HEROES  ⟩  CALLINGS

Mastermind

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  • Requires: Intellect ✦✦    
  • Start with:  4 Life, +1 Awareness, ✪ Stratagem      
Your foes can never be sure if they’re winning or stumbling into some elaborate trap you’ve set. Surveying dangers from on high, holding their allies in tight formation as they advance, shouting a precisely-timed command for maximal advantage, a Mastermind’s clever leadership makes an adventuring party more than the sum of its parts. You start with the following ability:

✪ Stratagem

✦✦ Intellect  When you rest, you can devise a number of stratagems up to your Intellect. Devising a stratagem doesn’t prevent you from performing a rest activity from another ability. For each stratagem, reduce your maximum Awareness by 1. As long as you hold a stratagem in your mind, your Awareness remains reduced. When you spring a stratagem, you gain back 1 maximum—but not current—Awareness. You can spring any stratagem from the list below, at any time, no action required. You, the player, don’t need to pick a specific stratagem when you devise it—just trust that your character has it all figured out! 

Ask the Guide:

Always Ready

You and your allies automatically succeed at taking Initiative. 

Coordinated Offense

You grant maneuver advantage on attacks for yourself and your allies for the remainder of the Hero Round. 

Treacherous Terrain

You lure your foes into an unfavorable position. Impose maneuver disadvantage on all foes’ attacks for the remainder of the Foe Round. 

One Step Ahead

You trick a single foe into fumbling an attack. Impose maneuver disadvantage on one attack, which can target you or an ally. If the result doesn’t beat your Intellect, the foe’s attack automatically misses, regardless of the target’s Agility and Guard. 

Your Mind's an Open Scroll

You cause a single character’s maneuver or compel action to fail.

All Part of the Plan

You narrate something you did in the past that sets you up for success—or sets your enemies up for failure—in the present. First, describe specifically what you would like this stratagem to accomplish. Then explain what your character did in the past, “off-camera,” to prepare for this contingency. The Guide can call for you to make action rolls for your past actions, which can’t reduce your stamina or spirit.  

Abilities to Learn 

.5xp new ability  |  10xp with attribute increase

✪ Command

✧ Will  

Take -1 awareness and roll Compel to command an ally during battle (or, alternatively, to offer them helpful advice). If the ally uses their turn action to attack or maneuver in the same round as your command, they can use your Compel roll in place of their own roll. You must command your ally before they act. You must be able to see them, and they must be able to hear you.

✪ Leadership

✦✧ Will  

Requires ✪ Command. You can use Bolster or Command (one or the other) on a number of allies up to your Will per round. You must either be adjacent to them, or on high relative to them, and they must be able to hear you. (Roll Compel separately for each action.)

✪ Clarity

✦✦✧ Will  

Gain +2 max Awareness.

✪ Heart of Cleverness

✦✦✧ Will  

Gain +1 max Life and +1 max Guard.

✪ Enlightenment

✦✦✦✧ Will  

When you Stand Fast, you can take -1 spirit as well as -1 stamina to gain overflow awareness from your roll instead of, or in addition to, guard. The overflow can’t exceed your Will.  For example if your Stand fast roll is 4, you can gain any combination of awareness and guard that equals 4. Any overflow awareness dissipates at the start of your next turn, along with overflow guard. If you Bolster an ally, you can take -1 spirit to grant them the same ability to gain Awareness from their Stand fast roll. 

✪ Quick Study

✦✦✧ Intellect  

Gain +1 max Awareness. You can learn one additional lore when you spend Downtime in a location with a library, or if you possess a written text about the lore, such as the Scrolls of the Sorcerer. 

✪ Survey

✦✦✧ Intellect  

As a rest activity, roll Compel to scrutinize an area and devise a special stratagem (or set of stratagems) to fit its unique terrain. An “area” could be a floating island, a large skyreme, an ancient structure in the Chaos, or a similar region of play.  If you’re resting on high relative to the area you’re surveying, you have maneuver advantage on the roll. ✦ 5+: You gain a number of local stratagems equal to your Intellect.⬖ 3–4: You gain 1 local stratagem.ⓧ 1–2:  You end your rest with -1 spirit.If your max Spirit is zero, you can't perform this activity.A local stratagem doesn’t reduce your maximum Awareness, but can only be used in the area you surveyed. Otherwise, it works the same as a normal stratagem. Keep a separate list of your local stratagems. Once you survey an area—success, struggle, or failure—you can’t survey it again until after a Downtime has passed. 

✪ Observe

✦✦✧ Intellect  

Take -1 awareness and roll Maneuver to carefully observe a character, attempting to discern their essential characteristics. Choose mental or physical characteristics when you use this action. ✦ Success: You learn the character’s relevant characteristics and gain a mark on them.⬖ Struggle: The foe can take -1 awareness to cause your observation to fail.ⓧ Failure: No effect.For physical observation, you learn the character’s Strength, Agility, Brace die, and Attack die, along with their Stamina, Guard, and Life (maximum and current). Your mark grants you a +1 bonus to all attacks against the character.For mental observation, you learn the character’s Will, Intellect, Maneuver die, Compel die, and ideals, along with their Awareness and Spirit (maximum and current). Your mark grants you a +1 bonus to all compel rolls against the character.You can observe a character multiple times to gain both a physical and mental mark on them, but you can’t gain multiple marks of the same type. Keep a list of characters you’ve observed and what type of marks apply to them.

✪ Of a Kind

✦✦✦✧ Intellect  

Requires ✪ Observe. Your marks against one creature apply to all creatures of the same type. For example, if you physically observe and mark a kulu, you effectively mark all kulus. This ability doesn’t work on people (Kananites, Mazrians, Shinarians, or Zordin), or on particularly intelligent or individualistic creatures as determined by the Guide.

✪ Too Clever to Die

✦✦✦✧ Intellect  

If an attack would reduce your Life to zero, you can use a stratagem to negate just enough of the damage to retain 1 Life.

✪ Summon Stratagem

✦✦✦✧ Intellect  

During Downtime, you can devise one special stratagem, which doesn’t reduce your maximum Awareness. You don’t need to come up with the particulars of this plan until you execute it. When you use this stratagem, choose a number of friendly NPCs up to your Intellect. The NPCs appear nearby in the knick of time—just as you planned, as it turns out—and act as allies. If the NPCs have access to transportation through their lore or resources, they use it. Otherwise, they show up on a derelict balloon, skyreme flotsam, a group of barely-tamed skyseahorses, or another makeshift means of transport chosen by the Guide. You or the Guide can control the NPCs. If you’d like an NPC to actively fight in a battle, make a Persuade roll to convince them (roll when you spring this stratagem, reflecting some previous discussion you had with the character). If you fail, the NPC still appears but won’t risk their life. NPCs who don’t fight can still assist in other ways, like creating a diversion or tending to the wounded.You can only devise one stratagem that uses this ability at a time. Note this stratagem separately from any others you’ve devised.

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