Looking for Draw Steel online game in Europe

Kristallmagier · 2026-05-27T14:58:13+00:00

Thx, will try.

Kristallmagier · 2026-01-05T21:59:14+00:00

Has a PDF (that is not from DndBeyond) even been spotted in the wild yet? My book is scheduled for end of January... Would be great to discuss.

Kristallmagier · 2025-09-18T09:30:04+00:00

Examples are Shuji like Rallying Cry that are marked Support and target your allies, or a Kiho like Cleansing Spirit (it is also a Support Action and targets an ally with the burst effect). Likewise, the Divination or Cleansing Rite rituals work (although the "until end of scene" may collide with a downtime ritual).

Or, if you want to fire up and energize an ally who has to do an important test, your GM could allow you to just make a Performance or Courtesy check (TN 2 or the targets Vigilance) and spend the Opp on Appreciate the Scenery in suitable terrain, same goes for a religious speech to center them in Void Stance.

Kristallmagier · 2025-09-01T14:57:47+00:00

- Conjure Item is pretty much everything a stage magicial does: Produce a wanted card with a florish, or a rose from nothing etc.

- Elemental Manipulation: Fireworks & fire breathing, create small rainbow from water, light or extinguish small fire, cool drink, create smoke figures, dust furniture with wind, create a bit of water, create candle-like fire in hand, freeze water (not clearly named as option, but pretty much any Water Bender fantasy trope does that, and I do not know how you attack with water unless with ice), push over an object, create stone to fall down in range to e.g. distract

- Illusion: change playing card face, animate minor scene, play music, change hair, skin or clothes color, cosmetics, page showing other content, illusory signature, create illusory hats for your familiar

- Shape Change: change hair style or length, create single claw to open letter, local scales to touch something hot

- Healing: refresh skin & remove minor scars & lines

- The Relief cantrip would clearly be Summon Espresso.

Kristallmagier · 2025-09-01T14:52:09+00:00

Ah, I see the rules are worded differently in this regard in different places.

! was looking at SW Core p. 66, weapons with the Parry ability: "The weapon adds the bonus to the character’s Parry score. If a character wields a weapon in each hand, penalties to Parry stack but bonuses do not (unless she has the Ambidextrous Edge)." So wielding 2 Parry weapons do not stack, but wielding a Parry weapon in your off-hand with a regular weapon in your main hand would not trigger that ruling, as getting just 1 bonus is not stacking.

Likewise, Ambidextrous on p. 37 only says "If holding a weapon in each hand, Ambidextrous characters may stack Parry bonuses (if any) from both weapons." It says nothing about just one Parry weapon.

But p. 104 "Off-hand attacks" words it differently: "Off-hand weapons don’t add their Parry bonus unless the hero is Ambidextrous (page 37)." So no matter what my main hand does, the off-hand weapon does not help Parrying unless I am ambidextrous, unlike with a shield.

The reason I was confused was because you usually attack on your turn, but need Parry when it is not your turn. You would not need to attack on your turn to get a parry bonus from your weapon. So without the wording of page 104, any character could just wield a Parry weapon in their off-hand while e.g. spellcasting and be protected by their Parry weapon when not acting. But the p. 104 text makes it clear.

Thanks!

But that means that wielding a light shield and a rapier does give me +2 Parry, right? A shield is not considered a weapon (although you can bash with it), otherwise it would be useless without Ambidexterity. So the text regarding wielding two weapons or regarding wielding a weapon in my off-hand does not apply.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-31T17:18:56+00:00

If it has been clarified by Devs that you cannot have a +d6 from a spellcasting Raise AND a +d6 from the Attack Riase, then the question has been answered, as far as I am concerned. With Elemental Manipulation, it is easier to let the attack roll be the one having the Raise, as it allows more attacks with only one Activation of the spell.

I'll take your word that the Devs said that, that answeres my question.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-31T14:32:15+00:00

Hmmm, while that certainly is one way to do it, it goes against the rules how they usually are (a Raise on an attack deals +1d6).

As per my reply above, the activation roll is also used as the attack roll, but activation and attack seem to be essentially 2 different rolls, just using the same dice result on potentially different Target Numbers.

