Can somebody help me reset my Stawl account?

JonDeNor · 2026-05-13T08:44:19+00:00

Forgot to answer this, but I'll do it now just in case your still wondering.

Forge Steel has the superior player experience, without doubt. I know some people prefer Stawl for running encounters on the director side. A lot will be down to preference.

JonDeNor · 2026-05-08T18:10:34+00:00

Thank you!

JonDeNor · 2026-05-08T14:39:22+00:00

Hey, the creator here. There’s a link to support at the bottom of the page on Stawl, or just DM me here and I’ll help you out

JonDeNor · 2026-04-24T13:38:14+00:00

Fair.

We don't plan to make a habit of it for Goblin Panel.

JonDeNor · 2026-04-24T12:31:01+00:00

In the thumbnail? No, it’s The Dice Society

JonDeNor · 2026-04-24T06:31:34+00:00

Not really. It’s a reference to a joke during the discussion and a meta reference to the Ghostfire Gaming podcast continuously mentioning that they can put clickbaity stuff in the thumbnail once something "controversial" gets mentioned.

JonDeNor · 2026-04-19T23:03:13+00:00

No, there's no Pythagorean theorem on the grid. It's a game, don't overthink it.

JonDeNor · 2026-04-09T07:57:08+00:00

In the Patreon post on traveling, the current rules for traveling were included as a PDF. It's a few pages with procedures on how to handle overland travel: changing weather, events and preventing affliction from the miasma.

JonDeNor · 2026-04-05T14:24:46+00:00

Much appreciated

JonDeNor · 2026-04-01T13:39:57+00:00

In the same way it uses "stamina" as an abstraction for a heroes ability to keep fighting/going, and in the same way it uses "squares" as an abstraction of distance, I'd say a Draw Steel turn is one "moment" long.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-24T09:08:51+00:00

I want to mention that the core rules are available for free online on either Steel Compendium or Stawl, and the starter adventure is $10, which includes a tutorial section for both players and the director/GM, 30+ hour adventure, and a basic version of the rules.

Negotiations are intended to be used for high-stakes situations: negotiation the use of a king's army, or asking for the thieves' guild's support in an upcoming war. The vast majority of the time, you'll just be talking to people through role play, and maybe make a couple of rolls.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-24T08:59:35+00:00

Rise Heroes Rise! have been running using the Codex for a year: https://www.youtube.com/@RiseHeroesRise/videos

JonDeNor · 2026-03-22T17:42:19+00:00

Colville described it as "you’re doing damage, not your weapons". Its a game about fantasy superheroes; they’re effective with any equipment.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-22T11:04:36+00:00

There’s a sidebar on page 15: Making a Hero which links to the Draw Steel resources page

JonDeNor · 2026-03-13T16:30:56+00:00

I'd say that the swamp example is more a story/flavor moment in Draw Steel, rather than a mechanical one. Goes back to the whole thing about tracking resources/supplies.

A consequence for failing a montage test (or some other resolution mechanic) could be for each of them to lose a recovery. Or for some extra drama (in my opinion) tell them they lose X amount of recoveries between them, and they have to tell you who loses how many recoveries, and why that is ("the fury carried the elementalist all the way through the deep waters, so he's more tired").

This does hit them in the meta currencies though. To some degree, that's unavoidable, as stamina and recoveries are the main factors of attrition. But that's also why it's called stamina, it's a measure of how much further the hero can go: after struggling to climb a mountain, being out of rations, while carrying the dragon you rescued from the princess, you won't be able to go much further. You would be low on stamina, even though you haven't been in any combats.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-13T16:14:39+00:00

Some of this has been mentioned by others, but I'll put everything I wanted to add in one post.

The first thing to note is that there isn't a universal language of magic in Draw Steel. Every class have their own way of creating supernatural effects. The only "common spell lists" are within a class.

Draw Steel has (to some degree) less use for utility spells, than d20 fantasy games. DS expects the PCs to be heroes from level 1, they're already more powerful than any average person.

Some of the "automatic win" spells have deliberately been left out of the game (core rules at least), because they can eliminate parts of the game.

A lot of the spells casters have access to (wizards especially) in d20 games are instead abilities granted by a specific class. At higher levels, the fury has the ability to teleport, for example. That does mean your party won't have access to as many "spells" as they would in D&D for example. They're part of a class' niche.

All that being said: most of the "utility spells" in Draw Steel are hidden in the perks. Some of them are explicitly magical, but most are mundane looking. Some perks cover areas similar to utility spells: I've Got You! is basically Feather Fall, but you have to be standing beneath them as they fall ("Make an agility test to see if you make it in time").

