[Review] Draw Steel! The playtest packets I guess

[tenngu]

If I had to describe draw steel in one sentence, I would say draw steel is the alternate reality version of 5e, where instead of 5e drawing from and trimming down on 3.5e stuff, it instead drew and stole from 4e stuff. Ahh, I get where they got the name from. Draw and steal! From 4e and 5e! Funny.

I dont really know where to start this, so lets start with the history. Draw Steel is the ttrpg that is so new its not even out yet. This game is supposed to come out in like 2025, but they put out a playtest packet and I figure it's a good opportunity to drink and bitch about ttrpgs.

So Draw Steel is, like I said, the new game from Matt Colville's company - MCDM. Matt Colville is a writer turned youtuber turned 5e content writer. He has quite the following, he ended up raising something like 2 million dollars for his first 5e adjacent book (strongholds and followers) . And then another like, 3 million for the next book (I don't remember what that one was called, edit: kingdoms and warfare).

Point is, eventually he realized like everyone while 5e was the golden goose, its getting a little long in the tooth, and I guess wanted to make his own system that doesn't suck to write for. Spoilers for my thoughts ahead, I bet this system is going to suck to write for.

I guess most people start with dice mechanics. I bet you thought someone who came from writing 5e stuff would be a d20 guy right? Wrong! 2d10+mod, with 3 tiers of success! <11 is tier 1 (minimal damage, no riders, or you fail), 12 - 16 (moderate damage, a small rider, you succeed) and 17+ (crit, lasting rider, you mega succeed). Do the numbers for those tiers change at all? NOPE. Do they print those numbers on every single ability? YEP.

Next, you guys remember 5th edition right? Advantage and disadvantage? Well check it. In this game, it's called Edges, and Banes. Instead of an additional die roll, one edge gives you +2, while having DOUBLE EDGE (it only goes up to double) ups you a success tier. Banes are obviously the inverse.

Before I complain about the dice mechanic, this is going to be a running theme in this. "It's like x, but it' called y". You can say there's nothing new under the sun, but cmon either use a common word we already use. I'm an old man now I cant keep all these words that basically mean the same thing in my brain. Also boons and banes is a better alliteration and you'd think a writer would appreciate that.

So let me do some math for you guys. just straight 2d10, getting a 12 or better (remember, 11 or lower is min damage or a fail) is a 45% chance. Not so good. But generally, you use your primary stat mod on attacks, or you have that bonus on skills. And you have a +2 mod to your attacks (you will to have a +2. your stats are partially built into your class), so 2d10+2, greater than 11, is a 64% chance. So 2/3rds your attack hits goodly. Pretty alright. And remember, having one edge gives you another +2. And the game is pretty generous with edges. So 2d10+4, greater than 11, thats a 79% chance. I said I was going to complain about this and I think I'm convincing myself otherwise. And I guess 2 edges is a 100% chance of at least a tier 2 success.

This is probably a good point to mention there's almost no damage rolls. you roll to hit, and what tier of success determines damage, rider, everything. I both like and dislike this I think. The upside is obviously less rolling, less crappy crits, the downside is less rolling. We're here to roll dice and its great to roll like 10d6 with a good fireball. Whatever. At least the math isn't awful. As long as you arn't trying to do charisma checks with your smelly barbarian, you have a pretty good chance of success.

What else do people talk about in the intro? there's 5 stats: Might(str), Agility(dex), Reason(int), Intuition(wis), and Presence(cha). Going to be funny that the not-clerics are going to technically be INT(uition) based now.

I guess speaking of not clerics, lets talk about the classes in this packet.
Not clerics - the conduit
Not wizards - the elementalist
Not rogues - the shadow
Not barbarians - the fury
Not warlords - the tactician.

Yep that's right, forgot to mention Matt Colville loved 4e, so the warlord is back. And that's not the only thing thats back. Monster classes, minions, hp bloat(I'll get to that later!)

Jesus fuck while wrapping this up I just glanced at the resting rules and apparently you must, quote " spend 24 hours uninterrupted and doing nothing but sleeping, eating, dressing your wounds, and recuperating." What the actual fuck. Every time I think Im coming around to this game it flashbangs me with the weirdest fucking rules. Anyway, next post is classes in a couple days.

[deaddmwalking]

Based on your description it appears that hitting, say, a rat, and hitting, say, an elder dragon, is based entirely on your roll (2d10+mod). That seems strange to me. Especially if that mod is rather static, it seems that low-level characters could potentially 'crit-lock' a dragon if they can score 2+ edges and roll 11 or better.

If you have 2 edges, do you get the +2 AND the increase in tier? Ie, if I roll a 10, but get a tier boost I count as having an 11+. If I roll a 10 and I get a +2 from my first edge I'm at 11+, and the tier boost makes it equivalent to 17+. Having a 9/10 happens 17% of the time (about as often as rolling a 6 on a d6), so the order of operations there really seems to matter.

Edit - If you have a +2 from stat, you actually need to roll a 7 or 8 (which becomes a 9 or 10 based on the stat mod) so the actual odds are only 13%, but still often enough that it'll come up on the regular.

[tenngu]

Correct, no AC. I took a quick look at the bestiary yesterday just to double check, and bigger monsters just have more hp. I guess if I took a closer look the solo and boss monsters (yes the 4e classifications are back too) they would have more ways to hand out banes, but maybe not.

The 2 edge bonus is completely separate from the one edge bonus, so you "just" get the bump of success tier for 2 edges

[deaddmwalking]

Correct, no AC. I took a quick look at the bestiary yesterday just to double check, and bigger monsters just have more hp. I guess if I took a closer look the solo and boss monsters (yes the 4e classifications are back too) they would have more ways to hand out banes, but maybe not.

The main character I run at the moment is a tank - high defense and multiple investments in things that make me even harder to hit. Unless armor gives hit points, it sounds like that's just not supported? Very curious to know how they handle anything that would normally increase AC/Defense (like Chainmail +3).

Does damage increase for higher level characters commensurate with the higher hit points of more powerful monsters?

