Monster Basics

For the Director

The information in Draw Steel: Monsters is intended for the Director's use, and all references to "you" in this book refer to the Director. All players are welcome to read this book, but we recommend stopping short of reading the monster stat blocks. Those are for the Director's eyes only.

The Purpose of Monsters

In Draw Steel, heroes face monsters. Each goblin, human, or zombie the characters encounter has the potential to become a monster who must be overcome. This book provides you, the Director, with tools to use in these moments, as well as opportunities to explore who these creatures are before and after they and the heroes come to blows.

Every Goblin Has a Story

In Draw Steel, the relationship between hero and monster is a contextual one. Before and after conflict, a monster is another character in the story. Their status doesn't rely on whether a creature who regularly acts as a hero is nearby.

Therefore, a monster stat block represents a moment in time. It's an imperfect translation of a creature while they act as an enemy in opposition to one or more heroes. While the players of the heroes get to keep track of a character sheet for the entirety of the game, you use a monster's stat block solely while running combat. Trying to have that stat block provide every detail about each creature who might engage the heroes in some way can and will slow the game down.

The game asks you and the other players to imagine these creatures more complexly than simply noting the damage they deal to each other. Heroes have access to abilities, skills, and motivations that don't involve fighting monsters, and the same is true for all creatures. Most creatures in this book have a language, a culture, and a multifaceted relationship to the world in which they exist. They might share the same careers, upbringings, and complications as the heroes. They can even become allies to the heroes, adventuring alongside them as retainers or in competition with them as rivals.

You can utilize your own character sheets that detail important creatures' motivations, skills, and features in addition to the combat-focused features of a stat block. This can be a useful reference for playing a foe consistently across the tests and negotiations that are also part of an adventure, especially for enduring villains.

When Creatures Become Monsters

The defining feature of a monster is that they impose their will on the world at the expense of someone else. A monster might take control of the land, summon a terrible force to destroy nature or settlements, or simply bring harm to someone weaker than them. This means that a creature driven by instinct who hunts for food isn't a monster unless they hunt outside their needs or their territory. Without malice or cruel ambitions that can be opposed, such creatures are no different from a force of nature.

A creature becomes a monster when their malice meets opposition.

This often boils down to the monster fighting the hero over the fate of someone else. The game utilizes each monster in a way that challenges the heroes and their players, inviting the heroes to use their abilities to overcome the monster's will.

When Monsters Become Villains

If a creature is always a monster, then they are a villain. Every aspect of a villain's values and worldview is imposed upon someone else, to the point where a villain's very existence is always in direct opposition to one or more heroes.

Villains typically have personal relationships to heroes that other monsters don't. There are universal or moral reasons for heroes and monsters to come to blows with one another, such as "Hurting people is wrong" or "That doesn't belong to you." But only a villain can take something important from a hero, stand for everything they oppose, or act as a corrupted reflection of them in a way that leaves the world worse off.

Usually, the struggle against a villain lasts much longer than a single fight. It's not enough to oppose a villain with intent, magic, and strength of arms. A hero also needs justice! The villain's will needs to be deconstructed and proven wrong before they are defeated, in a way that is cathartic to the hero and satisfying for all players.

As said above, a stat block represents a creature in battle. If a villain is reduced to 0 Stamina in combat but their main conflict with the heroes is not resolved, then they have lost the battle but not the war. They can make their retreat, lick their wounds, and try again later. Or if death is inevitable and their will is strong enough, a villain might return to haunt the heroes as an undead until one side finally prevails.

Coming to the Table

Everyone who plays Draw Steel will have a different take on monsters based on their own experience. In the real world, "monster" has come to mean "the other," or that which is not us. The monster is an unknowable threat until it is either known or is no more. Often, "monster" describes ferocious beasts that can't be prevented from doing us harm. Horrifyingly more often, "monster" is used as a label for groups of people and whole cultures, usually as a means of denying their humanity.

Meanwhile in games, "monster" is a clinical term for an opposing force. The monster is the away team. The word describes game actors who challenge the characters' capability to achieve their goals. The monster has traits and abilities that the characters must overcome using their own traits and abilities. The monster provides the reason for the characters to have those traits and abilities in the first place.

It's worthwhile to discuss with your players how each of them would like to engage with Draw Steel ahead of embarking on a new adventure. After all, their heroes will inevitably face monsters, and conflict in the game should be more interesting than disagreements around it.

Everyone Loves Zombies

For certain groups of players, imagining monsters beyond their game definition isn't fun. For others, building a morally ambiguous story around facing off against foes very much like their characters requires too much effort to be satisfying. Thankfully, Draw Steel comes with an assortment of undead, demons, and war dogs that can be fought with impunity. There will always be a need for heroes to rise up and protect innocent people from these sorts of programmed, irredeemable monsters, and doing so is no less heroic than overcoming a complex monster.

Other Sections

Discussions of monsters, guidelines for encounter design, and the monster stat blocks that fill this book refer to the core rules of the game laid down in Draw Steel: Heroes. You can find information in that book on specific topics as follows:

• Power rolls, edges and banes, Recoveries, respites, Victories, Orden, Vasloria, the timescape: Chapter 1: The Basics
• Languages: Chapter 4: Background
• Abilities, conditions, potencies, surges: Chapter 5: Classes
• Actions and maneuvers, creature size, damage and Stamina, dying and death, movement and forced movement, high ground, winded, suffocating: Chapter 10: Combat
• Discovering Lore, Finding a Cure, Crafting Treasures: Chapter 12: Downtime Projects
• Supernatural treasures: Chapter 13: Rewards

Monster Basics

To use this book, you'll also want to be familiar with the information found in Draw Steel: Heroes. If you read that book first, most of the information presented in the creature stat blocks in this book is self-explanatory, and follows the setup of the player characters' traits and abilities in many ways. However, a few differences are worth noting.

Languages

If a creature knows at least one language, a "Languages" entry in their lore indicates which languages they know. Creatures who don't know any languages don't have this entry.

Keywords

Each stat block has one or more creature keywords. These keywords don't necessarily mean anything on their own, but special rules might apply to them. For instance, a creature with the Goblin keyword benefits from and can contribute to goblin Malice features. (See Malice later in this introduction for information.)

General Keywords

While many keywords are specific to a group of creatures, such as Gnoll or Human, other keywords are found across different monster groups.

Abyssal

Creatures with the Abyssal keyword, such as demons and gnolls, can trace their origins back to the Abyssal Wasteland-a chaotic manifold whose denizens hunger for the souls of mortals.

Accursed

Accursed creatures, such as medusas and werewolves, are under the effect of powerful supernatural curses that change their essential nature.

Animal

The Animal keyword is an easy one! It covers bears, wolves, and really big spiders! Aside from the animals of the real world, fantasy creatures with a similar level of sapience and who are part of the natural world have the Animal keyword. Animals have only natural defenses.

Beast

Creatures with the Beast keyword have animal-level sapience, but also possess supernatural abilities or traits. Basilisks and chimeras are examples of beasts. They don't have a society, but one has eye beams that can turn you into a statue, while the other has three heads-each belonging to a different species and one of which breathes fire!

Construct

Construct creatures, such as the ashen hoarder and valok, are manufactured, with magic or psionics playing a role in giving them life. A construct's level of sapience is determined by the will and skill of their creator. Some function entirely on their own, while others serve as mindless drones who take action only if given orders. Unless otherwise noted, constructs don't need to eat, drink water, sleep, or breathe to survive.

Dragon

Dragons, the giant reptilian creatures with breath weapons, wings, claws, and jaws, aren't the only creatures who take the Dragon keyword. Creatures related to dragons, such as draconians, also have this keyword.

Elemental

If a creature can trace their origin back to Quintessence, the Manifold of Elements, they have the Elemental keyword. This includes creatures of raw elemental power, such as the crux of fire, and creatures who merely trace some part of their origin back to Quintessence, such as meteor dragons.

Fey

Fey creatures can trace their origin back to Arcadia, a manifold of nature and magic that is the place of origin of all elves. Creatures from this plane often have an innate connection to nature, magic, or both.

Giant

Creatures with the Giant keyword include ogres and trolls, as well as fire giants, frost giants, hill giants, and stone giants. Giants have similar body shapes to humanoids, but they're much larger. Despite that similar appearance, these creatures have no relation to most humanoids (other than the mighty hakaan).

Horror

Horror creatures, including overminds and voiceless talkers, are creatures who appear unnatural on most worlds, particularly Orden. Everything about them is alien, and most have potent psionic abilities.

Humanoid

Humanoid creatures, such as dwarves and time raiders, are size 1 creatures who have similar limb arrangements to and sapience on par with humans. Humanoids often gather in communities and form societies to survive and prosper.

Infernal

Infernal creatures, such as devils and hobgoblins, can trace their origins back to the Seven Cities of Hell-an ordered manifold where the natives make plans to tempt mortals into contracts for their souls.

Ooze

Ooze creatures, such as the gummy brick, are semisolid masses of moisture and malice who take shape in dark, damp environments. Their forms range from loosely congealed puddles to more hardened and calcified shapes.

Plant

Plant creatures, such as the shambling mound, are made of vegetation. Like other creatures (and unlike plant objects), they can move and interact with their environment.

Soulless

Soulless creatures do not have a soul, and are generally those who are created by another creature, such as many constructs, undead, and war dogs. There are a few abilities or other rules in the game that can only affect creatures with souls. Soulless creatures are immune to these effects. Likewise, if a rule only affects a creature without a soul, soulless creatures are the only valid targets for such effects.

Swarm

Swarm creatures are actually more than one creature! When a whole bunch of creatures get together, whether a swarm of spiders or a swarm of minotaurs, they move and act together as if they were one creature.

Undead

Undead creatures, such as ghosts and zombies, are the reanimated flesh and spirits of once-living creatures who have died. Their level of sapience is determined by the creator or effect that brought them back from the dead. Some undead function entirely on their own, while others mindlessly seek to harm the living if given no other instructions. Unless otherwise noted, undead don't need to eat, drink water, sleep, or breathe to survive.

Encounter Value

Each Director-controlled creature has an encounter value (abbreviated EV) that is used in building encounters. See Step-by-Step Encounter Building later in this chapter for more information.

Combat Rounds

Because stat blocks are focused on the tactics and mechanics of combat, all references in a stat block to "rounds" refer to combat rounds.

Creature Free Strikes

When a Director-controlled creature makes a free strike (see Chapter 10: Combat in Draw Steel: Heroes), they don't roll. Instead, their stat block notes a Free Strike value representing the amount of damage they deal with either of the following:

• A melee free strike with a distance of melee 1 or the melee distance of the creature's signature ability (see below), whichever is higher.
• A ranged free strike with a distance of 5 or the ranged distance of the creature's signature ability, whichever is higher.

A creature's free strike has the Strike keyword, as well as the Magic, Psionic, or Weapon keywords if those keywords are found in the creature's signature ability. Additionally, if the creature's signature ability deals damage of a specific type, the free strike also uses that damage type. If the creature's signature ability deals more than one type of damage, you decide which damage type the creature's free strike uses when the strike is made.

Creature free strikes are a static number for two reasons. First, it keeps gameplay fast. You don't have to stop play to roll dice, and there's no chance of a creature rolling a critical hit and bogging things down further when it isn't their turn. Second, by keeping these static values relatively low, heroes are encouraged to take more risks when it really counts, even if that might result in them taking damage from a free strike.

