Combat | How to Draw Steel #4

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!

Are you ready for the most important episode of How to Draw Steel? We’ve talked about the Power Roll, we’ve talked about abilities, we’ve talked about character creation… Now it’s finally time to talk about combat!

If you’re used to games like D&D, there’s a lot here that will feel familiar to you, but there’s also a bunch of cool new stuff to learn. Open your books on chapter 10 and let’s get started!

Draw Steel!

When push comes to shove and the monsters need a swift kick in the butt, it’s time to draw steel!

Before combat begins, the Director has got to set up a gridded map that is going to represent the battlefield. Once every mini or virtual token is in place, it’s time to determine which side goes first.

If all the creatures on one side are surprised, the other side acts first. If no side is surprised, one of the players simply rolls a d10: on a 6 or higher, the heroes start; on a 5 or lower, it’s the monsters.

Whichever side won initiative selects a member to take their turn. Once they’re done, the other side selects a member, and so on, back and forth. Weaker monsters might be grouped into squads, all acting in together, but that still counts as only one monster turn.

The only exception to this zipper initiative is when every creature on one side has already acted, but the other side still has creatures to go. In this situation, everybody who hasn’t taken their turn yet just acts until everyone is done.

At this point, the round is over and we can start all over again! The side who won initiative kicks off the round and then the sides alternate turns until the round is over.

Stats & Resources

I know detours suck, but before we discuss what you can do on your turn, let’s take a look at the stats and resources that affect your hero’s ability to fight. I’ve talked about most of these before, so we just need a refresher.

With the character sheet next to me, let’s go one by one. First come your characteristics: the numbers you add to your Power Rolls and use to resist potencies.

Below them, we have four stats: size (how many squares you occupy on the grid), speed (how many squares you can move on your turn), disengage (how many squares you can shift when disengaging), and stability (how many squares you subtract from forced movement). We’ll talk more about these in a sec.

Next comes stamina, your most important resource, your capacity to take damage. When you have fewer than half your maximum stamina, you’re considered winded; this has no special effect on its own, but some abilities might interact with the winded status.

Once you’re at 0 stamina or lower, you’re considered dying. At this point you get the bleeding condition and can’t use the Catch Breath maneuver. Again, more on these in a second.

Finally, if you reach negative half your max, you die. Time to make a new character.

Closely tied to stamina are your recoveries. When you use one of these, you regain one-third of your stamina maximum. Recoveries are spent when you Catch Breath, but also when you are healed by a Conduit, are inspired by a Tactician, etc.

Recoveries are only refreshed on a respite, so use them wisely!

Heroic resources are what fuel your hero’s most powerful abilities. Each class has its own way of gaining and spending their heroic resource, so check out the previous video in the series for more information.

Finally, surges are a universal boost to effectiveness. You can only gain these when an ability tell you to, but then you can spend them to deal extra damage or temporarily increase your potencies.

Turns

With the core concepts out of the way, it’s time for you to take your turn. Like many other RPGs, Draw Steel has four action types: move actions, maneuvers, main actions, and triggered actions.

During your turn, you get one move action, one maneuver, and one main action. At any point in the round, when its trigger is satisfied, you also get to take one triggered action.

Starting with move actions, these are by far the simplest. 90% of the time, you’ll be using it to Advance, which just means that you can move a number of squares up to your speed.

And yes, you can break up this movement to use other actions, but no, diagonals don’t cost additional movement!

The rest of the time, you’ll be using your move to Disengage, which allows you to shift a number of squares equal the disengage value on your character sheet. Shifting, by the way, just means you don’t provoke opportunity attacks.

Now for maneuvers. This is like a bonus action, but every hero in Draw Steel has something cool to do with it: Tacticians get Mark, Censors get Judgement, Elementalists get Practical Magic, and on, and on, and on…

If you don’t have a reason to use your class’ maneuver, there are many backups: aiding an attack, grabbing, hiding, knocking a foe back, standing up, etc. The most important of these is the Catch Breath maneuver, which allows you to use a Recovery on yourself.

The star of the show, though, is your main action. This is for your damage-dealing class abilities, the main course of your turn. Other, safer options include Defend, Heal an ally, or just use a second maneuver.

However, if you’re far from the enemies, you’ll want to use the Charge main action, which lets you advance in a straight line and use a melee free strike at the end of this movement.

The coolest part about main actions, though, is that you can crit on a natural 19 or 20. If this happens, you get a second main action just to spite your enemies.

The final action type is the triggered action. This can be used at any moment during the round, not just on your turn. Mostly you’ll use it to activate your class’ trigger, like the Null’s Inertial Shield or the Shadow’s Hesitation Is Weakness.

Opportunity Attacks, unlike in D&D, are free triggered actions, meaning you can use a melee free strike every single time a creature moves away from you without shifting.

By the way, make sure to check your triggers and maneuvers to see if they are free, because these are super fun to use and can totally change your perception of an ability’s power level.

Victory!

Now that you know how to take your turn, you’re all set to win your first combat. Once the fight is over, there are just a few things you need to know.

Depending on the difficulty of the encounter, you’ll gain one or two victories. These are tracked at the top right corner of you character sheet, and they determine with how many heroic resources you start the next combat.

This means that the more you fight, the more powerful you get! But also, you’ll have fewer recoveries. At some point you’ll feel the need to take a Respite.

Respites take 24 hours in Draw Steel. They reset your Recoveries and convert all your victories into XP. Once you reach 16 XP, you level up; congratulations!

During a Respite, you can also engage in downtime projects: crafting, research, or just fishing. Don’t miss out on these systems! They’re one of the best parts of the game, I promise.

Tactics

Before I leave you for today, let’s talk a little bit about tactics. When you play Draw Steel, you’ll notice that taking your turn almost becomes a collective activity. Many abilities interact with or can set up your allies’ turns.

Discussing tactics in this game is part of the fun! Do not underestimate how much more effective you can become just by aligning your intentions with the other players.

Draw Steel has many mechanics that can affect your strategy during combat. Forced movement, for example, is a big part of this game. Abilities can push or pull creatures, and there are robust rules for colliding with objects and even for breaking through walls!

And conditions are also super important! Remember the dying status? Well, it imposes the bleeding condition, which causes you to take damage equal to 1d6 + your level every time you use a main action or a triggered action!

I simply can’t talk about everything in this book that is relevant to combat. There are damage types, flanking, cover, concealment, falling, difficult terrain, high ground, and the list goes on!

My suggestion is that you look through the glossary index on page 10 (well, actually X) to see everything that might come up during combat. Then, when it comes up, you know where to look for answers.

So, to summarize: combat starts with a d10 roll to determine who goes first, then sides alternate until the round is over; on your turn you get a move action, a maneuver, and a main action; you also get a triggered action to use at any point during the round.

Now, with combat out of the way, the next video will be all about out-of-combat mechanics: Montages and Negotiations. See you then!