The 2 edge bonus is completely separate from the one edge bonus, so you "just" get the bump of success tier for 2 edges

That's interesting. I mean, that means that frequently the benefit of 2 edges is exactly the same as 1 edge, but I guess that if it was a +2/per there's no chance a +4 bumped you two categories, so I guess the guarantee of a tier improvement is a net positive. Very curious to know how many of these suckers you have to count/track.

[tenngu]

The main character I run at the moment is a tank - high defense and multiple investments in things that make me even harder to hit. Unless armor gives hit points, it sounds like that's just not supported? Very curious to know how they handle anything that would normally increase AC/Defense (like Chainmail +3).

Does damage increase for higher level characters commensurate with the higher hit points of more powerful monsters?


That's interesting. I mean, that means that frequently the benefit of 2 edges is exactly the same as 1 edge, but I guess that if it was a +2/per there's no chance a +4 bumped you two categories, so I guess the guarantee of a tier improvement is a net positive. Very curious to know how many of these suckers you have to count/track.

So I think the point of two edges is that you can guarantee at least a tier 2 result on your attack, and makes it so you only need to roll a 12 to crit. theres a couple riders that only proc on a tier 2 result, so I guess thats supposed to be the combo potential. This review is hard in that it's hard to describe individual points of the game that doesn't really work with out the other parts that support it. But I mean I can only write so fast.

The game makes it so it only goes up to double edge/bane, but given that half a dozen things can give an edge, for a different amount of time/circumstances, it might be a little hard to track. It may also be that this is one of those things that gets easier as you master the game. I feel a couple sessions might allow you to just memorize what important edge sources you care about while ignoring the real edge cases.

The game is a little silent on how magic items works, other than its better than normal swords and armor, but the way equipment works in general is uh, different. Instead of just choosing your equipment piecemeal, you instead equip your character with "a kit". And I keep thinking this can't be right, but I'm pretty sure there's no restriction on who can wear what kit. (Edit: from the packet "A hero can take any kit, but some kits are better suited to specific classes." )

So kits can give multiple bonuses, and I think I'm just going to copy and paste one so you can fathom how it shakes out.

The Raider kit keeps you protected while granting you full
mobility, providing a boost to speed and distance that lets
you run around the battlefield like a Viking warrior.
EQUIPMENT
You wear medium armor, and wield a shield and a light
weapon. (tenngu note: this is just flavour, the packet says this really only matters if you need to combine a magic item with your kit)
KIT BONUSES
• Stamina Bonus(hp): +9
• Speed Bonus: +1
• Melee Weapon Damage Bonus: +1/+1/+1 (tenngu note: these dont stack, you get that bonus at that tier result, other kits can have +0/+0/+4, or 2,2,2)
• Weapon Distance Bonus: +5
• Mobility: When an enemy ends their turn adjacent to
you, you can shift up to 2 squares as a free triggered
action

All kits also give you a free at-will. For the raider:

SHIELD BASH
In your hands, a shield isn’t just for protection.
Keywords: Attack, Melee, Weapon Type: Action
Distance: Reach 1 Target: 1 creature
Power Roll + Might or Agility:
• 11 or lower: 4 damage; push 1
• 12–16: 8 damage; push 2
• 17+: 11 damage; push 3; prone if the target is your
size or smaller

For your character, I'd imagine they would want something like this kit:

The Shining Armor kit provides the most protection a kit
can afford, providing you with the sword, shield, and
armor necessary to play the prototypical knight.
EQUIPMENT
You wear heavy armor and wield a shield and a medium
weapon.
KIT BONUSES
• Stamina Bonus: +12
• Stability Bonus: +1 (tenngu note: resists force movement effects)
• Melee Weapon Damage Bonus: +2/+2/+2

PROTECTIVE ATTACK
The strength of your assault makes it impossible for your foe
to ignore you.
Keywords: Attack, Melee, Weapon Type: Action
Distance: Reach 1 Target: 1 creature
Power Roll + Might or Agility:
• 11 or lower: 5 damage; taunted (EoT(end of turn))(Tenngu note: taunted: you have double bane on attacks that don't include your target. can only be taunted by one person at a time)
• 12–16: 9 damage; taunted (EoT)
• 17+: 12 damage; taunted (EoT)

I think the most interesting part about this is that there isnt any restrictions. Also probably havent mentioned this yet but healing surges are back, so having a bump in hit points increases how much you get healed for as well. The weird thing is most classes get at least +8hp per level, so having +12 by level 10(the games cap it seems like).

[deaddmwalking]

Thanks for reviewing. I'll hold additional questions to the end.

[tenngu]

I should probably say those two are martial kits, where as the casters also get kits with bonuses to magic stuff. The caster kits also get a "ward" which is a various defensive benefit ranging from energy resistance 5 cold and fire to "you can shift someone you just hit you 2 squares, no use limit, no action". Here's a caster kit example for clarity:

EQUIPMENT
You wield an implement of metal, such as a tome or a
crown.
KIT BONUSES
• Stamina Bonus: +6
• Magic Damage Bonus: +2/+2/+2 (same as the martial one basically, doesn't stack)
• Magic Distance Bonus: +5 (only works on abilities with the magic keyword)
SIGNATURE ABILITY
DRAIN
You drain the energy from your target and revitalize your
senses.
Keywords: Attack, Magic, Melee Type: Action
Distance: Reach Target: 1 creature
Power Roll + Reason, Intuition, or Presence:
• 11 or lower: 5 corruption damage
• 12-16: 10 corruption damage
• 17+: 14 corruption damage; you can spend 1
recovery to regain Stamina
KIT WARD: BLOOD WARD
The blood ward is a large projection of your heart that
magnifies the sound of your heartbeat. Whenever an
ability lets you spend a Recovery, you can forgo regaining
Stamina to instead increase your speed by 2 and have your
abilities deal 2 extra corruption damage until the end of
the encounter instead.

[tenngu]

The playtest packet asks the players to think about what they want their character to be, with these questions, in this order:

• Do you fight with weapons, magic, psionics, or some
combination of these abilities?
• Outside of combat, what do you want your hero to do
well?
• What did you do before becoming a hero?
• Why did you choose to become a hero?
• What is your personality like?