Creature Opportunity Attacks

Even though a Director-controlled creature doesn't have to roll when they make a free strike, if that creature takes a bane on strikes against a target, they can't make an opportunity attack against that target.

Stat Block Self-Reference

Whenever a creature's stat block talks about enemies or allies, it refers to enemies or allies of that creature by default. (Chapter 5: Classes of Draw Steel: Heroes talks about enemies and allies.) Likewise, if a stat block refers to a target "within x squares," that always means "within x squares of this creature" unless additional text says otherwise.

Signature Ability

Every creature has a signature ability. This is the first action that appears in their stat block and is noted as "Signature Ability."

Traits

Many creatures have traits, which are features that don't require a main action, a maneuver, or a triggered action to activate, such as the Crafty trait possessed by many goblins. (Chapter 10: Combat in Draw Steel: Heroes talks about action types.)

Malice

Many creatures have abilities and features that require a Director's resource called Malice to activate. See Malice later in this introduction for more information.

End Effect

Certain creatures have the ability to take damage in order to end one effect on them that can be ended by a saving throw. The damage the creature takes to end an effect can't be reduced in any way.

Villain Actions

The solo and leader creatures presented in this book are designed to be fought in climactic battles at the end of an adventure or campaign. Because of this, they have special abilities called villain actions.

A creature with villain actions always has three. Each villain action can be used only once per encounter, and no more than one villain action can be used per round. (This holds even if you have two or more creatures with villain actions in an encounter, though such an occurrence should be rare.)

A creature can use a villain action at the end of any other creature's turn during combat. Villain actions are numbered and intended to be used in a specific order that creates a logical encounter flow and cinematic arc, but you can use them in any order you choose.

The first villain action is an opener, which shows the heroes they're not battling a typical creature. Openers generally deal some damage, summon a lackey or three, buff the leader, debuff the heroes, or move the creature into an advantageous position. They're a taste of what's to come.

The second villain action provides crowd control. It typically activates after the heroes have had a chance to respond once or twice to the villain, move into position, and surround the villain. This second action helps the villain regain the upper hand. Like an opener, this action comes in many flavors, but it's even more powerful than an opener.

The third and final villain action is an ultimate move or "ult"-a showstopper that the villain can use to deal a devastating blow to the heroes before the end of the battle.

Creature Organization

A level 1 ghoul isn't necessarily as strong as a level 1 orc! Most creature types have an overarching organization that determines the power level and encounter value of the monsters within it. Some modes of organization are built around large numbers of weaker creatures in encounters, while other modes prefer fewer but more formidable threats.

A creature's mode of organization appears after their level in a stat block. For example, most gnolls are organized as a horde, while shadow elves have the platoon organization. Some creatures have a main mode of organization and a handful of minions, while other creatures use a few different organization types.

Monsters are organized as follows.

Minion

Minions are weaker enemies who are made to die fast and threaten heroes en masse. A battle with minions is one where the heroes are outnumbered and can experience the joy of cutting through fields of their enemies. Creatures organized as minions are meant to support monsters organized in other ways, and have a special set of rules for doing so (see Using Minions below).

Minions die quickly! In fact, some might die before they have a chance to act. That's okay! It's why you build encounters with them four at a time.

Horde

Monsters organized as hordes are hardier and work in smaller groups than minions, but it still takes more than one of these creatures to effectively threaten a single hero of the same level. A battle against creatures all belonging to a horde sees those creatures outnumbering the heroes about two to one. Creatures who are part of a horde organization can be especially effective when brought into encounters alongside other horde creatures.

Horde creatures are more fragile than any other monsters except minions, so be sure to double or triple up on their stat blocks if they're key to a combat encounter. There's a chance that if the heroes act first in combat and have a lot of Victories, they can kill a number of key horde creatures before those creatures can act. That's why the encounter-building guidelines allow you to run lots of them.

Platoon

Monster platoons are highly organized and usually self-sufficient armies. Platoons are well-rounded organizations well equipped to handle most combat objectives. A single platoon creature is a decent threat to a hero of the same level, so an encounter consisting entirely of these creatures typically has one per hero. Platoon creatures often fight alongside minions and an elite creature or two to round out their ranks.

Elite

Elite creatures are the functional opposite of minions. A creature noted as an elite is hardy and can usually stand up to two heroes of the same level. Elites also have a high encounter value. They work well when individually supporting monsters with other modes of organization, but multiple elites can also be effective as a band on their own.

Leader

A leader is a powerful monster who buffs their allies and grants them additional actions. They utilize villain actions and can stand toe-to-toe with two or more heroes of the same level by themself. Typically, only one leader appears in a battle at a time, alongside minions, horde or platoon creatures, and elites. Leader creatures have no additional creature role (see Creature Roles).

Solo

A solo creature is an encounter all on their own. They have a special set of rules within their stat block and can be deployed... well, solo! A solo creature can typically stand toe-to-toe with six heroes of the same level. Solo creatures have no additional creature role.

Creature Roles

A creature's role appears after their level and organization in their stat block, and describes that creature's function in combat in a general sense. Roles are descriptive, and most don't follow special rules. They simply help you build encounters and use creatures effectively in combat. (More detailed descriptions of these roles are found in Step-by-Step Encounter Building.)

Ambusher

Ambushers are melee warriors who can slip by beefier heroes to reach squishier targets in the back lines.

Artillery

Artillery creatures fight best from afar, and can use their most powerful abilities at great distance.

Brute

Brutes are hardy creatures who have lots of Stamina and deal lots of damage. They have abilities and traits that make them difficult to ignore and hard to get away from, and that let them push enemies around.

Controller

Controllers are creatures who change the battlefield, often with magic or psionics. They reposition foes and alter terrain to make it advantageous for their allies. Controllers are often on the squishier side, so they need protection!

Defender

Defenders are tough creatures able to take a lot of damage, and who can force enemies to attack them instead of squishier targets. Defenders often act in squads with allies who have lower Stamina, such as controllers and hexers.

Harrier

Harriers are mobile warriors who make definitive use of hit-and-run tactics. Their traits allow them to make the most of their positioning on the battlefield.

Hexer

Hexers specialize in debuffing enemies using conditions and other effects. They are generally squishy and rely on others to defend them.

Mount

Mounts are mobile creatures meant to be ridden in combat, and who make their riders even more dangerous.

Support

Support creatures specialize in aiding their allies by providing buffs, healing, movement, or action options.

Creatures Who Defend

A creature who takes the Defend main action (see Chapter 10: Combat of Draw Steel: Heroes) can't take additional main actions on their turn. This means that if a creature has already taken a main action on their turn, they can't also take the Defend main action. This applies even if the creature is granted an additional main action on their turn, unless they are specifically granted the ability to take the Defend main action.

Creatures Who Grab

If a creature has an ability or trait that allows them to grab a target, they can have only one creature or object grabbed at a time unless their stat block specifies otherwise. If a creature has grabbed the maximum number of targets, the ability or trait they used to grab can't be used against another target unless the creature releases an already grabbed target.

Creatures Who Summon

Unless otherwise specified, a creature or object summoned into a combat encounter by another creature takes their turn immediately after the summoner. Once a creature summons another creature, they can't do so again until the start of the summoner's next turn.

Creatures Who Heal Via Damage

Some creatures have abilities that deal damage and allow the creautre using the ability to regain Stamina equal to the damage dealt. Unless otherwise specified, if this ability deals damage to multiple targets, the creature only regains Stamina equal to one instance of the damage, not the total damage dealt to all targets.

Harmless Creatures

Inevitably, one or more noncombatants might get caught up in a dangerous situation the heroes are trying to get under control. If an adventure or encounter doesn't specify a noncombatant creature's statistics, you can use the following stat block for them.

Noncombatant

Human or Animal	-	Level -	-	EV -
1S-2 Size	5 Speed	8 Stamina	0 Stability	1 Free Strike
- Immunities	- Movement		- With Captain	- Weaknesses
0 Might	0 Agility	0 Reason	0 Intuition	0 Presence

Size

The noncombatant can be size 1S, 1M, 1L, or 2.

Malice

Just as every hero has a Heroic Resource determined by their class, so too do the heroes' foes need their own juice to fuel their strongest threats. Malice is a resource gained and used by the Director. You use Malice to let enemies in the game activate their most powerful abilities and throw surprises at the heroes during combat.

Earning Malice

At the start of combat, you gain Malice equal to the average number of Victories per hero. Then at the start of each combat round, you gain Malice equal to the number of heroes in the battle, plus the combat round number. For instance, if five heroes with three Victories each are just starting their first combat round, you begin that combat with 9 Malice-3 for the average number of Victories, 5 for the number of heroes, and 1 for the first round of combat. At the start of the next round, provided all the heroes are still alive, you gain 7 Malice-5 for the number of heroes plus 2 for the second round. As long as none of the heroes is taken out of the fight, you gain 8 Malice in the third round, 9 Malice in the fourth round, and so on.

If a hero dies, they stop generating Malice for you. At the end of an encounter, any unused Malice is lost.

It's up to you whether you want to show the players how much Malice you have. Some Directors feel that the tension of watching Malice creep up can create great drama, while others like to keep the players guessing about what Malice-fueled mayhem might come next. Do whatever is the most fun for your group, and if you're not sure, ask your players what they would prefer!

Spending Malice

Monsters can spend Malice the way heroes spend their Heroic Resource, activating and enhancing their abilities. Abilities that make use of Malice have their Malice cost noted in a creature's stat block.

Specific types of monsters sometimes have other ways they can spend Malice once per turn, typically on features that affect an entire group of enemies, additional main actions or maneuvers they can take during their turn, or events that affect the encounter environment. Such features appear in a special [Creature] Malice stat block entry that precedes individual stat blocks in a creature's overall section.

You won't be able to spend Malice on every single option a given encounter has to offer. It's totally up to you how you deploy Malice. You can spend it on smaller but still impactful features each combat round. You can save it up and use it on a small number of extremely dramatic abilities. You can spend it on the same feature that uses all available Malice each combat round and then forget about it until the next round. Do whatever creates the most fun for you and makes the most narrative sense in a given encounter.

Basic Malice Features

All monsters have access to the following Malice features, in addition to any "[Creature] Malice" features they might have.

Basic Malice

At the start of any monster's turn, you can spend Malice to activate one of the following features:

Brutal Effectiveness (3 Malice)

The monster digs into the enemy's weak spot. The next ability the monster uses with a potency has that potency increased by 1.

Malicious Strike (5+ Malice)

The monster pours all their animosity into their attack. Their next strike deals extra damage to one target equal to the monster's highest characteristic score. The extra damage increases by 1 for each additional Malice spent on this feature (to a maximum of three times the monster's highest characteristic). This feature can't be used two rounds in a row, even by different monsters.

That's So Much Malice!

You often need to prepare only three Malice features for any given encounter, or four if you're running an encounter making use of multiple monster types or bands (for example, orcs and goblins). Just pick a feature costing 2 to 3 Malice, a feature costing 5 Malice, and a feature costing 7 to 10 Malice and you should be covered.

Using Minions

What they lack in power, minions make up for in flexibility and their ability to let you control the battlefield. Creatures organized as minions work a little differently from other creatures because they're multiple monsters who function as a single unit under your control.

