Ability Score and Characteristic Flexibility

 I haven't posted about Draw Steel in a while, because, well, I have still not had a chance to play it. I need to be the one pushing my friends to try it out, and between the D&D game I play in and the one I run (and hoping we can one day return to the Sunday game I play in that hasn't played in like 7 months) and everyone having packed adult schedules, I've been struggling to find the oomph to actually set a date and get it running.

Still, while my admiration for the game is still theoretical at this point, I wanted to point out one other thing that I really appreciate about the game:

Naturally, this is going to be in comparison to D&D - the 800-pound Gorilla of the TTRPG space, to which Draw Steel was designed largely in response to.

If you are playing a Bard in D&D, you will most likely have Charisma as your top stat, potentially even if you're going for a melee build like Dance or Valor. While I think they only get simple weapons now, back in 2014, they got proficiency in Longswords as one of the specific martial options they were granted. A Longsword is not a finesse weapon, so barring something like True Strike or Pact of the Blade, you'll need to attack using Strength with it.

Now, I like the idea of a strong Bard. But because Bards are limited to Light Armor, if you don't invest pretty heavily in Dexterity (or somehow upgrade your armor type through multiclassing or a feat) you'll have a pitiful AC, which is a real liability (though I do think monster attack bonuses outpace AC growth unless you get lots of magic armor).

We do, in theory, have a lot of options for how we want to express our characters with different stats, but it's quite difficult to make it impactful without hindering our characters. Basically every character wants at least a decent Constitution score, and to have decent armor, you need at least a 14 in Dex unless you can wear heavy armor, in which case you will want at least a 15 in Strength. (Armor Artificers are a rare exception, who truly don't need a good stat for AC, but given that the armor you wear still contributes to the weight you're carrying, if your table uses any kind of encumbrance rules, you might still consider investing a bit in Strength).

Different classes have different degrees of flexibility here - a Rogue really only needs high Dexterity and probably decent Constitution, though certain subclasses will then want to invest in Intelligence as well, and possibly Wisdom to aid in important perception checks and the like. A Paladin, though, who really wants to maximize their Strength, Charisma, and ideally Con as well, has very little flexibility on getting decent Dex, Int, or Wis - in fact, the "optimal" build using Point Buy is to take 15s in Str, Cha, and Con and 8s in the rest.

There are two ways in which Draw Steel, to me, really fixes the friction here:

First, there's the way that Stamina (the equivalent of HP) is calculated - there's no Constitution stat, and so your Stamina is determined by your class, level, and potentially your Kit, all of which are basically divorced from your stats. There is also no concept of an Armor Class - all attacks will do something, it's just a question of how much of an impact they have (think of it as damage rolls without attack rolls). Again, there is no stat minimum for your Shining Armor or Cloak and Dagger kits.

The second element is that your class guarantees that the most important stats for you go up, hitting the maximum for any stat you could have at each level it could reach that (basically each echelon of play - their version of tiers of play).

The Censor, which is the rough equivalent of the Paladin, for example, always has Might and Presence both at the highest amount you could get at any level (the equivalents of Strength and Charisma).

Now, for the other stats, the player has a choice - they can either have a relatively flat spread between the other three stats (Agility, Reason, and Intuition - the equivalents of Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom) or they can actually take a low score in at least one of them to keep another at or near the level of their primary stats.

I realized this when I was building a Talent - the psionic class that doesn't really have a 5E equivalent until they come out with the Psion, presumably in some upcoming Dark Sun book. Talents earn more of their heroic resource when a creature is force-moved near them, and while that would most classically take the form of some kind of telekinetic movement, it actually works just fine if you shove someone.

A Talent is among the "squishiest" classes (meaning purely that it has lower Stamina) and so you wouldn't think it would be a class that lends itself to having a high Might. But there's actually nothing really stopping you from doing that. Thus, I built a Hakaan (think sort of Goliaths but made of stone and literally one size category larger than most characters, though they still fit on one grid square) Talent whose Might was just one point lower than his Reason and Presence (the core stats for Talents). Because you can shove creatures as a maneuver (think bonus action) I figured he could start off a turn if someone was up in his face by shoving them away, thus immediately gaining some extra Clarity, and then drop some nasty psionics on them.

By contrast, it's very unlikely that a Sorcerer in D&D would be able to afford having a high Strength when they need to have a high Charisma, decent Con and decent Dexterity.

It does honestly make me wonder if D&D would be better off if armor was less stat-dependent, and if we could make room for weirder stat arrays.

Building My Summoner

 Who knows if I'll ever be able to play this character - it would be a very difficult task to get my players to try a similar-in-premise TTRPG from D&D even if I were tired of 5E, and I'm not. I get excited about all the campaigns I have not yet had a chance to run, from an existentially terrifying Ravenloft game (think doppelgangers and being unsure whether you're truly you) and a big Planescape game that I only really know starts in a dive bar on the Plain of Infinite Portals in the Abyss, to another Ravenloft campaign that starts with all the players being teenagers in the 1990s in America before getting sucked into the Domains of Dread, to the vast number of concepts I have for a game set in my own homebrew setting (including my grandest ambition - a Chrono Trigger-style time-travel campaign). Realistically, if I'm ever likely to actually play Draw Steel as a PC, I've got to introduce it to my players as a Director and hope they fall in love with it to themselves not fall back on 5E as the game they want to run, or I've got to seek out some randos online.

So, ask me in like fifteen years.

All that being said:

I had to come up with a build now that the Summoner has come out.

As it stands, my initial ambitions for Draw Steel characters were probably most focused on the Shadow (which feels like the most raw-damage-focused class) and maybe a Talent or Fury who focuses a lot on forced movement (which feels like the most exciting robust system in this compared with D&D).

The Summoner is daunting - the idea of controlling so many minions, picking how each of them move on every turn, makes me worry that my turns would take ages to actually complete. And yet, I think there was a concerted effort in the class design, as well as the advice around how to play said class, that it might not actually be that bad.

And so, I wanted to toss out a kind of first draft of how I'd want to build a Summoner.

This isn't going to be an exhaustive build - I'm not going into every single Perk or Skill I pick, or even much of my background. Mainly I'm looking at class options, but before we do that, I think I want to go into how, narratively, at least, I'd want to build my backstory.

To start, yes, we're going with the Circle of Graves. Ever since I started playing World of Warcraft, the undead have been my go-to fantasy monsters (while WoW has tons of big scary bad guys, the Scourge were always my favorite). But I also feel like there's something kind of tragic and romantic about the undead - there's a potential within them for a kind of mourning of the passing of time, the passing of ages gone past. The undead, after all, generally used to just be people, and I think you could play into that idea of reaching through time to call upon these spirits of from a world now gone. Human melodrama is baked into the undead, whether they are undead out of a need for vengeance and justice, or if the drama is coming from our reaction to seeing these figures transformed.

In Diablo, Necromancers are actually the generally-heroic priests of Rathma, the oldest proto-human born directly of the angel Inarius and the demon Lilith. While both the angels and the demons are incapable of understanding the nuance of a human existence (demons are worse, but angels aren't great either in that setting) Rathma seems to embody a kind of grim pragmatism in the preservation of humanity.

So I'm tempted to imagine this summoner as a kind of spiritual character - not devoted to a god or saint, but to the passage of mortal life and respecting the ages that have gone past.

We're not going to sugarcoat his raising of the dead as purely clean ghostly spirits - I think he has a comfort in the visceral and horrid aspects of death and decay - but I do think that his general practice is a kind of caretaker/protector. I imagine that he is a member of an order that goes to comfort the sick and dying, and adheres to a strict code of conduct regarding how the dead are to be treated. He summons forth the undead, but I think it's a kind of consensual summoning. It's explicit in the rules that summoned minions (of any subclass) are soulless, and more just extensions of the Summoner's spirit and will, but I think that when he calls them forth, it's a calling forth that asks the souls of the departed to make use of their remains or forms.

Now, how does one wind up in a vocation such as this?

I think my Summoner is the victim of some terrible tragedy - some extremity of cruelty that left him a lone survivor of whatever society he was born into. Whether by monsters or by mortals who may as well have been monsters, his survival was one of sheer luck - maybe he was out in the woods gathering firewood when the raiders came to wipe out his village. Events of mass death like this don't tend to give survivors some clear-cut reason for why they were spared, and one aspect of survivor's guilt is that one is left searching for a reason that doesn't exist, or is utterly arbitrary.

It's said that trauma is a fracture in the truths that make up one's identity, and I think that's very much what my Summoner experienced. I think he was young, but not quite young enough to have the mental flexibility to rebuild after all of this happened - I imagine he was probably fourteen or something, on the cusp of adulthood, but the nature of the adulthood he was expecting was to just have a simple life as a villager, maybe trapping out in the woods or working on a farm - and then, everyone he had ever known was all dead in a terrible afternoon, from his parents and siblings, his friends, the girl he liked, the village priest, everyone.

And then, someone like the kind of person he will be, a Summoner, arrives to survey the damage and seek out the perpetrators to bring them to justice. This summoner finds him and shakes him out of whatever reverie he's fallen into. The summoner sees him to safety, but in doing so, allows the perpetrators to escape.

His entire life upended, our hero turns to his rescuer and, seeing their power, asks to be taught how to call upon the dead, thinking that he might be able to bring back his family. But his new master explains to him that it is more complicated than that, and that the process of learning to call forth the dead is a spiritual one.

Our hero is not turned away by this, and his master takes him on as an apprentice within their spiritual order. Our hero takes on a new name as an initiate in this order, and over time, learns the philosophical and spiritual practices that allow him to do as his master does.

But all the while, what he struggles with is the order's insistence on exterminating the ego and any personal stakes in the fate of the world - his job is not to use his powers for self-empowerment or enrichment, nor to pursue any personal vendettas, but to serve all mortals - all those who will one day die.

Thus, by the time our campaign begins, our Summoner, now taking the name of Altarus (or something to that effect - just a cool, vaguely Latin-sounding name), goes forth as a kind of errant summoner of the Circle of Graves to do just as his master had done.

Outwardly, he's just as solemn and, er, grave, as members of his order are expected to be, but there's an inner fire of passion that his training has led him to suppress that might get him into trouble, especially if he comes across those who slew his village.

    Phew, that's a lot of backstory. Let's get to the mechanical ideas!

So, again, I don't want to go through every skill choice and perk - mainly I want to look at the major class feature and ability choices.

Subclass:

Well, obviously we're going Circle of Graves.

