Episode 2024.14 Published on 5 October 2024

Goodbye Caster Kits, War Dogs, and Dicefunder | September Roundup

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Intro

Velkommen! I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.

I mentioned in last month's roundup that the flood gates of homebrew had opened with the release of the Creator License for Draw Steel. As predicted, that was only the beginning. The amount of stuff being published is almost overwhelming. There's also details about the next packet, the dicefunder and Stawl.

Draw Steel

Rules Improvements

The design team continues their work on making the game simpler to run for the director. With directors forgetting some of the options they have available, but still managing to run combat fine, means there's both too many options, and that some of the options are superfluous.

And speaking of making things simpler: James mentioned that they're rewriting the area of effect rules. It's pretty clear that the rules as they are now, are not communicating the intention of the rule very well.

The amount of diagrams that have been drawn in the effort to form a consensus on how to interpret them is so high, it's basically become a meme in the Discord. In my interview with Tamwin last month we talked a bit about this, so give that episode a listen if you want some more details.

Caster Kits Are Out

While kits in general have been a great success for martial classes, they haven't really come into their own with caster classes. And that's before we start considering what psionic kits look like.

While martial classes care about what equipment they carry and how they apply it, casters don't really have an equivalent. Reading the name Shining Armor and imagining a knight in heavy shining armor and big sword is not difficult. Reading Cloak and Dagger and imagining a hooded figure in a billowing cloak, sneaking around with daggers for weapons, that isn't hard either. Reading Rook on the other hand, and trying to imagine that it's a spell caster that's hard to move doesn't spring as easily to mind.

After quite a bit of experimenting, the design team have decided to scrap caster kits, in favor of only having martial kits. That means there'll be more martial kits, which can cover even more fantasies, but it also opens the possibility space for hybrid kits. These are martial kits, with a bit of a magic flavor to them. They were hard to do when caster kits were a thing, because hybrid kits would impede on caster kits' niche.

One of the cool effects of kits was that it was possible to pick a caster kit as a martial class, or a martial kit as caster class. The feedback survey however, showed that less than three percent actually chose to do this. And what's worse, is that for Tactician, it was usually the most optimal choice to pick one martial and one caster kit. That goes against the design philosophy that one option shouldn't be objectively better than all the others, which is part of the design teams design goals.

Instead of kits, casters will now get some extra class options. They get to choose extra features which boosts stamina, stability or speed as part of their class instead. And they get to choose a ward, to discourage attacks against them, kind of like what the caster kits did before. In addition, all magic abilities are also being tweaked now that casters are not getting any bonuses from kits.

All hope is not lost for those casters who dearly want a kit, though. James said it's possible for titles to allow the use of kits for casters. A title might grant a caster access to any kit, or just a smaller selection of kits.

For half-casters like Censor and Troubadour, they will both have magic abilities that are adjusted to not being boosted by a kit, while also selecting a kit that will boost their non-magic abilities.

Matt said that they got so excited by discovering kits as a way to handle equipment, that they applied kits where they weren't really needed. And having kits be a martial customization option, actually mirrors design you see in other games where martial classes get customization through selection of equipment, while casters get customization through subclasses.

Heroic Resource Generation

The design team is looking into each class having their own way of generating heroic resources. Currently, all classes basically generate heroic resources the same way. Which is in contrast to the original implementation where each class had their own bespoke way of generating resources.

The reason for the initial change, was that it forced players to do certain actions, because if they didn't, they wouldn't generate any resources. Most classes got resources by using signature attacks, but that meant that doing anything else than attacking felt sub optimal. Saving civilians, helping others or trying different tactics during combat felt like bad options.

The uncertainty of how much heroic resources a hero would have from turn to turn, also made them harder to spend. If you know you're getting at least two resources next turn, it's easier to calculate whether it's a good idea to spend three on this turn. But if you're uncertain if you'll get any next turn, saving the resources for when you really need them seems like the better option.

So, the current predictability of heroic resource generation is good for making tactical decisions on how to spend them. But it also makes all the classes feel a bit samey. And that's what the design team is trying to find a way to solve.

The Next Packet

The next packet to drop is going to be a patron packet. This follows the familiar pattern of patrons getting access to stuff that's a bit rougher around the edges, than what goes out to the backers.

The current estimate for release of the packet is the middle of October, but, and I can't stress this enough, that is an estimate. Stuff might shift unexpectedly.

The packet will include rules for respite actions, stuff to do while resting in a safe location, including rules for research and crafting - something that's been highly anticipated. All nine classes will also be included with levels one through three. Lastly there will also be new monsters included in the bestiary.

Higher Levels

While levels one through three are included in the packet, the design team is working on the remaining levels for all classes.

They are running tests internally to test the power levels of heroes and monsters. To see how combats feel at different tiers of play.

Testers have also gotten access to higher levels of some of the classes, and have been encouraged to start campaigns with characters that are intended to be leveled up. The design team discourages just testing at higher levels, as that will not really reflect how the game is going to be played.