The knowledge of how minions work isn't a secret and shouldn't be kept from the players. Share the information in this section with them! They'll have a lot more fun battling minions a shaping narrative around taking out multiple foes at once if they understand how the rules work.

Organized as Squads

Minions with the same name (for instance, goblin sniper) can be organized into squads of up to eight creatures. All members of a minion squad act together on the same initiative, and can make squad attacks (see Acting Together below).

Shared Low Stamina

Minions have low Stamina and fall quickly in battle. They allow heroes to feel extra heroic, since a hero might kill several minions at once depending on those minions' level and encounter value!

Each squad of minions shares a Stamina pool, with initial Stamina equal to each individual minion's Stamina multiplied by the number of minions in the squad. For example, a goblin spinecleaver has 5 Stamina, so a squad of eight spinecleavers has a Stamina pool of 40. Whenever a minion in a squad takes damage, the squad's Stamina pool is reduced by a number equal to the damage taken. Because minion Stamina is tracked as a pool, minions can't be winded, can't regain Stamina, and can't gain temporary Stamina during a battle.

Dropping One Minion

Whenever a minion squad's Stamina pool is reduced by an amount equal to an individual minion's Stamina, one minion dies or is otherwise taken out of the fight. If a squad of goblin spinecleavers has its Stamina pool reduced from 40 to 35, the minion who took the damage that reduced the pool dies. When the Stamina pool hits 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, and finally 0, another minion in the squad dies each time. If multiple minions take the damage that results in the pool dropping low enough to kill one minion, the creature who dealt the damage to the minions decides which of those minions dies. When a minion is taken out of the fight, they count as being reduced to 0 Stamina for triggering effects.

Dropping Multiple Minions

If a minion takes damage from any source except an area effect (including abilities with the Area keyword) and that damage reduces a minion squad's Stamina pool by an amount of damage equal to the Stamina of two or more minions, multiple minions are taken out by the damage. After dropping any minions who took the damage first, the minions nearest to those taken out suffer the same fate.

Allow the player to narrate how their hero takes out additional minions killed by a single attack. For instance, if a goblin spinecleaver takes 12 damage from a fury's Brutal Slam ability, maybe the minions surround the hero, who makes a brutal weapon strike that cuts through multiple targets with a single action. Maybe the body of the original target is hurled into an unfortunate ally. Maybe additional minions affected by a single-target strike pass out from fright! Taking out multiple minions is a chance to play up the cinematic aspect of the game.

Minions and Area Effects

Minion squads are particularly susceptible to damage-dealing area abilities that target multiple creatures, because the minion squad's Stamina pool takes damage each time an individual minion takes damage. However, such area effects can kill only those minions who are in the area. For example, a tier 3 outcome for the talent's Incinerate ability deals 6 fire damage to each target in its area. If three goblin spinecleavers with Stamina 5 are caught in the area, the minion pool loses 15 Stamina instead of 18, leaving the other minions in the squad unscathed.

Minion Weakness and Immunity

If a minion has either a damage immunity or a damage weakness for a source of damage, apply the effects to the minion's squad once, even if multiple minions share the same immunity or weakness. These effects are the last things applied when calculating damage and can drop (or save!) multiple minions from any source of damage, including area effects.

Whoa! Those Minions Died Too Quickly!

Minions are made to die fast. But if the heroes act first in a combat encounter, have a bunch of damage-dealing area abilities, and your minions are all bunched together, those minions might all go down much faster than planned perhaps before they even have a chance to do anything. It's a good idea to start a fight with any minions spread out from each other, close enough that heroes making use of area abilities won't entirely destroy your forces. And even if the heroes do manage to kill all your minions in one fell swoop, remember that you can always have reinforcements show up!

Prepping Minion Stamina Pools

When you're preparing a battle with minions, it helps to take a moment and write out the different amounts of damage at which a minion squad suffers a loss of one of their minions. For instance, a squad of eight goblin spinecleavers loses a minion when they take a total of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 damage. If you do the math before combat starts (or take a quick moment to jot it down during a pause in combat), it'll help your game run smoothly.

Acting Together

When minions act, each minion in the squad uses their main action in concert. This is because minions have squad actions (see below) that require participation from all minions, requiring all attacks by a squad to happen at the same time. Individual minions can choose to waste their main action doing nothing when the rest of their squad uses their main action in concert, or can use a maneuver only to alleviate their own circumstances (see Minion Maneuvers).

Minion Action Economy

Minion turns are meant to be short. On their shared turn, each minion can take only a move action and a main action, a move action and a maneuver, or two move actions.

Individual minions can also make opportunity attacks. That said, minions usually don't have bespoke triggered actions, keeping them easy to run.

Squad Action

Each minion has a signature ability that is typically a strike targeting one creature or object. When multiple minions in a squad use their signature ability on a turn, you make one roll for the whole squad.

Each target of a minion's signature ability is affected by only one instance of the ability. But when two or three (at maximum) of a squad's minions attack the same creature or object simultaneously, each additional minion causes the signature ability to deal extra damage to the target equal to the minion's free strike value. Because a minion's free strike value is typically lower than the average damage of their signature ability, it's usually more effective to have each minion target a different hero.

As an example, a squad of three demon pitlings are attacking a shadow and a conduit with their Spit signature ability, with a tier 2 outcome on the power roll. One pitling targets the shadow, dealing 4 poison damage. Two pitlings target the conduit, dealing 4 poison damage plus an extra 2 poison damage for the additional pitling.

If a minion squad scores a critical hit with their signature ability, all the minions who participated in using the ability can take another main action.

Minion Maneuvers

Minions in a squad use the Grab, Hide, Knockback, and Search for Hidden Creatures maneuvers together. For Grab, Knockback, and Search in particular, you make one roll for the whole squad, and each target of a minion's maneuver is only affected by one instance of the ability.

A minion can take any other maneuver individually, usually to alleviate their own circumstances like standing up from prone or escaping a grab. If they do, they can't participate in their squad's main action or maneuver during the turn.

Free Strike Together

If several minions in a squad make a free strike at the same target at the same time, such as from a hero provoking an opportunity attack by moving away from several minions surrounding them, the damage from each minion's free strike is added together and treated as one strike.

Tracking Squads

If you use multiple squads made up of the same type of minions in an encounter-for instance, two squads of goblin spinecleavers-it's important to make it easy for the players to tell the squads apart. You can use different miniatures for each squad, or give each squad's miniatures or tokens an indicator (a colored magnet, ring, sticker, and so forth) to help keep track of which minions are part of the same squad as they start moving around on the battlefield. Many online virtual tabletops have tools for adding colors or textures to icons that make tracking different squads easy.

Attached Squad Captain

Any non-mount, non-minion creature, who speaks a language that a squad of minions can understand can be attached to that squad as a captain. Captains aren't necessarily strategic leaders with brilliant tactics. Sometimes they're just powerful creatures who bully, inspire, or have some supernatural influence that drives other creatures to action.

A squad of minions can have only one captain, and a creature can't be captain to more than one squad of minions.

Separate Actions and Stamina

A captain takes their turn at the same time as the minion members of their squad but isn't limited in their action options as minions are. A captain's Stamina isn't added to a minion squad's Stamina pool, and is tracked as for any other creature in combat.

Captain Benefits

While a minion squad has a captain, each minion in the squad gains the benefits noted at the "With Captain" entry on their stat block. Usually, this benefit is either a damage boost, a bonus to speed, or additional Stamina.

I Am the Captain Now

If a squad of minions loses their captain, a new allied creature can become that squad's captain at the start of the next round (no action required).

Stat Block Icons

The stat blocks in this book contain multiple different icons that allow quick scanning for just the right trait or ability for the situation. The following list provides examples of the most common icons you'll come across.

• 📏 The distance of the ability
• 🎯 The targets or affected area of the ability
• ⭐️ A trait of the creature, often a feature that is always in effect
• 🗡 A melee ability
• 🏹 A ranged ability
• ⚔️ An ability that is melee or ranged (your choice)
• 👤 A self ability that only targets the user
• 🔳 A cube, line, or wall area ability
• ❇️ An aura or burst area ability
• 🌀 A special ability with a unique distance, often the entire encounter map
• ❗️ A triggered action
• ☠️ A feature or ability specific to a leader or solo creature, such as villain actions

Step-by-Step Encounter Building

An encounter is a scene in which the heroes are faced with challenges or opposition. As soon as the players have made their heroes and are ready to see those heroes put into interesting situations, encounter building is the focus of your game! The step-by-step guidelines in this section are focused primarily on building combat encounters, where battle is a highly likely (and often eagerly expected) outcome.

It's Not Science

While we'd love to create an encounter-building formula that could predict the exact difficulty of any combat encounter, there are too many variables beyond the monsters you choose for your encounters that we can't account for. The heroes your players create, the encounter maps you choose, the number of supernatural treasures the characters create or collect, lucky and unlucky dice rolls, each player's tactical acumen, and a bad day at the office before game night can all contribute to an encounter going better or worse for the heroes as they play the game.

The guidelines in this section will help get you closer to the kind of encounter you desire, but it'll take a bit of trial and error to figure out the best approach to encounter building for you and your group. For example, if the heroes in your game have a lot of damage-dealing area abilities, they're going to have an easier time standing up to minions. If you have heroes who specialize in single-target abilities, they might be able to quickly destroy a solo.

Learn what makes a fun, challenging encounter for your group, and adjust these guidelines to fit your needs. And remember that reinforcements can always be on the way for any side who needs them if an encounter is too easy or too hard.

Step 1: Think

Building an encounter is almost like creating a character! Every encounter should have the following:

• A backstory or inciting incident.
• Cool monsters.
• A motivation for the participants to be there.
• Stakes, or consequences for failure, for all individuals involved.
• One or more opportunities for the heroes and villains to learn more about their opponents-or themselves!
• An interesting map that provokes the heroes to think about their moves as a team (see Choosing a Map later in this section).

Step 2: Choose Encounter Difficulty

After thinking about the components of your encounter, it's time to determine how difficult an encounter you want to create. Encounters are rated by categories of difficulty, as follows.

Trivial Encounters

Trivial encounters are easier than easy. They present no challenge at all for the heroes, who are guaranteed to survive the battle with their Stamina mostly, if not entirely, untouched. Think 10th-level heroes taking on a small horde of typical kobolds. There's no way the fight ends well for the kobolds. These encounters can be fun to occasionally throw into your game, but for many groups, the novelty disappears quickly; too many trivial encounters can feel like a waste of time.

Unless you determine otherwise, trivial encounters don't earn the heroes any Victories.

Easy Encounters

Unless the heroes have already depleted most of their Stamina and Recoveries, easy encounters won't threaten their lives. Easy encounters are great for adventures that want to give the characters a lot of battles between respites, or for when you want them to feel like superheroes while still overcoming a combat challenge that feels as though it's within their pay grade.

An easy encounter is typically worth 1 Victory.

Standard Encounters

Standard encounters are the most common for many adventuring groups. These battles deplete some of the heroes' Stamina and Recoveries, especially for melee-focused heroes. Although character death is uncommon in a standard encounter, it isn't impossible, especially if a player makes a poor tactical choice or finds that the dice are against them.

A standard encounter is typically worth 1 Victory.

Hard Encounters

Hard encounters are typically climactic encounters with leaders and their loyal servants, or some other scenario that puts the heroes' lives in real peril. Hard encounters are winnable, but the heroes need to play smart to survive.

A hard encounter is typically worth 2 Victories.

