Craft, heal and strategise with this intellectual path for the Cosmere RPG
Scholars are the scientists, engineers, doctors and even military tacticians of the Cosmere. They are intellectuals and creatives, driven by curiosity, a thirst for knowledge and a desire to solve problems through ingenuity.
Scholars sort of fulfill a similar role to artificers and clerics. They can create magical technology (known as fabrials) better than others and can stitch up even ordinarily fatal wounds (at least once they become truly adept as a surgeon). On top of this, they operate as military strategists as well with a greater combat leaning (at least for those of a certain specialty).
In the Stormlight Archive, Navani is a scholar, and specifically, an artifabrian. Lirin is a surgeon and Kaladin has a few levels in this specialty too. Adolin and Dalinar are both strategists.
In the scholar path, you have 3 specialties you can draw your talents from. These will determine your capabilities as a scholar. They are:
- Artifabrian: expert engineers and scientists, these scholars can craft more powerful fabrials than other specialties.
- Strategist: Students of warfare, strategists are expert tacticians. They can aid others in combat through their knowledge of expert military strategy.
- Surgeon: Stitch and heal with substantial medical training. Surgeons are the healers of the Cosmere. They are capable of healing more hit points, removing the impact of injuries and can even resuscitate the recently deceased.
The challenge with the Cosmere RPG’s path system is that there are so many options to choose from and ways to build your scholar. This guide takes a deep dive into all of these options to give a load of advice on scholar tactics and builds you can use for your character.
Overview
- Intellectual path with better capabilities with skills than any other path.
- The best healer’s in the game.
- Also make the best crafters, having access to some of the fabrial crafting not available to others.
Scholar 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
Erudition (5/5)
Not only do you gain 2 expertise, but you also gain 2 skill ranks which can take you above the normal threshold for skill ranks (5). You do have to spread these between 2 different skills and they must be cognitive skills, but still, that’s an extra +1 on 2 skills and you can change them as you need.
If you take further levels in scholar, you can even expand into spiritual and physical skills with the real highlight being able to get to light or heavy weaponry at +6. You’ll need 1 level in strategist for this or you can grab spiritual skills with a level in surgeon. I can see a lot of characters taking a 1-2 level dip in scholar just for this.
Artifabrian specialty
Level 2 talents
Efficient engineer (4/5)
1-2 decent fabrials for free plus cheaper crafting and a bigger opportunity range and expertise in a type of crafting makes this really strong for a crafting build. In literal monetary value, this set is worth up to 750 marks, plus however much you save from cheaper crafting makes this pretty strong.
Prized acquisition (5/5)
A free gemstone for a unique fabrial that ignores time and spren capture for crafting the first time means you’ve basically got a free unique fabrial (something so rare it has no literal cost). And you can change it into another fabrial and it changes tier with your own tier meaning you can easily craft just about any unique fabrial you want.
On top of this, this is the easiest way to gain fabrial expertise. Excellent option for a crafter.
Level 3 talents
Fine handiwork (5/5)
Advanced features for items can be really potent, and to be able to grab this on a lower crafting test or even just to have more upgrades more easily on your fabrial is pretty strong. The more you craft, the more benefits you get from this so if you take it, do lots of crafting, including for your allies as you’ve the potential to make much better equipment than they could buy.
Deep study (5/5)
Another expertise and 2 more cognitive skills that can go above 5 too. And these can be reassigned, and if you take mind and body and/or emotional intelligence from the strategist and surgeon specialties, then you can reassign these to physical and spiritual skills too. Basically, this is double erudition which is excellent.
Inventive design (5/5)
Higher tier fabrials can be quite potent, but just be aware that there’s only 1 tier 3 and 1 tier 4 unique fabrial so there aren’t a lot of options here. At tier 1, you’ll get access to some pretty strong fabrials though. And the tier 3 and 4 fabrials are really good. Plus you can work with your GM on completely unique fabrials.
Overcharge (3/5)
A sort of high risk high reward approach to attacks. Basically, you have a 1/3 chance of getting a strike as a free action, with the opportunity of another strike, but also a 1/3 chance of getting a temporary drawback for your fabrial.
You’ll need a painrial or a projectile for this. Remember that the plot die can be rolled with advantage if needs be.
Level 4 talents
Experimental tinkering (4/5)
Expanding opportunity range for crafting from 18-20 to 17-20 is solid (this has already been expanded by efficient engineer) and halved crafting times is useful too.
