Leader Path Optimisation Guide for the Cosmere RPG

Tactics and optimisations for a leader build.

Leader 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

Decisive command (4/5)

This is essentially bardic inspiration for the Cosmere RPG. Being able to chuck around enhancements to rolls is a great way to ensure allies get the most out of their turns.

The flexibility of which part of the test to enhance is handy. If the character knows their attack test will hit, they can enhance damage, if they’re not sure they will hit, this could turn a miss into a hit.

The command die applies to the recipient’s next test so they may want to choose their next test carefully (if they have a choice), preferably applying it to the most important test in their turn.

I’d also suggest applying this to characters with the most important roles to play in combat in the next round.

While a D4 is small (but still worthwhile), you can increase the size of your command die by taking other talents. Each talent you take that increases your command die has a cumulative effect up to a maximum of d10. If you plan on giving a lot of enhancements, then it could be worthwhile grabbing all (or at least some) of these. There’s one in each specialty. They are:

• Demonstrative command – Champion (Lv5)
• Confident command – Officer (Lv4)
• Shrewd command – Politico (Lv4)

Champion specialty

Level 2 talents

Combat coordination (5/5)

This gives big savings on your action economy allowing you to use decisive command without expending an action and sometimes foregoing the focus cost too. It means that this build should be taking the strike action and using decisive command a lot.

I’d also suggest grabbing upgrades to your decisive command die as quickly as possible, making a Human a better fit for this kind of build (due to their extra heroic path talents).

Valiant intervention (4/5)

A great way of nullifying (a bit) really tough enemies making them less potent. Just be aware that it doesn’t cause disadvantage on tests against yourself, so you may want to go for a tough build if you intend to go this route. Or you can position yourself with allies between you and the target making it difficult for the adversary to reach you (or forcing them to target allies).

Based on my adversary analysis, spiritual defenses tend to be weaker than physical defenses so as long as you’ve invested well in strength and athletics, you should have a decent chance of succeeding here.

Level 3 talents

Imposing posture (3/5)

In combat, this is most useful if you’ve grabbed valiant intervention (which isn’t a requirement for this talent). But it does make resisting your influence problematic. Out of combat, it’s going to make it easier to influence opponents in social situations once you’ve influenced them once.

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 4 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 or you can go the multipath route for things like swift strikes from the warrior path.

Resolute stand (4/5)

Valiant intervention gets even better with multiple enemies able to be targeted meaning you can protect allies from even more enemies. They can also get away from their foes with the prevention of reactive strikes against them.

Just be aware of the potentially high focus cost. This may be more of an emergency re-maneuvering kind of tactic. You’ll also want to make sure you’re tough enough to serve as the vanguard while allies retreat. As with valiant intervention, if you’re going to be using this, you’ll want to invest in being quite tanky.

Resilient hero (4/5)

Stay in the fight longer with this talent. A high enough athletics modifier (so your strength + your athletics rank) might make you durable enough to outlast another attack, but probably not 2. At least not without healing. Neither of these should be a problem for a champion.

Just be aware that you could just fall at the next attack roll 2 before you’ve had chance to heal or reach safety so this isn’t sure-fire protection from being knocked unconscious.

Level 5 talents

Demonstrative command (4/5)

Get better at athletics, agility and leadership skill tests. These are some of the most common skills tests in combat (as demonstrated in my adversary analysis) making this already quite useful. On top of this, your already decent command die gets even better (to a minimum of a d6). Remember, this stacks with other talents that increase your command die size so you could potentially be using a command die of d10, which is considerable, but also a considerable investment in talents.

Officer specialty

Level 2 talents

Composed (5/5)

A decent amount of extra focus is going to go a long way to fueling your talents and other actions. You also don’t need to invest much to grab this making it a really strong multipath option (or just a good specialty dip if you’re a champion or politico main). It gets more potent as you increase levels too.

Through the fray (3/5)

Both these options as reactions can be a really useful tactical option. Disengage as a reaction can force enemies to make a move to attack, wasting some of their actions economy or taking an ally out of reach, though this can be a little situational. Advantage is going to be a bit more universally useful and can be great on high damage allies.

