The perils of learning a new system
(or: How I almost killed a PC in the first session of our new campaign)
Me and my ttrpg-group have recently started playing a new campaign in Draw Steel. We've done a shorter three session one shot with the system before, just to see if we liked it, so we're still new to playing and running the game.
After over ten years of D&D 5e it's great to get into a new system. And as our forever DM, I find it a lot more fun to prep encounters with Draw Steel. But, as with most TTRPGs, Draw Steel has a lot of rules to learn. And for us, the spectre of ol' fifth edition still whisper in our ears. Mixing up the two systems is a dangerous path with potentially deadly consequences. 1
Our new homebrew campaign is set in Wanderberg, a walking city moving through the icy wastes of a frozen planet. It is inspired by Frostpunk, Snowpiercer and Mortal Engines. The PCs are Frost Hunters, who delve below the ice to find lost resources. We opened our campaign on an expedition out into the wastes and I wanted it to feel the right amount of dangerous.
Wanderberg might be the only surviving part of civilisation, but monsters and strange creatures still roam the ice. So I prepped two encounters, one Standard with Basilisks reflavoured as Ice Lynx' and one Hard encounter with Radenwights reflavoured as Volturemites.
As the heroes decend into a ravine, exposed by the slow movement of ice deep below, they complete a montage test, stacking up consequences as they go. They enter a frozen cavern, the lair of a pack of Ice Lynx'. A pile of bones lay within, and as the Tactician moves closer to investigate, I decide it is time for an ambush.
Volturemites, critters as big as a hand with razor sharp teeth and hard outer shells, burst from the ice around the bones. Everyone in the party, save the Tactician, is suprised. We Draw Steel and the encounter begins.
The closest Volturemite group to the Tactician goes first, rushing him and dealing a good amount of damage. The Tactician does his thing, clearing a handful of minions from the board, but he is still surrounded.
And this is where the rule mixup happens. I run suprise like 5e, so none of the other three heroes get to act on their turn. The monsters keep going, rushing past the Tactician, dealing damage as the go. I try to spread them out, but the other heroes are too far away.
In practice, it is the Tactician against twenty Vulturemites in the first round. When it's over, he is already dying.
The other heroes spring into action, wiping minions and throwing recoveries towards the Tactician. He regains alot of stamina, but never fully recovers. The Volturemites still surround him, so a retreat would end him from the oppertunity attacks alone. The tide of the battle is turning, but not fast enough.
A group of minion Volturemites take their strikes on the Tactician. I list the total damage. Panic erupts at the table as the Tactician declares himself dead. The familiar feeling of dread when a PC is about to die fills my stomach. We had such plans for him, the party dynamic was fun and interesting. But the dice had spoken. He was gone.
"I might have something. Hold on", says our partys Cencor. He is reading like a madman. Seconds go by. Then, he finds what he is looking for and uses his triggered action "My Life For Yours", healing the Tactician just enough to survive.
Together they clear out the remaining Volturemites, truely earning their two victories.
When I reread the rules while writing this post I found that suprise works a bit different in Draw Steel than in 5e. You cannot take free triggered actions or triggered actions and ability rolls aginst the suprised creature gets an edge. So for the encounter, all of the heroes should have been able to take their full turns, clearing out the minions a lot faster, that what really went down.
My skimming of the rules before the ambush, didn't catch that quite major difference.2
But even though we used the "wrong" rule, life on the ice now feels as dangerous as I wanted it to be. So if you want to teach your Draw Steel players to be prepared, perhaps a more dangerous ambush with suprise from 5e is the trick?
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