are helpful for quickly sussing out a character's basic
physical description. Like say clothes,
clothes that are-- TRAVIS: Yeah, let's
do royal more than sleek. MATT: Eyes that are like--
TRAVIS: Let's do endless ocean. MATT: Okay, great.
And a body that's-- TRAVIS: I mean he is,
he's carved. MATT: You can write some stuff
in there, too, if you don't, if it's not on there. But these are things you
can pick from if you want. TRAVIS: Actually, I like,
I like lanky, let's do that. MATT: And, of course, you
are the color of-- TRAVIS: He's falling
snow in his-- MATT: In his later years.
TRAVIS: Yes. MATT: He doesn't get outside
very often, this boy. TRAVIS: No.
MATT: Okay. And an attitude like-- TRAVIS: Oh, it's a hero. At least in his mind.
MATT: In his mind. Great, so now that
we've finished up the character description
for Bertrand Bell, we can jump to your
actual domain card. This is the bread and butter of the character
class that you chose. ♪ (upbeat orchestral music) ♪ MATT: Every character
class sits as an overlap between two different
domain cards. The Warrior sits
between Blade and Bone. The Blade domain
focuses on combat, damaging attacks and spells, and being a really powerful
and effective soldier in the front lines of battle. You're good with
weaponry and attacks, and strategically doing
the most damage as you can. Bone is about movement
and tactical strategy, and being able to
adjust the battlefield and move through the
battlefield quickly, deftly, and
at your advantage. So these are the
overlaps you have. Now at level one, you
get to access two cards you get to choose
of the two domains. Each domain has three
cards of first level. TRAVIS: Oh snap.
MATT: So you have six cards total to pick from. You have three Blade cards
that include Retaliation, which is "When you take damage
from an enemy in melee range, "you can mark a stress to
immediately deal weapon damage "to the creature at half
proficiency (rounded up)." There's Not Good Enough, which is the second Blade,
1st-level ability. "Any time you roll
your damage dice, "you can reroll
any ones or twos. "If you do, you must
take the new result, "even if it's a one or two." TRAVIS: Some people love those,
I'm allergic to those things. I like the ones sometimes. MATT: Well, there you go.
TRAVIS: We can get rid of that one. MATT: Okay, so Not Good-- Not Good Enough is
not good enough for you. TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: The last one we got
under Blade is Whirlwind. "When you make
a successful attack "on an enemy in melee range,
you may also spend a Hope "to use that roll against every
other enemy in melee range." But that roll you made
is now effectively put against all enemies
that are around you, and then any that it
does succeed against, they take half damage. TRAVIS: I got it, I got it.
MATT: So, it's not like. TRAVIS: That's actually pretty
good if you weighed into somebody and it's like one hit. MATT: You can choose
two of this spread, meaning you can
choose two Bone and ignore all of Blade, or two Blade and
ignore all of Bone, or one from each.
TRAVIS: Oh, okay. MATT: You have six
to choose from, and two that you get to pick.
TRAVIS: Okay, okay. MATT: So on the Bone side
of things, you have Nimble. It says, "While this card
is in your Loadout," meaning it's a card
that you've chosen for your character
to be active, "you add your agility score
to your evasion." The second Bone ability at
level one is I See It Coming. "When you're targeted by a
ranged attack, mark a stress "to roll your Hope die," which
is a d12, of your Duality Dice "and increase your evasion "against the attack
by its value." The last one you got here
is called Deft Maneuvers. Deft Maneuvers is, "You can
spend a Hope to move anywhere "within far range
without making "an agility roll
to get there." So normally in Daggerheart, if you move beyond
close range, which is roughly
30 or so feet, you have to roll an
agility roll to get there. So with this, Deft Maneuvers,
you can spend a Hope to go anywhere
within far range and not have to worry
about a roll at all. TRAVIS: This makes full plate
a little bit more palatable, the Deft Maneuvers, but
I think I'm really feeling I See It Coming
and Retaliation. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: That's a solid
spread there. All right, cool. So next up,
we get to go through background questions
for your character. Now, background questions
are not absolutely necessary. A lot of people, who especially
have experience in RPGs, you have a strong idea
of your backstory and how you want to
define your character. But these are great questions
to either layer on top of that and help maybe think of things
about your character's history that you hadn't before,
or if you have no idea and you want to make
it up on the spot or find something to jump
off of and then build off of, these are great
questions to start that internal conversation. So for here, background
questions include, "Who taught you to fight, and why did they stay
behind when you left home?" TRAVIS: If he came from
a criminal background or something like that, let's say that in
his younger years, he was caught and arrested,
and maybe there was a law enforcement
person that was like: You have to be able to
take care of yourself. Let me show you how you
might be able to do that. MATT: Okay. What
was their name? TRAVIS: Shaun.