Extreme Encounters

Extreme encounters feature threats of a level that the heroes aren't likely to survive if they try to fight to the bitter end. Such encounters rarely appear in most campaigns, though if the heroes are 8th level or higher, they can typically survive such encounters-or have a good chance of coming back to life afterward.

An extreme encounter is typically worth 2 or more Victories.

Step 3: Determine Encounter Strength

To determine how many creatures and other types of challenges you should have in an encounter, you need to figure out the heroes' encounter strength (abbreviated ES). A party's encounter strength is used as a benchmark for "buying" monsters for your encounter, as explained below.

To calculate a party's ES, first determine each hero's encounter strength. This starts at a baseline of 4, to which you add 2 for each level of the hero. For instance, a 3rd-level hero has an encounter strength of 10 (4 + 2 + 2 + 2). Then add the encounter strength of all heroes together, and that's your encounter strength. This means a group of five 3rd-level heroes has an ES of 50.

Each retainer or other NPC fighting alongside the heroes counts as a hero when determining encounter strength. If a 3rd-level retainer or NPC fights alongside the heroes, they count as a 3rd-level hero.

Encounter Strength Table

Hero Level	1 Hero*	2 Heroes*	3 Heroes*	4 Heroes*	5 Heroes*	6 Heroes*	7 Heroes*	8 Heroes*
1st	6	12	18	24	30	36	42	48
2nd	8	16	24	32	40	48	56	64
3rd	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80
4th	12	24	36	48	60	72	84	96
5th	14	28	42	56	70	84	98	112
6th	16	32	48	64	80	96	112	128
7th	18	36	54	72	90	108	126	144
8th	20	40	60	80	100	120	140	160
9th	22	44	66	88	110	132	154	176
10th	24	48	72	96	120	144	168	192

*Add one Hero for every 2 Victories the heroes have earned on average.

Factor in Victories

Victories make heroes more powerful on the way to their next level. For every 2 Victories the heroes have earned on average, increase the party's encounter strength as if there were another hero in the party. For instance, if a party of 3rd-level heroes has 2 or 3 Victories each, increase the ES by 10. If they have 6 Victories each, increase the ES by 30. Be careful that the larger encounter strength doesn't lead you to using more creatures than recommended in Number of Creatures below. It's usually better to use higher-cost creatures in an encounter rather than add extra creatures when increasing encounter strength because of Victories.

Since you can rarely predict the exact order in which the heroes will face encounters during an adventure, it helps to keep a list of monsters with an EV cost worth roughly the encounter strength of two, four, and six Victories that make sense for the adventure you're running. You can then easily drop or swap these creatures into an encounter on the fly.

Step 4: Determine Encounter Budget

Once you know the party's encounter strength and have chosen your encounter difficulty, you can determine your encounter budget as follows:

• Trivial encounters have a budget that is anything less than the party's ES minus the encounter strength of one hero.
• Easy encounters have a budget of anything less than the party's ES but more than the budget for a trivial encounter.
• Standard encounters have a budget that is between the party's ES and the party's ES plus the encounter strength of one hero.
• Hard encounters have a budget greater than a standard encounter, but no more than the party's ES plus the encounter strength of three heroes.
• Extreme encounters have a budget that is anything greater than hard.

How Many Fights Before a Respite?

A group of heroes can generally handle from 4 to 6 Victories' worth of combat encounters before needing to stop for a respite to refresh their Stamina and Recoveries. But as with encounter building, determining exactly how many encounters a party can run through before needing to rest and restore resources isn't an exact science.

The luck of the dice, the number of treasures claimed, the composition of encounters, and the strengths of the heroes all factor into this math. And heroes might want to stop for a respite while they still have plenty of Recoveries because they have a downtime project they want to advance, or because they're ready to turn their Victories into xP and gain a new level.

Even if we could account for all those factors, your game might have outlier experiences in which the party has to stop and rest a little earlier than you'd expected, or will push through long after you thought they'd stop. We think that's a good thing. Part of the fun of roleplaying games is the fact that they're unpredictable, with the dice and the decisions the heroes make both playing a big part in the story. When players push on because they have a lot of Victories, that's the game working as intended.

Encounters Should Have Narrative Importance

Combat encounters should hold narrative weight. Draw Steel isn't a game of attrition, where a few trivial combat encounters can weaken the heroes or winnow down their resources to make the final, important, epic clash with the villain more of a struggle. A quick combat encounter with two bumbling guards at a gate is likely over in less than a round, and shouldn't earn the heroes a Victory. It's probably better handled with a test. These can be fun scenes to roleplay, but they aren't going to make full use of your heroes' features and should only occur sometimes. Most of the time when combat occurs, the stakes for the heroes and the story should be high!

Step 5: Spend Encounter Budget

You spend your encounter budget to "buy" hostile creatures to take part in your encounter. Each such creature costs a number of budget points equal to its encounter value (EV), as noted in the creature's stat block. When choosing creatures, try to choose a variety of creature roles for a more dynamic combat experience.

Consider Creature Level

To ensure an encounter is challenging but not devastating for the players, you want to choose creatures whose level is no more than 2 greater than the heroes' level. For instance, creatures of level 7 and below are appropriate challenges for a party of 5th-level heroes. If the heroes have 6 or more Victories, you can push the upper limit to within 3 levels of the heroes.

Solo creatures are an exception. A solo creature's abilities dish out a lot of damage for their level, so restrict them to no more than 1 level above the heroes' average level, unless you want the very real threat of a few heroic corpses lying on the battlefield in the aftermath.

Some creatures outside of these level ranges might fall into your EV budget, but such creatures have the potential to deal devastating damage before a hero gets to do anything about it. That means characters could die after relatively few attacks from such a creature, and that the potencies of the creature's abilities might be nearly impossible to resist. None of that is likely to feel very heroic.

This comparison is the only indicator that level serves in encounter building. Everything else relies on the encounter value and organization mode of your monsters.

Minions Come in Groups of Four

Whenever you spend EV to buy minions for a combat encounter, you buy them four at a time. It's recommended to buy at least two sets of minions for any given encounter, as they won't be effective in smaller numbers.

The minions you buy can be arranged into squads of any size you need, up to a maximum of eight minions in a squad. With eight minions, you could make one squad of eight, two squads of four and four, a squad of three and a squad of five, or squads of three, three, and two. More minions in a squad leads to more effective minion turns, whereas more squads of minions are usually easier to track.

Number of Creatures

Too many creatures or too many different stat blocks in an encounter can create a big cognitive load for you, potentially turning an exciting combat into a slog.

In general, you don't want more than eight creatures per hero at a time in any encounter. Additionally, if the encounter has more than three creatures per hero, at least half the creatures in that encounter should be minions.

When it comes to number of stat blocks, you typically don't want to use more than six different kinds of stat blocks in an encounter, though you can probably manage more if you're using a lot of simple minion stat blocks. Especially if you're just starting out as a Director, keep the variety of your stat blocks limited until you're confident in your ability to run a complex combat encounter.

Star of the Show

Sometimes a combat encounter features a creature who you want to stick around for more than a single combat round, so they can leave a lasting impression on the heroes. Such creatures are typically the named villains who the heroes face in the climax of an adventure or campaign.

If you want a creature to stick around in a combat encounter and become the star of the show, set up a hard encounter and choose a leader or solo creature with an EV that is at least one-third of the encounter budget.

Dynamic Terrain Objects

The final section of this book introduces and details dynamic terrain objects-thematic elements you can place in an encounter to challenge the heroes. You can spend your EV budget on dynamic terrain objects the same way you do on monsters. Adding one or two dynamic terrain objects to an encounter gives the heroes a challenge to overcome or resolve beyond simply exchanging blows with another creature. See Dynamic Terrain for more information.

Step 6: Build Initiative Groups

Once you have your encounter's foes selected, you'll put them together in initiative groups, with all creatures in the same initiative group acting on the same turn.

Though it's not a hard and fast rule, as you build your initiative groups, try to keep the total EV of any group between the encounter strength of one to two heroes (see the Encounter Strength table at Step 3 above). Doing so helps to ensure that the foes in each encounter group can hold their own against any one hero in the party without overwhelming that character.

It's okay to have one initiative group with a total EV of less than the recommendation above. It's also okay for a group to be worth more than two heroes, as long as that group consists of a single creature or the heroes have racked up a lot of Victories.

How Many Initiative Groups?

In a battle without a solo creature, you want about as many initiative groups as the number of heroes, plus or minus one or two. This gives you a healthy range of groups to play with and makes your turns effective without being overwhelming for the heroes.

Quick Encounter Building

The encounter-building information detailed above is intentionally comprehensive. But if you want to build an encounter quickly without doing a lot of math, good news! We've got a formula or two you can use to build an encounter quickly after you determine its difficulty. After going through this process, you can then build your initiative groups.

Step 1: Party Size, Level, and Victories

What level are the heroes? How many heroes are there? Write down that information, which you'll use in a bit.

How many Victories do the characters have on average? For every two Victories the characters have, add another hero to the party for the purpose of this method of encounter building.

Step 2: Buy Creatures to Fill Hero Slots

Your encounter has a number of hero slots equal to the number of heroes in the party you calculated in step 1. This number will be greater than the actual number of characters if the heroes have two or more Victories.

Each hero slot can be filled with a certain number of creatures, as follows:

• Eight minions fill one hero slot.
• Two horde creatures fill one hero slot.
• One platoon creature fills one hero slot.
• One leader or elite creature fills two hero slots.
• One solo creature fills six hero slots plus one slot for each level the creature is higher than the heroes.

You adjust your hero slots according to encounter difficulty, which then dictates the level of the creatures you use to fill those slots:

• For a trivial encounter, subtract two hero slots. Use only creatures of the heroes' level or lower.
• For an easy encounter, subtract one hero slot. Use only creatures of the heroes' level or one level higher.
• For a standard encounter, use creatures of the heroes' level or one level higher. You can add one more hero slot if none of the creatures are a higher level than the heroes.
• For a hard encounter, add two hero slots. Use creatures of the heroes' level and up to two levels higher, or up to one level higher for solo creatures. You can add one more hero slot if not all the creatures in the encounter are a higher level than the heroes.
• For an extreme encounter, add four or more hero slots. Then fill all those slots with creatures of the heroes' level or higher.

Step 3: Add Dynamic Terrain Objects

Include one or two dynamic terrain objects for encounters of standard difficulty or easier. Add two to three dynamic terrain objects to hard and extreme encounters. Use only objects of the heroes' level or lower.

Parties Large and Small

Draw Steel was made and tested with groups of mainly three to six heroes, including retainers, since that's how we expected most folks will play the game. If your group is smaller or larger than that, don't panic! The game still works and will be a lot of fun for you, but you'll want to keep the following guidelines in mind:

For a party of seven or more heroes, you'll find that solo creatures don't quite live up to their name. So give the solo creatures some lackeys or a few more dynamic terrain objects to help them challenge the heroes. If you want to build an encounter using two solo creatures and the EV math works out, just pay attention to the rules about villain actions and avoid having both solos focus fire on the same character at the same time.

For a party of three or fewer heroes, consider giving those heroes retainers to make up the difference. Parties that small can struggle against solo creatures and big groups of minions, given how much damage such foes have to spread around each turn.