I mention this because the order of rules presented instead goes Ancestry(race), Culture(not race,not background), Career (background) AND THEN CLASS. Listen I get the standard ttrpg parlance is always race rules first, but then why ask how you want your character to fight, and then list like 3 categories of things that don't influence it.

So classes. Just to recap, in this playtest packet you got the usual rogue(the shadow),cleric (the conduit), wizard(the elementalist), and then barbarian(the fury) and warlord(the tactician share the fighter position I guess. For completion's sake apparently the other 4 classes that will be in the future phb analog are going to be paladin (the censor), monk (the null) bard (the troubadour) and psion (the talent). Thats a good roster I think. Psion making the phb is a fun change. I think people might be mad that a warlock equivalent didnt make the cut, but I guess maybe your class should be more notable or different than a wizard to not get cut. Stay mad.

All the classes get their own “heroic resource” that lets you accumulate points and then you spend them on big attacks. I was intrigued at the start but for the most part, everyone gets +2 points a turn. Kinda lame. I guess I’ll list exactly how all classes get their points (all heroic resources get different names, for class identity reasons I guess but it really just convolutes everything so i'm just going to either just call them points or heroic resource going forward)

Conduit: +2 points a turn. You can also spend a swift action to get 0,1, or 2 points. This ability starts combat with two edges, and each time you use it you remove one, and then start adding banes.
Elementalist: +2 points a turn. There's abilities you can persist that eat into that recovery.
Fury: +1d3 points a turn(so average +2 a turn)
Shadow: +2 a turn. When you get an attack gets a tier 3 result(a crit) you get one more
Tactician:+2 a turn. When an ally’s attack gets a tier 3 result on a target you marked, get one more.

Now before we continue, you probably did what I did when I read that last sentence and screamed in agony that marks were back. This is the first time the game, instead of calling something completely different even though it's the same, it actually calls something the same with a historical word usage, and actually it works differently. Let me just copy and paste the ability.

MARK You draw your allies’ attention to a specific foe—with devastating effect.
Keywords: Ranged Type: Maneuver Distance: Ranged 10 Target: 1 creature
Effect: The target is marked by you until the start of your next turn. When attacking a marked target, you and each of your allies gains an edge on power rolls and deals extra damage equal to your Reason score.
Spend 1 Focus: You mark 1 additional creature within distance.

So instead of making it harder for marked targets to hit your friends, it actually makes your friends' attacks land easier. And remember, tacticians get extra heroic resources when your friends crit.

You probably wonder what happens if you want to build a wall of stone or use your rogue teleport ability out of combat. I sure did. So out of combat, you have heroic resource equal to your “victories” . What are victories? Exactly what they sound like; every time you win a fight you get 1 victory. The packet explicitly has a sidebar that talks about how bags of rats isnt a victory. Victories reset on rest, but it really fucking is starting to sound like you arnt going to rest a whole lot. With rests taking 24 hours, and everyone having at least 10 healing surges (healing surges heal 1/3rd of your health now), and there being no resource attrition, I could see groups not resting every day. So what happens when you want to build a wall of stone at the start of the day with 0 victories? I guess you fucking can’t.

So I’m going to just go over what each class does in brief, I feel like each one doesn't really merit it’s own post, and all the individual options dont really need to be said.

First up the conduit Like I said you can spend a swift action to get extra resource most likely only once or twice a combat. I forgot to mention that critting with this ability activates your domain ability. All conduits choose a deity, who have 4 domains it seems like. I’m going to imagine there’s probably the best 4 domains, and you’re going to say you worship that god who has exactly those 4 domains. You also gain the “im the heal bitch” swift action, which allows one ally to spend a healing surge. You can also spend resource to either target another ally,make them stand up, or end an effect that's end of turn or allow one ally to use 2 surges. You also get some at wills, and then a 3 resource cost ability and a 5 resource cost ability. The best 3 resource ability I think seems to be the one that knocks someone over, or knocks then over and keeps them down a turn. You get an edge on prone targets for your melee stuff so it could be a good combo in a fury/shadow/tactician/conduit team where you just knock over a guy and gank em. The best 5 resource ability I think is probably giving 3 allies 10-20 (roll for it) temp hp as a bonus action, given that it seems like healing surges are the limiting factor for continuing, and that 20 temp hp is probably at least 1 healing surge of worth for most characters, for free. There is another 5 resource cost ability that just says “all allies spend 2 healing surges and can end one effect” so maybe you would rather that one if you’re in a group of high hp people


Elementalist. Like I said earlier, seems like the wizard archetype is the only one that doesnt have an extra way to generate resource points, and also you’re allowed to persist some abilities at the cost of your resource regen. The problem with this is that apparently the book thought concentration in 5e was a great idea and such, every time you take damage, you have to take a concentration check keyed off your int, to see if you lose any of your persistent effects. 11 and lower, all persists end. 12-16, all but 1 end, 17+ no persists end. So uh unless youre very confident you arnt going to get hit maybe dont persist things. Elementalists also have to specialize into an element. In this current packet you have to pick either earth, fire, “green” or void. Green is nature and I guess we can’t just call it that for some reason. The other elements are air, water, and rot. Rot is basically negative energy.
The earth specialization seems like it comes out ahead here because for 2 resource you can create a 5 square stone/dirt/metal wall (you must be touching the material in the square to select that type, I guess elementalists are going to be lugging around a slab of iron to create wall of irons from). You also can spend 2 resource to either make a 1 square hole, or close up a 1 square hole. Okay the more I read this ability the crazier it gets, I'm not seeing a duration. Also it has a part about being able to do this out of combat for no essence, at the cost of it taking one minute to do. I'm certain that there’s probably some limit to prevent you from just making a wall of iron, and then infinitely extending it like the great wall of china over the course of a year, but I dont see it.
The other specializations get “combust 1 square of some mundane object” “talk to animals” and “see invis+detect magic+detect illusions”. I guess if you’re the second elementalist in the group taking the vision package isn’t the worst idea, but having 4 earth mages just earth bend a prison around every enemy combatant and then individually killing them probably is one of the best combos in this packet.

You also get a free “triggered” action determined by your specialization. Earth gets “whenever someone does damage(including yourself), increase that number by 6, or spend one essence to increase it by 8 and push two squares” and honestly for the hp bloat in the system this might be pretty good. Just straight up do an extra 6-8 damage a round can be pretty useful. The green ability is also alright if you dont have a conduit. The trigger is “when the ally starts their turn” you can just let them use a healing surge.

The 3 resource cost abilities are sort of alright. One of them is “light a square OR creature on fire, persist this for 1 resource a turn to keep it burning” for 6/8/13 fire damage. Wonder if the combo is going to light the guy on fire, persist it, and then have a second elementalist wall off the guy so he burns to death in his own closet. The 5 resource cost ability has “rain of fire, and also you can persist this for 2 points to do it again next turn as a swift action” and “create four, 30 foot holes, persist 1 to create another hole next turn. A tier 2 result means they fall in, a tier 1 means they can shift 1 square to avoid it. ” Preeettyy good for mooks.

Fury: So the fury gains a variable amount of rage each turn, and you get bonuses for having that amount of rage at the start of your turn (after you roll to see how much you get I guess), and as usual, you can spend rage on big attacks. The bonuses to having banked rage are tiered at 2, 4 and 6 rage. I think most furies will want to keep 4 rage basically all the time because at that tier you get +4 melee damage there.

It seems like one of the fury specializations is going to be the animal shapeshifter because if you specialize in that subspec, you can choose to pick a “primordial shape” kit instead of a regular kit, and those primordial shape kits let you wildshape. The other spec gives you the ability to shift out of an area of effect attack before it goes off, negating the damage if you do, and if youre still in, you take half damage. Spend 1 rage to drag your ally for the same effects. Not bad. They also get an at will that slows on a miss (reduce speed to 2 squares), and grabs them on a hit. You can freely move around while they are grabbed, and must move with you, and take one damage per square that you force them to move. I feel like there is probably going to be a combo involving this. Escaping this grab has a free bane on it, and escaping grabs in general is a might or agility roll, so if you grab a caster, there’s a good chance they might have -3 to the roll. Neat.

The animal form/kits are at the end of the fury section so I guess I should talk about them a bit more. So there’s bear, crow, rat, and wolf. I assume you can flavour them however really, but those are the main 4.
Bear form becomes essentially large, you gain reach, and 10 temp hp. You also get the passive to as an option, pull instead of push and also gets a free grab on people you pull adjacent to you.. The at will you get for free can target two creatures at once, and pulls, so you got a chance to grab both of the creatures you hit. Seems like this might be a good way to build a character who gets into the thick of things and also physically disrupts. The other 3 can transform into the respective animal, or if you have 4 or more rage, you can turn into your hybrid form. This is important because certain passives only activate if you are in your animal/hybrid form.
Anyway, just reading through this now, I think most groups will want a wolf fury because they have the passive where if you and a friend are both adjacent to an enemy, you get to be flanking them for +1 edge, and if you and two allies are adjacent to an enemy, you get double edge. Normally you have to do the thing where you draw a straight line between you and your friend and have the enemy in the middle. But being able to have you and two allies walk up to an enemy and get double edge for free seems pretty powerful.
The rat spec seems alright just as an out of combat thing because they have a passive where if you are hidden (you get an edge on hide and sneak), you automatically get a tier 3 result on attempts to remain hidden and climb. Just climb up any wall for free.
The crow spec allows you to turn into a crow and fly. The spec gives you +3 speed, so I guess you can fly at 40 feet a turn, and when you have 4 or more rage, you can use all your abilities. Furys dont have any innate ranged attacks, but you can always default to “basic ranged attack”. I wonder if 4 crow furys flying around and diving into range with the crap range attack and then flying out of range is going to be effective. Slow, but effective.

So now for the rage spending attacks. The 3 cost ones are uh, interesting. You got whirlwind attack, push a guy, and “purposefully provoke attacks of opportunity to run up to a guy, and you get +1d6 damage on the attack per AoO you provoked for this.” I’m sure these are useful, especially the whirlwind one with extra reach I guess if you got a bunch of minions around you. But the other 2 seem either not that great, or purposefully wasting hp to try to do more damage.
The 5 rage options are where it gets interesting. “automatically get a tier 3 result, and +1d6 damage” “Big dying attack(9/13/21), with the ability to spend rage for 1d6 damage if youre below half hp, or +1d10 damage if you got dropped below 0.” While there isnt multiclassing, I’m sure being able to get a tier 3 result for free will be useful somehow. I’m guessing you can combo it with the push a guy thing from above, because Im re-reading it, and while you’re pushing them, they take the damage from any AoO that happen. And the tier 3 result is 5 squares. I’m sure thats not awful.


Shadow: So there’s 3 specs of this rogue class, and they all sort of seem interesting. The first one can teleport 5 squares as a swift action, and can dump resource points into to increase the squares teleported at a 1:1 ratio. Im pretty sure you need line of effect for teleports in this game, but I’m always a sucker for being able to teleport across small chasms. Also if you end this movement in concealment or cover, you can make hide for free. Neat.
The next one is the alchemist/assassin archetype. As a swift action you can poison your blade every turn and your next attack deals 4+resource spent on this extra damage. You also dont lose the poison on a miss, I guess considering you kinda cant. You can also choose to have the poison weaken the target hit for a turn instead(weaken means your attacks suffer a bane). ALSO, you can use a “smoke bomb” to be able to hide in plain sight, even with no concealment or cover, and then also shift 2 squares. If you shift into concealment or cover it 100% works.
The last archetype is like a trickster or jester type. You get the ability to disguise yourself as an illusion as any creature you can see as a bonus action. You dont provoke attacks from that target’s allies, and you gain an edge on attacks against that targets allies. The illusion then fades when you attack and the usual. I respect what the ability is trying to do, but I feel like the usual combat for this archetype is to disguise yourself every turn, and then have it fade, and enemies constantly fall for it. Kinda weird.
All the rogue specs also get a way to reduce damage on themselves as a reaction, just like the 5e rogue. The teleport spec teleports away and takes half damage, the assassin rolls away 2 spaces, takes half damage, and if you have concealment or cover at the end of this movement you can attempt to hide for free. Also you can spend 1 point to reduce the attacks damage a tier, which seems like it stacks with double bane. The jester can redirect an attack made at them for 1 point. I feel like one of these is slightly better.
The 3 point cost abilities seem again, kinda alright. One of them is a “run across the battlefield, dont provoke, and hit everyone you pass by.” Another one is hit 2 people. I feel like even though the hit 2 people ability does slightly more damage, it’s not really worth the pick most of the time.
The 5 point attacks arnt a lot better. One is the usual “assassinate” where it just does 8/12/18 damage, with +2d6 damage regardless of tier. I guess if you really want to dump a bunch of points and can sort of guarantee a tier 2 result thats alright I guess. Another is you can use 2 regular at wills each attack deals +4 damage. If youre attacking two different creatures and they both need to die I guess thats alright? Seems a little lackluster.

