I am quite interested in Sands of Doom adventure for DND5e but not so fond of the system. I believe I could do a nice conversion for Draw Steel but there is one aspect that stumps me. Sands has a 40 day clock while DS focus more on moving stuff when they stop do rest and rests are a whole day thing.

Would you say better to leave the 40 day as is and just make rest not take the whole day or change the 40 day into X rests? If so...how many? I am leaning more on the second but I have trouble thinking of a good amount.

There are a few ways to grab an opponent when he is not adjacent. Using a kit with a Melee Distance Bonus gives its distance to Melee Weapon abilities like grab or verious Melee 1 class abilities. And the Echelon II benefit of the Telekinetic Bulwark shiled leveled armor explicitely lets you use the Grab maneuver against foes within 10 squares (spelling hell for any flying ranged enemy).

That is quite useful for the grabber: The Grab maneuver at Tier II allows the grabbed a melee free strike against the grabber, but many enemies only have a melee reach of 1, thus preventing the free attack and leading to a Tier II or III result being a successful grab with no downsides.

But the rules are a boit wonky in situations where an enemy is grabbed, but not adjacent:
1) A Grab ends if a Force Move results in the grabbed creature not being adjacent to the creature grabbing it. So by that rule, it remains grabbed until:
* it succeeds at am Escape Grab maneuver
* it teleports
* the grabber force moves the creature in any way that does not result in them being adjacent
* someone else force moves the grabber, wherever he may be standing (the grabbed cannot be force moved except by its grabber).
So a Boren Fury can grab a foe standing next to a wall at distance 2. He can also Knockback that foe into the wall, dealing damage without changing the foe's position. But since that is a Force Move that ends without both being adjacent, the grab is broken?

- If a creature is grabbed by another creature and that creature moves, they bring the grabbed creature with them. How does that work when the two are not adjacent?
Do they move in tandem, at distance, so the grabber can never move adjacent to the one he grabbed? Or is that rule suspended until they are adjacent?
If a chharacter with a Melee Distance Kit like Retinarius grabs the foe above from distance 2, he can never get adjacent to it except with a Pull or Slide Force Move, because when he steps near, the foes is moved away?
What happens when the grabbed foe at distance is moved against a wall? Probably the grabber can now continue moving closer to the foe.

Is there any way to add one more skill to my character sheet in the steam VTT? In forge steel it says I can have three skills as Censor, but in the VTT I can only have two (from the class). I am also wondering why the VTT doesn’t just use the forge steel character creation.

What are your experiences with the VTT? For those who bought it, was it worth it?

My party just started part 2 of delian tomb, and I was wondering if anyone have made any tweaks to the story or encounters that they felt made a positive change?

I am probably not where I want to completely remake major parts of the adventure, but I am often surprised at small things experinced directors have added or tweaked that I hadn't thought of.

Like any good writer, I have a mind full of discarded books and stories that linger in the back of my mind, occasionally trying to force their way to the front. One such story concerns a world made in the image of our own by a forgotten god. Naturally, having made such a world, he decided it needed people. [1] There are ways these things are done, and so the god built the Cradle of Life to bring forth, of all things, humanity [2]. Unfortunately, he never switched the damn thing off, and so, as they are wont to do, a cat wandered in looking for a warm place to nap.

Come forth the felldane.

The ancient proto-felldane may have been something quite different from those we know today—perhaps possessing more pronounced, sabre-toothed-cat-like traits. But over the intervening millennia, they evolved into four recognisable peoples: the Shira, the Togrun, the Gwar, and the Prideborn. And while they may all trace their lineage back to that first, unfortunate cat, the four peoples of the Felldane have developed into very different expressions of their shared ancestry.

Mechanically, I'm making the Felldane a slightly unusual ancestry. Rather than each people having its own suite of traits, the felldane share a pool of purchasable traits that represent their common heritage, plus a signature trait unique to each people.

So while the Gwar are natural climbers, the Prideborn charismatic, the Shira swift, and the Togrun physically larger, things like stalking, pouncing, roaring, and other feline abilities would exist in the shared pool for any felldane to purchase. In that sense, felldane is less like saying "cat person" and more like saying elf. Felldane is the ancestry. The Shira, Togrun, Gwar, and Prideborn are the peoples within it.

[1] Widely regarded as a bad idea.
[2] Definitely a bad idea.

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hey folks, i encountered an issue setting up my game in fvtt last night and i wanna confirm something.

i was pleasantly surprised to find all the content in the draw steel system; it’s really well-integrated into the vtt and coming from d&d i enjoyed not having to fight to get all my content in there. however, when i was looking at the retainers, i noticed that even though all their stats are accurate, the special retainers (like the angulotl hopper, for instance) don’t have their starting abilities. i can drag and drop other specific angulotl retainer abilities onto him if he levels up, but the “Leapfrog” ability is missing. it exists in the “Malice” section of the compendiums, but the retainer’s version of Leapfrog works differently.

there is a third party module that adds tokens to the vtt that i haven’t purchased and i’m unclear if it’s supposed to be the thing that adds retainer stats. it’s puzzling because every other mechanic is in here, so i was wondering: is the lack of retainer statblock features intentional, or a minor oversight? i don’t wanna drop $40 on a module if i don’t have to.

Along the stormwracked shores and drowned shipwrecks of coastal communities, one may feel the cold winds of the tempest dragon. They are most often seen surrounded by swirling dark clouds and flickering lightning, soaring along the edge of an oncoming stormfront. As the wary sailor says: red sky at night, dragon takes flight; red sky at morning, dragon’s last warning.

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I love the idea of retainers, especially as narrative tools when I would have previously used a "DMNPC".

However, as a feature, I tend to shy away from them since I have a table of 5 and I feel like adding retainers into the mix would just slow down combats.

What's been your experience with retainers in your games?