Down But Not Out: A Second Chance to Be a Hero

Down But Not Out: A Second Chance to Be a Hero

History is written by the victors--and unfortunately, you lost. Reclaim your place as a hero and finish what you started!

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

2

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Beginner

AGE

18+
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3 NEEDED TO START
$30.00

/ Session

Details

Weekly / Friday - 4:00 PM UTC

Session Duration / 3–3.5 hours

0 / 5 Seats Filled

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This game will begin once 3 players have joined
About the adventure

This'll be a homebrew campaign of Draw Steel with a "getting the band back together" theme. Our player characters will be those who failed to stop the assassination of Good King Omund 20 years ago, or their children, inheritors, spiritual successors, etc. You've lost your edge over the two decades (or maybe your mentor didn't quite finish your training) but your potential is still great. We'll be experimenting with accelerated leveling for this adventure, 12 victories per level rather than 16. Thematically, complications like Artifact Bonded (a hero of old sealed a legendary item into you), Bereaved, Chosen One, Cursed Weapon, Dragon Dreams, Exile, Famous Relative, Fiery Ideal, Following in the Footsteps, Getting Too Old for This, Guilty Conscience, Hunted, Outlaw, Refugee, Rival, Secret Identity, Shared Spirit (the spirit of a fallen hero), Shattered Legacy, Strange Inheritance, Stripped of Rank, War Dog Collar, Ward, and Wrongful Imprisonment. We'll do some backstory work starting off to start tying our characters both to some villains and to one another. Were you one of King Omund's bodyguards? The child of one of his knights? Just a guy who had a legendary weapon thrust upon them? We'll meet a funeral of a shared acquaintance/mentor/hero and things will kick off from there! Expect some cinematic battles, subterfuge, and big despicable villains. During each of our backstories our heroes will identify one nemesis who will plague you throughout the adventure! This may be one of the foul Draconians, the Dragon Knights who defected to support Ajax; a colleague who betrayed you; a personal hero who lets you down; the enemy lieutenant who struck down your beloved mentor/parent/lover. These villains will form the core of a few of our arcs.

Game style

Combat Heavy

Tactical / Crunchy

Game themes

Meet the Game Master

5.0

(30)

TOP GM
Teacher/Educator
Game Designer

4 years on StartPlaying

586 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Sets the Mood, Teacher

About me

I'm Ryan and I love running Pathfinder 2e! I came on over from DnD 5th edition and have been running 1 to 4 games a week for about 4 years now. My style tends towards cinematic, fast-paced combat with a lot of humor. I love doing ridiculous voices for my NPCs and letting players get away "rule of cool" shenanigans. I've got an active Discord community posting about Pathfinder, video games and the like. Come on by and join a table! All tables are of course queer-friendly and we have a friendly Discord community for folks trying to wrap their heads around Pathfinder 2e.

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Character creation

Creating your character

We'll start at second level with an echelon trinket. Characters can be made on Forge Steel if you like, but we'll all make them together in the Codex. A big part of character creation will be an at-table discussion of existing relationships to really try to stoke some drama. All character classes are appropriate, though currently Codex only supports the Beastheart through first level and the Summoner through first echelon (this will change with time!)

What to expect

Preparing for the session

You'll need a Discord account (it's free!), the Draw Steel Codex on Steam (included with purchase of the Heroes book or its own purchase), a Steam account (also free). You will need a decent microphone for voice chat as well!

What Ryan brings to the table

I provide ambient exploration and combat music and sometimes ambient effects (these are mutable on the Discord server side if it's not your cup of tea). My style focuses on pushing the pace forward, bombastic combat, and using the Codex to add elevation, scene changes, and other dynamic elements to our battlemaps. I'm really hoping in this campaign to dig into some roleplaying opportunities as well by doing some work up front to get players to have characters with connections in the world.

Homebrew rules

We'll play it mostly straight outside of the 12 XP per level accelerated progression. Characters will start with a first echelon trinket. As mentioned above, thematically relevant complications are encouraged.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Platforms used
Safety

How Ryan creates a safe table

Session 0 will handle some basic lines and veils as discussed in the document. I'll send out my expectations and if I receive any Lines and Veils documents that add expectations or set up a new boundary, I'll make sure to mention it and upload an updated document. I will have Codex's X Card module installed as well.

Content warnings

PTSD
Violence
Devils / Demons / Fiends
Hangings
Character Death
Cults
Death
Murder
Nightmares about Traumatic Events

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions