#daggerheart pc

[resolart]

character sheet for my new daggerheart pc miss kitty! got to play a lil last weekend and it’s been soooo fun so far 💕

[acharliek]

Anyone else constantly making new daggerheart PCs? Just me? Cool

Anyways this is Kaine, a goblin ranger because rangers are my favourite class (idc that they're boring leave me alone) and I wish I could play them one day but alas I'm the forever DM/GM so probably won't happen 😂 still fun to play around with the character creation tools tho

[nixnuevo]

local Silly Guy daggerheart pc

[burr-ell]

finally watching daggerheart critmas and a laura bailey pc has daddy issues AND a relationship of all time with a taliesin pc. it's weird that it happened twice

[alliekitaguchi]

random things i want to see in future cr campaigns:

travis/marisha as brother and sister (yes, this is because i believe in power of brjeau)

liam o'brien warlock build

travis willingham cleric build

liam/travis pc romance

sam riegel druid build

laura/ashley as twin sisters (this is inspired by oppy and sweetpea from daggerheart, yes)

travis willingham wizard build

LIAM/SAM PC ROMANCE

ashley johnson bard build

ASHLEY JOHNSON FIGHTER BUILD

someone else playing a monk because they're so op i literally don't care who but please for the love of god give me another monk

marisha ray rogue assassin build

LIAM/ASHLEY PC ROMANCE

[luckyjak]

I have made the mistake of reading reddit, and there is a lot of speculation there that Critical Role, as a company, is gearing up to Nuke Exandria and replace it with Daggerheart. Which I am all for, personally, but that's not this thread.

One chain of comments is that the PC's previous characters would become the gods of this new world--i.e., Vax would become the god of death, Jester a God of Chaos, ect. And someone said Caleb as a God of time.

No no no no no.

*Essek's* the God of Time. Caleb?

Caleb is the god of *change.**

Caleb is the god of hearth. He is the god you pray to in the cold dark of winter to keep your family warm. He is the god of light and fire and hope. He is the god of no more children on pyres, of a difference thinner than a razor.

He's a god of redemption.

They say, at the Church of Widogast, that everyone is capable of redemption. That it is never too late to change.

A popular story at the church is that even a shadowed hand may find its way to the light through Widogast, although there are none alive now who know the origin of that phrase.

[utilitycaster]

(well, my feelings on Laudna are documented but I do think Imogen is a great character)

Oh! I found your blog rather recently but did you write Laudna meta early on? Or did you mean when the recent Delilah stuff went down?

I do not want to go too far into it and I suspect some of it is untagged (I have to find a way to tag for myself and not for the main character tags when writing crit) but in short: Laudna just...isn't a well thought out character. At every single Q&A panel and 4SD Marisha's summary boils down to "I wanted to make someone creepy, and then I thought 'what about a sun tree corpse, and what if her patron was Delilah'" and it it kind of stops there. When you couple it with the fact that Imogen was terrified of having any conflict with her until it became the only option, it really was like...I know Delilah was a big part of her backstory but Laudna did very little with her until episode 77 of the campaign. Like, for reference, Fjord had already helped fulfill 2/3rds of what his patron wanted and then broken his pact, gone without powers for almost 4 episodes, and found a new patron by pretty much exactly that point. There was almost no engagement with what it means to be a sorcerer (which Imogen covers skillfully even with all the new stuff that was thrown at Laura) and it was very little with an anticlimatic payoff for warlock (which, see Fjord, but also I'm not a big fan of Yu and at least they covered that concept adeptly).

Like...I remember at an early panel Marisha said "I don't want to think anymore" and the thing is like...it shows. Made a nonromanceable character and then said yes when romance came up. Didn't initially plan to take more warlock levels (already undercutting the idea of Delilah having much of a hold on her). Envisioned her character would be over her trauma and then extremely wasn't.

There's PCs I've disliked far more, or had more trouble with - Laudna's never been unlikeable. But she's always been just...profoundly disappointing until I gave up on her not being disappointing and decided she'd be there and do some cool things occasionally and never contribute a lot in the way of story.

