Version 0.0.869

Encounter of the Week Playtest

Encounter of the Week is a new way to play Draw Steel: no Director required . Each week there's a new encounter. Form a party of 4 to 6 heroes with friends, with whoever's in town, or control them all yourself. The Codex runs everything a Director would: the story, montages, monsters, setup, initiative, victory and defeat.

How to join: On the devbeta branch, open Settings > General and tick Encounter of the Week Beta . An Encounter of the Week link then appears on the title screen.

Encounter of the Week is an experiment, and it's in playtest. Things will break. Report bugs with Feedback in the menus, and come talk to us about it on the DMHub Discord: https://discord.gg/q7kg5AVSfj

The Tabletop

The Codex's main view is now a table . Maps live in windows on it, which you can move, resize, maximize, minimize and close, alongside your journals, PDFs and scenes.

• Map windows: Click a map in the Maps panel to open it in the focused window, or right-click it for Open in New Map Window. The window you're working in is live. The others keep a full-colour picture of their map, and clicking one makes it live. Up to 3 maps stay ready in the background, so switching between windows is quick.
• Combat belongs to its map: The round, initiative and combat banner sit in the map's window. Background windows and minimized buttons show a combat badge.
• Maximize: A maximized map keeps the same view, scaled to the window. Its name, position and round move to a strip under the title bar. When the Director maximizes a map, it's maximized for every player who can see it until the Director restores it.
• Minimize to the table: A minimized map, scene, journal or PDF becomes a button on the table. Drag it anywhere, or onto an icon rail to dock it. Hover it for a preview.
• Sharing: Every map and card has a share button. The Director shares something and it appears on every player's table, where the Director put it. Players can keep it, move it or close it. A map's share button sets who can view it, player by player. A player who closed a shared window gets it back the next time the Director shares it.
• Pings: A ping button beside the share button rings the window for everyone.
• Find your windows: The Windows menu in the title bar lists everything on your table, and Ctrl+Tab switches between maps, scenes and journals.
• The map rail: Map tools sit on a rail inside the live map window: tools on the left, map buttons on the right.
• Right-click the table to Paste, Add Character, or change the table's background. There are new table surfaces to choose from.
• Drag creatures onto map windows: Drop a bestiary monster, hero or card onto any map window to place it.
• Map and scene cards show their picture filling the card, with the name underneath.
• The icon rails and their panels stay above map and scene windows. Your rail layout is remembered.

The Director's Screen

The Director now has a Director's Screen : a private band down the right-hand side of the table. It slides open and shut, and snaps shut near the edge. Anything you keep behind it stays private: nothing there is shared until you press its share button. Use it to stage maps, scenes, journals and creatures before the reveal. Items stick where you put them, and maps on it get map cards.

Scenes

• The Scenes panel keeps your scenes: pictures and videos you show the table.
• Show it to whom you choose: A scene can be hidden, shown to players, or shown to everyone. A shared scene is live for everyone.
• Creature cards in scenes: Put creature cards in a scene to introduce an NPC or a monster.
• Above UI: A scene can sit above the interface (off by default).

Drag and Drop

• Drop files from your computer: Drag images, videos, PDFs, Markdown and text files in from Explorer or Finder. Drop them on the table, in chat, in a journal, on a token's avatar or on a map object.
• Drop an image or video on the table and the Codex asks whether to add it as a map, a scene or a table item.
• Chat links: Drag maps, scenes, journal entries and characters into chat to post a link.
• Journal drops: Drag shareable items into journal documents, and drag their cards to reorder them.
• Document import: Drop a PDF, Markdown, text or zip file on the journal to import it.
• Encounters: Drag map monsters onto the encounter builder or the Encounters list.

Maps

• Automatic grid detection: When you add an image as a map, the Codex finds the grid drawn on it, square or hex, and offers it in one click. Click Accept, or Set Grid by Hand, which now offers Squares, Flat Top or Pointy Top. When you drop an image on the table, a found grid makes Map the suggestion.
• World maps: Map import asks whether a map is a Battlemap or a World Map. Hex maps start as World Maps. A World Map has its own scale, and the ruler measures in it.
• Hex measuring: The measuring tool snaps to hex cells and draws hex circles and cones. Hex maps say "Hexes".
• Water: Maps have a water level, in Map Settings > Water. Deep water is swum through: creatures float on the surface or dive to the bottom. Shallow water is difficult terrain. The level can be limited to a zone, and the surface is shaded by depth. The Rising Waters encounter rule is built on it.
• Map thumbnails: Maps take a thumbnail of themselves, shown in the Maps panel and on map cards.
• Map packs: Map pack maps come with walls and elevation already marked up.
• Map edges follow raised ground, so tokens and terrain on the edge tiles of a map with height are no longer cut off.
• Teleporting needs line of effect to the destination. The teleport arrow turns red where it loses line of effect.
• Doors in see-through walls no longer block vision and light.
• Dragging a large creature is much smoother.

Encounters & Delves

• Delves: The delve encounters from the Draw Steel encounters book are in the Codex: 58 encounters, in their own Delves section of the Encounters list, with 31 new monsters in the bestiary.
• Encounter maps: An encounter can have its own map. Pick one in the encounter builder, create one, or drop one in. The map picker opens with the current map first.
• Encounter prep: Start an encounter and drag its monsters onto the board. A prep bar balances the encounter, adds all the heroes, and starts combat with Draw Steel!
• Regions and start zones: An encounter can have a region, and the map outside it is dimmed. A hero start zone shows where the heroes begin.
• On the Map: When the encounter's map is open, the encounter builder lists monsters on the map that aren't in the encounter yet. Add a group or all of them, and they stay where they are.
• The party: The encounter's party size is worked out from the player party, and you can override it.
• Dropping monsters into an encounter splits them into groups by shared initiative.

