Scholar

Scholar

Ever chasing the next discovery, Scholars balance the confidence to pursue their ideas alongside the humility to pivot when needed.
Starting Skill: Lore. If you choose Scholar as your starting path, gain a free skill rank in Lore.

Erudition (Scholar Talent)

Prerequisite: None.
Activation: Special Activation You’ve conditioned your mind to quickly assimilate, archive, and recall information. After a brief but intensive study, you can navigate your newest areas of focus with impressive proficiency.
When you acquire this talent, you become adroit at men­tal organization. Choose one cultural or utility exper­tise you don’t already have, and choose two different cognitive skills that aren’t Resonant skills.
When you make a test, you count as having the chosen expertise, and you count as having one additional rank of each of the chosen skills.
You can use this talent to gain skill ranks even if they exceed your usual maximum for skill ranks. This talent’s expertise and skill ranks are temporary and don’t count toward prerequisites.
After a long rest during which you had access to a library, you can reassign any expertises and skill ranks granted by this talent. Follow the same rules to choose them as you did when you gained this talent.

Strategist

Composed

Prerequisite: Strategize
Activation: Always Active.
Through practiced composure, you push your limits without becoming distracted or losing track of threats.
When you acquire this talent, your maximum and current focus increase by a number equal to your tier. When your tier increases by 1, your maximum and current focus do as well
Leads to: Contingency, Deep Contemplation

Contingency

Prerequisite: Lore 3+; Composed
Activation: Reaction
History is strewn with the debris of those who failed to learn from the past. You’re determined not to join them, so you prepare for anything that might derail your plans.
After an ally you can influence within 20 feet of you rolls a Complication, you can use this reaction and spend 2 focus to remove a Complication from their test.
Leads to: Turning Point

Deep Contemplation

Prerequisite: Lore 2+; Composed
Activation: 2 Actions
You methodically search your mental archives for facts and information to help resolve your current situation.
Reassign up to 2 of the skills and expertises gained from your Erudition.
Leads to: Keen Insight

Keen Insight

Prerequisite: Deep Contemplation
Activation: Always Active
Everyone has weaknesses—and you have a knack for uncovering and exploiting them.
After you succeed on a test to Gain Advantage, you exploit one of your target’s crucial traits, strengths, or flaws. Unless the target resists your influence, they gain a disadvantage on their next test during this encounter.

Know Your Moment

Prerequisite: Deduction 2+; Mind and Body
Activation: Always Active
Conflict follows its own beat, rising and falling as powers struggle for dominance. Your knowledge of strategy, rhetoric, and history guides you on when to act for greatest effect.
After the beginning of each round, each of your defenses increases by 2 until the start of your turn.

Mind and Body

Prerequisite: Erudition key talent
Activation: Always Active
You expand your intensive studies to include martial arts and fitness in addition to the cerebral arts.
When you acquire this talent, your Erudition talent grants you an additional skill, and you can use Erudition to choose physical skills that aren’t surges. Additionally, gain one weapon expertise of your choice.
Leads to: Know Your Moment

Strategize

Prerequisite: Deduction 1+; Erudition key talent
Activation: Special Activation
You carefully observe and assess your problem from novel angles, creating a cunning plan to remove an obstacle, gain the edge, or counter a foe’s next move.
After you succeed on a test to Gain Advantage using a skill gained from your Erudition, you can choose an ally you can influence. That ally gains the benefits of your Gain Advantage action instead of you. When you use this talent, you can also spend 2 focus to prevent the target of your Gain Advantage from using reactions against the ally you chose until the end of your next turn.
Leads to: Composed

Turning Point

Prerequisite: Deduction 3+; Contingency
Activation: 2 Actions Battles often pivot on a single crucial moment. Through studying the history of warfare, you learn to identify such opportunities and gain the upper hand.
Once per scene, you can spend 2 focus to find a weakness in an opposing group’s strategy. Make a Deduction test against the Cognitive defense of the top-ranking enemy leader in this scene; to target this leader, you must be able to sense them. If you took a slow turn, you gain an advantage on this test. On a success, you and your allies you can influence gain an additional action on your next turns.