MATT: Shaun. All right. TRAVIS: Yes. Shaun Milmore. MATT: Oh my god. All righty. So your second background
question as a warrior, "Somebody defeated you
in battle years ago "and left you to die. "Who was it and why did it
feel like such a betrayal?" TRAVIS: Dang. Let's say,
after Vox Machina, and let's call the
group the Heralds. MATT: Okay. Anybody in
the group specifically that defeated you
and left you to die? TRAVIS: Yes, of course it
was that bitch, Sandy. MATT: Write down Sandy.
TRAVIS: Yep. MATT: "What legendary place
have you always wanted "to visit and why
is it so special?" TRAVIS: Oh man.
Let's say Eiselcross. MATT: So you've always
wanted to visit Eiselcross? TRAVIS: Yes.
MATT: So all these background questions work as a great jumping off point
for the player to start thinking about
their character's history and how they fit in the world and what their motivations
are, but also, ripe before the GM to pluck
bits of information from to possibly incorporate into
their stories down the road to catch the player
off guard, too. So it's a fun little
option there. Next up, we get to generate
your character's experiences. Experiences are things
in the world, experiences that your
character has had that's defined their
skills and abilities, the things that they're
generally better at, or at least more trained in,
than the other average person. So here on your character
sheet, it says experiences. You start with two and
you get to add a plus two to one of the experiences
and a plus one to the other. Now, these experiences,
they can be somewhat broad about your background.
Stuff like Charlatan or Social Climber
could be options. What you can do
as a player is, you can spend a Hope to
apply that bonus to a roll that fits within
that experience. So for Charlatan, you know, you're trying to
convince somebody to do this deal,
where obviously this is extremely
expensive gold that requires top dollar,
regardless of the pyrite-type materials of it. You might say: Well, I'm
going to go ahead and use my Charlatan experience
to add my plus two to that. So you spend a Hope
and you get to add that bonus to your roll. TRAVIS: As you were saying it,
I came up with the phrase, Do You Know Who I Am?! (laughs)
MATT: (laughs) TRAVIS: So a plus two to
anything that might be saying that he was an important
part of Vox Machina, or all the beasts
that he's slain, or the the countries that he's
visited, or maybe the royals or dignitaries that
he has befriended, and maybe leveraging
and applying intimidation and pressure on anyone he
might be interacting with. MATT: That's cool.
I love that. So yeah, they're meant
to be open and flexible and applying to narrative
moments that make sense, should the both the player
and the GM agree upon it. It just costs us
a Hope to do so, so it's another use of
that resource as you go. You get more experiences
as you level up, and you can apply
bigger bonuses to the experiences you have. So, those are your
character's experiences. Now that we have the
bulk of your character pretty much ready to go,
now we get to write in your pronouns,
and now we get to work on character connections with
other characters in the group. So these are also questions
that you don't necessarily have to follow in your
game, but for players, it's a fun way to have
a group that starts with some dynamics
and relationships. So if you're doing a session where they're all meeting
for the first time, these connections might
not be as important then and can apply down the road. But these help start the game with those connections
already set in. TRAVIS: So you would pick a
particular person at the table and find an agreed upon link? MATT: Correct. You can either
ask it openly and somebody can take that thread
if they have an idea and they can answer that.