For what it's worth, and this ties back to some of my thoughts on Campaign 3 generally, I do think that the CR cast could do another campaign in D&D in Exandria and it could achieve the heights of (pick C1 or C2 depending on personal preference; mine is C2 but I respect a C1 answer). But it requires a real session zero. I think the cast counts their mini playtests as a session zero, and I get it, because with the main cast there's not that same need to set personal boundaries or lines and veils because they know each other. But there isn't that same full-group planning. They've been releasing their Candela and Daggerheart session zeroes and just put out their Moonward one as well, and they talked extensively about the Calamity and Downfall planning sessions, and it's just...again, it shows. I think C1 and C2 work because, as I said in my post just now about Marquet, the characters sort of set the world and the campaign came from them. Once you have a more set plot in a more solidified world, I think you need to have that kind of group discussion, and they didn't, and Laudna especially feels indicative of that because I think a few pointed questions and Marisha would have realized there needed to be more to work with.

[cptn-bluebeard]

My main concern is the timeline for finishing up campaign 3: we have only have Bell’ Hells once this month and then they’re not back until the new year since the Daggerheart live show is broadcasting on the 19th. I’m torn between them getting through the Predathos fight next week or stalling enough that the “finale” is in the new year. I think if they have the Predathos fight next week, then the fallout/end of campaign is going to feel disconnected, but I feel like a “filler” episode/ “fight to the hallowed cage” type episode won’t be as satisfying? Idk, I’m sure they have an idea of how this is going to work.

This also brings up another point of Bell’s Hells ending so soon. A shorter campaign than both VM and MN paired with the fact that it hasn’t been Bell’s Hells the entirety of the campaign, what with the EXU cast and Downfall and the other PC groups, it’s honestly a shame we don’t get to see more of these characters and I think that’s going to be a strike towards Bell’s Hells at the end of all this (like they’re aren’t already at the bottom of a lot of people’s lists, but I absolutely ADORE Bell’s Hells). Also, the lack of certainty about the end for them also sets them apart from the other groups in the sense of the first two had a clear goal of “defeat the bad guy” while Bell’s Hells has a lot more complexity and nuance to their decision they still need to figure out at the literal last minute. I’m intrigued and excited to see where we go but also a little saddened that they aren’t sharing the same gravitas overall.

[charonarp]

Small Update (positive / ramble)

I'm literally working on two documents for this freaking project omfg

One is called "Minecraft Diaries: D&D 5e", which was semi-shared earlier, which is to focus on the primary stuff like locations, races/species, important figures, etc.

The other is called "Minecraft Diaries: Expanded Guide", which is literally meant to be a guide on how to go about making your own region, your own important figures (like Irene and her Divine Warriors), and whatnot.

Some info might not be entirely accurate. I'm mainly depending on the wiki for knowledge, which...isn't a lot, tbh. I've already rewatched season one at least a month ago, and that took...a while. My job certainly ain't making binge watching easy lol.

Combining info from MCD and Diaries Rebirth is certainly a choice...but honestly, Diaries Rebirth is easier for me to go back to than to rewatch three whole seasons of MCD...even though I want to...

Like...why am I doing this? I'll never get to DM it lol, but you know what? Other people might. I think it'd be wonderful if other people get into it. If not, oh well!

Daggerheart is definitely helping with this process tho, and I've been taking some inspiration from AFK Journey for some things (that game has me in a chokehold).

From now on, I'll be using the tag "mcddnd" for future updates, cuz why not. It's not an actual tag, so it'd be easy to find updates I guess. (I'll still use the main tags, but I gotta use a tag so that stuff is organized somehow, ya know?)

If you got any suggestions, lmk! It'll certainly help out tbh. I don't really have anyone to bounce off of, so I'm kinda going solo on this lol.

Honestly, I might just scratch off trying to make custom NPC sheets for characters like Gene, Zane, etc... I like making character sheets, but PCs and NPCs are SO different and honestly, making NPC sheets hurts my brain lol. Which is sad, because I was hoping to add NPC sheets in the main document should anyone want to add the actual characters into the game.

Like...I was working on Gene's stuff, but I don't know how to keep things balanced, nor do I recall everything about Gene. Man, working on homebrew is hard.

[encyclopediacr]

Last month at the wiki — March 2024

Every month, we highlight significant work done in the previous month by our editing community at Encyclopedia Exandria. This one is a LONG one, so fair warning...

March 2024 saw the creation of 83 (eighty-three) new mainspace articles! A bit more on why so many later, but first here's a selection of ten of them. You can find more at the 50 newest pages report.

Zora Manning, Lightkeeper for the Circle of the Crimson Mirror

Nokari, Lightkeeper for the Circle of Tide & Bone

Isle of Serenity, island in the Glass Sea

Nymph, type of fey

Pyre, sect of the Ascendancy

Ashley Middlebrook, producer at Critical Role Productions

Ruidian glass, material found on Ruidus

Rashinna, leader member of the Volition

Gaz Tomo, member of the Volition

Vezoden Amerai, champion of the Strife Emperor

So, why so many new articles? We created individual articles for every episode of Midst! Using information we already had in list of Midst episodes, we were able to create episode articles painlessly, programmatically, and promptly with Python magic. We've also made updates to our episode infobox for Midst to document airdates for the re-releases and for subscribers, illustrators for the video versions, and appendices links. Now that we've got individual articles, the summaries on the list were made more concise to provide different levels of summarization and to make appendices links easier to see. Work is also underway on the individual articles, including more robust summaries (now that they're standalone rather than in a table), appendices summaries, and illustration galleries. You can check out the articles for Unrise, Switcheroo, and Tempest for a peek at what we're aiming for and slowly moving toward.

Character infoboxes now have a place for movement speeds, making it easier to do thought experiments about which PC will win in a race. Also, we've historically had explanatory notes for multiple stats or DCs in a hover. We've changed our best practices to instead place these into a footnote formatted similar to references so that these notes can be accessed by mobile users.

The character infobox was also updated to handle stats for systems other than Dungeons & Dragons. We've added new items for Daggerheart (we're still getting a feel for what should be included), and we have options for a full custom stat array. This allows us to better handle Daggerheart characters in the future, should we see more of them, but also to better handle PCs in past one-shots who were not well-serviced by the less flexible stat handling. We've also inserted new fields to properly reflect Daggerheart's Community and Ancestry character options.

As always, check out our Candela Obscura coverage. Newfaire has been updated with more points of interest from the core rulebook. We've also got a lengthy bibliography of interviews related to the show on top of our regular coverage for this month's continuing adventures of the Circle of the Crimson Mirror.

[disastergenius]

I think that if Campaign 3 is wrapping up and we are to see more of Bell's Hells, it's going to be in oneshots or in short (<5 episode) mini-campaigns with split parties.

Reasoning:

Based on the last BH 4SD announcement, people are predicting 3-5 episodes are left of C3. It could be slightly more, since 4SDs have been a bit inconsistent schedule-wise and they could have something like 6-8 episodes and just decided to stretch it to the campaign wrap-up instead of a 4SD so close to the end. But it sounds like the campaign really is in it's end game and thus will end after Ludinus's defeat. While the cast has expressed interest in following up BH storylines or at least continuing with BH characters, it does seem like the campaign proper is ending post big boss battle.

Bell's Hells as a party are not always the most interested in following things that don't involve them directly, so some characters may not want to pursue certain storylines with the others. imo, BH have been pretty isolated in caring about their personal relatedness to an issue but not much past that, regardless of other party member involvement (ex: only Ashton wanted to learn more about the Hishari cult, Delilah interest was limited entirely to when she was an active threat and not otherwise), so I don't really think it's a stretch to say that some PCs are not going to want to continue looking into certain plots after they defeat Ludinus. So splitting the party would give them more freedom to explore arcs either fully absent so their characters don't have to fake an investment in a plot (for lack of a better term, this is not related to the cast having no interest in other characters but their PCs personal goals) or to possibly play as other characters if they were all still playing.

Similar to the way many said in C2 that Veth really had no reason to stay with the party after she was returned to being a Halfling (regardless of whether this is a take you agree with), BH overall don't have as much a reason to stay together at the end of the campaign. They've completed their mission, they're splitting from there, so doing short split campaigns would fit with that if they wanted to keep exploring plot lines they didn't get to touch on during the main campaign without dragging all the PCs along.

Outside the game, it gives them something familiar to work with for their audience (continuing C3 which is popular despite what both fans and haters of it will say about it), and let's them play characters that they do clearly enjoy playing. They've all telegraphed some intents that they have for the futures of their characters, some of which could probably be neatly wrapped up in an epilogue but others they sound like they want to fully flesh out. So short of doing books or other media (which would be their usual options), short mini-campaigns might be the way to explore those plots instead.

