Envoy Path Optimisation Guide for the Cosmere RPG

Negotiate your way to success with this charismatic, buffing path for the Cosmere RPG.

Envoy 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

Rousing presence (4/5)

Making allies determined is pretty decent. Essentially they gain an opportunity when they fail a skill test. In practice, this likely means recovering a focus or aiding an ally as criticals only work on a hit. You might be able to wrangle a talent specific use of opportunity too. I expect narrative opportunities will be less likely in moments when the stakes haven’t specifically been raised by the GM.

There is an exploit here, and I’m not sure if this is rules as intended (RAI) or just rules as written (RAW). But essentially, this costs no focus and only requires an action. You could easily start every scene by rousing your allies and making them all determined until they make use of this and just top up in encounters when needed.

The one thing to keep in mind here is that scenes can be self-contained somewhat to a combat for example. This means there may not always be prep time. I can see GMs tackling this by having combat initiate a new scene which fits with the general guidance on scenes so this may not always work, but the rules are vague about exactly what constitutes a scene and even gives examples were activity before a combat is part of the same scene as a combat. My gut feeling is that RAI, this is meant to be self-contained to a combat encounter (or other kind of encounter), but the exploit is there and it’s not ridiculous or system-breaking.

Diplomat specialty

Level 2 talents

Steadfast challenge (4/5)

Spiritual defenses are generally lower than physical defenses making this more likely to succeed as long as your discipline is strong. This is both a debuff and a defensive move with the disadvantage against you likely meaning less accurate attacks. Of course, the enemy could just attack someone else, but there’s some good synergy here with something like a shardbearer’s stonestance which makes it harder to hit enemies other than you.

Disoriented can create some interesting complications too. For starters, there are no reactions for the target which normally should be getting used most turns. But obscuring senses could be really useful against ranged enemies, reducing their ability to fire at range.

I’d just beef up your discipline if you intend to use this talent to improve its success rate.

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. This also makes an easy multipath dip for any character to grab improved defenses.

Level 3 talents

Withering retort (4/5)

Steadfast challenge as a reaction is strong, it should make your opponent much less likely to hit and nullify them a bit more too. On top of this, your discipline adds to your deflect in case they still manage to hit you. And to be clear, the effects of your steadfast challenge occur before the attack is made, not after.

Just be aware of the focus cost, but envoys are typically quite good at having plenty of focus.

Well dressed (2/5)

Expertise in fashion likely isn’t very useful. Advantage on deception, leadership and persuasion tests can be useful though, but it’s only the first of these per scene which could easily be wasted on an unimportant test or not go far enough during social encounters.

Level 4 talents

Calm appeal (4/5)

The ability to pacify an enemy completely nullifies them in combat. This will end if an ally of theirs is injured or dies, but this is easily avoided by coordinating with allies to make non-lethal attacks against enemies. This will work most effectively against low focus enemies.

If an enemy is higher in focus, you can drain their focus more substantially now with steadfast challenge, pushing them to expend focus in resisting this talent. The extra focus drained is considerable, especially if you have a high discipline.

High society contacts (2/5)

Adding an opportunity to a test among high society can be quite potent, but only if and when you actually have these interactions. And even then, this is only useful if this is a meaningful encounter.

The problem with this talent isn’t how strong it is, but that it’s highly situational. I’d suggest this is only useful in certain campaigns.

Level 5 talents

Peaceful solution (1/5)

This is tricky to assess. I think ultimately, it’s going to be quite situational. You need all non-minions pacified which means you’ve already taken out the biggest threats. I’m also not sure it actually does anything as the enemies need to agree to cease hostilities for this to work and then you have the vague mechanic that tensions are eased.

I guess in practice, they become easier to talk to and mollify, but it’s a very vague ability that probably mostly shortens an encounter rather than helping you in a challenging moment.

You’ll be reliant on a good and possibly generous GM to make this a talent of much substance.

Practiced oratory (5/5)

Affecting multiple characters with steadfast challenge or rousing presence is very generous on your action economy requiring just a single action or reaction. I think this works alongside withering retort which says you can use steadfast challenge as a reaction meaning you could use the reaction and still target multiple enemies. At least that’s my interpretation.