TRAVIS: Nice. MATT: Or you can
choose somebody and put them on the
spot and be like, "How did we meet
before this?" TRAVIS: We got in a
bar brawl a month ago, and afterwards we
went to the next bar and drank away our bruises--
MATT: Right, we became drinking buddies
after this one thing. You both write that down, and already, out of
that one question, you have an actual
pre-game moment that you can fall back on of knowing each other,
and that becomes a thread out of the gate. So with that,
the connections are done and as is level one
Bertrand Bell! So let's say that Bertrand's
got some adventuring out of his system for a bit
and he gets to level up. Let's see what
that looks like. So let's level up
Bertrand to level two. At level two you take
an additional experience. TRAVIS: Oh, you can
make another one? Need More Fiber. MATT: The creative
possibilities there terrify me.
TRAVIS: That's plus one? MATT: Plus one.
TRAVIS: Okay, great. MATT: When you level
up, record it on your character sheet, then choose two
available options from the list below
and mark them. There are three slots
you can mark to increase two unmarked
character traits by one and mark them. So you can increase two
of them for one box. TRAVIS: Let's definitely
get strength out of the negative ones. MATT: So strength
goes up to a zero, and then you get to add a plus
one to any of the other ones. TRAVIS: Amazing. Let's do
finesse and get that one up. MATT: You get to mark
the circles next to them, which means they cannot
be increased again until you move on to the
next tier of leveling at level five.
TRAVIS: Got it. MATT: So you can do another
box and choose two other ones to level up, or you
can permanently add one hit point slot and have a little
more hit points. You could permanently
add one stress slot to have a little more
stress to endure. You could increase
two experiences by one-- TRAVIS: Yep.
MATT: -- to buff up those bonuses. You can increase your
proficiency by one. Proficiency increases the
damage that weapons do by an additional die
as well as some abilities. TRAVIS: Get out of here!
MATT: Whenever you do damage. TRAVIS: Done. I don't even
need to see anything else. MATT: All right.
Then at the end, increase your severe damage
threshold by plus two and choose a new domain deck
card of your level or lower. So, you still get access
to the Bone and Blade cards that you didn't
pick last time, but now you have access
to some higher level ones. So the two new Bone cards you
can pick from are Ferocity, "When you cause an enemy
to mark any hit points, "spend a Hope to temporarily
increase your evasion "by the number of hit
points you've dealt." Strategic Approach
is the other option. "After a long rest,
place a number of tokens "equal to your
knowledge trait--" Zero. "-- with a minimum of one."
TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: So you get one.
TRAVIS: I'm learning! MATT: I know,
you'll get there. You can spend these tokens
when you make an attack roll to make the attack at
advantage, you get to add a d6 to the roll.
TRAVIS: Oh man. MATT: You can add add
a character token to the action tracker for
this, not add a token. TRAVIS: Or add 1d8
to your damage? MATT: Yeah. Or from Blade level two,
you have A Soldier's Bond. "Once per long rest,
if you compliment someone "or ask them about
something they're good at, "you may both
take three Hope." The other option is Reckless. "You may always mark
a stress to take advantage "on an attack roll
against a target." You get to add a d6
to your attack roll at the cost of a stress
anytime you make a roll. TRAVIS: I'm going to
take A Soldier's Bond. MATT: Okay. All right.
TRAVIS: Wait, I changed my mind. Give me! Give me! MATT: Whirlwind? Is that
the one you're looking for? The one where you
hit everything around you for half damage?
