Talents are the Tales of the Valiant (ToV) equivalent of feats. Frankly, many feats in D&D are a little lackluster. And there’s only one feat in the whole SRD, which tells you what its authors thought about feats. We knew we could do better.

ToV grabbed this issue by every horn. In 5E terms, talents are like feats PLUS. You will want to take talents for your character, because they powerful and interesting.

Time to get technical, people. No, not in the jerky way. I’m talking about technical talents. These are the talents geared toward non-combat abilities, social encounters, exploration, and all of the stuff you do in between smashing foes into pulp. Why “technical”? Who cares? It’s just a name. What’s important is what these talents do!

Here’s a spotlight on some of the most exciting technical talents currently available for the Tales of the Valiant roleplaying game.

Once More, A Reminder…

Talents represent the specific ways an adventurer improves over the course of their adventures. They are divided into three categories: magic talents, martial talents, and technical talents. Magic talents affect a character’s spellcasting but also include features that strengthen the mind and defend against harmful magic effects. Martial talents affect a character’s combat abilities, including enhancements to overall fitness and the ability to wield weaponry. Technical talents affect a character’s non-combat abilities, granting utility-based improvements to social encounters, exploration, and object interactions.

Some Great Technical Talents

Pulling from the Player’s Guide, here’s some tips for picking talents to make your characters shine!

Are You a Team Player?

It’s all well and good to be the moody lone wolf, speaking in a growly voice, living in a cave with your butler and tricked out black carriage, but your character isn’t doing this alone. Remember those other people you go murder hobo’ing with? Yeah! Those folks! Well, wouldn’t it be cool if you could, you know, help each other in and out of combat? Enter the Comrade Talent.

COMRADE

 You excel while helping others. You gain these benefits:

• You can use the Help action as a bonus action on each of your turns.
• When an ally you can see or hear within 30 feet of you spends one or more Luck, you can also spend Luck to increase their roll.
• When an ally within 30 feet of you is reduced to 0 HP or fails a death save, you gain 2 Luck.

The first two benefits are total party support. Give your rogue pal advantage on his next disarm trap check, or give that know-it-all wizard advantage the next time she analyzes a magic portal. Even better, the ability to throw your Luck to an ally without using an action can turn the tide.

The final benefit is, admittedly, a bit grim. You don’t want your adventuring companions to fall in battle . . . I mean, probably, right? Right?

Okay, a lot to unpack there, but if one of your party does go down, you get 2 Luck. And you get 2 more if they fail a death save. So it sucks that they are dying, but hey! Silver lining, right?

It’s Ninja Time!

Listen up, rogues. There’s been a bunch of stuff so far in these articles for the sword-swingers and spell-blasters, but what about you? Hitch up your black leather armor and sharpen that poisoned dagger, because its time to get sneaky.

COVERT

You trained in the art of espionage. You gain these benefits:

• You can attempt to hide while in three-quarters cover or while lightly obscured.
• Creatures that rely on darkvision can’t see you while you remain motionless in dim light or darkness. This effect ends if you move, take an action or bonus action, or use a reaction while in the creature’s line of sight.
• You don’t have disadvantage on attack rolls and WIS (Perception) checks against targets in dim light.
• If you make a ranged attack against a creature or if a creature spots you while you are hidden, you can use your reaction to make a DEX (Stealth) check at disadvantage opposed by the creature’s Perception. On a success, you remain hidden and the creature is unaware of your position. Once used on a creature, the target can’t be affected by this feature again for 24 hours.

Quiet those squeals of glee, you’re the sneaky one, remember? Let’s examine the awesomeness of this one. The ability to hide in more places is cool, and dropping the disadvantage on Perception and attacking in dim light is great. But the other two features are the real stars here.

With this talent, creatures using darkvision are 100% unable to spot you if you aren’t moving. This is so good, it might be a bit broken. I can hear the GMs freaking out. “They don’t get a check or save or something?” No, they do not.

Then, there’s the last benefit. Attacking from hiding is a hallmark of the sneak attack crowd, but it’s a bummer that doing so kicks you out of hiding. Well, not anymore! Sure, it only works once per day, but that means you get two sneak attacks before that guard even knows you are there! Prepare to eat d6s, guard guy!

Want to be a Healer, but Hate Wasting Spell Slots on your Accident-Prone Companions?

Lots of people take up the role of the party healer, sometimes because everyone will die without one, or because you love making a wounded friend give a prayer to your deity before you’ll heal them. You know who I’m talking about. But! What if healing wasn’t a class thing?

FIELD MEDIC

You trained to provide emergency medical assistance. When you select this talent, you gain these benefits:

• When you make a WIS (Medicine) check, treat any d20 roll of 9 or lower as though you rolled a 10.
• As an action, you can tend to the wounds of a creature you can see and touch. When you do, the creature regains a number of hit points equal to your PB + their CON modifier. A creature healed in this way can’t receive the benefits of this feature again until it finishes a short or long rest.
• When you spend hit dice to regain hit points during a short rest, you can reroll a number of dice equal to your PB and must take the new result.

The WIS (Medicine) check is cool and the improved hit dice is helpful, but that middle benefit is the big draw. When I play a cleric, I know I need to use my spells for healing. That’s the job, right? In previous editions, it wasn’t a big deal because cleric spells were fine but not amazing. These days, however, I wanna lay down some divine ass-kicking, not heal the wizard (again) because she got hit (again). Having the ability to use an action to throw some healing to a downed or dying ally without wasting a spell slot is totally sweet!

Next time we’ll delve into the Weapon Options of ToV. Until then, be valiant!

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