Agent Path Optimisation Guide for the Cosmere RPG

Sneak, steal and investigate your way through the Cosmere with this stealthy heroic path.

Agent talents

Knowing which talents are best and will work well for your character is more important in the Cosmere RPG than in D&D. This is because you have a lot more choice over which talents you take rather than the more rigid progression found in D&D classes.

To help you pick the right talents for your character, I’ve split them into the various specialties and I’ve also divided them by level. This shows the fewest number of levels you need to gain this talent when following the most direct path down the talent tree (ignoring the extra talent Humans receive at certain levels). This is just to help you know how quickly you can get each talent (as I find the alphabetical order in the book a little unhelpful).

I’ve also rated each talent to give you an idea of how good I think it is. This is a rough rating. Some builds may find different talents more important or integral to their build so don’t be put off by a low score if you think it’s going to help your character or work for them.

All Specialties

To take any path, you must first take the key talent.

Level 1 key talent

Opportunist (3/5)

Rerolling the plot die can definitely be useful. How useful it is depends on how often it will be used though. Some talents and situations will raise the stakes automatically, but without other talents, this becomes a little too rare. And may lead to little benefit.

There are some agent features that influence this though. Investigators can use watchful eye to use this on the plot dice of allies, spies can use sure outcome to gain a specific outcome on the plot die and thieves can use risky behaviour to raise the stakes themselves. Combined with these 3 talents, I think opportunist becomes good, but on its own, it’s maybe a bit too situational (though fairly useful when it does come up).

Also, be aware that outside of combat, rounds are longer so you may get less opportunities to use this (as it’s a once per round talent).

Investigator specialty

One thing to be aware of with the investigator specialty is it’s quite complex. It’s primarily built for social encounters and relies on a complex web of talent interactions to be of much use. If you want to dive into something like that, then be my guest. But just a fair warning, especially to newer role players, that this is an especially complicated specialty.

Level 2 talents

Watchful eye (4/5)

This is where opportunist starts to get useful. By being able to apply it to the plot dice of allies, you just up the odds it’ll be needed a considerable amount. Stick close to allies involved in high stakes activities to get more out of this.

Get ’em talking (3/5)

Spiritual defenses tend to be lower than physical defenses (you can see more on this in my adversary analysis). As an investigator, your deduction should be reasonably high meaning there’s a decent chance of this working.

Raising the stakes on its own makes the test more likely to succeed (you might gain an opportunity or a boost to the test score with a complication). However, agents are great with plot dice. You can definitely reroll the result if you need to or other talents might let you simply change the result to one you prefer. This considerably raises the odds of success when using this in a social encounter.

Level 3 talents

Quick analysis (3/5)

The action economy here sounds great. A free action for 2 actions. However, keep in mind the 2 focus cost of this. There’s also a limit to what you can use it on, but that’s going to take some digging in to so I’ve listed all the ways you can use these extra actions below:

• Use a skill
  • Crafting
  • Deduction
  • Discipline
  • Intimidation
  • Lore
  • Medicine
• Gain advantage
• Action from an agent talent
  • Close the case
  • Get em’ talking
  • Mercurial facade
• An additional contribution during a conversation or endeavour

My main concern with this is the focus cost, but once you grab gather evidence, you can maintain being focused for the majority of an encounter, reducing this focus cost to 1.

In theory, a free medicine test is great for a bit of healing, but this will cost a focus for minimal healing. But if you have some levels in the surgeon specialty, then you might have something like swift healer and applied medicine, then this starts to look worthwhile. Especially if you’re already focused from gather evidence.

Gain advantage is probably going to be one of your most consistently useful options here and get em’ talking is good setup for future social rounds. You may still find yourself a bit limited in what you can do here, especially if you’re not a healing specialist but if you can wrap your head around the interactions with other talents, it can become quite good.

Baleful (4/5)

This should let you whittle down the social resilience of your adversaries much quicker allowing you to succeed in social encounters much more easily.

Level 4 talents

Gather evidence (5/5)

Reduced focus costs for 1-2 turns can be pretty good. You should be able to make a decent number of cognitive tests. In fact, you could just do a medicine test on an ally, pass the test and keep doing medicine tests each turn to maintain your focused condition and continue healing for free. Between this and quick analysis, investigators are some of the best healer’s in the game (as long as you take several levels in surgeon that is).

