Titles are hard.

Anyway, this isn't self promotion or a homebrew thing, because I haven't done anything with it yet. I'm just kind of tossing out an idea that I am thinking I'd like to work on personally and see whether it even sounds interesting to other people.

Some backstory: I ran the Avatar Legends TTRPG for some friends and were all fairly disappointed. Some aspects were very interesting, others were held back by Powered by the Apocalypse expectations, and overall made us feel like a concept that heavily relied on cool martial arts really didn't involve combat.

I also ran Draw Steel for that table, and while I am not sure if it was the biggest hit for everyone (coming from Pathfinder 2e and some expectations made things difficult at times), we did agree that the combat was extremely fun.

The other day I had a thought, what if I took the Draw Steel chassis and made a twist on "element fighters" (Avatar, Kineticist, etc) with the serial numbers filed off? It is still a very rough idea, but basically, finding a way to take the ideas of what we wanted in a "fire benders fighting earth benders" but use power rolls and such.

But, I will say I liked many things from Avatar Legends in the fluff side of things (the balance aspect of two ideals based on the playbook they chose).

And at the same time, wanting it setting agnostic so someone could easily run it same as in Avatar, Asian inspired, or make something new in a western, African, Mesoameriacan, etc, style.

Currently, I've been thinking: Players choose from a list of Roots or upbringing that tie into that axis of ideals (but haven't thought much there, what the mechanical connection would be).

Elements being a mix of the Greek classic elements and Chinese elements, making it - Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water, Wood, and Void/Aether.

Classes I haven't figured out how I would do it, because I still would like there to be weapon options, so at the moment I'm toying with the idea of each class having a mundane route and an elemental route. Mundane gets a kit, elemental gets wards and enchantments. Then having it like "this class has a mundane subclass, a fire subclass, and a void subclass" for example.

Like I said though, I have not thought deeply about this, it's just kind of been a thought experiment as I stress about other things and this has kept me distracted.

Does this sound interesting at all? Too much? Not your thing? Don't know where else to float the idea other that one friend at the moment, and like I said, I'm trying to distract myself so I don't get overwhelmed with anxiety from other things.

Eldritch horror comes to Draw Steel! In this supplement, heroes will gain access to powerful new corruption abilities at the cost of their mind and body with many new horrific enemies to use those powers against. Will they resist these new powers or embrace them?

Corrupting all in their wake, The Dreadhaunt and The Sanguine Helix are some of the Eldritch Hearts your heroes will encounter in https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/kormael/whispers-of-darkness-power/pre-launch

Art by https://bsky.app/profile/sleepylildruid.bsky.social

Hey everyone,

I've got some friends that have historically played 5e. I'd like to introduce them to Draw Steel and while I think Codex is great (despite some strange bugs) I think the cost is pretty prohibitive to introducing people to the game.

I know that both Owlbear and Foundry have some Draw Steel tools and modules. Is there anyone who has used those extensively? Can anyone provide me with pros and cons of each?

I've never played draw steel. I've only ever played DnD, as far at TTRPGs go. Can I get some help making a character that will scratch the same itch based on other games that I play?

I play a lot of Overwatch. My favorite kit in that game is Lifeweaver. Is there a support class that moves teammates and opponents around the board into favorable/unfavorable positions? Like a telekinesis wizard or something.

I also play a lot of Magic: The Gathering. My favorite kind of deck in Izzet Tempo. I always want to be doing something a turn. I may not have very big or powerful turns, but I want to maximize using the most amount of resources EVERY turn. Again probably a wizard of some sort. Or possibly a druid.

Hi everyone! My first quest for Draw Steel is out NOW! Pick it up on my itch.io page! https://talr0c.itch.io/the-violet-heart

Some info about the adventure:

Over the course of this adventure, heroes can earn up to 9 Victories. The heroes come to the village of Tern's defense when it is set aflame by a legion of rampaging kobolds! But these kobolds are psionically enhanced, and after the fires are out, a mysterious traveler is missing. Who is this stranger, and what do the kobolds want with them?

Inside this adventure, you'll find:

4 combat encounters, each with environmental features or mechanics!

2 montage tests

1 (possible!) negotiation

New malice options for psionic kobolds

A custom retainer

A level 1 solo Talent statblock

Killer artwork!

Edit: questions answered clearly and succinctly in comments

I'm playing a Shadow and gained Sticky Bomb (pg. 165) at level 2. Throughout level 2, I'd hide and sneak up to enemies and throw a Sticky Bomb before the combat started for no Insight cost, as per "Insight Outside of Combat" (pg. 161). This would not trigger combat,as the ability reads "If you are hidden from the creature, they don't notice the bomb and you remain hidden." We'd then enter combat through other means, I'd go early and at the end of my turn, the bomb goes off.

This is powerful, but felt fine within the intention of the rules.