Tactician: So heres the warlord guy. You can make creatures easier to hit as a bonus action("mark"), and you get the lazylord ability to have another character use an at will. I guess you can spend 5 resource points to have two allies do that, but whatever. This class also has 3 specs, the vanguard, the mastermind, and the insurgent. And I kinda dont care. The passives from each one are very mother may I stuff (while doing out of combat stuff, you can lead your team, you can guess the amount of creatures in the next encounter, you can negotiate a little better). The vanguard can use a reaction to half the damage of adjacent allies, and can spend 1 resource to also drop the effect down a tier.
Oh, here’s the interesting part I guess. You can have two kits equipped at once. You add them together, but the same effects dont overlap. Like if one kit gives +6 hp, and the other gives +12 hp, you get +12 hp. So I guess you’re incentivized to take kits that dont give a lot of different bonuses, but the bonuses they give are big. Like you can take the shining knight kit for +12 hp, +2 force move resist, and then also “whirlwind” for +3 speed and +1 reach. Neat.
The 3 resource abilities are more neat I think. 3 allies gain an edge on their next attack. Another one is “hit a guy, allow you or an ally to use a healing surge”. Another one is “all allies can move, and also push an enemy at the end of their move, and then move into that space.” could be useful if your party of earth elementalists are caught out of position.
The 5 resource cost abilities are uh, something. One of them is you attack an enemy, and then an ally can use an at will for free. Okay, fine, but the other ability is “all allies can make a free attack.” I assume I'm missing something with this because the second ability seems better with even the usual 4 person party. I guess its in case the party's just you and exactly one other person?

And that’s it for classes. I'm still sort of concerned about the amount of damage any party puts out, but in general everyone has something neat they can do. The tactician I think I'm the most disappointed with. Being able to equip two kits is neat, but there’s probably a mathematical best option most of the time. And the rest of your abilities are mostly just “make someone else do something” I guess lazylord was a popular archetype.

I guess next post is going to be the races, backgrounds and skills.

[deaddmwalking]

One of them is “light a square OR creature on fire, persist this for 1 resource a turn to keep it burning” for 6/8/13 fire damage. Wonder if the combo is going to light the guy on fire, persist it, and then have a second elementalist wall off the guy so he burns to death in his own closet.

It's fun in the Sims!

Being able to equip two kits is neat, but there’s probably a mathematical best option most of the time. And the rest of your abilities are mostly just “make someone else do something” I guess lazylord was a popular archetype.

With this ability (and many, many others you described) I'm feeling a disconnect with what the ability does and how it is described - definitely one of my major issues with 4th edition. Like what does it mean to wear 'two kits'? I'm not asking (saving my questions for the end) but it's like painting racing stripes on your full-plate to move faster. That actually probably makes more sense than throwing a fur-pelt on top of it (or whatever the whirlwind kit comes with).


I know it'll come up later but I'm wondering whether the opposition has points accumulation so every round the stakes get higher - you can do more damage by using more powerful abilities, but so can your opponents?

[tenngu]

With this ability (and many, many others you described) I'm feeling a disconnect with what the ability does and how it is described - definitely one of my major issues with 4th edition. Like what does it mean to wear 'two kits'? I'm not asking (saving my questions for the end) but it's like painting racing stripes on your full-plate to move faster. That actually probably makes more sense than throwing a fur-pelt on top of it (or whatever the whirlwind kit comes with).

It's funny because a kit is described as all the gear you're wearing, so it really is just like wearing the fur pelt makes you run faster in your full plate. I assume the in universe justification could be that since you're so tactical and smart, you can wear parts of your full plate and your fur pelt to combine the two pieces into getting the benefits of both. But no, it doesn't describe how that actually works.

I know it'll come up later but I'm wondering whether the opposition has points accumulation so every round the stakes get higher - you can do more damage by using more powerful abilities, but so can your opponents?

Yeah the enemy side gets "villain points" which is just the opponents resource points. The opponent's side gets 1 point per alive hero. I think the enemy team shares that pool but I can't really find any evidence either way. I think logically having 10 minions on the field and having to track each of their resource is an exercise in useless tedium, so I assume they share.

[tenngu]

So Ive talked a lot about all the stuff that's in combat, what about all the stuff that's out of combat. Negotiating with the king. Sneaking past a guard. Flirting with the barkeep. Skills is apparently how this game is dealing with that at this point, and I included races and backgrounds in this because they give extra skills, and also there isn't a lot to say about it.

So Ancestry(races) first quickly. It’s the usual lineup, some with some impossible names to decipher. Here’s the lineup for clarity:

Devil, Dragon Knight(dragonborn), Dwarf, Wode Elf(wood elf), High Elf,Hakaan, Human, Memonek, Orc, Polder, Revenant, Time Raider

So two things quickly, I glanced at the bestiary and apparently there's a bunch of demon entries, but no devil entries. I guess Draw Steel is team Baazetu. Second, some of these are probably impossible to guess like I said, (Hakaan, Memonek, Polder, Time Raider) So I’m going to put the description in a spoiler and see if you, the reader, can guess what they are. I should mention that races only give a couple passives, no stat changes or skills. I know this is supposed to be the skill post but I couldn't figure out a place to put races, and I didn't think I’d have a lot to say.