This then also combines with calm emotions meaning you could potentially pacify multiple enemies simultaneously. Just be aware that this will require significant investment in focus, but should also drain the focus of your enemies more quickly (and chances are, as an envoy, you’ll have more focus than your adversaries and will be better equipped to recover it).

Faithful specialty

Level 2 talents

Customary garb (5/5)

Even just wearing something basic like uniform will mean the potential for extra high defense which is really strong. For something even better, grab an armor expertise in a breastplate to make that presentable too and you have 2 deflect as well as +2 physical and spiritual defenses.

Just be aware that it will conflict with wearing things like shardplate or armor with a higher deflect value. But if you do want to dip into a path for this, you can get this with a 2 level dip in envoy, but it would require a 3 level dip in leader to grab this making this a better dip into faithful.

Galvanize (4/5)

So this is the same action cost it would require any character to use the recover action. However, where this becomes useful is it can save a character that might have more impactful actions from expending them recovering. It’s also an extra recovery per scene for one member of the party. This means someone can have their focus recovered twice in a scene which is a substantial boost.

Level 3 talents

Devoted presence (3/5)

The option to remove one of several conditions is useful. Prone is one of the more common conditions caused by enemies (see my adversary analysis for more details). Surprised and slowed can be caused by effects outside of stat blocks meaning this is a decent backup to have around to aid allies, even if it’s a little situational.

Composed (5/5)

A decent amount of extra focus is going to go a long way to fueling your talents and other actions. It gets more potent as you increase levels too. If you’re looking for a multipath dip to grab this talent, the officer specialty from the leader path will get you this with less levels.

Applied motivation (4/5)

Great if you have a high lore. This will typically have a ceiling of 2 extra focus, but that’s still substantial. This affects a few talents directly though all of these at the time of writing are for talents that belong to the envoy path. They include:

• Galvanize – Faithful envoy
• Inspired zeal – Faithful envoy
• Lessons in patience – Mentor envoy

Level 4 talents

Stalwart presence (3/5)

This is a decent buff and I’d tend to favour physical defense as this is targeted most by enemies. The temporary nature of this can make the focus cost a bit pricey so I’d use it on allies surrounded by enemies that might well take a bruising.

Note that it works until the end of the next round. If your turn is early in the round, then this might last the best part of 2 rounds, especially if your turn is ahead of that of most adversaries.

Inspired zeal (4/5)

This is better than it initially seems when you combine it with applied motivation meaning you might be granting 3 extra focus per target, not just the one here. You will need substantial ranks in lore and discipline to make this all work though, but determined should be getting used a fair bit making this quite worthwhile.

Level 5 talents

Sage counsel (3/5)

This gives a greater reason to be using the aid reaction on allies so they can benefit both from that and your rousing presence. You will need to spend a focus to use aid though, potentially limiting how much this is used.

Mentor specialty

Level 2 talents

Sound advice (2/5)

Rousing presence is good and being able to apply it as a reaction is decent. However, there are so many uses of your reaction in the Cosmere RPG that I’m not sure spending a focus to get to use rousing presence as a reaction is a great trade off when reactions are nearly as precious as actions.

I don’t think it’s mega clear, but I don’t think the determined from rousing presence when applied this way will work for the skill test that was just failed either. Because rousing presence is applied after the skill test is failed, I think the determined condition can then only be used against a future skill test which gives it less flexibility too.

Sadly, I think this is a little too expensive and situational for giving something you can just do as an action.

Practical demonstration (4/5)

This is far better. Successful attacks and advantages should be pretty common and you can then use rousing presence as a free action (no action economy required) and no focus needed either. The only disadvantage it has against sound advice is that sound advice allows rousing presence to be used twice in a round. I think this way, it can only be used once.

Level 3 talents

Lessons in patience (5/5)

Recovering a focus when rousing presence is used is generally a little better than the main effect itself. This mainly gives you even more reasons to use rousing presence.

It’s worth being aware that there’s an interaction here with the faithful’s applied motivation. If you have that too, you can increase the focus granted by an extra 1-2 making this a very potent form of focus recovery.

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 grabbing extra attacks through talents, though you’ll need to multipath to accomplish that.

Level 4 talents

Instill confidence (5/5)

I’d say making allies focused instead of determined is often better. Determined eventually does the equivalent of recovering 1 focus. Determined will likely save you more than this and means a lot of talents, actions and reactions can be used without expending focus at all. Use this early in a scene to help allies expend less focus. Some paths will likely guzzle through focus (like warriors) so this can be a huge boon here.

