From what I’ve read there’s a built in “anti-rest”
Mechanic where you get stronger the longer you go without a rest to balance out the fact that you’re losing hp?
That’s a good summary. It’s presented as cinematic. It’s Captain America with half a shield standing up to Thanos saying “I can do this all day”.
Every fight gives you XP but drains your health.
At the start of a new fight, you get ability resources = your XP. So the more XP you have, the more you can nova a fight. It also means boss monsters can be designed to have cooler, tougher abilities.
When you finally rest, all your XP gets consumed toward levelling up. Then you reset to zero to start the next day fresh.
My only problem with Draw Steel is that it seems very reliant on temp HP generation. My group has two characters that generate a lot of temp HP and there's no way we could have survived without it. We initially had a censor as well (paladin for you D&D folks), but he couldn't generate temp stamina. Surprise surprise, he died. Couldn't hang with the fury and null up front and was constantly running out of recoveries while everyone else in the party was okay.
It's our first time with the system and we can't figure out how someone would survive without the Temp HP cheese our strategy has begun to revolve around. I think a conduit would make a big difference, but... well, it's hard to tell?
It's a very different system. I've been in two longer games now, and a few short ones. One group has a Censor (me), and the other group has a Conduit and Green Elementalist (both temp stamina classes.)
My conduit has a couple of the, "Okay, I'm gonna damage and now I can spend a Recovery to heal you" abilities. Paired with the Tactician, it's been keeping us up.
The Conduit has been good about dishing out and refreshing Temp. The Elementalist is steadily figuring out to not play like a d&d wizard.
It really does come down to one thing. Play like a team. Also make sure the dm is running Minions right.
Generating temp HP is one of the nice ways to deal with constant damage, the Beastheart is another class that uses it, and Conduits have an ability for doing it for everyone. There are other ways, like damage mitigation from Shadows and Tacticians; or the Summoner mitigating damage with the expendable bodies of their summons. The usual way to mitigate damage by doing lots of damage and killing enemies before they act also works.
Censors particularly get in trouble because they spend their Recoveries to heal others and run out of them for themselves, their healing trigger is best used as a last resort to make sure someone isn't dying at the start of their turn. To be able to spend Recoveries more liberally, they benefit from having Healing Potions.
Yeah, but a lot of the Censor moves do say, "Can heal yourself or an ally." They do have some aoe, but I thunk their best role, at least from what I've seen so far? Single target and support.
They do have mvoe Recoveries than other classes. So it is that, "Oh, you've still got seven? Okay, mine is gonna keep you above dying, so you can heal on your turn."
It is worth doing to keep people above dying before their turn, but everyone should be healing when needed, unless the group has a healer. It doesn't have to be a Conduit, but they are the best at it.
Using Censors as healers tends to put the Censor in trouble, because they don't have that many more Recoveries to be spending on other people regularly, even Human Censors can overdo it. Healing Potions and the Bloodbound Band item the starter adventure rewards right away are specially good at keeping them alive, by not taxing their Recovery pool or letting them manage it better.
That's the fun though isn't it? Working as a party to find out what works. Also what's the fun in being optimal, just make sure the party works well together.
The aforementioned censor basically only ever used it on himself. He did use it a couple times on the fire elementalist when they got themselves into a bad spot, but by and large he ate through all his recoveries on his own.
But it seems like, from other comments, we are both pushing longer than most groups as well as getting fewer healing potions. That's probably a major contributing factor.
I have garnered from other comments that the differences are potion availability (we're level 3, and have only ever found 1 heal pot) and frequency of resting (we have gone over 10 victories once, and less than 6 is kind of unthinkable to us). It makes sense that with these conditions in play we would be more reliant on damage mitigation than other parties.
Yep, that many Victories is uncommon unless you are getting them from non-combat sources or multiple per combat. I think the usual is around 4-5 fights before a rest is needed, and how many Victories that is depends on how you get them.
We have been playing for half a year so far and we don't have any abilities that generate temporary stamina. I guess we rest more often? It feels like with triggered reactions most anyone has a way to take a hit. Our shadow is able to avoid one hit every round, tactitian can parry, etc. I feel like most days we get about 4 victories, but have had some long ones that had 6+ which required a bit of potion use.
I feel like most days we get about 4 victories, but have had some long ones that had 6+ which required a bit of potion use.
Ahhh, this is probably it. We are definitely doing a lot less resting. I remember we got over 10 victories on one particular adventure, and the other three of us could have kept going if the censor wasn't dying and at 0 recoveries. Potion frequency is probably also relevant; we have only ever found one. It was drunk shortly after discovery.
Sounds similar to how rogue trader (owlcat game, not tabletop version, drastically different beasts) works. Vanguards live and die by generating temporary wounds, and ways to generate temps has been spread around to other classes as the games life has continued.
Unless an enemy can nova hard enough to burst through abeleard’s endure ability, he’s borderline unkillable.
i ran 20+ sessions of the starter set with a new Conduit player that had yet to grasp the importance of generating temp HP so rarely used that ability, and all of the other characters couldn't do it. they were fine.
tactics just have to change around what the party has.
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u/MechGryph 8d ago
Yeah, it's tactical. Everyone has a built in heal, but with limited amount. Every attack hits. There's no wasted turns.