Draw Steel Class Deep Dive: The Shadow

 I'm not sure if I ever really went into what the various classes in Draw Steel do, per se. While almost all nine extant classes correspond roughly with familiar classes in 5E D&D (the Talent doesn't have a clear equivalent until the Psion class is published - unless you count MCDM's own 5E Talent,) the mechanics of the game and the design approach differ wildly, so the underlying mechanics are going to be quite different.

Shadows are the game's sneaky thief/assassin/rogue class. Your primary characteristic is Agility, which will automatically upgrade at certain levels. Shadows have a healthy mix of melee and ranged abilities, so you can be a long-range marksman sniping foes from afar or stalk from foe to foe and slice at them from up close.

Heroic Resource: Insight

Shadows gain 1d3 Insight at the start of their turn (each class either gains 1d3 or a flat 2, a subtle chaos/order theme). Shadows also gain a bonus Insight the first time in a round that they deal damage incorporating 1 or more surges.

    As an aside, Surges are mechanic I don't think I've touched on very much: various abilities can allow you to accumulate surges, which you can then spend to enhance your attacks in various ways. You can increase the potency of an ability by spending two surges, or, more frequently, you can spend a surge to add damage equal to your primary characteristic to an ability, using a maximum of 3 surges at a time. A Shadow starts with an Agility of 2, so if you spend a Surge to boost your attack's damage, you get 2 extra damage. Shadows in particular have a lot of ways to generate Surges.

Broadly speaking, Shadows have a lot of single-target damage abilities, as well as a lot of ways to evade foes and get out of danger.

Subclasses:

Shadows have three subclasses (at least in the core rules):

The College of Black Ash incorporates abyssal magic to teleport across the battlefield. Even at level 1, you're going to be able to teleport both as a maneuver and as a triggered action, so if you want to "bamf" all over the battle like Nightcrawler, this one's for you.

The College of Caustic Alchemy uses poisons, smoke bombs, corrosive fluids, and the like in their fighting, and even some beneficial substances for your allies on occasion. (Note that the game doesn't worry about having to work to produce all the things required for these abilities - you're assumed, for example, to carry an ample supply of smoke bombs that let you hide even when observed).

The College of the Harlequin Mask incorporates illusion magic to trick your foes into thinking you're one of them, sowing confusion amongst their ranks as a mischievous trickster.

Core Features:

As a note, I'm not listing every subclass feature here, nor the improvements to resource generation that every class gets. Likewise, I'm not going through the various new Heroic Abilities you can learn, which you'll get at most levels.

At level 1, every Shadow gains a free triggered action (meaning they can use it without taking up their triggered action as long as nothing is preventing them from using triggered actions) called Hesitation is Weakness. Normally, the rhythm of battle has players alternate with the Director on taking turns, but a Shadow can potentially jump in right after a fellow party member has gone - you might go right after the first party member in the round and potentially wipe out a bunch of foes before they can act.

At level 3, you get Careful Observation, a maneuver that lets you automatically gain both an Edge and a Surge to use on a strike against a target.

At level 4 (the first level of the 2nd Echelon) you gain a couple new features:

Keep it Down lets you communicate with any creature you share a language with in a manner that only the intended recipient can hear what you're saying, even if you're yelling to them.

Night Watch is a triggered action that allows you to halve the damage of an ability against a creature you can see while you're hidden, which does not break your hidden status. (The flavor here is like you're tossing a dagger that deflects an arrow or a sword.)

At level 6, you get Umbral Form, a maneuver that puts you into a kind of separate "mode," transforming into a shadow creature dripping with ash (yes, Draw Steel classes get hardcore). This lasts until you're dying or spend an hour of quiet focus to leave the form. The form lets you climb at full speed while moving, pass through enemies spaces without treating them as difficult terrain and dealing corruption damage to them if you pass through them, gain a surge at the start of each of your turns, and gain corruption immunity equal to 5 plus your level. However, creatures gain an edge on strikes against you and you take a bane on Presence tests to interact with other creatures.

At level 7, you get a few improvements to various other features, as well as Ventriloquist, which lets your voice sound like it's coming from a creature or object up to 10 squares away, without revealing you if you're hidden.

At level 9, you get Gloom Squad, and can choose, at the start of each of your turns, to make 1d6 shadow clones of yourself by forgoing gaining insight. The cones act on your turn and use your statistics, but they have 1 Stamina and don't have insight and can't use Careful Observation, Umbral Form, or any triggered actions. They can only use their action to make a free strike, and only against a target you or other clones aren't targeting with a strike. (In other words, if you were worried about having limited multi-target abilities, how's this?)