However, keep in mind that while opportunistic, the action economy is a little bit off, between the 2 of you, you spend an action and a reaction to do something that usually costs an action. It can be tactically very useful, but may also feel like a slightly high price for what you might accomplish without spending a reaction.

Level 3 talents

Well supplied (1/5)

An expertise in military logistics is not hard to come by, but at least a little useful. Requisitioning or allocating resources feels like a very situational set of circumstances and I struggle to see how often this will be useful. Fortunately, it’s a very easy talent to bypass.

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.

This is a fairly easy way to make yourself a fair bit more durable. It’s fortunate this is quite good as it’s basically essential for later leader talents. Just be aware that it will conflict with wearing things like shardplate or armor with a higher deflect value.

Level 4 talents

Confident command (4/5)

More reliable intimidation, leadership and persuasion tests is going to go a decent way to making you more competent in social situations. Add to this the increased command die (which does combine with other talents that grant an increased command die). All of this makes you even more adept at supporting allies too.

Level 5 talents

Relentless march (4/5)

Faster movement is always good and preventing the effects of 3 conditions is also very useful. All of this for free on top of your already very useful decisive command (which you should be using a lot). Just bear in mind that conditions can be quite situational (though you could target allies affected by these conditions). Also keep in mind this does not end the condition, just prevents it’s effects for a turn.

Authority (5/5)

This one is a little complicated as you’re going to need to cross reference talents that affect allies and double their range and the number of targets. But the scope here is quite large!

At a basic level, this affects decisive command so you’re giving a boost to 2 allies instead of one at the cost of still just 1 focus. On its own, this is potent. Here’s the other talents that this seems to impact:

• Through the fray – Resolves the issues with action economy here by spending an action and 2 reactions to gain 2 actions
• Relentless march
• Synchronized assault – Makes a failure here still reasonably worthwhile and a success fantastic in large parties

It’s worth noting that while this affects all leader talents, I only found that it affects officer talents and the leader’s key talent, though it could also affect talents from future specialties as well (say from the Mistborn setting).

Level 6 talents

Synchronized assault (3/5)

This is sort of a high risk, high reward talent. It’ll cost you 2 focus and 3 actions, but you could give several allies an extra strike that doesn’t count towards their usual limit.

If you’re going to use this, you ought to have a high rank in leadership to make the most of it. You’ll also need a decent sized party and allies with a competent strike action. You’ll also need these allies in range. Importantly though, authority will double the affected allies.

Basically, this can be really good for large parties with the right circumstances, just beware of the high costs and potential for a failed test that won’t be worth the costs.

Politico specialty

Level 2 talents

Cutthroat tactics (4/5)

Raising the stakes can be very useful, especially if you have special features that activate on an opportunity or complication that you want to invoke more easily.

This also becomes a decent source of extra focus with complications occurring 1/3 of the time and decisive command being something you should be using fairly regularly. On the flip side, opportunities could result in things like restored focus or critical hits making 1/3 of the results even better than this making this a decent gamble at potentially better results.

If your party intend on using this a lot though, it may affect how important you feel it is to take talents that increase the size of your command die like shrewd command. In this way, this talent could make a really good multipath dip for character not intending to go far enough into leader to beef up their command die making it more potent by forcing a plot die roll.

Tactical ploy (3/5)

This works in and out of combat. Removing an opponent’s reaction might stop them from making a reactive strike or dodge allowing allies to attack more reliably or withdraw more easily.

Disadvantage on cognitive and spiritual tests will expose them to some combat tests against their defenses which could coordinate well with some allies, but it also makes them more susceptible to social effects as well, like deception. And if they resist this, you gain advantage on your next test against them. It’s a little contrived, but has the potential to be quite useful.

Level 3 talents

Rumormonger (1/5)

To make this talent useful, you’re really going to have to lean hard into the role of gossiper and socialite. Gathering rumours is a potentially useful activity that may occur semi-often, but likely isn’t very hard (rumours are usually easy to come by than facts for example).

Spreading misinformation is much less usual but can maybe be contrived in certain campaigns. Again, expertise in scandal is unlikely to come up a lot either. I just really struggle to see this being used much for things that aren’t already easy or going to have much impact.