Using Creature Roles and Organization

A creature's role and organization mode helps you build interesting encounters with varied challenges. Although including creatures covering every type of role in a combat encounter is likely to make that encounter too complicated for most groups, a fight against creatures who all have the same role typically leads to dull, grindy combat. An encounter with a controller, two defenders, and two harriers is more interesting and fun than an encounter with five harriers, greatly reducing the risk of playing out a battle where both sides simply stand still and deal damage without anything dynamic or dramatic happening.

Ambusher Creatures

Ambusher creatures can hide, turn invisible, or otherwise find ways to get the drop on their enemies. They typically spend half their turn attacking, and the other half slipping away and hiding. Ambushers focus on taking down a single hero, sometimes dragging their target into the place where they hide.

Encounters that include ambushers should have plenty of cover or concealment, giving them places to hide. Adding other creatures typically brutes, defenders, harriers, or minions-keeps other heroes busy while the ambusher focuses on taking down a chosen foe.

Artillery Creatures

Artillery creatures are great at ranged combat and can damage heroes who typically hang back behind beefier allies. Most artillery creatures are weak in melee, so add some minions, brutes, or defenders for them to hide behind during combat.

On their turn in combat, an artillery creature typically tries to move away from nearby foes, putting a brute, defender, or other ally between themself and nearby threats before attacking an enemy. If forced into melee, most artillery creatures do whatever they can to get away, including converting their main action into a move action to flee even farther. If no enemies are closing in, artillery creatures move to keep the heroes at the edge of their range, often focusing first on the biggest threat to their allies.

Brute Creatures

Brute creatures hit hard and have a lot of Stamina. Their damage output can't be ignored, so heroes often focus on taking down brutes ahead of other creatures who have less Stamina or are weaker in melee. Brutes need to get up close to perform their most devastating attacks, so they work best on smaller battlefields. On their turn in combat, a brute moves toward the closest group of enemies and attacks, preferring to engage multiple foes at once. Brutes are often simpler to run than other creatures, so you can include a lot of them in an encounter.

Controller Creatures

With their ability to hamper and move heroes, controllers make a dynamic addition to any battle. They often have complicated actions and traits that create unique effects, so most combat encounters shouldn't have more than two controllers.

Many controllers work best when they have brutes, defenders, harriers, and minions protecting them and taking advantage of the effects they create. Controllers often use their biggest and most powerful effects at the start of an encounter, targeting as many foes as possible. If a controller can't affect multiple heroes or use their most powerful feature, they focus on manipulating the battlefield and repositioning so they can use that feature on their next turn.

Defender Creatures

Defender creatures defend their allies by drawing the heroes' attacks. They make excellent protectors for ambushers, artillery creatures, controllers, and support creatures, as well as for leaders. Defenders don't need to stay close to the creatures they protect-and it's better if they don't. A defender who breaks away from their charge can often lock down a threat far from the rest of the fight.

During combat, defenders engage heroes who are strong in melee. A defender battles as many foes as they can reach so their allies can freely move. If more than one defender is in a battle, they typically split up, each fighting a different hero.

Harrier Creatures

Harrier creatures make battles dynamic. They can move to attack vulnerable heroes who are weaker in melee, then retreat (assuming they can do so safely) to protect their artillery, controller, and support allies, as well as leaders. Since harriers can often outrun and outmaneuver heroes, this forces the heroes to act tactically. Harriers pair well with creatures of any role, including other harriers.

Hexer Creatures

Hexers like to hamper other creatures and target the foes they think are most likely to succumb to their debuffing abilities. If a hero has a great turn cutting down the hexer's allies, odds are they're the threat the hexer wants to stop the first chance they have.

Like controllers, hexers are typically complicated and a bit squishy. One or two hexers with a lot of protection from allies can make for a fun encounter.

Leader and Support Creatures

Leader creatures have villain actions (see Villain Actions earlier in this introduction) and fight best alongside allies. Creatures with the support role function much like leaders, but they lack villain actions and are less complex. Leader and support creatures buff and heal their allies, and can grant those allies extra movement and actions. They remain close to their allies so their features can benefit as many targets as possible.

As long as a leader or a support creature stays in the fight, their allies are enhanced. They are most effective when protected by and buffing artillery, brutes, defenders, harriers, and minions. You typically shouldn't use more than one leader or support creature in an encounter, as their overlapping enhancements can turn a seemingly routine combat into a fatal one.

Minion Creatures

As discussed in the Using Minions section earlier in this chapter, minions allow you to create cinematic battles where the characters feel heroic as they cut through multiple foes at once. Using minions of a level within two levels of the characters' average level also keeps them dangerous and relevant. When minions work together, they can't be ignored, as they deal a lot of damage and can easily lock characters down. Minions make decent protectors for ambushers, artillery, and controllers, as well as for leaders.

Mount Creatures

Mount creatures are good for carrying other creatures into battle. Mounts of size 2 and smaller are typically meant to carry a single rider, while larger mounts can carry more creatures. Adding mounts to combat encounters makes the creatures riding them much faster. They pair well with artillery, brutes, controllers, hexers, and support creatures, as well as with leaders. Mounts without riders can also serve the same purpose as harriers in combat.

Solo Creatures

Solo creatures can stand as an encounter all on their own for a group of four to six heroes. Their villain actions allow them to hamper and harm foes outside of the regular turn order. Solo creatures are best encountered alone, and fight most effectively in environments with plenty of space to move around and find cover.

Solo creatures use every movement advantage they have, whether burrowing, climbing, flying, swimming, or teleporting around the battlefield on their turn. They focus on whichever hero threatens them most effectively, even as they position themselves to target as many foes as possible with their area abilities.

Instant Solo Creature

Most leaders and elite creatures can be adapted into a solo creature on the fly with the following adjustments:

• Multiply their EV by 3.
• Multiply their Stamina by 2.5.
• Give them the following trait:

Solo Turns The creature can take two turns each round. They can't take turns consecutively.

• Give them the following trait if they don't already have it:

End Effect At the end of each of their turns, the creature can take 10 damage to end one effect on them that can be ended by a saving throw. This damage can't be reduced in any way.

• Give them the following Malice feature:

Solo Action (5 Malice)

The creature takes an additional main action on their turn. They can use this feature even if they are dazed.

Choosing a Map

Taverns have tables, forests have trees, castles have pillars, and fields have uneven terrain. The best maps for Draw Steel combat encounters have interesting environmental features, and you'll want to choose a map for your encounter that brings the most out of the rules for movement, difficult terrain, and falling.

Your ideal encounter map might feature ledges, columns, walls, windows, dynamic terrain objects, and the like for creatures to be thrown into, thrown off of, thrown through, or simply use for cover. Even one major fixture of interest on an encounter map can spark the players to think about how to incorporate that feature into their turns. You'll also want most of your battles to take place in environments with plenty of space to move around, avoiding a lot of long corridors 1 square wide.

Vertical maps are especially great, as an area with high ledges can lead to a surprising amount of damage for nonflying allies and enemies alike. Use flat maps sparingly, reserving them for dramatic showdowns in which heroes and villains must test their strength and convictions against each other with no distractions. Though even then, a map might have a throne to ascend in the center and steep edges on all sides.

You don't have to be a master artist to create a great tactical map. You can use hand-drawn shapes and lines on an erasable mat or virtual tabletop to represent cliffs, hazards, and more. You can also find incredible maps online. Some are free, and most others are available for a reasonable price on the websites of many great cartographers.

Making Objectives Known

Encounters work best if the players have a good idea of what their characters are working toward, but you don't need to state objectives outright at the start of every battle. Not all groups want to commence combat with you saying, "Your objectives are to break the eldritch machine and destroy the vampire lord," if doing so takes the players out of the game's narrative.

In many combat encounters, the objectives are obvious. For instance, in a battle against a necromancer controlling a horde of undead minions, the players probably don't need to be told that defeating the necromancer ends the encounter. In an encounter against cultists performing a world-ending ritual, the heroes can guess that stopping the ritual is one of their objectives. In fact, specifically achieving that objective might well be what inspired them to undertake the adventure. They're not there for karaoke at the end of existence!

Not all objectives are so clear, however. In a battle against a goblin cursespitter, a kobold legionary, and three human knaves guarding the entrance to a bandit fortress, it can be easy to assume that the objective is simply "Defeat them all!" But if it's the case that the cursespitter leads the group and defeating the goblin causes the remaining forces to fall apart, it helps if you provide at least a hint of that setup at the start of the battle. The cursespitter could clearly issue orders and even call the other bandits cowards, demanding that they not run away "like last time!"

Encounter Objectives

Specific objectives for combat encounters let you create and run fights that are about more than characters hacking down their foes to the last point of Stamina. Chapter 10: Combat in Draw Steel: Heroes gives an overview of different combat objectives you can set for the heroes to achieve during an encounter, setting out what's achievable in each objective so the players know what's expected of them. This section breaks out those objectives in detail, providing examples you can use and modify for your games.

If your encounter has an objective, start with the objective first and then pick enemies who can best make that objective a fun challenge for the heroes. Each objective gives advice regarding the types of monsters who fit well into the objective, but it's just advice. The encounter map you choose and the specific heroes you're preparing for might suggest better choices.

The writeup for each of these objectives includes the following sections:

• Monster Roles and Organization tells you which types of creatures are best used in the encounter.
• Map Advice covers what to think about when selecting a map for an encounter.
• Difficulty Modifier tells you how the objective can change an encounter's difficulty, typically increasing or decreasing the difficulty by one level (for instance, from standard to hard or standard to easy).
• Success Condition details what the heroes must do to win the day. When a success condition is met, the heroes' enemies flee or surrender, or you can utilize the dramatic finish or event ending encounter-end options described in Chapter 10: Combat of Draw Steel: Heroes.
• Victories tells you how many Victories each hero earns for completing the encounter, based on the encounter's difficulty.
• Failure Condition sets out what happens when the heroes have failed and the enemies win.

Fun Is Most Important

If the heroes quickly achieve an encounter's objective but are still having a great time, you don't need to call off combat at that point. Maybe the foes who would normally flee or surrender decide to make a last stand! Maybe reinforcements show up, or a new objective appears in the form of innocent bystanders shouting for help or nearby cultists performing a ritual.

By contrast, the most fun for the players sometimes comes from having a fight cut short. If the characters come up with a clever plan that works to end the encounter early, let that happen and enjoy the players high-fiving each other in a victorious celebration.

Diminish Numbers

The simplest combat encounter objective is almost always "defeat them before they defeat us." Though the heroes don't have to kill every last enemy in this type of encounter, winning the day requires that they push their opponents to the point where they are broken, flee, or surrender.

Monster Roles and Organization

Monsters of any role make sense for this objective, so use a good mix of roles to challenge the characters and players. Put artillery creatures in hard-to-reach places, pair up defenders with controllers and hexers, and put brutes on the front line to give the heroes something to cut through as they seek more-important foes.

Map Advice

The general advice that applies to picking maps for encounters applies here. Choose terrain that favors the creatures you add to the encounter, and give yourself some interesting elevation, cover, and terrain effects. If you're using a lot of creatures, be sure to give them space to move.

Difficulty Modifier

This objective doesn't modify an encounter's difficulty.

Success Condition

Choose one of the following success conditions:

• An encounter that includes two or more groups of minions ends when the heroes have no non-minion enemies remaining.
• An encounter with mostly horde creatures ends when the heroes outnumber their foes.
• An encounter with mostly platoon creatures ends when the heroes outnumber their foes two to one.
• The encounter ends when the number of remaining foes is half or less of what it was at the start.
• In a battle against a solo creature, that creature flees or surrenders when reduced to one-quarter or less of their Stamina and after using all their villain actions.

