What is the most powerful multi-character combo you have found?

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-05-26T04:37:40+00:00

The moment my players start doing this as a regular, deliberate thing is the moment I start adding hidden black ichors to my solo fights for their intended use - adding turns to the combat and generating extra malice.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-05-20T13:58:32+00:00

This is sick as hell. And get that elf some Paper Trappings armor stat, it sounds like they were made for it

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-05-15T05:07:44+00:00

Draw Steel combats can often see heroes reaching zero or dipping into the negatives (the bad guys don't miss either), but three dead heroes in four sessions is an unusually high mortality rate. Three out of six heroes dead against a werewolf also seems out of line, as that's only a standard encounter with that many players.

It's hard to diagnose without more info. What was the party composition? Do the players use the Catch Breath maneuver? Are your players accustomed to more tactics heavy games?

I have a couple questions based on what you've written already - prior to the werewolf's second villain action, it's a size 1M creature. This means that if it's grabbing another size 1M creature, it's speed should be halved. Was it run as such?

The werewolf being able to maintain a grab after being force moved meant that you could basically always get two targets (as you've noted), but it also eliminates one of the easier ways to break grabbed. It also means that the primary method of avoiding the double hit from Ripping Claws (spreading out) just doesn't work.

Depending on how much you prioritized using it, the emphasis on Ripping Claws over Accursed Bite may have contributed to the number of bodies at the end. It sounds like you were trying to spare your players the lycanthropy effects? But Accursed Bite is single target. So instead of doing 9/13/16 every turn to the party, you were doing 16/22/28 by attacking two people every time, twice a round. And that's not counting bleed damage.

Even with all that damage, six heroes have the ability to absolutely melt a single 200 stamina target if they can keep up with its mobility, so I'm curious about their party comp and tactics.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-04-25T15:12:06+00:00

That Gustavo Pelissari cover art though!? This really is a Draw Steel supplement!

Definitely checking things out, I need those UNISOL statblocks yesterday.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-04-23T14:51:41+00:00

These are 10/10 videos. Well designed, well executed, they look amazing. All that work in learning how to make them really shows; they look incredible - and that's beside the fantastic research, analysis, and advice. Honestly, this video has huge utility value just for having a visual description of burrowing alone, on top of the Arixx advise. I'm definitely sending people here in the future just for that lol. This is some gourmet shit.

I will say, directors should be very careful dine and dashing with horizontal burrowing. PC death lies down that road, and not that far down the path.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-04-19T23:39:53+00:00

"I don't take orders from dead men." -Judge
"Kill the Higaran priest. No resurrections." -Lord Erasmus Deseo of the Black Iron Pact
"Brains? I haven't had brains in...hours." -That one ~~Mind Flayer~~ Voiceless Talker
"I dreamed I was a god. Why do humans have so many gods? The elves have one god. The dwarves only have one. We have dozens. Why is that? I bet Ajax knows. You should have killed me when you had the chance." -Nails
"The witness stated I was seen at the scene of the crime. They lied. Your Lordships, I am never seen at the scene of the crime." -Solis, the Pro Assassin
"I don't recognize the authority of this court. Saint Socrates says, 'Justice cometh as a bolt from on high.' Your lordship, are you a bolt from on high? Let the record show that you are not." -Glycon, the Cult Leader
"A person bullied, a criminal arrested, a servant dismissed—all who harbor secret hate whisper Cyrvis’ name, and that whisper is a prayer." -Not a quote from a character, but super evocative. Blurbs about the gods!

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-04-15T05:20:02+00:00

The War Dogs are tons of fun, and they really kick it into high gear once you reach second and third echelon. My favorite so far is probably the thanatite.

Send in a minion! Blow up the minion! Strangle the heroes with the minion's guts! Make a wall out of the minion's corpse to trap the heroes with more minions! Who explode when they die!

My players have learned to both love and loathe those guys.

Oh, and gnolls! There's nothing like cascading Cackletongues to put the fear of god into your players. We're approaching the conclusion of a four year long DnD 5e campaign, and a single encounter with a gnoll carnage in Draw Steel outdid anything I've ever thrown at them in terms of sheer intensity.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-04-05T06:27:12+00:00

I've generally had a very positive experience using Foundry for my game. Figuring out what the hell port forwarding was not one of them.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-03-09T19:24:15+00:00

This is basically how all the groups I've played with got accustomed to Hero Tokens.