Finally, at level 10, you get various improvements to existing features, as well as the new Epic Resource, Subterfuge (which you get instead of XP given that you don't need that anymore) that can be spent as if it were Insight. You can also spend Subterfuge to get additional maneuvers on your turns, spending 1 per maneuver (meaning you could potentially get a lot of maneuvers on a single turn).

While features like Gloom Squad and Umbral Form are pretty far out there, I do think the Shadow is likely to be one of the simpler and more straightforward classes to play. The key, I think, is using your abilities to hide or otherwise avoid getting hit by your foes, striking hard and fast. While some abilities can help set up allies, I think generally the strategy for most groups for a Shadow would be to make sure that they're setting the Shadow up for success. Naturally, the abilities you choose (not to mention your kit) will have an impact on what particular role you might play - there are, after all, some AoE abilities, but in my opinion, the thematics here are probably better suited to really burning down high-priority targets quickly.

Figuring Out What You Can Get Away With Using Kits in Draw Steel - The Mountain Shadow

 Draw Steel doesn't use practically any of the familiar terminology one might know from D&D. Hit Points are Stamina. Intelligence is Reason. Tiers are Echelons. Among these unfamiliarities are the names of classes. While you could consider each of Draw Steel's nine classes a rough equivalent to one found in 5E D&D (though in the case of the Talent, the equivalent is either WotC's UA-tested Psionic class, or it's MCDM's own 5E Talent,) not one of them shares the name with a D&D class. Spellcasters channeling divine power are Conduits rather than Clerics. Warriors who channel a primordial might are Furies instead of Barbarians.

But while I think you could create a pretty satisfying "conversion chart" if you wanted to play your D&D character in Draw Steel, there's a nuance here that I think is worth noting:

D&D classes, and most fantasy RPG classes, have an aesthetic that they achieve both through abilities and the kind of gear they wear. Classically, a Paladin is a knight in shining armor - specifically, they wear heavy armor and tend to have some bulky weapon that they're either wielding with two hands, or using along with a shield.

But Draw Steel does something really interesting: roughly half of the classes (the Censor, Fury, Shadow, Tactician, and Troubadour) get something called a Kit. These are, on the surface, a kind of set of equipment, but what they really are is "what vibe are you going for?" Kits do have a significant mechanical impact, but they're designed in such a way that you are not by any means forced to go the traditional route regarding what your character will look like when fighting monsters.

And Kits are designed to be usable by every (with some small exceptions) class that uses kits.

Naturally, if you're thinking of the Shadow as Draw Steel's equivalent of the Rogue, you'd assume that the best option is something like Cloak and Dagger, or perhaps Sniper. These would probably work out just fine for a Shadow, and I don't feel like I have the play experience to even begin to determine whether they're more optimal choices.

Kits do a few things: the kind of armor they come with is reflected by increasing your maximum Stamina (though sometimes it's not armor, but just hardiness associated with the kit). They'll also tend to come with some kind of damage bonus, and it's here where we really wanted to be thinking about how we create our character.

Each also comes with a Signature Ability, which will be one of the things you can do for free when you're conserving your Heroic Resources (or still earning enough to use any Heroic Abilities). Nearly all of these abilities allow you to choose Might or Agility with which to make your power roll. And that's notable, because every single class that gets kits will have either Might or Agility as one of their highest stats. There are a handful that require you to choose between one of those two and the three "mental" characteristic scores, but given the way that stat progression is always good, you should be fine taking these as well (I'd thought perhaps that Furies might not be able to optimally use these, as they don't get automatic scaling with Reason, Intuition, or Presence, but given that each also allows either Might or Agility, the two stats Furies also always get the best progression with, they should work for them as well).

So: let's talk about this idea that I've had: The Shadow, while being the game's analogue for the Rogue, can use any of these kits, and I'd like to see how effective I can be if I take a really off-label kit: not Sniper, not Cloak and Dagger, not even Spellsword. I want to take The Mountain.

The Mountain is, actually not entirely unlike the character of the same name from A Song of Ice and Fire, a heavily-armored warrior who fights with a heavy weapon. Examples given are Greatswords, greataxes, mauls, and morningstars (this latter one I generally view as a one-handed weapon, but that might be D&D's influence on me).