TRAVIS: Yes. Perfect. MATT: All right. Now you're
done with level two leveling. Let's go to level three now! So go ahead and change
your level to level three. So now you get to mark
two more of these boxes of your choice, but you
can't increase the ones that you've already marked. TRAVIS: Right,
has to be new ones. MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Well, knowledge is getting out of the zero.
MATT: (laughs) Going for even spread here for Bertrand, I like that.
TRAVIS: Yes, 100%. Let's get agility up. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: You have one more
box you can spend as your third level. TRAVIS: Can I--
I'm going to increase my minor threshold by-- I'm going to do
major by by two. MATT: Okay, so you mark that. TRAVIS: So that
goes from 10 to 12. MATT: Correct.
TRAVIS: Sweet. Then because it's level
three, do I again increase severe damage?
MATT: Yep, every single time you level up, you increase
your severe threshold by two again. And, you get to choose
another domain card from the previous
levels if you want to. So you still have
access to the level one and level two Blade cards,
or any of the Bone cards you had previously--
TRAVIS: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. MATT: -- and the new
level three ones, which for the Blade
are Versatile Fighter, "You can choose to use
the character trait "of your choice on an
equipped weapon rather than "the trait it calls for."
TRAVIS: Ooh. MATT: Then "when dealing damage,
you can mark a stress "to take the maximum value
of one of your damage dice "instead of rolling it." You got Scramble, which is
"Once per short rest, "when an enemy in melee
would deal damage to you, "you can avoid
the damage entirely "and safely move
out of melee range." TRAVIS: They just whiff.
Dude, I like these new news. This is great.
MATT: It's pretty fun. Then for the Bone,
you have Brace. "Whenever you use
an armor slot "to reduce incoming damage, "you may also spend
any number of Hope. "For every Hope you spend,
reduce incoming damage "by the value of
your proficiency." Or Tactician. "When
you help an ally," which, you can spend to Hope
at any time to help an ally and describe how
you help them to add the advantage d6
to their roll, the advantage die you
roll, however, is a d8. So you're better at helping
people as a tactician. Whenever you're making
a tag team roll, which is a fun thing you
can do in the game by spending three Hope,
you and another person can team up your
maneuvers together. Whenever you do that, you roll
a d20 for your Hope die instead of a d12. TRAVIS: But I'm selfish, so
I'm going to go with Scramble. MATT: Now we do the final
level four leveling. TRAVIS: Oh four,
going up to four. MATT: Two more boxes you get to--
TRAVIS: I'm going to add an armor slot,
and I'm going to ♪ Hey, permanently add ♪
one hit point slot ♪ MATT: You got it.
TRAVIS: Because I feel like I've been getting
rocked by this point. Increase!
MATT: Oh yeah, and increase your threshold. TRAVIS: Sever! Sever? Sever damage?
MATT: Severe. TRAVIS: I'm pretty
sure it's sever. MATT: Sever.
TRAVIS: We'll reach out to Oxford. (laughs)
MATT: There you go. So 21. Your severe damage
threshold is now 21. That's pretty slick
at level four. So you're now at
seven hit points, an armor score of nine,
which is pretty high, with four armor slots,
which is pretty slick. TRAVIS: This is the best
character you've ever seen. You can just say it. MATT: It's pretty great. TRAVIS: You heard
it here first. MATT and TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: For your final
domain card choice, we now get to the
fourth level. I'll do Bone first.
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: We have Redirect. "When you successfully
evade a ranged attack, "you may roll a number of
d6s equal to your proficiency. "If any of them are a six,
you can mark a stress "to redirect it to instead
damage an enemy "in very close range."
TRAVIS: Dang! MATT: Or Boost. "If you have
an ally in close range of you, "you can mark a stress
to boost off of them "and into the air to
perform an aerial attack "at an enemy within
far range." You essentially speedball
special yourself across the battlefield,
which gives you advantage on the attack and you get
to add a d10 to your damage. Then you end in melee
range to the target. You get literally boost off and thrown towards
an opponent. TRAVIS: I can just
see screaming, open helm with
full plate armor Bertrand Bell screaming--
MATT: (screams) TRAVIS: -- across the, yeah.
