TDS 011: Draw Steel Gets Revised

TDS 011: Draw Steel Gets Revised

· Caio · #podcast  #mcdm  #ttrpg  #draw-steel 

This episode was originally published on YouTube and Spotify. This page only contains the transcript.

Intro

Hello everyone and welcome to the eleventh episode of The Dice Society podcast!

In case you’re joining me for the first time, my name is Caio and I’m the author of thedicesociety.com. This is a show about the upcoming Draw Steel TTRPG, where I talk about its development, my playtest experience, and, once the time is right, first- and third-party content being made for the finished game.

Today’s episode is packed! It’s been a whole month since episode ten, so we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. We’ll start with creations from the community and then the news, where I’ll talk about the upcoming Patreon playtest and the future of Draw Steel.

Then, our main topic for today will be the big revision that the game is going through as a result of backer feedback. We’ve got blessings, we’ve got surges, we’ve got shields, we’ve got potency, we’ve got Build-a-Bear ancestries… It’s too much for the intro! We’ll go over all of that and more after the news.

As usual, however, everything we’re going to talk about is subject to and probably will change, so don’t get your hopes up if you really like any of the stuff I describe here, cool? Cool. Now let’s draw steel and get started!

Community and news

Community

For the first time, we’ll start our news segment with creations from the community! Since you folks are making such cool stuff for Draw Steel, I feel like it’s time to give it permanent home here in The Dice Society podcast.

I’m not gonna share everything that I come across, mind you. I’m just gonna highlight the products that caught my attention or that I have personally used in my game.

In no particular order, today’s featured creations are:

News

Now let’s move on to the news. Since today there’s just too much stuff, I’m gonna talk about everything that isn’t related to the core rules; those changes are all gonna get talked about during the main segment of the show instead, ok?

Without further ado, our news items for today are:

  1. The next Patreon packet. According to the team, the next playtest packet is coming out for Patreon subscribers before the end of October and will feature the first three levels of all 9 classes! Additionally, we’re getting the rules for crafting, research, downtime activities, treasures, and more, so this is gonna be a chunky one!

  2. Rules for retainers. Djordi is currently working on a system for retainers that, if everything goes according to plan, will be featured in the Heroes book. According to him, the system is meant to be quick and flexible: we’ll get statblock templates to which we can add faction abilities (like ‘crafty’ for goblins) and monster role abilities, that’s it.

  3. Future classes. The devs are already thinking about the classes they want to design once the core game is done. Their list includes the Summoner, the Operator, the Acolyte, a gish class, the Beastheart, the Illrigger (maybe as Censor subclasses), the Alchemist, and a psionic class akin to a Jedi.

  4. Future products. The devs are also discussing what products will be coming after the core rules. A notable mention is the Vasloria box, containing lore, instructions on how to run a heroic sandbox, and adventures. Other regions of Orden such as Higara, Khorsir, and Ix might get their own products if there is demand for them.

  5. The future of the Patreon. Once the core game is done, the devs plan on releasing the content of future products on Patreon piece by piece. This means that subscribers might be getting classes, ancestries, and other options in PDF form as they get designed. This isn’t a certainty, of course, but I thought it might be of interest to you folks.

  6. Orden’s living metaplot. Still on the topic of future support for Draw Steel, the team is thinking about having Orden become a living setting with a metaplot. That means players can affect the canon of future products by playing in games during special real-world events. This sounds very cool and I hope we hear more about that in the near future.

And that’s all I have for the news segment today. Our main topic—the big revision the game is going through—is coming right up!

Revision (part 1)

As we all know, Draw Steel is still in active development; the core of the game is mostly settled, but a few kinks still need some ironing out. As feedback from the backer playtest poured in and as the designers played the game for longer stretches of time, it became clear that some issues had to be addressed.

As a result, the devs spent the last month making a bunch of tweaks to the game. We’ve got some little things and some quite big ones, and it seems like all of these changes will be coming to the next Patreon playtest.

Are you curious already? Let’s crack this revision open and get started!

Caster kits

The first (and probably biggest) change are caster kits. Kits overall were a big hit, and people playing martial classes loved the flavor and mechanics that these loadouts brought to the game. Caster kits, on the other hand, had some satisfaction problems…

Flavor-wise, they’re not as strong as martial kits. For example, most people can instantly tell what archetype I’m referring to when I say my hero wears a Shining Armor, or Cloak and Dagger, or are a Martial Artist. Compare that with caster kits like Frigid, or Missile, or Rook. The fantasy of casters differentiates between types of magic, like arcane Elementalists or divine Conduits, but not as much between what implements they use or how they’re casting their spells.

Mechanically, the wards that came with caster kits were a little too powerful when paired with martial heroes. This was especially noticeable because Tactician players, who can choose two kits, felt like they had to take a caster kit in order to avoid the benefit collisions that come with having two martial kits.