In addition to telling us which minions we can pick, this also comes with two features at 1st level: Dead Men Tell All Tales, and Rise!

Dead Men Tell All Tales is similar to the D&D spell Speak with Dead, giving you the opportunity to interview a corpse that died within the last week. Corpses need not tell you the truth, and you can only maintain the feature for multiple questions if you keep succeeding on medium reason tests (tier 2 is a success with consequences).

Rise! lets us turn fallen creatures into new signature minions, though only if we can organize them into one of our squads (but breaking our minion limit). It's a triggered action, but a free triggered action if the fallen creature is a minion already. (This really gives us that Necromancer feel).

Formation:

I honestly find all the options here tempting, but especially with a bunch of signature minions, the stamina boost for Elite Formation will mean a lot - remember that excess damage to our minion squads will go over to us, so if my Skeletons (spoilers) have 5 Stamina rather than just 2, I'm going to be taking much less damage when some Hobgoblin Burning Witch is dealing 8 fire damage to my dudes.

Thanks to Rise, I expect that I'll always want to have one of my squads populated with signature minions (though it'll be in playing that I find out if that's sustainable at high levels).

That being said, if I went with Horde formation, I could get four more minions out, potentially. In an extreme scenario, I could get 12 Skeletons instead of 8, which would be 24 total Stamina for the squad, though Elite gives us 40 total... basically I think this is a balance between damage output and survivability.

You can swap this as a respite activity, so I might give each a try.

Quick Command: Focus Fire!

Each seems like it could be useful. However, I think that, having some versatile Skeletons in my minion mix, it might not be hard to get the full bonus of Focus Fire! to give an ally a big boost in damage. While I don't know quite whether I'm building for damage output or battlefield control, this might inspire me to move more in one direction (going the other way, Halt! could be fun, though I suspect that one is more situational).

Signature Minions: Skeletons and Shriekers

Ok, now the real meat of things. Because we get to pick two Signature Minions out of three options, we're really choosing what we're excluding. I'm going to go with Skeletons and Shriekers. I'd actually initially intended to get Husks instead of Shriekers, but it occurred to me that Skeletons and Husks have slightly similar roles: both make it harder for foes to move, either by slowing them or punishing them. Shriekers deal twice the damage of the other two options, so they'll be good when I just need to pump out the DPR (if you figure you're getting 3 for free every turn, that's basically 6 guaranteed sonic damage every turn). Skeletons, though, can form living, or, well, unliving walls that will slow foes with difficult terrain and also damage them. I think plugging up a narrow corridor with skeletons could be very powerful, and at worst, I can make a wall of skeletons around me to protect myself (Skeletons are equally good in melee or at range).

I had originally intended to take Husks over Shriekers - they're a little more mechanically interesting, and their ability to strike together to gain a higher potency for their slow effect is nice. They also have more Stamina and thus might last longer, but we're already getting some bonus stamina from Elite Formation - 3 Stamina versus 1 or 2 is proportionately less impressive when it's actually 6 versus 4 or 5.

3-Essence Minions: Grave Knight and Stalker Shade

Ok, I'll confess that this is partially based on aesthetics. While described as zombie warriors, the art for Grave Knight (assuming I'm looking at the right one) feels way more skeleton. But I also think they've got the highest damage potential, and I might be able to make use of the bleeding that they can inflict.

The Stalker Shade has the benefit of a great deal of mobility, and its Shadow Strike lets it get away from foes safely.

Now, I will say that the Zombie Lumberer can really block off some of the battlefield with their size 2 heft, so I could imagine swapping the Shade for the Zombie.

5-Essence Heroic Ability: Explosive Parade

I'll confess that I'm a little torn between this and Summoner's Sword. This one will likely do 8-12 damage on its own, and if you use the forced movement to knock them into something, potentially 4-6 more damage. But if you also have a bunch of minions already and you just want to burst something down, you could get even more damage out of it. Basically, this feels versatile and also pretty dramatic.

Summoner's Sword could, in theory, do R+16 to R+20 damage if you're totally surrounded by allies. If you get three signature minions per turn, that could add up pretty fast - though you won't be able to do this and Call Forth on the same turn. If we assume that you're only getting the bonus from the three free minions on the turn you use this, we're talking R+6 to R+10. I really need to get a better sense of how many minions are likely to survive a turn before deciding if this is an amazing single-target damage option or if it's always going to be somewhat underwhelming.

Summoner's Dominion Feature:

Not a choice at this point, as this is just determined by our subclass, but we'll be summoning the Barrow Gates probably early on each combat. It'll be a very good battlefield hazard, frightening foes and also increasing the fortitude of our minions, who are already a little tougher from Elite Formation. It's already size 2 and the fear effect has an effective radius of 3 squares, so we're talking about a 7x7 square of fear-inflicting.

5-Essence Minion: Phase Ghoul

A tough call here - I think that the damage potential for both Accursed Mummies and Ceaseless Mournlings might outstrip the Phase Ghouls, but I like the insane mobility that the Phase Ghouls have. The Mummies are probably my second choice here, given the AoE potential they have (Mournlings do too...). Honestly, I think this comes down largely to whether we need more battlefield control or speedy dudes to attack elusive targets.

Summoner Kit Ward: Snare Ward

We are getting into territory where I think I really do need to get some experience playing the game to get a sense of how powerful these are, but I like that this will work against foes both near and far - if they come up and smack me in melee, I can pull them away from me to potentially get to safety (and it's a free triggered action, so even if I get swarmed, I might be able to pull them all off of me). But if a foe is attacking me from afar, I can at least potentially slam them into one of my nearby minions is punishment.

7-Essence Heroic Ability: Cavalry Call

I liked Essence Funnel, but the I don't love that sacrificing minions for the ability prevents you from gaining the Essence or other effects (and I have a few minions who have on-death effects). Cavalry Call at least gives me fresh new minions that last just for that turn, so I'm not really giving anything up other than the 7 Essence to use this. Using Shriekers, we're getting a total of 12 damage out of this, and we could get the compelled movement to a strong potency against three targets.

Subclass Features: Channel and Dread March

These are some little bonuses. Channel lets us basically perform a seance with a spirit of the dead, with the potential risk of being possessed. Dread March lets us and our minions ignore difficult terrain, and also lets us finish our turn even if we should have died during our move action (like if we took lethal opportunity attacks). While I hope that's not going to happen to my summoner, personally, this actually lets my minions move around a ton while drawing all the opportunity attacks they can and still be able to do what they meant to do, so it makes things a lot more flexible.

7-Essence Minion: Phantom of the Ripper

If we're really going for damage output, I think the Phantom wins out. We summon two at a time for 7 essence, fly them through our target (which causes it to take 3 corruption damage and get a bane on their next strike,) and ideally leave the phantoms in flanking position around the target, thus giving their attack an edge, which causes Plunge of the Knife, their ability, to deal 3 more damage, so we're now looking at 11, 16, or 20 damage (and potentially slowing the target). The other Phantom only gets to add their free strike damage to this, which is 8, so it's more like 19, 24, or 28 damage. But when you factor in the damage from their "ripping phase", you toss two instances of the aforementioned 3 corruption damage (one for each phantom) and that becomes 25, 30, or 34 damage.

I'd considered the False Vampire (which would have some synergy with Grave Knights' bleed attack, though I'm still likely to keep one squad for signature minions). But I think that even at level 10 with a +5 Reason, if both False Vampires successfully restrain their individual targets, you're getting 8 each from free strikes (16) and then 5 acid from the creature starting their turn restrained (10 total) for 26, which is less reliably barely over the tier 1 result for the Phantom's game plan.

(The Zombie Titan is impressive, and it'd be cool to have a size four minion out on the board, but I think it's far more about battlefield control than damage output).

This is actually our last choice point for our minions. It's obviously very party-dependent, as we'd want to shore up whatever the party was lacking, so I could imagine going in a more battlefield-control orientation. I don't really have a great sense yet of how much damage a character is expected to put out at each level, and I do wonder a bit whether Summoners are even made to pump out the DPR or if they really need to play a different role. That said, killing your foes is, as they say, the best crowd control.

We're actually only level 5 at the time we make this choice, so let's see what the back half of our adventuring career has in store for us!

9-Essence Heroic Ability: The Champion Slams the Earth

The fun thing about most of these abilities is that you can use any of your minions as the origin of the ability, so even though they're generally burst abilities or short-range, you effectively add your Summoner's Range to the range of the ability.

This one I think would do the most damage, and can potentially lock down creatures by preventing them from standing. The ability can also take on the damage type that your champion deals, and I think here I'll need to look into something: my reading has generally been that untyped damage is the most reliable - that foes might have some immunity to, say Corruption (though our Avatar of Death champion can also do Holy with its free strikes). Is there any instance in which Corruption overcomes an immunity that untyped damage doesn't? Some monsters simply have damage immunity X, but my interpretation was that that was immunity to all kinds of damage. If it's only untyped damage, then, well, they probably should have given untyped damage a type (like they do in D&D with bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage).

Anyway, as a 4-cube ability, you could theoretically hit as many as 16 foes (or I guess even 64 if you've got flying foes who are vertically stacked). It's probably very unlikely that you'd actually hit that many, but I think it's not unreasonable to think you could get 3 or 4 in one of these.

Subclass Feature: Kill the Pain

Another automatic gain from our subclass, we're now protected from excess damage done after wiping out one of our squads (which would seem to point us away from Leader Formation, as it's a bit redundant). Minions also get to ignore damage rolled as a d3 or d6 from environmental effects when we're not winded.

The latter part I truly do not have the experience to know how often it will come up. But I could imagine with the first part possibly leaning into a different formation option.

I hadn't mentioned this, but at level 4 our minion maximum grew to 12 (everyone gets this) and thus, if we took Horde Formation, we'd be able to get 16. I don't know how easy it actually is to get that many minions, as minions can die so easily.

Platoon Formation has the most direct boost to our damage, but I'm also not entirely sure that it's going to amount to all that much - it lets us add our Reason score to the damage one target takes when a squad uses an ability. Abilities and Free Strikes are not the same, though, so this would only apply, I believe, to our Grave Knights.

Our minions do get higher Stamina as we level, so Elite Formation is also potentially losing some value, proportionately, so I might be tempted to go Horde formation (especially given that, at this point, I've probably gotten more used to commanding so many minions).