The gain advantage action can be used to make a cognitive test too. Between this and quick analysis, you can suddenly be doing a lot with your turns at a fairly minimal focus cost.

Hardy (4/5)

An extra HP per level now and at future levels is solid for making you more durable and fairly universally useful.

Level 5 talents

Sleuth’s instincts (4/5)

This makes get em’ talking much more important. You’ll want to know your target’s motivations to get advantage on cognitive tests against them which will then help you succeed on gain advantage actions which can be used as part of the quick analysis talent which can have reduced focus because of the gathering evidence talent (see what I mean when I say this specialty is complicated).

If you can wrap your head around that, then this can be quite useful.

Close the case (2/5)

The big thing here is if you’re going to use this, make sure you know your target’s motivations. It can be handy in challenging social situations, but 3 focus and 3 actions is a lot. You’re probably only using this after the first round when you may have whittled down resistance a bit anyway so another standard successful social test might have been enough to sway the adversary anyway

Personally, I think this is quite a high cost for something that may just end up too situational for when it’ll be better than just making a persuasion test or something similar.

Spy specialty

Level 2 talents

Sure outcome (3/5)

This is a tricky one. The ability to flip the plot die to either of the best outcomes is strong. If you think your test will succeed anyway, you can ensure you get an opportunity, if you think your test wouldn’t succeed without the +4 from the complication, you can flip it to that instead.

This is all great, especially with other talents that give you more opportunities to roll and influence the plot die. You can combine this with things like the thief’s risky behaviour to choose to roll the plot die or the investigator’s watchful eye to use this on the rolls of allies as well.

The challenge here is whether it’s worth 2 focus. A reward of rolling an opportunity is to gain a focus and a complication can be to lose a focus. Here we’re expending 2 focus for a privilege of that equivalent.

However, opportunities and complications aren’t all about focus. If you want a better narrative outcome or a boost to a skill test, this may become more worthwhile for important tests.

The other thing to consider is that agents are all about talent interactions. For example, gather evidence from the investigator specialty can easily allow you to be focused quite often, reducing the focus cost of this talent to 1, making this much more worthwhile.

My advice would be, use this while focused where possible and save it for more crucial rolls.

Plausible excuse (3/5)

A really great way to survive being discovered. Your deception should be quite high if you’re building into a stealth/spy build. 3-5 should be enough for many enemies not to be able to resist this unless they’re boss level. It’s quite situational by nature, but really good in a subterfuge campaign.

Level 3 talents

Collected (4/5)

Increased cognitive and spiritual defenses is a solid buff and while these will be invoked less by enemies, often it’s the nastiest effects that target these defenses.

Cover story (2/5)

This is quite a vague talent as well as being quite situational. In a highly social campaign, this could be quite good, but there’s no mechanical benefit here, just that you seem like you’re from another culture or group. Some GMs will let a lot fly with this, some may not. This makes it really hard to evaluate but being both situational and vague means I can only give it a low score.

Level 4 talents

Subtle takedown (3/5)

An attack that raises the stakes, prevents communication and allows you to grapple them on a hit. Plus it’s against their cognitive defense (which is typically lower than physical defense). There are caveats though. You’ll need a strong insight (you’ll have at least 3 if you take this, but the higher the better). You’ll have to make an unarmed attack which might mean grabbing expertise in unarmed attacks (especially to get momentum for advantage on the skill test) and investing as much as you can afford in strength.

It’ll also require 2 actions and the target must be surprised or be unaware of the threat you possess. This means it’ll rarely be useful in the middle of combat (though some talents can cause the surprised condition). Still, it’s great for a silent attack and you can combine it with a strike to get some more damage against the opponent, but you’ll definitely need to adapt tactics to get this working for you.

Mighty (5/5)

Attacks deal more damage with mighty. This affects all hits you land so the more attacks you can make, the better. Dual wielding weapons can help here, as can making a subtle takedown or some other attack-based talent.

High society contacts (2/5)

How often you interact with high society will rely heavily on your GM and what they’ve prepared for you. This makes it hugely situational. Still, an easy opportunity could be quite lucrative, especially if you’re looking for a reward or a patron of some kind. I just fear the chances to use this may not come up all that much.