Additionally, James shared that less than 3% of non-Tactician players used caster kits with martial classes or martial kits with caster classes. All in all, caster kits weren’t delivering on the flavor, were creating some bad incentives for Tacticians, and most players weren’t taking advantage of the fact that you could mix and match kits and classes.

So, what’s their solution for this pickle? Get rid of caster kits entirely!

Calm down, calm down… Casters are not losing customizability. In fact, they are more customizable than ever because now they gain some new class features: wards, blessings, and an extra signature ability! In fact, if you squint, caster kits were simply broken up and then bundled into the classes themselves.

Starting with wards, these are basically the wards that you used to get with your caster kit. Elementalists, for example, can choose to take an Absorption Ward, an Elemental Immunity Ward, an Explosive Ward, or a Vine Ward.

Then there are blessings, which are the new form of the old numerical bonuses from caster kits. They change name with class, so Elementalists have elemental enchantments; examples are Flame’s Enchantment, which grants them +1 damage to Magic abilities, or Stone’s Enchantment, which grants them +3 Stamina and +1 Stability. There’s also something equivalent to choosing a martial kit in the form of the Warrior’s Enchantment, which lets them use medium armor and a light weapon.

Finally, to compensate for the fact that you used to get a second signature ability from your caster kit, casters can now simply choose two signature abilities from their class instead of one. This also comes with new signature abilities for each class, so you have more options to choose from; for example, Elementalists now have an option called Split Flame, which is suspiciously similar to the Split Beam ability from the old Spellslinger kit.

To summarize, caster kits were merged into caster classes as class features. This means that only martials get kits now, but the old kit benefits are still there for the casters. As an added bonus, these benefits can now be mixed and matched, so you don’t have to commit to a full ward + numerical bonus + signature ability bundle.

The cherry on top of the caster kit rework is that, now, the devs are able to implement gish-like kits for martials without the fear of making casters overpowered. The new kits they created are the Arcane Archer, the Battlemind, the Spellsword, and the Warrior Priest. The Spellsword, for example, has an ability that causes lightning to leap to a second target nearby once you hit the first with your weapon.

Surges & Shields

Phew, that’s a lot about caster kits. Let’s move on to the next big change coming to Draw Steel: Surges and Shields.

The problem that motivated these new pieces of tech is that heroes can hand out a lot of buffs in this game; this in intentional, because the goal is to reinforce heroic teamwork. However, having too many temporary Edges and damage bonuses floating around can be a little bit too much to remember.

The solution is a universal buff. Now, instead of an ability saying something like ‘attacks against the target deal extra damage equal to your Reason score’, the ability would simply say ‘attacks against the target have a Surge’. The keyword also currently comes with a pretty lightning symbol, so it’s easy to see it on the character sheet.

I know it seems like this is not a big change, but the trick is that the value of a Surge is defined on the sheet of the receiver. Right now, every hero gets a little table on their sheet that says how much extra damage they deal from having one, two, or three Surges. And, as you can probably imagine, Surges from different sources stack; this is what makes it truly a universal buff.

The defensive counterpart of the Surge is currently called the Shield and is represented by—you guessed it—a shield symbol. The only difference between Surges and Shields is that Shields subtract damage from incoming attacks instead of adding damage to outgoing attacks.

As for their values, Surges and Shields are based on your best stat; so at level 1, each Surge is worth +2 damage and each Shield is worth -2 damage. Abilities can even grant more than one buff at a time, like the Tactician’s Parry, which now reduces the incoming attack by two Shields, or, in other words, -4 damage.

The side effect of having Surges and Shields is that the devs can now reduce the amount of Edges being handed out. According to Matt, “Edges are bonuses to your power roll as a result of using superior tactics. Flanking, getting the high ground, attacking while hidden, etc…”

Overall, this tech simplifies tracking buffs by a whole lot without sacrificing the feeling that the heroes are working together. We’ll have to wait and see if the testers find any insurmountable issues with this system, but the team seems hopeful that it’s gonna work out.

Condition gates

Finally, the third and last major change coming to the game is what they’re calling condition gates or Potency. The problem being solved here is related to the ’too many buffs problem’: there are also too many debuffs.

Since Draw Steel is heroic and tactical, it makes sense that heroes and monsters are applying debuffs to the other side; stuff like ’everyone within 5 squares of me is weakened.’ But the devs are committed to reducing the number of rolls when it’s not your turn, so most of these effects simply happened without a resistance roll. The thing is, this feels kind of bad because you had no way of resisting the debuff; on your turn you could save to end the effect, sure, but you had no way of avoiding it in the first place.

The solution here are condition gates: instead of having you roll to prevent a debuff, abilities can now point to a stat and say that the bad effect only happens if the defender’s stat is lower than a certain threshold.

