Hunter Path Optimisation Guide for the Cosmere RPG

A stealthy, combat and scouting focused path with high damage potential.

Hunter 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

Seek quarry (3/5)

The effects of this are good. Advantage on attack tests in particular is quite potent. However, there’s a decent-sized obstacle here. You need prep time. You must observe your quarry for a minute or have met them before (but still must spend a minute preparing). This either means knowing your enemy, or sneaking long enough to observe them.

These circumstances can definitely be contrived; especially when you happen to be a stealth and tracking expert. But, there’ll be many times when this can’t be contrived too, making this a bit useless.

Changing quarry is going to require that full minute too so this becomes useless for the rest of the combat once your quarry has been killed.

Thankfully, future talents make seeking a quarry easier and better, so combined, this can be great, but on its own, it’s only OK.

Archer specialty

Level 2 talents

Tagging shot (4/5)

Archer quickly resolves the issues with seeking a quarry with this talent. It’s kind of 3 actions in 1; move, strike and seek quarry. However, the move is very small, and it is demanding you use 3 actions. But the ability to switch quarry or to seek a quarry without preparation is very valuable and sets you up for the rest of combat or allows easier switching of quarry mid-combat.

I would say if you’re spending 3 actions on this, it’s absolutely worth expending the focus to graze a missed target to ensure you can mark them as your quarry.

Combat training (4/5)

Grazing without a focus once per round is strong and I can see this making a decent multipath dip for warriors. The extra weapon and armor expertise are also good. You may have already invested in these, but it gives you a chance to have a melee and ranged weapon expertise. As a stealthy ranged fighter, you’ll likely invest more in speed and light weaponry than strength and heavy weaponry, but both can be options for a hunter.

For armor expertise, I’d lean towards armor that lets you invest less in strength. For example, expertise in chainmail will remove the cumbersome trait which is good for low strength hunters, or for mid strength hunters that intend to focus more on speed, it can make half plate achievable even at 1st level.

Level 3 talents

Sharp eye (2/5)

Learning things about your enemies can be useful. However, I’m not sure how useful this is going to be in actually play. You’ll need a minute of prep time or an action if it’s your quarry. This means when and who you can use it on is restricted.

I’m also not convinced of how useful knowing some of these things is. It’s not that easy to target different attributes or defenses and often, you may have a decent idea of what these would be anyway. If you can engineer some of these things, it could be useful, and if you learnt more about these things, that would be great too. But it just gives too little for too much effort. Still, if you’re skulking around ahead of an encounter, you might as well use it.

Steady aim (4/5)

Make sure your perception is high and that you’re shooting ranged attacks as often as possible. The extra damage is decent here and the extra range is a bonus too.

Level 4 talents

Exploit weakness (4/5)

Free action advantage on your quarry is very useful. You should be looking to gain advantage against your quarry as often as possible. Also remember that advantage stacks and can work on different rolls from the same test.

Backstep (3/5)

Disengage and/or brace as a free action is definitely handy, but keep in mind that it does cost 2 focus. Use this when you desperately need to do extra things with your turn or to allow you to easily pop in and out of cover or escape an enemy’s range.

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

Unrelenting salvo (5/5)

Up to 3 strikes against your quarry can be devastating. Make sure you’re targeting a tough enemy as your quarry to maximise how long it works and the multiple attacks you’ll likely want to make.

Assassin specialty

Level 2 talents

Startling blow (5/5)

Attacking against an opponent’s cognitive defense is great as this tends to be weaker than physical defense, as I worked out in my adversary analysis. Surprised is handy too. However, this relies on having a decent strength (for unarmed strikes) or a convenient improvised weapon around. You could maybe just carry a sturdy chair leg around with you for exactly that reason.

This is better than a typical strike and can be used on top of an ordinary strike for an extra potential attack each turn.

Killing edge (3/5)

You can more easily cause injuries with knives and slings. You’ll need to roll an opportunity so getting allies helping you to roll the plot die will help here (a politico can do this for example) or you can find ways to increase your opportunity range. Quickdraw, indirect and discreet are all useful traits to utilise, as is having a knife as an offhand weapon. You may need to carefully plan what’s in your hands if you combine this with startling blow, for example.

Level 3 talents

Fatal thrust (5/5)

This is very potent, but also a little complex and will often rely on interactions with other talents to make the most of.

First off, you get 2 advantages on the attack if the weapon is discreet (remember, advantages stack and can be used on different rolls as part of the attack test). This means you want to be using knives, staffs or slings for this talent.

However, if you have the killing edge talent, then you may want to favour knives and slings as these gain the deadly trait. This means that when you roll an opportunity on the plot die, you can use that to cause an injury (and an injury from a fatal thrust is made at -2 for each die that rolls its maximum damage). If you’re using a knife, that’s 5d4s at tier 1 with an average of 1.25 4s rolled meaning you should expect injuries to be more problematic, and this gets worse as you increase tiers.

