Introduction
Guardians are durable first and foremost, capable of enduring huge amounts of damage. Their class feature and many of their Domain Cards encourage them to stack Armor slots and improve their Damage Thresholds so that they can endure quantities of damage that would turn other creatures to paste, then use that incredible durability to defend their allies while engaging whatever enemies might threaten those allies.
The Guardian’s primary role in the party is as a Defender, but the Vengeance subclass leans more toward Striker, encouraging you to aggressively pursue enemies who are attacking your allies. Your damage output won’t compete with the Warrior, but the warrior can’t match your capacity to endure damage.
It’s easy to draw comparisons between the Guardian and the Warrior, both of which are non-magical martial classes. The Guardian is built to be a durable protector who can still deal decent damage, while the Warrior is built to be a versatile, high-damage martial threat focused on offense.
Understanding RPGBOT’s Rating System
RPGBOT uses a 4-tier rating scheme which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- : Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- : OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
- : Good options. Useful often.
- : Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Understanding RPGBOT’s Rating System
- Guardian’s Hope Feature
- Guardian’s Features
- Guardian Subclasses
- Guardian Ancestries
- Guardian Communities
- Guardian Traits
- Guardian Experiences
- Guardian Equipment
- Guardian Multiclassing
- Guardian Domain Cards
- Example Stalwart Guardian Build – The Impenetrable Turtle Shell
Guardian’s Hope Feature
- : Convert Hope directly into
Armor slots. It’s very costly, but will allow you to endure a huge amount of
damage.
When it’s time to rest, you can chose Rest Moves which will do things like clearing Armor slots and generating Hope. Clearing Armor slots will be much more efficient, and only becomes more efficient as your level increases.
Guardian’s Features
- : Very powerful both
offensively and defensively, but also only works once per day, so you need
to use it strategically. If you now that you’re facing a big fight, save
Unstoppable for that fight.
In extended fights, it can be easy to burn through this in 4 turns, thereby losing the benefits. Don’t do that. Instead, place yourself in a good spot to draw attacks from enemies and don’t rush to take turns frequently. Instead, tank some hits and enjoy the reduce damage, then take your turns strategically when you can have an unusally large impact, such as when you can cleave through a group of minions or eliminate a wounded enemy.
Guardian Subclasses
Stalwart
- Foundation Features
- : Not huge, but always impactful.
- : Great motivation to lean into heavier armor and shields. With Unstoppable running, you can entirely negate even Severe Damage.
- Specialization Features
- : Another simple, impactful increase. Stacked with Unwavering, your Damage Thresholds are very good, making it likely that incoming damage will be a tier lower.
- : A great way to defend your less durable allies. This doesn’t prevent your ally from spending their own Armor to also reduce the damage, potentially reduce the incoming damage by two steps.
- Mastery Features
- : +3 is a singificant increase, espeically on top of Unwavering and Unrelenting, giving you a total of +6.
- : Combined with your unusually high damage thresholds, you can endure a huge amount of damage at relatively low cost. If you build yourself to use Stress sparingly, to have lots of Armor slots, and to have high Damage Thresholds, you can use this repeatedly without much issue. You could even turn on Unstoppable and run around taking little or no damage.
Vengeance
- Foundation Features
- : An additional Stress slot is always helpful.
- : 2 Stress to mark a single Hit Point is expensive, so you don’t want to do this frequently, but you can use it to wear down exceptionally difficult enemies or to clear out Minions.
- Specialization Features
- : A nice, consistent damage boost, but it only works if your allies are being attacked and if you can reach whatever hit your ally.
- Mastery Features
- : Swapping the results of your Hope and Fear dice means that you can always roll with Hope. If you attack your target twice, this ability has paid for itself. You’re also less likely to pass the spotlight to the GM since you’re not rolling with Fear.
Guardian Ancestries
- (CRB): Efficient is really good, especially for the Stalward Guardian. Purpose-Built can be very powerful if you invest heavily in Experiences, but the Guardian doesn’t get any Domain Cards that synergize with Experiences.