Victories

If the heroes achieve success, they earn 1 Victory for an easy or standard encounter, or 2 Victories for a hard or extreme encounter.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if they are killed, captured, flee, or otherwise fail to defeat their foes.

Fleeing Foes

When the heroes meet objective success conditions, many enemies know it's time to flee. It's a bad idea to make a habit of having enemies who get away come back with reinforcements to punish the heroes, because the players will soon learn to make every combat a slog to the bitter end. Most players and characters would rather see every enemy go down than let one get away if they know that foe will inevitably come back stronger.

Make it clear that if a foe is fleeing an encounter, it's because they don't want to face the heroes again. If you do plan to have a kobold gather reinforcements, have that little dragon swear vengeance and yell for help as they flee. That way, the players and the heroes all know that this particular kobold is a problem, but that other fleeing baddies can be safely ignored.

Defeat a Specific Foe

An encounter built around defeating a specific foe includes one or more of the heroes' enemies commanding the rest, such as a hobgoblin bloodlord leading a group of mercenaries, or one or more particularly powerful foes among a group of weaker ones, such as a pair of tusker demons in a gnoll war band. Because these more-powerful enemies are the stars of the encounter, if only weak foes are left once the stars are gone, the battle loses its challenge and it's time to wrap it up. It makes sense for those weaker foes to flee or surrender once their strongest allies have gone down.

Monster Roles and Organization

The specific foe you choose who must be defeated is likely a leader or a creature with a lot of Stamina for their level (such as a brute), or a creature of any role who is an elite or of a higher level than the heroes. It helps to give the specific foe a defender or two by their side and some minions to help make them harder to hit.

Map Advice

When choosing a map for this type of encounter, consider the placement of the specific foe. You'll want to make sure that they're protected and not vulnerable to attacks on all sides. If they utilize ranged abilities, giving them the high ground and setting up a few choke points to make it difficult for the heroes to reach the foe makes for a good map.

If the specific foe is the type of enemy who likes to strike and retreat, make sure they have areas of cover or concealment to fall back to and a map that gives them plenty of space to move around. If they or their defenders use a lot of forced movement, make sure there are fun hazards and objects to throw heroes into. If you're worried about the characters being able to teleport in to attack, find a map with lots of walls or other barriers, since you need line of effect to your destination when you teleport.

It's also a good idea for the foe to have an escape route, often a choke point through which they can retreat. If the characters want to pursue, have the foe's allies hold them off-but don't make it impossible for the heroes to follow!

Difficulty Modifier

If the creature or creatures who need to be taken down for the encounter to end make up one-third or less of the opposing side's total EV, then the encounter difficulty decreases by one level.

Success Condition

The heroes win when the designated creature or creatures are reduced to 0 Stamina.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory for an easy or standard encounter, or 2 Victories for a hard encounter.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if they don't defeat all the designated creatures, including a scenario where designated creatures choose to flee if their allies all start dropping.

Get the Thing!

Classic heroic fantasy is full of important objects that the heroes must protect from the forces of evil: magic rings, royal birth certificates, dragon eggs, and the like. Heroes often find themselves at violent odds with their enemies as they race to collect a valuable or important item from a guarded temple or castle, or when they need to steal the item from a group of enemies already in possession of it.

Objectives in this category work well when paired with other objectives, such as defeating a specific foe. For instance, the heroes must steal a ledger containing a record of criminal activity from an overmind and her lackeys. However, even if they obtain the ledger, the battle won't be over until they also defeat the overmind, who won't let the book go without a fight!

The Thing

The thing the heroes need to get is typically a size 1T object. (If the thing is a creature or bulky object that must be carried past enemies, you might instead be looking at an Escort encounter.) Most or all routes leading to the thing are guarded by enemies, and a trap or a powerful monster often stands guard directly over the object. The thing might be fragile (for example, a paper document) or virtually unbreakable (a magic weapon). The heroes' enemies don't want to see it harmed, but the thing might be damaged accidentally.

Additionally, a thing can have one of the following extra defenses:

Hidden: The thing is hidden! The heroes need to make one or more successful tests to find it once they're at its location. Alternatively, it might be behind a door or in a sealed vessel that must be opened. Or it might even be hidden in plain sight, surrounded by multiple nearly identical things, so that an unassuming-looking sword held by a ceremonial suit of armor turns out to be the magic weapon the heroes need!

Held: As an especially potent defense, the thing might be possessed by an enemy. A relic or document might be in a villain's pocket, but if the thing is a weapon or implement, the enemy is likely to use it against characters seeking to take it.

Monster Roles and Organization

This sort of encounter is all about getting in, grabbing an item, and then getting out. Guards protecting a thing are typically leaders, or other creatures with the brute or defender role. But you might instead have a hidden ambusher guarding the thing! Devious! Harriers and mounts make wonderful additions to these encounters, since they can chase after heroes who manage to obtain the thing. Likewise, controllers who can change or modify terrain, hexers who can slow down heroes, or minions who can clog up hallways can make fleeing with the thing difficult.

Map Advice

The placement of the thing or the creature carrying it is important. Make sure the thing isn't simply hanging out in the middle of a wide-open space. Place it somewhere on a map where it's defended by hazards and choke points-and definitely not near an escape route! You'll also want to pick a big map for this type of encounter, since escaping with the thing is part of the challenge and small maps require less movement to achieve success.

Difficulty Modifier

If there is no powerful monster (amounting to one-third or more of the encounter's total EV) or trap directly guarding the thing, the encounter is one difficulty category easier. If the thing is hidden or held, the encounter is one category harder.

Success Condition

The heroes win when all the heroes leave the encounter map with the thing.

Victories

If the heroes leave the map with the thing, each hero earns 1 Victory if the encounter was easy, standard, or hard. They instead earn 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter was of extreme difficulty, or if none of the heroes took damage during an encounter of standard or higher difficulty.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if the thing is destroyed or remains in their enemies' possession.

Destroy the Thing!

Combat doesn't always have to be about destroying your enemies. Sometimes it's about destroying their stuff! Burning a pirate captain's vessel, closing a portal to the Abyssal Wasteland before it lets in an army of demons, or shutting down a massive kobold trap made of spinning blades could so hamper the heroes' foes that the battle is no longer worth fighting once the damage is done.

Sometimes a thing in this kind of encounter is actually multiple things, all of which must be destroyed.

The Thing

A typical thing is an object with Stamina equal to the heroes' level times 35. If the characters must destroy multiple things, divide the thing's Stamina between all of them. Most objects have poison and psychic immunity, and the thing might have immunity or weakness to one or more damage types. For instance, a magic statue might have immunity to fire damage and weakness to sonic damage.

Additionally, a thing can have one or more of the following extra defenses:

Hidden: The thing is hidden, requiring one or more successful tests by the heroes to locate it at its location. Alternatively, it might be behind a door or in a sealed vessel that must be opened, or hidden in plain sight among other similar things.

Held: The thing is possessed by an enemy, allowing a weapon or implement the characters seek to destroy to be used against them. A thing can't be both hidden and held.

Sturdy: The thing's Stamina is the heroes' level times 50.

Multiple: There are multiple things, all of which must be destroyed. Divide the thing's Stamina between all the individual things.

Monster Roles and Organization

Encounters built around destroying a thing require beefy creatures to defend the thing-brutes and defenders, as well as squads of minions. It also helps to have a few artillery creatures off in the distance harassing heroes as they attempt to destroy the thing, so that melee heroes have to decide between fulfilling that goal while coming under fire or taking out the ranged attackers first. If the heroes want to use their own ranged abilities to destroy a thing from afar, a sneaky ambusher or two makes a delightful addition to the encounter, hanging back in the shadows waiting to pick opportunistic heroes off.

Map Advice

The map placement of the thing to be destroyed is key, and it should be in a location that is easily protected and difficult for heroes to approach. It can be good to set up one or two hidden entrances to the area holding the thing, or even teleportation platforms or portals, so that monsters can enter the fray once the heroes get close to their target. Otherwise, the same choke points used to defend the object might prevent enemies from reaching the characters as they make quick work of the thing with minimal harassment. Smaller maps can work well for these kinds of encounters, as the heroes' enemies will have an easier time closing in around them.

Difficulty Modifier

If the thing doesn't have any extra defenses (being hidden or held, having extra Stamina, and so forth), the encounter is one difficulty category easier. If the thing has two or more extra defenses, the encounter is one difficulty harder.

Success Condition

The heroes win when they destroy the thing. In a multiple-thing setup, success might involve destroying only a certain number of the things.

Victories

If the thing was destroyed, each hero earns 1 Victory for an easy or standard encounter, or 2 Victories for a hard encounter.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if the thing is not destroyed and remains under their enemies' control.

Save Another

No one earns the mantle of hero without saving a few lives. Sometimes the point of an encounter isn't to kill, but to save as many folks as you can. If the heroes rescue powerful allies from the clutches of their foes during combat, the added strength of those allies might be enough to make the remainder of the encounter trivial. When you and your companions save a griffon from a crew of poachers, the hunters become the... well, you know the rest.

Allies and Potential Allies

Some encounters of this type feature willing allies-creatures able and willing to fight alongside the heroes. Others feature potential allies creatures who can't or won't join the heroes right away, but who might do so later in the battle. In combat, willing allies can be controlled by the heroes (and might use retainer stat blocks), while potential allies are controlled by you.

During an encounter, potential allies must be won over and freed from any captivity before they become allies, requiring a successful hard Presence test made as a maneuver. Potential allies otherwise attempt to flee the encounter on their turns.

Monster Roles and Organization

Controllers and hexers make encounters based around saving others exciting. Their ability to hinder and put the whammy on heroes and bystanders alike greatly increases the challenge of keeping others alive. Likewise, harriers and mounts can chase down people fleeing the encounter, minions can cut off their escape routes, and artillery creatures can target them from afar. If noncombatants are captured at the start of the encounter, brutes make excellent hard-to-kill guardians.

Map Advice

People who need saving by the heroes should be somewhere hard to reach, away from escape routes and protected by choke points that monsters can utilize. Make sure there's more than one route away from the fight, and that those routes are on different sides of the map. That way, freed noncombatants running off in different directions create a challenge for heroes trying to protect everyone at once. A map for an encounter of this type should also be big, since the noncombatants have to flee the area in order for the heroes to succeed. Make it challenging for them!

Difficulty Modifier

For each willing ally the heroes have a chance to save who is their level or higher, add one hero to the party for the purpose of determining the encounter's difficulty.

Success Condition

The heroes win if half or more of all willing allies and potential allies survived the encounter, and if all those creatures have been saved either joining the fight or having retreated off the encounter map.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition was met and the encounter was easy or standard. Each hero earns 2 Victories if the success condition was met and the encounter was hard or extreme, or if all the creatures meant to be saved survived and the encounter is of standard or higher difficulty.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if more than half of the creatures meant to be saved were killed or captured during the encounter.

Escort

Surprising as it may seem, sometimes the fate of the mission doesn't rest on the heroes' shoulders at all! Sometimes it rests on the shoulders of someone standing next to the heroes. The heroes' job is to keep this important person safe as they travel to a specific destination.