Portfolio Champion: Avatar of Death

Thanks to our subclass, we get a specific Champion, which works pretty differently from the rest of our minions. Functioning almost like our 9-Essence Minion, but without the restrictions on squads or minion caps and such, the Avatar is obviously expensive to get out, but quite a massive impact on the battle. I'm particularly curious about its ability to instantly kill (or reduce to 0 stamina, at least, which is often the same thing) winded non-leader/solo monsters with lower Presence with a free strike. This feels best suited to taking down really tough non-boss monsters, where we might have a lot of Stamina to chew through. The potency is weak here, but would definitely be worth spending some surges on. Meanwhile, its main signature ability hits up to two targets within 2 squares and deals 9, 12, or 14 to each and inflicts bleeding (the bleeding also instantly-kills a still-bleeding target at the end of the encounter. I'd say avoid using it on someone you want to interrogate, but we can also speak with the dead, so maybe we don't really care). If we only have one target, we get to add our Reason to their strikes (which I think means that their Free Strike value of 9 is effectively actually 9+R, or 13 at this level).

11-Essence Heroic Ability: 10,000 Minions

I'll concede that there are other abilities that could theoretically wipe out more foes (though I think I Abjure Thee, which wipes out all enemy minions, might come too late in the battle to have as big of an impact as it seems it should). 10,000 Minions is just absurd, though: until you're dying, the entire battlefield is considered teeming with minions (I imagine zombie hands reaching up out of the ground and ghostly spirits flitting through the air). Enemies that end their turn in an affected square take 5 damage, which can't be reduced. You know, an affected square, as in, all of them. Also, this naturally makes Minion Bridge much easier to use, as you can treat up to 10 such squares as eligible minions for it (meaning it's nearly as good as a 10-square teleport as a maneuver.)

    And there we go! Obviously, once again, this is a theoretical build. I'd need to play for a while to get a real sense of where the class and subclass' strengths lie. If pure damage-dealing should be left to the Shadows and Elementalists, we might focus a lot more on snagging enemies and gumming up the works, or even just putting everything into defensive abilities.

    But I also suspect that the Summoner will be a fun class for players who like to GM games, and are accustomed to moving a lot of guys around on the board. Especially given Draw Steel's minion rules, the players are typically outnumbered in fights, but the Summoner can turn the tables and give the heroes the numerical advantage.

(Theoretical) Advice for Playing Draw Steel's Summoner

 The Summoner, Draw Steel's first new MCDM-released class following the core rules, is presented as a "Master" class. While initially intended to be part of the core rules, the class design struggled to make it all work until the game developed its version of Minions, which came after the classes had largely been finished. (The upcoming Beastheart similarly needed them to have figure out how Retainers would work).

Players are encouraged not to start with the Summoner if it's their first time playing Draw Steel. And I think, sure, yeah, that's probably wise.

But...

But I kind of want to play a Summoner, despite never having played Draw Steel before.

Now, unlike D&D, which is a game that most of my friends are pretty familiar with (I've met many of them by playing D&D) and a handful have tried their hand at DMing (my best friend, who was one of my original players, now does it professionally as part of an after-school program for kids, and for sure has more hours under his belt. He also has an actual play stream that I make maps for!) But I haven't even had an opportunity to run Draw Steel, so I expect that if I ever get a chance to play it, it'll be a while (though maybe I just need to get over my internet shyness and find a game via the MCDM Discord).

Anyway, it's understandable that the class could daunt new players, and for the other folks at the table, it could be frustrating if a player dilly-dallies during their turn.

There are, however, a few design decisions that I think will make it a fair bit quicker. The primary one is that, with some exceptions, most minions don't have any roll to make when they attack. They only have free strikes, and so you can just... do the damage. If I have three Phase Ghouls out, they're going to be doing 3 damage each, so I know that 9 damage is going out there into the world.

However, another really helpful bit of the Summoner document is on page 58, where there's a whole section on Summoner advice. In particular, I find the Summoner's Flow section could really streamline peoples' turns:

While you can do things in many different orders, this suggests that by default, you should take your turn in the following order:

• First, collect your resources. You'll get your two Essence at the start of your turn (or 3 later on, I think) and then you'll place your free signature minions (assuming you even do get them - if you have both of your squads using heroic minions, you won't be getting your free ones).
• Next, you should summon any minions you want to on your turn. I believe that this is always going to use your "Call Forth" main action, which feels like the bread-and-butter of Summoner actions (though if you have what you need on the board or really need to do a heroic ability, you might skip this).
• Third step, now that all the minions are out on the board, you can move them all. This, I suspect, will take the longest time to resolve, as you might have yourself and up to 8 (or even 12) minions. Remember that free strikes can be ranged, so unless you really need your minions to get some benefit from a melee attack (which some minions will want) your positioning doesn't have to be all that precise. 
• Finally, once all your minions are in position, have them do what they were planning to do, whether that's a maneuver or a main action. If you haven't used your action yet and have been saving it, you can do it now and then end your turn.

I think this 4-step methodology will really make your turns go faster. Draw Steel of course by default has players take their turns in whatever order the party wants, so if you need some time to figure out what you're going to do, you can let a teammate go first (though note that the battlefield might change if you do so, so you will need to revise your plan as you go - be sure to pay attention to what's happening on other turns).

Now, I think the next challenge is bookkeeping.

The Summoner comes with a Minion Tracking Sheet, which gives you a separate row for Squad A and Squad B. Each squad is going to share a stamina pool, like the Director's minions, and each squad only gets one type of minion, so you should do the following:

So, combat begins, and you decide to fill Squad A with your Skeleton minions (a classic!) When the whole fight starts, two of them pop up. So, you can write 2 and then another 2 (the Stamina for a skeleton minion). At the start of your turn, you get three more for free, so assuming you choose to summon all three (and why wouldn't you?) you'll put them on the map and write three more instances of 2 in Squad A. Now, when they take damage, you'll subtract from the first instance of 2 until it's reduced to zero, and then remove the skeleton that took the damage. Then, continue on with any remaining damage.

One way that you might make this easier, actually, at least with low-stamina minions, is to make tally marks or dots instead of numerals. Simply arrange these tallies in a grid, with columns representing individual minions. Now, you can just work your way down each column from left to right, erasing one tally or dot at a time equal to the damage taken, and each column that is cleared represents a minion getting slain.

There's also a space on the Minion Tracking Sheet to write down the statistics of each minion type. One way that you could make it potentially easier to track is to make these into little cards - each minion has a pretty compact stat block. While you'll eventually have six kinds of minions (not counting champions) to choose from, you're never going to have more than two kinds of minion out at a time, so you can easily just keep the inactive minion types in your "deck" and pull out the cards for the minions you're actually using.

If you're making these cards or just writing the stat blocks onto your sheet, consider also filling in the actual potencies on their abilities. If your Necromancer has Husk minions, at level 1 their Rotting Strike figure will affect targets with Might less than 0 (unless they team up to raise the potency) and their corruption and poison immunity will be 2. Then, when you hit new echelons and your stats go up, update these to the new values.

One thing you might also consider is just writing an M for melee or R for ranged next to the minion's name if they are more effective at one or the other. While you're certainly become familiar with your minions as you play, early on having a quick reminder that Husks do an extra effect when they make melee free strikes and not ranged ones, and knowing that Shriekers have an extended range on their free strikes. And if you have a minion that doesn't really do anything different in melee or at range, like the Skeleton, you can just leave that space blank.

Also, while minions easily come and go, many of them (especially Elementals) will leave some effect on the battlefield when they die.

The document already advices using flat token for minions so they don't disrupt line of sight of the battlefield for the players, but the other benefit is that if the tokens are two-sided, you can flip them over when they die and leave behind an area effect. Skeletons (yeah, we're sticking with Undead signature minions until we need another category for an example) leave behind Bonetrops when they die, so if you can get a token that indicates an animate skeleton on one side and a bunch of sharp bones on the other, you can just flip it over when it dies to show where the caltrop-like remains are.

This won't work for everything - some elemental minions will leave behind a larger affected patch than their own size (like the Flow of Magma) so you'll either want to have separate tokens for those, or access to whatever wet-erase markers the DM is using for the map. But for those minions who just leave behind something occupying their own space, a flippable token is great.

It might be hubristic, but I honestly think with these methods, I actually think I might be able to efficiently play a Summoner, despite not yet having actually played Draw Steel.

Minion Parade: Circle of Graves

 The Necromancer, or Circle of Graves, Undead Portfolio, whatever, was the real inception of the Summoner class - the classic archetype that's always so hard to pull of in TTRPGs. I think for me, the point at which I started liking the undead as my favorite kind of monster was when I started playing WoW back in 2006 and encountered the Undead Scourge. Later, WoW would get the Death Knight class, whose Unholy specialization (subclass) fills that necromancer role. Diablo, another Blizzard game, might have truly codified the heroic necromancer class, with its many skeletal minions helping the Priests of Rathma maintain the balance between heaven and hell (which in Diablo are both, like, not great, though hell's worse).

If I ever get a chance to play as a PC in a Draw Steel game, this subclass is very high up there on my priority list of character types I'd want to play because of the excellent vibes.

Necromancers don't actually raise the bodies of the dead to summon their minions, though I think you could flavor their "Rise!" ability as animating the corpse of a dead creature.

On a personal note, I tend to prefer the more skeletal undead over the zombie-like rotting corpses, and perhaps also the ghostly spirits between them. You'll get variations on all three types here.

Undead minions primarily seem to share some damage immunity to Corruption and Poison damage, based on our Reason.

Signature Minions:

Husk:

This medium Defender is a stiff walking corpse, its sinews creaking and crackling as it moves in staccato, jerky motions, with corrosive vapors billowing from their slack jaws. Their free strike inflict slowed (EoT) against low-might foes, with each adjacent additional husk adding 1 to the potency (max +2). Free Strike: 1.

Shrieker:

These emaciated medium Artillery have distended jaws and wail in a way that can be heard for miles. Their range free strikes have a very long range, and their shrieking alerts you to nearby foes, preventing enemies within 2 squares of them of being hidden. Free Strike: 2.

Skeleton:

Your absolute classic, these medium Harriers leave behind Bonetrops when killed in their space, becoming difficult terrain for enemies. The first time an enemy enters the space, they take 2 damage and end the effect. Free Strike: 1.

3-Essence Undead:

Grave Knight:

These medium Brutes are skeletal or zombie warriors, and have a signature ability that deals 5, 7, or 9 corruption damage, and cause low-Might targets to be bleeding (EoT, or save ends for tier 3). When slain, they can make a melee free strike before they're destroyed. Free Strike: 5.

