This week we once again introduce another of the class exemplars, featuring the class portraits by Nikki Smith-Cielo. Continuing alphabetically, next up is the Vanguard Exemplar.
Utgarde Valaskjalf
Being a daughter in a matriarchal society comes with a lot of expectations. Being the eldest only intensifies them. From as early as she can remember, Utgarde's life was constant training. Etiquette. Languages. Blades. Mathematics. Utgarde took to each of them with an ease that impressed even the stony demeanor of her tutors. She was a rising star in her clanhold, and it seemed that she would inevitably be well positioned to lead her family to new heights of greatness and respect.
Then came calamity, followed by scandal. Orcs and giants attacked the hold, seeming to slip by the ancestral protections with suspicious ease. The attack was staunchly repelled, but at great cost. An investigation determined that Utgarde's sister, Radgrid, had conspired with the attackers to breech the defenses. Worse, Radgrid had used the confusion of the attack to loot the family treasury and abscond with several important family documents and heirlooms. Utgarde's family standing in the hold was shattered, and it fell to her to track her sister down and recover the family's wealth, but more importantly their honor.
It's not a task that Utgarde relishes. The two sisters had always been close before the betrayal, and Radgrid's aptitude toward their lessons was nearly the equal of her own. Indeed, the close match of skill and tactics between the pair makes tracking Radgrid difficult, even if Utgarde were enthusiastic about the idea. A small part of Urtgarde even hopes she might never catch up with her sister. Thinking about their eventual confrontation is painful. But there are expectations to uphold, and her clan is looking to her, and her alone, to restore their honor and standing. She will not allow herself to let them down.
Ancestry
Utgarde is a Dwarf, which gives her an ability boost to Endurance and Wisdom, an ability flaw to Charisma, and another free ability boost which she uses to improve her Agility. Her ancestry also gives her 10 bonus Hit Points, Darkvision and, while her speed is only hex 4, her ancestry's Steady Pace allows her to increase her impeded value by 1 less whenever it would be increased. For her Ancestry Perks, she chooses Ancestral Animosity, Hardy, Indomitable Blood and Rooted Boots. Ancestral Animosity gives Utgarde a choice of two creature types from a shortlist of traditional Dwarven foes. She chooses Giants and Goblinoids, and the perk gives her a small un-typed bonus to checks and damage against creatures with either trait, though the bonus quadruples for a short time if such a creature has the temerity to score a critical hit against her.
Hardy gives Utgarde permanent resistance to poison damage and also causes her to reduce the stage of a disease or poison she suffers by one more whenver it would be reduced, typically by passing a saving throw against it. This makes her system quickly tackle even the more virulent afflictions. Indomitable Blood gives Utgarde a reaction she can use whenever she would fail a save against a magic effect, and allows her to roll again and take the better result. The only limit to how many times she can use this ability is the size of her reaction pool, so she can keep using it until she runs out if her luck is particularly bad all at once. Finally, Rooted Boots makes Utgarde difficult to move against her will. She has a bonus to her DC against being Shoved or Tripped, saves against any effect that might make her fall or knock her prone, or change her position. And, if such an effect would succeed after all of that, she is also always moved 2 fewer hexes.
Backstory
For her background, Utgarde improves her Strength, further improves her Agility, and becomes an expert in the Society skill. She chooses Class Training as her Backstory Boon, which will give her an extra class perk when she gets to that step. Utgarde does not choose any of the optional Backstory Traits.
Class
Utgarde is a Vanguard. She choose Agility as her class Key Ability, which gives that ability another +1 bonus. The class automatically gives her another 12 Hit Points (10 plus her final Endurance modifier of +2), as well as several Initial Proficiencies. She's an expert in Perception, Fortitude, Reflex and Acrobatics. She's also trained in Will and all armor categories, plus shields. The class also grants her many esoteric proficiency boosts for weapon groups. One group gets automatically boosted to expert, and then she gets four more free boosts. She uses these boosts to become an expert with three groups total: Brawling, Knives and Swords. Finally, she chooses four more skills in which to become trained (3 plus her final Intelligence bonus of +1), and chooses Athletics, Crafting, Knowledge and Survival.