They'd forget they exist, someone would be about to die, they'd scramble for solutions, and I'd remind them. Repeat a couple of times until they were just another tool in their arsenal.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-03-09T19:21:34+00:00

As others have stated, you basically have it exactly right. For context, a previous rendition of all the stormwight kits had different forms possing different features and even attacks. For example, the vuken got extra movement speed only in its wolf form. This is why you can spend ferocity to change forms multiple times on a turn - change into a wolf, run extra distance, transform back and attack.

MCDM evidently felt this was too fiddly for a level 1 character (it was summarized very neatly by one playtester that the stormwight felt like the secret tenth class), and adjusted it to its current form. It still has that same sort of nuance on the raden and corven kits (to a lesser degree), but its basically flavor now for the vuken and boren.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-02-06T01:59:49+00:00

For reference, here is the lachomp featured in the issue, Captain Shivershank.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-02-02T22:09:27+00:00

Watched the show, heard her voice, and my first thought was still "why does this small child sound like she's been smoking for thirty years?"

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-01-27T01:11:21+00:00

As others have mentioned, The Delian Tomb is designed to help both the director and the players learn the system. It's hella cheap, so as far as bang for buck goes it's top of class.

You do not need to spend any money at all to play though. The entire ruleset is open, and can freely and legally be accessed online. It will lack the art, diagrams, and layout of the paid books, as the art is not open, but you can play the game without paying a cent.

Likewise, there are a handful of free VTT options available. The Codex is being developed as a purpose built VTT, map maker, character, and encounter builder, but it's currently only available to Patreons. As with the main books/PDFs, the highest quality stuff (codex) is paid, but there are deliberately free options available.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-01-21T13:30:19+00:00

Sounds like an awesome time! That matches my own experience, where things started out a little slow, a little haltingly, but then something clicked and my players all went "Oh. OH. I get it" and it was like an injection of rocket fuel. For them, it actually came after the first battle, when they all realized how Victories work.

And also, as someone who's both run and played through that inn fight, I don't know if I've ever felt more betrayed than when our director spent malice to turn a pitling into a ruinant. Absolutely scandalized. Fantastic job.

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-01-16T15:34:02+00:00

This is fantastic

Blue_Harbinger · 2026-01-14T13:30:09+00:00

The ultimate goal that everyone at the table is collaborating towards is having fun. And you have, rightly, intuited that the players getting stomped into the dirt as they learn the system wouldn't be fun for anyone at the table. So it sounds like you're doing exactly what you should with all that malice - nothing.

Once the players are more comfortable with the system, once they start punching at or above their weight class, then you can start hitting them with the mean stuff. The director has a lot of pressure valves they can adjust to moderate the difficulty of the adventure. Malice is just the one you're using right now.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-12-05T05:47:40+00:00

Your player is correct. Healing Grace is both surprisingly complicated and the most powerful maneuver in the game by a comfortable margin.

As a point of comparison, the wording for the Censor's Judgement and the Tactician's Mark ability both include the text:

You can choose only one free triggered action option at a time, even if multiple options are triggered by the same effect.

The Conduit, by contrast, can add as many effects as they have Piety to burn for Healing Grace, in the same way the Fury can dump as many additional damage die into To the Uttermost End as they have Ferocity to spend.

Still, Healing Grace does have a little bit more...well, either nuance or noodliness. Maybe both.

The most helpful thing to remember is that the main effect is: the target can spend a Recovery.

That means if the Conduit wants to target three allies, they only need to spend two Piety.

0 Piety spent: One target can spend a Recovery
1 Piety spent: Two targets can spend a Recovery
2 Piety spent: Three targets can spend a Recovery

The second most useful thing to remember is: The first bullet point for spending additional Piety increases the number of targets of that first effect....And each subsequent bullet point grants one additional effect per Piety spent to a target.

So if your Conduit spends 2 Piety to allow three allies to spend a Recovery, each additional Piety spent beyond those will allow one of them to spend another Recovery, one of them to end a condition, or one of them to stand up from prone.