Stalker Shades:

These medium Ambushers are incorporeal shades that can fly and hover. After making a strike, they turn invisible and shift 3 squares before reappearing. They can also pass through other creatures and objects at normal speed. The first time they pass through a creature in a round, the creature takes 2 corruption damage, and the Shade doesn't take damage from being force moved into objects. Free Strike: 5.

Zombie Lumberer:

These size-2 Defenders are big, animated ogre corpses. Their melee strikes grab low-Agility targets, and a creature or object that starts its turn grabbed by the lumberer takes corruption damage equal to your reason. When a lumberer is killed, they can latch onto an adjacent enemy with low Might, making them Restrained (EoT). Free Strike: 1.

5-Essence Undead:

Accursed Mummy:

These linen-wrapped, preserved medium Hexers have a signature ability that can deal 3, 4, or 6 poison damage, and pull them R, R+1, or R+2 squares (the range is only melee, so this will cause them to collide with the mummy). A target pulled adjacent to them with low Might is weakened (EoT). When the mummy takes damage (for example, by pulling a foe toward them) each enemy adjacent to the mummy takes 2 poison damage. (So, to math it out, if you were to get a tier 2 result with a Reason of 3 against a creature without stability, they'd take 4 poison base, then 4 damage from the forced movement, and then the Mummy would also take 4, and thus deal 2 more to the pulled enemy, for a total of 10, plus 2 to any other adjacent enemies. The Mummy would also die because they only have 4 Stamina). Free Strike: 3.

Ceaseless Mournling:

These size 2 hulking amalgams of body parts are Controllers, with teary trenches where their cheeks ought to be can burrow through the ground and disturb enemies with their endless weeping. At the end of their turns, each enemy within 1 square of them takes 2 sonic damage and cannot shift until the Mournling's next turn. They also can't have their shape changed by external effects. Finally, the first time on their turn they burrow out of hte ground, they can make a free strike against each adjacent enemy. Free Strike: 3.

Phase Ghoul:

Medium Harriers, these ghouls are partially phased, flickering between two different manifolds (planes) other than their solid-looking bright-blue tongues, which seem to lag behind them by a full second (that is so freaking cool/creepy). Their movement is teleportation, and they can teleport 5 squares before making a melee free strike, and if they do so, low-Might creatures are knocked prone. The potency of this is increased by 1 if the target is in the air. Phase Ghouls do not take damage from falling and always land on their feet. Free Strike: 3.

7-Essence Undead:

False Vampire:

These bestial ghouls are Large Brutes with hands that have turned into hooks, and their mouth has twisted and extended into a long feeding needle. Their free strikes have a distance of 2 and against low-Might foes, they inflict Restrained (EoT). The false vampire can move with the target while the target is restrained, and a restrained target takes acid damage equal to your reason at the start of its turn. If a creature within 10 is bleeding, the ghoul has a speed of 10. Free Strike: 8.

Phantom of the Ripper:

These medium Ambushers are ghostly phantoms that puppeteer their own corporeal remains, and leave strange distortions in space behind them. They can fly and hover, and they have a signature ability that deals 8, 13, or 17 damage, and slows (save ends) low-Agility targets. They also get an additional 3 damage if they have an edge on the strike. They can move through creatures and objects, and the first time a round they pass through a creature, it takes 3 corruption damage and gets a bane on their next strike. The phantom doesn't take damage when being force moved into objects. Free Strike: 8.

Zombie Titan:

This size 4 (by far the largest minion) undead colossus could be a reanimated giant, a giant patchwork flesh golem, or possibly just a giant amalgam of an entire cemetery's worth of bodies (like The One Reborn from Bloodborne!) You only summon one of these for your 7 Essence, but it has over twice the Stamina of individual other 7-Essence minions. Its free strikes knock low-Might foes prone. It can move through enemies at normal speed, and if they end their turn in the space of a prone size 2 or smaller creature's space, the creature can't stand. When slain, the space they occupied becomes difficult terrain, and any creature that was prone underneath the titan when it died takes 10 damage and is restrained (save ends). Free Strike: 7.

    So, there's our undead menagerie, minus, of course, the champion.

I think there's maybe less of a clear mechanical throughline other than the damage immunities. However, I think there are a handful of fun synergies: The Grave Knight can inflict bleeding, which will then buff the speed of the False Vampire, for example. There's less of a theme than there is for Elementals of getting some benefit when the minions are slain, but we have other subclass features that play into that.

Most of the minions feel like they're probably pretty good at dishing out damage, which is certainly always a powerful thing to do.

So, that's the minion parade. Again, I think I'll need to really see the class in practice more (and the game in general) to get a really good sense of which of these are best, but they all seem cool.

Minion Parade: Circle of Spring

 The Fey actually don't get a ton of exposure in the Draw Steel Monsters book, outside of a Wode Hag, but I think that's because most fairies are expected to be somewhat benevolent. The Circle of Spring, which summons fey creatures, is probably the "lightest" of the Summoner subclasses, tonally, summoning various fey beings as your minions, with a beautiful, pastoral aesthetic.

Nearly every Fey you summon is size 1T. As a reminder, in Draw Steel, there are several sizes that all occupy one square, going in the following order: T, or Tiny, S, or Small, M, or Medium, and L, or Large. These are separate sizes for rules about pushing enemies around or occupying the same space, but only when you get bigger than 1L do you actually start occupying more squares on the grid. While I don't think there are any creatures bigger than size 4, in theory you could have a staggeringly enormous size 10 creature, which would take up a 10x10 area (and be 10 squares tall).

So, the Fey you summon are going to be Tiny, but they're no less potent - they just might not be quite as good at blocking foes from moving around.

With the exception of the one minion that's actually a size 2 swarm, each has the Miniscule trait, which gives the fey cover while occupying the space of a larger creature, giving foes banes against them. As a reminder (I had to look this up) you can occupy the space of another creature if it's two or more sizes larger or smaller than you - so given that these guys are size IT, that means anything 1M or up (the size of a typical humanoid) is fair game. I think that means you can probably only have one of your minions in the space of an enemy, because the two 1T creatures can't share a space.

With that one exception, I won't bother describing the minion's size, as you can just assume it's 1T.

Signature Minions:

Nixie Soakreed:

This Controller can swim, and has very long hair like reeds, and they generate their own sticky water to swim around. Once per turn during their move, each nixie you control can teleport into a body of water within 5 squares, except that created by their own soaking bog feature. That feature causes the area within 1 square of the nixie to be filled with swampy water. An enemy that starts their turn within it and has lower Agility is slowed (EoT,) with the potency going up by 1 for each additional bog the target occupies (up to a bonus of 2). So, in other words, if there are more nixies around it. As a note, our summoned fortification as this subclass does create a pond for these to teleport into. Free Strike: 1.

Pixie Bellringer:

These Support minions are glowing pixies who can fly and hover. Their free strikes give an edge to the next strike made against a target, or a double edge if two more more pixies hit the same target. Each ally within 1 square of them has a +1 bonus to saving throws, while each enemy within 1 square has a -1 penalty to saving throws. Free Strike: 1.

Sprite Dandeknight:

These Harriers have dragonfly wings and can fly and wear tassels that change color. Their strikes can deal your choice of fire, lightning, poison, or sonic damage. They can also make two free strikes instead of one, adding the damage together as if it were a single strike if they hit the same target. Free Strike: 1.

3-Essence Fey:

Pixie Hydrain:

These Artillery have delicate flower-petals for wings and can fly and hover, whose color drains when they call forth acid rain. They have a signature ability that deals 5, 7, or 9 acid damage and weakens low-Might targets (EoT, or save ends on a tier 3). After the squad uses this ability, you or an ally within its range can spend a Recovery or end a condition. Free Strike: 5.

Pixie Loftlilly:

These Controllers float through the air in flower cups, sipping on toxic nectar. They can fly and hover, and the area within 1 square of them causes each enemy and object with a size equal to your Reason or smaller to float 1 square off the ground until they leave the area. Floating enemies that cannot fly are unable to shift, are moved an extra 2 squares when force-moved, and have a bane on strikes. Free Strike: 4.

Sprite Orchiguard:

These Defenders are sprites surrounded by a wheel of shields. They can fly, and each non-Orchiguard ally that is within 1 square of them takes half damage. When an Orchiguard reduces damage this way, they take damage equal to half their maximum stamina and their free strike damage increases by 1. Free Strike: 4.

5-Essence Minions:

Nixie Hemloche:

These Hexers have long, wavy hair that bobs and flows in the water surrounding them. They can swim, and once per turn during their move, they can teleport to a body of water other than the water created by their Whirling Waves within 6 of them. Whirling Waves fills water within 1 square of them with churning water that is difficult terrain (apparently for everyone - does this mean they're automatically moving at half speed?) At the end of the nixie's turn, they can choose to slide each enemy in an affected square up to 3 squares, and if they take damage from the forced movement and have lower Might, they are knocked prone.

Sprite Foxglow:

These Ambushers are masked sprites that leave a trail of evanescent orbs. They can fly. Their melee strikes inflict daze on low Intuition targets (EoT) if they were hidden when they make the strike. The area within 2 squares of the sprites is completely silent, and enemies have a bane on tests to make searches for the sprites in the affected area. Free Strike: 4.

Pixie Rosenthall:

This 2-Size swarm of blood-eyed pixies is a Harrier that can fly and hover. It has a signature ability that deals 3, 6, or 8 damage and can pull 2, 3, or 4 on a hit. If the target has lower Agility, they're bleeding (EoT). While bleeding, a target cannot shift. The swarm can move through squares as if they were size 1T and occupy other creatures' space (I assume regardless of size). At the start of their turn, any enemy sharing a space with them takes 2 damage. Free Strike: 3.

7-Essence Minions:

Nixie Corallia:

These Support minions have coral-like, coarse skin and curly, hooked hair. They can swim, and like other Nixies, they create an area of water around them. This Seafoam Pool fills the area within 2 squares of them with purifying water, which disables the effects of difficult terrain created by enemeis. At the end of the nixie's turn, they can scrub you or an ally in the area to end a condition. Like other nixies, they can teleport once per turn during their move into a body of water within 6 squares that isn't their Seafoam Pool. Free Strike: 7.

Pixie Belladonix:

These Artillery have moth-like wings with vibrant colors and have poison barbs. They can fly and hover. They have a signature ability that deals 8, 12, or 17 poison damage, and low-might targets are restrained (save ends). A restrained creature is trapped in a poisonous haze and considers each creature within 1 square of them to be an enemy until the condition ends. Free Strike: 8.

