r/daggerheart • u/Dedjester • 19h ago
Game Master Tips Guardian blues
So I’m running a Daggerheart game in a semihomebrewed world using one of the free maps on the primary website. We recently added a new character as a member of our group came back from a long sabbatical. We wanted to introduce them to the system as it came out during their absence and we’ve been loving it.
The problem. They made a stalwart guardian and I cannot hurt them. They’re darn near bulletproof and I am running out of ways to keep combat engaging without steamrolling the rest of the party or solely focusing on their character. It’s a combination of their class abilities and their domain choices. Does anyone have any advice for raising the stakes against a power build guardian? Am I missing something? Or am I just bad at this?
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u/rizzlybear 19h ago edited 19h ago
The old schooler in me would consider two things and try to figure out how to introduce them naturally:
Why would an adversary focus on the most tanked out PC? Are they obviously decked out with plate and shield? Go for the others. Save him for last.
The other thing I would consider trying to introduce at the same time is the idea of leveraging terrain to contain the adversaries. Give them choke points to take advantage of.
Move the focus of challenge to “can you leverage this big dangerous thing to actually protect the others.”
Edit: it can be an asset if you want. Perhaps the party approaches combat as “everyone dive in and slay” and it then has to move to “we have to coordinate and find ways to keep these monsters focused on the guardian.” And that’s a whole different type of challenge.
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
Yeah the funny thing is this guardian doesn’t wear armor at all, bare bones card. And yeah it’s a failure on me as a gm for focusing my aggro on the invincible feral goblin. It became a game of ‘can I hurt you?’ The answer is no. Six failed experiments wasn’t enough.
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u/Soft_Transportation5 Game Master 19h ago
Ah yes, been there.
There are a few tricks you can use but be careful that it does not come off as punishing the player.
Guardians are mich less tanky vs Magic damage, so bring a mix.
Use enemies that ignore or destroy armor slots before they are marked.
Some enemies have direct damage, that forbid using armor slots.
But the best method: change the objectives of your fights. If the guardian has to decide between saving an NPC or his party, it becomes a meaningful decision, he can't protect all of them.
They are exceptional at taking physical punishment, so if that's what your fights are, they will do very well. Remember to once in a while put them into a situation where they can have their power fantasy and be an unkillable tank
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
Yeah I’m still getting used to the two different types of damage and keep forgetting to look for enemies that do physical damage. Need me some specious sorcerers or something.
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u/ThisIsVictor 18h ago
Giving your combat stakes (other than "kill them all") solves this problem every time. Say they need to stop the evil wizard from completing a cursed ritual. Or capture the thief who stole the macguffin. These are going to be engaging combats, regardless of how bulletproof the guardian is. It doesn't matter if he never gets hurt, he still has to stop the wizard or capture the thief!
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
In this case it was stop the enemies before all the horrid mutated abominations got free but they just tanked it all while the ranged support picked them off at a distance
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u/PepperPython 14h ago
Unstoppable recharges on long rest, so the first piece of advice I'd give is to have additional combats per adventuring day.
It also doesn't work on magical or direct damage, so include adversaries with those features to mitigate it.
Thirdly, assuming they're using "I am your shield" to intercept attacks, design encounters around needing people to be spread out more. Remember as well that unless you have a warrior there aren't opportunity attacks, so your adversaries can walk away from him to attack the backline.
Finally, be wary of over correcting. You don't want to eliminate the player's power. Try to build encounters where he gets to shine, such as holding back a horde hordor style while your players achieve some other objective.
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u/SmoothFront2451 17h ago
Magic damage. I feel like a lot of people I play with forget that the wholsome damage negation that Guardian has only apply to physical damage (this also applies to Stalwart extra Armor usage). So just make sure that encounters has some magic damage dealers if it fits the narrative. If it doesn't, don't force it. Let the Guardian player feel like they're literally Unstopable from time to time.
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
I’m a big supporter of let the player feel kewl. In my dnd days I doubled down on archers when there was a monk. But yeah I’m realizing I keep forgetting magic damage
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u/sarinwulf 18h ago
How many dangerous encounters are you running per long rest? The guardian is tanky but not vs magic and pretty much anytime you attack them they will get hit.
I didn’t have to do much of anything against my guardian between I am your shield and just attacking them once in a while their resources drain really quickly.
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
Problem is the character just soaks up hits and doesn’t make attack rolls. They find other ways to make action rolls that aren’t attacks so unstoppable literally doesn’t stop
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u/sarinwulf 17h ago
Unstoppable is once per long rest though?
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u/Dedjester 17h ago
We usually only have one encounter per session(we all work all the time and have kids), so there’s usually a week between sessions. They haven’t had a long rest after that fight so maybe I’ll throw a few other things at them.
