What gets me playing Draw Steel and not Pathfinder 2e?

[Thomas Shey]

In PF2's defense, you can kinda go through the book in order and build a character organically. You pick ancestry and get your heritage feat (listed in that section), stat increases, and traits. Then background and get that stuff. Then your class neatly lists what you get, the optional subclasses, the class feats (organized by level). It's not bad at all.

There's some issues with "Let's go through the classes and pick out the things listed there. Then let's look at the skills and see what we actually want good there. Then the non-class feats and do the same. And then, if we're playing a spellcaster, go through the options there. Oh, and let's look through the armor and weapons and see what seems useful and fun there." But that's an issue in any detailed RPG, even moreso in the exception-based designs that dominate the D&D-adjacent market. Its kind of the price of doing business.

 

[Enrahim]

In PF2's defense, you can kinda go through the book in order and build a character organically. You pick ancestry and get your heritage feat (listed in that section), stat increases, and traits. Then background and get that stuff. Then your class neatly lists what you get, the optional subclasses, the class feats (organized by level). It's not bad at all.

I also made a character by the Draw Steel book, and it was exactly the same linear process. The only thing I can see that could cause back and forth would be if wanting to immediately chose skill or perk (or kit) when those are mentioned, rather than do as me and make a note of that and wait with chosing until I reached the respective chapters?

 

[SteveC]

I've made a ton of characters with Pathbuilder, and one party of them on Forge Steel. And I didn't find either very difficult. They step you through the process. I think both games would be more difficult without online tools, so in that way, they are similar.

 

[Hermes_Alexandria]

I'm in the process of building a character for Draw Steel, and all I can say, is that it is not a straight forward process.

In fact it's quite frustrating.

Having to jump back and forth between sections to build a character is one of the old school rituals that I'm glad I left behind.

And weeding through paragraph after paragraph of fluff to find the information I need, when I have limit time is not fun.

Give me Pathbuilder any day over this mess of a book.

Character and Adventure builder

Forge Steel

andyaiken.github.io

 

[Staffan]

And honestly, in PF2e, rogues can hold a front rank if they have to (so can an investigator far as that goes); there's not that much variance in AC, and they aren't so low on hit points its not doable. Its just far from optimal.

You can build a PF2 rogue that can stand up in melee. It is by no means an automatic thing for a rogue.

I don't think that actually changes my position that there are regularly going to be things to do that aren't Follow Process A that make more sense to do. That was true even with characters where the player had baked a cake about being as good at a particular process as was possible. If they still insist on doing that process even when those come up, that's kind of on them.

Sure, but it feels like you lose a lot of effectiveness by doing those things. It's a feelbad moment.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You can build a PF2 rogue that can stand up in melee. It is by no means an automatic thing for a rogue.

Eh. I suspect your expectation for "stand up to melee" is different than mine. Given their AC isn't much different from most classes (Champions excepted) and get a x8 multiple, I consider that adequate; its not what a Fighter, Champion or Barbarian will get, but its not what most of the dedicated spellcasters are stuck with, either. Its all a basic cleric gets, after all. Its not where they'd prefer to be but it its not the end of the world for them.

Sure, but it feels like you lose a lot of effectiveness by doing those things. It's a feelbad moment.

I think if you're going to feel bad every time you're not doing your One Specific Trick, you don't want to be playing any game where tactics actually matter. The whole reason you're doing it is its the better choice in those situations; its just not what you're perfectly set up for.

