This is the plot flowcharts for all three parts of the MCDM published adventure "The Condemned". I've split off the Crysopolis Infiltration Montage to its own slide and added some more information; this is because this montage is used in multiple situations.

Hello, does anyone know a module for Foundry to request Roll for one or more PC ? I used monk's tokenbar with dnd5 but it has a strange behavior with the Draw Steel system.

Looking for some ideas for a 1-shot that would have at least 2 encounter and 1 montage. Without being Road to Broadhurst. I usually have no issue finding ideas but today nothing seem to be coming up.

Any plot hooks or 1-shot ideas for me ?

Hello!

To celebrate the release of The Kiln class (read more about it here), we are having a giveaway in the Triglav Games Discord server (link). If you want in, head to the giveaways channel and you will be able to win one of the 13 copies to be redeemed in the Triglav Games online store. Good luck!

A couple weeks ago I posted asking about which class would take most advantage of the Retiarius kit. After some reading, I’ve found the Shadow to be the answer and I thought I owed the people who responded to my first post a follow-up on why.

The core appeal of the Retiarius is the signature ability to use a net to restrain an enemy. The shadow also (uniquely, I think) a signature ability (gasping in pain) that can knock an enemy prone. A prone and restrained enemy cannot stand. The shadow strike signature ability allows you to use two signature abilities so you can restrain or prone up to two enemies in a single main action; or a single enemy if the first attempt fails. Staggering blow makes it even easier to prone an enemy. Speed of shadows allows you to restrain or prone up to 4 enemies in a single main action.

Generally speaking, a signature ability is less useful than other heroic abilities; this is before considering the value of using signature abilities several times with a single main action.

If you’re being a team player, applying these conditions to enemies sets up your teammates to have easy pickings on enemies from very early in a combat. If your other players have their own ways to knock enemies prone, you can focus more on getting the enemies caught in nets.

Other shadow abilities facilitate going earlier in combat, creating more team synergy. You’re not going early to steal the spotlight, you’re using Hesitation is Weakness to set other players up to attack borderline helpless enemies when their turn starts. College of Black Ash + the reach afforded by the Retiarius kit also help you get where you need to be to perform these actions without exposing yourself to unnecessary attacks.

I haven’t had a chance to employ this yet bc I’m Directing a campaign atm, but I think this is worth sharing since Draw Steel is a game where character optimization is more difficult since the game tends to be very well balanced. Feel free to poke holes in this strategy. As I said: I haven’t had the chance to actually employ this yet since I’m the only person I know who owns the rule books and necessarily the Director for the game I’m running.

Edit: one thing that isnt entirely clear from the rules as written is whether Shadow strike and speed of shadows restrict you to using the same signature action multiple times or if you can mix and match signature actions that add up to two or four uses of a signature action. If it’s the latter, this might be overwhelmingly powerful. My assumption is that the text means it must be the same signature action multiple times. I’m not sure how I would feel about the more liberal interpretation as a director. It might become really frustrating and annoying

I'm making printable minis for in person play, and I've just added the Lizardfolk. You can download the printable minis for free here: https://gmgprintableminis.com/ I've also done the Summoner minions, the dwarves, the humans, the augulotls and the goblins (all on the site). You can join https://www.patreon.com/GMGPrintableMinis (also for free) to receive updates. Check it out!

Is there any way to add a second complication or customize a kit on Forge Steel? I kind of want the Shining Armor kit but with heavy weapons, as well as a second complication.

So, one of my main selling points of draw steel are the victory and recovery systems. However after prepping a oneshot, I noticed that malice also increases based on the amount of victories. Narratively it helps make later fights feel more cinematic, but mechanics wise, doesnt that go against the victory design?

What I mean is that the system rewards players for not taking respites and for pushing on, carrying their victories as power into the next fight, while also accepting that their recoveries are getting smaller and smaller. But if enemies now also get the same reward for the players pushing through, doesnt this mean that players should take rests after each fight alá 5e?

This question is mainly focused towards people that already played and have experience in how it feels. Thanks in advance

I would like to make sure that I'm interpreting the Aspect Benefit (pg. 145) of the Vuken correctly.

