Building Darsino in Draw Steel

 For nearly eighteen years, I've played an Undead Rogue in World of Warcraft. While he isn't my main character, and has honestly fallen behind a bit as new classes like the Death Knight and Demon Hunter pushed him down in my alt priority list, I've always had a soft spot for him - he was the first character I got to level 70 (back in Burning Crusade. Funnily enough he's level 70 again now thanks to the Shadowlands level squish) and I always had a strong sense of personality and vibe to him.

He is, essentially, the master spy. He's got a taste for luxury despite having been raised in a rather modest (though not poor) family, but he got embroiled in some kind of deadly intrigue when the undead Scourge came to Lordaeron (my story for him is that he was infected by the plague of undeath right before he was hanged for high crimes after getting on the wrong side of his foes, but the plague brought him back, now decrepit and robbed of his dashing looks, and he has become a bitter, but ruthlessly effective spy and assassin.)

Naturally, a game of Draw Steel would likely use a different setting, but the elements are as follows: Darsino is undead, a master spy, and has a nigh-supernatural (or perhaps just plain supernatural) ability to blend into the shadows. In WoW, his specialization is Subtlety, which leans the heaviest into the stealthiness and unexpected bursts of damage.

Luckily, Draw Steel actually has a core Ancestry that is actually an undead being. So, I thought we'd go down the list and figure out how exactly we'd build this guy.

Ancestry: Revenant

    This one's pretty easy. Revenants are beings reanimated by a need for vengeance. Revenants get a fairly extensive list of Ancestry benefits. Darsino will have the size and weight of a human (size 1, weight 4) and a speed of 5 (which appears standard) and a reach of 1 (also standard).

    He'll also get Driving Vengeance, which allows him to place a magic sigil on a creature within 10 squares as a maneuver. While this sigil is on the creature, he'll know the direction and exact location of the creature if they're on the same plane of existence. He can mark a number of creatures equal to his level (so 1 for now). And he can detonate the sigil as an action, dealing a bit of damage and sliding the target (which I believe means moving them in any horizontal direction,) which can also be done at a range of 10.

    Finally, he has the Tough but Withered benefit, which grants cold, corruption, lighting, and poison immunity 5 (I believe this subtracts 5 from any instance of damage of those types that he takes) and fire vulnerability 5 (which adds to this type of damage). He doesn't need to breathe, eat, or drink. Additionally, when his Stamina is equal to the negative of his winded value (I believe this is 50%) he becomes inert rather than dying, and he can continue to observe his surroundings but can't speak or move. Taking fire damage in this state will kill him, but otherwise he'll regain one of his recovery's worth of Stamina after 12 hours. (Here I'm slightly confused, as a Recovery is worth 1/3 of your maximum stamina, meaning that if you're at negative 50% of your stamina, you'll still be at negative 1/6 of your total stamina after this goes off. I suppose this does still allow you to act and move, but you won't be able to Catch Breath to spend recoveries and heal back past 0. Ok, maybe this works all right).

Culture:

    Culture is built up of various elements: the language, environment, organization, and uprbinging. Language is fairly straightforward.

    For Environment, I think he and his brother (another of my WoW characters, who is actually my main) were orphaned during the First War, and lived in Lordaeron City when they were young, so I'll give him the Urban environment, which allows him to choose one skill from the Interpersonal or Intrigue list.

    For Organization, I think Darsino was recruited into a royal intelligence service at a young age. While his work was in the shadows, it was all rather formalized, and he served as an intelligence officer. So we're going to go with Bureaucratic organization, which allows a choice of a skill from the intrigue or lore skill groups.

    Finally, for Upbringing, we've got to go with Illegal, as while his conduct was under orders from the government, the actual acts he performed were not strictly in keeping with the general law, including theft, breaking and entering, forgeries, and perhaps even murders. What do you know? Another skill from the intrigue group.

Career:

    Among the options here, I see two ways we could go: Criminal feels fairly straightforward, but I want to distinguish his background a little - he's not just working for some gang or group of bandits. He was an intelligence officer. Without a Spy option (which would be ideal,) I'm tempted to go with Soldier.

    This grants him two skills - one from the exploration group and one from the intrigue group. Next, he gets two additional languages. He also begins with Renown 1 (giving him a bit of a boost in status when dealing with others, such as during negotiations). Finally, he get a Title - Versatile Warrior, which allows him to perform two respite activities per rest, as long as one of them is changing his kit.

Class:

    Now we get to the meat of it. Naturally, we're going with a Shadow.

    So, to start with, we automatically get an Agility and a Presence of 2. For our other attributes, I think Darsino is a well-rounded enough character that he shouldn't really be bad at anything, which means we'll take the 1, 0, 0 option. I think we'll grant him his 1 in Intuition, as he should be good at reading people and tracking their movements. This leaves his Might and Reason at a 0. I could also imagine him taking a -1 to Might and a 1 to Reason... in fact, let's do that. So:

Might -1, Agility 2, Reason 1, Intuition 1, Presence 2.

    At 1st level, he has 18 Stamina (though we'll check in on this again when we get to our Kit) And he has 12 recoveries (each healing for 6, as I understand it).