All that to say, I don't know what they're planning next, and we'll have to wait and see into the new year what their plans are. I'm sure as the campaign wraps up they will be putting out more things, whether that be the beginning of Campaign 4 or smaller arcs with Daggerheart (I personally want to see Candela return but that seems unlikely) or simply taking a break for a while to focus on M9 Animated/TLOVM Season 4, but I'm excited.

[hoarding-stories]

The Daggerheart oneshot pcs:

Kexson Peros

Oppenheimer "Oppy" Betabean

Bunnie

Sir Dante Terrapin

Xarlo Grandall

Pango Small

Sweetpea Betabean

[littlebosslady7]

Thinking about how Daggerheart Critmas was essentially a Vox Machina '80's holiday modern AU.

Tanner and Gwennie's dynamic was so Pike and Grog.

Marisha while a firbolg had nature elements like Keyleth.

Future mention of character romance between Sam and Ashley's PCs.

Hints of a crush between Taliesin and Laura's PCs as well as Laura and Liam's PCs/

Fun sibling dynamics. Crushes everyone and an always good different more Ashley involvement.

[ultraflavour]

Character-first Fantasy TTRPGs

Games like Lancer, Gubat Banwa, ICON, Draw Steel, Daggerheart, even Fabula Ultima sometimes get described as "4E Inspired."

I think that's true in a broad sense, but there's something deeper that connects all of these games that 4E doesn't have, and that's a respect for the narrative journey of the characters.

None of the games I've listed have the traditional "Death Saving Throw." You never have to tear up your character sheet because a Skeleton got a lucky Crit in the first combat of the game, and the Bard didn't have Healing Word prepped.

Each of these games either give the player mechanical choices to choose how close to death their character ever gets (Lancer, Daggerheart, Draw Steel) or they make the consequences of defeat entirely narrative (Gubat Banwa, ICON, Fabula Ultima).

World-first vs. Character-first

I was having difficulty putting this categorization to words until I read a post from makapatag, the author of the aforementioned Gubat Banwa. In that article, he lays out a way of thinking about OSR games as being "World-first," as opposed to games like D&D, Exalted, and Lancer which are "Character-first." In World-first games, the character is never so powerful that they can override the dangers of the environment. They have to adapt to the setting to survive.

I understand the allure of this type of play, especially from the GM's standpoint. But at the same time, I find that I am most comfortable when I am at least sharing in the direction of the narrative. When the game has rules that put the players' characters in the driver's seat of the narrative, it lessens the burden on the GM to tell a story, but expects more of the players in return.

Bizarro-OSR

So in this way, "Character-first Fantasy" works as a sort of "Anti-OSR," a celebration of powerful PCs running roughshod in a fantastical sandbox. Not exactly a "New School Renaissance" though, because these ideas aren't necessarily new.

I think this style of play describes how a lot of people approach D&D 5E, since it has a lot of rules that describe abilities and spells that make the players increasingly harder to corral as they gain levels.

At the same time, I think games like 5E and Pathfinder have their feet planted too far in the past to consider either of them to be truly a part of this genre. Both have very punishing death mechanics that can turn seemingly easy encounters into painful death spirals that lead to torn-up character sheets.

The Only Time I Was Ever Happy

I can't stress enough just how much it changed the game to play a Warforged for the first time in D&D 4th Edition. In that edition, Warforged have a rule that they can never roll lower than 10 on their death saving throws. That meant that unless they were being actively attacked while knocked out, they would never just "bleed out."

When I didn't have to worry about losing my character, I could take risks that I thought a "Superhero" would take. It led to me getting my ass beat mercilessly, on many occasions, but I think that's what a hero would do: They would take on any amount of suffering if they believed it would make the world a better place for the people they loved.

Power Fantasy?

You could maybe classify this style of game as being strictly based around Power Fantasy. But I think it's more about the rules supporting the player's exploration of their concept than strictly being about overpowering every obstacle put in front of you.

In any game that is trying to tell the story of a character, there have to be ups and downs. I don't think it's either necessary, or even good for the players to always win. But as long as the mechanics of the game aren't punishing you for being defeated, you have more freedom to push yourself for the sake of the narrative.

Some people derisively refer to this style of play as "Superhero" fantasy, and I don't think that's necessarily incorrect, but... It's also fun. There's nothing inherently wrong with letting your players romp around in giant robots, as long as they acknowledge the responsibility they've just been handed.

When you play in a very punishing adventure or system for the first time, you realize quickly that farting around will get you killed. Enjoy sitting out the rest of the adventure because you tried to do a skateboard trick over that Iron Golem, smarty pants.