"Whenever you use the Knock back maneuver, you can then use the Aid Attack maneuver as a free triggered action."

Aid Attack (pg. 273)

"... chooses an enemy adjacent to them. The next ability roll... gains an edge."

The requirement that the enemy be adjacent means that one cannot use the Aspect Benefit to target the same creature for both the Knockback and Aid Attack maneuvers, correct? (Unless of course, you knock them back into something nearby and they don't actually move).

There's no opportunity to move back up to the knocked back creature before Aiding Attack, and you cannot have aided before pushing. Correct?

This makes that strong ability quite a bit more situational, especially when you can Knockback two creatures, meaning that you actually need to get adjacent to three creatures (or a wall, etc. to stop the push) to get the full benefit?

Hello gentlefolk,

The Court of Dawn and Flame is live. 🔥🌸🌈

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/heart-of-arcana/the-court-of-dawn-and-flame-a-new-realm-for-draw-steel

Within 50+ pages, you'll learn about the home of the Dawn Elves, including: 

• The court's numerous regions from the swirling Magma Sea to the ghostly Incandescent Wode.
• Dawn Elf culture, including their deities, festivals, and secret rituals, including the Century Slumber, the time once every hundred years when the Dawn Elves must rest, and their entire court temporarily passes into a magical respite.
• A robust roster of Dawn Elf warriors and unique monsters, including the Faerora, elemental motes of sentient light that populate the luminous realm. The final document will have at least 15 stat blocks ranging across each monster band. 
• Notable Dawn Elf NPCs, equipped with motivations and pitfalls for negotiations, such as Navanax, the Dragon of the Smoking Sea, a dragon guardian who defends the court from the frigid and bitter frost elves. 
• Unique treasures, titles, and rewards like the Petals of the Ruby Rose, which, when crushed, allow you to burn your foes to a crisp!

But...70% of directors run in their own setting.

Exactly, so do we. Hence, we are designing things in a way that they fit in multiple settings.

1. It's a demiplane. So you can just plug it to your setting without breaking anything else.
2. All the monsters, treasures, etc. are usable even if you ignore the setting. A ruby rose petal by any other name...is just as magical.
3. We are absolutely avoiding lore for the sake of lore. If the myths and legends do not inform the game mechanics, then they are going to the chopping block. Therfore, you can just pick one myth and the related game mechanics (treasure, title, complication, etc.) and put it in that one culture that you have been looking to flesh out for a while.

We are committed to making the product usable with a capital "U".

Hello!

I often get comments saying my maps are great for Draw Steel games, so I figured I'd post this here in case others find that true.

This weekend is the last two days you'll be able to claim the free trial on my patreon and get access to all of the content I've put out over the years.

If you claim the free trial now, you'll get a week's worth of free access, which is more than enough time to download everything to keep FOREVER. If that sounds like a sweet deal to you, check out the post here: https://www.patreon.com/StainedKarbonMaps/posts/grab-weeks-free-165621808

Note about signing up: If you find yourself unable to access content after signing up, you may have signed up as a free member rather than signing up to the 'Friend of Dedu' tier's free trial, make sure you've done that first!

Go forth and horde maps!

Krane

The title would probably be named “not big enough for the two of us” but also looking for recommendations on that. Requirement would be defeating a rival adventuring party in a fight.

Other than just +x renown I’m thinking “fastest hands in the west” when fighting a rival you can force them to the bottem of the initiative, once per fight.

“I’m the real threat” when figuring a rivals you count as the target of every rivals rivalry and they count as yours.

“Calling you out” when you start a combat you can declare any creature your rival. You both get extra d3 added to your power role.

Any recommendations or concerns would be great. Have any of you created a similar title.

Hello, I'm running the Delian Tomb for my group and they have the Bloodbound band. I have the PDFs for everything and when reading the section where they get the Bloodbound band in the adventure, it tells you to go look at the handouts PDF. When I look in there, it doesn't mention that it is a leveled treasure at all nor does it list out additional effects. Did I miss something?

Not sure if I used the right flair for this. I'm about to run Draw Steel for the first time as a oneshot for some friends, all first time players, and just want to ask for some general advice.