Level 5 talents

Mercurial facade (2/5)

As an agent, getting a decent thievery isn’t too much of a problem, but as a spy, deception is likely to be higher so this may save you a rank or 2 to spend elsewhere. You may still want thievery for other things though so I’m not convinced this is a huge boon.

Having an enemy that sees through your disguise being surprised is going to be useful on the occasions you are found out. Great for landing a subtle takedown or reacting quicker than the target. This is another that’s good when you might need it, but very situational.

Thief specialty

Level 2 talents

Risky behaviour (4/5)

Raise the stakes on any test you like is a really good way to utilise talents with special features when an opportunity is rolled. Combined with your ability to reroll the plot die and potentially some other talents, this can be a really useful tool.

Cheap shot (5/5)

The ability to make an extra attack and stun with just one focus is pretty good on its own, but with the potential to steal something, this can become really good! However, rolling an opportunity on its own is unlikely, but used alongside risky behaviour, you can spend another focus to raise the stakes and up the odds of this occurring significantly. Add in opportunist and perhaps also sure outcome from the spy specialty and stealing becomes easy.

With all those talents, the focus cost could become quite signficant. However, gather evidence from the investigator specialty is a good way to get focused and reduce that focus cost substantially.

Level 3 talents

Double down (3/5)

2 focus is a big cost to ensure that opportunity. I’d only use this for really high stakes tests. If you can, combine it with gather evidence from the investigator specialty to keep those focus costs down.

Surefooted (4/5)

Faster movement is excellent. You should already be looking at having a high speed anyway so this will make you even faster. I don’t expect falling to be a particularly common occurrence unless you intend to try jumping across the shattered planes, but it’s a nice to have.

Level 4 talents

Underworld contacts (2/5)

Similar to high society contacts, I just don’t know how often this is going to get used. It’s great if the campaign involves interacting with criminals a lot, but it’s just very situational.

Shadow step (4/5)

Extra hiding after disengaging can be really useful for slipping away unnoticed. It will cost you 2 focus, but in desperate situations, this can be worthwhile.

Fast talker (2/5)

This is like quick analysis but for spiritual tests instead. This means it’s a little obtuse when it comes to knowing what actions you can take so I’ve outlined them all below:

• Use a skill
  • Deception
  • Insight
  • Leadership
  • Perception
  • Persuasion
  • Survival
• Gain advantage
• An agent talent that requires a spiritual skill test
  • Subtle takedown
  • Mercurial facade
• An additional contribution during a conversation or endeavour

Being able to use subtle takedown with these extra actions is perhaps the most useful way to use this. It means you can cram more actions into a sneak attack moment.

Gain advantage will always be useful but most of the skill tests are going to be a struggle to use in combat. This means you can do more in social encounters though, but how important or necessary it is to get extra persuasion tests into a round is debatable.

Ultimately, this is a high price for something with quite limited application. Using gather evidence to reduce the focus cost can sweeten the deal though.

Trickster’s hands (4/5)

So this is the same as fast talker but for physical tests. I’ll start by outlining what you can actually do with this talent:

• Use a skill
  • Agility
  • Athletics
  • Heavy weapons
  • Light weapons
  • Stealth
  • Thievery
• Gain advantage
• An agent talent that requires a physical skill test
  • Cheap shot
• An additional contribution during a conversation or endeavour

Cheap shot can work well here, especially with gather evidence in play.

Gain advantage is always going to be a great use of this talent and you’ll be able to hide more easily in the middle of combat or attempt to steal things with this. In fact, you could hide using stealth and then use thievery to steal something while others aren’t aware of your presence to forgo disadvantage on thievery in the middle of combat.

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Building an optimised agent

In this section, I’ll give some advice on which options to consider when building an optimised agent.

Ancestry

You can choose a Human or Singer ancestry for an optimised agent.

Human: I’d probably favour a Human for an agent because of the high interaction between agent talents. Humans will get you these talents quicker as you’ll be able to choose extra talents from heroic paths as you progress levels. You’ll get an extra talent at levels 1, 6, 11, 16 and 21.

