Draw Steel vs Pendragon
Compare Draw Steel and Pendragon side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Draw Steel | Pendragon | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Historical |
| Play Style | Tactical, Heroic, Cinematic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Attacks Always Hit, Lore-Heavy | Character-Driven, Domain Management, Lore-Heavy, Deadly, Simulation, Crunchy, Social Intrigue |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Roll d20 against the relevant skill or attribute: a result equal to or under its value succeeds, a roll exactly equal to the value is a critical success, and a natural 20 is a fumble. Opposed actions have both sides roll under their value, with the higher success winning and a beaten-but-successful roll scoring a partial success. Personality traits and passions use the same numeric scale and are rolled the same way when a knight's character is put to the test. |
| Dice | 2d10 | d20 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | Draw Steel Creator License | Proprietary |
| Cost | $$$ | $$ |
| Publisher | MCDM Productions | Arthaus |
| Year | 2025 | 2005 |
| Best For | 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. | Long-running Arthurian campaigns where a knight's aging, death, and dynastic succession are part of the genre, and where playing out a character's traits, loyalties, and passions matters as much as winning fights. |
| Highlights | 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. | Thirteen opposed pairs of personality traits and a set of named passions are rated numerically and rolled like skills, and a passion roll can leave a knight inspired to heroics, disheartened, or maddened beyond the player's control: the heightened behavior that drives Arthurian drama. Every chivalric act (combat, generosity, romance, piety, holding a title) feeds a single lifelong Glory total that sets social rank and rewards embodying knightly ideals over simply winning fights. A yearly Winter Phase resolves aging, estate income, and family events between sessions and passes the line to an heir on death, so a campaign can span generations from Uther's court to the fall of the Round Table. |
| Considerations | 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. | Core rules restrict player characters to knights, with no mechanics for playing magicians, priests, or commoners, which narrows the cast to the warrior aristocracy. The Winter Phase's multi-step annual procedure adds meaningful between-session bookkeeping to every campaign year. High-damage attacks such as a couched lance or great sword can end a fight in a single exchange, making disadvantaged or improvised fights disproportionately dangerous. |