Not every escort encounter is on behalf of a wise or mighty ally. Sometimes the heroes are tasked with protecting a helpless or even an actively troublesome creature, such as a hapless noble or a wayward child. They might even have to protect a bulky or inconvenient inanimate object. Whatever the case, the enemies just keep coming until the heroes get their charge to their destination.

Ward

The creature or object to be protected is called the ward. At the start of each combat round, the players decide which hero has responsibility for the ward. The ward moves on that hero's turn and is controlled by the hero's player. Creatures who are wards can take a move action or a maneuver on their turn, but not both. You determine a ward's characteristics and speed, with most humanoid wards having speed 5.

A sturdy ward, such as an active humanoid, typically has Stamina equal to 20 times the heroes' level. A delicate ward, such as an elderly diplomat or an important object, typically has Stamina equal to 10 times the heroes' level.

Destination

Every encounter built around an escort mission has a destination: a place of safety beyond which enemies won't follow. When the encounter begins, the ward's distance from the destination should be at least three times the ward's speed (though they can start closer if difficult terrain or other obstacles complicate the route). The heroes' enemies can be placed anywhere on the encounter map, including between the ward and the destination, but not within 5 squares of the destination.

Reinforcements

At the start of each combat round, any enemies who were killed during the previous round are replaced by a new group of creatures whose total EV is within 5 of the creatures lost. You choose the positions for these new creatures, none of which can start within 5 squares of the ward, the destination, or any hero.

Monster Roles and Organization

Harriers and mounts can catch up with heroes as they attempt to reach the destination, while minions can take up space on the map to become mobile obstacles. When teamed up with support creatures who grant extra movement, harriers and mounts become ever more dangerous. Controllers are an excellent option for placing obstacles in the heroes' way, while hexers might be able to slow or pin down the ward. And an ambusher or two lying in wait on the way to the destination is never a bad choice!

Map Advice

A map for an encounter of this type should be big, with lots of obstructions, cover, and hazards to make the journey interesting. The heroes shouldn't simply need to lead the ward down a road, but should have to climb cliffs, cross water or lava, fight through brambles, or pass through mazes of twisting corridors. If the ward has a damage weakness, you might set up a hazard or two that deals that damage type. If an escort mission takes place indoors, having a few dead ends where the heroes must retrace their route or run into monsters is always a great choice!

Difficulty Modifier

An encounter built around protecting a delicate ward is one difficulty category harder.

Success Condition

The heroes win when the ward reaches their destination.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition is met. They earn 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter's difficulty is extreme, or if the ward and all the heroes reach their destination in 3 rounds or less and the encounter is of standard or higher difficulty.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if the ward is reduced to 0 Stamina or is prevented from reaching their destination.

Hold Them Off

Sometimes the heroes just need to buy time. They might need to battle a conquering tyrant's army to allow innocent villagers time to escape. They might need to hold off wave after wave of zombies while a group of priests completes a ritual to lay the undead to rest for good. To achieve this objective, the heroes need to stay alive and protect a particular position for a number of rounds determined by you.

Defensive Position

Often with the input of the players, you choose a defensive position-an area that must be held and controlled by the heroes. Enemies attempt to get through the defensive position or to reach a certain point in or around it, so that the fewer enemies who do so, the better the heroes' chances of success. The area can be any size, with the defensive position often blocking entry to a vulnerable area the heroes are defending.

A defensive position might grant benefits to the heroes defending it. The approach to the position might be a choke point, involve crossing difficult terrain, or require climbing. Anyone inside the position might have the benefit of high ground against anyone outside it.

If you want to increase the difficulty of the encounter, you might have two or more defensive positions the heroes must defend, such as two openings in a canyon pass that both lead to the same defenseless village.

Encounter Duration

An encounter focused on a defensive position has a fixed duration determined by you-the number of rounds the heroes must defend the area in order to be successful. A typical encounter duration is 3 rounds.

Reinforcements

At the end of each combat round, you add more enemies to the map for the heroes to battle. These reinforcements appear 10 squares or more away from the defensive position. Each new group of enemies should have an EV equal to that of all the enemies who got past the heroes during the previous round, plus the EV of one hero (see Step-by-Step Encounter Building earlier in this section). If you don't spend all the EV for the new group, the remainder can be added to reinforcements in a future round.

Monster Roles and Organization

This type of encounter can be a lot of fun, with creatures of all roles entering the battle in new configurations of reinforcements each combat round to keep heroes on their toes. Use controller creatures to change up terrain and force move the heroes out of position. Ambushers, harriers, and mounts have the best chance of slipping by the heroes, especially if they come organized as minions or a horde. Artillery creatures can harass the heroes from afar, forcing them to leave their defensive position. Leaders and support creatures are great for these encounters, as they grant their allies extra movement and attacks to harass heroes and force them out of position.

To ensure an encounter of this type remains fair for the heroes, you'll want to only occasionally use monsters who can fly, burrow, or teleport.

Map Advice

A good map for this encounter has a defensive position featuring at least two openings, each of which is 3 squares wide or more. The defensive position shouldn't be so wide-open that the heroes can't possibly defend it, but it shouldn't be so small that they can too easily lock it down. The approach to the defensive position should include areas of cover so that monsters aren't just charging up a hill at the heroes. You'll want a map large enough that monsters can't rush the heroes and overwhelm them, but not so large that it takes enemies 3 rounds just to reach the defensive position.

Difficulty Modifier

The difficulty of an encounter built around holding off an enemy is determined by the creatures present for the battle at the start of the first combat round. Don't count reinforcements toward the difficulty. The encounter difficulty is one category harder if the encounter duration is 5 rounds or greater, or if there are three or more defensive positions.

Success Condition

The heroes win if they survive for the encounter duration and allow fewer creatures through or into the defensive position than the number of heroes who started the encounter, including any retainers on the heroes' side.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition is met. They earn 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter's difficulty is extreme, or if the party held off the enemy for an encounter duration of 5 rounds or more and the encounter is of standard or higher difficulty

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if a number of creatures equal to or greater than the number of starting heroes get through the defensive position or into the desired areas in or around it.

Assault the Defenses

The enemy holds a strategically important position and the heroes want it. The encounter ends when the heroes secure the objective defensive location for themselves, even if there are more enemies outside it. Sometimes an encounter with this objective is part of a combined objective, as when heroes must first assault the defenses, then hold that defensive position against counterattack.

Defensive Position

Draw Steel

You choose the defensive position, setting up an area that must be captured by the heroes. The area can be of any size. Not all of the heroes' enemies in the encounter are in the defensive position, with some outside it attempting to stop the characters before they get close.

Often, a defensive position grants benefits to its defenders. The approach to the position might feature a number of choke points, areas of difficult terrain, or sections that require climbing or swimming. Anyone inside the defensive position might have the benefit of high ground against anyone outside it.

Monster Roles and Organization

Defensive positions benefit from having an outside patrol of defenders and brutes protecting the site, and supporting some combination of artillery, controllers, and hexers who hit the heroes hard as they approach. A support creature or a leader can benefit all other enemies, helping them do a better job of keeping the heroes hampered and away.

Map Advice

A good "Assault the Defenses" map shares the same qualities as a good "Hold Them Off" map (above), with the roles of the heroes and their enemies reversed.

Difficulty Modifier

An encounter of this type has a difficulty one category harder if the defensive position grants two or more distinct benefits to its defenders.

Success Condition

The heroes win when one or more heroes and none of their enemies have been in the defensive position for 4 consecutive turns.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition is met, or 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter's difficulty is hard or extreme.

Failure Condition

The heroes fail only if they are unable to achieve the success condition.

Stop the Action

Sometimes combat is complicated by the fact that the heroes need to stop the villainous actions of their foes. It's not enough to simply defeat the warriors in a cult. The heroes must also stop the zealots' devil-summoning ritual! Or it might be that the heroes need to interrupt a wedding and make sure an evil mage doesn't marry the heir to the throne. Despite combat, the mage forces the ceremony to continue! Objectives in this category have a timer associated with them. If the heroes don't achieve the objective in a certain number of rounds, the conditions of the battle could well change. For instance, if the cultists summon a devil high judge, defeating the devil suddenly becomes the heroes' new objective!

Encounter Duration

An encounter focused on stopping others' actions has a fixed duration determined by you-the number of rounds before the villains complete their plans. A typical encounter duration is 3 rounds, but events might change the encounter duration. For example, a character might succeed on a hard Reason test to dispute a wedding's legality and increase the encounter duration by 1, while failing to stop zealots from sacrificing an innocent creature as part of their ritual might decrease the duration by 1.

Stopping the Action

The enemies' evil plans have certain requirements, and if those requirements aren't met, the action is stopped and the heroes are victorious. For instance, to complete a ritual, one or more zealot priests might be required to spend a main action each combat round to continue the ritual. A wedding or other official ceremony can't be completed if a participant or officiant is killed or captured.

Failure Consequences

If the enemies' plans succeed, additional consequences might unfold within the encounter. For instance, if zealots summon a demon, or if a newly crowned evil mage uses their royal authority to summon guards, the heroes could face extra enemies. These potential reinforcements aren't counted toward the encounter's difficulty, since they appear only once the heroes have failed the encounter. This is an entirely new battle now!

Monster Roles and Organization

The roles that best fit this type of encounter depend on the action the heroes are trying to stop. But if them doing so involves destroying, capturing, or reaching one or more creatures or objects, then brutes and defenders make an excellent choice for keeping the characters away. Artillery and harriers also make good choices for being able to target heroes no matter where they move on the map.

Map Advice

An ideal map for this type of encounter depends on the action the heroes are trying to stop, but it shouldn't be easy for them to reach the places they need to go in order to complete that objective. Hazardous terrain, walls, and other forms of cover mean that heroes can't just waltz up to creatures or objects that are part of the action to be stopped and neutralize them.

Difficulty Modifier

The difficulty of this type of encounter is one category harder if the encounter duration is 2 rounds or less, and one category easier if the action can be stopped by killing or otherwise neutralizing any one creature.

Success Condition

The heroes win if they stop the action before the encounter duration is up.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition is met. They earn 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter's difficulty is extreme, or if the heroes stop the action before the last round of the encounter duration and the encounter is of standard or higher difficulty.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories if they fail to stop the action before the end of the encounter duration. They might earn Victories from any new encounters that occur because of a failure.

Under Pressure

If the heroes have been saving the day faster than you expected, it might be time to see how fast they truly are! Encounters built around the objective of stopping an action or completing an action work well in tandem with the other objectives in this section. The heroes might need to diminish enemy numbers or defeat a specific foe within 2 rounds or lose their opportunity to infiltrate the palace. Maybe an escort mission needs to reach the destination within 3 rounds to contain a devastating explosion! See Combined Objectives for more details.

Complete the Action

This encounter objective sees the characters charged with initiating an event, performing a ritual, and so forth. For instance, if the heroes are attempting to launch an airship while repelling a time raider boarding party, the encounter could be over the moment the heroes manage to activate the vessel and take off with just a few time raiders actually aboard.

Encounter Duration

An encounter focused on completing a specific action has a fixed duration determined by you-the number of rounds within which the heroes must complete their plans. A typical encounter duration is 3 rounds.

