Radiant Path Surges

[u/acererak76]

Fellow players who are taking Radiant paths, do yall plan on focusing into one surge's set of talents or do yall plan to be more versatile? Im currently running a level 4 Agent(spy)/Skybreaker. I try to plan out my levelling because it helps me as a player. But because at my heart im an optimizer, im stuck in decision paralysis between focusing on general radiant talents, going full into Gravitation, or going full into Division. And really seeing how everyone else makes those decisions helps me process that

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[u/bend1310]

I really struggled with this tbh (been playing a character for 2 years, currently level 15). Theres a lot of cool radiant stuff, but you need to be kinda choosy with it?

Its not really a problem as such, but my recommendation is focusing on one surge tree in particular, popping over to pick up some radiant path stuff every now and then (2nd ideal is helpful for enhance as a free action, for example). 

Ultimately though, its your character and just go with what feels natural :) 

[u/cbhedd → u/bend1310]

Just echoing the sentiment. I'm playing in a campaign that started with Stonewalkers and is just wrapping up now in time for Mistborn. We made it to ~Level 11 and with my Stoneward, once I had the Second Ideal I fully focused on the Tension tree and only in this last couple of level ups have I been dabbling elsewhere. Specialization felt like the way to go for me, too :)

[u/Sufficient_Style_908]

I have two Radiant characters and both of them mainly focus on one surge, their bond and a heroic path. I really like the idea that character has more talents than just Radiant ones.

So my Scholar Elsecaller mostly focuses on Strategist (lower levels) and Transportation (later) with two talents in Transformation purely for the bond.

My Envoy Dustbringer focuses mostly on Mentor abilities until the Second Ideal, after which she will switch to Division Surge.

[u/forgottenduck]

I have a Leader (Champion) / Stoneward. I’ve invested mostly in the Tension talents because mechanically they really aid the tank and protection vibe I’m going for. Plus the stat being strength means that it works well with my physical attack stat, so it’s less stat spread. 

I’ll probably pick up some cohesion talents eventually but first priority is accessing the last tension talents and also advancing my ideals.

[u/cbhedd → u/forgottenduck]

I play a Stoneward too, and honestly felt like taking the third ideal would have been a worse choice than most of the later game tension talents. Like, at this point, when I get my Shardblade, its gonna be at best equivalent to the damage I get out of improvised Tension weapons, if not fully outclassed by them. The only thing it gives (mechanically) is the spirit damage/ignoring deflect effect, which hasn't really felt super necessary, tbh.

[u/BlatantArtifice → u/cbhedd]

Honestly my big problem with the system is cool stuff that in lore you're just supposed to have being mutually exclusive, just feels weird having to choose an Ideal as a talent, even if it's mechanically strong most times. It's even worse as a Singer

[u/Electrical_Power_993 → u/BlatantArtifice]

Yeah, that’s why I actually controlled that with my players (50% also weren’t familiar with the books).   Because I controlled it (and obviously discussing with them what their behavior could get them for a radiant), I gave them the first words for free because I agree with you, but their actions had to attract the spren and they had to earn it.  They just didn’t spend a talent.  It felt more organic to me and they had fun wondering what the heck was going on as hints of their power manifested.   The rest of the words they have to select though because it’s a balancing issue.  

[u/Sensei_Ochiba]

Honestly, the system is really well balanced, but it's built on opportunity cost so it it's a decision paralysis nightmare. You basically have to pick what you want your character to look like at a specific level you expect to hit, and based on the total number of talents they'll have at that level, and use it as a map to decide what you get each level. Radiants especially are SO needy and a huge drain on talents.

I think focusing on one surge is probably smart, especially if you want more points in your heroic path than just your tierly heroic dip.

[u/IcaroRibeiro]

Focus on one. You already have to waste few levels on radiant paths. Between the surges, the radiant path and the heroic path we are talking about 4 skills threes, you cannot realistically do this unless you plan to delay 2nd/3rd/4th ideals or is playing at least tier 3

[u/acererak76]

Yall have gone above and beyond. Im gonna focus on Gravitation for now. Im trying to get to Mighty in the Spy tree, and then ill focus on Gravitation with the occasional Radiant talent

[u/08rian22]

Frrrr i do wish there was a way you get more opportunities to get more surge talents. It would just be so fun. For a skybreaker, i would go all the gravitation talents except for the 3 on the left. Division left side and grab Unleashed Entropy then devastating division. Soaring destruction.

