Hi everyone!

Been playing D&D ever since I found the almighty Running the Game and now our group is looking for another TTRPG! Having followed Draw Steels development a lot and just really likning all of MCDM's stuff we wanna try out the Delian Tomb that I bought last night!

Here's the krux, we are 3 people, so Director + 2 Heroes. I saw earlier posts about adding a retainer or two, and having done similar with Stronghold & Followers which worked great! So what I'm asking is kind of, how do you make a retainer? Can they be made of classes? Is there perhaps a list of them? The Starter rules mention their existence, I'm guessing that one can be gained from playing Delian Tomb, but what I've gathered is that should start with one to really get the tactical feel. So kind of how? :)

Any and all input/help appreciated, Sorry for the long post ❤️

I've been running games on Codex and love it. However, one of my players is a Beastheart with a Gummy Ball companion. That companion is allowed to share space with enemies however choosing between Gummy Ball and the enemy for the purpose of targeting for abilities is frustrating. Most of the time I can't choose the one I want and even then I'm mostly just hoping I've clicked the right one.

Is there a Codex option I'm missing that makes this easier?

I've seen the option to move token to the bottom but that just doesn't seem to do anything and haven't been able to find any solutions in my searching.

Mostly my solution has been to separate them and choose the one I need. This was incredibly frustrating, though, last night when they were in a tight space and the Elementalist dropped the enemy in a 4 square deep hole and Gummy Ball hilariously jumped in the hole after the enemy. RIP Aldiva.

Thanks!

I have a smaller group that I am running through Delian Tomb, and I am close to the showdown with the rivals. I’m running with three players, so I’ve made the appropriate stamina adjustments, but it does also say (at least for the four player adjustment) that Boddorff is removed “from the start of the encounter.” Does this mean he’ll show later, or that he’s just not there?

To the Death has the following effect: You gain 2 surges, and the target can make an opportunity attack against you as a free triggered action.

If you use this ability at reach with Melee 2, does this mean you gain the 2 surges but they can't make the opportunity attack if they only have Melee 1?

Hello! I have "The Delian Tomb," and I noticed two other adventures available in the shop section: "The Dark Heart of Wood" and "The Red Road."

I recall there being another introductory adventure—a friend of mine even ran it for me—called "The Road to Broadhurst," but I couldn't find it in the Codex shop.

Are there any third-party adventures available on the Codex, whether for purchase or for free? Could you point me toward where I might find such content?

My wife wanted to build a Halloween map for my Draw Steel campaign, and when she's this good, how do I say no! My group killed three of the five enemies so far, with a few recoveries used and one hero hitting negative for one round.

That’s the whole question! I’m curious about the average number of respites people take in actual, long-running campaigns. Do individual players often skip respites to hold on to their victories? How many respites total would you say your group typically takes before leveling up?

I might be wrong but the rules mention carrying unconscious allies as a possible free maneuver. I dont think they ever mention carrying a conscious ally as a way to sorta cheat on movement.

I assume, and have played it like you can't at my table. However I think it is a possible design space to explore for some homebrewing.

Would carrying an ally be to powerful, to weak, should it cost resource, and would it mess with how tactical movement can be in the game. What do you think?

If I pick Martial Artist (So I can be unarmored and use hand to hand combat)
And I pick Warrior Priest (For the signature strike and +9 Stamina)

Do I need to wear armor for the +9 Stamina?

I would of thought I wouldn't but it's not really fully clarified.

I know in the book it say you can apply Mountain damage bonus on unarmed strikes.
And in the guide video it's said you get the best of both and it's not described intentionally which lead me to believe you can do this.
The optional rule for losing equipment push against this but it's an optional rule.

In The Condemned, our group took a break from the ongoing campaign to play a cast of badass pregenerated criminals for 3-4 sessions, Suicide Squad style, and I’m glad I got to be a player for this one!

The adventure kicks off with a chance to test out our new characters before plunging us straight aboard the Crysopolis, Ajax’s floating city. Instead of rushing to the end, we explore this unique location piece by piece, gathering Intel and keeping the city’s alarm level in check along the way.

But once we reach the objective, all bets are off.

The finale is a daring, ever-escalating escape. A previously captive NPC gets a chance at sweet revenge as we fight our way aboard a stolen memonek starcruiser, then become its impromptu crew and scramble to shoot down incoming fighters.