Annoyingly, this talent is a requirement for any kind of later progression in this specialty.

Level 4 talents

Shrewd command (4/5)

Deception, insight and leadership tests are all quite common and useful so enhancing these is great. A better command die is also useful, and it stacks with other talents that grant this too.

Baleful (3/5)

You should be able to quickly wear down opponents in social situations making them lose focus much more quickly.

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 5 talents

Set at odds (4/5)

A high leadership could make this very potent. Getting enemies to conflict with one another can be very useful and it can work in the heat of battle. It’s up to the GM how problematic this is and how easily it can be resolved.

An argument with an ally in the heat of battle may amount to little more than name calling or not helping one another depending on circumstances and how the GM intends to make this manifest. I’d suggest that a success always have a tangible benefit to the players, but be aware this may not necessarily mean enemies fighting each other.

There are definite uses for this in social encounters, but those could be a little circumstantial, but maybe not heavily so. And getting targets in conflict may not always work in your favour either.

Grand deception (2/5)

This has a high cost and is potentially very circumstantial. It could also lead to nothing of value or be vetoed by the GM. Not a bad talent, it has potential to be very good and interesting. But the chances to make this useful and its high cost mean you should come into this prepared it may often not get used.

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Building an optimised leader

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

Ancestry

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

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. If you’re really keen to get a better command die as quickly as possible, Human will be your best option as this requires a fair bit of investment in talents in your heroic path.

Singer: Singers get a unique path that gives them different forms they can transform into. Meditationform, workform, envoyform, decayform and nightform all work for a leader. A champion may also find that forms that enhance combat capabilities like nimbleform, direform and Stormform are a good fit too.

Attributes

Recommended attributes

Strength: Important for attacks and increasing your physical defense. This is most important for a champion who will want to be in the fray drawing attacks and dealing damage. They also rely on athletics a fair bit for their talents too.

Willpower: This will fuel your focus which you’ll need plenty of as you use decisive command regularly to buff allies as well as other talents and actions. It will also help with skills like discipline and intimidation.

Presence: Leaders generally excel at being charismatic, persuading, cajoling and even fooling others into action. You can also use this to fuel your investiture if you take a radiant path.

Speed: Not a crucial attribute, but if you play a champion in particular, you can use this to up your speed and physical defense. It’s not crucial for a leader, but it remains a decent option.

Attributes to avoid

You’ve probably got too much to focus on to invest in intellect or awareness. Presence rather than awareness should be your spiritual attribute for investiture while intellect gives little for a leader.

Skills

You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths as a leader. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists. This means honing in on social skills, and to some extent, physical skills. You’ll also want to consider skills required by some of your talents. These include leadership, athletics, deception and persuasion (depending on the specialties you focus on).

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

• Athletics: Champions lean towards strength and athletics over speed and agility making athletics a good option for avoiding danger and navigating difficult environments.
• Heavy weaponry: Light weaponry can be an option if you’ve invested in speed over strength, but champions will likely focus on strength and athletics meaning heavy weaponry likely makes more sense for most leaders.
• Deception: You’re primarily a charismatic path meaning you want social skills in abundance. Deception is especially important for a politico but can be useful for other specialties too.
• Intimidation: Again, social skills are important for leaders and some talents use intimidation.
• Persuasion: Perhaps the most important social skills, and a prerequisite for some officer talents.
• Leadership: The most common prerequisite skill for your talents and it even affects the potency of some of your talents.

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 in breastplate could be very useful for an officer: If you take the customary garb talent and have expertise in this armor, then you get improved protection and a decent deflect value.
• Weapon expertise are also important: In fact, if you want to wield certain weapons, you’ll likely want to ensure you have expertise with them. Base this on what weapons you want to wield. With the greater focus in the path on strength, this will likely be heavy weapons, but light weapons can work too.
• Utility expertises aren’t essential, but there are a few useful options: Things like military strategy can be useful, as can something like riding horses if you want to use a mount, but largely, you’re fine picking what you want here.
• 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 warfaring culture like the Alethi or a beautocratic culture like the Azish.

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

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