- (CRB): Scales can be a great way to provide additional damage mitigation, making it even easier to protect your allies with options like I Am Your Shield. However, it may be less useful at high levels if you collect options which raise your Damage Thresholds, as you can stack your Severe Damage Threshold so high that Scales will almost never matter. Elemental Breath is hard to use since it’s Instinct-based and there’s no other reason to build your Guardian around Instinct.
- (CRB): Thick Skin is redundant with Unstoppable and it’s an expensive way to mitigate damage which you should be able to easily mitigate with a mountain of armor. Increased Durability can be a great way to mitigate big hits, but be mindful of the Hope cost to use it.
- (CRB): Quick Reactions can be a great way to mitigate dangerous things that don’t rely on attack rolls, and Celestial Trance gives you an additional Downtime Move which you can use to clear Hit Points, Armor, and Stress, all of which you may be marking unusually often if you’re taking hits for your allies.
- (CRB): Luckbender is great, but it’s expensive and doesn’t have any specific synergy for the Guardian. Flight is also great, but the Guardian is built to be in melee where flight is much less impactful.
- (CRB): Kick may be helpful for getting enemies away from your weaker allies, but you can also take Valor Domain’s Forceful Push.
- (CRB): Charge is only useful if you build around Agility, and Unshakable is unreliable.
- (CRB): The Fungril is never a bad choice, but its features don’t interact with the Guardian’s features or Domain Cards in any way.
- (CRB): Shell is a fantastic, scaling bonus to your Damage Thresholds. Retract likely won’t see consistent use.
- (CRB): An extra Hit Point slot is always useful, and Reach allows you to use higher-damage weapons like greatswords with the benefit of Very Close Range.
- (CRB): Surefooted only matters if you’re building around Agility. Danger Sense can be a great way to defend your allies from big hits.
- (CRB): A simple, reliable choice for any class, and welcome in any party. The ability to give everyone Hope gets more useful in larger parties, so Halflings are more appealing as your party grows in size.
- (CRB): An additional Stress is helpful on any character, and the ability to reroll checks which use your Experiences means that you can reroll the rolls which matter most to your character.
- (CRB): Dread Visage could work very well with Bold Presence, but that’s likely not enough.
- (CRB): Only useful if you build around Agility.
- (CRB): Sturdy is good, but Disadvantage won’t magically solve low Evasion. Tusks is an expensive way to spend Hope for a paltry amount of extra damage.
- (CRB): Amphibious is only situationally useful, and Tongue will only be useful if you build around Agility.
- (CRB): Natural Climber is only situationally useful, but Nimble is great on anyone and doesn’t cut into your resources.
-
(CRB):
Mixed Ancestry is an easy way to optimize, but you need to look for a mix of
Ancestries that complement your build. The options below are not a
comprehensive list, instead focusing on options relevant to the Guardian.
First feature:
- (CRB): A Stalwart Guardian can burn through their Armor slots very quickly, and using Efficient to clear all of your Armor slots on a Short Rest is very powerful.
- (CRB): An additional way to mitigate damage. This is especially useful if you’re using options like I Am Your Shield. However, it may be less useful at high levels if you collect options which raise your Damage Thresholds, as you can stack your Severe Damage Threshold so high that Scales will almost never matter.
- (CRB): A reliable, scaling bonus to your Damage Thresholds. The Guardian has a lot of options that will stack to increase your Damage Threshold, and combining all of them can make your borderline indestructible.
Second feature:
- (CRB): Expensive, but a great way to mitigate the impact of big hits.
- (CRB): A helpful way to force enemies away from your weaker allies.
- (CRB): This seems useful if you’re leaning into options like I Am Your Shield, but it only works 1 in 6 times, which is extremely unreliable.
- (CRB): A great way to defend allies from big hits.
- (CRB): A consistent, reliable improvement to your Evasion with no resource cost.
Guardian Communities
- (CRB): Nothing that specifically complements the Guardian, but it can work well if you invest a bit in Presence.
- (CRB): Nothing that specifically complements the Guardian.
- (CRB): Rolling a d20 for your Hope die is great. Save it for important rolls since you only get to do it once per rest.
- (CRB): Only useful in campaigns where you expect travel to be difficult.