Hakaan: Goliath analog, except also the race is cursed to know exactly when they are fated to die. The entire race cannot be killed, except when they actually are supposed to die, and if you do get knocked below 0 hp, you come back to life 12 hours later. In the encounter you’re supposed to die (determined by you and the dm) you get a tier 3 result on every single roll. At the end of this encounter you die, and you dont come back. Yes, there’s a sidebar about how you shouldnt use these guys in one shots. Actually sort of neat. And yes theyre large.

Memonek: There is nearly zero description of these guys, but one of their abilities is “light weight body” where their “silicone body is aerodynamic” and that reduces your forced movement resistance by 2, and also increases any forced movement by 2.” It briefly mentions they're from the plane of law, and given their silicon body, I assume they are sort of the warforged analog.

Polder: They’re halflings, except they have the supernatural ability to flatten themselves into their own shadow.

Time Raider: I dont actually know what this is supposed to be. The description says they live on the astral plane, they “freed themselves in the first psychic war”, and they have crystal eyes and four arms. So some sort of gith with 4 arms? I cannot stress how little described about these races, and the real slap in the face is that that matt colville wrote a short story to go along with each of these races, and the time raiders entry has 2 paragraphs on the intro, a full page and a half of short story, and then the description of the actual benefits being another 3 blurbs.


With the other races, you can probably guess their abilities. Human is the only stand out, in that in Matt Colville’s universe, humans are the only normal people, so they can innately detect anything magical or supernatural, and also you get free magic and psionic resist equal to your level. Weirdly human supremacist I think but I'm glad he’s trying to do something different I guess. They also get extra healing surges, so decent chance in a long campaign you’ll be a human.

Okay now the skills stuff, sort of. The packet asks you to describe your character’s culture, which just means you get to pick a skill out of a list of 3, 3 different times. Thats basically it. There’s a sidebar that says “but I want perception” and it talks about how you can flavour your culture differently so this whole blurb could be shortened to “pick 3 extra skills” and we can save ourselves 3 pages.

Careers (Backgrounds) are actually more fleshed out, in that like 5e, they give you a skill or two, an extra language, some “renown” (renown isnt finished in this book) and “project points” (also not in this book). Renown is supposed to be like how notable your character is. I feel like instead of making a whole new stat they could have keyed this off level, because the packet says to increase it once an adventure. Dont most people gain a level once an adventure? Anyway this is supposed to help in diplomacy checks and “attracting followers” so I guess maybe its better if its a standalone stat. Project points are supposed to be able to be used for crafting, and I dont have any more information about that.

You have the usual lineup of careers I guess. Artisan, soldier, farmer, criminal. Each give a selection of skills and their own passive. The passive for criminal is so wildly better than the rest I would put money down that this doesn’t make it to the final book. The passive is: “When you fail a test from the intrigue skill group, you can take 1d6 damage and improve the result by one tier.” You can’t double up on this to improve it by two tiers. Given that the tier 2 result is generally “you succeed” in most people’s minds, this is an auto success. What is the intrigue skill group? Well it includes perception, hide, sneak, disguise, escape artist(remember grabs?), search, and pick lock, disarm trap. That’s not even the full list, but I doubt people care about “conceal object” or “track”, but hey there you go. Even at level 1 it’s not hard to have like 25 hp, and you can freely spend healing surges out of combat. I would love to take 1d6 damage to avoid a surprise round. I would love to take 1d6 damage to avoid being noticed by a guard and triggering a fight. I would love to take 1d6 damage to avoid taking probably more than 1d6 damage from a trap. And this ability is better if you’re a fighter type, because you probably have more hp and more healing surges, and you probably need a way to guarantee sneak and hide checks.

The packet has “easy, medium, and hard” skill tests, with only the hard test being that tier two is still a fail, but if you really need to sneak by the more observant guard in the world, maybe let the rogue do it with this ability, because they probably have a decent chance to get a tier 2 result, to bump it up to 3 with the criminal ability (+2 from stat, +2 from skill, +2 from at least 1 edge, so instead of needing a 12, you need a 6 on 2d10).

I would say the other background abilities are probably more in line for what the game expects. Mage apprentice gives you prestidigitation at will. Gladiator lets you monologue and keep non-hostile people occupied for a minute. Artisan lets you roll twice on crafting checks. Performer lets you, uh, perform and you get an edge on diplomacy checks on people who watch you for a minute.

So now that’s all out of the way, you’re probably wondering, what do skills even do? What does it mean to pick up a skill? How do they work?

Being proficient with a skill gives you a +2 on those types of checks. That’s it. Skills are keyed off stats, and the packet calls out that what stat is for what check is not set in stone, so have fun describing why your strength should be used for the negotiation as the barbarian. I guess I cant be that mad because since this game isnt done yet, I assume they could build out more of what skills do but somehow I doubt it. There’s another sidebar that says “not all skills are created equal” which probably isnt a good start for the game. Maybe if perception is wildly better than basket weaving, it should be harder to get? Maybe you shouldn't get the choice between perception and basket weaving, because that’s not really a choice. What really irks me is that the game also calls out that they split out a bunch of skills (ie stealth is back to both hide and sneak), so that you can develop your characters differently. Perception is still one skill though.

And that's most of the packet. I think. There’s some odds and ends I guess. Skill challenges are described here. Nothing really new here except that it calls out how you can only use a skill once per character, so the barbarian shouldnt break logs throughout the entire peace talk negotiation scene. It also calls out that if you fail to get all the successes you need before hitting the failure limit (theres a chart), you still get a partial success. It also describes how the skill challenge should in general be 2 rounds max. I dont remember how it was described in 4e, but keeping the skill challenge quick, and still getting a partial success, avoids having to roll a bunch of times for a near failure.

Initiative is popcorn initiative, except it almost always goes: hero/enemy/different hero/different enemy. There’s some abilities that change that but its mostly that. I'm not crazy about the way this works, but I hate rolling for initiative as a dm, so this is a decent alternative I guess.

With kits being just a nebulous abstraction to equipment, I bet you’re wondering how wealth and stuff are tracked. The answer is: it isn’t! There’s a little chart on what they think you can afford given your level. Not having an economy was definitely one of the weakest points of 5e, so having even less of a system in this game isn’t a good idea. What's even weirder is matt colville got famous for his “5e adaptation of stronghold builder’s guide” which was all about spending money on your magical house, so I don't know how those two things are going to reconcile.