MATT: Which is fun. Then for Blade,
we have Deadly Focus. "Once per short rest,
you can apply all your focus "towards a single target. "Choose that target. Until
you attack another target, "you defeat the creature,
or the battle ends, "you add plus one
to your proficiency." TRAVIS: Whoa, so
this would be 3d8? MATT: It would be 3d8
against that one target-- TRAVIS: That one?
MATT: -- until you either defeat them, are defeated,
or you choose to hit something else.
TRAVIS: So good! MATT: Or Fortified Armor. "Increase your armor
total by plus two "while this card is in
your Loadout," and then "once per short rest "you can use an armor
slot without marking it." So you kind of get a
phantom fifth armor slot TRAVIS: I'm already really
stacked on armor. Let me see Boost. MATT: Boost was the--
That was the Bertrand rocket you were talking about.
MATT: Yes, Bertrand rocket! MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Thank you for reminding me. MATT: So with those choices, at level four,
as Bertrand Bell, you have Retaliation,
I See It Coming, Whirlwind, Scramble,
and Boost. TRAVIS: Now, is
there any time you would change out a card,
like you could switch? Or once you've got it,
you've got it? MATT: So at this level,
you have five domain cards in your Loadout,
and five is the maximum that you can have
in your Loadout. Whenever you take a rest,
you can change out cards. So at level five and higher,
you're going to have one card that you put in your Vault. However, you see this
little number in the upper right hand corner?
TRAVIS: I do. MATT: That's the recall cost. That's how much stress
it takes to swap it with a card in your Vault. So even the cards that you
don't pick for your Loadout, the cards that are
more utility focused, you can leave them out, and
then if a situation happens where it's really
useful and you're like, "Oh, I wish I had
put that my Loadout!" You can spend
the number of stress to swap it in with
one of the cards TRAVIS: On a rest,
mark a stress, you can swap. MATT: Well, you can swap it
out for free on a rest. But you can do it
in the moment. TRAVIS: Oh! That adds
a lot of value to one that has a zero stress-- MATT: Exactly.
TRAVIS: Ooh. Okay. MATT: So, some of the zero
stress cards might be not quite as powerful
as other comparable ones, but being zero stress
means you can keep them out of your Loadout
at the higher levels and swap them in if need it. TRAVIS: That's pretty great. MATT: You know. You got
options at your disposal. TRAVIS: Okay. All right.
MATT: It's a pretty solid build. This would be a fun
combatant, I think. Bertrand in his
full plate glory. TRAVIS: (laughs)
MATT: His odd days. TRAVIS: Cosmonaut Bertrand.
MATT: Yeah. BOTH: (laugh) TRAVIS: Oh no! MATT: But nevertheless, thank
you so much for joining us for this little building
character creation process of Bertrand Bell
in Daggerheart. You can learn more and
join our Open Beta Playtest at daggerheart.com. You can dive in. Please, break the game. Tell us what works,
tell us what doesn't. TRAVIS: They're
breaking the game? MATT: Please! That's what the
whole point of Open Beta is! TRAVIS: Okay. Break the game!
MATT: Break it! Tell us what you
really love about it through our official surveys. We want to help craft this
into the best game it can be with your help, so all
of us get to enjoy it in its final version being
the best it can possibly be. The more people
who play the game, the better we can make it. So jump in, destroy it,
tell us all the things that you enjoyed and
want to see improved. We are so extremely excited
to build this game with all of you,
not just for you. So please, play often and
submit your surveys to us. And thank you for joining us. TRAVIS: You can also
send all of the Cosmonaut Bertrand Bell art
directly to me. My socials are above
and below and around. MATT: We're not doing that.
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: But thank you, Travis, for
being our guinea pig on this, and thank you for joining us. Hope you have fun
building your characters.