All Vanguards gain a Stamina Pool that they can use to power exploits that bend the action economy of the game in their favor. Since Utgarde chose Agility as her class's Key Ability, the size of her pool is based on that ability modifier, plus her Endurance modifier. With her final values, that sets the size of her pool at 6 Stamina Points. All Vanguards gain access to two Stamina Exploits by default. Desperate Opportunity lets Utgarde spend a Stamina Point to use Attack of Opportunity as a free action instead of a reaction, ensuring she has plenty of chances to punish foes for bad tactics while saving her reactions for her Indomitable Blood. She can also use Second Wind to recover Stamina Points on her turn, as well as overcome the tired condition if she has it.
Utgarde also gets to pick two Class Perks, one as normal for first level and a second one thanks to her Backstory Boon. She chooses Dueling Stance and Reactive Shield. As long as Utgarde is wielding an agile, finesse or parry weapon, she can enter Dueling Stance to give herself a class bonus to her armor class. This ability typically takes one action to enter on the start of her turn, and lasts until she is no longer wielding a qualifying weapon, but she can choose to spend 1 Stamina Point from her pool to enter this stance as a reaction triggered by the start of her turn instead, or spend 2 Stamina Points to enter the stance as a reaction when rolling initiative. Reactive shield lets Utgarde raise her shield retroactively against a successful attack. This change to her armor class from a raised shield might change the attack's degree of success, but even if it doesn't it allows her to execute a Shield Block as part of the reaction to reduce the damage from the attack by her shield's hardness. While Utgarde does not wield a traditional shield, her weapons with the parry trait can be raised like a light shield thanks to that trait, and so can be used for this excellent defensive ability. Thanks to the general perk she's about to pick, she has a lot of reactions to use in combat, and this saves her from having to spend precious actions on her turn to keep her shield in its ready position.
Details
During this step, Utgarde gets to choose her final round of ability boosts. She takes the option to accept an ability flaw to one score in order to receive a boost to all five of the others. She takes the penalty to Charisma, thereby boosting Strength, Agility, Endurance, Intelligence and Wisdom. This sets her final ability modifier array at Str: +2, Agi: +4, End: +2, Int: +1, Wis: +2, Cha: -2. She chooses Combat Reflexes as her General Perk, which increases the size of her reaction pool by 2. She also gains a skill boost, and uses it to gain the Society skill perk High Society. This perk lets her use Society instead of the default skill for several types of important social interactions, which is especially handy since those skills typically rely on her sub-par Charisma.
Equipment
Like all characters in Realm of Runes, Utgarde has 150 silver pieces to spend on starting equipment. She uses this money to buy a rapier and main gauche, both finesse weapons with the parry trait. Finesse lets her use her better Agility to attack in melee instead of Strength, while parry lets either weapon function as a shield if she needs it to. She also buys a pair of throwing knives in case she has to make a ranged attack thanks to her slow speed, or if encountering a flying enemy. For armor, Utgarde goes with a chain shirt. While she would not be slowed as much with heavier armor, thanks to her ancestral Steady Pace, heavier armors would not let her add as much of her Agility to her AC, and would end up not actually improving her defenses. She also buys a light adventuring kit (backpack, belt pouch, bedroll, 2 changes of clothes, flint & steel, 6 rations and a water skin), a repair kit to Repair her weapons if she dents them by using them as shields, and a pair of acid flasks for area and splash damage in case of big groups or swarms. She keeps the remaining 6 silver as cash to spend during her adventures.
Final Touches
With all choice made, Utgarde can fill out her important statistics. She has 22 Hit Points between ancestry an class. She has a base armor class of 18 (+1 from proficiency, +3 from armor and +4 from Agility), but this improves to 20 if she's making use of Dueling Stance, and to a maximum of 21 if she also raises one of her parry weapons as a shield. One of the other benefits of a parry weapon is that it can be used to Riposte against a foe if their attack is a critical failure, and with the ability to keep pushing her AC higher and higher, chances to Riposte become even more likely. Between Riposte, Attack of Opportunity and her large reaction pool from Combat Reflexes, there is a very good chance that Utgarde will have many chances to attack foes on their own turns, dramatically increasing her ability to deal out damage beyond what she could accomplish with just her typically three-action turn. The rest of her statistics are filled out similarly, depending on her proficiencies and ability modifiers as appropriate.
Next week we'll once again take a closer look at an area of the rules which have improved over the course of the playtest process: Epic Monsters.
Комментарии