It makes that feeling of power in a more Character-centric game that much more rewarding. But you also realize just how hard it is for the GM to keep you reeled in. In these games, it's very important for open collaboration between the GM and the players. It's really hard for the GM of a Character-centric game to plan a narrative when the players can constantly kick down the walls of the setting that are supposed to be constraints to them.

Rules-Medium?

One of the biggest changes D&D made in the leap from 4th to 5th was an overhaul of the rules that left a lot more room for narrative improvisation than 4th Edition or even Pathfinder.

That's not to say that these games necessarily need a rules-light approach. The important thing connecting them is that the rules support the fantasy that the characters represent. If my character is good at fighting, I want mechanics that help to reflect that in the game world, without resorting to handwaving.

For this reason, I think a lot of more "fiction-first" games in the PbtA or FitD mechanical genre get disqualified here. They tend to focus a lot on the narrative consequences of the interactions between the characters and the setting, and frame the players' powers less as "tools to conquer the setting" and more as "prescriptive ways to move toward your goals in a narrative-appropriate way." Does that make sense?

For a true rules-light approach to this budding genre of ttrpg, I would check out any game in the LUMEN system family of games from Spencer Campbell at Gila RPGs. I'm excitedly anticipating my Kickstarter copy of Infinite Revolution from Gwendolyn Clark to arrive, I think that game is going to really kick ass.

Well, Anyways

I wrote a lot of this on not a lot of sleep. My mind has been racing, trying to put a lot of these ideas to words. The aforementioned blog by makapatag really helped to put a lot of my thoughts about the current (and future) state of Fantasy into focus.

It's entirely possible, also, that this idea is not new. I'm sure there's someone out there who has had the same thought as me, and my lazy ass never actually tried to find their writing. Instead I just wrote it out again, because I'm a huge PIECE OF CRAP.

Anyways, sleepy tea is kicking in, good night.

[chieftwitelon]

before I say anything I just want the record to show that I am ride or die for bells hells, I love those bitches, I cried real tears when Fearne, Orym, and Laudna went down.

That being said, I am beginning to solidify a nagging feeling that C3 is an ending for Exandria. Matt wants to break this world and get all of the PCs involved across campaigns, this is so clear to me after all of this Daggerheart content. I love that plan, I want Imogen and Fearne to give in to predathos and embrace the power and reckon with it. I want Laudna by the end of this campaign to scare Delilah. I want Orym to do what he thinks is best and save the world no matter the personal cost. I want to explore more of Ashton and FCG's pasts. I want Chetney to die in the most ridiculous circumstances possible.

And when all is said and done, I cannot wait to leave Exandria as we know it behind and embrace Daggerheart.

[utilitycaster]

i know you've talked about some of the weaker points in the planning or prep for this campaign but the more I think about it, the more bizarre 'pulpy' feels as a description for this campaign if Matt knew it was going to be The Moon Plot. Some of the characters leaned into the pulpy descriptor but I feel like MOST of the pulpiness comes from the characters vs the plot, and a lot of the pulpier traits are the parts that seem to be the problem points. I wonder if there was a better word to pitch?

yeah...it's hard because it is very action-focused, which is pulpy, but I think it's hard to create a D&D PC that's "pulpy". Honestly I still think the way to go was to be like "hey, this is going to be a very action-focused campaign with a that won't focus a ton on character backstory-based arcs. Also there will be a lot of lore, so at least one of you should make an intelligence-based character."

I also just think that Matt should have prepped Laura and Taliesin more on the Apex War, like just told them outright what their characters would know from having lived it, and given them a few key figures within it, even if they hadn't specifically created those characters. Like, again, I run Netherdeep and I just straight up told my brother, who does not watch CR and who plays a former Aurora Watch character from Asarius, who Verin was during our initial sessions, because he would know this, so then when they met Verin he recognized the name and could then make checks to recall more. Basically, you know how Matt and Laura met and he told her the deep Raven Queen lore? He should have done that with Imogen and Ashton about Otohan on a very cursory level before the game started. As I said, they really could have kept most of the current party's concepts intact and made a few small changes and it would have been transformative. Like literally just slightly different character creation instructions and a single two hour session zero (a REAL ONE. NOT A PLAYTEST. ONE LIKE THE CANDELA, DAGGERHEART, AND MOONWARD ONES.)