#Evermight: Superhero Fantasy In Draw Steel

1157 messages · Page 2 of 2 (latest)

zenith yarrow
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luckily the jumping rules in this game AREN'T silly lol

ripe quartz
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Okay, I think my next suite of abilities will be with Hawkeye/ Green Arrow in mind

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As well as similar non-powered gadget characters, Batman too still

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I think for that elemental blast I’m gonna split it into two signatures, one that’s the 1 burst but it’s a melee weapon strike, and one that’s the elemental damage type cube/line

zenith yarrow
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that makes sense

ripe quartz
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Would a low damage 3 x 5 line be better than just choosing between a cube or a line?

zenith yarrow
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3x5 is 15 entire squares and more flexible than a cube

ripe quartz
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Yeah, I think might split them too, cause I’m imaging the cube as a cone of like breath, or a flamethrower or similar like wave, but the line is more like a cyclops blast or iron man chest beam

zenith yarrow
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Ye ye

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That's a very valid distinguishment

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Line could also be a single big projectile, cube is flurry of smaller ones

ripe quartz
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Yeah I might make the beam a ranged attack instead

zenith yarrow
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Beam is probably line

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OH OH also allow it to be horizontal, like a sweep

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so a line perpendicular to your character instead of shooting out of em

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like
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ripe quartz
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So 1 x 5 line within 5?

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Or similar

zenith yarrow
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yeah smth like that

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I just forget the format of how lines are done

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Are there any abilities that act like that already lol

ripe quartz
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We could make it a wall? So you connect a bunch of squares to be the area

zenith yarrow
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it would be funny if the game already had "wide lines" in enemies

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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I think for the wall abilities they have to specifically say in the effect that a wall appears there so we just, don’t do that

zenith yarrow
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do check

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if not you can just say the wall doesn't stay around for long

ripe quartz
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Or it’s like concealment cause dust kicks up

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Use it as a smokescreen

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You know actually if it’s a wall we can keep it as one ability

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There is one wall effect that says “the wall can be placed in occupied squares”

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So I think it could work

zenith yarrow
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neat

zenith yarrow
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maximally flexible targeting!

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except diagonals

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lines still have walls beat with diagonals lol

ripe quartz
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Very true, but a worth sacrifice

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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I think I’ll probably format the effect:

The wall can be placed in occupied spaces. Choose one of the following options:

Energy Beam. The wall is intangible and disappears immediately after you use this ability. Each enemy in the wall when it appears takes damage equal to 2 + your highest characteristic.

Ice Wall. The wall lasts until the end of the round. Each enemy in the wall when it appears is restrained until the wall disappears if they have M<AVERAGE. Otherwise they are shunted out of the wall and take 2 cold damage.

Smokescreen. The wall is intangible but blocks line of effect. Enemies in the wall when it appears snd who start their turn in the wall take 2 fire damage.

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Though similarly I might split these up into 1 point signatures

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Or I guess I make them 2 point abilities by making the wall count kinda high and change all the damage to 2 + highest, just to help avoid the character sheet bloat of being able to choose a bunch of stuff

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Oh my god I found out how to fix uncanny dodge

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Just hit me while doomscrolling

ripe quartz
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just got home from work, will update the ancestry with all the notes we mentioned

ripe quartz
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think we got it for these

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fixed the damage type issue me thinks

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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well what class would you play an elemental hero but not have elemental access to?

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that you couldnt use a kit to get a damage type you wanted, i should add

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maybe conduit i guess, they only get fire and lightning and only with a prayer effect, hm...

zenith yarrow
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plenty of fury stuff is somewhat elemental but not deeply so

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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yeah i just checked, basically only fire and lightning

zenith yarrow
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And even WITH that you're now pidgeon holing builds

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"can't use a polearm bcus then my elemental blasts just deal untyped damage bleck"

ripe quartz
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hm, i feel like adding "When you choose this signature ability, choose one of the following damage types; acid, cold, corruption, fire, holy, lightning, poison, psychic, or sonic damage." is wordy

zenith yarrow
zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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yeah but the dragon knights can choose every time

zenith yarrow
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Sure, but not for Wyrmplate

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And it's still pretty wordy

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on the wordiness and precedent front there's extant examples already

ripe quartz
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are there other signature abilities that have you make a choice for its damage or effects?

zenith yarrow
zenith yarrow
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practical magic ain't a signature but yk

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Dragon Breath of course picks a type

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Hurl Element

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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Yeah, just a weird gripe im having with it, ultimately its fine. I think I'll have the text for making the choice come at the top of the ability to avoid any confusion

zenith yarrow
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Fundamentally this is a weird ability - DS doesn't really have "elemental specialist" as an innate thing to a character or a class (elementalist still gets damage type versatility on their yayeet!)

zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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thoughts?

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i changed the path back to just a line cause the wall effect text was kind of clunky, and i wanted to switch to a power roll chart (to answer your question about scaling, from what i can tell no signature ability that is an Area scales with a characteristic)

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zenith yarrow
zenith yarrow
ripe quartz
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the kits that can target two creatures dont, and from what i check the conduit and censor signatures dont

zenith yarrow
zenith yarrow
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That's more the base game tho lol

ripe quartz
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hm uh, actually, no area ability scales. Just checked all of the censor, conduit and elementalist ones

zenith yarrow
zenith yarrow
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Wait no

zenith yarrow
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Psychic Pulse is area and scales strongly since it's total 3x statistic

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Now I'm just bamboozled lol

ripe quartz
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interesting

zenith yarrow
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I think we just found a bug in the game design lol

ripe quartz
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its also a maneuver which is even weirder

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but it doesnt have a chart, so its more of an outlier i suppose

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oh wait! all the auras scale the same way!