The other bonuses that we get with the Mountain kit are the following:

We get +9 to our Stamina per echelon (not level - so we get 9 at level 1, then another 9 at level 4, another 9 at level 7, and finally another 9 at 10, meaning a total of 36 by the time we hit the cap).

We also gain a +2 bonus to our Stability. Stability is a stat that is essentially your defense against forced movement. If something tries to Push, Pull, or Slide you, you get to subtract your stability from the distance they do that, and of course if that reduces it to zero, they don't get to move you at all.

We then get a melee damage bonus of +0/+0/+4, which means that we get a big bonus when we get a tier 3 result on strikes that have the melee keyword, but no bonus on lesser rolls.

    This, I think, will be the big limiting factor: Shadows have a pretty hefty mix of ranged and melee abilities. If we go with the Mountain kit, we'll really want to focus on melee because that's where we're getting our bonus damage. Now, the good news is that Shadows are going to be able to hide pretty easily. As per the rules on Hiding (Heroes p. 258) if you're hidden from a creature, you gain an edge on ability rolls against them until the end of your turn, even if you break out of hiding before you make that roll (such as, for example, emerging from cover to strike at them). Edges (and especially Double Edges) are going to be massive for this kit, and a Shadow has a pretty reliable way to get one.

Before we get into other build choices, let's finish up with this kit:

The Mountain signature ability is Pain for Pain, which is a melee attack that does 3+A/M (agility or might, naturally we're choosing agility, and so I'll just show that option) or 5+A or 13+A (the tier 3 result incorporates the kit's damage bonus, so we don't add 4 on top of this). At level 1, that'll mean 5, 7, or 15 damage.

The ability has a special effect, which is that if the target dealt damage to you since the end of your last turn, this deals additional damage equal to your Agility (again, or Might if you were some other class).

And here's where my theoretical understanding could use a bit of real-world play experience: I don't know how often Shadows can expect to take damage. Naturally, in Draw Steel, every attack hits, so a certain amount of damage is unavoidable. But while a Null, Censor, or Fury is always wading into the thick of it, I don't know if a Shadow's general game plan is going to be more about not being in a position to be attacked in the first place. Certainly, if we're committing to this kit, we'll get some benefit from taking a bit of damage, though of course that comes with the drawback of... taking damage.

The stability bonus for a Mountain kit is also potentially going to push us into a role we might not necessarily want to take: a Mountain is hard to move, so it seems suited to being a kind of immovable object on the battlefield. However, this might still benefit us in the sense that monsters that try to drag us where we don't want to go will have a harder time doing so.

So: let's talk subclass and general build.

For subclass, we're picking this based on vibes. Shadows have three subclasses, the Colleges of Black Ash, Caustic Alchemy, and Harlequin Mask. The first is all about magically teleporting around and using abyssal magic (conveniently, Draw Steel's demons come from the Abyssal Wastes, so D&D veterans will have an easy time associated abyss and demons,) the second is about poison and smoke bombs and such, and the last is a trickster that uses illusions and guile.

The vibe I want to go for is a kind of gothic phantom: a nightmarish implacable dread knight hunting the monsters down. And so, Black Ash is the one I'm inclined to pick here.

This is going to make you very mobile: you can teleport 5 squares as a maneuver (or more if you spend Insight for each additional square) and you can also teleport as a triggered action when you take damage, halving the damage as you do so, with the same Insight-for-increased distance deal.

I think the assumed use for both of these is to get away from foes and slip into cover (the maneuver lets you attempt to hide even if observed). But consider this: you will be so, so freaking good at chasing down enemies trying to stay at range. Indeed, if there's one thing that melee-focused characters can always use, it's mobility.

Vanishing from sight only to appear behind a foe, potentially without their noticing, before you hack them down with your greatsword, is a real vibe.

So: we're using our extreme mobility to position ourselves easily in melee. Naturally, this is going to encourage us to take mostly melee abilities. We can always make ranged free strikes if we can't get into melee with a foe (though this is going to be somewhat underwhelming damage). I believe that even if we use an ability that can act as both a melee and ranged strike, we only get the +4 bonus if we are using it in melee, but it might be good to pick such abilities just to give ourselves some flexibility.

I Work Better Alone, a melee/ranged strike that deals 3+A/6+A/9+A damage and gives us a Surge before we make the power roll if none of our allies are adjacent to the target certainly fits in with our style. We're going to be hunting the foes on the edge of the fight. Alternatively, we could go the opposite route and take Teamwork Has Its Place, which does the same base damage but gives us 1 surge if there is an ally adjacent to the target (this one also works on objects).