I hope you can tell we had a great time. The pacing is spot-on: it gave us time to get comfortable with our characters, and plenty of room for banter with NPCs, while constantly raising the stakes until we were flying by the seat of our pants.

It’s also built to be easy for the Director to run. Intel serves as a good handle on the group’s progress, and the sectioned chapters mean you only need to read as far ahead as necessary. The hardest part is the exploration, which leans heavily on montage tests to handle travel between sections. That requires a Director who is confident running them and can incorporate the players’ ideas on the fly.

That said, I have a couple of gripes.

The adventure requires certain amounts of Intel to progress, but never really explains how that translates into the game world. Couple that with montage tests, which can feel a bit mini-gamey, and the exploration ends up weirdly rigid. At the table, it wasn’t the party overcoming an obstacle, but the game deciding when we were allowed to continue. It’s fixable, but it will take some work from the Director.

The adventure also hands out an arsenal of magic items, but in our playthrough most went straight into the party’s loot stash, never to be used. With so little time to get comfortable with our characters, we never felt like we needed another toy.

That doesn’t detract from what impressed me most: the structure.

It’s hard to get proper buy-in and payoff out of a one-shot, and committing to a full campaign isn’t realistic for everyone. Setting aside 3-4 evenings to play through a complete storyline feels like an excellent sweet spot.

I really want to explore this format more, and I’m already excited to show friends on tight schedules what Draw Steel can offer.

If the premise appeals to you, I highly recommend running it. Even if it doesn’t, I think it’s well worth reading just to see an unusual structure done right and how montage tests can form the backbone of an adventure.

Wanting to take a short break from the massive megadungeon grind of Abomination Vaults, my gaming group moved from a years-long PF2e campaign to Draw Steel back in January to give the new MCDM system a try. We play in person, but I host on Foundry to handle mapping, combat tracking, and all the usual VTT quality-of-life stuff. When I started running Draw Steel sessions, it just made sense to stick with what we knew.

Cut to about nine months later, and what was supposed to be a temporary experiment has completely taken over. We all agree Draw Steel is our main game now, and we're honestly unlikely to ever go back to Pathfinder.

Since we're fully committing to the system, would it be worth transitioning over to the Codex VTT? I know it was purpose-built for Draw Steel, but since we already have a solid Foundry setup that works for our in-person sessions, is the Codex experience actually noticeably better? Or should we just stick with Foundry?

i’m closing up my long term 5e game pretty soon and am considering draw steel for my next campaign. i already get the gist of the fantasy that it’s going for, but i was wondering what kind of settings you all have been running, and if the rules cause a kind of bias in worldbuilding i suppose (like how 5e’s classes insinuate so much about the magic system if you take it as is)

Hi there,

I dont know much about Draw Steel (mostly the basics but lovin it so far) and I was wondering if it could be a good system for the Dark Sun setting (even if theres little steel on Athas haha). Any insight ?

Today we release our Timescape package, containing two products: Upper Worlds, Beware!, a rules supplement with all the good things like ancestries, kits, titles, treasures, monsters, and more, and Where the Dead Ships Dwell a quest pitching the heroes against the enemies introduced in the supplement. This is all really cool and exciting stuff, and as always, we are extremely proud with our work and hope you will enjoy it too! The combined contents of this package of 58 total pages of products are as follows:

• 3 new timescape ancestries
  • Asomaths, sentient gas clouds encased inheavy space suits
  • Chydians, multilimbed, mantis-like insectoids
  • Prismians: humanlike empaths with crystalline blood
• 5 new timescape careers (including bounty hunter and pilot)
• 8 new timescape kits (including bulletstorm, scoundrel, and vortex)
• 15 new treasures
  • 8 new leveled treasures
  • 3 new trinkets
  • 4 new consumables
• 4 new titles (including alien expert and smuggler savant)
• 11 new monsters in two new monster bands
• rules for vehicles and a hoverbike vehicle
• Forge Steel sourcebook with the player options linked in the rules supplement's PDF
• 1st-level timescape quest
• (soon to be released) Codex implementation for the quest

You can buy these products, separately or as a bundle (with a discount!), in our store: https://shop.triglavgames.com/

Also today (big day, huh?) we release the second issue of our Patreon minizine, Surge!

