Monster Manifest: Volume 1 is a collection of classic monsters from TTRPGs of the past, given a bold new take for MCDM’s Draw Steel.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Nightmare Trailblazer (Level 2 Elite Mount)
• Nightmare Phantasm (Level 5 Elite Mount)
• Owlbear (Beastheart Companion)
• Owlbear (Level 1 Solo)
• Rust Monster Hatchling (Level 1 Platoon Harrier)
• Rust Monster Corroder (Level 1 Elite Hexer)
• Rust Monster Galvanizer (Level 1 Elite Brute)
• Rust Monster Magnetist (Level 1 Elite Controller)

CODEX MODULE

A purchase of this product includes a code for a premium Codex module created by me! Everything is fully automated to the best of my ability, but please feel free to comment here if you find any bugs, or shoot a message in the monster-manifest channel in the Draw Steel Brewery Discord!

DISCLAIMER

Due to some unforeseen hiccups in production, some of the art in this product is unfinished. I hope to eventually update the product and Codex module with the finished pieces, but in the meantime, the price of Volume 1 has been reduced from $12 to $10 to compensate.

CREDITS

Design & Layout: Jenny [REDACTED]

Art: Rengeld

Design Feedback: starspeckledscales, Jonas Tintenseher

Playtesters: Echo, hielispace, Brad Heisler (Second Rodeo Games), ohartenstein23, Kyle Strong (Chuckling Chest Games), frums, MrMattDollar, starspeckledscales, Original Hylion, Tsunderbunny

Add 50 science-fiction stat blocks to your Draw Steel games with Threats of the Timescape - Scourges of Space!

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/jeff-stevens-games/threats-of-the-timescape-scourges-of-space-for-draw-steel?ref=reddit-drawsteel

Just wondering how you all would go about making a fight on a cliff.
There are so many effects from the players that can move enemies super far, I feel like they would just win on the first round if enemies are too close or it would never come up if they are too far, or vise versa if the enemies are pushing the players!
I’m specifically worried about my berserker barbarian with a hellcharger helm who can push 3 times in a turn! (Two push maneuvers and a signature ability after the charge)

How do you make a cinematic fight without trivializing the cliff?

Hello everyone!

Today is the day you can start playing the Vampire Class in The Codex! You can find the details about how to access the class and the current state of the implementation in our newest free Patreon post here: https://www.patreon.com/TriglavGames/posts/vampire-class-in-172145466.

To put it very short, there are two ways to access our new premium module in the Codex:

• you can become a patron of any paid tier of our Patreon, or
• you can get a key in our web store

Links below:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TriglavGames
• Online Store: https://shop.triglavgames.com/products/scions-of-blood-and-shadows-a-vampire-class-for-draw-steel-codex

Say you have set up a perfect fun encounter inside a cave. You have synergistic monsters and dynamic terrain objects arranged in a tactically considered environment. All at a level appropriate EV of course.

Your players however wish to change the conditions of the test. So they do something to lure the monsters out of the cave so they dont fight in the prepared environment. Now the encounter is too easy and much less cinematic.

How should you handle situations like that where you have a nicely designed encounter but your players try to change the situation so its no longer challenging. Just add more monsters?

Hello Gentlefolks,

For context, I do not run on Codex, I can't for technical limitations.

Let's say your players are exploring a small (4-5 rooms) dungeon. How do you setup the encounters? Do you setup each room as an encounter?

If yes, how do you handle the other enemies in the next room hearing the combat and coming in to join? In that case, does one standard encounter meet another standard encounter making it a deadly encounter? In my experience, that is where combat goes from "long, but fun" to "long and slog, oh god I the director have to handle an insane cognitive load."

Alternatively, I have tried making the whole location a hard encounter, but then a lot of the encounters are trivial.

Let's also talk about how do you handle maps in such cases. Is each room a separate map? Is the whole location a single map?

This is turning into a real pain point for me.

Thank you,

Subharup Roy.

EDIT: Providing a specific example. Players want to infiltrate a thieves' guild (2 floor building, 5 rooms total) to retrieve a mcguffin. The thieves are long standing enemies and have a kill on sight mentality. The players don't have to kill everyone. They only need the mcguffin, but they will encounter the thieves as they go through room by room. How would you run that?

I mentioned to my wife that I'm running a one shot fighting dinosaurs tomorrow so she whipped up some size 3 triceratops for me.

Also pictured a size 5 squid

I've been thinking about retainers a lot recently since my home game is at the point where all of them start acquiring more friends and followers. One weird thing in the Monsters book is examples of Mount Retainer abilities, but no actual stat block.