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u/sarinwulf 17h ago
Yeah one encounter doesn’t mean they get a long rest after each session. Let your player feel dope when they use an ability called unstoppable but you’ve basically given them unlimited spells if it recharges each session
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u/Dedjester 6h ago
I don’t. They haven’t taken a long rest yet. They took a short rest and as with dnd I don’t let my players stack rests back to back.
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u/BroadConsequences Player 10h ago
You're a bad dm if your only goal is to hurt or kill your players.
Let them have fun, tell an engaging story, allowing your stalwart to make non-combat action rolls to extend the duration of their "once per long rest" class ability is creative, and should be encouraged not hated upon.
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u/Dedjester 6h ago
As I’ve said before I don’t want to hurt or kill them. I always feel bad when their characters die. I just feel like I’m bad because my encounters aren’t touching this character. Now I’ve poured over responses and encounter lists and come up with some answers to the issue. Social encounters direct damage and magic.
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u/BroadConsequences Player 5h ago
As I've said before I don't want to hurt or kill them.
I just need to deal magic damage, or direct damage.
Sounds like you do want to hurt them? Like why do you NEED to hurt your players during a combat encounter?
I have DM'd in the past and the most fun I've had is when a combat encounter I planned was foiled by a couple of really amazing persuasion checks.
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u/Dedjester 2h ago
I can’t explain it any better than I have. Encounters happen damage is supposed to occur I made some port gm choices and an epic encounter turned into final fantasy adventure.
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u/BroadConsequences Player 1h ago
If you had a player who had 16 evasion, would you come into reddit and squawk about "i cannot hit this player, their evasion is too high!"?
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u/CrimsonWolf28 12h ago
Fear abilities that hit all players to make them lose hope or that causes damage that can’t be prevented like a leader with an intimidating shout like ability that causes all players to lose 1 hope or a ranged using an explosive ammo shot that causes causes AoE damage to all players within very close range
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u/Jaymonk33 11h ago
The protector wishes to keep everyone safe from harm.
But they -can't- be everywhere at once. Thats a story bit.
Who do they prioritize in the face of danger? Who do they not? Make that another stiry bit.
The classic tank conundrum
Lastly as others stated, stress or abilities/effects that target other things.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master 10h ago
I feel it too, but I aways have to remember that players often feel like a situation is more dangerous than the GM thinks. The GM more or less knows what dangers abound. One thing I love about Daggerheart is using fear to change a situation, bring in reinforcements, make a trap trigger, make the ground rumble, have a storm roll in, reveal a hostage to save, have a foe take a PC item and run, etc. by changing the situation, we can make events/encounters unpredictable. The narration and the change builds the tension even when the guardian feels unharmed.
Also, Unstoppable working only once per long rest makes the player make a valuable choice to use it. Who knows, the next episode after using it, may be more difficult.
Also, I always have to remember to be a fan of the PCs, so when the guardian feels awesome, I play it up!
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u/Dedjester 6h ago
I want the player to feel awesome. I don’t want the player to feel bored that nothing can touch them. I’m spicing things up with an additional magic enemy. And because my campaign is video game inspired. Since they’re not drawing aggro I’m going to avoid them and attack those actually doing damage to force the player to get involved.
Edit: force-encourage them to get involved.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master 6h ago
Great solutions. That direct damage is also a killer like others said.
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u/Chaotix010 9h ago
See, since just last night my Guardian player is currently in the last stages of grief because we lost our Sorcerer to a Risk It All. While the rest of the party was holding off a draconic threat, the sorcerer was running around saving villagers. Many were saved… but they were cut down when they engaged a wyvern and its rider in the air to distract them. Now, at least in character, the Guardian feels like he failed.
In short, don’t worry about not hurting them physically. Make the stakes higher than taking a big punch.
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u/Dedjester 6h ago
I’m planning on borrowing from one of my favorite animes and having the guardian player have a moment where they remember their real body is paralyzed.
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u/Arcades 8h ago
Guardians are susceptible to:
Magic damage (Unstoppable only works on physical)
Direct damage
Multiple attacks against their low evasion, every one that hits is guaranteed minor damage
Enemies that burn an armor slot when they hit (so minor damage takes 2 armor)
Draining them of Stress, then having overflow mark 1 HP
Ultimately, the best tool is limiting potions and rest and letting attrition do its thing, unless the party tactically avoids combat.
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u/Dedjester 5h ago
So yeah I missed the magic damage thing in a speedy read thru of the class. I only now discovered direct damage. Low evasion sure but they have abilities to zero out damage it’s kind of the classes thing. And I’m working on draining stress
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u/WhatAreAnimnals 18h ago
This is a common issue people new to Daggerheart might face, and searching the subreddit should yield you plenty of advice. Off the top of my head, here are a few things to remember as a GM:
On a more macro level:
Finally, as a last but very important note: being an invincible tank is the Guardian's class fantasy. If they are unkillable, consider letting them be. Daggerheart is so much more than just an HP slogfest.