- (CRB): Simple, realiable, and useful for literally any character. If you consider any other Community, ask yourself how it will be meaningfully better than Seaborne.
- (CRB): Not awful, but no synergy with the Guardian.
- (CRB): Only situationally useful, but a lot of adventuring happens in dark places.
- (CRB): Very fun, but also heavily dependent on your GM giving you something good.
- (CRB): The Guardian is all about being a large, visible threat and drawing attacks instead of your allies. Stealth isn’t a good fit.
Guardian Traits
- : The Blade Domain leans heavily on Agility, and a Guardian can absolutley be built around Agility. However, the heaviest armor often comes with a penalty to Agility. You could still build around Agility, but it may limit many of the options which make the Guardian appealing. If you’re building around Strength, it’s safe to dump Agility. Conversely, if you’re building arounnd Agility, it’s usually safe to dump Strength.
- : The Valor Domain depends on Strength, as do shields, so building around Strength is an easy choice for the Guardian.
- : There are a few weapons which use Finesse, but you can find similar weapons which use Strength or Agility, both of which are easier Traits for the Guardian.
- : None of the Guardian’s Domain Cards use Instinct, and few non-magic weapons use it, so there’s no obvious reason to invest here.
- : Bold Presence allows you to stack your Strength and Presence scores, allowing you to handle certain Presence checks reasonably well. The Valor Domain’s Goad Them On depends on Presence, and it’s very good, which may be enough to justify investing in Presence.
- : None of the Guardian’s Domain Cards use Knowledge, and no non-magic weapons, so there’s no obvious reason to invest here.
| Agility | Strength | Finesse | Instinct | Presence | Knowledge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guide Recommended | +1 | +2 | -1 | 0 | +1 | 0 |
Guardian Experiences
Experiences in Daggerheart are intentionally freeform, giving the player and the GM a lot of room to create so long as they can agree that they work. The guidance in the core rulebook says that Experiences should not be overly broad, nor should they be too mechanically-oriented. A sidebar accompanying the Experiences rules suggests one combat-focused Experience and one non-combat Experience, and I think that’s good advice.
We can’t rate or compare options because Experiences are so freeform and subject to GM interpretation. We recommend picking an Experience that supports how you plan to fight (ex: Eagle Eye for an archer) so that you can reliably use it in combat, then use your second Experience for something interesting.
Guardian Equipment
Guardian Weapons
Your best weapon options are Strength-based or Agility-based weapons. Weapons with Very Close range are often good choices, though that will vary depending on your specific build.
Guardian Armor
If you’re building around Strength, you typicaly want full plate or something full plate-adjacent. If you’re building around agility, take the heaviest armor you can get that doesn’t apply an Agility penalty.
Guardian Multiclassing
- (CRB): The Warrior’s core features are a fantastic addition to any Guardian.
Guardian Domain Cards
Blade Domain by Level
- : This is only situationally useful because Severe Damage shouldn’t be a common occurrence. But it is very helpful insurance when it does happen. Combined with armor, you can reduce damage from Severe to Minor.
- : Rerolling 1s and 2s doesn’t increase the average roll of a die very much, so mathematically this adds very little. But the value grows as you add additional damage dice, so it’s at least worth considering.
- : Absolutely spectacular when you’re using a ranged weapon at close range or a weapon like a polearm that has Very Close range. The additional targets take half the damage dealt to your first target, but that will still likely deal at least Minor Damage, which eats through the resources of multiple enemies at the cost of a single Hope. Even better, this has a Recall Cost of 0, so you can rotate it into your Loadout mid combat if enemies position themselves for this to work.
- : 3 Hope for you, 3 Hope
for a friend. Fantastic, reliable, simple. Just be sure that you have good
options to spend that Hope. After you use this, rotate it out of your
Loadout at the earliest opportunity since it’s dead weight once you’ve used
it for the day.
The 3 Hope is exactly enough to use Front Line Tank to clear 2 Armor slots.
- : Advantage is good, but you can’t afford to use this constantly unless you have an easy way to recover Stress like Swift Step.
- : Severe Damage? How about no damage instead? (once per rest, but that’s plenty). While it seems odd, this works with options like Valor Domain’s I Am Your Shield and the Stalwart subclass’s Loyal Protector feature.