Sprite Olyender:

These brawny brutes wear beetle-chitin armor and have a halo that hovers over their back in place of wings, which lets them fly. Their melee strikes inflict push 4, and if a target is force-moved into an object, low might creatures are knocked prone and cannot stand (save ends). When an Olyender grabs a target, the olyender is considered one size larger than the target (meaning even this 1T little bug-fairy can grab a giant).

    And that's Fey minions.

Thematically and mechanically, the tiny size of most fey (even the one non-tiny one is actually a swarm of tiny fairies) lets them go places that larger minions couldn't. Notably, there's also something of a theme with them - Nixies all have this water area around them that can help control foes. Also, nearly all of them (other than the Nixies, I think) can fly, so your minions are going to be very good at reaching hard-to-reach foes (I think you still need to summon them on a solid surface, though). The Minuscule feature might give them slightly better longevity, as well (though even with a bane, it's probably not that hard to kill a signature minion with like 2 Stamina).

Many minions have typed damage - which I think might technically be a slight weakness as I think there's no immunity to just untyped damage, but you might be able to occasionally take advantage of some weaknesses.

Minion Parade: Circle of Storms

 The Summoner, of course, need not summon spooky, scary creatures like demons or undead. In what I'd think of as the most kind of tonally neutral choice, you can pick Elementals to summon - a classic option for conjurers.

In Draw Steel, there are seven elements (the regular four and then Green, Rot, and Void). While these have their physical expressions, the elements are also (as the Alchemists and earlier philosophers thought) the essence of various concepts. Fire is not just that phenomenon of things burning, but the very idea of destruction or transformation. Earth is not just rocks and dirt, but the very idea of solidity and stability.

Elemental minions all have some kind of effect that happens when they are reduced to 0 Stamina (meaning I don't think they trigger when you sacrifice them). Some of these require you to spend 1 Essence to activate, but the key is that if you're an elemental summoner, you're going to be making an absolute mess of the battlefield (for your foes).

Signature Minions:

Elemental Mote:

Motes are tiny Hexers, and are little pure, well, motes of elemental energy that can fly. When they are killed, they inflict a bane on the next strike adjacent enemies make. Once per turn, they can transform into an adjacent allied signature minion (maintaining their current stamina) and join a new squad if they change names (though I can't imagine why you'd change them into another Elemental Mote). You can even spend 1 Essence to transform them into a signature minion you don't actually have, as if you were summoning them into the Mote's space (and thus should have the chosen minion's Stamina). All Storm Summoners get this minion and one other signature minion. Free Strike: 1.

Brisk Gale:

These small Harriers look like twisting ribbons of cloud and debris. They can fly and don't provoke opportunity attacks by moving. When killed, the space they leave a swirling wind in their space until the end of the encounter. If you or an ally starts their turn there or enter the space, they can immediately shift (including vertically). Free Strike: 1.

Fire Plume:

These tiny Artillery are extremely bright flames, sputtering and spitting sparks. Their ranged free strikes have an increased range, and when reduced to 0 stamina (ah, I see a theme developing) their space becomes wreathed with flame until the end of the encounter, dealing 2 fire damage to foes that enter the space or start their turn there. Free Strike: 2.

Walking Bolder:

These size-2 Defenders are clods of stone roll around on smaller limb-like rocks. They block line of effect for enemies, and when one is killed, you can spend 1 Essence to have them leave behind a stone wall of their size in their space until the end of the encounter. Free Strike: 1.

3-Essence Elementals:

Crux of Ash:

These phoenix-like birds made of hot ash are medium Ambushers. They can fly, and their melee free strikes against lower-Might enemies will hide all allies from the target until the start of the Crux's next turn, or until the target uses a maneuver to wipe the soot from their eyes or the crux takes damage or is destroyed. When killed, you can spend an Essence to cover the area within 1 square of the crux to be clouded by ash, granting concealment to you and your allies, and preventing foes from establishing line of effect beyond the ash if they're in an affected square. Free Strike: 5.

Flow of Magma:

This serpentine elemental made of heated rock is a large Harrier. It has a signature ability that deals 4, 6, or 8 fire damage and lets them shift 3, 4, or 5 squares. The squares that the Flow shifts into become wreathed in flame until the Flow's next turn, dealing 2 damage to any enemy that enters them. When killed, you can spend 1 Essence to launch lava into a square equal to 1+ their size (so likely a 2-square), which becomes difficult terrain for enemies until the end of the encounter and causes lower-agility foes that enter the space or start their turn there 4 fire damage. Free Strike: 4.

Desolation of Sand:

These medium Hexers are legless humanoid shapes of sand have glassy arms that shoot blasts of sand at their foes. Their free strikes inflict slowed (save ends) against low-Might enemies, and if the target is already slowed, an enemy that even has slightly higher Might becomes Restrained (end of turn). When killed, the area within 1 square of the elemental becomes difficult terrain until the end of the encounter, and you or allies that enter the area can immediately shift 3. Free Strike: 4.

5-Essence Elementals:

Dancing Silk:

These tiny Controllers look a bit like baby spiders using webbing balloons. They can fly, and their ranged free strikes can inflict restrained against low-Agility targets (EoT) and then slowed against adjacent targets with lower agility (in other words, the potency is weak, rather than average) (EoT). When slain, you can spend 1 Essence to have the Silks send ribbons of webbing into an area of their size +1 within 5 of them. The area is difficult terrain for foes until the end of the encounter, and enemies that ends their turn in the webbing and have lower Might are slowed (EoT). Free Strike: 3.

Principle of the Swamp:

These size-2, equine Brutes live in swampy sludge, and their manes can extend and hook into things like arms. They can swim and their free strikes have a distance equal to your reason and will grab lower-Might targets. They can have any number of creatures grabbed. A creature grabbed this way can still move, but can't move away from the Principle. When slain, you can spend an Essence to cause the area within 1 square of it to become difficult terrain for enemies until the end of the encounter, and a creature who ends their turn in the area is pulled 4 toward its center. Free Strikes: 4.

Quiet of Snow:

These small, six-legged, fox-like Artillery white as fresh snow fly through the air sending telepathic howls. They can fly and hover, and have a signature ability that does 4, 6, or 8 cold damage and slows lower-might targets (EoT). On a tier 3, their speed becomes zero instead. One adjacent ally to the target can shift 2 and either hide or defend when they do this. When slain, the Quiet launches a blast of air to an area equal to their size +1 and all allies within the square gain a surge. Free Strike: 4.

7-Essence Elementals:

Iron Reaver:

These Large Harriers look like metallic centipedes that shed shavings and sheets of metal as they move. Also of note, you get three of these per summon, rather than the two you get for the other minions of this level, but they have lower Stamina. They can burrow, and they get cover when adjacent to another reaver that they were summoned with. If they receive an effect that allows them to move or shift outside of their regular move action, they get to share it with each adjacent reaver they were summoned with. Their free strikes inflict bleeding (save ends) on low-Might foes, and when they inflict bleeding, they can shift 2 and make an additional free strike against a new target. (The potency for this is weak, so you need a fair number of low-Might foes, but I think this could potentially chain endlessly with enough targets). When slain, you can spend 1 Essence to create a line equal to 2x their size centered on their space, filling it with iron shards until the end of the encounter. You and allies get cover and damage immunity 2 while occupying an affected square. Free Strike: 6.

Knight of Blood:

These large Controllers look like spiky armored knights endlessly dripping blood (yeah, a bit more hardcore than you expected from an elemental, right?) Their melee strikes inflict bleeding (save ends) on low-Presence targets, and when the die is rolled for their bleed damage, the result can't be lower than a 3. When slain, you can spend 2 Essence to let them move up to their speed ignoring opportunity attacks. Each square they exit pools with blood until the end of the encounter. Enemies treat this as difficult terrain and it deals 3 corruption damage to enemies who first enter the area on a turn. If a bleeding enemy starts their turn within 10 squares of the blood pool, they are pull 2 toward the nearest square, ignoring stability. Free Strike: 7.

Light of the Sun:

These size-2 Support are avian in shape and blaze with blinding light, grasping a glowing sword. They can fly, and they have a Signature ability that deals 7, 11, or 16 Fire damage and can inflict dazed on low-Intuition foes (EoT, or Save Ends if tier 3). A target that is dazed this way has their stability reduced to 0 until the condition ends. If slain, you can spend 2 Essence for the area within 1 square of the Light to be wreathed in sentient flame until the end of the encounter. Enemies who enter this space or start their turn there take 3 fire damage and are slowed (EoT) while you or allies who enter the area or start their turn there gain 5 temporary Stamina and their speed increases by 2 until the end of their turn.

    So, that's Elementals.

Naturally, the big thing here is that you'll be seriously changing the environment of a fight, and the longer it goes, the more crazy stuff will be stacking up there. You will need to reserve some Essence if you want to make use of your higher-level minions' death-burst abilities, but it seems that they can also be fairly potent.

I do think you're going to potentially have even more to track here than other Summoners, as you cover the battlefield with the remains of your minions, so having tokens or at least something to consistently mark the affected areas is important.

I suppose that you'll also be even more ok with your minions dying than other subclasses, as you get all these cool additional effects from them. While officially all these effects go away when a battle ends, I think it's really funny to imagine that it's just an absolute ruin after you finish a fight, and that it's a big mess that will have to be cleaned up.

Minion Parade: Circle of Blight

 The Summoner is a really cool class, and while I think I'd probably be wise to stick to the suggestion that one not play it before getting some experience with simpler classes under the belt first (though I've got to imagine that if I ever play Draw Steel, I'm going to be a Forever Director) I do really like the idea of playing one. I'm primarily inclined toward the Necromancer/Circle of Graves, but the other options are all pretty cool-looking.

This class is all about the minions, and while you do have some features outside of summoning minions, that's what we're all here for. I thought it might be fun to go on a little tour through the options you have to pick for which minions you can summon.

Once again, you can only have two kinds of minion out at a time, each organized into their own squads (that share one big health pool and act in tandem with one another).

Each subclass gets their choice of 2 Signature minions, 2 3-Essence minions, 1 5-Essence minion, and 1 7-Essence minion. So you'll only ever have 6 minion types to choose from when you call them forth, but there are more options.

We're going to start by looking at the demons that the Circle of Blight Summoners can pull out of the Abyssal Wastes. I'll do a quick summary of their abilities, though I'm not going to be exhaustive, both because I have finite energy and also because I'm not just trying to reprint the entire class in this blog. (If I'm honest, I sometimes do these overview posts to help me internalize the way a class or other rule system works, and if you read it, hey, enjoy).

Demons in Draw Steel are warped and twisted creatures - a stark contrast with Devils, who are basically just winged, horned, tailed people (and in this cosmos, are not related to demons in any way - there's no "fiend" catch-all." Demons are nightmare creatures with bizarre biology that honestly give off somewhat more Lovecraftian vibes than they do in other media. Calling upon them means you're working with some nasty, nasty things that are very dangerous.

All demons seek to consume souls, and so every demon minion has a feature called Soulsight, which prevents adjacent creatures from ever being hidden from them, as the demon can sense the living soul for which they hunger in those creatures.

Signature Minions:

Ensnarer:

These guys are vaguely humanoid, with a head that splits open to reveal a massive tongue longer than the demon is tall. They are a Brute, and their free strikes have a longer distance and pull targets, with the pull distance increased for each ensnarer joining in the attack. Free Strike: 2.

Rasquine:

Small, shimmering little skulkers, these are Ambushers. Their movement is teleportation, and they can hide as a free maneuver after teleporting. Free Strike: 2.

Razor:

These are smaller versions of the Ruinant (found in the Monsters book,) swift mounds of tumbling flesh and claws. These are Harriers and deal damage back to adjacent foes that grab or attack them, this damage increasing if there are nearby Razors. Free Strike: 1.

3-Essence Demons:

Archer Spitlich:

These small Artillery minions look like larger Pitlings (found in the Monsters book). Their ranged free strikes have increased range and will also splash an adjacent enemy to the target for 2 poison damage. This poison damage prevents enemies from shifting until the Spitlich's next turn. Free Strike: 5

Fanged Musilex:

A demon made up of multiple ensnarers twisted and molded together, thee large Brutes have a longer range for melee free strikes and have pull 2, with the pull distance increasing by 2 for each minion joining in the attack. (Like with the Ensnarer, you pick which one is actually doing the pulling to determine where they're being pulled to.) If the target is pulled adjacent to the Musilex, it can either deal 2 extra damage or grab them. Free Strike: 5.

Twisted Bengrul:

This undulating mass of glass and flesh shatters pieces of itself to warp and wound foes. They're large Hexers, and they have a ranged signature ability called Mind Twist, which deals 4, 6, or 8 damage and has a potency that attacks presence, inflicting a debuff called Twisted (save ends) which prevents the target from being able to use edges or search for hidden creatures. Free Strike: 4.

5-Essence Demons:

Gushing Spewler:

These squat Controllers are mostly mouth, spraying acid and bile from their stomachs. Their ranged free strikes have an increased range and will slide the target. Also, if they take damage, they can shift 2 squares after the effects of the damage resolve. Each square they exit when doing so is covered in slime that inflicts a bane on enemies, the slime lasting until the end of the encounter. Free Strike: 3.

Hulking Chimor:

These size 2 Defenders are shapeless masses of demonic body parts who break off little pieces of themselves in the foes they attack. Their free strikes will weaken targets with low might (end of turn) with a potency that grows higher the longer the fight has been going. They also don't provoke opportunity attacks. Free Strike: 3.

Violent:

Violents are red, lanky bipeds, Ambushers that can contort their bodies into unassuming shapes. They get to add 2 damage to their free strikes for each adjacent enemy from which they were hidden when they attack, and they automatically take the Hide maneuver as a free maneuver at the start of their turns, disguising themselves as objects of their size or smaller. (In my mind, these are similar to the Mannequins from Silent Hll 2. Free Strike: 4

7-Essence Demons:

Faded Blightling:

These large Support minions look like blasphemous mockeries of "Biblically accurate angels," a kind of big ball of eyes (though here the eyes are all withered and look like blisters) ringed by wings. They can fly and have a signature ability that does 7, 11, or 16 corruption damage and a potency targeting presence that will inflict Bleeding (EoT). They can also target a friend with this to impose a double bane on the next strike that targets them. Their wings are crap, though, so if they end their turn mid-air, they fall prone. Free Strike: 7.

Gorrre:

Yes, that's three Rs. Gorrres look like weird spiny orangutan-rhinos. They're size 2 Brutes that must charge before making a strike. If the target is not mighty enough, they are knocked prone if the Gorre moved through another creature or object while charging. It can ignore difficult terrain while charging, and they destroy any unattended size 1 objects in their path, while enemies they move through on the charge take 3 damage. Free Strike: 8.

Viscisittante:

These size-2 Harriers are an ever-shfiting mass of burning flesh, scarring anything they touch as they leave parts of themselves behind. They have a signature ability that deals 7, 11, or 16 psychic damage and have a potency against a creature's presence that inflicts weakened (save ends).  Weakened creatures are then considered flanked by the demon regardless of their position until the condition ends. Free Strike: 7.

    General Thoughts:

I think there are a lot of options here to move targets around on the battlefield, so you could choose to specialize in that by going with Ensnarers, Fanged Musilexes, Gushing Spewlers, and Gorrres. However, you might decide that's a bit redundant. The handful of minions with signature abilities are probably going to give you the most damage, if that's what you're going for, though also a fair number of minions have ways to get bonus damage if certain conditions are met (such as the Violent).

What is guaranteed, though, is that your minions are going to be real gross.

Breaking Down Minions and Squads for the Summoner

 Turns out reading through a whole complex class can make you miss some things.

The Summoner, Draw Steel's first class beyond the core rules (though it and the Beast Heart were originally meant to be in the core, but some system design had to happen before they could be complete) is built around summoning minions. Lots and lots of minions.

Well, lots.

At level 1, you'll have access to four kinds of minions. Each subclass/Circle/portfolio gives you an option of three signature minions and three 3-Essence minions, and you get to choose two of each (meaning you're really choosing which minion you don't want to take in each list.)

Later on, you'll pick one type of 5-Essence minion, one type of 7-Essence Minion, and then you'll get your subclass' Champion, which is essentially your 9-Essence minion (but these break a lot of rules so we don't really need to consider them here).

You can control up to 8 minions at a time (not counting the Champion. Again, we'll set them aside for now). It's up to you whether these minions are in the same squad or not, BUT: only minions of the same name can be in the same squad.

You can only have two squads, and thus you can only have two kinds of minions out at once.

Thus, in practice, you're likely to have one squad for your signature minions and one squad for your "heroic" minions. If you want to have two squads with heroic minions, you won't be able to get your free summoned signature minions at the start of your turns (though there's an optional rule to just immediately sacrifice the squad-less signature minions to reduce ability costs).

The real upshot, though, is that you'll only have two kinds of minions out on the field at once, which should make things far more manageable.

So, another way to think about it is this:

As a Summoner, you've got two battle pets that can each be in multiple places at once. The number of places you can put them is dependent on how much Stamina they have. If you want a third pet out, you need to get rid of one of those two (either by letting them naturally get killed off by foes or by sacrificing them).

You have a cap on how many minions you can have out there on the field, 8, but if you're ok with them all being of the same kind (one "pet" with many locations) you can have them all in one big squad.

If each squad is a pet, then it makes sense that you can only command your pet to do one specific maneuver or main action on a turn.

Now, the following idea works great for minions that only have free strikes and no rolled abilities (which I think is the majority of them,) but this "pet" will do the same amount of damage with its attacks - it's just a question of whether you spread them out to multiple foes or if you concentrate them on one.

As an example: I'm controlling a squad of 4 Skeletons (Skeleton Squad! It sounds like a 1970s TV show). Each of these guys do just 1 point of damage with their free strikes. Let's say I have two Ogres I'm fighting. If I have my Skeletons attack on their turn, then I can do 4 damage to one ogre, 3 to one and 1 to the second, or 2 to each.

Now, like the Director's minions, if I target a foe with a Signature Ability, such as the Flow of Magma's Molten Strike, I make a Power Roll just once. A single target can only take the power roll's damage once, while any further minions attacking that target just add their Free Strike damage.

For example: I'm fighting three War Dogs and I've gotten 4 Flows of Magma onto the field. The Flow of Magma has a signature ability that does 4, 6, or 8 damage (as well as other effects). It also does 4 damage on a Free Strike.

The most efficient way for them to use this is to attack each War Dog separately (though they do have to get within range to do so, as this is a melee option, while free strikes can be either melee or ranged). I have more elementals than targets, so if I have Flow 1 attack War Dog A, Flow 2 attack War Dog B, and Flow 3 attack War Dog C, Flow 4 is going to, at best, need to tag-team attack one of the aforementioned ones. We'll say A.

That means that while B and C are taking 4, 6, or 8 damage from this attack, A will now be taking 8, 10, or 12 from the attack, because Flow 4 can only add its free strike damage onto Flow 1's attack.

However, if I have another squad acting separately, a different minion with an ability (say, a Quiet of Snow) could make a Power Roll against War Dog A because this is a different squad. Squads act separately, so your Quiet Squad's effects and damage would all already take into account the state of things after your Flow Squad had done its business.

This manner of contribution also applies to Maneuvers that involve a power roll. If you want to, say, knockback a target, you don't roll, but instead get a result equal to 8 plus the minions' characteristic, plus the number of squad members within distance of the maneuver. So, you might need a certain number minions to get the result of the maneuver that you're looking for.

Note that when you get your Champion at level 8, this doesn't count against your Minion or Squad maximum, breaking the rules in several ways.

Depending on your Formation choices, you might have access to more minions, but you only have two squads, and thus only ever have two types of minions on the field. (Two multi-bodied "pets.")

To be sure, even if they truly were single pets, commanding two as well as running your hero would be a challenge, and I think moving the minions is going to be probably take a lot of time regardless.

But I hope that these insights might make the class a little less overwhelming (it certainly helped me to think it out this way).

Draw Steel's Summoner

 Well, it's official: the Summoner is out, adding Draw Steel's first new class since the game launched earlier this year.

I... still haven't had a chance to play it. But I'm still excited. I'm also daunted, because The Summoner is the game's first Master class. It's more complex than other classes, and they recommend that you try the game out with one of the 9 core classes first before trying this one on for size.

Here's why:

The Summoner is not joking around about its name. You will be summoning hordes, legions, swarms, whatever word you want to use for "a shit-ton" of minions. This is also going to be your primary source of damage in combat.

Minions are easy-come, easy-go. They're almost like a second Heroic Resource for you to consider. You will also have a standard Heroic resource (it's actually Essence, like the Elementalist, though you will be spending it on entirely different things) but among the main ways you'll be spending heroic resources is summoning more minions.