Here, I might say you should really consider your party's composition. If you have a lot of melee allies, THIP might be the better option, but if you've got mostly ranged friends, IWBA will be more reliable.

You Were Watching the Wrong One does nearly as much damage (3+A/5+A/8+A) and gives you a surge if there's an ally within 5 squares (a pretty decent range,) and then further gives an ally a surge if you're flanking with them (and flanking will be a little easier for us to manage given our mobility). This is an obligatory melee ability, though, so it's a commitment. That said, flanking will be very good for us, especially if we can pair it with hiding to get a double edge and let us get that juicy +4 bonus on any roll above an 11.

I honestly think any of the Shadow's four abilities could be good, but I'm inclined to take I Work Better Alone for the theme of what we're doing, and if we can't get the bonus effect on it, we can always go with Pain for Pain if we get its bonus effect. IWBA will also work at range, if we need to do so - I'd flavor this as perhaps throwing a barbed knife or even chipping some piece of the terrain off and pelting the foe with it.

Now, let's pick Heroic Abilities.

Once again, I think we might steer clear of any abilities that can't be melee strikes, though hybrid options are of course more flexible.

Now, is our job to focus primarily on damage output? Or do we want a bit of battlefield control? Once again, party composition is something to consider, but I think if we're trying to feel like a monster out of a nightmare... damn, I guess both options make sense.

The options that speak to me are Disorienting Strike and Eviscerate.

The former is pure melee, but it lets us deal damage (slightly more than our signature abilities) but also lets us slide the target 2/3/5 squares, and we can then shift into any square the target leaves when we slide them (once again, giving us insane mobility). Sliding is very good - it's the most versatile type of forced movement and can set our allies up nicely. Also, if we slide them right into a wall, they could take additional damage

Eviscerate can be either ranged or melee, and actually does the same damage as Disorienting Strike, but instead of sliding, we can impose the Bleeding status if their Agility is below our potency (remember that we can spend the surges we get with IWBA on making those potencies higher). The Bleeding is Save Ends (meaning each turn there's just a 50% chance that the status ends) and can mean more damage if they want to actually do anything on their turn.

I'm kind of obsessed with forced movement, and I do like the idea of this implacable shadow dragging a foe back into the danger they've been trying to escape, but I also think that the horror-movie vibes of inflicting bleeding could be hard to pass up. 1d6+the creature's level is not a small amount of damage to inflict possibly multiple times per round.

For our 5-Insight ability, in terms of pure damage, Coup de Grace is pretty appealing: it's pure damage, but that damage is 2d6+7+A/2d6+11+A/2d6+16+A, for both ranged and melee. So, if we assume we're doing this in melee, our averages at level 1 are 16, 20, or 29 damage. To put that in context, most Platoon-level monsters (the ones that a Director can throw at a 1:1 ratio with players of the same level) at level 1 have 30 Stamina. Most of what you face are Horde or Minion monsters, and so this is going to nearly always kill a level 1 monster that isn't something like a Brute or Defender.

Shadowstrike is another option that just lets us make two strike signature abilities in a row. I Work Better Alone, if we assume we're using this with the right conditions (and surely we are if we're spending our 5 Insight on this heroic ability) will deal 5/8/15 damage in melee, so two of them would mean around 10/16/30, along with two surges, which we could pour into damage to add (at this level) 2 to each strike, so potentially around 14/20/34.

It's honestly comparable. Shadowstrike will be better if we can consistently get Edges on our rolls, and I think you could also make the argument that it's more flexible, as we might find that Pain for Pain is more optimal. So, Shadowstrike might be the one to go for (there are two others but one is ranged-only and the other is built for multi-target, and I think we're orienting around single-target burning).

    So, this gets us through level 1. I don't think I'm going to go through further levels, just because I don't know that I have the energy or the level of Insight (haha, get it? The Shadow Heroic Resource) into actually playing the game to know if these are good choices.

But I do think what it shows is that you can build a functional character that goes a really different route from the conventional. I think we could really terrify some enemies with this build, and I just love how much kits let you go off the beaten path with these classes.

Building Darsino in Draw Steel

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

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

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

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

Ancestry: Revenant

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

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

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

Culture:

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

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

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

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

Career:

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

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

Class:

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

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

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

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

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

    Let's pick those skills, actually:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kit:

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

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

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

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

    Putting it all together:

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

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