The big thing here is being able alter your prized possession gemstone for free during a long rest. This makes your fabrial nicely adaptive. The only drawback being a limited number of tier 3 and 4 unique fabrials. I’d be tempted as a GM to allow this to switch back and forth between lower and higher tier unique fabrials as long as the character has achieved that tier with their prized gemstone at least once before.
Level 5 talents
Overwhelm with details (3/5)
With this, you can now make any cognitive or spiritual test using your lore modifier. On its own, this can easily make you really good at every non-physical skill, but it will cost you 2 focus which is a decent price so you won’t want to be using this all the time, just for especially crucial tests where lore far outperforms the other skill.
Strategist specialty
Level 2 talents
Strategize (1/5)
I don’t really like this one. You basically get a talent that means you have to use an action to give someone else advantage when you could maybe just take talents that make you good at combat instead so there’s no need to hand advantage to someone else.
I also think that 2 focus is a steep price to pay to stop reactions against an ally when the adversary could just use their reactions for defence or against other characters. I don’t really see much point in taking this one.
Mind and body (5/5)
An extra erudition skill and you can now use erudition for physical skills. Physical skills are some of the most used around and it’s super easy to dip a couple of levels in scholar for this and erudition to make your warrior or hunter more likely to hit or your agent better at stealthing.
An extra weapon expertise is a nice bit of icing on this superbly skillful cake!
Level 3 talents
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.
Know your moment (4/5)
2 extra defences on all your defences means you’re better protected from fast turns but not slow turns (so long as you take a slow turn). How much this helps likely depends on how your GM plays your adversaries, but in theory, it could be really good. The best way to make the most of this is to take slow turns.
Level 4 talents
Contingency (3/5)
While this is quite situational, the rolling of complications will occur from time to time and you may well want those cancelled out. I’d pick your moments for this, using it on problematic complications. Of course, if the complication just means losing a focus, this may not be the right time to use this reaction as it’ll cost you 2 focus.
Deep contemplation (3/5)
Much easier reassignment of erudition skills means you can really easily adapt to what’s in front of you. Suddenly need to be better at intimidation? Not a problem, just use deep contemplation.
Level 5 talents
Keen insight (3/5)
Basically a bonus effect when you gain advantage to give disadvantage to the target too. Great if you’ll be trying to gain advantage a lot, less so if you won’t.
Turning point (4/5)
This is best for large parties. You’ll expend 2 actions, but on the next round, everyone you can influence gets an extra action which can easily add up. Just make sure no one is knocked unconscious while you cause your turning point or you’ll lose some of your extra actions.
You might also want to up your deduction (maybe use erudition on it). And be aware that not only does this cost 2 focus, but it also can fail.
Surgeon specialty
Level 2 talents
Field medicine (4/5)
So this is a bit better than a standard medicine skill test to patch someone up. For starters, it requires 1 focus instead of 2. Second, it will always heal some hit points, even on a failed skill test, and finally, the amount healed is greater too.
The amount healed depends on the target’s recovery die which is determined by their willpower (normally between D4 and d10) and your ranks in medicine. This gives you a couple of tactics to work with. First of all, you are going to be the best person to administer healing in the group so you may want to use those efforts accordingly. You will also want to up your medicine ranks as much as possible if you intend on doing lots of healing for greater chances of success and more hit points healed (emotional intelligence can help you eventually get this up to a 6). Higher intellect will also help you pass these tests more often.
I’d also say that with this being a separate talent, this enables you to heal twice per turn. Once using this talent and once using a standard medicine skill test. The second time won’t be as effective though, but it’s an option that’s available. However, the healing from a standard medicine test is, in my opinion, usually too small, even with 6 ranks in medicine (though it will become more significant with later talents).
One final thing to add here is that the scaling isn’t huge with levels. It does increase as target willpower and your own medicine ranks increase, but this could peak in tier 1. However, later talents will help this to scale further (like applied medicine and swift healer).
Emotional intelligence (5/5)
Another erudition skill rank is great and you can combine these with things like mind and body and deep study from the other specialties to become even more of a skills guru. Make sure you add 1 to medicine to get this up to a maximum of 6. This is also great for charismatic characters who might want a boost to things like persuasion and deception.
Level 3 talents
Swift healer (5/5)
Not only do you add your medicine again to any healing you cause (get this to a 6 as soon as possible) for better scaling for healing, but you can also use field medicine as a free action meaning you should be healing every turn. This talent also makes a standard medicine skill test more worthwhile as well if you want to heal twice per turn.