But rolling an opportunity can be hard to achieve without a bit of engineering. Here’s a few ways you can make that happen:

• Petition your GM to raise the stakes: The nature of a fatal thrust means that outside of combat (say if you’re attempting an assassination), that the stakes might well be high meaning that this makes a lot of sense and might well work for a lot of GMs.
• Politco’s cutthroat tactics: If you have a politico in the party, you could convince them to use their decisive command on you which can be used to roll the plot die instead of a command die with the cutthroat tactics talent. This gives you a 1/3 chance of rolling an opportunity.
• Increase your opportunity range: As standard, this only occurs on a 20 for an attack test, but you can expand your opportunity range. If you take some levels in warrior, things like signature weapon and bloodstance will let you expand your opportunity range by 2 each.

Finally, you’ll need to make sure you have a chance to actually make a fatal thrust. Sometimes this can be done simply by being sneaky, but if you want to use this in the heat of combat, then you’ll need to make sure your target is surprised. This could happen at the start of combat if you’ve snuck up on your enemies but there is a way to do this mid combat. If you land a startling blow before making a fatal thrust, then you can surprise your target and make an opening for a fatal thrust. This will require 3 actions so should need a slow turn to setup and execute, but is a potentially fatal tactic.

Shadowing (3/5)

This is great for sneaking past your quarry or sneaking up to them unnoticed for a fatal thrust. You can just observe your target for a minute, make them your quarry, then sneak past. Or, you can use 3 focus to just make this happen if time is of the essence. However, you must succeed against your target’s spiritual defense while in cover or obscured (basically make a successful stealth test against that adversary).

3 focus is a lot so I’d definitely favour observing for a minute if you can, but time won’t always be on your side and that’s when an emergency expenditure of focus may be important to mark your quarry and ensure they don’t spot you.

Level 4 talents

Cold eyes (4/5)

Regenerating focus is going to be really helpful, as is switching your quarry without expending actions or time as you might normally. This approach sort of benefits targeting weaker enemies as your quarry and knocking them off quickly rather than focusing on a single, more powerful quarry.

There’s an exploit here that the designers closed off as in theory, you could choose a quarry that’s an innocent bystander at the end of combat to maintain a quarry then keep them hostage until the next combat and then kill them to easily swap quarries. It’s the exact kind of sadistic exploit I’d expect edgelords to employ and I’m glad there’s a clause to prevent it.

Sidestep (4/5)

This means you can always dodge once per round plus another reaction which is a considerable amount of defense. It does mean not wearing armor with more than 1 deflect though so there’s a trade off in defense. Chances are, you weren’t going to have armor of more than 2 deflect anyway because of the strength requirements, though a better deflect could be workable.

Level 5 talents

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 like startling blow, swift strikes and fatal thrust.

Swift strikes (4/5)

You can make another strike action each turn when you have this. Great for upping your damage output. Just be aware that the extra action for a strike might conflict with things like startling blow or more especially, fatal thrust which already gives you another attack you can make with your actions. It does work great with mighty though, and it could make a good backup if startling blow doesn’t work and you’re unable to use fatal thrust.

Tracker specialty

Level 2 talents

Deadly trap (4/5)

You can technically do this in combat, but I suspect enemies would just move around it if they saw you create a trap. Where this maybe becomes more worthwhile is if you’re in a narrow corridor or can move your target somehow. I suspect though that this is more useful when used as a stealthy option to prepare for an attack.

Be aware that being immobilised only lasts for a round. You’ll also want to invest in survival and up your spiritual defense to make this work well.

If you go for the impaling trap, you may also want to try and wrangle opportunities into this. Petitioning your GM to up the stakes for important entrapments could be an option.

Increasing your opportunity range could help here too. It’s considered an attack (with survival) so talents that increase the opportunity range of your attacks should work here too. Some levels in warrior for bloodstance and/or signature weapon would also work. A Politico with their decisive command and cutthroat tactics could grant this as well.

Animal bond (5/5)

If you get an animal companion, this will make them substantially more effective.+1 to each defense is fairly substantial on its own. You can also mark a target as your quarry much more easily (using 2 of your animals companion’s actions). You can also coordinate actions better by letting it use 1-2 actions on your turn instead of its.

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact it can now understand simple concepts making communication possible. This means you can use it as a scout, but the information it can share may be a little limited. It may also be able to fetch things for you too.

The main thing you’ll want to do is keep your animal companion close (for defensive reasons) and use it for easier quarry targeting. You can also continue to use it as an extra character in combat.

If you’re able to sway what animal companion you receive, then a horse is by far your best option (and the only tier 2 companion available). It does of course rely on being at tier 2 to receive as a reward. If you’re very persuasive with your GM, then you might be able to convince them to reward you with a larkin which can grow to a greater Larkin at tier 3. This then becomes your best option (though a horse remains better than a standard Larkin).

