Iron Allomancy (Lurcher): Metallic Art Optimisation Guide for the Cosmere RPG

Pull on metal to use metallic objects as weapons and launch yourself across Scadriel.

At a glance

Iron allomancy 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 bond and surge talent trees 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. This is just to help you know how quickly you can get each talent.

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.

Level 1 talents

Burn iron (3/5)

Knowing where metals are and their size is situationally useful. But if you’re clever, there’s quite a few situations for this. You could identify belt buckles on enemies, the presence of guns and weapons or even just where metal is that you can pull on.

In fact, detecting metals to pull on is the most important use for this talent. You’ll need this active to use ironpull just so you know where metal is.

There are limitations though. For instance, enemies trained to fight allomancers (or that know you’re a lurcher) likely won’t wear metal, but at least you don’t even need to expend investiture to actually use this.

Ironpull (5/5)

Loads of potential with this. You can take the weapons off of enemies, pull them by metal things they’re wearing (like a belt) or move yourself around the battlefield (including vertically). There’s an action setup with this as you’ll need to activate burn iron first which is a bit of a pain, but so long as you stay invested, you don’t need to reapply burn iron.

Even better, you can now use a single action to move and attack if you can line up your pull to take you through an enemy. This makes iron a really maneuverable but also melee focused metallic art. Obviously the more ranks you have in allomancy, the more you’ll damage so you may want to focus skill ranks here if you intend to use this a lot. Allomancy ranks and willpower will also make you more accurate. You’ll also want to get your investiture high so you can extend your distance and number of uses. Awareness or presence will help here, as will the invested talent from your Metalborn path.

Level 2 talents

Leveraging brace (3/5)

You can use brace to pull larger things towards you if you brace against something large enough. I’m not sure how often that’s useful. I don’t foresee a lot of situations where you need to pull towards you something really big that isn’t just immoveable anyway.

Advantage on ironpull or steel push allomancy tests is less situational, but a standard ironpull doesn’t tend to require a test unless you’re making a lurching strike, but this will also only work if you’re pulling on something of your own size, so you’d better hope there’s plenty of metal statues and metal armoured soldiers around. Ironpull shot will also benefit from this.

All of this means this talent can be good, but only in the right situations.

Projectile lurch (4/5)

This is good if you’re a heavily armoured tanky character. It’s a great way to draw attacks from weaker allies and use your higher physical defense and/or deflect and HP to take more of a beating. I’d make sure your physical defense is nice and high if you intend to use this, as well as your deflect too.

Level 3 talents

Ironpull shot (4/5)

Now you can make projectile attacks with your allomancy and means you don’t necessarily need a ranged weapon and can focus more on skills in allomancy. However, it’s worth pointing out that another talent (lurching strike) does make it more worthwhile improving your weapon attacks anyway.

Just be aware that this is more situational than simply having a ranged weapon as you need metal objects around. Some coins will do the job though, which shouldn’t be too rare. And it gives you more options for your ironpull if you can’t Lurch yourself around.

Lurching strike (4/5)

This will up the damage of your lurching strikes a fair bit. You should also be investing in physical skills a fair bit for iron allomancy. This means your weapon attacks may be better than your allomancy attacks anyway so could make you more accurate.

Disarming lurch (4/5)

Disarming enemies is pretty useful and will cause them to waste time retrieving their weapon (especially if they’re not already right next to you). If you’re using leveraging brace, then this could have advantage, but you’ll need to already be bracing which is probably a little contrived.

Having projectile lurch also work on melee weapons really expands how much you can protect allies too.

Lurcher’s gear (4/5)

This is a huge buff for your projectile lurch! You should have a strong deflect if you’re going to be using projectile lurch anyway. And this will mean you’re deflecting at least 6 damage each time making it much better for you to be the one taking damage rather than allies.

Level 4 talents

Ironpull adept (5/5)

This expands your number of attacks considerably, so long as you can keep your investiture and focus topped up. 2 ironpull attacks per turn are possible and then you can use a reaction for another ironpull which could be a lurching crash, but could also just allow you to move around the battlefield.