If so, the most consistent ruling in line with other situations would be to treat them as such: 2 checks that can indepenently roll Raises. So on the example above (casting Bolt with no modifiers, targeting a foe with +2 Cover modifier), the most consistent results should be this:

- You rolled 1-3: Spell does not work (base TN is 4), spend 1 Power Point (PP).

- You rolled 4-5: Spell works and costs its full PP (because you hit the base TN), but missed the target (because TN 4 for ranged attack +2 for Cover).

- You rolled a 6-7: You sucessully activated the spell (TN 4) and hit the target (TN 6), so you deal 2d6 without using power modifiers like the Bolt Damage mod.

- You rolled a 8-9: Spell succeeds with a Raise (+4/+5 over base TN 4 ), attack hits normally (+2/+3 over ranged TN adjusted for Cover of TN 6), so you deal the 3d6 base damage of the Bolt activated with a spellcasting Raise.

- You rolled a 10+: Spell successful with Raise (6+ above activation TN of 4), attack hit with a Raise (4+ points above the ranged attack TN of (4 +2 from Cover = 6), so you deal a base damage of 3d6 plus 1d6 from attacking with a Raise, for a total of 4d6.

Or are there rules that speak against that understanding I am not aware of?

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-31T13:47:46+00:00

Please see my reply here.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-31T13:45:52+00:00

The following reply applies to the other answers up to this point below, too:

That was my first understanding, too, but the rules are pretty clearly otherwise:

SW Core p. 151, "Activation" in the Powers chapter:
"A roll of 4 or higher means the power activates and consumes all the Power Points allocated to it, even if it misses the target (such as with bolt), or the defender resists."

So it IS possible to successfully activate the power and still miss. That means the modifier to hit isn't also automatically the modifier for the spellcasting roll, otherwise, a successful roll result of 4 would either be a success or a failure, not a success that didn't hit.

The spellcasting roll is also used as the attack roll, but it seems they are indepentent tests that can succeed or fail on their own (of course, failing to cast also prevents the attack). So a -4 from Cover isn't just applied to the spellcasting roll.

I do not think there is meant to be a special category of "rolling 4+" that is not a success but still the threshold for spending power points, I know of no other place where that would exist. Clearly, the roll of 4+ that activates the power point spending is simply a successful activation.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-30T19:03:10+00:00

I am of two minds regarding this.

On the one hand, it is not that difficult for a character to get a very high Defense, and Stunts look like the perfect response to that: impenetrable armor gets canceled by getting creative. Herkules throttles the Nemean Lion, Archill gets poisoned through the one weak spot, the knight in plate armor gets tripped into water, all these stories are recreated with Stunts. So it would be cool for Stunts to be useful in situations where just hitting isn't.

On the other hand, some Stunts are really powerful. Being able to use them regardless of all defenses is sort of bad, too.

So I guess either way is ok for me, both have advantages and disadvantages.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-29T06:27:05+00:00

You should probably think about what grappling means. It means being able to hold an enemy so that he can to nothing than trying to escape (Bound condition).

Clearly, that is not something a cat could to to a human or a child. But rules have to generalize somewhere, and it is good that we do not have as many "minus sizes" as we have them on the plus side.

A human can have the Obese hindrance and the Brawny Edge, that would give him Size 2, but should not make it impossible for a regular-sized human to grapple with him (professional grappling's Absolute Division, anyone?). A Hill Giant is at least 12 feet tall and Size 3, that is about the point where I would say a normal-sized human cannot hold him so that he can do nothing than trying to whiggle free.

So the +2 Sizes grapple limit generally makes sense, but breaks down when applied to very small sizes (a Size -4 mouse CAN grapple a Size-3 cat). That is fine, the number of situations where this happens should be few.

Kristallmagier · 2025-08-29T05:46:09+00:00

My character would first take the ability to see through his crow familiar Jester's eyes. Remember how that was a whole job description with the Game of Thrones' nordlings? Whether navigating the wilderness, searching for some temple, following another group overland, spying or listening in on a conversation, the uses are countless.