 

[Retreater]

The thing is, my potentially outlier group is very effective. The gunslinger is a crit machine, and the rogue does big sneak attack damage, so we're able to take enemies down quickly. Most of the time it's before I can even get to the enemies.
But it's the concept of optimizing your way out of the fun. While I could spend an action to duplicate myself with the thaumaturge mirror implement, most of the time it's not going to benefit the group. Instead, it presents two targets that will take attacks to our already stressed healer. I could trip the enemy, which would penalize our damage-dealing gunslinger. I could demoralize, but even if effective, the enemy is going to shrug it off on their next action and be immune for the rest of the fight.
If we had a really dynamic battle with flying enemies, I guess I'd not be able to do anything. I could shoot a nonmagical bow with a lousy Dex and no Thaumaturge weapon implement abilities.
My overall take is not that PF2 isn't interesting to me. It's that it's not interesting enough for me to play what's turning into a multi-year campaign. I've had months of play where every encounter is so similar as to be interchangeable. We've had every condition and faced creatures with every weakness. We've faced a couple haunts - and my character's only action was to Aid because I didn't have a high enough proficiency in any pertinent skill.
My magic items are boring, just keeping me at the required bonus to hit, damage, and avoid being hit. Most of my feats are so situational and provide such a minor bonus that I forget they exist.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The thing is, my potentially outlier group is very effective. The gunslinger is a crit machine, and the rogue does big sneak attack damage, so we're able to take enemies down quickly. Most of the time it's before I can even get to the enemies.

I'd be interested to know how they're doing so reliably, however; I played a gunslinger, and there's actually fairly few ways to push up your crit chance much (largely because guns are Fatal weapons, and as such do massive crit damage when they can). I did some really robust damage on occasion, but I also went through whole battles where I'd have been more dangerous as an archer.
Rogue's are a bit more consistent, but they still have to hit to deliver that damage, and there's nothing about them that makes that a reliable process on a consistent basis.

If both those were consistent, something odd is going on, either in how they're designed, or what the GM is throwing against them.

But it's the concept of optimizing your way out of the fun. While I could spend an action to duplicate myself with the thaumaturge mirror implement, most of the time it's not going to benefit the group. Instead, it presents two targets that will take attacks to our already stressed healer. I could trip the enemy, which would penalize our damage-dealing gunslinger. I could demoralize, but even if effective, the enemy is going to shrug it off on their next action and be immune for the rest of the fight.
If we had a really dynamic battle with flying enemies, I guess I'd not be able to do anything. I could shoot a nonmagical bow with a lousy Dex and no Thaumaturge weapon implement abilities.
My overall take is not that PF2 isn't interesting to me. It's that it's not interesting enough for me to play what's turning into a multi-year campaign. I've had months of play where every encounter is so similar as to be interchangeable. We've had every condition and faced creatures with every weakness. We've faced a couple haunts - and my character's only action was to Aid because I didn't have a high enough proficiency in any pertinent skill.
My magic items are boring, just keeping me at the required bonus to hit, damage, and avoid being hit. Most of my feats are so situational and provide such a minor bonus that I forget they exist.

Where as mine is there's something odd going on, because normally the way you've characterized how the gunslinger and the rogue playing out is not that deterministic. Among other things if you're functioning as the only interceptor, the gunslinger should be having problems in their face at least some of the time, and its not like a routine hit is going to stop that from happening. Neither a rogue nor a gunslinger, even well designed ones, should be putting down opposition that reliably that quickly. And neither one should be able to get the time to do it without backup. Even my wife's hybrid fighter/rogue often found herself in trouble if I couldn't get my bard/champion out to back her up, and she was arguably the most OP character in the group.

 

[Kichwas]

Does Drawsteel use Vancian spell slot magic rules like old editions of D&D and current Pathfinder do?

That's one of the biggest downsides to Pathfinder - the magic is way too typed to the style of a single nearly unheard of fantasy author from the mostly 1960s that for some reason D&D players for decades have assumed is 'normal fantasy magic' even though no other author would go near that mess with even an 11-foot 3-inch 2 pokes per day pole. And Pathfinder took a hard stance and stuck with the old version of it even after D&D 5E softened it a tiny bit.

Both Drawsteel and Pathfinder compete in the exact same niche: low roleplay tactical boardgame like experiences with map figurines that get to have names.

The other new RPGs went for new niches: Daggerheart sits in the middle between boardgame and roleplay, Cosmere went "based on one of the biggest fantasy IPs out there so who cares about the game system", Mist went "lets go extreme on narrative roleplay".