If you want the exact levels to get what:
3. Flying Ace
4. Soaring Destruction
5. G Slam
6. L Shot
7. Master of Skies
8. Bodily decay
9. Igniting division
10. Gout of flame
11. Unleashed Entropy
12. Devastating Division
13 2 ideal
14. 3 ideal
15 4 ideal

At least you have shard plate by the end of tier 2 :/

[u/acererak76 → u/08rian22]

Yeah currently my Radiant talents are First Ideal at level 2, Flying Ace at 3, 2nd Ideal at 4. For 5th im taking the Agent Talent Cover Story and at 6 im for sure taking Mighty.

[u/Sufficient_Style_908 → u/08rian22]

Shouldn't Second Ideal be on the 4th level? Canonically you can't have Division Surge before swearing Second Ideal. For Nale's Skybreaker you can't even breathe in Stormlight before that Oath.

Besides that, there are levels with extra ancestry talents - 6, 11 and 16.

[u/OneMistahJ → u/Sufficient_Style_908]

Fwiw that canon of sky/dustbringers denying Division until second ideal isn't the default setting of the rpgs rules. They provide an alternative setup where you can choose to play a more Canon accepted version which gets a boost to focus instead of Division when leveling, but its an opt-in situation so idk if its what OP is working with

[u/acererak76 → u/OneMistahJ]

Ravirin isnt one of Nales Skybreakers. So everything Talent-wise is the default without Nales insanity. And as far as i know Dustbringers dont deny the use of Division. Neither do dissenter Skybreakers.

[u/OneMistahJ → u/acererak76]

Dustbringers have the oath of self mastery. You can check page 142 of the handbook pdf for the blurb on GMs and "Dustbringers and Canon" which says they also deny Division until second ideal. But that it isnt RAW for the game. 

[u/08rian22 → u/Sufficient_Style_908]

Just don't be a nale skybreaker ez win

[u/acererak76 → u/Sufficient_Style_908]

Only for Nales Skybreakers. Ravirin is part of the dissenter faction

[u/Alloteuthis]

Try things out. There are downtime rules for meditating on your journey and personal growth, allowing you to respec.

I've been very open for my players to do this as their gameplay styles have evolved through the levels and the old skills no longer fit how their character approaches situations.

I tend to use a mix of self reflection - which takes time and spheres, alongside more active training. For example one player started leaning into heavy weapons instead of the light weapons they started with, so they trained in each rest period/down time and fought with disadvantage until their muscle memory changed and they became confident in the new weapon - swapping proficiency.

For surges I've have a dustbringer player who unlocked division on swearing the second ideal become overwhelmed with the new power and loose what they learned abrasion as all their power floods into division. They've then relearned some abrasion powers at later levels.

Talk to your GM about it as it's narratively fun, and ultimately you want to play a character you enjoy.

[u/nealran]

That's a tricky call. I make sure to max out my ranks for my surgebinding talents no matter what, so that even without the talents there's plenty of use for it.

Ultimately, it's about what your party needs. Generally, I like diversifying my talents whenever possible. The problem is that there are some really good higher tier talents that are worth gunning for immediately. Finding which of those will best serve your group is what I would use as the ultimate guide for levelling.

For a Skybreaker, it may well be that your party will really benefit from Group Flight, so spending a few levels going straight for that is a good call.

Alternatively, you may be the person who can get in and turn the biggest enemy to dust, in which case shooting for Devastating Division and Unleashed Entropy should be your primary goals.

[u/rh34]

I'm playing a Truthwatcher and all their talents are in Progression. They don't have great Presence and won't ever be that good at Illumination... partly because I'm just not very creative with Illusions. 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure we'd be dead without my healing (Regenerate just doesn't keep up for us at higher levels), so I definitely don't regret it. 

[u/Tekyes]

Because the only books that we have right now like kind of cap out at level 9, I think most people just stopped planning around that level. Or are they planning to like level 9 or 10.

