TL;DR: The shadow isn’t the 5e rogue with almost no reason to engage in close quarters, don’t play it like one.
It is an open secret that a significant portion of the community has experience within 5e. While it is established within the Heroes book that people should approach it with the unique mentality it warrants, it’s foolish to think the habits as established in 5e play patterns don’t influence how people play similar Draw Steel classes. I believe one of the biggest displays of this is within how people report that the Shadow is played in their games.
In numerous posts within this subreddit, people have reported shadows playing on the absolute fringes of the fight. They are constantly using their high mobility, primarily through Black Ash Teleport, then either staying miles away from the scuffle before sling shotting themselves through the field with abilities such as Get In, Get Out or One Hundred Throats, or they are using long range kits to pick off weaker targets from a mile away such that they can quickly duck back into hiding. These play styles, especially that latter, are extremely similar to that of the 5/.5e Rogue. Before Tasha’s release which gave the Rogue steady aim, you would commonly be using your cunning action to hide, granting you advantage so your sneak attack could work on anyone.
I believe mirroring this playstyle is problematic as it appears to leave so much of the Shadow’s power on the table.
Yes, the shadow has the best capabilities to hide out of all the classes. That is not a point I am attempting to debate against. However, they have arguably more abilities that want them to get engaged in close and often stay there. In reviewing every Shadow ability, I found 3 that directly benefit from hiding specifically: Sticky Bomb, Nightwatch, and Puppet Strings. While they do have a fair number of abilities that help to facilitate hiding, like the College of Caustic Alchemy’s Smoke Bomb trait, that is merely the setup, not the payoff.
An astute reader may ask “What about the discount on insight if you attack with an edge? Doesn’t being hidden help that?” Note my qualifying statement: Benefit from hiding specifically. Hiding is not the only way to gain an edge. In fact, a number of abilities require you to be close to your allies to earn their assistance or adjacent to an enemy to benefit from something like flanking.
So with the consideration that there’s very few benefits that can be gained only from being hidden, what can you gain from a “brawlier” playstyle?
Firstly, every college provides you with a trigger that requires you to be targeted. If we consider the influence of 5/.5e again, Defensive Roll and In All This Confusion appear to be similar to the Rogue’s Uncanny Dodge. However, the way damage functions within Draw Steel changes the consideration. Within D&D, you would almost always prefer your tank to be targeted as their AC can usually entirely negate an attack’s output. Beyond that, healing broadly comes from the same pool in D&D regardless of who it heals. Thus, you’re encouraged to have everyone focus the tankier members as they can more consistently negate the attacks while healing is often functionally the same regardless of who it is used on.
In comparison, while beefier characters in Draw Steel may be able to shrug off more damage than others due to damage immunity or their own “parry” effects, there is a limit. If you are getting attacked, it is extremely likely that your stamina will deplete. And given that recoveries and therefore most stamina recovery effects are often siloed per character, even the tankiest builds backed by a conduit dumping every point of piety into them can only take so much heat before they’re simply out of gas. Thus everyone needs to consider who else can take on some of the pressure so the group can continue on for longer before a respite. Thus enters the Shadow’s parry effects, one of which actually can go for not only a full negation of the attack but an Uno reverse. And as you progress further into the class, these abilities can continue to improve such as with Too Slow and So Gullible.
It would be unfair if I didn’t mention Night Watch. Given that every Shadow gets access to it, it does mean that occasionally hiding does still have its meritt. I’ll go into detail on how this can factor into the play cycle when we bring everything together. However, even if you are helping to ease the burden on other character’s stamina and recovery pools, you are still forcing them to be the ones to shoulder the burden. Night Watch doesn’t negate the fact that you should use some of your resiliency.
Alright I’ve yapped plenty over very few abilities, so let’s attempt to speedrun a bit more. There are a number of abilities and features that require you to be adjacent to your enemies to gain most if not all of the benefits from them: You Were Watching the Wrong One (for extra surges to your flanker buddy), Burning Ash, Harlequin Gambit, and Volatile Reagents.
Other abilities are at base melee 1: Into the Shadows, Black Ash Eruption, Assassinate, and It Was Me All Along. While yes you can get an increased reach through certain kit selections, you are often going to be getting very close to the enemies. This is similar to Blackout and Shadowgrasp which have ranges of burst 3 and 2 respectively. Just like the melee 1 base abilities, you're getting stuck in to get the most out of them.
And finally a handful of abilities help to mitigate some of the threat from being within the scuffle such as Dancer, Parkour, and Time Bomb.
So where does this leave us? Should all shadows be grabbing the shining armor kit and attempting to be the main tank for the party? No, that is not what I’m saying. (Though the build implications for that would be fascinating…) All this is to simply say that the shadow is considered a “midline” or “flanking” type class not that unlike the null. You can take a decent bit of heat from the enemies while having the tools to quickly disengage if things get too hot. And when you do have to back out, you can then rotate into a hide based playstyle to take advantage of those features that do want you to hide, such as Night Watch.
Shadows are not the 5e rogue. Get stuck in.