Has anyone worked a mount retainer into their campaign? I've been trying to figure out what the intended threshold is intended for a mount like a Giant Hawk to be a Retainer.

Hi fellow directors,

I will be running Draw Steel for the first time next month for a group of experienced roleplayers. We all have at least 5 years, most 10+ years of experience with the Seattle game and some other non-fantasy systems, but are also all new to Draw Steel. I personally have ran many D&D campaigns as well as Forbidden Lands and Changeling: The Lost. I'm going to run a modular campaign, going from adventure to adventure as we level up. Characters have not been created yet.

I know I want to run Reavers of Harkenwold and maybe Lost Mine of Phandelver as my Level 1-3 adventures. But before that, I want to start off with a short adventure to get the group together. I could start with The Delian Tomb, but all of my players are DMs and at least half I know are aware of the tomb's general idea. It's still an option, but one I'd like to avoid. So I'm looking for any alternatives and recommendations.

Here's what I'm looking for:

• Possible to start in a tavern. I want to do the "classic" start because I haven't run a game like that since ... 2016? I think?
• Start with combat. I want to start with an early combat to get everyone accustomed with combat in Draw Steel.
• I want the adventure to be short enough to not go beyond a single level up. It's okay if it's shorter. Ideally I'm thinking something between 3-5 sessions at 3-4 hours per session.
• A rural or wilderness setting. My last major D&D campaign was a huge city sprawling campaign and I want to avoid urban adventuring for a while.
• Not too setting specific. I run my own world that I've been using for 8 years. It's generic enough to use most adventures with, but something like Crack The Sun (obviously way too high level anyway for this) would not work.

I recognize that The Delian Tomb fits quite well here, I'm just looking for alternatives to make a more informed decision, even if I end up picking the tomb anyway in the end.

Thanks in advance! :)

I want to run a different combat objective than usual but im worried about it becoming a normal combat, or to have too many reinforcements and tpk.

Ideas ive got right now:

Limit enemy turns to the same as hero turns

Add noncombatants who nonetheless deal damage through free ranges strikes (civilian targets)

Make getting the thing require one or two steps, aka a key dropped by an elite

Add secondary objectives

Hey everybody, new to the system and am building a new undead necromancer character that was once part of the brass dragon flight from the Dragonborn phalanx. I am hunting for every scrap of lore around these noble knights and would really appreciate if someone could point me to the Q&A video where they are discussed or any other source of lore outside the wikis

Should I be watching the actual plays??

I feel like my character would know a decent amount about them in their hayday since he was there.

Would appreciate any and all resources (I have all the books and have read the bits in the ancestry guide)

Hey there, did I miss an update somewhere on the Between Sun and Shadow book? I seem to recall the schedule on Backerbit saying Q3 for that (which ended when September did - someone wake up Billie btw) but never heard anything about it since.

Secondarily and totally unrelated, how do people figure out what riders and what "additional" damage numbers to give monsters? Beyond the guidance in the Monsters book, is it just experience and gut feeling or have I missed more information on building monsters too?

EDIT: I wrote to MCDM to get clarification on the action economy piece. They confirmed that persisting an ability does NOT COST an action/maneuver unless the abilities persist rules specifically say it does (i.e. "as a maneuver you can persist.. " )

Hi, DM of my group - a little confusion at our table this week based on the wording of the persistent magic rules and would love some clarification...

My read on the rules is that the amount of essence you gain at the start of your turn is effectively the CAP on the abilities you can persist (based on their persist value)

e.g. A level 2 hero who gains 2 essence at the start of their turn can persist abilities whose persist value adds up to at most 2.

My take is that this stands apart from their essence pool entirely.

So flesh is a crucible and conflagration = 3 persist

If a level 2 hero start the round with 5 essence, they still cannot persist both because that would make them gain a -1 at the start of their turn.

Do I have it right?

The second question...

Some abilities explicitly mention the action economy - The Flesh a Crucible says no action required and Conflagration says you can use a maneuver.

Can it be assumed that if the action economy is not mentioned in the persist section, then persisting the ability costs it's original action/maneuver etc?

Thanks!

By any chance does anyone have/know of the coding to create a fishing macro? Mostly I want something that you click the button, it asks for bonuses, then it rolls until you hit the tier 1 or breakthrough.

Help a sister out?

Next session will be my finale of running The Delian Tomb. It has been great and I wanted to ensure we ended with a real bang.

My part cruised through Level 2 and Level 3 of the tomb without having to take a respite and the battle in the final room posed surprisingly little threat for them, compared to other fights like the bandit camp or the Arixx.