When reaching level ten, heroes should have a total of about ten abilities. The abilities should have enough variety between them to prevent analysis paralysis, where the player struggles to choose which ability to use. The analysis paralysis often comes from multiple options being very similar, and it becomes difficult to decide which of the small variations between them, is best pick for the current situation.

Monsters

With higher level heroes, there will also be higher level monsters. But it's important for the design team to prevent monsters from bloating and getting too complex. Higher level monsters should be more powerful, but not more complex to run. High level play should not ruin the fun for the director.

Making awesome monsters is not difficult, but presenting them in a manner that doesn't overwhelm the director? That is a challenge.

They're also still tweaking the encounter builder rules. It looks like the heroes are a bit too powerful when they have a lot of victories, and one way to balance that is to recalculate how victories contribute to encounter building.

The War Dogs

In what may be the best post so far on the Patreon, Matt, Djordi, and Jason outlines the development of the war dogs faction in Draw Steel. The war dogs is the expendable foot soldiers of Ajax' army and they function as Draw Steel's zombies.

Not zombies as in the living dead, but as in the unambiguous enemy it's always morally correct to kill on sight. While it's fun to have complex monsters that may become allies, sometimes you just want to know that it's okay to attack them. And when heroes encounter war dogs, they know it's time to Draw Steel!

The post starts off with Matt explaining where the inspiration for the war dogs comes from and what the desire to design them was. He explains how feedback from James evolved the idea and how they landed on the name war dogs as a name for the faction.

Next Djordi details how he came up with the mechanical design of the war dogs. He explains where the inspiration for the loyalty collars came from, and how the fact that they're built by combining parts from multiple people, allow them to make use of special tactics in the field.

Lastly, Jason explains where the visual design of the war dogs comes from. He goes into detail explaining why they dress the way they do, and what made the rest of the art team push back on the initial drafts of the design. There's also multiple sketches of different kinds of war dogs included in the post.

The post is a lengthy exciting ride through the design process of creating a completely new monster faction for the game. Almost worth a month's subscription to the Patreon alone, in my opinion.

Future Releases

Both Matt and James has talked about a possible Heroes 2 book with the classes and rules that they couldn't fit into the first Heroes book.

Before that might become a reality though, there will most likely be releases of it all on Patreon. Paying patrons will most likely get access to new classes as they are ready, and only once there is enough content to warrant a print run, will they consider making a physical product.

These Patreon releases will also take the place of any effort like Arcadia, the monthly magazine that ran for 30 issues. The amount of work that went into publishing Arcadia every month, sucked away capacity to produce Flee Mortals. And they do not want to end up in that situation again.

Vasloria Box Set

The release of the Vasloria box set is strictly speaking not a certainty yet, but there have been some talk about it in September. The goal to fund development was reached in the crowdfunder, and it's most likely the first product line to be released for Draw Steel from MCDM.

The box set will be extensive and include information about Vasloria as a setting, with both an introduction for players, as well as a guide for directors with potential secrets. It'll include new rules that might be fitting for the setting, potentially new classes, maps of relevant areas, a director's screen and maybe more. Matt said the box set releases from Beadle and Grimm were good examples of what MCDM is imagining for the box set.

Vasloria is a sandbox setting, where the heroes can go explore different parts of the region. While reminiscent of a hex crawl, it won't actually be a proper hex crawl. There's no tracking of rations and other minutia. Instead, it's a vehicle to show players all the options available to them. The box set includes adventures and director's tools to fill the map with interesting things to explore.

Mot's Miscellaneous

And, at the end of the beefy sections of news - here's Mot's Miscellaneous. [Mot sounds...]

The optimal amount of victories between respites is probably between five and ten. The design team is looking at ways to encourage players to take a respite.

Design for retainers is being worked on. It looks like it's going to be a framework to transform monsters to retainers, instead of bespoke retainer designs for each monster.

Matt mentioned the posibility of Orden being a living settting; meaning that the status quo might change over time. Maybe we'll see the canonical defeat of Ajax in the future?

Debuffs like conditions, and immunities, are not feeling right yet. The design team is looking into ways of making them feel more balanced.

Matt mentioned the possibility of doing patron Q&A just about the lore of Orden. Voice your interest if that sounds interesting.

More ancestries will get a point-buy system like the Devil, where you customize features of the ancestry.

Dicefunder

September 24th marked the launch of the dicefunder: Draw Steel, Roll Power, DICE!.

There are five boxes of dice to choose from, one for each of five of the classes in the core rules: Censor, Elementalist, Fury, Shadow, and Tactician.

Each set comes with two 20-sided d10s. These are d20s with the numbers one through ten printed twice on them. And there's one six-sided d3. That's a d6 with the number one through three printed twice on it. In addition, the box is decorated with unique art for each class and a title that can be earned when playing Draw Steel.

There's also a Good King Omund set, which includes the other five sets of dice, including their titles. In addition the Good King Omund set comes with two special dice with Good King Omund's heraldic device inside them. The lid of the Good King Omund box is also designed to be used as a dice tray.

