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APPRENTICES: HEROIC RETAINERS FOR DRAW STEEL's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Usability | #2 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Enjoyment | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #16 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Theme | #30 | 2.810 | 2.810 |
| Creativity | #33 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Obligatory: the art here rocks!
I absolutely love the design for these retainers - it's simple (/complimentary), easy-to-read and parse, and feels useful and actionable. If my party ever got into the situation of taking on apprentices, I would absolutely deploy these retainers.
The only thing I would note: it would be useful to have a page number/reference for the Disciple's Hurl Magic ability.
Awesome job!
I appreciate the rating and review! Would love to hear how it goes if they end up taking one.
If I end up still referencing Hurl Elements in the expanded version I'll make a note of your suggestion. Thanks!
The way you grouped the classes into apprentice types was neat. I might use this for a 2 person party to balance things out a bit.
Wow. I love this. In my home game my players have a little radenwight who they have decided to mentor, so this is very timely. Some of my favorites: revengeance, smoke bomb, set em up, and mind punch (clever!)
Well done!
Thanks, I appreciate the review! Would love to hear how things turn out for your hero's radenwight apprentice.
Everyone has already said all the things I was going to say about the mechanics here, so I'll just say: I echo all of those notes, I love the concept, and the art is SO CUTE. I am having massive cuteness aggression over it and that's not even something that normally happens to me. I want stories about Gwillyv and her apprentice here. So good!
Thank you! The artist has been very flattered to hear all the praise. I'd initially asked them to draw a "level 1 human or polder rogue" for the apprentice, but I'm glad they told me that was a horrible idea and drew someone entirely different.
Get Away from Them has a target of Self and then you push the target 5?
Why is the Avenger and Scout triggered limited but the others' aren't?
You should just say, Automatic Tier 3 Outcome.
The Scout feels much more Shadow than Tactician while the others feel much more balanced between the two.
Too bad the Troub didn't get any. :P
But It's very flavorful and cool. I might steal this for my next follower.
A handful of answers for ya!
Glad you enjoy this! Appreciate the feedback.
4. This could be a definite avenue for collaboration. For example, when I have my class properly close to v1, I might want you to contribute your style. ;)
The mechanics do a good job reflecting the apprentice as explicitly emulating the hero, while maintaining unique value. Already can see potential with a player getting everyone on board with their character just starting at level 1 with their apprentice. Then the heroes get to come out swinging with Wode-Man and The Wren…okay maybe I’m that player.
Specific, but I like Mind Punch, it’s fitting AND you can say, “Mind punching me out of danger?” And then they do.
Heh, I wish the pun is intentional. Between this and the Mirror Force ability I've been seeing a lot of love for the Psion specifically. Glad you enjoyed it!
I was thinking about my SARCASM shirt: "It's like punching people in the face, but with words."
I'm a huge fan of retainers, so always glad to see more of them! I must confess that at my table retainers in combat have almost exclusively been used as replacements for heroes missing a session, and these ones don't really work for that purpose... Although that's neither here nor there in terms of the jam.
I love the art. It's almost distractingly good! I like the archetypes the retainers cover and think the abilities are nice and flavorful. Others will have more useful feedback in terms of balance. The one thing I will note that I would have liked here is more features for leveling up the retainers. They have their higher level abilities, but presumably the Stamina and Characteristics also increase? Other than that, excellent entry, well done! :)
Appreciate the review! Since apprentices are retainers, they're intended to level up like other retainers do as described in the back of the Monsters book, which provides the bonuses you've mentioned and gives alternate options for role advancement abilities if the ones in here aren't as appealing. I'll make a note of that in the next version so it's clear for folks.
That is totally fair and on me for not thinking about that, haha. A sentence of clarification might be good to help idiots like me understand how it works :D
I think it's nice to use the retainers as more fleshed out characters who grows with the players. The level 10 ability is very neat.
Some feedback I had while reading:
Appreciate the feedback! Happy to give context for design decisions and discuss your points:
I understand and agree with all your points. I will however double down on damage weakness being really really strong (we obliterated a solo with my group yesterday with just the damage weakness 2 from the Warrior Priest kit), so I would at a minimum make it save ends. For the insta-death ability, many people in the community say that YAAD is way too strong, while Censored's condition to work (hitting the target just before winded to make it winded) makes it way less strong than the other one.
I wasn't aware YAAD was a sore balancing point for the community, so that's good to make a note of. As far as damage weakness goes, I suppose a smart group will get tons of use out of it if they focus fire for a round, so adding save ends or ends after the retainer's next turn would work (assuming I keep it, I'll take another look at that as well.)
Thanks for the reply and all the feedback! It's been very helpful.
A great submission. I got the chance to proof read it, and knew then it would be a strong contender in this Jam. The art really pulls the theme together. Love to see one of the Iconic Heroes in it.
Really useful for a game. I'd absolutely have my villain either capture, or just straight up kill an Apprentice at an appropriate moment, to really get my players out for their blood. Wahaha!
Well done, a great entry for the Jam.
Once again, appreciate you looking it over before I submitted! Planning to include some narrative prompts for them in the next version, may have to pinch your idea of villainous kidnappings...
I reiterate here that I love this idea as it solves a problem I didn't know I had!
My players only ever use their Delian Tomb followers and retainers as Respite rollers as they have thin connections to those characters. In comparison, I think these much more flavorful Retainers that would lead to a lot of player interest!
It's been fascinating seeing people's submissions reflect their experience at the table, and how other Directors may not have ever had those problems or only just realized they needed a fix. Lots of good varied ideas floating around this jam.
Glad these retainers hit the mark for you! And thanks for the review. Looking forward to eventually getting to the Complication Curatives