How to Make a Character in Daggerheart | Open Beta

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. TR

AVIS: 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 q

uestions 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 Wiza

rd, 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 righ

t. 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 Ber

trand 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 re

present 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 ab

ility 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 h

ere, 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 lev

el 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 po

ints. 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. T

hat 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 thresh

olds, 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: Ye

ah. 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. TRAVI

S: 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: Nada? 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 tru

e. 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: Necess

ary 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: Draw

ing 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 of

ten, 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 resu

lt, "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 pi

ck. 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, b

ut 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 thi

ngs 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 ma

ybe 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 ab

out 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 bette

r 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 tha

t. 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, th

e 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 charact

er 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 t

he 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, yo

u 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 y

our 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 box

es 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, whic

h 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 arm

or 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 si

x, 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 boos

t 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 tak

e 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 you

r 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 Be

ll 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 versi

on 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.