Overview
Agents are the operators who make things happen when the bigger-stick approach will not work. They depend on timing, information, and nerve. Where a Warrior meets a problem head-on, an Agent slides around the side of it and comes out with whatever they needed in hand.
The path's signature talent, Opportunist, captures this perfectly: once a round, when the plot die turns against you, you get to spit in fate's eye and roll again. Everything in the Agent toolkit — rerolls, reactive support, setup talents — is about steering moments of consequence.
Role in the party
An Agent is the party's utility problem-solver. You handle locks, wards, guards, interrogations, tails, disguises, and the awkward bit where someone needs to be inside a building they were not invited to. In combat you are a flanker and a debuffer rather than a tank — you make other characters' swings land harder by stripping armor, stunning, or marking weak points.
If the rest of the party has solid front-liners, a single Agent multiplies everyone's effectiveness. If there is no Agent, the party tends to solve every problem with violence.
Playing an Agent
- Choose your specialty early. Investigator is for players who like conversations and mysteries. Spy is for players who want a second identity and long cons. Thief is for players who want to move fast and hit weak points.
- Stack cognitive skills. Deduction, Insight, and Thievery all pull their weight — plus whichever your specialty favors.
- Make Opportunist pay. Set up plot-die-sensitive actions on purpose: attack rolls, Gain Advantage tests, skill tests with stakes. The more plot dice you roll, the more Opportunist matters.
- Multi-path deliberately. Hunter lets you weaponize your intel with Seek Quarry. Scholar gives you Erudition's portable expertises, perfect for infiltration.
Specialties in depth
Investigator
Investigators turn observation into leverage. They are the PC who asks the one uncomfortable question that unlocks the whole scene, then spends the rest of the session quietly assembling a case. Mechanically the tree rewards keeping focus high and landing cognitive tests: Get 'Em Talking reveals motivations, Sleuth's Instincts turns those motivations into a permanent edge and a built-in lie detector, and Gather Evidence keeps you Focused after every win.
Play an Investigator if you enjoy long-form puzzles and like your combat contributions to look like I notice the brittle seam in his plate armor rather than I hit him again.
Spy
Spies are the fiction's classic infiltrator — several identities deep, a clean exit plan, and a cover story good enough that they half-believe it themselves. Cover Story literally bakes an assumed identity into your sheet, complete with bonus cultural expertise. Mercurial Facade lets you swap personas on the fly without props. Collected and the Deception-focused talents keep you calm when the roleplay pressure starts climbing.
Spies play best in campaigns with factions, court politics, or organized crime. If your GM likes long-term intrigue you will be happy here.
Thief
Thieves are mobile, slippery, and a little bit gleeful about it. The specialty bends toward physical tests, close-range bursts of violence, and making distance work for you. Shadow Step is a reliable disappearing act after a Disengage. Trickster's Hand gives you a spare action for tricky physical tests. Cheap Shot is an oppressive opener — a stun with a focus cost most characters cannot afford to eat.
Thieves love battlefields with cover, verticality, or objectives other than "reduce enemies to zero HP."
Iconic archetypes
- The Constable — an urban investigator in service of the law, heavy on Deduction, Insight, and Legal Codes. Often anchored by a patron in civic authority.
- The Street Urchin — a survivor turned Thief specialist. High Speed, high Thievery, a short fuse on Cheap Shot.
- The Undercover Operative — a long-con Spy who lives behind an assumed identity for entire arcs at a time.
