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

[cranberry]

I played my 2nd game of Draw Steel (as a player). The focus on the session was "team checks" where each player choses a skill and ability, justified it to the Director, and based on those two factors rolls to see if you succeed or not. You need to get a certain number of successful rolls to succeed. That took some time but wasn't too bad.

Then we had to negotiate with some "wood elves" to pass through the forest. Figuring out which skills to us was tedious, and by the third roll, no one had any skills they could justify using in the negotiation, so the Director just hand waved it.

Meh, some mechanics are better in theory than practice.

And the combat from the prior week was OK. It wasn't any better or worse than D&D or PF. My primary special ability as a warden is pushing (Pregen character). It's underwhelming and doesn't have any material impact on combat.

 

[Staffan]

Then we had to negotiate with some "wood elves" to pass through the forest. Figuring out which skills to us was tedious, and by the third roll, no one had any skills they could justify using in the negotiation, so the Director just hand waved it.

No-one had Brag, Empathize, Flirt, Intimidate, Lie, Perform, or Persuade? Or even a good Reason, Intuition, or Presence score (you don't need to have a skill to roll a test)?

And the combat from the prior week was OK. It wasn't any better or worse than D&D or PF. My primary special ability as a warden is pushing (Pregen character). It's underwhelming and doesn't have any material impact on combat.

I'm assuming you mean a Fury? Furies with 2+ Ferocity get a bonus to Knockbacks equal to their Might or Agility scores (which should be 2 points), and with higher Ferocity they get even more bonuses. And Berserkers also get Lines of Force as a triggered ability that lets them add Might again whenever anyone around them gets force moved (or 2*Might for a Ferocity point). Pushing opponents is amazing, because if you push them into a wall they take damage depending on how much distance was left – and if you push them into another opponent, both take that damage. So you got two goblins next to another and you use Knockback on one and get a tier 2 result, which would give you a knockback of 6 squares with Lines of Force – that's 6 points of damage to two foes with just a maneuver.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I played my 2nd game of Draw Steel (as a player). The focus on the session was "team checks" where each player choses a skill and ability, justified it to the Director, and based on those two factors rolls to see if you succeed or not. You need to get a certain number of successful rolls to succeed. That took some time but wasn't too bad.

Then we had to negotiate with some "wood elves" to pass through the forest. Figuring out which skills to us was tedious, and by the third roll, no one had any skills they could justify using in the negotiation, so the Director just hand waved it.

Meh, some mechanics are better in theory than practice.

And the combat from the prior week was OK. It wasn't any better or worse than D&D or PF. My primary special ability as a warden is pushing (Pregen character). It's underwhelming and doesn't have any material impact on combat.

My group has much more gotten the feel of the combat and we vibe with it. My table’s players are really getting into the tactics of position for flanking or high ground or pushing into objects/walls/foes/vertically. It has taken a couple sessions but the group has found the grove where Draw Steel’s streamlining has resulted in faster rounds.

But we’ve gotten much more opportunity with combat, and not so much with montages and negotiations. Our one and only negation was interesting to try, but we’re all not “do the voice’ role-players or spend an hour chatting with npcs types. I think once I’ve done it a few more times it’ll become closer to second nature and I can see negotiations being the sort of framework that will make it valuable. My group was kind of half-assing the roleplay part of our first negotiation, and I frankly found the listed motivations and pitfall far from believable. But after a crazy series of great rolls by the players they hit Interest 5, got the best outcome that included a magic item offer plus a victory point, the group’s eyes went wide. Before going in they were disbelieving that doing really well in negotiations could result in anything that made their combats better, and they’ve internalized that the more victories the better they fights.

It was just clumsy and none of us are capital “R” role players. But with victories on the line, the group is eager to try it our more despite the alien experience of it all.

 

[cranberry]

No-one had Brag, Empathize, Flirt, Intimidate, Lie, Perform, or Persuade? Or even a good Reason, Intuition, or Presence score (you don't need to have a skill to roll a test)?

I'm assuming you mean a Fury? Furies with 2+ Ferocity get a bonus to Knockbacks equal to their Might or Agility scores (which should be 2 points), and with higher Ferocity they get even more bonuses. And Berserkers also get Lines of Force as a triggered ability that lets them add Might again whenever anyone around them gets force moved (or 2*Might for a Ferocity point). Pushing opponents is amazing, because if you push them into a wall they take damage depending on how much distance was left – and if you push them into another opponent, both take that damage. So you got two goblins next to another and you use Knockback on one and get a tier 2 result, which would give you a knockback of 6 squares with Lines of Force – that's 6 points of damage to two foes with just a maneuver.

I suggested using intimidate and presence (the only ones that I could justify), but the Directors said it would default to a negative outcome without a roll. Two other players had ideas, and I forget what they used, but after that, no one could figure out what to do.

There were no walls, no cliffs, and the monsters were spread apart.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

There were no walls, no cliffs, and the monsters were spread apart.

This does seem to be an underreported expectation. That the combat maps should be interesting and a bunch with believable utility.

Our group has had years of Gloomhaven/Frosthaven play and scenarios with few-to-none objects/traps/hazardous terrain are fine but quite a few characters in those games have push or pull that are diminished when we don’t have the opportuty because the scenario designed couldn’t be bothered.

Online maps probably will require a bit of spicing up with elevation and objects when put into Draw Steel use or else the map’s “verisimilitude” will bring the verisimilitude of non-cinematic battles.