There are four subclasses for the Summoner, each a "Circle" of Summoners. The oldest tradition is the Circle of the Grave, or Necromancers, who summon Undead minions. But there are other circles/subclasses that will give you Demon, Elemental, and Fey minions.

While the Undead and Demon versions are obviously a little dark-themed (demonologists of the Circle of Blight especially) you can still play this class with a pretty neutral or even heroic-coded aesthetic. (I love a good-aligned - not that that's a thing in Draw Steel - Necromancer though. Kind of like a Diablo-style Necromancer, which I suspect was a big inspiration for this design and also the key art).

Draw Steel classes are a little front-loaded, with their first levels generally among the most complex. This takes it to a new level.

From your subclass, you'll pick two (of three available) Signature Minions, which are kind of like picking your Signature abilities on other classes. You'll also get some 3-Essence minions and then some 5-Essence abilities (don't worry, at later levels you'll be picking up more expensive minions).

I would basically treat the stat blocks for these minions like abilities on your character sheet (or make cards).

You can command up to two squads of minions. Like the minions the Director controls, squads pool their Stamina together as one big mass. So, if you have four Ensnarer demon minions (a signature for the demon subclass) in a squad together, the individuals only have 2 Stamina, so the squad has 8. When any minion in a squad takes damage, the whole pool is depleted by the damage they take, and for every amount equal to the minions' individual Stamina they lose, one minion dies (starting with the one that directly took the damage). So, again, let's say that a monster hits one of my Ensnarers for 5 damage, and I have a squad of four at their full 8 Stamina, two of them will die and the new total will be 3 Stamina. Note also that if any damage carries over after wiping out a squad, you take the excess, so you're highly incentivized to keep those squads full of troops.

As a special exception, AoE damage can only kill minions that are in the area. So if a monster uses an ability that's, say, a 3-cube that hits two of my four Ensnarers, at most, the squad's Stamina pool can lose 4 Stamina, while the two minions outside of the area are unaffected. (Again, like minions that your Director is running).

And yes, those Ensnarers are pretty fragile. But the good news is that you immediately get 2 Signature minions at the start of combat, and then up to three more at the start of your turn, so in your very first fight at level 1, you could have 5 minions out.

Each squad can have up to 8 minions, and you can command up to two squads (though some other choices allow you to alter some of these rules - if we have the energy, we'll get into Formations). Unless otherwise specified, you can't summon beyond your maximum, though minions die often enough that you'll probably be working to replace them often.

Most minions (I think maybe all Signature minions?) don't actually have combat abilities, so to attack with them, you'll just be using their free strikes. They get to do this on your turn (they can either, as squads, take a maneuver and a movement, a main action and a movement, or two movements). I... might need to do a more careful reading of this, but you also get a free triggered action called Strike For Me, which lets you replace your own signature ability (though I don't think we have any? Maybe from an ancestry?) or our Free Strike (which, like the Talent and Elementalist, has a replacement version called Summoner's Strike) that lets you roll to see how many of your minions get to take free strikes (I think in addition to their own regular strikes if they take a main action?)

Ok, so, to add it all up, if we had our 5 Ensnarers on our first turn in our first combat, I think we could send them all to attack targets for 2 (their Free Strike value) for 10 damage, and then we could swap in Strike for Me in place of our own Summoner's Strike to let 3, 5, or 7 (well, not 7 because we don't have that many yet) to deal another 6 or 10 damage.

Like regular minions, if your minions use an ability (rather than just a free strike,) any additional minions targeting the same target only add their free strike damage, rather than doing the ability's damage on top of the first one.

The next key ability we get is Call Forth. This lets us spend 1 or more Essence. For each essence we spend, we can summon one Signature Minion (though not beyond our cap) or we can summon groups of "Heroic Minions." For example, spending 3 Essence as a demonologist would let us bring in two Fanged Musilexes. These guys are tougher and hit harder (they're actually described as being formed out of Ensnarers twisting their bodies together to form a bigger demon).

This is going to be our main way of getting minions on the board. It'll be an interesting question of mathing out how efficient it is to summon more signature abilities or getting the more expensive ones (I'd suspect the latter).

Then, finally, we'll pick our Formation. For Directors, these terms will be familiar: there are Horde, Platoon, Elite, and Leader formations. You pick one of these options.

Horde formations let you summon 4 more minions and you get one more free signature minion at the start of your turn.

Platoon formations lets you add your Reason to the damage that one of your squads deals with an ability.

Elite formations adds 3 Stamina and 1 Stability to all of your minions (this more than doubles many Signature minions' Stamina).

Leader formations prevents you from taking any damage in excess of a squad's Stamina if they're wiped out, but you can also choose to take the damage a minion would take if they're within your Summoner's Range (which is a thing - I think 5 plus your Reason squares). You can also use light armor treasures and light weapon treasures even if you don't have a kit.

Each subclass gets some other features, like a Necromancer gets the ability to speak with the dead or turn enemy minions that are slain into their own signature minions.

All Summoners get a maneuver called Minion Bridge, which lets you basically crowd-surf on a contiguous line of minions, shifting the entire length, and you can spend an essence to take a friend with you. (I heard someone in the playtest flavor this as one of their demon minions swallowing them and then another spitting them out elsewhere, which was such a cool idea).

You do also get some genuine 5-Essence abilities that aren't just summoning minions, though they tend to be affected by having minions around.

Finally, at level 1 (yes, this is still level 1) you get your choice of Quick Command, which includes various triggered actions.

I think a key way to approach this class is to treat your minions as your abilities. You are going to be constantly calling them forth, and letting them do the mechanically interesting stuff, so pick your minions carefully (at least so far, you'll generally get more of the options from your subclass than you're missing out on, though of course you can only pick minions from your subclass).

Level 2:

(Boy, are we going to do a whole class review? This is already a substantial post. We'll see the degree to which the class itself gets more complicated.)

At level 2, you can now summon a subclass-specific fortification as a maneuver once per encounter, though you can spend an Essence to move it as a free maneuver. Each fortification gets upgrades at higher levels.

Demonologists get The Boil, a mass of bubbling energy that taunts enemies to attack it until it bursts, dousing them in acid.

Elemental Summoners (we can't call them Elementalists, can we?) summon a Primordial Crystal that pulls enemies to it and can extend the reach of your allies' ranged abilities.

Fey Summoners (Fairiers? Ferriers?) can summon a Glade Pond, whose waters energize you and your non-minion allies with extra speed when they pass by it, and also automatically hides your fey minions that end within the extensive overgrowth radiating from it.

Necromancers summon Barrow Gates, which can frighten nearby enemies that start their turn near them, and gives your undead minions some damage immunity.

Each subclass now also gains new 5-Essence minions (which each come in groups of 3).

Level 3:

You get a Summoner's Kit, which gives you a few enhancements to Summoner's Strike, and you get to pick between four different Wards. These are actually quite different from other Wards other classes have.

You also get some 7-Essence abilities.

Level 4:

In addition to the standard 2nd Echelon characteristic increase, you get Minion Improvement, which boosts your minions' Stamina (by 1 for Signature minions, 3 for 3-essence minions, and 2 for 5-essence minions). They also get higher characteristics (which is primarily used for determining their ability to resist potencies).

You get some standard upgrades for this level, like more Essence when a minion dies, a skill, and  a perk.

You also get Minion Chain, which does several things.

First, when you use Minion Bridge, minions of yours within your Summoner's Range can shift up to their speed if it lets them get adjacent to another minion, so you can more easily get your desired line.

Also, they can now form vertical connections, shifting to act like ladders or hanging ropes, and then potentially they can allow themselves to fall forward to make an actual bridge across a gap. So, you know, kind of delightful (though far more whimsical with Fey, and possibly horrifying with demons or undead).

Level 5:

Each circle gets two new features.

Then, you get to pick a new 7-Essence minion from your portfolio. You get two of these for 7 Essence (with some exceptions, like the Undead Zombie Titan, which is size 4 and has 40 Stamina), and they start to look a fair bit beefier and hit harder.

Level 6:

First, you get a perk and you can pick an additional Ward for your Summoner's Kit. Also, if you reduce an enemy to 0 Stamina with a Summoner's Strike, you can Call Forth as a free maneuver, though the minions summoned with this can't act this turn.

You also get 2 additional followers, and can summon and recruit an artisan follower and a sage follower of your minion's type.

Return to the Source allows you to teleport yourself and your allies to a space within the manifold (plane) that your minions come from when you take a respite. While the denizens will treat you as a native resident, your allies might be seen as intruders. (In the default cosmology, demons are from the Abyssal Wastes, undead are from the Necropolitan Ruins, which is a place in the Abyssal Wastes, Fey are from Arcadia, and Elementals are from Quintessence).

You also get a 9-Essence ability.

Level 7:

You get the usual bonuses for hitting 3rd Echelon, including characteristic increases, more Essence at the start of your turns, and a skill.

You get a new minion improvement, which further boosts the Stamina of your minions (in addition to the stamina of your 7-Essence minions,) and you get another free Signature minion at the start of your turn. Likewise, as before, each minion has a +1 bonus to characteristics for the purpose of resisting potencies.

Finally, Their Life for Mine lets you sacrifice all of your minions and Essence (minimum 1 of each) to bring either you or an ally within your Summoner's Range who has just died as a free triggered action, giving them Stamina equal to the total number of minions and essence sacrificed. This is a limited-use ability, which you can't use again until you level up again or spend 3 Eidos (the Epic Resource at level 10).

Level 8:

You get a perk, and you also get a new feature for your subclass.

Additionally, you can now summon your Portfolio Champion, a special super-powerful 9-Essence minion. There are various special rules for the champion, which you can only have one of out at once, and which has its own squad. These are basically your "super-minions" (and refuse to be referred to as minions) and get to ignore a lot of the restrictions on your other minions. They have Stamina equal to your own, and can do things like use your recoveries to heal.

Each also gets upgraded at level 10, with an ability that can be used once per encounter that is a bit like a Villain Action and costs 1 Eidos.

Demon summoners get the Demon Lord's Aspect, which can pull two targets with its signature ability.

Elemental summoners get the Dragon's Portent, which uses a tail swipe to push around up to two creatures as its signature ability.

Fey summoners summon a Celestial Attendant, whose signature ability slide its targets around.

Undead summoners get an Avatar of Death, with a signature ability that can inflict bleeding.

Level 9:

First, you get a Kit Improvement, adding a Ward and improving your Summoner's Strike further.

You also get Steward of Two Worlds, which increases the Patience of denizens of your circle's source manifold by 2 when you're in a Negotiation.

