Savant: Basic Class Information

A brand new 5E class over on EN5ider! Savants are first and foremost experts, unique even when compared to arcane or divine sages. Brilliant detectives, iconic martial artists, and adventurous physicians are counted among their number, each utilizing brilliance where others rely on magic or brute power. For a savant, saving the day means turning leverage and knowledge into weaponry. By Jeremiah McCoy; illustrated by Alba Palacio.

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[TwoSix]

I am comfortable with this. It seems to keep the idea behind it and seems perfectly workable. That is to say, I wanted originally for them to be strictly armorless like a monk. The Armor is a compromise which was a good compromise.

I think the armored concept works well for a more martially inclined subclass like the Adversary, but I imagine the other two subclasses are a lot more oriented towards concepts that lack armor, since they won't have smart defense.

And if the Adversary takes another fighting style besides Smart Defense, medium armor becomes the standard at low-medium levels, and unarmored will be the better option once Int gets to 20 (assuming no magic armor in play).

 

[TwoSix]

Isn't this basically making a Bladesong Wizard and a Bard all into one Class?

I feel like having no spellcasting at all gives the savant a fairly different feel from those two classes.

 

[technoir]

Isn't this basically making a Bladesong Wizard and a Bard all into one Class?

I certainly hope it has a different enough feel to it to be its own thing. I certainly can see your point, though. I was more shooting for someone who solves things without magic or a strong arm, but with their intellect. That was the goal anyway.

 

[Inchoroi]

Alright. I admit I'm intrigued. I love playing smart characters, and making it an interesting class without spellcasting is intriguing.

 

[Ymdar]

If you could compare this class to any movie protagonist who would it be?

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Props on the name of the class. I've been designing a couple of Intelligence based classes for my campaigns, and the best names I was able to come up with were Tactician (so-so) for the martial class and Expert (just sounds like a boast) or Surgeon (too narrow) for the healing/support class. I might have to "borrow" Savant from you because it has the perfect "sound" of a class name.

 

[technoir]

If you could compare this class to any movie protagonist who would it be?

The fictional icons I was thinking about were Sherlock Holmes or Brainiac. I have seen the idea in a few other places, but those are the most famous.

 

[technoir]

Props on the name of the class. I've been designing a couple of Intelligence based classes for my campaigns, and the best names I was able to come up with were Tactician (so-so) for the martial class and Expert (just sounds like a boast) or Surgeon (too narrow) for the healing/support class. I might have to "borrow" Savant from you because it has the perfect "sound" of a class name.

Thanks. The subclasses purposes match the ones you described here. Great minds and all that.

 

[technoir]

Alright. I admit I'm intrigued. I love playing smart characters, and making it an interesting class without spellcasting is intriguing.

I like having non-magic options in D&D. I don't hate magic or anything but it felt like an area D&D could use more of.

 

[Satyrn]

The fictional icons I was thinking about were Sherlock Holmes or Brainiac.

I misread the name of that second character, and what popped into my head was "the same thing we do every night, Watson. Try to take over the dungeon."