Reading through the Draw Steel rules has me pumped to both play and create for this game. So many ideas are whirling around in my head! It seems like it’s going to be relatively easy for people to make their own content for Draw Steel, which is exciting.   

For now, I’m going to direct my early homebrew thoughts here and list out what I’ll likely be homebrewing for the Skies of Mor-ladron (SoM) based on the playtest packet. However, since this is the first packet, things in Draw Steel will probably change. I might need to do more or less homebrewing once the game is in its final form. Let's start with character creation. 

Ancestries 

I still need to come up with my final list of ancestries for SoM, but looking at the Draw Steel ancestries is inspiring. As mentioned in a previous post, their humans are interesting and have a strong tie to the supernatural, which I want to figure out how to incorporate into my games. 

I like the elf and dwarf ancestries overall, so I will probably keep them. I might tweak them and switch out an ability here or there. In Draw Steel, both the high and wode elves have an ability tied to longevity. However, my elves in SoM are not super long-lived (an average lifespan is 120 years compared to 80 for humans), so I will trade that out for something else if I use both elf ancestries. 

The revenant is pretty darn close to what I want for an undead ancestry, but I’m not sure about the driving vengeance ability. Driving vengeance allows an undead to mark and keep track of and/or damage a creature. The ability doesn’t necessarily fit well with my concept of that ancestry, so I might replace that or make it one of a few choices. 

As for entirely new ancestries to homebrew, I am working on fungorians and goblins for SoM, and maybe some others. Most ancestries have two or three benefits, so they shouldn't be hard to create. Making sure they are balanced might be another issue, as I have yet to fully grasp how Draw Steel ranks the different types of benefits in terms of power. 

Careers

In the playtest, careers have description text and come with inciting incidents. These incidents are primarily narrative, which should make it simple to develop more and tie additional careers to SoM. In some instances, I might be able to tweak existing incidents to make them more specific to SoM. The packet only includes a handful of careers, so I won’t know what’s missing until we see more. 

Careers also provide skills and possibly a language, project points (for research and crafting), renown, and a title. I plan to create my own languages and titles to develop the world of SoM further and give my players options. Career titles mostly give you a bonus to a roll tied to that career. For example, the artisan title allows you to reroll a test if it uses a skill you have from the crafting skill group. So, they seem relatively easy to make. 

I don’t have too many ideas yet for homebrew careers, but an airship sailor is high on my list. I might also need to add a delver (the name for the people who explore the ruins for knowledge and treasure in the Shattered Islets). 

Classes 

I hope I don’t need to homebrew any classes immediately; if I do, that will be one of the last things I work on, as it will probably be the most difficult to balance. Making a class seems simple enough (in theory): each class needs a heroic resource and evocative abilities. I can make that happen, but I don’t want to mess around with new classes until I have to. 

The only idea I have at the moment is to create something for the storm scarred, although the elementalist might be close to what I need. We don’t have the water or air elements yet, so we’ll have to see what they give us. I might just need to make my own subclass, the storm element, and that might work well. 

I imagine putting some restrictions on the elementalist for SoM. Letting players create any combination of elements might not jive with my vision of how magic works in my world. So, I would create in-world magical titles or groups that reference the elementalist class. Say a player wants to play a wode protector—if they pick the green as their specialization, then they can use any other elemental abilities except void, since that doesn't have a nature feel. Someone who wants to play a storm scarred can only use air and water elements. Restrictions like that could be fun if the roles are tied into the world and still seem awesome. I’ll wait until we see more of the elementalist to make that choice. 

At the moment, I can’t think of too many other homebrew classes or subclasses I want to make for SoM. There may be slight theming changes to tie things into the world, which I’ll explore as we go. 

Kits

Kits are flavorful and expansive. I like what we have so far, and I plan to make some firearms kits. A pirate kit would include a pistol and a light weapon, along with either light or medium armor. I want to evoke a gunslinger type that just focuses on pistols. 

I’m also imagining a heavy armor version. Heavily armored cavalry with firearms could be fun to emulate. I also need a musket kit. I want to max out at four firearm kits, as so far, there are only three kits that include a bow. I want to keep the choices between bows and firearms pretty even or have fewer options with firearms. I don't want to outshine the bow choices with firearms, as both have a place in this world. 

Complications

Complications are an exciting feature of character creation. They are optional and include a benefit and a drawback. Some of the complications are minor, and some are pretty significant, but the benefits and the drawbacks always balance each other out. I plan to steal and tweak some of Draw Steel’s complications for SoM, and I’ll make plenty of my own that tie into my lore and world. 

Getting lost in a rift and gaining powers and a curse from it could be fun to play with. Or maybe your character flew too high or fell from their ship into the world below and somehow returned. I’ve already got lots of cool ideas to use. 

Subsystems 

We don't have all of the subsystems for Draw Steel, but I’m already thinking through a few changes I might make to those we do have. 

The first is wealth. Draw Steel has a simple system: you can afford x at level y. I like the idea of something more abstract than counting coin, but something in between would work well for my group. My first SoM player groups were pirates—I need a way to make finding treasure worthwhile and exciting. 

The renown system also enables you to attract followers. Originally, I considered connecting renown with hiring a ship’s crew, but players don’t get nearly enough followers to make that work. A large ship might need 100 or more crew members, whereas the max renown per hero is 12 and lets you bring on four followers each (at least in this packet). 

I’m considering an add-on to renown that affects how many crew members you can attract to sail your ship. The players would need money and renown to upgrade to larger or more powerful ships, which I think makes sense and fits in with the style of play I’m imagining for my groups.

I will probably also need to come up with shipbuilding rules, upgrades for ships, and ship combat. Not every group will use these rules, but ships are a big enough part of the world of SoM that they need to be there.

What’s Next

I look forward to getting further into homebrewing and sharing what I come up with! I probably won’t start homebrewing in earnest until I start playing, which should be in about a week. Next, we will get back into the lore of the world of Skies of Mor-ladron.