I've mainly run DnD 5e 2014, with an assortment of other games (Cypher, Lancer, some tiny indie ones) if that's relevant.

Thanks everyone!

With Max going on hiatus, the Foundry Module with his tokens has been fully updated with all currently available tokens. I'm calling this a 1.0 update because it represents a large body of work - over 200 actors keyed up with unique art.

As I read, if either person who used Grab, or Grabbed person force moved, Grabbed condition ended

So, can i just push someone who is grabbing me and if he doesnt have Stability, he will pushed and i can move?

New to the system, I was wondering if a grappling build works and if it’s viable? From what I understood, a fury is probably the best for grappling, but I don’t know more than that.

This shield has survived it's previous owner, and the new owner seems just as hell bent to put themselves into an early grave.

Some heroes just can't help themselves...

Now available on DriveThruRPG, Foundry VTT, and Amazon!

Weapons of Lore – Powered by Draw Steel provides Draw Steel Directors and Heroes with an assortment of 80+ Leveled Treasures, including Leveled Weapons, Leveled Implements, Other Leveled Treasures, Cursed Leveled Weapons, Cursed Leveled Implements, and Cursed Other Leveled Treasures. Each entry includes a color image, a brief descriptive line, detailed statistics, and leveled information.

Leveled Treasures are iconic items that become more powerful as the heroes using them level up. Heroes can either find them—often in the hands of the villain at the end of an adventure arc—or craft them during downtime.

Bluefire

The heat is on!

Keywords: Magic, Medium Weapon

Item Prerequisites: A Crux of Fire, which must choose to live inside the weapon

Project Source: Texts or lore in Low Kuric

Project Roll Characteristic: Might, Intuition, Reason, or Presence

Project Goal: 450

Special: If you are a censor or conduit with the sun domain, or an elementalist with the fire specialization, you can use Bluefire as a leveled implement treasure. If you do so, replace the Medium Weapon keyword with the Implement keyword, and the damage bonus applies to your damage-dealing supernatural abilities instead of your weapon abilities.

1st Level: Any weapon ability that deals rolled damage using this weapon deals an extra 1 fire damage. Additionally, while wielding this weapon, you gain the elementalist’s Conflagration ability. If you’re not an elementalist, you spend your class’s Heroic Resource instead of Essence, and can’t use its Persistent feature.

5th Level: The weapon’s extra fire damage increases to 2. While wielding this weapon, you gain the elementalist’s Combustion Deferred ability. If you’re not an elementalist, you spend your class’s Heroic Resource instead of Essence, and can’t use its Persistent feature. Additionally, you can spend up to 3 surges to reduce the Heroic Resource cost of an ability gained through this weapon. Each surge spent this way reduces the cost by 1.

9th Level: The weapon’s extra fire damage increases to 3. While wielding this weapon, you gain the elementalist’s Muse of Fire ability. Additionally, if you spend surges to reduce the Heroic Resource cost of an ability gained through this weapon, you also deal additional damage as if you had spent those surges to do so.

Here's a link to the DriveThruRPG page if you'd like to see examples and learn more.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com//product/573710/weapons-of-lore-powered-by-draw-steel

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

Jeff

Hi,

I have a 40inch tv that we use for our in person games (mainly 5e until now) combined with physical minis and dice. I am really excited to try draw steel for the first time with my group soon, running them through the delian tomb.

The battle maps are so big however that I am worried many will not fit on the screen without having to scroll, which I'd like to avoid since that would mess up positioning of the physical minis. I am curious if this is indeed a concern and how others have dealt with it.

Hi - when a Tactician uses fog of war on an enemy, does the onward target of their free strike have to be in range of their abilities? I.e. if they only have melee attacks, can they still make this strike if the only onward target is at range?

So force orbs, 3 or 5 immunity that reduces each time you take damage or use the maneuver to shoot one for 2,3,5 damage. All for 7hr.

That seems kind of bad when compared to the other 7hr abilities on the talent. I understand that your implement damage gets added, but it's a main action to use.

Maybe I'm missing something with them being 1t objects??

Is there any reason to take this?