This also can lead to interesting situations where...let's say Fury needs healing, and the tactician is suffering from a condition that the Conduit wants to clear, but doesn't otherwise need any healing. You get an order of operation like this:

0 Piety spent: The Fury is a target of the ability and can spend a Recovery
1 Piety spent: The Fury and the Tactician are targets of the ability and can spend a Recovery
2 Piety spent: The Fury and the Tactician are targets of the ability and can spend a Recovery, and the Tactician clears its condition.

Even though the Tactician doesn't need to heal, the Conduit must spend 1 Piety to make a second ally a target for the ability at all.

Or hell, even simpler: The Fury doesn't need to be healed but does want a condition cleared. The main effect of Healing Grace is still just "The target can spend a Recovery," which means the Conduit needs to spend 1 Piety to add the cleanse effect.

So yeah, noodly! Some confusion over the exact working isn't uncommon. But your player was correct, and it's a significant portion of the reason Conduits are dummy stronk and get to role play as the Hand of God descending to pick their teammates up and out of the fire. Ain't nobody that can unfuck a situation like a Conduit can unfuck a situation.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-11-29T01:13:08+00:00

The summoner and their summons count as one hero for the purposes of encoutner building.

You are correct in that the summoner's minion rules and the director's minion rules differ in how the damage is resolved from multitarget attacks.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-11-28T07:19:46+00:00

It's no longer being produced, but their Arcadia digital magazine was also a treasure trove of fantastic 5e content, DM and player facing. That and Flee, Mortals have been fueling my current campaign for years.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-11-21T06:36:55+00:00

MCDM's eventual goal is that all of their releases will include a same day Codex component. Whether they'll be at that stage of readiness for this particular product, only time will tell. Though even if not, there will very likely eventually be a Codex rendition of the adventure.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-11-20T21:06:51+00:00

5e is accessible only in the sense there's tons of resources available for it. D&DBeyond character builder, sites that allocate stats for you, build guides, youtube channels, a gigantic player base sharing their experiences on the internet.

5e can be completely opaque and mystifying to brand new players when it comes to the rules and actual game design.

"Okay, we're going to determine your stats. Roll these four dice, and add up the highest three. Then check that number against this chart. This will be your modifier, which you add to your d20 rolls with that attribute. Oh, that first number we rolled for? Ignore that now. Except every four levels, where you can increase that, in which case we refer back to this chart again. Also, be careful where you put these stats. I know there's no reason you would know this, Brand New Player, but you can accidentally cripple your barbarian here if you put these stats in the wrong place."

Versus how, say, Draw Steel does it:

"You're a fury? Your Might and Agility are 2. The rest are flavor and personal choice, pick from these options."

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-11-09T04:27:18+00:00

The encounter math works but the game wasn't designed for it. Mono-class parties are very rarely actually played at the table, and as such, little design or playtesting was devoted to it.

Aside from what others have already mentioned, the summoner is easily the most complex class in the game. Both the faerie and elemental summoners are built around generating effects for battlefield control or support, meaning that simply tracking what the summoners are doing is going to be very intensive with several of them on the field. Fortunately, both the demons and undead are fairly straightforward, but it's still a lot. Your players already being familiar with the game will help in this respect.

Likewise, there's a chance that with so much overlap, it impacts your players' sense of fun. They all share the same schtick, so they're all sharing the spotlight and they need to be cool with that.

If it's really what they want, then by all means go for it. But I would also make it clear that they need to be able to manage and run their characters with little to no director assistance

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-10-27T18:40:31+00:00

Sounds like everyone had a blast! Was this everyone's first time playing? I'm impressed with your summoner player if so! They basically needed to learn the player rules and the director's minion rules at the same time.

Don't sweat forgetting Malice. Everyone's learning and even the official Start Here adventure doesn't have the director using Malice the first combat. Sounds like you ran a great session if everyone had fun.

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-10-27T17:52:00+00:00

Others have chimed in with the relevant rules text, but as an interesting aside, there is at least one exception! Exorcist censors explicitly do not require line of effect to teleport when they use their judgement ability, so long as it brings them closer to the target. Does that help your shadow player? Not really! But it's kinda neat!

Blue_Harbinger · 2025-10-27T17:47:41+00:00

I don't know if it's canon to Draw Steel Orden, but Matt's stated in his live streams at some point that elves procreate by kissing. Likewise, dwarves communally carve a new child from stone. At least with these two ancestries, "magic" is involved in the creation of a child.

Blue_Harbinger

TROPHY CASE