- : There are weapons which support every Trait, but you might find a weapon that you absolutely want but just can’t get the trait to line up with your build. In those cases, this is nice. But on its own, it’s only situationally useful. The ability to mark Stress to max a damage die is nice, but enough to make this broadly appealing.
- : Pick the biggest thing in a fight, then go solo it. This combines very well with the Vengeace subclass’s Nemesis feature, and the +1 Proficiency stacks with Act of Reprisal.
- : Simple and effective, even if it’s not very exciting. This stacks with the Stalwart subclass’s imrpovements to Armor Thresholds, potentially making your thresholds exceptionally high.
- : The benefits are really
good and this is really fun, but it only applies when you crit on an attack
roll, which is inherently unpredictable. You will crit 1 in 12 times, which
is often enough that it’s not a rarity, but not so often that you can count
on it happening at a time when this will be useful.
If you’re leaning into crits, consider combining this with Valor Domain’s Critical Inspiration.
- : Simple, effective, and it
explicitly locks itself away in your Vault so that you never need to think
about it. This is an easy pick on any character as you advance because it
won’t try to compete for space in your Loadout.
For Stalwart builds, I recommend +1 Stress slot and +2 to your Damage Thresholds. The bonuses continue to stack, and the extra Stress will support using Loyal Protector more often.
- : You should not be nearly dying so often that you need a high-level backup plan to prevent making Death Moves.
- : Traits don’t scale enough that this is worth the resource cost to use it.
- : Fantastic if you’re building around the Blade Domain. Remember that this card counts as one of the 4 to qualify.
- : Even if you deal absolutely pitiful damage, it’s still a nice consolation prize. Against enemies with high Evasion or enemies who are barely standing, this is fantastic.
- : Only oncer per day, and the
duration is unpredictable, but the effect is absolutely fantastic. Any
important fight should start with this.
This can combine well with the Vengeance subclass’s Nemesis feature since you can reverse your dice, allowing you to avoid rolling with Fear. That won’t stop your allies from doing so, but it will still help.
- : That is a massive damage bonus,
but you really need to be built for this. You want high Evasion, lots of Hit
Points, and options to mitigate damage like Scramble. Strongly consider
multiclassing into Guardian to get the Unstoppable feature or taking Bone
Domain’s On the Brink.
Since this only functions once per day, be sure to rotate it out of your Loadout once you’ve used it.
- : Good benefits, and
they’ll occur more frequently if you’re built to deal lots of damage so that
you’re killing enemies frequently.
Vengeange builds can get a lot of value here. Use options like Act of Reprisal and Nemesis to rapidly switch between whatever enemy last hurt one of your allies, bring them down quickly, repeat.
- : Very good, very simple, and it doesn’t care what weapon you use. Use a Tier 1 crossbow or something just so that you have better range than a melee weapon.
- : With a ton of durability but not a lot of options to boost damage output, this is extremely tempting on the Guardian. Get as many Hit Point slots as possible, raise your Damage Threshold to minimize the risk of Severe Damage, then hang out at low hp and one-shot the BBEG.
- : Fantastic for a Stalwart build
that might otherwise neglect damage output. Guaranteeing Major Damage means
that you’ll always have an impact.
The second half of the ability may go unused most of the time if you have the Stalwart subclass’s Loyal Protector feature.
Valor Domain by Level
- : This is the best armor that you can get in Tier 1, making it a great choice for one-shots. It provides better Damage Thresholds and more Armor Slots than Full Plate (assuming +2 Strength) without the stat penalties. Beyond Tier 1, it’s roughly equivalent to that Tier’s verison of Chainmail, but without the -1 Evasion and potentially with more Armor slots if you improve your Strength. Assuming that you improve Strength at every Tier, this gets you +1 Evasion and +1 Armor slot per Tier compared to Chainmail. That’s good, but not amazing.
- : Forced movement is only
situationally useful, especially since movement is so vague in Daggerheart.
But this has no usage cost, so this can fully replace regular attacks,
getting you that 1d6 additional damage on roughly half of your attacks. You
can use this to can force enemies away from more vulnerable allies, and the
ability to spend Hope to make them Vulnerable means that your party may be
able to pile on additional attacks with Advantage.
