Barbarians of Lemuria vs Draw Steel
Compare Barbarians of Lemuria and Draw Steel side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Barbarians of Lemuria | Draw Steel | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Rules-Light, Pulp Action, Sword & Sorcery, Beginner-Friendly, Fast-Paced | Tactical, Heroic, Cinematic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Attacks Always Hit, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + attribute + career (or combat ability), 9+ to succeed. Four attributes (Strength, Agility, Mind, Appeal) and four combat abilities (Initiative, Melee, Ranged, Defence) rated 0–5. Careers replace individual skills: if your career is relevant, add its rating. Boons roll 3d6 keep best two; flaws roll 3d6 keep worst two. Hero Points fuel dramatic escapes and heroic feats. | Power Roll: roll 2d10 + characteristic and check which tier the result falls into: Tier 1 (11 or less), Tier 2 (12–16), or Tier 3 (17+). Every ability describes three outcomes by tier, so rolls always produce an effect, with no whiffed turns. Edges and banes (+2/−2, or tier shift at double) modify rolls situationally. Each class builds a unique heroic resource during combat, unlocking increasingly powerful abilities as momentum builds. Victories earned from combat and noncombat challenges accumulate across encounters and convert to XP during respites. |
| Dice | 2d6 | 2d10 |
| Complexity | Low | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Draw Steel Creator License |
| Cost | $ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Beyond Belief Games | MCDM Productions |
| Year | 2015 | 2025 |
| Best For | Groups who want fast, pulpy sword and sorcery in the vein of Conan: career-based characters, boons and flaws, and combat that resolves in minutes. | Groups who want deeply tactical, cinematic combat where every ability matters and no turn is wasted. Ideal for players who love build variety and dramatic, heroic battles. |
| Highlights | Career system is intuitive and fast, combat resolves in minutes, Hero Points enable pulp heroics, simple to learn and teach, spawned the Everywhen universal toolkit | Power Rolls resolve to one of three tiers, so every roll produces an effect and a turn is never wasted. Each of the nine classes builds a unique heroic resource during a fight, unlocking stronger abilities as momentum grows. A negotiation subsystem tracks an NPC's interest and patience, giving social scenes a structured back-and-forth like combat. |
| Considerations | Tightly coupled to its Lemuria setting, limited character advancement, combat lacks tactical depth | Heroes start with many abilities and options even at level 1, creating a steeper initial learning curve. Each combat turn juggles heroic resources, conditions, and edges and banes at once, so play carries real tracking overhead. The system targets heroic tactical fantasy specifically, so it provides no rules for dungeon crawling, hexcrawl exploration, or survival play. |