Level Up (A5E) What’s the best savant trick for a signature move?

[xiphumor]

For clarity, I don’t have a specific savant in mind. I’m just thinking theoretically.

 

[Sepulchre]

That's not the wording of the ability:



You can't attack multiple creatures, but you can use the trick for all of your attacks, including any attacks of opportunity against one.

You’re absolutely correct. That is much better, although I still think it’s pretty bad. Even in a typical three round combat, a savant probably wants to be trying to single-target crowd control the most dangerous bad guy, so I’m not sure it’s a good idea to dump strength and dex and rely only on Assess Vulnerability.

If you have a rogue in your party, Choreographed Disappearance basically gives them a free bonus action every turn. I have no idea how that ability interacts with the limits on using it “against a particular creature.” But it doesn’t seem like using it on an ally really fits, which suggests that you could use it every turn on every ally because it “does not stop being prepared.” But that’s probably too broken to be right.

Undermining Taunt is amazing too and really easy it is to trigger. You could potentially disable entire groups from their best actions. And it forces a Charisma save, which is a great save to target and means you can use it at will any time they fail against any party member.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

For clarity, I don’t have a specific savant in mind. I’m just thinking theoretically.

So I'm not as versed in Savant that I would like to be, but reviewing the info online I notice a few things.

• Direct Ally looks like a good candidate, but the fact that it can't be used against the same target limits it's usefulness.
• Same with Rallying Word.
• Canny Dodge Aegis would be a good choice to increase survivability.
• Same with Improvised Bastion Aegis.

 

[Pedantic]

If you have a rogue in your party, Choreographed Disappearance basically gives them a free bonus action every turn. I have no idea how that ability interacts with the limits on using it “against a particular creature.” But it doesn’t seem like using it on an ally really fits, which suggests that you could use it every turn on every ally because it “does not stop being prepared.” But that’s probably too broken to be right.

I think it's pretty clear that the "foe" specified in the trick is "particular creature" it's being used against, but if you had a different enemy nearby for every ally, and enough points of cover relative to each creature, I don't see why you couldn't hide your entire team.

The real limitation is the number of enemies in the encounter and the prevalence of cover, which honestly doesn't seem that overwhelming.

Undermining Taunt is amazing too and really easy it is to trigger. You could potentially disable entire groups from their best actions. And it forces a Charisma save, which is a great save to target and means you can use it at will any time they fail against any party member.

Weirdly, this will scale better at the higher levels as multiple attacks become more common. In combination with a high AC party member, this sounds super effective.

 

[Sepulchre]

Weirdly, this will scale better at the higher levels as multiple attacks become more common. In combination with a high AC party member, this sounds super effective.

For similar reasons, I think Attention Diverting Aegis could be really good. It might be hard to make a proper tank from a savant, but if you can manage to remain hidden, you could force every enemy to save or have disadvantage on every single attack they make. I think that’d potentially mitigate a lot of damage to the team, although maybe not as much as the Undermining Taunt.

 

[kerleth]

Someone I introduced to Level Up mentioned this to me the other day. Their reading of Choreographed Disappearance is that it accidentally grants infinite movement with Signature Move.

Choreographed Disappearance
On your turn, you say something to turn a foe’s attention away from you or an ally. You or an ally of your choice who can understand you can move up to their speed. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks from one creature of your choice that can understand you. If they end up having obscurement or cover relative to the distracted foe, they can Hide without spending an action.
Nowhere here does it require any sort of action on your part or state once per turn. On your turn is not once per turn. Normally this would be limited by the core mechanic of preparing and expending tricks, except .....

Signature Move
At 4th level, choose one savant trick you know. You are considered to always have that trick prepared, and it does not count against the limit of the number of tricks you can have prepared. When you use that trick, it does not stop being prepared. Whenever you gain a level, you can change your signature move.


Obviously this is unintended, and a once during your turn errata/houserule would be the sane thing to do. In the spirit of gonzo crazy fun and shameless power gaming though, I vote for infinite tactical movement speed for your whole team as the best option for signature move.

 

[xiphumor]

@RangerWickett care to comment?

 

[Pedantic]

Someone I introduced to Level Up mentioned this to me the other day. Their reading of Choreographed Disappearance is that it accidentally grants infinite movement with Signature Move.

This is the same thing I was discussing with Sepaulchre above. I think this is already well handled by this limitation at the beginning of the tricks ability description:

If a trick offers a saving throw , after you use it against a particular creature, that creature has advantage on saving throws against other uses of that same trick until the end of combat. If the trick doesn’t permit a saving throw, after you use it against a particular creature, you cannot use the same trick against that creature for the rest of the combat.

The creature being targeted here is the foe from "turn a foe’s attention away" (whichever opponent you choose to prevent attacks of opportunity from) in the ability, so you're limited to using this trick once per opponent. You could shuffle one ally entirely across the battlefield with a signature trick here assuming enough opponents, but there's still ultimately a limit.

 

[RangerWickett]

@RangerWickett care to comment?

I'm rather partial to signature move-ing Serpentine Rush, but I've always liked highly mobile characters, and I tend to design my battle maps with lots of cover.

And the other Level Up designers can attest that I'm probably the person most enthusiastic about including delimbing in games (blame Luke and Vader), so I might just take surgical flourish so I could always have that one on tap when the stars align to make it work.

In other words, go for fun and flavor, not optimization. I seldom remember stories where my character did a consistent extra 7% damage over the course of 5 rounds of combat; I remember the moments where I saved the party because I had Timely Tool ready and kept repeatedly barring doors and jamming them with a piton while we were being chased by zombies. Stuff like that.

 

[xiphumor]

Surgical Flourish is the first thing I thought of when I saw the feature.