Note that this has a 0 Recall cost, making it easy to swap in and out when you need it. When you have enough Domain Cards that you need to put some into your Vault, this is a good candidate.
The Vengeance subclass’s Nemesis feature works very well with Forceful Push since you can guarantee that you roll with Hope.
- : A great way to protect your allies, but be mindful of the resource cost to do so. If you plan to use this, be sure to improve your Stresss capacity when you gain levels and use Hope to clear Armor slots whenever you can.
- : An easy, consistent damage boost. However, it only works in Melee range, so avoid weapon like halberds which have Very Close range.
- : Presence is used in social
situations, so Bold Presence can either make you very good at Presence
checks or it can make up for dumping Presence. The second half of the card
protects you from bad conditions like Vulnerable, which is a helpful
defense. Both benefits are situationally useful, but the situations are
somewhat common.
This has a Recall Cost of 0, allowing you to easily pull it out of your Vault if you find yourself an unexpected social situation.
- : The benefits are
really good and this is really fun, but it only applies when you crit on an
attack roll, which is inherently unpredictable. You will crit 1 in 12 times,
which is often enough that it’s not a rarity, but not so often that you can
count on it happening at a time when this will be useful. Even worse, it
only works once per rest, so, if you’re lucky enough to crit multiple times
in quick succession, you only benefit once.
If you’re leaning into crits, consider combining this with Bone Domain’s Champion’s Edge and Valor Domain’s Rousing Strike.
- : Absolutely fantatic. It only
works once per day, so be sure to rotate this out of your Loadout as soon as
you use it. If this is in your Vault and hasn’t been used, it only has a
Recall Cost of 1, so you’re still net positive if you rotate it in.
This is especially important if you’re using the Stalwart’s Loyal Protector feature or Valor Domain’s I Am Your Shield.
- : Force an enemy to target you with an attack, which they make with Disadvantage, plus force them to mark a Stress. You do need to succeed at a Presence roll, which you might not be very good at, but you can use Bold Presence to also add your Strength to the roll and tip things in your favor.
- : Very good, but you need to be careful about the Hope cost or you’re going to burn through resources so fast that this won’t be useful. Save this for big attacks and for Reaction rolls.
- : Fantastic for the Guardian, especially if you’re using I Am Your Shield to take attacks in place of your allies. The ability to restore armor for your entire party means that allies who took minimal damage may have spare Rest Moves to help heal you and repair your armor, allowing your party to better manage resources.
- : The effect is great, but it’s still inconsistent just like any other crit-focused ability.
- : You’re going to fail rolls sometimes, so this will be consistently useful.
- : A significant and scaling bonus to your Severe Damage Threshold, plus a way to reliably clear Stress by willingly marking a Hit Point when you’re attacked. Be sure to add some additional Hit Point slots to make this a less dangerous prospect.
- : The effect is good, but it’s also a gamble since it has a 50/50 chance to move to your Vault after you use it. If you have a lot of Stress slots, Vengeance builds shold consider this. Stalwart builds should skip this since you can mark two Armor slots when you take damage.
- : Absolutely amazing for the
Guardian. If you take Minor Damage, you can choose to just take the hit and
clear an Armor slot. An Armor Slot isn’t quite as good as a Hit Point slot,
but you’re negating most of the pain of marking a Hit Point.
This combines exceptionally well with Rise Up. You take a hit, choose to mark Hit Points and not spend Armor, and you clear one Stess and one Armor. If you only take Minor Damage, you’re arguably in better condition than you were before you were hit.
- : Only once per day, very expensive, and it only lasts until your next Rest, but it’s great for boss fights.
- : The effect is good, but this needs to compete with Blade Domain’s Whirlwind, which can also hit all enemies within Very Close range and costs 1 Hope instead of 2. Ground Pound’s effect also allows a Reaction roll with a fixed DC of 17 rather than relying on your attack roll which you can boost with things like Experiences and Advantage, making it much more reliable. The only advantage of Ground Pound is that you knock targets out to Far range, which isn’t always useful.