Anatomical insight (3/5)
Applying the exhausted condition can be quite useful, though making unarmed strikes may not be your best option when it comes to damage. Still, if you have a high medicine (5 or 6) this could work quite well. Just be aware, it won’t work on chasmfiends (or other big or non-exhaustible adversaries).
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.
Level 4 talents
Ongoing care (3/5)
So you’re not removing the actual injury, it more removes some of the effects the injury might cause. Good for some reprieve from the effects but hopefully quite a situational talent.
Applied medicine (4/5)
Recover even more hit points when healing. This time, you’ll do this for an amount equal to your lore rank. Again, this will affect field medicine as well as standard healing you can take, helping your healing scale with tiers. Get your lore as high as you can (preferably 6 with the help of erudition).
Resuscitation (4/5)
Now you can recover and heal characters that are unconscious or recently dead. It gets harder the more injuries they have, but this can be really important if allies get knocked unconscious. Hopefully this is quite situational, but no other heroic paths will give you this ability, and it’s likely important to get someone in the party with this.
Building an optimised scholar
In this section, I’ll give some advice on which options to consider when building an optimised scholar.
Ancestry
You can choose a Human or Singer ancestry for an optimised scholar.
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. A Human will help you specialise quicker. This is especially useful for a surgeon who may want to get really potent healing sooner and an artifabrian that might want more powerful fabrials quicker.
Singer: Singers get a unique path that gives them different forms they can transform into. Meditationform, scholar form, envoyform and nightform are all great options.
Attributes
Recommended attributes
Intellect: You’ll want a decent intellect for things like medicine and lore tests. It’ll also help with your cognitive defense. This should be your most important attribute.
Strength or speed: No matter your specialty, you’ll want to be making attacks and you’ll want a decent physical defense (you may even want to invest in both). Artifabrians will want to lean into speed as fabrial weapons tend to use light weaponry for attacks.
Willpower: You’ll likely not be able to invest a lot in this, but it can be useful for more focus and a better recovery die.
Presence: You’ll likely want to invest in a spiritual attribute if you take a radiant path. Presence is your best option, but you have a lot of options for attributes so this isn’t necessarily a priority.
Attributes to avoid
Your most crucial attribute is intellect. After that, strength, speed, willpower and presence can all be good options. You won’t be able to focus on all of them though, so you’ll need to prioritise according to your build. Strength and speed for a more attack focused scholar, presence for a more charismatic one or one that needs plenty of investiture and willpower if you need more focus.
With all of this, there’s absolutely no space for awareness so this should be dumped.
Skills
You’ll want to focus on skills that lean into your strengths as a scholar. It’s generally better to have specialists in different areas in a party than lots of generalists. This means honing in on intellect skills. You’ll also want to consider skills required by some of your talents. These include crafting, lore, deduction and medicine.
I’d recommend investing skill ranks in the following skills:
- Crafting: Crucial if you’re going for an artifabrian build. You’ll need this to make quality fabrials and items.
- Deduction: Important for a strategist. It’ll help you defend against enemy attacks too.
- Lore: Crucial skill for any scholar. It’ll help you across all specialties and is an important knowledge skill. Depending on your talents, it might help with your healing or even as a replacement for other cognitive tests.
- Medicine: Essential for surgeons and ensuring the best healing possible.
- Agility or athletics: These crossover quite a bit so you only need one. Go for whichever corresponding attribute you’re best at. Speed is likely to be a slightly better option as artifabrians tend to favour light weaponry with their weapon fabrials. Plus you get a speed boost.
- Light weaponry or heavy weaponry: Not the most important for a scholar, but you’ll likely be making strikes so one of these will be useful. Light weaponry works well with painrial and projectiles (your fabrial weapons) which likely makes this a better option for a scholar.
- Social skills: If you’ve invested in presence and/or willpower, then some social skills (like persuasion, deception and intimidation) can work well, especially for a surgeon. Erudition and its associated talents will mean you can outperform other paths at these when it comes skill ranks.
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 is feasible for a scholar), you can take expertise in half plate for 3 deflect.
- Weapon expertises are going to be your most important, unless you’re an artifabrian: You’re still going to need to fight, even as a scholar. 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. However, if you opt for being an artifabrian, weapon expertise can become redundant as you can use painrial and projectiles for attacks instead.
- Utility expertises are important for artifabrians: Weapon, armor and equipment crafting are all going to be important. You get one of these with your talents, but you may want all 3, especially if you think you can make better gear for you and your allies. All scholars might also consider knowledge expertises where your lore will work well too like history and religion or engineering where your crafting skills might come in handy.
- 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.
Do you have a strong scholar build? How have you built them? Let me know in the comments below.
