Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!
You’re absolutely right - a small blurb at the top would help to tie it all together; unfortunately the fight with Page Count von Glauer put me in a rough spot (and due to scheduling, I already had to halve my layout time), and that nicety slipped my mind.
The design for the Ascetic was all about trying to balance the push-pull mechanics with the performance shock and the inflicting of the bleeding condition, since that’s a condition the core kits don’t engage with. What I ended up with in the doc was the simplest/most streamlined version of my pitches (I tried a self-inflict EoT bleeding; I tried to modulate the bleeding condition damage-wise, scaling to a d3, or experimenting with a ‘save ends’ option)… for each one, they didn’t quite mesh well linguistically for the mechanic, and I wanted the player to have the shock be consistent between uses for speed of play at the table; hence where it ended up.
I kinda like the fact that because it’s flat, it incentivizes using the shock at lower levels, and taking advantage of the bleeding condition at higher levels; since that fits the theming I had in my mind.
The Intercessor is (honestly) the kit I figure will get the most scrutiny, since it re-introduces an attrition mechanic into Draw Steel when the developers went out of their way to pull back from them. Mechanics-wise, the other members of the party do not need to take part in the action (or mission) — you spend you Victories, toll your dice, and can recover 1-4 expended recoveries that can be divided up among party members in the burst; the goal is that the signature ability is a ‘hail mary’ play that thematically disadvantages the Intercessor in the short term (you lose two Victories, and therefore go into encounters at a Heroic Resource deficit compared to your party members) so your party can keep fighting or survive a deadly encounter; until they can complete the mission to gain those Victories back.
Good call on moving the Title first. That will be one of my tweaks I implement for the eventual post-jam update.
The “cures of bloodcunning” (curse my typo in the doc lol - that’s another thing I’m itching to fix once the grading is over) effect is meant to be a single-apply ability. Rules as intended, using the Signature Ability with that curse doesn’t proc bleeding damage for that Main Action instance.
Thanks again so much for the detailed feedback!