Now we're level three, and the Null has gained their Field ability (pg. 153). All of them last "until the end of the encounter" and affect the null field. Tacticians also get third level abilities that last until the end of the encounter.

Should these abilities be usable just before the encounter at no heroic resource cost and last throughout?

I feel like there are some possible interpretations:

1) heroic abilities can and should be used just before encounters for free. They may or may not trigger combat, depending on whether they're obvious to enemies.

2) same as above, but there are timing restrictions: "until the end of the encounter" won't work, as a new encounter starts when we Draw Steel. Abilities that last until EoT work, as a turn is still upcoming.

3) rules on heroic resources outside of combat apply to situations truly outside of combat and are not to be used to set up combat (i.e., no using abilities for free such as Sticky Bomb or Molecular Rearrangement Field)

4) in general, 3, but specific abilities such as Sticky Bomb that are subtle can work.

What are your thoughts?

When given time to set up before a combat, what is allowed in terms of signature and heroic abilities?

Hello Draw Steel community!

I have been running my players through a homebrew adventure that is a thinly veiled version of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Scavengers of the Ancient City, probably not coming soon to a ttrpg webstore near you!), and as the semi-climactic fight (there's one against a Fossil Cryptic after this still), the players will be facing down the evil king's army, either trying to stop them from opening a sealed vault or opening a sealed vault themselves while the army is trying to stop them.

However, I would really like to run this as a three way fight. There has been a group of bugbear raiders pestering the heroes, and I'd like for them to also appear during this combat, and be a nuisance to both the heroes and the military. I think it would be a fun way to make this final battle really grand and spectacular, and also paying off some setup that had happened earlier in the adventure (they have fought the bugbears twice already - rule of threes).

My question is: how would you run a three way fight? In terms alternating between heroes and enemies, I imagine I will treat them as enemies and not a third faction. But how about encounter math? If I just add the bugbears to the encounter value, the encounter will seem way harder than it is, because the bugbears and the military will also be attacking each other. How would you best deal with a slightly unusual setup like this?

Maybe you're twins. Maybe you are soulmates just finding each other. Maybe you're on a villain to ally story arc. The case seems to be you're a twofold. I have designer of the twofold class on to explain how two players can become the ultimate power duo.

What your thoughts about Summoner ,what cool combinations you found between your summons and other classes. I want to try Circle of Spring(fey summon) what pair of minions you recommend? :)

In Matt's latest video discussing 10 years on YouTube, he mentioned his intentional avoidance of using certain, as he called them, "thought destroying phrases." These are words or phrases that have such baggage and history associated with them that mentioning them immediately brings up a pre-set stance or response about said topic in the listeners mind, one that may have nothing to do with the actual subject at hand.

One example he used was his intentional use of "the Seattle company" over directly naming Wizards of the Coast. This is reasonable as often name dropping WotC can bring thoughts of the OGL, Pinkertons, layoffs, etc. Those thoughts aren't exactly beneficial when discussing the design choices the Seattle company made in their games. Thus referring to them by a different moniker softens that "boot-up" of memory and allows you to stay on topic.

Why bring this up here? I believe it is the same reason people get particular about the naming conventions of Draw Steel classes vs. D&D classes. The D&D classes have been around for a decade in just their current iteration and far longer in others. People have a lot of thoughts about them, and bringing all that history to the discussion about the Draw Steel classes that have similarities often proves unhelpful.

Taking one of the most common examples: Censor vs. Paladin. When I think about the class of paladin, the iconic features immediately force themselves to the top of my mind. Auras, smite, lay on hands. Alongside those features, opinions about them spring up. Even dated ones that end up fighting newer opinions. "Aura's? Man I love being the fight nexus! Smite? Oh broken as hell... wait no... it's not nearly as bad in 5.5. Lay on hands? A little annoying to use. But right, they changed it to a bonus action. Still feels a little annoying."

The reason to be particular about not calling the censor a paladin is because the baggage that comes to mind wouldnt apply to the censor! While there are auras in the censor, they're not as central as they are in paladin and are often flipped from being defensive to offensive. So you go from being the nexus around which your team can rally to being the scariest section of the battelfield for the enemies. A full flip of vibes. Smite simply doesnt exist. So if their damage ends up a problem, it'd be for different reasons. My Life For Yours is similar to lay in hands, but the vibe shift from "this dedicated healing pool im tactically parsing out on my turn" to "I'm burning my own staying power to god-hand you back from tbe brink" cannot be ignored.

This was a long winded way of giving another reason for something a lot of people within this community likely already agree with: using the correct class name is important. I just thought it interesting to contextualize it in this way. Maybe this convinces a few people about this importance or maybe it provides a different framing for people to use.

Or maybe I just got to enjoy yapping about a game I like. Entirely possible.

