Combat Abilities | How to Draw Steel #2

This video was originally published on YouTube. For links and references, please see that platform as this page only contains the transcript.

Intro

Hello, everyone!

In my previous video, I explained the Power Roll: you roll 2d10, add bonuses, and lookup the outcome tier. I also talked about tests: when you make a Power Roll to determine if your hero is able to accomplish a task.

Today I’m gonna talk about the second use of Power Rolls: combat abilities. This is in chapter 5 of the Heroes Book. Let’s get going!

Abilities

Wait, wait, wait! Just a second!

Jon de Nor, from Goblin Points, and I are going to be hosting a Draw Steel jam on Itch starting September 8th. Follow the link below to get started making your own Draw Steel treasures and have a chance at winning some pretty dope prizes!

Again: link in the description, let’s make some treasures, dope prizes. See you at Treasure Sets of the Timescape!

That’s it. Back to the video!

What are abilities in Draw Steel? Well, these are your hero’s powers in combat. The stuff you do to deal damage, hinder your foes, or even change the shape of the battlefield.

Before creating a character, it’s good to know the basics of how their combat abilities might work once you start playing, so this is why I’m making this video before getting to character creation.

Anyway, most abilities involve a type of Power Roll called ability roll. In Draw Steel, unlike other games, you’ll be rolling to determine how effective you are, not to see if you hit and get to take your turn… You always do damage, you always make progress.

Instead of me just explaining the theory at you, let’s take a look at actual abilities to understand how they work.

The first example is a Conduit ability which, as you can see from the title, is called Ray of Wrath. Below the title, there’s a line of flavor text that tells you what happens in the fiction when you use the ability.

‘You unleash a blast of holy light upon your foe.’

Next, we have keywords; in this case Magic, Ranged, and Strike. These just tell you if the ability interacts with a particular feature or mechanic. For example, a treasure might give you a damage bonus to Magic abilities.

To the right of the keywords, you can see the “type of activity required to use the ability”. If you’re coming from D&D, this would be the equivalent of telling you if it uses an Action, a Bonus Action, or a Reaction.

Draw Steel ability types are a little more complicated that D&D’s, so I’m gonna cover them when we talk about combat itself. Suffice it to say that, on their turn, a character gets a main action, a maneuver, and a move action; off-turn, they can also user triggered actions.

Below the keywords there’s the distance. This is mostly self-explanatory, telling you how many squares away the target of an ability can be for you to use it. This is also where area abilities are described, but more on that in a second.

To the right of the distance you can see the target. These can be any number of creatures, objects, allies, or enemies. If an ability can target yourself, it says ‘self’.

Now let’s get to the meat of it: the Power Roll. The first line of most damage-dealing abilities is a Power Roll that tells you what characteristic to add; in this case, it’s Intuition. You should also add any Edges and Banes, just like how I explained in the last video.

The outcome tiers tell you what kind of effect your ability has depending on how well you roll. In this prototypical example, you deal a little bit of damage on a tier 1, medium damage on a tier 2, and maximum damage on a tier 3.

Note that some abilities, like this one, add a characteristic to the damage as well as to the Power Roll. Here, the capital I next to the numbers indicates that you should add your Intuition. Likewise, an M stands for Might, A for Agility, R for Reason, and P for Presence.

So say my 1st-level Conduit rolls 2d10 and gets a 14. With his Intuition bonus of +2, that becomes 16 for a tier 2 outcome. The damage he’s going to deal is 4

• 2, also known as 6.

Many abilities also come with an effect. In this case, you can change the type damage that this ability deals.

Now let’s quickly recap what we’ve learned before moving on to some more interesting examples.

Every combat ability starts with a title and a line of flavor text. Below that you’ll find its keywords and activation type. Then come the distance and targets.

The actual body of the ability usually includes a Power Roll followed by what happens when you roll each outcome tier. Lastly, you might also get an effect that’s described in natural language.

Just remember that not every ability involves a Power Roll. The Talent’s Again, for example, is a triggered action that just has an effect! That’s perfectly possible.

Areas and Potencies

Now that you know the basics, let’s pick up the pace. Take a look at Back Blasphemer!, a 1st-level Censor ability.

It starts pretty similar to Ray of Wrath, but, as you can see from the keywords, this is an area ability. In this situation, the distance entry will describe the shape of the area and how far away from you it can be.

Back Blasphemer! creates a cube with 2 squares on each side, with at least one of those within 1 square of you.

The other kinds of areas that an ability can produce are: auras, which move with you and emanate a number of squares in every direction, bursts, which look similar but don’t move with you, lines, which are pretty self-explanatory, and walls, which let you place squares in any shape as long as they share sides.

Coming back to the ability, you can see that it targets each enemy in the area. This is pretty common for Draw Steel, where friendly-fire isn’t something you should worry about.

Also note that, unless the ability says otherwise, you only roll once independently of how many targets you hit. Bonuses and penalties might apply to individual targets, but the same Power Roll applies to all of them.

Next, take a look at the Power Roll outcomes. Here, besides damage, each tier also has an effect, namely, pushing the targets some number of squares. Instead of forced movement, an ability could, for instance, impose a condition, grant a resource, and so on.

Are you following me so far? ‘Cause now we’re gonna talk about potencies. Take a look at Concussive Strike, a 1st-level Tactician ability.

Before we get to those weird mathematical expressions, in the title there’s something interesting: ‘3 Focus’. This means that you must spend 3 of the Tactician’s Heroic Resource (Focus) in order to use this ability.

Once again, I’m gonna leave you without a good explanation for now. Just know that every class accumulates Heroic Resources during combat and can spend them on their most powerful abilities.

Okay, onward to the outcome tiers. From the text, you already know that each outcome is going to deal some damage, but you can also probably tell that it might impose the dazed condition on the target.

These small math expressions are called potencies and they determine whether the target is going to be dazed.

Since I don’t want to run the risk of confusing you with the words just yet, let me start from the conclusion: at level 1, Weak means 0, Average means 1, and Strong means 2.

With the magic of editing, let me get rid of the words, ‘cause that’s what you’re going to write on your character sheet anyway.

Perfect, now I think you’re ready to understand what the hell the potencies mean. It’s actually not that hard. In short, they check if the target is going to be effected by whatever comes after! Here, if the target’s Might is less than the indicated number, they’re dazed.

The thing that usually gets people is that the first M, the one you’re adding to the damage, is your Might, while the second M, the one you’re checking against a number, is the target’s Might.

These don’t even necessarily have to be the same letter… Some abilities add one characteristic to the damage, and impose a condition if another characteristic of the target doesn’t pass the potency.

Okay, back to the top. Say I’m a 1st-level Tactician with Might 2 and I roll a tier 1 on Concussive Strike. This is going to deal 3 + 2 = 5 damage to the target and, if the target’s Might is less than 0, they’re dazed. If you got this, you’re golden.

Before I’m done with this explanation, let’s quickly rewind the editing and see those words again. What the heck to they mean?

In a potency, Strong is always replaced by your highest characteristic score, that’s why I said that at 1st level that’s always 2. Average is simply 1 lower than Strong, and Weak is 1 lower than Average. Therefore, as I said, your potencies at 1st level are 2, 1, and 0. That’s it!

Are we done? With potencies, yes! But there’s still one last thing I want to talk about: how those effects end. As you can see in Concussive Strike, the dazed condition ends on a save, so… What’s that mean?

This is, fortunately, very simple. A save in Draw Steel is a straight d10 roll at the end of your turn; if you roll 6 or higher, the condition ends. That’s it!

Other abilities, such as the Null’s Kinetic Strike, might impose conditions that end EoT, or, at the end of the turn. These conditions don’t require a save and end automatically at the end of the target’s turn. Super easy.

Now let’s recap the whole thing with Method Acting, a 1st-level Troubadour ability. From top to bottom…

First, we can tell that this ability costs 5 Drama, the Troubadour’s Heroic Resource. More on that in another video.

Skipping the flavor text, this is a Melee, Strike, and Weapon ability that costs a main action. Below that, we learn that it can hit one creature within one square.

The Power Roll required to determine your effectiveness is 2d10 + Agility. With the magic of editing helping us, let’s go tier by tier…

On tier 1, you deal 8 damage and, if the target’s Presence is less than 0, they’re weakened until they save. On a tier 2, it’s 12 damage and Presence less than 1. On a tier 3, it’s 16 damage and Presence less than 2.

Finally, there’s an extra effect that applies independently of the outcome tier. In this case, you can be bleeding until you save to deal some bonus damage.

If you understood everything I said right now, you’re more than ready to create your first character… But that’s the topic of the next lesson.

Make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel if you want more Draw Steel content. Also check the description for links to my Patreon and The Dice Society’s Discord server.

See you all next time, thank you very much, and goodbye!