The reaction is free and doesn’t cost focus so you should be using this as often as possible. The 2nd ironpull per turn isn’t an automatic pick as it will also cost a focus each time. A strike action might be appropriate instead to preserve some investiture and focus. Just keep in mind that with lurching strike, your lurching crash is more powerful than a standard melee attack to the point that it’s worth spending all the extra actions topping up your investiture if it means you can make more lurching crash attacks.

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Optimising for iron allomancy

In this section, I’ll give some advice on which options to consider when building around iron allomancy.

Ancestry

Both the Human and Koloss-Blooded ancestries work for iron allomancy.

Human: Humans will get you heroic talents quicker as you’ll be able to choose extra talents from heroic paths as you progress levels. This may be useful for beefing yourself up into more of a tank and melee combatant more quickly. You’ll get an extra talent at levels 1, 6, 11, 16 and 21.

Koloss-Blooded: Koloss-Blooded characters can have higher strength earlier in their character progression. They also get better hit points and better hit point recovery, which is excellent for a tanky iron allomancer.

Heroic paths

Matching up capabilities between your allomantic arts and heroic paths can be important as it allows you to focus more on a few different attributes and skills rather than spreading yourself too thin across many areas.

For iron allomancy, I’d recommend the following heroic paths and specialties:

• Hunter: Hazekillers are probably the best option here. They can be good in melee and are strong when it comes to focus fire on a single individual. Iron allomancers are useful here as they’re good at getting close to their target quickly. They also tend to focus on physical attributes a fair bit.
• Warrior: Iron allomancers need to be tough and are great at making melee attacks which suits a warrior really well. Brawlers are going to be your best option here with increased deflect and their benefits when getting close to ranged enemies. Soldier is also good and there’s some synergy with the brace action between the two.

Attributes

Recommended attributes

Speed: You’ll want a good speed or strength for attacks, but will need both for your physical defense too. Strength is probably more important so you can hit harder and speed is less important when you can launch yourself around the battlefield, but this is still useful.

Strength: Usually better than speed for many iron allomancers for making attacks (lurching strike needs ranks in heavy weaponry too) and it will help your physical defense and hit points (both important for a tank). It will also allow for higher deflect armor to be worn which will be important for resilience and just being able to use lurcher’s gear (you’ll need expertise in a 3+ deflect armor type).

Willpower: The strength of your allomancy will in part be down to willpower. You’ll also have more focus through this too.

Awareness: You’ll need at least some capabilities in a spiritual attribute and I see iron allomancy as leaning towards being a scout due to their movement capabilities so I’d go with awareness.

Attributes to avoid

Intellect is the one that’s going to crossover the least with your capabilities. You could swap out awareness for presence, but I think you’ll struggle trying to invest in both of these.

Skills

You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists.

Primarily, this means you’ll want skills related to strength and speed and perhaps willpower and awareness too. Of course, much will come down to your chosen heroic path as well, but the best heroic paths for a iron allomancy will share many of these aspects in common.

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

• Heavy weaponry: You’re better off with heavy weaponry than light weaponry as one of your talents needs ranks in heavy weaponry and it will allow for better damage in melee, which is often where a tanky build wants to be.
• Athletics: Useful for a build that’s likely to be performing difficult physical feats.
• Stealth: If you’ve also invested in speed and want to play a scout, then this will work well.
• Thievery: The same goes for thievery.
• Intimidation: With a high strength and potentially solid willpower, you should be a good fit for intimidation if you need to flex those social muscles.
• Perception: If you’ve invested in awareness, then this is your most important skill for scouting.
• Allomancy: You’ll want this for strong allomancy tests, especially as you may make a lot of attacks with your allomancy rather than weapon attacks.

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:

• You’ll eventually want armor of deflect 3+: This means taking half plate or wooden half plate. I’d suggest half plate initially as strength 5 will be hard to achieve and expertise will allow you to be strength 3 and use this without gaining the cumbersome trait.
• Gain weapon expertise in a melee heavy weapon: Iron allomancers are built for strength and lean towards heavy weaponry so grab an expertise in a heavy weapon. A shield is also an option here.
• Use utility expertises to fill expertise gaps in the party: Depending on your focus might affect what utility expertise you want to take.
• 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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While any character can use iron allomancy and enjoy its benefits, it works best on strong, tanky characters, especially if you intend on taking lots of the talents available. They’re also a pretty solid and fun metallic art.

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

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