- : Simple and effective without a check. It just works. You might avoid acting for a while to keep enemies Restrained unless your GM wants to spend Fear to let creatures escape. 2 Fear is a steep resource cost. It could easily be 2 enemies attacking your party and dealing a pile of damage.
- : A consistent and easy way to generate resources for your part, provided that you can handle the Stress cost consistently. Two characters in a party with this could use this on alternating turns to farm Hope essentially for free.
- : Great insurance, but you might go long periods without using it, so it just sits and consumes space in your Loadout. Swalwart builds should look elsewhere, but Vengeance builds might consider this.
- : Your Proficiency is at least 4 at this level. According to anydice, you have a roughly 51% chance to roll a 6 on 4d6, roughly 60% on 5d6, and 66.5% on 6d6. Getting an Armor slot for free 2/3 of the time is massive.
Example Stalwart Guardian Build – The Impenetrable Turtle Shell
This build is a tank, plain and simple. Our purpose is to build a Guardian capable of taking as much damage as possible on the party’s behalf, and then to comfortably endure all of that damage. We’ll take massively heavy armor, raise our Damage Thresholds incredibly high, and stand in front of our friends like an impenetrable wall.
The Volcanic Dragon: Ashen Tyrant deals 4d12+15 damage with its attacks, which is the highest damage listed for any Adversary in the Daggerheart Core Rulebook. That deals an average of 41 damage with a maximum of 63. In addition to being very good at absorbing damage for our allies, this build seeks to get our Damage Thresholds as high as possible in hopes of reducing the Ashen Tyrant’s attacks to Minor Damage.
Traits
We’re planning to use the heaviest armor possible with the highest Base Value, and those armors come with an Agility penalty, so we’re building around Strength. We’ll also invest in Presence to support Goad Them On.
| Agility | Strength | Finesse | Instinct | Presence | Knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +1 | +2 | 0 | 0 | +1 | -1 |
Ancestry
Galapa. We want the scaling bonus to our Damage Threshold from Shell. We likely won’t benefit from Retract, so this would be a great time to consider a Mixed Ancestry. Goblin or Simiah are easy go-to options.
Community
Any. Seaborne is always agood default.
Experiences
This build doesn’t depend on Experiences, so you can make these whatever you like. As some examples: “Bodyguard” and “Braggart” could be fun. Bodyguard couple help while defending allies in combat, while Braggart could help in social situations and nicely complements Bold Presence.
Advancement
| Level | Advancements and Cards | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | – Blade Domain: Whirlwind – Valor Domain: I Am Your Shield – Foundation Features: – Unwavering – Iron Will | For your starting equipment, select a mace as your Primary Weapon, a tower shield as your Secondary Weapon, and full plate armor. This gets us 6 Armor slots, but reduces our Evasion by 3 and our Agility by 1. We’re likely to be hit by almost any attack, but our Damage Thresholds are 10/19, so we’ll rarely take more than Minor Damage. As the build advances, our terrible Evasion will actually become an asset. Offensively, we’re relying mostly on regular attacks. Whirlwind will let us handle tightly-packed groups of enemies, but try to reserve Hope to spend on Frontline tank. Between being easy to hit and willingly tanking hits with I Am Your Shield, we’ll need to keep a careful eye on our Armor slots regardless of how many of them we have. Damage Thresholds: 11/20 (8/17 base, +1 level, +1 Shell, +1 Unwavering) |
| 2 | – Valor Domain: Bold Presence – +1 Strength, +1 Presence – +1 Hit Point | Bold Presence gives us a powerful tool to use in social situations. Paired with increasing both our Strength and our Presence, we can do very well on Presence rolls provided that you can spare the Hope to do so. For Tier 2 equipment, I recommend a gilded falchion (it’s strictly better than an improved mace), an improved tower shield, and improved full plate. Our defenses continue to improve as we advance. Our Proficiency improves as we enter Tier 2, improving the bonus from Shell, plus the normal progression as we gain levels and upgrade our equipment. Most of our levels won’t increase our Threshold by 7, but it sure feels good at this level. Damage Thresholds: 18 / 33 (13/28 base, +2 level, +2 Shell, +1 Unwavering) |
