Two New Aptitudes for the Savant Class

It's our 250th article over on EN5ider! That's a heck of a milestone! Thank you all for your support over the last couple of years. Today's article adds two new aptitudes for the Savant class introduced last month: the medically proficient Chirurgeon, and the knowledge-wielding Coordinator. By Jeremiah McCoy; illustrated by Matthew Berger.

It's our 250th article over on EN5ider! That's a heck of a milestone! Thank you all for your support over the last couple of years. Today's article adds two new aptitudes for the Savant class introduced last month: the medically proficient Chirurgeon, and the knowledge-wielding Coordinator. By Jeremiah McCoy; illustrated by Matthew Berger.


savant.jpg

​



Recently on EN5ider:

  • #250. Savant: Advanced. It's our 250th article! That's a heck of a milestone! Thank you all for your support over the last couple of years. Today's article adds two new aptitudes for the Savant class introduced last month: the medically proficient Chirurgeon, and the knowledge-wielding Coordinator. By Jeremiah McCoy; illustrated by Matthew Berger.
  • #249. Bezkusmet the Unscaled. Dragons are known to be terrifying but all pale in comparison to Bezkusmet the Unscaled. As his name suggests there is no hue or substance to his draconic scute leaving his musculature and skeleton bared for the world to see, lattices of finger-thick veins and arteries the size of a human’s wrist inexorably pumping blood across his utterly naked body. Only a thin sheen of transparent magic holds Bezkusmet’s organs and muscles in place, the last of the twisted supernatural energies of his birthright all that keeps him intact. By Mike Myler; illustrated by Claudio Pozas and Ekaterinya Vladinakova.
  • #248. ZEITGEIST #5 (Part 4) - Cauldron Born. The epic adventure path continues. The PCs work with the Risuri Navy to lure the colossus, Borne, out to sea while King Aodhan enacts a ritual to send the creature to the Dreaming.
  • #247. Magic Item Features. Spice up your magic items a little by randomly determining their history, origins, minor properties, and quirks with nothing by a d8 and a d20! By Ari Marmell.
  • #246. Savant: Basic Class Information. A brand new 5E class! 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.
  • #245. Deidre's Ghost. Deirdre's Ghost is a large vessel, sunk long ago. Recently, it has appeared on a rocky shore. This plug-in location includes a description, and plot hooks which include sinister academics, a rusted golem, a ghost, a sea hag, and some kraken eggs... by Ambrose Ingram; illustrated by Rachel Maduro.
  • #244. Bloodweaver: Advanced Class Information. Following on from last month's Bloodweaver: Basic, and the enormous article Bloodweaver: Tome of Disciplines, we present to you the Crimson Witch and the Scarlet Reaper, a pair of sanguine paths for the bloodweaver to walk! Learn to wield death curses, blood arsenals, and more! by Chris Rippee; illustrated by Julio Racho.
  • #243. ZEITGEIST #5 (Part 3) - Cauldron Born. The critically-acclaimed adventure path continues! In this thread, the party reacts to the surprise attacks by Zubov’s group. Zubov’s plan is to sow panic amongst the citizens of Flint by perpetrating various attacks throughout the city. By diverting resources away from the peace talks, Zubov hopes to launch a more direct attack on a newly opened subrail station, giving him access to a tunnel that passes near Hotel Aurum. A well-timed explosion will send the building tumbling down.
  • #242. Ability Check Criticals. Rolling a natural 20 or a natural 1 has never been so much fun! With these ability check critical effects, there are positive and negative tables for physical, social, medicine, knowledge, and arcane style checks. By Jeff Gomez; illustrated by Herman Lau.
  • #241. Bloodweaver: Tome of Disciplines. This enormous, 15-page article, contains a whole host of disciplines for the Bloodweaverclass introduced in EN5ider earlier this week!
  • #240. Bloodweaver: Basic Class Information. Bloodweavers use the primal power coursing through their veins to enhance their own abilities, heal or bolster allies, and debilitate or kill their foes. Many fear them for their control over the substance of life but those that can see past this superstitious dread often find powerful allies.
  • #239. Geomancer: Advanced Class Information. Last month EN5ider, the 5E Patreon, introduced the Geomancer class. In this week's article, Josh Gentry provides you with three new geomancer orders - Order of the Apothecary (mystical healers), Order of the Architect (builders and protectors), and Order of the Rune Knight (wielders of elements in war). Illustrated by Julio Rocha and Tan Ho Sim.
  • #238. ZEITGEIST #5 (Part 2) - Cauldron Born. The conspiracy continues in Flint's dark underbelly. Now at the king’s command it is time for the Royal Homeland Constabulary to rip this threat from its shadowy womb beneath the haunted mountain named Cauldron Hill and thrust it into the light of day.
  • #237. Backstory Feats. An adventurer’s background doesn’t need to end when they begin the adventuring life. The skills learned in an adventurer’s past can grow and develop into lifelong skills throughout their adventuring career. This set of 13 feats uses the 13 core backgrounds as prerequisites and represents the advancement and integration of their old skills with their new experience. The Grifter feat allows a character with the charlatan background to fleece marks like a master, and the Old Salt feat allows a character with the sailor background true mastery over the nautical arts.
  • #236. Expanded Races: Half-Orc. This selection of half-orc subraces includes the barbaric Bloodrager, fiendish Brimskin, deadly Deeplurker, industrious Forgemaker, draconic Scalefang, and the primal Spiritspeaker. By Chris Davies; illustrated by Xanditz.
  • #235. Geomancer: Basic Class Information. The Geomancer class is a spellcaster who uses the environment to tailor their magic, turning the surrounding elements into potent weapons and tools.
 