Singer: Singers get a unique path that gives them different forms they can transform into. Nimbleform, workform, stormform, relayform and decayform are all good options for an agent.

Attributes

Recommended attributes

Speed: Crucial for weapon attacks, movement speed, stealth, thievery and physical defense. This is probably your most useful attribute for an agent.

Intellect: Especially important for an investigator as deduction is a really important skill for them. There’s some interesting interactions with a surgeon if you take some investigator talents, but as a pure agent, this is less useful. If you’re not taking levels in investigator, this attribute becomes less important.

Willpower: Strictly speaking, this isn’t crucial for an agent, but it does up your focus. Fortunately, you don’t need this as high as others if you can grab quick analysis which will let you be focused quite often, but more focus is still useful.

Awareness: Some talents use insight for their skill tests. You’ll also operate as a scout a lot so perception becomes quite important here.

Presence: A lot of agent builds are going to rely on persuasive and deceptive talking, in which case you’ll want investment in presence.

Attributes to avoid

This is quite challenging as agents can benefit from any attribute. I’d probably say strength is less important for an agent, but even then, it’ll help physical defenses and cheap shot relies on making an unarmed attack (which uses strength for the damage) so depending on your build, might still be quite important.

You may need to make concessions like choosing to focus more on scouting (awareness) or talking (presence) or limiting how much focus (willpower) you have. Intellect might be dumpable if you’re not going with the investigator specialty. But I wouldn’t make concessions on speed, that will always be crucial for an agent.

Skills

You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths as an agent. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists. You’ll also want to consider skills required by some of your talents. These include deduction, insight, deception and thievery.

I’d recommend investing skill ranks in the following skills:

• Stealth: You’ll need to be sneaking around and with a high speed, should be well equipped for this. Plus some of your talents rely on going unnoticed.
• Thievery: If you want to be stealing things or breaking into places, thievery is going to be really important. Plus you have some talents that have ranks in thievery as a prerequisite.
• Light weaponry: You’ll need to be making attacks and with a high speed, light weaponry is your best option here.
• Insight: The skill most involved in prerequisites for your various talents.
• Agility: If you’re going to be sneaking and scouting around, then you’ll want agility to bypass tricky obstacles.
• Deduction: A prerequisite for some investigator talents and use for some of the skill tests too.
• Deception: Especially important for a spy who relies on deception for some talents, but all agents have a tendency to get themselves into sticky situations they might have to lie their way out of.
• Persuasion: Agents often rely on social skills and persuasion is likely to come up the most in conversations.
• Perception: As a natural scout, you may want to invest in perception to stay aware of your surroundings.
• Intimidation: A less used but potentially useful social skill. You’ve got a lot to focus on though and this one may not be necessary, but it’s still useful for an agent.

Expertises

Expertises can grant some special knowledge or benefits when using certain items. Largely, you can take whatever expertises fit your character, but there are a couple of things to consider:

• Armor expertise are useful, but depends on your strength: Chances are, your strength wont be really high (it may even be 0). You can compensate here by taking expertise in chain armor to remove the cumbersome trait and get a decent deflect.
• Weapon expertises are going to be your most important: You’re going to need to do some fighting. And chances are, with a high speed, you’ll be using light weaponry. You can choose which weapons to have expertise in, but it is worth having at least expertise in your primary weapon. While agents aren’t the toughest, some of their talents do rely on being up close and personal (like subtle takedown) so you may want to focus on a melee weapon. It’s also worth keeping in mind that cheap shot and subtle takedown use unarmed attacks so this could be a decent option for expertise too.
• Utility expertises aren’t overly important for an agent: So feel free to take whatever utility expertises you want. That’s not to say they can’t be useful, just that they’re not needed for an optimised agent.
• Take whatever cultural expertise you like: You can take whatever cultural expertise fit your character best. You may want to consider taking cultural expertises that fill knowledge gaps in the group, but it’s not overly important.

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The agent path is probably the most challenging heroic path in the game. Playing them well relies on a large number of intertwining talent combinations and interactions. Hopefully this guide helps you to piece those interactions together and play a strong agent character.

Do you have a strong agent build? How have you built them? Let me know in the comments below.

Spotlight on the Cosmere RPG