| 3 | – Valor Domain: Lean on Me – +2 Stress slots | +2 Stress slots and the ability to clear 2 Stress, both for yourself and for an ally. I Am Your Shield costs a Stress each time you use it, so we’re getting a lot of value here. Remember that you can comfortably move Lean on Me to your Vault once you’ve used it, which will be helpful once you have more than 5 Domain Cards. Damage Thresholds: 19 / 34 (13/28 base, +3 level, +2 Shell, +1 Unwavering) |
| 4 | – Valor Domain: Goad Them On – +2 Hit Point slots FORTIFIED ARMOR | Goad Them On gives us a way to attract attention from enemies that are too far away for us to use I Am Your Shield. If you’re worried that you might fail the roll, use Bold Presence to add your +3 Strength to the check. That +3 will be larger than any of our +2 Experiences, though you could spend a Hope to apply an Experience, too. Damage Thresholds: 20 / 35 (13/28 base, +4 level, +2 Shell, +2 Fortified Armor, +1 Unwavering) |
| 5 | – Valor Domain: Vitality – +1 Proficiency | Vitality gives us a permanent, passive buff, then locks itself away in our Vault. I recommend +1 Stress slot and +2 to Damage Thresholds. As we enter Tier 3, our Proficiency improves by 1 automatically, plus we improve it again to a total of 4. This improves our bonus from Shell from +2 to +4, not to mention the additional damage added to our attacks. For Tier 3 equipment, the Advanced Mace remains our best weapon, despite how incredibly boring it is. You might choose to drop your shield in favor of a 2-handed weapon, which opens up every other Strength-based weapon. A Labrys Axe even provides +1 Armor! For our Secondary Weapon, the Advanced Tower Shield is the obvious choice. A Buckler would be interesting, and we have enough Armor that you could use to deflect attacks easily, but our Damage Thresholds are going to be so high that nearly all damage is Minor Damage, which we can negate with one Armor; therefore, having more Armor slots is more valuable. For armor, Advanced Full Plate is the obvious choice. Runes of Fortification are tempting for the relative +2 to Damage Thresholds, but marking a Stress each time we mark an Armor will mean that we can’t use I Am Your Shield reliably. Bladefare Armor and Monett’s Cloak are tempting, too, but the tiny improvement to Damage Thresholds isn’t worth potentially being unable to use your mountain of Armor. Damage Thresholds: 27 / 47 (15/35 base, +5 level, +4 Shell, +2 Vitality, +1 Unwavering) Our Severe Damage Threshold is now high enough that the Ashen Tyrant’s average damage is only Major Damage, and we’re only level 5. |
| 6 | – Valor Domain: Rise Up – +1 Strength, +1 Presence – Improve Subclass – Unrelenting – Partners-in-arms | Rise Up is fantastic for our build. Choosing to mark a Hit Point instead of an Armor Slot is fantastic for us. Consider this: An enemy attacks an ally. We spend one Stress to become the target of the attack. We take Minor Damage because we’re a mountain of plate armor, turtle shell, and Damage Threshold. We could mark an Armor slot, but instead, we mark a Hit Point, which lets us clear the Stress that we just spent. We have effectively retargeted the incoming attack at no cost. Flawless tanking. Also, Rise Up increases our Severe Damage Threshold by our Proficiency. We’ll grab an extra Hit Point slot and improve our subclass, which gets us two new features: Unreleting (+2 to Damage Thresholds) and Partners-in-arms, which lets us spend Armor to mitigate damage for allies even if we don’t use I Am Your Shield. Damage Thresholds: 28 / 52 (15/35 base, +6 level, +4 Shell, +2 Vitality, +1 Unwavering, +2 Unrelenting, +4 to Severe from Rise Up) |
