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--- zeitgeist:rules:savant [2022/04/12 00:08] – neyrick
+++ zeitgeist:rules:savant [2025/05/21 21:07] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 ====== Savant ======
+Warriors rely on their physical prowess, and spellcasters have all
+manner of magic, but a savant needs no weapon or armor, only their
+mind. Brilliant ingenuity, meticulous planning, or keen deductions
+will win them the day and leave their enemies confused at how they
+were defeated.
+Of course, you’d have to be a fool to not use weapons, armor, or
+magic when they’re available, and savants are no fools. Knowledge
+is power, but power is also power. A savant is at their most effective
+when they have an array of tools at their disposal and an assort-
+ment of allies to enact their cunning schemes.
+==== Creating a Savant ====
+Consider why your character relies on wits instead of warcraft or
+wizardry. Were they physically feeble and had to think their way
+out of challenges? Did they receive a refined education and learn
+from history and literature how to deal with all manner of unlikely
+scenarios? Have they just picked up these talents on the job, per-
+haps working a trade or serving as a guard?
+==== Quick Build ====
+Your highest ability score should be Intelligence, followed by Dex-
+terity. Get proficiency in Deception, Investigation, and Perception,
+plus disguise kits. Choose the Vanguard archetype, and choose
+proficiency with Culture, light armor, blowguns, pistols, scimitars,
+and whips. Learn the tricks Antagonizing Flourish, Improved Bas-
+tion Aegis, and Unbalancing Intervention. Learn the clever scheme
+Impromptu Persona.
 ===== Class features =====
-^ Level ^ Features ^ Trick Known ^ SchemesKnown ^
+^ Level ^ Features ^ Tricks Known ^ Schemes Known ^
 | 1 | Adroit defense, archetype, clever schemes, savant tricks | 3 | 1 |
 | 2 | archetype Feature, Combat Poise | 4 | 1 |
@@ Line 496: / Line 527: @@
 Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest
 before you can use it again.
+===== Vanguard =====
+Vanguard savants have the training to engage in a fight directly.
+They employ tactics to disrupt their enemies’ normal strategies,
+forcing foes to battle on their back foot. And by knowing their ally’s
+talents, they can set up the perfect opening for a teammate to shine.
+==== Bonus Proficiencies ====
+When you choose this archetype at 1st level, you gain proficiency
+with light armor and four martial weapons. You also gain profi-
+ciency with one of the following: medium armor, shields, Arcana,
+Culture, Engineering, Investigation, Nature, or Religion.
+==== The Stage of Battle ====
+At 1st level, your ingenuity in combat spans the whole battlefield.
+You can use flourish tricks on ranged attacks you make against
+creatures within 30 feet.
+At 6th level, you can use flourish tricks on attacks at any range.
+==== Coordinate Attack ====
+At 2nd level, when you take the Attack action on your turn, you may
+forego one of your attacks. If you do, one ally within 30 feet can use
+its reaction to make one weapon attack.
+==== Burst of Inspiration ====
+Also at 2nd level, when an attack you make is a critical hit, you can
+immediately prepare a trick without needing to spend a bonus
+action. If you already have a trick prepared, you can replace it. If
+you have a flourish prepared, you may use it on this critical hit,
+before choosing to prepare a new trick.
+==== Engaging Footwork ====
+At 6th level, when you hit a creature with a melee attack, you dis-
+tract that foe through a mix of repartee and positioning, causing them to move in the direction you want. If they fail a Wisdom saving
+throw against your trick DC, until the end of your turn when you
+move, you can move them an equal distance, keeping them within
+your melee reach the whole time. Their movement doesn’t provoke
+opportunity attacks, and if you would move them into a space that
+would cause them damage, they can choose to stop outside it.
+After you use this ability, you cannot use it against the same crea-
+ture again until you complete a short rest.
+==== Combat Deduction ====
+At 11th level, you can read your enemies like a book. You can use a
+bonus action to make an Intelligence (Investigation) check against
+the Maneuver DC of a creature you have spent at least one round
+observing in combat. If you succeed, choose three of the follow-
+ing items to learn about the creature: Armor Class, vulnerabilities,
+resistances, immunities, weakest saving throw, or highest ability
+score. At the narrator’s discretion, you might learn other pertinent
+details of its combat abilities.
+After you use this ability on a creature, you cannot attempt it
+against the same creature until you complete a short or long rest.
+==== Seamless Teamwork ====
+At 14th level, when you use Coordinate Attack, your ally does not
+need to use their reaction in order to make an attack.
+==== Checkmate ====
+At 17th level, you can predict an enemy’s tactics with enough preci-
+sion to thwart them with ease. When you use Combat Deduction
+and succeed the Investigation check, until the end of your next
+turn you have advantage on attack rolls against that creature, it
+has disadvantage on attack rolls against you, the creature has dis-
+advantage on saving throws against your abilities, and you have
+advantage on saving throws against its abilities.