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a stat, or twice the stat

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so maybe effects that dont use a chart but effect a small area around you can scale...

zenith yarrow
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3x stat and expands ya null field and can do lots of slamming

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it is so nasty against crowds

ripe quartz
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okay this is the current working version

zenith yarrow
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sadly it is late after a full day of lectures & a lil other Shtuff so I am tired and lack the energy to Persnickitize these documents blobtired

ripe quartz
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basically what ive covered so far are the only big changes, did all the small suggestions to the other features

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im gonna look into getting some of my friends to try building one of their superhero characters with this!

zenith yarrow
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I'll also do that at some point

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What decision did we arrive to in terms of changing the classes?

ripe quartz
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I think for now we can see how the game plays with the base classes

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if its possible by just getting you the couple extra features from this ancestry, to build a solid superhero with the base game

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cause we can always rename abilities and change the flavor text right in forge steel, like this for example for my superman build

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this one is my favorite

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zenith yarrow
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Y O I N K

ripe quartz
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would green lantern have frightened immunity or is that like, his weakness

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this one made me chuckle

zenith yarrow
trim river
tepid shell
ripe quartz
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Damage Weakness - Yellow 5

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wait it’s giving

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Damage Weakness - Red40

ripe quartz
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oh hey looks like theres precedent for a no stability drawback to flight, taken from the rivals section in Monsters

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zenith yarrow
glossy loom
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Had a bit of a busy streak of days GMing and working but I should have my schedule open up a bit with which I wanna invest time working on this

@ripe quartz is there any checklist of things to do atm that I could possibly slowly chip away at?

ripe quartz
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Right now we’re working with the current build of the power set ancestry, and basically just trying to get some form of play test for it

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I think we’ve decided that the core classes fulfill a majority of the superhero archetypes so we just need to see what niches we need to fill and if having a catch all ancestry is really the move

glossy loom
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Also any clue where one would put Zatanna? Given her magic is just whatever she can speak backwards basically happens it's a bit far fetched so I'm thinking on how to keep it's idea but obviously limit it

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Also could you repost/pin the ancestries doc you have? Got trouble finding it.

ripe quartz
# ripe quartz

Here’s the most recent version!

Known Bug: the Forge Steel file has an error where the Stamina boost feature boosts recoveries instead of stamina

primal compass
primal compass
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Oh, it's a bug in the ancestry, not a bug in FS? OK. As you were.

ripe quartz
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Yeah I just had the wrong benefit selected on that one

glossy loom
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Have we considered the possibility of downtime project activity that could acquire a powerset ancestry trait akin to acquire ability/skill project?

Representing either mystical training or iron man making a new Mark armor etc.

thin jungle
ripe quartz
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Reviving this thread to update you guys on my current findings with the ancestry as it is, I think in its current state it’s achieving the goal of feeling like a superhero with a power suite, but I think it ultimately makes the whole thing kind of feel like a grab bag

I also think we’ve been going about this completely wrong, at least I have, in trying to play characters like Superman and Batman, because Draw Steel starts at level one.

What does level 1 Batman look like?

Robin.

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I think we should aim more towards a Teen Titans, Young Justice approach where the first echelons of play are as teenage superheroes coming in to their own, and the higher echelons finally see them coming into the roles their mentor’s have

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I think we should go back at the ancestry as things like “alien” “cyborg” or “mutant” because even in draw steel’s design, the ancestry traits should be physiological

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And like the draw steel ancestries theres probably gonna be a lot of overlap, but that’s okay

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Your powers, your actual abilities, should come from your class

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I’m gonna being working on from the ground up classes, loosely based on existing ones, to capture different sets of powers and skills that most heroes have

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Will check back when I’ve got more to share

glossy loom
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That is the approach I was thinking of originally but I didnt wanna muddy the waters. With ancestries/classes that is.

ripe quartz
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mhm yeah i think the original prospect was to make it more a la carte but i think your original idea is way better

ripe quartz
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Okay I had a first idea but I pivoted to this one, let me know what you guys think of this approach

brave matrix
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Wanted to revive this thread because I love this idea! Feels like such a natural blend to me

ripe quartz
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I've been slowly working at getting a game going!

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it seems the proof of concept version currently is working great

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definitely increases the power overall of characters, but with the goal of playing superheroes that was already the case

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i will reiterate that I am a comedic genious when it comes to these drawbacks

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thin jungle
brave matrix
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I've been trying to set myself some goals for next year, and one of the ideas is a conversion kit to turn Draw Steel into modern superhero!

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Guess that means I have a thousand messages to read through 🙊

ripe quartz
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A lot of the conversation was seeing if we needed to make bespoke classes or if the draw steel classes already fit the archetypes of superheroes

brave matrix
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I've been thinking about that today, so glad to see I'm on the same page

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My instinct says that the most useful thing to the players is to be able to learn how to translate their draw steel stuff into the right genre? That way, you can plug in anything from anywhere, and the players and Directors can easily understand how to make the shift from Fantasy to Superhero!
Otherwise you're providing a set of conversions for whatever player options exist at one point in time, right?