There's also an option to save a bit of money and just get the dice in a plain container, without the fancy box.

While Draw Steel uses a d6 sometimes, it's not included in the dice set. This is because MCDM figures people have enough d6s already. But if they want a d6 that matches the set, there are links to the correct colors in Chessex' store.

If you're listening to this episode when it releases, the campaign is still going. It closes on October 8th.

Codex

Codex is making steady progress. The decision to add 2.5D effects to the VTT probably set the first test release back by three months, according to the developers. The decision to spend time on 2.5D was made to give the design team at MCDM time to finish the backer packet.

The current Draw Steel rules are mostly implemented though, and the dev team have started running tests with the system in Codex. Some community members have also been able to partake in the tests. For those who are over the average interested, the tests have been streamed live on DMHub's Discord server.

It looks like Codex is in such a good state that it'll be possible for MCDM to start using it in their own internal tests very soon.

After Draw Steel

Matt has started talking about what's next for MCDM. As different parts of Draw Steel are being finished, people need something new to work on.

This leads into a project Matt and art director Jason have been wanting to do, and what looks like to be the next game from MCDM: Derelict - a sci-fi dungeon crawler set on a derelict space ship. Not much more than that is known about the game, but that it's a bit like Gloomhaven.

Stawl

Right at the end here I'm going to toot my own horn a bit.

If you're playing Draw Steel over Discord, I've made a Discord bot that can roll dice, roll power rolls and look up abilities. It's called Disdiar and there's a link to in the episode description.

I've also made an encounter builder for Draw Steel, which can be found on stawl.app, that's s-t-a-w-l-dot-app. Link is also in the episode description.

More features will show up in Stawl in the future.

From the Community

Usually I mention all the creations I've found from the community, but there's a problem. There's too much stuff! Instead I'll mention some highlights from the stuff I've found, and include links to where the rest can be found.

Draw Steel Homebrew

Tamwin has created a collection of homebrew for Draw Steel. His master document includes a brand new Gunslinger class, with exclusive kits, multiple martial kits, and new subclasses for Conduit, Shadow and Tactician.

Aestus_RPG has also created a big collection of homebrew, that they've helpfully listed in a master document. The hombrew includes simple treasures, leveled treasures, a new career and an experimental pet system.

In addition I've included links to the MCDM Discord Draw Steel homebrew channel, and the homebrew section of the Draw Steel subreddit.

Draw Steel Media

The Dice Society has published their tenth episode! In this episode they talk about the backer packet and the Creator License.

Daniel "Graelcase" and the fine folks over at Average Roll have been playing through the included adventures in the backer packet. I've included a link to the playlist of all their Draw Steel adventures.

Sam McGurran has released multiple videos on the Don't Shout Mimic YouTube channel where he explains how montage tests and negotiation works. I've included a link to their full list of Draw Steel videos.

Draw Steel Tools

OnslaughtSix has created a template for Affinity Publisher in the style of the Draw Steel layout shown in a video by Matt in August. You can use it to make your homebrew look more official.

Cal-El has created ability cards for Draw Steel. The template makes it easy to create printable cards to easily keep track of your hero's abilities when playing in person.

cort_of_keo has created a dice rolling module for Owlbear Rodeo with support for power rolls. You can set characteristic bonus, edges or banes and skill bonus. It's also possible to run the dice roller outside of Owlbear Rodeo too.

RobinBaggett has created a Draw Steel ruleset for Fantasy Grounds. It includes support for power rolls, character sheet with rollable characteristics, and combat tracker support.

Gub has created a Draw Steel character creator. It takes you through a guided process to build a first level character. You run it locally on your computer.

MrMattDollar has created STL files for Draw Steel dice. The files include a 20-sided d10, a twelve-sided d6, a regular d6 and a six-sided d3.

5e Homebrew

FaithBanana has ported a number of old mystic powers from older versions of D&D to the D&D 5e Talent.

Kazimov has released version 2 of their Elastimorph subclass, and the Hyperkinetic subclass for the D&D 5e Talent.

From Around the Web

As expected, Draw Steel is starting to show up everywhere on the web. In the links section I've included a bunch of links from people outside of our community that are talking about Draw Steel and MCDM in general.

I want to highlight SuperGeekMike talking about how Where Evil Lives can be used to create more interesting boss encounters, and the episode of the Eldritch Lorecast where Matt guested and shared some good insights on digital play tools.

Outro

And that's it for September. Another very Draw Steel heavy month, which is also likely to be the case for a while.

If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on [email protected].

Links to the MCDM Discord server, the reddits for MCDM and Draw Steel, the YouTube channels of Matt and MCDM, the complete link section, and this script is in the show notes. It's also on goblinpoints.com.

Next episode is on the 20th. I'll be speaking with Solace, whom you might know as the author of the first third party adventure released for Draw Steel. See you next time. Snakkes.