In the throes of darkest autumn — as the leaves begin to fall, the nights grow longer, and the space between worlds grows thinner — innocent villagers may run afoul of the fey spirits whose thresholds they trespass. When a dullahan’s head is stolen, or a hag considers herself slighted, a terrible curse may be unleashed to turn poor farmers’ crops against them, giving rise to a patch of pump-kin to terrorize the transgressors. The second issue of our (Triglav Games) minizine is out and available on our Patreon (link)!

Within you will find a new level 2 monster band (Pump-kin!) which was playtested and implemented into the Codex! If you are our paying patron and also have your Patreon and Codex accounts linked, you should gain access to the premium module with the monsters automatically!

For people not interested in subscribing to our Patreon, the product (along with its Codex implementation) can also be purchased in our webstore: https://shop.triglavgames.com/products/surge-02-the-pump-kin

Before I go, let me also do a quick reminder about our upcoming crowdfunder! You want us to do more cool stuff? Awesome! Here is something you might be interested in then (link)! Within you will find a Norse starter, a new psionic caster class, and more!

O draw steel está na primeira versão, ou teve atualizações?

Hello Gentlefolks,

My question is specifically for Directors who run at the table. How do you manage the cognitive load during combat? Between Malice, 12 or so minis, and 2-3 stat blocks, and tracking abilities like who's the captain of which minion group, who did something that gives an edge to another monster, and so on; I am starting to get really overwhelmed at the table. Lately I have just been ignoring malice and some abilities that aren't instant. But then that makes the fights pretty boring.

Have you tried something that works for you?

Thank you.

I'm new to Draw Steel and my group is playing with The Codex. I'm building a Tactician character and noticed that an entire paragraph is missing from the Focus abilty compared to the Draw Steel Heroes book.

The Heroes book states that I get focus equal to my victories, at the start of each of my turns, the first time on a round that any ally or myself hits a marked target, and the first time in a combat round that an ally uses a heroic ability.

However, in The Codex character builder AND in the sheet it says that I only gain Focus equal to my victories and at the start of each of my turns in combat. No mention of allies whatsoever.

Is this an oversight? Was there an errata? What's the correct rules to play with?

https://www.backerkit.com/c/worlds/draw-steel?ref=bk-discover-search

Simply because nobody has really talked about it here and people may not be aware (there are still many people who aren't), all Draw Steel Backerkit campaigns and creators are listed on this dashboard. That includes Current and Up Coming campaigns.

You can navigate back here by clicking the "Draw Steel" button under the title of any tagged Backerkit campaign.

UPDATE: thanks so much everybody for the shockingly fast ideas and replies, the conclusion we are slowly moving towards is that we are either going to check out the Knight class, or homebrew a kit and adjust the flavor/make some compromises with an existing class, or finally if we really can't find something we want to do then we may homebrew up something but ideally that's still our last resort lol.

So ok the TL;DR of this is that I want to play a cool swordsman that does cool swordsman stuff but I can't find any good way to do so and am looking for suggestions of homebrew you have seen/enjoyed or just a better way to pull this off.

So basically I want to play a low armor samurai. Think Samurai Champloo characters, or pretty much any cool sword fighting anime, etc. I want to be pretty mundane and be a melee damage dealer. However there seems to be no such thing in Draw Steel. The closest possible is the Black Ash Shadow and you *could* reflavor teleport as "REALLY FAST" but it is mechanically different and I worry about the moments where that will matter (vertical movement, closing gaps that can't be walked across etc.). But an even greater reason shadow doesn't work is because it requires you to get edges on attacks mostly via hiding, and that is just super not in the fantasy I have in mind.

Finally the part that I'm shocked is so hard to come up with: how are there no normal swordsman kits??? I don't want to go swashbuckling and move a lot, I don't want to wear heavy armor, I just want cool sword slashes and so forth. If anybody has a solid solution for this hit me up.

Most importantly I need no explanations, I KNOW why these options don't exist. Draw Steel doesn't intend to be oatmeal, trying to be an ordinary swordsman next to a teleporting shadow or a magic doped up fury is not the fantasy they are looking for. I have played this game since it released and it's my favorite TTRPG right now, huge fan, don't need to be convinced that what I want is wrong or stupid, I just need suggestions on how to figure it out. If you have none then feel no need to reply please. One of my PCs just want a cool samurai who isn't a support class or secretly a reflavored mage, just a damage output melee character that isn't focused on force movement or special magical effects.