+===== Vox =====
+A savant with the vox aptitude manipulates people with their voice,
+using appeals to reason or emotion as well as outright castigation,
+intimidation, or prevarication.
+They are common among the non-spellcasting ideologues in
+Crisllyir’s shadow war between the Meliskans and Ottoplismists,
+with the earliest masters of this art having learned it in the hereti-
+cal vault that once held prison the great temptress, Ashima-Shimtu,
+known as the Lady of the Forked Tongue and Seneschal of the
+Demonocracy.
+The term vox means “voice” in the Infernal language, but these
+savants can influence people with any form of linguistic communi-
+cation, including text and signing, though enemies may find these
+methods easier to ignore.
+==== Bonus Proficiencies ====
+When you choose this archetype at 1st level, you gain proficiency
+with Insight and one language. You also gain proficiency in one of
+the following: light armor, Deception, Intimidation, Performance,
+or Persuasion.
+==== Compelling Communication ====
+At 1st level, you can manipulate people with words as easily as a
+warrior can with physical force. You can spend an action to affect a
+creature within 30 feet that can understand you with any flourish
+trick that you have prepared other than Surgical Flourish, without
+making an attack.
+At 6th level, the range you can affect a creature increases to 60
+feet. Additionally, you gain the ability to use flourish tricks other
+than Surgical Flourish whenever you deal damage to a creature
+with your Weapon of Choice ability (see below).
+==== Ear for Languages ====
+At 2nd level you train your mind to pick up languages as needed.
+By spending a short or long rest in the presence of a speaker of any
+language, you can acquire a rudimentary understanding of that
+language, enough to have a basic conversation. Any abilities you
+have that rely on sharing a common language and require a saving
+throw can work, but the target has advantage on their save.
+The cognitive effort to decode the unfamiliar tongue means that
+if you use this ability again, you lose access to any other language
+you learned through it.
+==== Weapon of Choice ====
+Also at 2nd level, you can guide a foe to ruin with your words. You
+can use an action to insult a creature within 60 feet that can un-
+derstand you, or undermine its confidence, goad it into exhausting
+itself, amuse it into giving up the fight, or similar verbal gambits. If
+the creature fails a Wisdom saving throw against your trick DC, it
+takes 1d6 psychic damage and its hit point maximum is reduced by
+an amount equal to the damage taken. The reduction lasts until the
+creature completes a short rest. A creature reduced to 0 hit points
+this way is not dying, but rather is conscious and incapacitated.
+The damage increases to 2d6 and 5th level, 3d6 at 11th level, and
+d6 at 17th level.
+==== Hypnotic Voice ====
+At 6th level, you are able to keep people and creatures’ attention
+focused on you. Spend an action to cause creatures of your choice
+that can perceive you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your
+trick save DC. Creatures that don’t understand your language have
+advantage on the saving throw. Creatures that cannot be charmed
+automatically succeed their saving throws, and if you or your com-
+panions are fighting a creature, it makes its saving throw with
+advantage.
+On a failure, a creature is charmed by you for as long as you
+continue talking (with reasonable pauses, perhaps even conversa-
+tion back and forth) and for the next hour after. While charmed by
+you, the creature has disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks
+made to perceive creatures other than you.
+The focus required for this mesmerism is mentally taxing. Once
+you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you
+can use it again.
+==== When You Put It That Way ====
+At 11th level, as an action you can suggest an activity (limited to
+a sentence or two) to a creature that can hear and understand you.
+A creature that can’t be charmed is immune to this feature. The
+course of action must sound reasonable, as with the suggestion spell.
+If the target fails a Wisdom saving throw, it pursues the course of
+action you described to the best of its ability for as long as you are
+present, and for up to 10 minutes after.
+Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest
+before you can use it again.
+==== Attentive Polyglot ====
+At 14th level you know all languages, and cannot be magically si-
+lenced. If you would be affected by a language-dependent effect,
+you may choose to ignore that effect, as if you didn’t understand the
+language.
+Additionally, so deft is your understanding of language that
+when you make an ability check to influence someone with words,
+you gain an expertise die. An expertise die is 1d4 you roll and add.
+==== Killing Word ====
+At 17th level, you can spend an action to so utterly cut to the core
+of a person’s identity that for a moment they might lose the will to
+live. One creature that can understand you is stunned. At the end
+of each of its turns it must make a Charisma saving throw against
+your trick DC or else it gains a level of strife. The effect ends when
+it succeeds one of these saving throws, or when it has six levels of
+strife.
+Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest
+before you can use it again.
+===== Savant Schemes =====
+You can choose from among the following talents that help with
+exploration.