    Then, he gets the Hide and Sneak skills, plus any five from Criminal Underworld (a lore skill) or the exploration, interpersonal, or intrigue skill groups.

    Let's pick those skills, actually:

Hide, Sneak, Disguise (from Illegal Upbringing,) Society (from Bureaucratic Organization,) Alertness (from Urban Environment,) Navigate (from Soldier career,) Search (also from Soldier,) and then Eavesdrop, Track, Sabotage, Read Person, and Interrogate for the class. (That's 12 skills overall).

    Now, we'll pick our Shadow College. While my WoW Rogue has the Alchemy profession, he's subtly, not assassination, and thus focuses less on poisons than bamfing around the battlefield and striking from the shadows. Thus, I think the Black Ash College feels like the obvious choice.

    This grants the Black Ash Teleport maneuver, which allows him to teleport up to 5 squares, and allows him to use the Hide maneuver even if he's observed if he teleports in concealment or cover (and he can spend Insight to move additional squares equal to the Insight spent).

    It also grants the Triggered Action: In All This Confusion - when he's damaged, he can take this triggered action to teleport up to 4 squares and halve the damage he took, and doesn't suffer any additional effects from the triggering damage. And he can spend Insight to increase the number of squares he teleports (at a 1-to-1 ratio).

    As a Shadow, he also gets Hesitation is Weakness, which is a free triggered action that allows him to spend 1 Insight to take his turn immediately after another hero (in other words, another player - in Draw Steel, heroes and monsters alternate turns, with the Director (GM) picking between their monsters or monster squads, and the party picking between each of their characters. Each character gets one turn per round, and the round ends when everyone has moved. Normally, thus, there'd usually be a monster turn between player turns, but this lets you skip ahead.)

    Next, we're going to pick his abilities. At this level, he'll get his signature ability, and then a 3-Insight Heroic ability and a 5-Insight Heroic ability.

    For his signature ability, there are several enticing options, but I think Darsino wants to maximize his range to ensure ultimate slipperiness - so he'll take Shot and Step, which has a range of 5 and deals a little damage, to a single target, but allows him to Shift 1 square before or after the attack. Thus, while it's a Ranged attack, he can move out of reach (hopefully) of his target safely before he attacks, avoiding the bane on the roll. The damage here is lower, but it really preserves his mobility.

    Next, for his 3-Insight ability, he'll take Two Throats at Once, which allows him to hit two creatures within a range of 5 (or within melee reach - given the kit I expect him to take, he should be equally comfortable hitting with a melee attack) for perhaps a little lower damage to any single target, but overall more damage total.

    Finally, for his 5-Insight ability, I'd be tempted to go with Assassinate, but that's a pure melee ability, and we want to keep him at range. So we'll use Impairing Shot, which has a range of 5 and gives others an Edge when attacking the target (in addition to some damage). I think this plays into how he'd apply his spymaster skills to helping the party - he's there to debilitate the foe and set them up to be taken down.

Kit:

    Now, with class features settled, we want to pick a kit. There are plenty of options here - actually as far as I can tell, there's not really any limit to which he can choose. But let's stick with the thematic ones. We're leaning pretty hard into ranged attacks (very unlike a WoW Rogue) so we'll want something that buffs those. That leaves us with the Rapid Fire, Ranger, and Cloak and Dagger kits.

    Thing is - especially given his origins as a WoW character, I don't see him going around shooting people with a bow. Darsino should be walking around with dozens of knives in his cloak, and like, obviously we're going Cloak and Dagger.

    So, what do we get? Well, our Speed is increased by 2 (total of 7 now,) our Stamina increases by 3 (for a total of 21, and thus I believe our Recoveries increase to 7 per pop). Both our Melee and Ranged weapons get a +1 bonus at all three tiers of success. Perhaps most exciting, we get a +5 bonus to our Weapon Distance, meaning that all of these abilities that normally have a range of 5 now have a range of 10. We also get an ability called Mobility - when an enemy ends their turn adjacent to us, Darisno can shift up to 2 squares as a free triggered action.

    Finally, we get our Kit Signature Ability, which is Fade. This allows us to deal a bit of damage in either melee or at a range of 10 (I assume this incorporates the Kit's distance bonus? Otherwise it becomes 15) and then can shift squares equal to the tier of the result.

    Putting it all together:

Darsino, built this way, is going to be an absolute ghost on the battlefield. With multiple ways to teleport and shift around, he's going to be highly adept at striking from the shadows and very easily opening up distance between him and his foes. If I were to make some adjustments, I might actually lean into more melee abilities, such as Assassinate, given that I'd be able to escape melee range pretty easily. 

Ideally, he's the character who a healer really won't need to worry about much - when he takes the rare actual hit, he'll be able to vanish and hide from his attacker. I might also see if I can play up his "setting up targets for failure" capabilities, like Impairing Shot. I might be tempted to take Wounding Strike instead of Two Throats at Once (though the original choice has a really cool flavor to it, especially if he's whipping a dagger from each hand at two different targets). Given how mobile he already is, taking something like Distracting Pain instead of Shot and Step might lean further into his enemy-debilitation vibe.