Draw Steel Classes, Heroic Resources, and The Overall Shape of Character Building

 Draw Steel's fundamental approach to classes isn't all to dissimilar to how it works in most RPGs. Your class represents the broad archetype and style of play for your character, though with many choices after this initial one that will allow you to tailor it to your particular goals.

Draw Steel does not use multiclassing - when you pick a class, that's what you'll be playing from level 1 to level 10. Given the way that heroic resources work, this is probably for the best. All that being said, while the playtest packet does hint at future features, we're still only able to play things at level 1, so it's not like you'd be able to multiclass anyway.

Each class has a Heroic Resource. This is a special resource that only your class has, and which you will build up over the course of a combat encounter, and then spend on various powers and abilities. Draw Steel encourages adventurers to keep pressing ahead, and this is largely done by a system called Victories. When you vanquish a group of monsters, or you succeed in a high-stakes negotiation, or you survive a deadly trap, or otherwise accomplish something of note, each member of the party gets a Victory. Your victories accumulate until you decide to retreat and take a Respite, at which point Victories convert into Experience. (Notably, leveling up takes far fewer experience points than in most games - in the ballpark of 15 or so between most levels).

However, while your Victories remain Victories, any time you begin a combat encounter, you'll gain an amount of your Heroic Resource equal to the Victories you have - meaning that the longer you push forward through an adventure, the more resources you'll start each encounter with. Thus, while early in the adventure it might take a few turns in combat before you can unleash your most powerful abilities, by the end of it you'll be able to pop off as soon as everyone draws steel.

Heroic Resources work differently depending on the class. The Conduit (Draw Steel's divine spellcaster class), for example, simply gains two Piety (their resource) at the start of each turn, and has a maneuver (a kind of secondary action you can do in addition to your regular action, a bit like a bonus action in D&D) called Prayer that can generate additional Piety. The Shadow (the game's sneaky assassin/ninja class) gains 2 Insight (its resource) at the start of its turn as well, but also gains an additional Insight when they get a tier 3 result on an attack, but a Shadow loses all their Insight when combat ends.

    (As a reminder, Draw Steel is built on the Power Roll - you roll 2d10 and potentially add a relevant modifier, such as a Shadow's Agility, which begins at a +2. You then see if the value is 11 or less, which is a tier 1 result, 12-16, which is a tier 2 result, or 17 or higher, which is a tier 3 result. Each kind of attack will have varying effects based on the result of the roll).

Each class has a number of subclasses. For example, the Fury (Draw Steel's raging primal warrior) can choose between the Berserker, the Reaver, or the Stormwright. Each subclass comes with various features, including passive benefits, triggered actions, and attacks.

However, in addition to these, you'll also pick some other abilities.

You'll typically pick a single Signature Ability. This is an ability you can use that does not consume any of your Heroic Resource, typically doing less damage or having a less dramatic effect, but being always there and reliable. The Fury, for example, can pick between Brutal Slam, which deals damage and knocks foes back (pushing father the better the power roll,) Hit and Run, which allows them to "shift" (moving without provoking opportunity attacks) and potentially slowing the target, or Humiliating Strike, where you can elect to deal a bit of extra damage while giving the target an edge on their next attack against you, encouraging them to come after you instead of your allies. Finally, Impaling Strike will damage the target and then usually grab them, allowing you to drag them around and damage them as you do.

    (Another reminder: Power Rolls can be affected by Edges and Banes. A single Edge adds +2 to the result, and a single Bane subtracts a -2. Edges and Banes cancel each other out, but if the end result leaves two instances of an Edge, you instead get a Double Edge, which, rather than changing the numerical result, simply pushes the result to the next tier of success up. Similarly, a Double Bane forces the result to be one lower than its initial result. In other words, with a Double Edge, you can only get a tier 2 or 3 result, and with a Double Bane, you can only get a tier 1 or 2 result.)

In addition to Signature abilities, you also pick from various Heroic Abilities. These are abilities that spend your Heroic Resource and should have a bigger impact. Depending on your class and your level, you'll be able to pick a certain number of heroic abilities at certain cost levels. The Fury gets one Signature ability, one 3-Rage (Rage being their resource) ability, and one 5-Rage ability. In contrast, the Elementalist will get, at level 1, a Signature ability, a 1-Essence (their resource) ability, a 3-Essence ability, and a 5-Essence ability.

So, how does this all come together?

Well, I haven't played the game yet, but here's how I see it going:

You're going to have a lot of choices to make during character creation, picking your subclass, your signature abilities, your other abilities, your kit, etc. However, when you're in combat and ready for your turn, your suite of abilities to pick from is relatively narrow: two signature abilities, one chosen with your class and another with your kit, and then 2 or 3 Heroic abilities, then just a triggered action (I think generally just one) and perhaps a melee and a ranged free triggered action (which will probably only be for opportunity attacks or if an ally has an ability that lets you use it.)

In other words, you'll have a choice of probably five or fewer things you can do on each of your turns at level 1, and especially in your first combat, you might not even be able to do anything other than your Signature abilities on the first round.

I'm intending to eventually go through the five classes presented in the playtest packet: the Conduit, Elementalist, Fury, Shadow, and Tactician. One strong note for the game is that the complexity level seems fairly balanced across all the classes. Unlike D&D, where the nature of spellcasting inherently makes casters more complex, Draw Steel's class abilities are all unique to their classes, and so a Tactician will have just as many options for the kind of attacks and battlefield commands they use as an Elementalist has spells to choose from.