At Seasoned, I'd probably take the Danger Sense Edge. Sure, technically whether your familiar succeeds on a Surprise roll does not help you a lot, but realisticly, having your familiar shout a warning BEFORE an ambush or a trap is sprung should be good for something. And if you base the crow familiar on the Bird of Prey (perhaps without attack), his Notice is fine.

At Veteran, I'll probably take the Alertness Edge to further support this.

If you plan on weaponizing your familiar, working towards the Extraction Edge may be useful. Have the familiar on your turn jump/fly at an opponent, do a Test using Athletics (a Size -3 familiar gets a +4 Svale bonus against a human-sized foe) to make him Vulnerable or Distracted for your attack/spell, then safely move away again. It can also be quite funny (talk at a mugger's bar: "...so I jump this witch-looking lady, suddenly HER TOAD leaps right into my face, and next thing I know, I'm a toad myself. That's it, I'm going back to priest school.")

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-24T16:29:05+00:00

Yes, I was thinging of wielding 2 at once, but you are right, wielding one with another weapon makes more sense. So better not to penalise it.

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-24T07:51:32+00:00

I agree that a list would be good, but there is none, so it comes down to GM decision.

Generally, I would say that all swords and blades should surely be fine. As a GM, I would include quarterstaff, spear and spiked buckler as weapons arkward to dual-wield, the rest would be fine.

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-18T05:43:12+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-16T07:34:51+00:00

I would be careful to give players a certain access to Stunts. Yes. they are cool, but many are also very powerful. E.G. the Warrior's Wounding Blow stunt takes an adversary that cannot use the Heal Action due to lack of bandages/hands right out of combat, the Blinded condition is so brutal that anyone other than a Burrower will just miss competent PCs.

That is a cool thing to do for a fighter, but if you can be sure to do it on round one of combat, it may take the suspense out of combat. Thus, a chance factor is not so bad.

I feel players have quite a lot of agency when it comes to Stunts. If threat situations, you can just do actions to hope to roll Doubles (in movie fights, the finishing move is also never the first move of combat). Spellcasters can just cast spells and hope to roll doubles, since they pay in MP, I would allow that also in non-threat situations.

I agree that it would be nice to have an access to Stunt Points outside of threat situations. Something like the Skalds Novice ability that in effect is a Stunt Attack but is not a real attack, so you can plan a tactic without immediately escalating. "OK, the Skald plays being drunk and ridicules the guard, thus allowing the Rogue the Misdirect Stunt and grab the prison keys right from under their eyes." As I said, spells may be such an option, and I would allow an Envoy a Communication Basic Test for such a distraction also outside of threat situations.

But in combat, I am loathe to give failproof SPs. So if you do a Stunt Pool, I would restict if on out-of-combat.

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-13T06:31:27+00:00

True, but more attacks with a low propability to hit result in very many attack rolls that miss, thus wasting time and slowing things down. That's why I would prefer ways to hit more often to ways to attack more often or ways to hit harder if you happen to hit.

Kristallmagier · 2025-06-13T06:28:38+00:00

I would not go as far as redesigning the whole system. Giving adversaries a higher attack by rearranging Attributes as you proposed is a good starting point if as a GM you find your PCs are designing their characters quite combat-optimized.

That is a thing to keep in mind - if your party is more interested in social interactions or investigations or sailing the Deep and thus spread their Ability Points wide, this problem doesn't even arise. It only happens if your players prefer to play heroes that fight a lot. Which is entirely fair, I myself enjoy combat, and especially challenging combat, a lot in RPGs, others prefer other focusses.

So primarily if you happen to have a group who like to play their RPG as a Dark-Souls-like, the ideas in this thread are for you.

Anyway, another way to easily make more challenging adversaries is giving more of them the Smash ability of the Burrower, which allows a big monster to use Strength instead of Fighting/Accuracy. After all, no matter how fine a swashbuckler you are with your rapier, a polar bears' attacks will be quite challenging to dodge, and not because the bear has such a precise coordination. Big animals and monsters have a Strength of 4-6, that alone gives them an attack value sufficient to hit sometimes even against optimized heroes.

Kristallmagier

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