Combat & Rules

• Hidden Creatures are Invisible: A new rules setting. Hidden creatures fade from view for the players they're hidden from, and come back when they're revealed. You can't hover or click a creature that's hidden from you.
• Automatic Rule Adjudication: A new setting that lets the Codex make rules calls itself instead of prompting.
• Power roll choices: A tier that offers a choice, such as "cold, fire, or sonic damage", lets you choose per target.
• Resistance rolls use the same roller as power rolls, with a compact summary. Resistance rolls and tests made by several creatures gather on one roll board.
• Tests: A test that names no skill lets the roller decide whether they're skilled. The Director's Request Roll shows the roller's test card.
• Strict rules: Triggered abilities can't be fired by hand, and flyers can Drop to Ground.
• Critical hits: A natural 19 or 20 only grants an extra action when the ability is a main action.
• Bleeding happens once per action. A Recovery on death heals before Hero Death removes the hero.
• Turn Rewind locks while the Monster AI is taking its turn.
• Proximity targeting checks range and line of effect for each target. Wall abilities let you confirm before every wall is placed.
• Shared ability cards follow along when another ability takes over, and everyone watching sees the roll total.
• Cancelling a targeting prompt no longer leaves the ability stuck. Choosing minion deaths is paused while a trigger is pending.
• Character panel: Growing resources tables all show. A new Companion Abilities section. A Free Strike tooltip.
• For creators: A new Destroyed trigger for objects, the Exposed To Sky keyword, a targeting origin for invoked abilities, ability info and ItemCount in GoblinScript, and new Add modes for Modify Abilities.

Classes, Ancestries & Items

• Polder Shadowmeld is fully automated. It lasts until the end of the encounter and hides you where it can. Creatures in front of your wall can still target you, and area abilities skip you unless they search for hidden creatures. A new maneuver exits Shadowmeld.
• Summoner: Circle of Storms Elemental Affinity is better automated. Leader Formation can no longer redirect damage to any creature. Ravenous Horde minions join initiative. Sacrifice Minion targets the right creatures. Summoned creatures know who summoned them, and minion summoning follows the strict rules.
• Elementalist:Wall of Fire reworked: it's Persistent, damages per square, and ends cleanly. Damage from auras is now credited to the caster.
• Tactician:Improved Field Arsenal and Master of Arms apply automatically to your kit's signature abilities.
• Shadow: The Arcane Archer's Exploding Arrow measures its second target from the first target.
• Troubadour: The Drama for a hero dying is gained automatically, instead of a prompt that expired.
• Talent: Chronokinetic Knockback is labelled correctly. The Ratcatcher title was reworked.
• Fury:To the Uttermost End's text no longer breaks mid-sentence.
• Items:Black Ash Dart is used up when you use it. The Healing Potion Recipe has been added. Revenger's Wrap is now Gold (fully automated). The Snare Bow was reworked.
• Hero modules: The Library shows the PDFs from hero modules you own.

Monsters

• Minotaur and Minotaur Sunderer: New portrait. Bull Rush only targets allied minotaurs acting this turn. The Sunderer's Spiked Maul grabs, and Disemboweling Horns needs a target it has grabbed and adds its 1d6 bleeding.
• Death Cultist:Rise, My Minions only raises minions who died during this encounter.
• Rivals: The Malice feature Check Out Our Loot now reads 3 Cube, not 3 Edge.
• Angulotl Pollywog: Its remove-creature ability is no longer a signature ability.

Respite & Downtime

• The party's projects at a glance: When no Respite is active, the Respite window shows every player's unfinished downtime projects, shared or not.
• Roll on anyone's project: During a Respite with Downtime rolls on, you can roll on any player's active project.
• See what everyone is doing: During a Respite, the window shows the whole party's downtime activities as they happen.
• Start projects from the Respite: Heroes can start projects of the preset types right from the Respite window.
• A crafting project gives its item exactly once, even when its owner is on another map when it finishes.
• Deleting a roll refunds whoever paid for it, including on shared projects.
• Changing a project's goal updates its status. Deleting a project now asks first.
• The controls that move progress follow the Players Manage Downtime Projects setting, and update as soon as it changes.
• Phasing II can be crafted. Retainers no longer appear in follower rolls. Opening a hero's Downtime tab no longer saves the sheet.

Interface & Other Fixes

• Heroes popout: Redesigned with a status dot and ping for each person. The invite code is a chip you can copy, and a local game has a Put game online button.
• Audio popover: Redesigned to match the Heroes popout.
• Discord: Your Discord status now uses Discord's new SDK, and friends can Ask to Join your game from Discord.
• Modules: You can remove a module even if you aren't on its latest release.
• Bug reports: The Discord contact checkbox is gone. To get a reply, find us on our Discord server.
• Fixed an error at startup when a module update arrived while the Codex was loading.
• The Codex no longer stays running in the background after you quit, which could get in the way of updates.
• A stalled download no longer hangs loading. Connections that stall are now detected and reconnected.
• Pinned and open windows come back when you enter a game from the title screen.
• Popout avatars uploaded without transparency are saved as regular avatars.