In this third post about coming up with a Draw Steel character, we're going to look at the Tactician. This class is probably the closest analogue for the Fighter class in D&D... sort of. In a lot of ways, it takes the flavor of the Battle Master Fighter, particularly things like Commander's Strike, and builds the class around being not just a soldier on the field, but the coordinator for the rest of the party. In an odd sense, there's almost a flavor of being a support class like a Bard, but aesthetically very different.
Conceptually, I like to try to go off the beaten path. In my D&D homebrew setting, one of the most elite miltiary forces is the Miliz - a primarily Halfling force originally founded as a farmer's militia in the gothic moors of Vodaskia, but which was so well-coordinated and battle-hardened that they became a celebrated special forces unit for the Lupinian Empire.
Draw Steel doesn't have Halflings, but its diminutive folk that play a similar role are the Polders, who, like your typical Halflings, tend to live amongst humans and have interconnected cultures and ways of life.
I think our Tactician is not a veteran of any traditional army, but was likely a farmer called up to defend her village from roving bands of goblinoids (maybe just goblins - I don't know if Draw Steel intends to have the same three primary goblinoid types from D&D). Between sowing seeds, feeding chickens, and selling excess wheat at the market, she's had to keep her sword sharp due to the increasingly bold and organized attacks.
And, it turns out that she's developing a knack for battlefield command - when her fellow farmers are terrified at the approaching raiders, she's the one who forms them into lines, warding off charges by goblins on warg-back with a barricade of pitchforks.
Ancestry
We've decided to go with Polder, so we'll be picking up two ancestry features. The first is Polder Geist - our hero is faster when she's not seen by anyone, getting 3 extra squares of movement if she starts her turn unseen. (We'll have to see if this plays well with any Tactician abilities).
Second, we get Sceanwian (not sure how that's pronounced. I took a semester of Irish language in college, but this could be from Welsh or Scottish and I have no idea). As a maneuver, she can flatten herself into a shadow against a wall or floor she's touching, becoming hidden from anyone she's got cover or concealment from or isn't observing her. Attacks against her and tests made to find her take a bane, but she can't move or take actions or maneuvers except to exit the form. Abilities that target more than 1 square affect her only if it explicitly affects the surface she's flattened against. And she can exit it as a maneuver.
So, both of these features involve hiding, though I notice that you can't really use one with the other, as Sceanwian prevents movement. Naturally, this feature would make a lot of sense for a Shadow, but a bit of sneakiness is probably useful for anyone. We'll see if we can make use of it in combat.
Culture
Our Environment is pretty obvious: it's Rural. This will give us a Crafting or a Lore skill.
Our Organization is likely Communal (though it could be Anarchic - honestly I think we just need more options here, as there are only 3 at the moment). This will give us either a Crafting or an Interpersonal skill.
Our Upbringing is probably Labor, as our girl is a farmer. This gets her either Blacksmithing, Handle Animals, or one skill form the Exploration group.
Career
There's a bit of overlap here - we're taking Laborer. This will grant her the Endurance skill, along with two skills from Blacksmithing or the Exploration group (I feel like we've got to take Blacksmithing?)
We'll also get one bonus language (which I'm not covering in these builds) and 50 Project Points, which again, I think is essentially a head start on some crafting project.
Finally, we get a Title: Team Backbone, which allows her to, when making a "Montage Test," both assist another character's test and also make her own.
Class
Now, onto our class!
The Tactician begins with 21 Stamina and has 15 Recoveries (each healing for 7 at this level).
We start off with a Might and Reason of 2. I think we're going to be somewhat well-rounded, and so we'll take our 1 in Presence (we are a commander, after all) and 0s to Agility and Intuition.
We're going to get the Lead skill, along with any two skills from a big group. So let's pick them now, along with the ones we got from our Culture and Career.
We'll take Nature (from Environment,) Read Person (from Organization - a good commander keeps a finger on the pulse of her troops), and Handle Animals (from Labor). We then get Endurance and Blacksmithing from Laborer. Finally, we'll get Lead, Alertness, and Monsters from our class.
Next, we need to pick our subclass - our Tactical Doctrine. While my initial concept here was more of a shouting battlefield commander, I think that we might lean into more guerrilla tactics, which the Polders would, I think, be more likely to employ. Thus, we're going to go with the Insurgent (Asymmetric Warfare) subclass.
Our Heroic Resource is Focus. Like all classes, we get an amount of this equal to our Victories at the start of the encounter, but we then get 2 at the start of each turn, and if an ally gets a tier 3 result on a target we have Marked, we also gain 1 focus. (All focus disappears at the end of combat).
Mark is a maneuver we can use at a 10-square range (as this isn't an attack, I don't think there's any downside to using it on a target in melee range). The target is marked by us until the start of our next turn. When we our an ally attack a marked target, they get an edge on the power rolls and also deal extra damage equal to our Reason Score. We can spend 1 focus to mark a second target.
So, we're probably going to be using the maneuver constantly. We're also probably going to want to take a consistent spot in each round of combat, as we want to maximize the number of allies' turns where they can make use of this.
We also gain Seize the Opening, a ranged Action with a range of 10 in which we target an ally. The target makes a signature attack as a free triggered action (meaning they can still use their triggered action and I believe any other number of free triggered actions) and the target takes extra damage equal to your Reason score. If you spend 5 focus, you can target two allies instead of one, though you won't earn any focus when using this ability in this way.
And that's pretty interesting - there's a good chance that we're going to be doing more damage by commanding our friends to attack rather than attacking ourselves.
With our Insurgent subclass, we get the Covert Operations feature. Allies that are working according to our plans or in our presence get an edge on tests with any skill in the intrigue group (amazing given that we don't actually have any of those skills!) We can also use the Lead skill to assist on any test made with a skill from the Intrigue group (ah, there we go) and, at Diretor's discretion, we and our allies can use skills from the intrigue skill group to attempt research or reconnaissance during a negotiation outside of that negotiation (a system I'll confess I haven't gotten into yet).
We also get an Insurgent triggered action. This is Flank Them Now! At a range of self or 10, if a non-target ally is about to make an attack, our target can shift up to 2 squares before that attack resolves, and after the attack resolves, both the original attacker and the target can shift up to 2 squares (reminder: "shifting" is movement that doesn't provoke opportunity attacks). If we spend 1 focus, the attack also does an extra d6 of damage.
Next, we get Field Arsenal, which allows us to pick up a second martial kit (we're probably taking a martial kit as our primary choice as well). If two kits have the same benefit, we take the better of the two (but that means we'll probably err on having kits that help different things). And we get both kits' signature actions. So, we'll cover this when we cover kits.
We get both of our Signature attacks from our kits, so we skip ahead to our 3-focus and 5-focus abilities, of which we get 1 each.
For our 3-focus ability, I'm going to go with Inspiring Strike, which allows us to deal some damage (in either melee or a range of 5) and then allow a nearby ally to spend a Recovery (tier 2 adds range to this healing capability and tier 3 also grants an edge to us and the healed ally on their next attack this encounter).
For our 5-focus ability, thematically I'm a bit torn between Now! and This is What We Planned For, both of which seem like a good case of our character springing a trap on the enemy. The former allows all allies within 5 squares of us to make a free strike, while the latter allows every ally within 10 squares to immediately take their turn in any order after ours, and we treat enemies as surprised.
Technically, the latter doesn't add a ton of damage, but it can create a huge burst that might really change the course of battle. I like it, so let's go with it.
Kits
So, we get two kits. The Guisarmier feels like the right first choice, as polearms are a classic weapon for farmer militias. We'll then take Sniper as our second one, as your people will be a lot safer if you can take out the biggest threats from far away.
From the Guisarmier, we get a +6 bonus to Stamina (bringing us to 27, and our recoveries are healing for 9 now) and +1 to Stability. Our melee weapon damage (which will be primarily with this thing's signature ability) are +2s across the board. We also get a reach bonus of +1. Our signature ability is Forward Thrust, Backward Smash, which lets us target 2 creatures or objects, dealing modest damage to both.
From Sniper, we get a +1 Speed bonus. We also get a +4 bonus to ranged weapon damage on a tier 3 result. Our ranged weapon distance bonus is 10. And we get Mobility - if an enemy ends their turn adjacent to us, we can shift up to 2 squares as a free triggered action. Our signature ability is Patient Shot, which deals pretty decent damage at a range of 15 (including our bonus) and, if we don't take a move action on the turn we use the attack, we gain an edge on it.
So, overall, I think we've got a character who will be able to lead from the rear, calling the shots and occasionally shooting their bow as well. Even though we can withstand a fair amount of punishment, we're going to be holding our foes off at range, which should let us move about and command as necessary.
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