Click to expand...

log in or register to remove this ad

Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
A

Alexander Mont

First Post
A few questions:

-According to the basic rules for the Savant, all the tricks require a bonus action to prepare. Many of these new ones (as well as some of the originals) also require an additional action or bonus action to activate. Is this intentional, that you need to spend a total of two bonus actions to use some tricks?

- "Always with a Tonic" should probably say that you administer a potion to the ally, not that you "force" an ally to drink a potion. It's unlikely the intended use here is to force an ally to drink a potion unwillingly, and you will often want to use this to give potions to downed allies who won't be able to drink on their own even if "forced".

- When you say "4d4 dice", do you actually mean "4d4 dice" - i.e. you roll 4d4 at the beginning of the day and that will tell you how many dice you get (between 4 and 16), and each of those dice can be used for 1d4+int healing? Or do you mean "four d4s"? If the latter, then the rest of this feature says that you gain e.g. nine d4s at 19th level, but by that time the dice are d6s.

- "Relief to the Suffering" isn't very useful as written because it makes the ally take their disengage action *on your turn* (not theirs), and disengage only lasts until the end of the turn. Is this intended to say that you activate this power, and then on the ally's next turn they can use the disengage action? Or is the intent that you ready this to activate on your ally's turn? (And spending a whole action to use seems expensive for this effect.)

- "Resuscitate": can you try again if you fail the check? (Your medicine check will be +15 or so when you get this: +5 int +(5x2) prof so you have about a 50% chance of making the check. If you can keep trying each action for 2 minutes you'll get about 15 tries, assuming you get to the target 30 seconds after they die, so you're almost certain to succeed on one of them)

- Superior Deduction and Combat Deductions get harder to use at higher levels because their DCs go up a lot faster than your skill modifier. Is this the intent



- "Uncanny Healing": So the intent here is to provide unlimited out-of-combat healing?
 

Mike Myler

Mike Myler

Have you been to LevelUp5E.com yet?
Alexander Mont said:
A few questions:

-According to the basic rules for the Savant, all the tricks require a bonus action to prepare. Many of these new ones (as well as some of the originals) also require an additional action or bonus action to activate. Is this intentional, that you need to spend a total of two bonus actions to use some tricks?
Click to expand...

Aye that's intentional. The more powerful tricks require a bonus action to activate. There's an assumption that a savant will always have a trick prepared, and so the use of the more potent ones (prepare -> activate) is drawn out (no pun intended).

Alexander Mont said:
- "Always with a Tonic" should probably say that you administer a potion to the ally, not that you "force" an ally to drink a potion. It's unlikely the intended use here is to force an ally to drink a potion unwillingly, and you will often want to use this to give potions to downed allies who won't be able to drink on their own even if "forced".
Click to expand...

That is an excellent suggestion and I'm changing the PDF now. Thank you! :D

Alexander Mont said:
- When you say "4d4 dice", do you actually mean "4d4 dice" - i.e. you roll 4d4 at the beginning of the day and that will tell you how many dice you get (between 4 and 16), and each of those dice can be used for 1d4+int healing? Or do you mean "four d4s"? If the latter, then the rest of this feature says that you gain e.g. nine d4s at 19th level, but by that time the dice are d6s.
Click to expand...