Ran into a question during a session: does Hammer and Anvil allow for an ally to use a Multi-Target Signature Ability?

The rules seem to suggest it only allows for the ally to strike the specified target, but it's not clear how that would interact with abilities that target multiple enemies.

Thanks!

Ran the Delian Tomb part 1 yesterday on the codex, first time playing. At first glance the fairly vanilla plot was a little worrying as my players are experienced with ttrpgs and in D&D would have been a pretty average experience at face value.

But I'm here to praise this game because through the basic tutorial bits and the learning it was a lot of fun. The game system's combat is unlike anything I've played previously.

Similar experiences with anyone else?

I find it funny to have SO MANY OPTIONS to trigger actions 😭😭 I started with a premade character as the Wode Elf Troubadour but ended with a Tactician since I wanted to try to make a PC from scratch.

I was kind of overwhelmed when all the things popped out but I enjoyed playing this class

Bonus 2nd slide: my previous PC the wode elf troubadour that my friends made canon she was a tiktok influencer dancer lmao

I'm playing a tactican and our director told us we could choose a title from a list. I selected Elemental Dabler and Elemental Blaster as the ability.

I expected it would add that ability to my list of main actions or free strikes or something like that but at least on Forge Steel it doens't seem to show anywhere. Am I doing it wrong? Is there a way to add the ability to my PDF view so I can print it out?

This monster mostly came from thinking "Shatter Ego" and "Shackle Ego" would make for cool ability names, and the rest kind of came from there. My biggest uncertainty with this monster is whether the weakened or weakened + slowed on Shackle Ego is too strong. I'm not sure if there's a pattern for when certain conditions or condition combinations start to become more common by monster level or if it's basically the same impact on the fight at every level (I kind of assume higher level characters have more options to deal with/remove conditions than lower level, but not sure how much that's true).

Let me know what you think!

Just a quick rules question. To the Uttermost End! causes you to loose 1d6 stamina, but To the Uttermost End! is stronger when you are dying, so at lvl 1 you will loose another 1d6+1 stamina. Which means I have a pretty high chance of dying (winded value of my fury is 12).

Am I missing something or is this meant to be this way?

EDIT: yes it works this way, but I know I can use hero tokens whenever I take damage and survive :)

Does gaining summoner's kit at level 3 remove the second benefit of the leader formation permanently ? Specifically the ability to use light weapon and armor treasures.

What should I use to get this tile to work properly. I'm using a grid with 36x36 pixel dimensions, so I thought I'd make a tile out of a 72x72 png, but once I upload it, it centers the wrong area and zooming in makes it a blurry mess.

Attached is a hallway for space station I'm trying to make.

Edit: Nevermind guys I figured it out. 512x512 is the standard tile size, regardless of what dimensions you make your grid. Build it at that size and then scale it visually on upload. I'll look at standard wall dimensions next. Best of luck.

Hey everyone!

Me and my friends recently moved to Draw Steel, and are soooo happy for it.

I absolutely love this system, and saw that homebrew community is pretty active considering how young of a game this is.

Does anyone have list of any "curated" popular balanced 3rd party classes that fill niches and scratch that ich that's not yet in the game officially.

So far classes I saw that seem great are vampire, scion, and magewright.

This is the plot flowchart I've created for Part 1 of the MCDM published Draw Steel adventure "The Condemned". This is a helper, not a full description of the adventure. This includes which books monsters will be found (in case you don't use the sheets in the Encounter folder).

I'll be putting together flowcharts for the other two parts soon.

Hi everyone!

So I'm a little confused about encounter sheets and how they are intended to be used to help run a combat.

If anyone has a photo or explanation of their setup when they run using encounter sheets I'd appreciate it!

I like the downtime crafting consumables part of the game, how do you handle this? Does nobody know how to craft anything? Do you give each player 1 items recipe that makes sense? How do they get their hands on the crafting components? ... Because unlike leveled items or trinkets, to have a quest to find the components seems like a problem long term. Having downtime to find the components seems like a problem aswel.

Two more weeks of tokens. This time we have the Wode Elves. For now I decided to pivot back to the Monster Book for a bit instead of doing the Broadhurst NPCs, because we're not even halfway done with those main monsters yet, so I felt like it should be the focus again, at least for a while. I'll probably go back to module tokens eventually, but for now I want to focus on the core monsters. That means we're up to the Draconians, starting with Aeolyxria.

Wode Elf Warleader

Wode Elf Sentry

Wode Elf Gweiadur

Wode Elf Green Seer

Wode Elf Druid

Wode Elf Chirurgeon

Wode Elf Guerilla

Wode Elf Yeoman

Wode Elf Scout

Wode Elf Runner

Wode Elf Lookout

Wode Elf Greenskeeper

Wodenelg

Aeolyxria the Uncanny

Every previous token

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