Tasks and Failures

In each combat round, half or more of the heroes must use a maneuver to perform a task that advances their plans. You decide what tasks are available and where they must be performed. For instance, to launch an airship, one hero might have to cast off an anchor on deck while another unfurls a sail at the top of a mast. The list of available tasks can change each turn, as you determine. For more difficult encounters, performing a task might require a successful test.

At the end of any combat round in which the heroes have failed to perform the required number of tasks, the party accumulates one failure.

Monster Roles and Organization

Since stopping and knocking around heroes is the name of their game, controllers and hexers make excellent choices to prevent characters from completing an action, especially when backed up and bolstered by support creatures. You can also put brutes in the way of the heroes and pepper in ambushers who can harass them and then dance away.

Map Advice

The best map for this type of encounter depends on the action the heroes are trying to complete. The places they need to reach to perform tasks shouldn't be right next to each other, and moving through the area should be relatively complicated.

Difficulty Modifier

The difficulty of this type of encounter is one category harder if the encounter duration is 5 or more, or if completing tasks requires a successful test. It is one category easier if the encounter duration is 2 or less.

Success Condition

The heroes win if they reach the end of the encounter duration with 1 or no failures.

Victories

Each hero earns 1 Victory if the success condition is met. They earn 2 Victories if the success condition is met and the encounter's difficulty is extreme, or if they reach the end of the encounter duration with zero failures and the encounter is of standard or higher difficulty.

Failure Condition

The heroes earn no Victories and can't complete the action if they accumulate 2 or more failures during the encounter duration.

Combined Objectives

Some encounters have multiple objectives that must all be accomplished. For instance, the heroes might need to break down prison gates (a "Destroy the Thing" encounter) and then battle the guards while prisoners escape (a "Hold Them Off" encounter). The prisoners can't escape while the gates stand, and breaking the gates is useless if the prisoners don't escape, so it's all or nothing! To win the encounter, the heroes must meet the success conditions for each of the encounter's combined objectives. And if they succeed, each hero earns Victories as appropriate for each encounter.

Alternative Objectives

Many encounters can be completed successfully in several ways. If the heroes are fighting an evil emperor channeling the power of a magic crown, they might win by killing or capturing the emperor ("Defeat a Specific Foe"), breaking or stealing the crown ("Destroy the Thing" or "Get the Thing"), or even by negotiating a detente with the emperor's forces.

If an encounter has multiple alternative objectives, you reward the heroes for the objective they completed the most successfully. For instance, if the heroes steal the emperor's crown, it doesn't matter that they didn't meet the success conditions for the other objectives-they still achieve success.

Changing Objectives

The heroes might start an encounter with one objective, only to have you change things up with an unexpected shot of dramatic tension. For instance, the characters are battling it out with a demon lord to end that creature's reign of terror-a "Defeat a Specific Foe" objective. Then they suddenly notice the demon's cultists preparing to sacrifice a group of innocent noncombatants, changing the objective to "Save Another." When an objective shifts, make sure the players understand there's now something else at stake. As long as the innocents are saved, it no longer matters if the demon lord lives.

Changing or Adding Objectives

If you find that the heroes are having an exceptionally easy time taking on an encounter, you can always have a dramatic twist in the middle of the battle that leads to an additional objective and changes their current goal. Don't have this kind of surprise in every battle, but much like using reinforcements, changing or adding objectives is a tactic you can lean on when an encounter you meant to be hard turns out to be trivial.

Running Encounters

Once you've built a combat encounter, it's time to run it! Keeping the following tips in mind can help make your encounters fun and dynamic.

Use Stat Blocks as Written

Monster stat blocks in Draw Steel are designed to be effective. Most of the time, if you use the main actions and maneuvers in a creature's stat block, that creature will do what you need them to do in a fight.

Remember Default Maneuvers

Non-minion creatures can use a main action AND a maneuver on their turn, while minions can choose between one or the other. If a creature doesn't have a maneuver in their stat block, remember that they can always use the Grab, Hide, or Knockback maneuvers (see Chapter 10: Combat in Draw Steel: Heroes), just like the heroes can!

Keep Creatures Moving

If you want a dynamic combat, trust that the heroes will move in response to the monsters moving. Move your creatures to let them take advantage of flanking, get out of range of the heroes' abilities, and focus on vulnerable targets.

Spread the Damage Around

In an encounter with a lot of creatures, it's tempting to focus fire on a single hero. This can be a good tactical move, but it's not always fun for the players. Many heroes have triggered actions they can use when they take damage, so spreading the damage around can give those heroes a chance to do a cool thing off turn.

Modify Stamina As You See Fit

Do you really want that foe to live for one more round? Give them a little extra Stamina! Is combat starting to drag? Look at that, every creature you control now has just 1 Stamina remaining. Of all the numbers in a monster's stat block, Stamina is the one you can freely adjust to serve the needs of the encounter.

Utilize Reinforcements

It can be tough to manage a lot of creatures at once in combat, but bringing in new waves of creatures allows you to use a lot of different stat blocks in an encounter without getting overwhelmed by trying to run all of them at once. Reinforcements can also make an encounter that initially seems like a cakewalk suddenly feel much more deadly as the stakes are raised!

Play Nice-Even If You Don't Play Fair

It might be tempting to keep a flying monster far out of reach of the heroes, or popping that third villain action at the start of combat, or causing rocks to fall from the sky every turn. But the less the heroes can do about any specific situation, the less involved your players will feel in the game. Use any tricks you can think of to make combat exciting and challenge the players, but make sure that challenges can always be overcome.

Choose Your Ending

You can end combat with a dramatic finish, which lets the heroes get in on the narrative fun, or an event ending. See Chapter 10: Combat in Draw Steel: Heroes for more information.

Allow Heroes to Flee

If the heroes decide to abandon a fight they can't win, you can have them escape using a montage test, or simply describe them running away so as to live to fight another day. Do whatever you think will be the most fun for the players after a defeat.

Optional Rule: Last-Stand Stamina

For players who like to have their characters duke it out to the bitter end rather than ending combat early, this optional rule can help you bring things to a quicker conclusion. When it's clear that the heroes are going to win a battle, their enemies are overcome with fear, despair, and panic. In this demoralized state, each enemy's Stamina drops to 1, and each minion squad's Stamina pool is now equal to the number of minions in the squad. The heroes can then make short work of any remaining foes, getting the satisfaction of total annihilation via dice rolls.

Reskinning Monsters

Even with a book chock full of monsters, you're likely to find yourself wishing you had stat blocks for a specific kind of creature not presented in this book or another monster supplement. You might need snake people, fish people, or a 50-story-tall crab. The good news is that you can modify any of the stat blocks in this book to make new creatures with just a little work!

Use the following tips for reskinning monsters for your game:

• Description: You can change any creature's description and use their stat block as-is to create something new. If you want a weretiger instead of a werewolf, odds are that simply describing the werewolf as a tiger-humanoid hybrid and mentally swapping the word "wolf" with "tiger" when you play will get you what you need without changing anything else. Whenever you find an existing creature whose stats are already quite close to what you want, this process is especially easy.
• Movement and Environment: Giving a creature the ability to climb or swim at full speed while moving doesn't change their level or challenge. Neither does giving them an aquatic origin or the ability to breathe underwater. You can make these sorts of changes freely to create new mountainous or aquatic variants of different stat blocks, turning demonic gnolls into rampaging fishfolk or cavern-climbing horrors with ease!
• Damage Types: You can change damage types for abilities, immunities, and weaknesses easily. Transforming an elemental crux of fire into a crux of acid can be done by swapping all references to fire damage in the stat block to acid damage.
• Modifiable Stat Blocks: The stat blocks in the Animals and Rivals sections of this book are meant to be modified, and those sections feature rules for creating new animal and humanoid stat blocks. You can use these stat blocks to create nearly any creature who falls into either of those categories, including many creatures common to fantasy.

Adjusting Monster Levels

Each monster in this book was created with the help of handcrafted tables of numbers and the extensive monster-making rules developed for Draw Steel. As such, stat blocks aren't intended to be modified or adjusted (with the exception of animals and rivals, as noted above). Your best bet for adjusting any given monster is to find another monster of the level, organization, and role you're looking for, and reskinning that monster while using their statistics.

That said, this section provides formulas you can use to get close to the appropriate EV for a monster of a level you want to create if no stat block feels suitable for reskinning, or if you want a sense of how Draw Steel monsters work.

Role, Organization, and Damage Modifier

The following two tables detail how a monster's role and organization affects the numbers in their stat block. These modifiers can be plugged into formulas presented below, along with a monster's expected level.

Role and Damage Modifier Table

Role/Organization	Role Modifier	Damage Modifier
Ambusher	+20	+1
Artillery	+10	+1
Brute	+30	+1
Controller	+10	+0
Defender	+30	+0
Harrier	+20	+0
Hexer	+10	+0
Mount	+20	+0
Support	+20	+0
Elite*	+0	+1
Leader	+30	+1
Solo	+30	+2

*Elite can be used in conjunction with a role that features a +1 damage modifier, for a total damage modifier of +2.

Organization Modifier Table

Organization	Organization Modifier
Minion (Stamina only)	x 0.125
Minion	x 0.5
Horde	x 0.5
Platoon	x 1
Leader	x 2
Elite	x 2
Solo (Stamina only)	x 5
Solo	x 6

Encounter Value and Stamina

A monster's EV is calculated using the following equation. (The EV for minions represents four minions together.) Round up results to the nearest whole number.

((2 x Level) + 4) x Organization Modifier

Monster Stamina can be approximated using the following equation. Round up results to the nearest whole number.

((10 x Level) + Role Modifier) x Organization Modifier

If you want your non-minion monster to have additional Stamina, you can add (3 x Level) + 3 to their total.

Damage and Power Roll Tiers

The baseline damage dealt by a monster's abilities can be approximated using the following equation. Round up all results to the nearest whole number.

(4 + Level + Damage Modifier) x Tier Modifier

For horde and minion monsters, divide this result by 2.

If the ability is a strike, add the monster's highest characteristic to the total.

The tier modifier uses a different value for each power roll tier.

Tier 1 = 0.6
Tier 2 = 1.1
Tier 3 = 1.4

At higher levels, these values can lead to damage numbers a few points higher than those seen in this book.

Characteristics and Abilities

Additional rules cover a monster's characteristics and additional modifications to their abilities:

• A monster's highest characteristic and power roll bonus is equal to 1 + their echelon. For example, a level 5 goblin (2nd echelon) has a +3 for their highest characteristic.
• A monster who uses potencies in their abilities bases those potencies on their highest characteristic, minus 1 for each tier below tier 3. With a +3 characteristic for our level 5 goblin, their signature ability uses potency language of M < 1 at tier 1, M < 2 at tier 2, and M < 3 at tier 3.
• If a monster is a leader or a solo, increase their highest characteristic and power roll by 1 (to a maximum of +5), and increase their potency values at all tiers by 1 (to a maximum of 6).
• A monster's free strike damage is equal to the damage calculated for a tier 1 outcome for an ability.
• Monster abilities normally target one creature or object. Elite, leader, and solo monsters have abilities that typically target two creatures or objects.
• If you want a monster's ability to target one additional target over what's expected, multiply the damage at all tiers by 0.8. If an ability targets two or more additional targets, multiply the damage by 0.5. If an ability targets one fewer target than expected, multiply the damage by 1.2.
• Plenty more considerations regarding a monster's features and abilities go into creating a new monster. More robust guidance for making new monsters and abilities will appear in the future.