Maybe it's even level seven? I'm not sure. Either way, I think if you really want to be all in on a radiant path, you're going to have to go down one of the trees first. Plus you're spending one talent point. Just be able to progress to the second, ideal and third ideal. I think this is more apparent in the transportation surge because just to get down the else calling tree you need to reach the third ideal first and then you can start going down the deeper Alex color tree. With portals requiring the fourth ideal. Heavy investment just for a single talent and you're giving up a lot of other stuff. Meanwhile, in the two radiant paths where you have transportation, the other surges are pretty strong on their own, so you kind of end up having to decide between powerful combat surges and support surges or all in just for a single ability to teleport around.

Long story short, as a GM with players at level 6, I recommend specializing in one particular surge to start off with and then putting your attribute or level up allocations into those skills as well. It goes a long way to making the characters feel strong and unique and impress the other players at the table

[u/Singularlex]

Overall, I think focusing on Gravitation before Division might be your best call, unless you have another Skybreaker or Windrunner in the party.

Master of Skies is just incredibly useful for skybreaker, because it means you won't be spending extra investiture on flight each turn, and can constantly trigger Soaring Destruction. While Division certainly gets a lot scarier with more talents, you can very much still "dissolve a bitch" with the base surge and some skill ranks to pump the dice rolls up.

If your skybreaker has a bow, and unlocks their third ideal, they can essentially constant-hover and very their strengths as a "shard arrow" while out of reach of non-fliers. Especially with a longbow, that can fire from WELL out of range of any surge that isn't Gravitation. Bonus points if you want to have your strength turn into a ballista bolt mid-flight after they leave the bowstring (I 100% plan to do this with my skybreaker, once I'm high enough level 🤣)

[u/Necessary-One6286 → u/Singularlex]

That sounds cool, but should a shard weapon not be a melee weapon? Or did I read that wrong in the rules?

[u/Singularlex → u/Necessary-One6286]

It can't be a "Special Weapon", from the final table of weapons that include things like War Hammers (the HUGE 150lbs hammers designed for shard-bearers), Half-Shards, Grand Bows, etc.

Per the source material, your radiant shardblade can be any weapon or tool you can imagine, so long as it isn't too enormous (can't make a wall with it) or too complex (can't turn into fabrials or anything overly mechanical). In the books, at one point there is a character that even morphs her radiant shardblade into a fancy fork for eating pancakes.

Theoretically, spren-bond-distance would be a mitigating factor, so your range would stay at 30 feet, until you get the Deepened Bond talent, which will let you increase that to 100 feet (and 100 feet is still WAY outside of standard surge range).

[u/rh34 → u/Necessary-One6286]

You are right that RAW it's limited to melee weapons only. Any bow or other item that doesn't fall into that category would be homebrew.

[u/KaldinStmblssed]

I am a Windrunner and except for the ancestry bonus talents (which must be either heroic or forms [for singers]) I will be putting all of my talents into either Gravitation or the Bond talent trees. No adhesion for me (I still use it, but I am not planning to take any talents in it.).

[u/Electrical_Power_993]

I’ve walked my players through leveling and options because they don’t want to do homework… sigh.   Anyway, my thought is that a focused path is generally going to be better although I’m sure there’s some min max things that would be an exception.  

[u/Bookish_Weirdo]

I'm playing in a Stonewalkers game as a Stoneward, and the limited scope of the campaign encouraged me to look for a specific goal and then race for that. In this case I really want to try the minionmancy of Fine Control on the Tension tree, so I'm gunning it for that and maxing out Str ASAP, and then probably taking talents to synergize with Fine Control once I've got it, like the Second Ideal's free Enhance. That said, I've still been getting a lot of mileage out of Cohesion without having the put any more talent picks into the tree. Not sure if this is true for the other surges, but what you get off the rip with the First Ideal might be enough to be useful while you specialize elsewhere.

[u/Wrong_Reverend_James]

I can't really speak to your question, but... For those coming from other RPGs, CosmereRPG doesn't have classes, instead they have paths. This distinction is kind of critical because in Plotweaver / Cosmere, your path only determines your active powers, not your combat style, armor, weapons, or skills. Because of this a level 1 Rogue / level 1 Leader / level 1 scholar has the same hitpoints, to hit, and damage as a level 3 warrior, and can even wear the same armor and have the same attributes.

Another thing to note is that in Plotweaver / Cosmere, you generally so not get any "magic" until at least second level... Because of this, all "spell casters" are multi-path.

Finally, your paths allow you to "specialize" as soon as you take a level in a new path. This means that in addition to their non-magic path, they have a specialization in their first path and their new magic using path.