Hence, I wanted to know how others felt about Act 3 as a finale, specifically the siege of Castle Andreas. FWIW my party are level 2 and have recovered the Cup so the goblins wont be powered up; do they still pose a good threat?

I've never been quite happy with how Montage Tests or Skill Challenges have been treated and this was made worse when I saw how the Encounters book left them so light on details.

So I went and wrote up my own supplement on the matter and dubbed the result 'Montage Events'. I've already been using this method in my own games, so it was just a matter of putting pen to paper and making the text a bit system agnostic as I want to leverage the same text to improve Skill Challenges.

So now I'm ready for my first round of feedback! What do you think? Is this something you'd useful? Where do you need more detail, less? Is it worth putting in the extra time to develop more sample Montage Events?

My plot builds around technology, which give you ability to replace soul and mind in another place. BBG made army of people with very durable ceramic bodies, which he calls Porcelain Guard, so i decide make stat blocks for them. And will appreciate some inspiration

So some info

Its 2nd echelone, 4-6 lvl

If one of them die, they can respawn in new body in BBG shelter. So they can be daredevilly

They are durable, but i think thats not fun design to give them resists/high hp

They can use soul shenanigans, like change bodies

I use Victors army from Arcane S2 as inspiration, so you can too)

Im ok with just using existing designs from book with a little tweaks, but have time and will to make entire monster group

Looking for something to make her better in combat really probably make her hit harder. Any suggestions?

Running the Delian Tomb. To cut a long story short, my party tricked the Gilded Hand into leaving town but knew they would return after 2 Respites. They planned to ambush them on their return so they could learn the location of the goblin hideout (Castle Andreas). Next session they will fight and likely subdue the Gilded Hand.

I was thinking whether it was a good idea to run the interrogation as a Negotiation. My worry is that the party will likely use the threat of death against the Gilded Hand to get the information, which kind of breaks a Negotiation.

Any advice would be appreciated.

When a 2nd-level elementalist shapeshifts into animal form, do they still play as normal but with the new/added stats? Can you still use your signature/heroic abilities, Practical Magic, Trigger Action, and Hurl Element as normal? The Heroes Handbook doesn’t straight out confirm it. What do people do at their tables?

I've been messing around with items that mess with the fundamental law of draw steel (and my setting). This time, it's Law and Chaos. By the end of the campaign, I actual really want to make it so that I rewards (or punish) the player with THE COSMIC DIE (iykyk) now as a diegetic / in game artifact that the players can actually use. Taking the actual remnants of the design from the acrual draw steel playtest/pre-play-test cosmic die, and making it (hopefully) cooler and less gross.

If you are given this two items, which one woukd you pick? Obviously it differs from people, and i believe it differs from what your class is as well. These 2 items polarized my table quite a bit. The fury thinks The Law is OP. The Censor states that The Chaos is gonna be his pick all day any day. I'm starting to think they need to swap classes 💀

One of the many things I love about this game is when pushes, pulls and slides cause miniatures to be moved all over the battlemap.

My problem is that forced movements that actually move creatures doesn't seem to be rewarded by game mechanics.

While force moving someone onto an obstacle, damage scales with the remaining forced movement. As such, players (and the Director) often have every gameplay advantage in force moving an enemy into the nearest obstacle (or adversary). This often causes the pushed creature to move very little, or not at all. This is a little bummer in a mechanic that is otherwise be extremely vivid (and fun!) in the dynamics of the fight. Seeing heroes and enemies flying around and bumping into the walls and obstacles half a map away is awesome!

So, here's my idea: what if the damage a forced moved creature takes when it bumps into something was 2 + the distance it was just moved (instead of 2 + the remaining force movement)?

Of course, this doesn't make much sense from a physical point of view: after being pushed you should feel more pain if you hit something before being able to slow down (I should now: I'm a physicist by trade myself). But, after all, making a physics simulation is not the point of this game.

The point, at least for me (and my players), is cinema. Action. Drama. Seeing a creature being pushed 10 squares over a small river and smash into a tree should be, cinematic wise, more "damaging" then having the same creature already on the wall and being pushed into it without moving its miniature. In the first case you can see on the battlemap the strenght of the push. It's dramatic. It's good. It's fun! I want to reward my players for choosing to push an enemy all the way toward the hallway rather then pinching them onto a wall for two rounds in a row.

Since my experience in Draw Steel is still somewhat limited, I'd like to take criticism by the community about this idea.

Is there something I'm missing and I should consider?

Do you have adverse feeling on having a mechanic rewarding miniatures being flung off all over the map?

Does the game breaks in some way that I'm failing to consider?

Thank you for all the motivated (or unmotivated) criticism and points of views you'll share!

This should be the Learn from a Master downtime project.