You also now get an 11-Essence ability.

Level 10:

As usual, you get your characteristic increase (Reason is now 5). You also get another Minion Improvement, which now adds more free minions at the start of an encounter, getting two more for every two victories you have (on top of the normal two). And as usual, your minions get more Stamina and higher characteristics.

Also, a new perk and a new skill.

Your Epic Resource is Eidos. You can spend it as if it were essence, and when you do, you get two bonus signature minions when you spend it on either minions or abilities. Again, Eidos can be spent on new abilities your Champions have, though only once per encounter.

No Matter the Cost lets you reduce the cost of summoning new minions or using heroic abilities by the number of minions sacrificed (rather than a flat 1).

And Among Our Ranks lets you summon a willing, non-restrained NPC or player ally to you regardless of where they are in the Timescape to join your party until your next Respite or until they are killed, at which point they are sent back to the place from which they were summoned.

    So there you have it. Boy this was long.

This class is going to for sure be more complicated than, say, a Shadow. In some ways, you'll be kind of playing a war game against the Director while the other players are playing a TTRPG. But even if there's a lot to internalize, I do think that if you can get the hang of it, this could be a ton of fun.

This does feel like the "GM's PC" class. I'd honestly want to get a bit of running the game as a Director under my belt before trying it out, because I really think this is a class that will appeal the most to people who like that GM/Director role of controlling lots of little dudes.

They'll come and go so fast, that you'll really want to have a solid plan for where you need minions (here I think Draw Steel's less rigid initiative might actually make things easier - you can talk with your friends about where they could use the support best). The Summoner's Range is relatively generous, so you'll be able to position minions pretty trivially into advantageous positions - just make sure to make room for your allies.

I will say that there are a couple of clarifications I could use on how this all actually works - like, a table specifically of how many minions I can have out at once and how many squads I can organize them into at every level. Can I mix minions in squads?

These are questions whose answers might feel obvious with a bit more experience with the game, but I'm still somewhat in a theoretical space with it.

But I will say one thing: if the goal of this class design was to let you have a ton of minions, oh boy was it a success.

Draw Steel Class Deep Dive: The Censor

 We come now to, alphabetically, the first of Draw Steel's core classes, but our last deep-dive. I will admit here that I don't really love the name Censor - the folks at MCDM say that the names were not there to be contrarian, and that their ideas for them were organically arrived at to create classes that only coincidentally overlap with classic D&D classes. I'm... skeptical. I mean, fine, whatever, I don't mean to offend: the game looks super cool (I haven't yet had a chance to play it - it might be a while) and I appreciate that part of the ethos of starting from scratch to avoid being burdened by the impulse to do things just because that's how they were always done includes coming up with ideas that don't automatically constellate around classes from D&D.

I guess it's just that, to me, a Censor is some isolated bureaucrat in a government office deciding what material should be removed from public consumption to further the interests of the state. Never have I associated it with someone actually armed to do battle. And perhaps I'm ignorant here of some archaic meaning of the word. Whatever - it's what the class is called. We'll move on.

Censors are essentially your holy knight/paladin/inquisitor class. Like how the Null is a psionic/martial hybrid, and how the Fury is (sort of) an elemental magic/martial hybrid, and how the Shadow is a shadow magic/martial hybrid (though with no "pure caster" equivalent,) Censors blend divine magic with their martial abilities.

Censors have numerous ways to support their parties while also singling out foes. I think you can play the noble righteous protector as well as the zealous inquisitor depending on how you choose to play them and what abilities you take. (I love that, thanks to Kits, you could go Cloak and Dagger and be a kind of secretive "left hand of the church" who quietly silences its enemies).

Censors actually have two separate subclass-like systems. Like Conduits, they interact with divine domains, though they only pick one. In many cases, they get the same features a Conduit gains from their domains, but you also have a more standard subclass.

Censors naturally focus a bit more on single-target damage thanks to their Judgment ability (which we'll get to,) and are inherently a bit self-sacrificial (notably, they get more recoveries than other classes, for a reason that will become clear when we get into core features).

Might and Presence are your primary characteristics, always at the highest level you could have them at, starting at 2.

Subclasses:

In addition to choosing a domain of your god, you also pick one of three subclasses.

Exorcists focus on hunting down hidden enemies.

Oracles broadly open their awareness to supernatural corruption.

Paragons act as examples and leaders to inspire their allies.

Heroic Resource: Wrath

As with all heroic resources, when combat starts you gain Wrath equal to your victories. You also get 2 at the start of each turn. The first time each combat round that a creature you have judged (we'll talk Judgment in a bit) deals damage to you, you gain 1 Wrath, and the first time each round you deal damage to them, you gain 1 Wrath.

Judgment is a maneuver you can use to place your judgment on a target within 10 squares, which lasts until you end the effect (no action,) you use the ability again, or another Censor judges them. When a judged creature uses a main action and is within your line of effect, you can use a free triggered action to deal holy damage to them equal to twice your presence score. If a creature that is judged drops to 0 Stamina, you can use a free triggered action to move the effect to another target.

Additionally, when an adjacent creature judged by you starts to shift, you can spend 1 Wrath to make a melee free strike against them and their speed becomes 0 until the end of the turn, preventing the shift. Also, if the judged creature is within 10 squares and makes a power roll, you can spend 1 Wrath to give them a bane on the power roll. When a judged creature within 10 squares uses an ability with a potency that targets only one creature, you can spend a wrath to reduce the potency by 1 for that creature. And if you damage a judged creature with a melee ability, you can spend 1 Wrath to taunt them until the end of your next turn. (You can only use one of these options on the same trigger).

Each subclass also adds additional functionality to the Judgment maneuver.

Censors get a Kit, as well.

My Life for Yours is a triggered action that you can use on yourself or an ally within 10 squares. When the target starts their turn or takes damage, you can spend one of your recoveries and heal the target for your recovery value (notably, this means you might heal up a lower-stamina ally for more than what they'd normally get with one of their recoveries). You can also spend 1 Wrath to end an effect that calls for a saving throw, or ends on the end of their turn, or allow a prone target to stand up. (Remember that we get a few more recoveries to help fuel this).

Your divine domain also gives you a feature, which I believe are all the same as the Conduit ones (though you only have a single domain). Each also grants a skill from an appropriate group.

You pick one class signature ability, as well as a 3-Wrath and a 5-Wrath ability. (Most are melee, though some can be ranged, and there's a small number that are pure ranged).

At level 2, you get a perk (interpersonal/lore/supernatural) as well as a pair of subclass features, as well as a choice of 5-Wrath abilities from your subclass.

At level 3, you get Look On My Work and Despair. When you use Judgment, you can spend 1 Wrath, and if the target has a Presence less than your average potency (less than 1 at this level) the are frightened of you (save ends). Also, when a judged creature is reduced to 0 stamina and you use the free triggered action version of Judgment, if the new target has Presence less than your strong potency (less than 2 currently) they are frightened of you (save ends). If they're already frightened of you, they take holy damage equal to twice your presence score instead.

Also at 3, you get a 7-Wrath ability.

At 4, your Might and Presence increase to 3, you get a perk and a skill of your choice, and you now gain 2 Wrath when you deal damage to a judged creature, up from 1.

You also get a new feature form your domain.

At 5, you gain a new subclass feature and your choice of 9-Wrath heroic ability.

At 6, you get Implement of Wrath. When you finish a respite, you can choose one hero's weapons (including your own) to make it magical and gain the following benefits until your next respite: The weapon deals extra holy damage equal to the wielder's highest characteristic. A creature with holy weakness and has Presence less than your strong potency is frightened and weakened (save ends). A minion targeted by a strike using the weapon just dies, and that minion's maximum stamina is removed from the minion stamina pool beofre any damage is applied to the rest of the squad. Finally, the wielder of the weapon cannot be frightened.

You also gain a new interpersonal/lore/supernatural perk, and you get a new 9-Wrath ability from your subclass.

At 7, your characteristics all go up by 1, to a maximum of 4.

You also gain a new divine domain feature.

You also now get 3 wrath at the start of each turn, up from 2. You also get a skill of your choice.

At 8, you get a perk of your choice and a new subclass feature. You also get an 11-Wrath heroic ability.

At 9, you get Improved Implement of Wrath, which adds benefits to your Implement of Wrath. The affected weapon now grants the wielder and allies a +2 bonus to saving throws. At the end of each of the wielder's turns, each adjacent ally can make a saving throw against an effect on them ended by a saving throw. Finally, the wielder has corruption immunity 10.

You also gain a new 11-Wrath heroic ability from your subclass.

Finally, at 10, your Might and Presence are now 5. You gain a skill of your choice, and a crafting/lore/supernatural perk of your choice as well.

You also gain Templar. Now, when you use your Judgment ability, you can use a free triggered action to use a conduit domain effect associated with your divine domain, or one you access via Virtue (which we'll get to). If the effect would refer to your Intuition score, you can use your Presence score instead. If it uses your Conduit level, you use your Censor level instead.

Additionally, when you take a respite, you can open a portal to rest in the presence of your deity and ask it three questions, which the deity will answer truthfully if they know the answers (though they can be cryptic). While in their presences, your deity might give you priority targets to bring to justice. You and your allies have a double edge on power rolls against such targets, but if you try to return to your deity before dealing with them, you will be subject to your deity's wrath (something for the Director to come up with).

Your Epic Resource is Virtue, which you gain in equal amounts to the XP you earn when you finish a respite. You can spend Virtue as if it were wrath. Also, you can spend 3 virtue to access one of your deity's domains that aren't the one you usually have access to. You can then use those domain features until you finish your next respite.

Finally, Wrath of the Gods now grants you 4 wrath at the start of your turn.

    So there you have it, the nine core classes for Draw Steel.

Once again, now that I've finished this series, I wonder how helpful it would be to players trying to decide which class to play. The core of your gameplay is going to be your abilities, but you'll always have choices in which ones to go with - even two Exorcist Censors could have a totally different suite of signature and heroic abilities (even when you get a heroic ability from your subclass, you have a choice between two).

Each choice point doesn't overwhelm you with options - usually you have no more than 4 or 5 to choose between (and again, subclass abilities are always a choice between just two options). But it does mean that your character can play a very different role in your group depending on what you choose to specialize in.

Personally, the classes that seem most exciting to me, if I were to play as a PC (good luck with that, me!) are the Shadow, Talent, and possibly Troubadour. But I do appreciate that they all get pretty wild in the higher levels