The latter! *fixes*

Alexander Mont said:
- "Relief to the Suffering" isn't very useful as written because it makes the ally take their disengage action *on your turn* (not theirs), and disengage only lasts until the end of the turn. Is this intended to say that you activate this power, and then on the ally's next turn they can use the disengage action? Or is the intent that you ready this to activate on your ally's turn? (And spending a whole action to use seems expensive for this effect.)
Click to expand...

It should include the ability for them to move (add "and move up to their speed" to the end of the sentence).

Alexander Mont said:
- "Resuscitate": can you try again if you fail the check? (Your medicine check will be +15 or so when you get this: +5 int +(5x2) prof so you have about a 50% chance of making the check. If you can keep trying each action for 2 minutes you'll get about 15 tries, assuming you get to the target 30 seconds after they die, so you're almost certain to succeed on one of them)
Click to expand...

Yup! It's like revivify but requires a roll and doesn't expend a personal resource (it is 1 successful resuscitate per customer though).

Alexander Mont said:
- Superior Deduction and Combat Deductions get harder to use at higher levels because their DCs go up a lot faster than your skill modifier. Is this the intent
Click to expand...

It is the intent, aye. Figuring out what a bugbear is capable of needs to be easier than figuring out the same for an ancient gold dragon. Savants get feat slots like anybody else though so if they want to pop up Perception there are opportunities to do it (and Coordinators get Expertise).

Alexander Mont said:
- "Uncanny Healing": So the intent here is to provide unlimited out-of-combat healing?
Click to expand...

I'm looking around in the PDFs and I'm not sure what you mean by Uncanny Healing. The only "Uncanny ___" thing is Uncanny Immunity which is complete disease and poison immunity (including magical stuff which Exposure Immunity doesn't protect against).

Thank you for the feedback it is super useful. Sounds like you generally are digging in too and I am 100% for that :D
 

A

Alexander Mont

First Post
For "Uncanny Healing" I meant Superior Physician, the other 17th level class feature.

Now on to the Coordinator section:

Informed Coordinator - When exactly do you use this? If you use it when your ally is making the die roll, this would have to be a reaction. Or do you use this on your turn and then the ally can "set it off" on their next turn or something? And what would be the timing if you wanted to use this on an ally's saving throw against something an enemy did on its turn? And can you see the die roll before deciding whether to expend the benefit?

If so, this seems like a potentially overpowered feature - it gives about as many bonuses as Bardic Inspiration, one of the Bard's major features, plus it recharges on a short rest rather than a long rest. (And it's even more powerful when you combine it with Combat Deductions because that tells you the exact AC of the target so you know exactly when the bonus would turn a miss into a hit.)

Coo
 

Mike Myler

Mike Myler

Have you been to LevelUp5E.com yet?
Alexander Mont said:
For "Uncanny Healing" I meant Superior Physician, the other 17th level class feature.
Click to expand...
Ahhhh. Yeah that one is infinite healing.
Edit: And I should add that it's in line with other infinite healing archetype abilities (Fighter Champion's Survivor only heals self up to half but does so without any actions).

Alexander Mont said:
Now on to the Coordinator section:

Informed Coordinator - When exactly do you use this? If you use it when your ally is making the die roll, this would have to be a reaction. Or do you use this on your turn and then the ally can "set it off" on their next turn or something? And what would be the timing if you wanted to use this on an ally's saving throw against something an enemy did on its turn? And can you see the die roll before deciding whether to expend the benefit?

If so, this seems like a potentially overpowered feature - it gives about as many bonuses as Bardic Inspiration, one of the Bard's major features, plus it recharges on a short rest rather than a long rest. (And it's even more powerful when you combine it with Combat Deductions because that tells you the exact AC of the target so you know exactly when the bonus would turn a miss into a hit.)

Coo
Click to expand...

It should read "their next d20 roll". It's almost as good as Bardic Inspiration--on average BI will give out higher bonuses, it can be a (much) higher bonus (the maximum is in most cases double IC's bonus), and the benefactor can choose where to apply the bonus.
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Similar Threads

Mike Myler
D&D 5E EN5ider #365 - Enchanted Trinkets: Highborn Luxuries
Replies
0
Views
3K
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
D&D 5E EN5ider #379 - Villain Spotlight: The Tooth Man
Replies
0
Views
4K
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
D&D 5E EN5ider #366 - Mini-Adventure: Hero's Kingdom Come
Replies
0
Views
3K
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
D&D 5E EN5ider #374 - Spells from Hell
Replies
0
Views
5K
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
Mike Myler
D&D 5E EN5ider #363 - Multiclass Feats: Masterclass Edition
Replies
3
Views
4K
Mike Myler
Mike Myler

Related Articles

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top