There is another packet with the bestiary, so I guess that’ll be the last post. From the quick perusal I don’t think the hp bloat is that bad. Also I just realized that this packet only described the level 1 features, even though it had a table that went up to level 3. So if the damage isn’t keeping up, that’s probably not going to help.

[tenngu]

I’m starting to get lazy typing all this out, so I don’t know how long this is going to be(edit: typing this at the end, typed way more than I thought). I think I'm going to try to quickly build a team of 4 and throw it at an appropriate boss encounter (there’s also an encounter builder with balance points, and each monster is worth a set number of points for easy building I guess).

Enemies get their own resource pool, and I found that it is a shared resource pool for all the enemies in the current encounter. Each monster type has their own shared pool of abilities to spend these points, so goblins always have the ability to spend a couple points to reposition, demons can spend points to do more damage, or spend more points to digivolve a demon minion into a regular demon, and the time raiders can spend points on making spacey gravity wells.

Special monsters, notably bosses, also get “Villian actions” which can be used once per encounter per action. They always come in 3,and these are supposed to be dramatic, in that the first one is generally an “opener” the second one is “crowd control” and the third one is “an ult” and I hate how the book used that phrase. This isnt league of legends.

Like 4e, enemies classes are back. Minions are different in that they dont have 1hp, just way less, and a group of minions should share a combined hp pool. There’s some 4e style dissonance from the situation of when you do enough damage to kill 2 minions, but one minion is the one you just hit with your axe, and the next closest minion is 20 feet away, they both just drop dead. The packet explains how you should try describing the second minion dying as it being scared to death or run off, but uh, that only works so much.”

The bestiary is split up into different monster types sections. Demons, goblins, humans, “radenwrights”(ratfolk), Time raiders (the 4 armed gith), and “war dogs” (undead patchwork soldiers). Uh interesting lineup for the packet I guess. I might have thrown in like a dragon or something at the end, even if it's just by itself. All the different monster types are filled out with like, demon ambusher, demon harrier, demon brute, demon solo, demon minion, etc. so it’s not really worth going over every single monster, because they're mostly the same.

So just for reference, here's the hp values of a randomly picked level 1 minion, brute, and solo. I’ll take them all from one type in case demons get wildly more or less hp than ratlings. actually, Ill take it from the humans because those should be the most average right?

Minion: (human brute guard) 12hp (the mage minion has 8)
Brute: (human brawler) 40 hp (the ambusher has 30, the artillery has 20)
Solo (human blackguard) 80 hp

So not the best sign at level 1. The encounter builder suggests that for a party of 4 level 1s, you should use 48 points of enemies for a standard encounter. The blackguard is 38. The minion is 6. So I guess my test encounter is going to be the blackguard with two minions. My test party is going to be the highest damage party I can think so far, so that’ll be a wolf fury, an assassin shadow, a earth bender elementalist, and a…..tactician. This is going to be a featureless 10 x 10 area.

Round 1:
Turn 1: tactician goes.+2 resource. Marks guard one as a swift action, and then uses the sniper kit’s patient shot ability. Rolled a 10, +4(+2 stat +2 from edge from mark),so tier 2 result, this does 9 damage. The elementalist uses the earth reaction ability to add 6 damage. Guard 1 is dead.
Turn 2: guard 2 runs up to the tactician and makes a swipe. Rolled a 14+1, so tier 2, does 5 damage to the tactician.
Turn 3: elementalist, +2 resource. The elementalist is just going to use the bloodpact kit’s ability to drain life because the guard is in melee. Rolled a 14 again, so that’s 10 corruption damage, -2 because the guard has 2 magic resist, 8 damage. He’s still up.
At the end of the elementalist’s turn, the blackguard is going to use his first Villian Action, “Advance” Which causes him to move up to his speed up to the elementalist, the shadow, and the fury, and strike them twice.For the first hit, the shadow is going to defensive roll out of the way, so he only takes 2 damage. Rolled a 7+2, and a 10+2. So a tier 1 and tier 2 hit. The elementalist,and fury takes 4+7=11 damage, and for each hit, another enemy gets to make a free strike. So the guard is going to swipe twice again at the tactician. 11 and 14, tier 1 and tier 2, for another 7 total damage to the tactician.
Turn 4, the blackguard. The blackguard is going to swing one more time. Another 12+2, another tier 2 result. The three characters take another 7 damage. And because the blackguard hit, the guard makes another swipe at the tactician. 10+1, just barely a tier 1 result, another 2 damage to the tactician.
things arn’t looking good for the heroes. The elementalist has 3 hp, and the rest of the party has taken a beating.
Turn 5: things arn’t looking good for the heroes. The fury opts to go and gets 1d3= 1 rage. He punches the guard beside him with his “humiliating strike”. 7+2 is 9 for a tier 1 result. The fury opts to do 1d6 extra damage, in exchange, the guard gets an edge on his next attack against the fury. 5+1d6 damage means guard 2 is dead.
Turn 6: The shadow, in full plate armor and with a sword and shield, gains +2 resource. He’s going to poison his blade to weaken the next target hit, and then he’s going to just walk all the way around, on the back of the blackguard and use his “taunting strike” ability from the shining knight kit. 11+2 is a tier 2 result, dealing 9 damage, and taunting and weakening the blackguard until the start of his next turn. Taunt means the target has double bane on attacks that dont include the target, and weaken is a bane on attacks in general.