An example is the Tactician’s improved Mark ability. By spending four Focus, it does, among other things, the following effect: “R2: the target’s speed is reduced to 0 for the rest of their turn.” R2 here means that the debuff only happens if the target’s Reason is lower than 2.

Another example of the potential of this mechanic is the Tactician’s Try Me Instead. This ability can frighten the target, but the condition gate gets higher, the better you roll! So on a tier 1, it only frightens I1, that is, targets with Intuition 0 or lower; but at tier 3, it frightens I3, or Intuition 2 or lower.

Of course, most of these debuffs are not permanent, so how do you get rid of them with the new rules? Well, you still get a save at the end of your turn, but they’ve been streamlined: now, you simply roll a d10 and clear the effect if you roll 6 or higher. This is similar to saves in D&D 4th Edition, by the way, so it’s not unheard of.

According to Matt, there is still room in the game for the old resistance rolls, like when a dragon breathes fire on you, but these will be much rarer than they previously were.

All in all, this allows Draw Steel heroes and monsters to keep applying negative effects like they used to, but simplifies a lot of the back and forth between players and director. Like Surges and Shields, I’m super excited to see if this new mechanic gets past the testers and, if it does, how it feels at the table.

And that’s it for the major changes that the designers announced since the last episode. But we aren’t in the clear yet… There are still a bunch of smaller—but nonetheless important—tweaks to talk about. Go refill your coffee mug and come back after the intermission for more revisions!

Intermission

Hey there! Before we move on to the next segment of the podcast, let me just quickly plug The Dice Society’s new mailing list.

We all know how messed up social media algorithms are and how they have a weird tendency of not showing your stuff to your followers. If you want to avoid the algorithms altogether, how about subscribing?

I won’t flood your inbox, I swear! I just wanna send you a ping once a new piece of content is out, that’s all. You can subscribe at the link in this episode’s description and you can always unsubscribe if you feel like it’s not worth the space in your inbox.

Thanks for your time! Now back to the show…

Revision (part 2)

Welcome back! Now that we’re done with the big changes, let’s talk a little bit about the smaller ones. There are three main changes, so let’s start with those.

Ancestries

The first one is an update to ancestries which I suspect most of you are going to like: now they’re all Build-a-Bear ancestries! According to James, the Devil was the best rated ancestry from the previous playtest and the reason is customization; unlike the other species, Devils have a core trait which all individuals get and a menu of features from which the player can pick two or three depending on how many fiend points they cost.

So, for example, every Devil gets a silver tongue, but one might create a Devil that also has wings and horns. Or, one might create a Devil that also has a barbed tail, glowing eyes, and hellsight. The combinations are endless!

It’s not at all surprising that people loved this Build-a-Bear ancestry, so the devs went to town designing feature menus for every single ancestry of the game. However, it isn’t a given this is going to survive testing, especially because it exponentially increases the amount of combinations that need to be tested.

I, for one, am super excited just to see what kinds of benefits the Humans get in this new system. Anyway, that’s it for the changes to ancestries.

Heroic resources

The second update has to do with heroic resources. According to James, it was good that each class had its own way of generating heroic resources, but something was still missing…

The Fury, for instance, can spend their Rage on abilities, sure, but they also have a secondary mechanic associated with it: they can accumulate Rage to gain extra benefits. This makes Rage stand out in a positive way from resources like the Tactician’s Focus, which can only be used on abilities.

The devs then decided that every resource should have its own secondary mechanic to make them all stand out more from each other. The first glimpse we got from this new design is the Tactician’s new Mark ability, which now lets you bank Focus on the targeted creature to gain extra benefits. For example, if you bank two Focus on someone, the benefit is “you and your allies have an edge on attacks against the target. And the target is taunted by you while they are marked.”

Again, this is early days of this new system, so we’ll have to wait and see whether it survives contact with the enemy. For now, let’s move on to the next of the minor updates: perks.

Perks

Perks are a new kind of class benefit that heroes can gain upon leveling up. They work kinda like Titles, but you don’t have to earn them by doing specific deeds like killing a dragon or becoming a hawklord.

From James’ examples, they feel like interesting things that the heroes can use outside of combat; for instance, you can gain a familiar, you can become a master of disguise, you can become a monster whisperer, that sort of thing. They all come with some benefit that reinforces the fact that Draw Steel heroes aren’t necessarily only good at killing things.

With this new system in place, careers now give you a selection of perks to choose from, instead of a single predetermined career title. But, as of yet, that’s basically everything we know about perks.

Misc

Don’t leave yet, though! There are still a few tiny revisions that I need to mention, and these are all going into the lightning round:

Outro

And that’s it for today, folks. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode and the topics I chose this time.

Make sure to check out this episode’s description for links to:

Before you leave, make sure to rate the podcast in your platform of choice and leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify if you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes.

See you all next time… Thank you very much and goodbye!