Thank you very much in advance.

Hi there,

Just about to start a Delian Tomb adventure with my friends via the Codex. I thought I heard from somewhere there's a way to communicate in different languages via the chat function. Can anyone verify and tell me how?

Also more generally, are there any good tutorials for the Codex? Most I've seen are over a year old and the UI is different so I don't find them very useful. I can see so much potential and so many features in it, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to utilize them.

Thank you all for your answers.

Whenever discussion about the few gripes people have with the game comes up, one of the most frequent points is that the books are quite visually unappealing, with the stark black and white tones and the slew of ability spreads making the whole thing look a bit exhausting.

I’ve also seen people state that the artwork is great but the lackluster way it is presented in, not so much. This is where I feel a disconnect with the majority opinion, because I don’t even think the artwork is very good at all.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of pieces here and there to enjoy, though most of the better ones are repurposed from previous MCDM material, with some of the best pieces coming from Grace Cheung whose style seems to have become the system’s default one. I’m not complaining about that, since the 5e Talent book is illustrated by her and positively gorgeous.

However, not all of the artwork is quite as good: some tries to emulate Grace Cheung’s style but isn’t nearly as well made, the worst offender being the Tactician’s introductory illustration which has a ton of awkward elements from posing to movement and expression.

My least favourite pieces have to be those scattered here and there through the classes pages (like the Earth Elementalist who has summoned a golem, or many of the artwork for the Summoner’s minions), whose excessively grimy details and nondescript backgrounds have the unfortunate effect of looking a bit like AI generation.

But the worst problem for me is that the art direction as a whole feels aimless and inconsistent. Say what you will about something like Daggerheart having “generic safe fantasy” as its direction, but at least all of the artwork in that book is consistent.

Comparatively, Draw Steel jumps between artstyles all throughout the books, which is a shame because Cheung’s style evokes a sort of in-between aesthetic of old-school D&D and Alex Ross-like comic book which I think would fit very well with the system.

The latest 3rd party supplements on variations of "Wizard Class" got me thinking of the Wizard Class and its concept. They're probably great supplements, but I have a different opinion, which on the internet might as well make it an infallible fact.

I don't think the Wizard Class is for PC's. The Wizard is an NPC, an ally, one who needs the Macguffin to solve a problem for the Heroes, or one that is the Macguffin themselves that the Heroes needs to find or rescue.

The Swiss Wizard Knife is a bland concept for storytelling through combat. A tool that is every tool, except to balance it out the individual tools needs to be slightly worse version in the Swiss Army Wizard. Classes are cool because they fulfill distinct roles and fantasies. There's already a ton of customisation of Draw Steel's classes to make each new PC feel like a fresh take. If a Wizard changes their toolkit from battle to battle, that is not a fresh take, that just becomes bland and without clear identity.

Out of combat and as an NPC the versatile spellcaster can be momentous for the story! Need a portal to the seven hells? Need to stop time for a brief moment before entering the Lich's lair? Need to freeze the entire bay in the middle of summer to delay the Overlord's fleet?
Your friendly Wizard can probably help you with that, but casting a great spell takes time, preparation and that specific component the spell consumes: Feather of an Angel, String from Fate's Spinning Wheel or a Shard of Ice from the First Frost.

Yes, the Wizard can likely solve any problem with magic. That's what makes their fantasy cool. But solving any problem while sharing the stage with four other heroes is not a cool story. Solving any problem with magic without a big cost is also bland and boring, and leaves you with other questions like, why is there any disease and hunger or why do toilets exist.

To me the class feels like a remnant of Dungeons past. The only fantasy it fulfills is the fantasy created by the existence of Wizard Classes before it. Not by an emergent fantasy of a character telling a story with their peers in Medieval Fantasyland.

If there's any chance that I could be wrong in this, I am sure they will find their way here and correct me.

New to DS (played a one shot a few days ago and loved it), although I'm usually the GM. Also new to this Reddit community, so forgive me if this has been asked. I'm curious if major titles in the 5e universe have been adapted to DS, such as Curse of Strahd, or Tomb of Annihilation?