Round 2:
Turn 1: tactician +2 resource, for a total of 4. He’s going to first mark the blackguard and then he’s going to use 3 resource to use his “recovering strike” ability. This can be used with a bow so he’s going to shoot the blackguard and then allow an ally to recover. 7+2 is a tier 1 result, but the important part was healing the elementalist. 6 damage, and the elementalist is going to again use his earth trigger to add 6 damage. So 12 damage and the elementalist recovers 7 hp.
Turn 2:The blackguard is the only enemy left so he has to go. +4 enemy resource, for 8. Hes going to spend 5 on the exploit weakness power, giving him an edge on his attacks this round. He’s then going to mark the elementalist, giving him another edge. His two edges cancel out the shadow’s two banes, so this attack is made at normal. 12+2 is a tier 2 result, dealing 7 damage again to the elementalist and the fury. The elementalist is back down to 3 hp, the fury is down to 5.
Turn 3: the elementalist: +2 resource again, hes up to 4. Hes going to use his drain ability again hoping to be able to get a tier 3 result so he can get a free healing surge. He has an edge from flanking with the shadow on the other side, and also another edge from the tactician’s mark. Rolled a 6+2, so normally that’d be a tier 1 result, but because of the double edge, thats up to tier 2, for another 8 damage.
Turn 4: the fury gets 2 extra rage for a total of 3. He’s going to use that humiliating strike again, and because i'm paying attention to flanking and whatnot now, he also has two edges on this attack. An 18+2! A tier 3 result! The fury also opts to deal an additional 1d6 damage again, in exchange for an edge against him, because clearly he isnt being attacked. Another 14 damage, and the shadow gains a resource for his ally getting a tier 3 result.
Turn 5: the shadow: another +2 resource, for 5. The shadow is going to posion his blade to weaken again, and will spend 5 points on his assassinate ability. Double edge due to flanking and the mark still. Snake eyes! This ability still gets upgraded to tier 2, for 12+2d6(8) 20 total damage.
At the end of the shadow’s turn, the blackguard is going to use his next villain action “I can throw my blade and so should you!” (seriously called that) He’s going to make an extra attack against the fury and the elementalist. The attack is neutral against the elementalist (weakened for 1 bane, but hes marked, and that extra edge only lasted one attack) but its one bane against the fury. He rolled an 11, which makes it a tier 1 result against the fury, and a tier 2 against the elementalist. The elementalist goes to -4 and is dying. This doesn’t drop him to the ground in this system, and you die at negative half your max health. The fury stays up at 2.

I should mention at this point the turn order is going to go tactician/blackguard/the rest, but really it doesnt have to be the same order every time. Im assuming the tactician is just going to go first again because he wants to try to heal up the elementalist.

Round 3:
turn 1: +2 resource, hes now at 3. Another mark, another recovering strike. The tactician is at ranged still so hes not flanking, but he still gets one edge for the mark. 12+4 is a tier 2 result, the elementalist spends a recovery again, and the blackguard takes 12 damage. The elementalist, sensing he doesn’t have a lot of time left will use his earth trigger again, and this time spends 1 essence to increase the damage to 8, and pushes the blackguard 2 spaces.
The blackguard’s turn. Mark the elementalist, and hes going to walk back to his spot and slash the elementalist and fury again. Still neutral on the fury, one edge on the elementalist. A 13 means he gets a tier 2 result on both, meaning they both take 7 damage. The fury is at -5, and the elementalist is at -4.
The fury opts to go. Another 2 rage means he has 5 now. He opts to guarantee finishing off the blackguard (I’m assuming the fury can either just fully see how much hp is left, or can tell in universe the blackguard is on his last leg) and he is going to use “brute precision” to guarantee the next hit is a tier 3 result, and then also deal 1d6 extra damage. He hits the blackguard with another humiliating strike, opting to deal an even extra 1d6 damage for a total of 14+2d6(6) 20 damage, dropping the blackguard. Because the fury is in negative hp, he takes 1d6(2) hp after his action, bringing him to -7. The combat is over.

Hp totals for the heroes:
Fury(wolf): (-7/30hp), 12/12
Shadow(shining knight) (21/30hp), 10/10
Ele(blood): (-4/21hp), 6/8
Tactician(shining knight+sniper): (19/33hp), 10/10

And now out of combat the heroes can freely spend healing surges to get on with their adventure. I guess they also gain a victory.


That probably could have gone better for the heroes if I remembered everything(I probably didn’t). The blackguard’s cleave hurts when people pile up, but I also wanted to quicken the encounter with the wolf fury’s flanking ability that actually didn't really end up getting to be used. Maybe the elementalist should have played at range instead of opting to do more damage in melee and hoping to get a free healing surge off the tier 3 result of drain. I think I forgot some of the blackguard’s abilities, but I dont think it would have changed a lot. And after losing his minions, he was much less threatening. I should mention that encounters with a budget between 90 - 110% of the points you can spend(this encounter) is a standard encounter. Again I think the multi hit boss thing is probably doing the heavy lifting, but i'm too lazy to run this again with a different boss.

I think think is the last post. My final thoughts on this game system is that I’m interested in the combat system, but I can quickly see how it could get boring with your character’s 2-3 at wills. And I think the dm would have to do a lot of heavy lifting outside of combat. I guess this is level 1 though, so maybe the game opens up more with more levels. I think I'm most concerned about the lack of money or economy, and Im hoping there are neat magic items to make up for it. I think I’d like to run a one shot with this system eventually to get a gauge on how fast a real time combat would go, but i'm content to wait until the full books come out.

[Foxwarrior]

Also boons and banes is a better alliteration and you'd think a writer would appreciate that.

Boons and banes sounds funnier, but alas, making two opposites that are used in the same context sound similar would lead to a lot of disastrous mixups in play. They aptly avoid alliteration at an area and arrest arguments arising.

[tenngu]

Also boons and banes is a better alliteration and you'd think a writer would appreciate that.

They aptly avoid alliteration at an area and arrest arguments arising.

Boo! Alliterations are fun! As you can clearly see!

[czernebog]

Hakaan: Goliath analog, except also the race is cursed to know exactly when they are fated to die. The entire race cannot be killed, except when they actually are supposed to die, and if you do get knocked below 0 hp, you come back to life 12 hours later. In the encounter you’re supposed to die (determined by you and the dm) you get a tier 3 result on every single roll. At the end of this encounter you die, and you dont come back. Yes, there’s a sidebar about how you shouldnt use these guys in one shots. Actually sort of neat. And yes theyre large.

This sounds like it is lifted directly from the Cyclops race in the movie Krull. Given how derivative that movie was, are there other "not!Giant people who are fated to see their death" that this could come from?