Level 3 talents

Experienced trapper (2/5)

Decent if your group take survival seriously, but near useless if you don’t. The Cosmere RPG puts a little more emphasis on realistic survival than D&D does with the main benefit here being able recover and forage during rests rather than being limited to one or the other activity.

Protective bond (3/5)

While the same amount of protection is distributed with this talent as before, the tactical benefits can be quite strong. As a hunter, you’re not necessarily a frontline warrior. You might instead want to send your animal companion to protect your dedicated warrior while you fire arrows at range.

Level 4 talents

Hunter’s edge (3/5)

Advantage against your quarry for your animal companion is solid. Longer lasting effects from your traps is good too. The change in tactics here is really that your animal companion’s attacks should become more dedicated to your quarry while traps may become more useful.

Surefooted (3/5)

Faster movement is good, reduced fall damage is fine but very situational. Use the extra movement (which should often be quite high already due to a high speed), to stay out of range of enemies or get to advantageous parts of the battlefield.

Feral connection (4/5)

You’ll need the increased hit points for your animal companion to scale with your tier of play as well as the extra defense too. A bonus to skill tests equal to your survival rank is fairly potent. This means attack tests are improved a lot too making them more capable in combat (at least at hitting their target). Just make sure you invest plenty of ranks in survival.

Pack hunting (3/5)

Team up with allies to really bully your quarry making their attacks more likely to hit or more damaging. It costs a reaction unfortunately, so this will only work a maximum of once per round, but it’s still a decent enough boost to make targeting your quarry more beneficial than targeting a different adversary.

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Building an optimised hunter

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

Ancestry

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

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.

You’ll be able to beef up an animal companion more quickly for combat or launch salvos of arrows faster or get swift strikes sooner this way.

Singer: Singers get a unique path that gives them different forms they can transform into. Artform, nimbleform, Stormform, relayform, decayform and nightform all work well for a hunter.

Attributes

Recommended attributes

Speed: An important attribute for movement speed, your hunter skills like stealth and thievery and making attacks. You can use strength for attacks instead, but some specialties, like the assassin, really rely on make light weapons attacks so I’d favour speed over strength. This will also help your defense too. Normally, this is a Hunter’s most important attribute, alongside awareness.

Strength: Remains important for your defense and can be used for attacks too. However, many hunters may favour light weapon attacks due to certain talents that call for light weapon attacks, especially from the assassin specialty, and because of your natural inclination towards speed skills. This is still useful for your physical defense though.

Awareness: You’ll need this for survival tests which becomes more common with a hunter. It can also fuel your investiture if/when you take a radiant path.

Willpower: This isn’t essential, but if you do want some extra focus, you may want to invest a little in willpower, though it’s less important for a hunter than other attributes.

Attributes to avoid

You’ve probably got too much to focus on to invest in intellect or presence. Neither of these are useful for a hunter and others can focus on these attributes instead.

Skills

You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths as a hunter. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists. This means honing in on speed and awareness skills, and to some extent, physical skills. You’ll also want to consider skills required by some of your talents. These include survival, perception, agility and stealth (depending on the specialties you focus on).

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

• Agility: You could focus on athletics for a similar bunch of tests, but agility is required by some talents and hunters tend to rely on speed more than strength. Athletics can be an option instead, depending on your build and specialties.
• Light weaponry/Heavy weaponry: With a greater focus in speed, I’d tend to lean towards ranks in light weaponry over heavy weaponry. If you’re an assassin, this is a necessity for some talents. You’ll need one of these though to make your attacks decent.
• Stealth: With strong speed skills and a need for stealth when marking your quarry or operating as an assassin, stealth can be a really important skill for a hunter.
• Thievery: Not a necessity, but you will be one of the best in most parties at skills like thievery making this a good option.
• Perception: With a strong awareness and as the de-facto scout of the party, perception is a good option to invest in. Trackers in particular will need some investment in perception.
• Survival: Trackers will need this to enhance some of their talents (or even as a pre-requisite for some of them). This will enhance things like your traps, animal companion and things like tracking and foraging.

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 could be helpful, but assassin’s take care: If you intend on taking sidestep, then you’ll be limited to armor with a deflect value of 1 or less (unless you waste the sidestep talent completely).
• Weapon expertise are going to be your most important: Archers will want to focus on ranged weapons while assassins have talents that only work with certain weapons like knives, slings and maybe staffs. The tracker specialty is less limiting but even then, many hunters are likely to focus on light weapons, but heavy weapons can also be an option.
• Utility expertises aren’t essential, but there are a few useful options: Animal care is probably your most important utility expertise, especially if you take some talents in tracker.
• Cultural expertise is of little relevance to your path: This is really for languages and cultural knowledge and won’t really impact your path, even if you come from a culture that is more inclined towards hunting.

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

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