+==== Apothecary Basics ====
+Whenever you take a short or long rest, you can use your medical
+knowledge to treat one creature. That creature can heal as if it had
+one extra 1d4 hit die during this rest, or it can ignore one level of
+fatigue for the next four hours.
+==== Deductive Tracker ====
+After observing a creature, however briefly, you make a deduction
+that gives you an edge when pursuing it. After you spend at least 1
+minute observing a creature, you gain an expertise die on checks
+made to track that specific creature.
+==== Hostilia Naturae ====
+Following the path trod by Drakran naturalist Karl Evol, author of
+A Theory of Noetic Field Adaptation Toward Terrifyingness Among Malice
+Ecologies, you have studied the many perils of wild flora and fauna.
+You gain an expertise die on checks to avoid, locate, or understand
+the abilities of aberrations, beasts, and monstrosities.
+==== Impromptu Persona ====
+You do not need preparation to come up with a convincing fake
+persona, background, and excuse to cover anything suspicious you
+are doing. You can gain advantage on Deception checks to pretend
+to be someone else. However, the ruse won’t hold up to prolonged
+scrutiny. If you spend more than a few minutes in someone’s pres-
+ence, you must make a new Deception check with disadvantage to
+maintain the ruse.
+==== Just What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into? ====
+When you are ambushed, you gain an expertise die on your initia-
+tive check. When you trigger a trap, you gain an expertise die on the
+first saving throw you need to make, or to your AC against the first
+attack the trap makes against you. After you use this ability, you
+cannot use it again until you complete a short rest.
+==== Kleptology ====
+When a creature makes a melee attack against you or otherwise
+touches you, you can make a Sleight of Hand check against them as
+a reaction. Additionally, when you spend at least a minute interact-
+ing with someone within arm’s reach, you gain an expertise die on
+Sleight of Hand checks involving them until the interaction ends.
+==== Local Informants ====
+You quickly can locate people willing to share information. If you
+spend an hour reaching out to local residents or simply perusing
+a recent periodical or newspaper, for the next day you gain an ex-
+pertise die on Culture and Investigation checks related to the area.
+==== Meeting of Minds ====
+You gain an expertise die on Charisma checks with Arcana, History,
+Nature, or Religion when trying to interact with someone who is
+trained in the same skill.
+==== Motto of the Tropezaros ====
+You make sure you’re always prepared. Once per short rest you
+can produce a non-magical item that you could have purchased
+or prepared at some point, small enough to fit in whatever storage
+you have available. This could range from a forged passport in your
+pocket to a glider stowed in the hold of a ship you’re traveling on.
+Pay the appropriate price for it. Limits of causality apply.
+==== Physical Education ====
+Once per hour, when you succeed on an Acrobatics or Athletics
+check to climb, swim, or jump you can offer advice and encourage-
+ment to your allies. For the next minute, each ally who attempts a
+check to traverse the same area gains an expertise die.
+==== Read You Like a Spellbook ====
+You can spend an action to make an Arcana check against the save
+DC of a creature’s spell. If you succeed, you deduce from their de-
+meanor, fashion, and accoutrements what cantrips they know and
+the last non-cantrip spell it cast, if any.
+==== Reinforce Apotropaics ====
+Apotropaics (page 82) are specific items that can repel or harm
+certain creatures, like bells driving away fiends. You can spend an
+action to reinforce an apotropaic you are touching for one day.
+If you brandish a reinforced apotropaic to repel a creature, add
+an expertise die to your opposed Charisma check. If a creature
+tries to bypass the repellent effect of a reinforced apotropaic bar-
+rier (like an undead crossing a line of salt), add an expertise die
+to the flat DC the creature must overcome. If a reinforced item is
+used to harm a creature (like jade dust against an aberration), you
+can also make an opposed Charisma check to repel that creature
+without needing to spend a separate action (and you add an exper-
+tise die to your check).
+==== Reserved Seating ====
+You have forethought of when and where you might need to be
+places. If you knew you would be in a given area, once per day you
+can call upon this forethought to have a vehicle or mount waiting
+for you and your companions, or to have a reservation available at a
+venue. You pay any appropriate costs. For exceptional requests, you
+may need to make a Persuasion check or owe someone a favor.
+==== Run Silent, Run Deep ====
+Once per hour, when you succeed on a Stealth check you can
+discreetly direct your allies. For the next minute, each ally who at-
+tempts a check to traverse the same area gains an expertise die.
+When moving through an area you’re familiar with or have had
+time to study maps of, you gain an expertise die on Stealth checks.
+==== Student of Technology ====
+You instead gain an expertise die on Engineering checks and when
+using tools to build, repair, or understand a technological device.
+Unstable Poison
+You gain an expertise die on checks made with the poisoner’s kit.
+You learn the recipe for creating basic poison. During a short or long
+rest, you can brew one poison for which you have the recipe without
+spending gold or using ingredients. This version of the poison lasts
+until your next short or long rest.