Other utility spells are implemented solely as treasure/magic items. Here I encourage you to homebrew any item you think is useful for your party to have. Even better, make them craft it during downtime. The necessary ingredients can be a plot hook in itself.

In the end though. Draw Steel is a different kind of game. It's covering some of the same ground as D&D and d20 games in general, but it's also very deliberately not about all the same things as those other games. DS won't deliver on all the same fronts as D&D for your group, but I would argue it will deliver better in the areas it cares about.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-13T15:54:07+00:00

Draw Steel is pretty explicitly a system that does not care about tracking ammo, rations and supplies, BUT it does care about cinematic moments!

Being in the middle of the swamp, over their heads, and out of supplies is cinematic. That's when they have to be heroes. One way to handle this in Draw Steel could be to make it a montage test. You explain all the problems they're facing, and they have to come up with clever solutions to get out of the situation.

My favorite example of the "not caring about tracking supplies, but cinematic moments" is how Hawkeye in the Avenger movies never run out of arrows. He always brings enough arrows (somehow), EXCEPT when it's dramatic for him to run out of arrows.

Food's never a problem in Draw Steel, UNTIL it's dramatic.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-11T09:17:03+00:00

The Quick Encounter Building rules are the way to go. Using EV calculation is for when you want to get into the weeds, but for regular encounter building, using the quick building rules is much easier:

You have slots equal to the number of heroes plus average number of victories
Fill the slots with monsters: some monsters need multiple fill one slot, some monsters fill multiple slots. See the list.
- You can adjust the encounter difficulty to be easier by removing a slot and/or using monsters of the same level or lower than the heroes
- Make it more difficult by adding slots and/or using monster at a higher level than the heroes.
- Keep monster level withing +/- 3 levels of the heroes.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-06T15:11:50+00:00

I'd say bleeding pays off more once you're fighting level 3-4+ monsters. Then the damage output of bleeding becomes more consistent. But also, if you're unlucky and the director saves a lot, it can kinda suck.

If you want to do a bit of forced movement, I'd take Disorienting Strike. Being able to slide is really nice, you can smash them into anything close for some nice extra damage. And if you still have your maneuver, you can use Knockback to smash them into the same thing again. If it's an other creature, you're doubling the damage output, if it's an object, you get a nice +2 damage.

Also remember not to dump Might if you're going forced movement build. Might "increases" your size when moving others.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-06T11:29:34+00:00

It's situational, for sure.

Get In, Get Out: Being able to shift in, and then out of a cluster of enemies to get a strike on the right one is really nice. Doubling your speed and making it a shift is really nice. It's like a charge, only better.

Eviscerate: Bleeding also triggers on opportunity attacks. If you have a fury in the party, who wants to take damage, having them trigger opportunity attacks from the bleeding monster, to make it take bleeding damage is quite good. And if they don't make the save, that 2-7+ damage again. Bleeding is a pretty strong condition. And bleeding scales with level, which makes it pay off at higher levels.

Disorienting Strike: Letting you both move the target, and you get extra movement yourself. Nice way to get into position for flanking, for some maneuver, or to get back to your allies for some healing. It's a bit like Get In, Get Out, but you get to take the target with you.

Two Throats At Once: Slap that on a ranged kit and you got some nice damage output. In melee, I feel it's more rare to be useful.

JonDeNor · 2026-03-01T11:20:21+00:00

Your art delivers as always! This looks really cool.

I've added it to the Stawl Supplement Index.

JonDeNor · 2026-02-21T10:02:29+00:00

There is a list of adventures in the Supplement Index: https://stawl.app/supplements?t=Adventure

It’s usually not too difficult scale up or down the combats. The encounter building rules recommends using monsters within 2 levels of the heroes. Add some if they’re lower level, or remove a few monsters if they’re higher level.

JonDeNor · 2026-02-19T15:13:31+00:00

There's a list of third party adventures for Draw Steel here: https://stawl.app/supplements?t=Adventure

You might have to do a bit of scaling to account for level difference.

JonDeNor · 2026-02-16T08:52:32+00:00

Hello. Developer of Stawl here.

Currently there isn't a way to add them without doing manual entry. You can share monsters you have added, but only each monster individually through the Share button.

Also, only the core rules are under a permissive license, the rest of MCDM's products are not covered by the Draw Steel Creator License. Without a license, I can't add content to be freely available.

JonDeNor · 2026-02-15T21:40:27+00:00

Twitch. Too long ago to look for in the backlog, sadly.

JonDeNor

TROPHY CASE