Guiding oration (3/5)

Means the gain advantage action is more worthwhile, granting advantage to 2 characters instead of one. The advantage for your ally doesn’t require their actions either. Getting the most out of this likely means being a decent combatant as well as an envoy and working with a melee-focused ally. This might mean taking some levels in another path like warrior or hunter.

Level 5 talents

Foresight (4/5)

An extra reaction each round is strong but most of what you can do with reactions requires focus. You also can’t use instill focus on yourself to remove the focus cost of your standard reactions. If you’re lucky, an ally might be able to instill confidence in you instead, but this is unlikely if you’re already the party envoy. The next best thing is to stock up on willpower (which works for an envoy) and grab composed from the faithful specialty.

Rallying shout (5/5)

Recovering an ally from being unconscious is likely going to be really useful. It’s not loads of healing and won’t be useful all the time, but when it is needed, it can be very helpful. Beef up your leadership to make the healing a little better.

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Building an optimised envoy

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

Ancestry

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

Human: Go for a Human if you want to 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. There’s no imperative to go with a Human other than accessing different talents more quickly.

Singer: Singers get a unique path that gives them different forms they can transform into. Nimbleform, meditationform, workform and decayform all work well. Removing the focus cost for the aid reaction with meditationform also happens to interact with faithful’s sage advice talent making it more worthwhile.

Attributes

Recommended attributes

Strength or speed: Just because you’re an envoy, doesn’t mean you won’t need to fight. In fact, mentors are geared towards fighting and all envoy specialties are geared towards helping others in combat, but you’ll need some physical protection and the ability to hit. That means at least getting your strength or speed decent.

Presence: Envoys tend to be charismatic individuals that seek resolution through words more than through combat (though mentors do feel relatively combat-oriented). This can also fuel your investiture if/when you take a radiant path.

Willpower: This will not only fuel your focus, but also aid your discipline tests.

Attributes to avoid

You’ve probably got too much to focus on to invest in intellect or awareness. Neither of these are that useful for an envoy and others can focus on these attributes instead.

Skills

You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths as an envoy. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists. This means honing in on willpower and presence skills. You’ll also want to consider skills required by some of your talents. These include discipline, persuasion, lore and leadership.

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

• Discipline: Your most important prerequisite for different talents. It’s also great for resisting effects from adversaries.
• Persuasion: Really important for social encounters and a prerequisite for the practiced oratory talent for the diplomat (and partly determines it’s effectiveness).
• Intimidation: Can be a useful social skill and one you should be good at with a hefty willpower.
• Leadership: Prerequisite for some mentor talents and partly determines the healing of rallying shout.
• Lore: A prerequisite for some faithful talents and good for knowing things. You’re not the best for this as likely don’t have a strong intellect, but if you’re taking faithful talents, you may need a few ranks in this.
• Deception: Good social skill and one envoys should be good at with their high presence.
• Agility or athletics: Not a mega important skill for an envoy, but there’s enough contested skill tests from adversaries that require this that it can be worth investing at least a bit in one or the other.
• Light weaponry or heavy weaponry: Again, not the most important for an envoy, but I’d still recommend investing in one of these so your attacks are at least decent. This becomes more important for the more combat-focused mentor.

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. Or, if you have 3 strength (which feasible for an envoy), you can take expertise in half plate for 3 deflect.
• Weapon expertises are going to be your most important: You’re still going to need to fight, and mentors are kind of geared towards this anyway. You might even use multipathing to improve your capabilities here. Your choice of weapon expertise depends on your build. You likely won’t be the toughest character, so ranged weapons may be the route to go, but a melee build is possible. Light and heavy weaponry are both possible too and this largely depends on your attributes.
• Utility expertises aren’t essential, but there are a few useful options: History and religion are probably areas you want to have expertise in and may be relied on for your knowledge here.
• Cultural expertises are a little more important for an envoy: As a natural party face, you’ll likely be doing a lot of the talking. Cultural expertise could go a long way to bridging gaps. Consider who you’re likely to need to deal with most. You may find cultural expertises for these cultures more important. Listener culture could be a useful one. The same with Alethi, Thaylen, Shin, Herdaz and Azish.

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

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