(a little humor in describing these things in sarcastic ways. They're all better than the above. In fact we've got some of the best options right now we've ever had in this hobby.)

But Drawsteel decided to go for "lets compete head to head with what many suspect is the number 2 RPG, one which has a great company it's fans love, top noche customer support, an insanely regular product release cycle, a huge library of adventures, the best online tools in the industry, communities that make it super easy to fill tables or find a GM, and has almost if not actually no negative vibes about it, and gives fans of it's playstyle almost exactly what they want...

yeah lets take on those guys."

To me that choice just seems really baffling.

The last people I'd ever want to try to go head to head competing with in the tRPG industry are Paizo because there's almost nothing there that's a weakpoint to give me a marketing angle.

So I'm focusing on Vancian Magic because really that's the only "lead weight" Pathfinder has. It's their 'weakpoint' that you could use to make an argument to pull people from one table to the other - but only if Drawsteel doesn't have the same weakness.

I tried to find out right now and went looking and based on a 2 minute read of elementalist I "think: it might not be Vancian but I really don't know.

Anyone know for sure?

 

[Staffan]

Does Drawsteel use Vancian spell slot magic rules like old editions of D&D and current Pathfinder do?

No. It's more similar to 4e except there are no daily powers. Characters have a set of abilities, some of which can be used at will and some of which require a heroic resource. Different classes have differently named heroic resources but they all work in similar ways: at the start of your turn you get either 2 or 1d3 of it (depending on class), and there are various triggers that give you more of it, usually to a max of 1/round. In addition, you start each encounter with 1 HR per Victory (previous encounters since you last took a respite (long rest, 24 hours or more in a safe place like an inn), which do not have to be a fighting encounter). You start with abilities costing 3 and 5 HR, and at higher levels you gain abilities costing more.

The only daily attrition in Draw Steel is Recoveries, which act as a sort of hit point reserve. You can spend one as a maneuver to heal 1/3 of your max stamina, or someone can use an action to let you do the same. There are also several class abilities that let people spend recoveries. If you're familiar with 4e, they're basically healing surges except a little more accessible.

One of the main tensions in the game, from a game POV, is that the longer you go the more easily you can access your cooler abilities (because you start each encounter with extra heroic resources), but your recoveries get spent. Taking a respite resets your recoveries, and converts your Victories to XP (16 XP = 1 level).

But Drawsteel decided to go for "lets compete head to head with what many suspect is the number 2 RPG, one which has a great company it's fans love, top noche customer support, an insanely regular product release cycle, a huge library of adventures, the best online tools in the industry, communities that make it super easy to fill tables or find a GM, and has almost if not actually no negative vibes about it, and gives fans of it's playstyle almost exactly what they want...

yeah lets take on those guys."

To me that choice just seems really baffling.

That does not seem to have been the thought process. It seems to have been more like "I liked a lot of things about 4e, and there are no games around that do those things. And it seems like an increasingly bad idea to put all one's eggs in the D&D basket. So let's make our own game that's the game we want to play rather than stuff for someone else's game."

So I'm focusing on Vancian Magic because really that's the only "lead weight" Pathfinder has. It's their 'weakpoint' that you could use to make an argument to pull people from one table to the other - but only if Drawsteel doesn't have the same weakness.

The main draw of Draw Steel seems to be that you get to be Pretty Damn Cool right from level 1. For example, a level 1 Fury can, as an at-will action, hit a target for 5/8/11 damage (depending on result), and push them 3/4/6 squares. Should they get knocked into something, they will take 4 damage + the remaining push distance. And that's without even using any resources, or including bonuses from their kit (which will likely either be a straight +2 to damage or +4 on just tier 3 results). As a 3-Ferocity ability, you could run through a line of enemies, hitting each of them for 2/3/5 damage (again, plus kit bonus), with potential extra damage to the last one if you took AoOs on the way..