| 7 | – Valor Domain: Valor-Touched – +2 Hit Point slots | Valor-Touched is borderline unfair on this build. Our damage Thresholds are absurdly high, so nearly all damage that we take will be Minor Damage. We can mark one Armor to ignore it, or we can mark a single Hit Point to clear a Stress and clear an Armor. The rate at which you recover is so good that it takes sustained, concentrated effort from a large number of enemies to bring you down. And if that situation presents itself, turn on Unstoppable and you’re functionally immortal. Damage Thresholds: 29 / 53 (15/35 base, +7 level, +4 Shell, +2 Vitality, +1 Unwavering, +2 Unrelenting, +4 to Severe from Rise Up) |
| 8 | – Blade Domain: Fortified Armor – +1 Hit Point – Improve Subclass – Undaunted – Loyal Protector | We don’t need anything at this level, so we’re dipping way back into Blade Domain to pick up Fortified Armor. It’s another +2 to Damage Thresholds with a Recall Cost of 0, so we can keep it in the Vault until we take a few hits or we see a high-damage enemy, then rotate it into our Loadout for free. As we enter Tier 4, our Proficiency improves by 1 automatically. We’ll wait to improve it again until level 9 so that we can improve our subclass instead. Undaunted gets us another +3 to Damage Thresholds For Tier 4 equipment, get an impact gauntlet as your Primary Weapon (it does more damage than the legendary mace). For your Secondary Weapon, take a legendary tower shield for the Armor slots. A braveshield is tempting, but we already have Partners-in-arms from our subclass. Surprise, surprise, legendary full plate remains our easiest armor choice. But it’s not our only good choice. Savior Plate is very tempting. The penalty to all of our Traits will hurt, especially outside of combat, but those Damage Thresholds are very enticing. Full Fortified Armor gets an honorable mention, too, but we don’t need it because our Damage Thresholds are insanely high. Damage Thresholds: Damage Thresholds: 40 / 72 (17/44 base, +8 level, +5 Shell, +2 Vitality, +2 Fortified Armor, +1 Unwavering, +2 Unrelenting, +3 Undaunted, +5 to Severe from Rise Up) |
| 9 | – Valor Domain: Hold the Line – +1 Proficiency | Hold the Line makes us very sticky, forcing enemies to stay and fight us or forcing the GM to spend Fear to get them away. If you turn on Unstoppable, enemies will be largely unable to damage us at all since your Damage Thresholds are stacked high enough to handle boss monsters comfortably. Your GM will be forced to spend large amounts of Fear to get enemies away from you. Improving our Proficiency gets us another +1 to Damage Threshold and another damage die on our attacks. 6d10+11 damage is pretty great considering that we’ve invested so little in offense. Damage Thresholds: 42 / 75 (17/44 base, +9 level, +6 Shell, +2 Vitality, +2 Fortified Armor, +1 Unwavering, +2 Unrelenting, +3 Undaunted, +6 to Severe from Rise Up) Our Minor Damage Threshold is now higher than the Ashen Tyrant’s average damage, which means they’ll do Minor Damage more than half of the time that they attack us. We just barely beat the number, but I’m still calling it a success! |
| 10 | – Valor Domain: Unyielding Armor – +2 Stress Slots | Unyielding Armor is the perfect capstone for us. Nearly all damage in the game will be Minor Damage. You can choose to use Armor, then you have a roughly 2/3 chance to not mark the slot, making that damage free. You have, in effect, tripled the value of your 12 Armor Slots. Combined with I Am Your Shield, Partners-in-arms, and Loyal Protector, we’re tanking hits for our allies almost constantly, and massively improving the value of our Armor slots makes that much more sustainable. If something does start wearing down your armor, you can spend 3 Hope to clear 2 Armor slots, or you can willingly take damage and mark a Hit Point to clear a Stress and an Armor slot. The amount of damage it takes to kill you is more plot point than combat encounter. I’m usually the first one to cry “Tank Fallacy” about builds like this, but we’re dealing 6d10+11 damage (average 44), which is pretty good. We’re using I Am Your Shield and our subclass features to ensure that our allies almost never take damage, and we’re using Hold the Line to keep enemies from chasing our allies (or at least exacting a nasty toll when they try). We’re durable, we’re sticky, and we’re everyone’s best friend. We’re the perfect Defender. Damage Thresholds: 43 / 76 (17/44 base, +10 level, +6 Shell, +2 Vitality, +2 Fortified Armor, +1 Unwavering, +2 Unrelenting, +3 Undaunted, +6 to Severe from Rise Up) |
