The Agent

 Intro:

The Agent class is the embodiment of stealth and deception in House of Eidolons. It is built to feel like a spy, a con artist, or an assassin, working the shadows behind enemy lines, striking at the most opportune moments. The role of this class is to play the wildcard, the unsuspected angel that executes at precisely the right moment to secure the objective or throw the enemy into total disarray. 

Design Philosophy:

The Agent class is built to operate primarily in the stealth sphere of play but also can operate well in the social sphere of play, especially as it pertains to guile or deception. As the Agent, you want to be exploring the indirect or abstract angel, sneaking in through the back window, disguising yourself as a guard, or getting others to do your dirty work. 

The Agent is the perfect pair to the direct character. While direct Eidolons advance noisily from one direction the Agent advances discretely from the opposite direction, gaining easy access while everyone is distracted by the combatants out front. 

Due to the complex and abstract nature of stealth and social spheres of play, you must be ready to not only be curious about your surroundings but vigilant and quick of thought to ensure your cover is not blown and you find and achieve your objective swiftly and discretely. Being behind enemy lines often means you are alone and without immediate support, making stealth and social play more delicate and precarious. In this realm of play timing and attention to detail is often the difference between success and being beaten brutally while you hope and pray for your team to come save you. 

The Agent class also occupies the secret fifth sphere of play in House of Eidolons with its third skill tree. This sphere of play is mostly unique to House of Eidolons and is an extremely abstract and complex social sphere of play. We will touch a lot more on this as we talk about the Agent’s The Broker ability tree. 

Ability Tree Deep-Dive!

In House of Eidolons, we handle classes a little differently than many other TTRPGs. Opting for a class multi-tree approach that allows the player agency in ability choice and progression. Each class (except for the Psion, more on that in the future) has 3 ability trees to choose from and progress down. All classes also have a universal Passive Ability that the character receives when choosing their primary class. For the Agent, these trees are the: The Shadow, The Guise, and The Broker trees. Each of these ability trees emphasizes a different approach to stealth or social play. The Shadow tree emphasizes strong stealth play, maximizing remaining undetected and Coup De Grace systems to turn the character into a brutal stealth assassin. The Guise tree is all about disguise and deception, deceiving those around you and seamlessly blending into crowds of people, It mixes stealth play with deceptive social play, manipulating and covertly controlling the board. The Broker tree is a complex and abstract tree that occupies the fifth sphere of play. It is built around the effective use of contacts and emphasizes play in the pre-game session to set up your team and contacts for the tactical execution of the mission. It is like playing the mastermind. 

Passive Ability:

The Agent’s passive ability is called Requiem and it emphasizes the Coup De Grace nature of the class and its stealth play. Requiem:

When the character successfully executes a “Coup De Grace” they gain +1 edge dice.

Like the Street Samurai this passive rewards the user with extra edge dice when they successfully Coup De Grace an enemy. Proficient, stealth killers will be able to recoup edge dice rapidly.

The Shadow:

The Shadow tree is all about maximizing stealth lethality and keeping the character from being detected. It is a tree built for the stealth killer, the assassin, and will feel extremely rewarding as you work your way through enemy compounds, deep undercover without the enemy ever knowing you were there. Like all ability trees, it has 3 abilities that are unlocked progressively and a 4th focused ability for those who choose not to sub-class but stay focused in the Agent.

The first ability of The Shadow tree is called Quiet Killer:

So long as the character is only wearing [Light] armor when they use stealth and move they may move silently (unable to be detected through hearing).

When you perform a Coup De Grace, you may immediately grapple the body with a free action and move/set it down silently. In addition, moving the body is done by making a Concealment check rather than an Athletic skill. Finally, moving a body in this way you may use your full movement instead of only a half movement.

Quite Killer removes the ability for enemies to detect you with sound, a far better sensory detection modality than sight. This gives you an edge in your stealth maneuvers at the cost of having more armor for protection. It also allows you to go full “solid snake”, quietly killing your enemies and quickly dragging their bodies to hiding spots so that you do not raise an alarm. Not only so, but it allows you to stay focused on the dexterity attribute rather than needing to have descent strength to move said bodies, this can be a huge advantage that helps you maximize your stat line. 

The second ability of The Shadow tree is called Meld with Shadow:

Once per round, if a creature gains “Vague Awareness” or “Awareness” of you, you may immediately take a free action to force another Stealth vs Awareness check from the target.

If no enemies have awareness of you when an action sequence begins you gain a +5 bonus to your Reaction check for determining turn order.

Meld with Shadow allows you to have a safety net for that bad role or extremely vigilant enemy. It gives you a second chance at remaining concealed when Awareness checks are made against your stealth attempts, potentially keeping you concealed and the enemy unaware of your deadly presence. Not only so, but while undetected, should an action sequence begin due to an ally or other events, you gain a hefty bonus to your reaction speed, allowing you a better chance of taking the top of the turn order to act swiftly and decisively against your foes.

The third ability of The Shadow tree is called Swift and Silent:

You may perform a Coup De Grace with a weapon so long as it has a silencer and you are within 30ft of the target. 

After making a ranged attack you may use a a free action to make a Concealment vs Awareness check to remain undetected so long as you can break line of sight or are in a dim/dark area.

Swift and Silent is a very powerful ability that expands the type of Coup De Grace you may perform, a rare option to have. A short-to-mid ranged Coup De Grace makes you an extremely deadly stealth character able to execute opponents at a distance. Not only so, but you can remain undetected with a successful check even if an ally becomes aware of the assassination. This ties in strongly with your other abilities that emphasize keeping you in an undetected state while silently executing your opponents. 

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called Angel of Death:

You may make a Coup De Grace action using an action OR a sub-action.

When you Coup De Grace a target all allies of that target within sensory range who still have no awareness of you may be forced to take a Willpower vs (your) Intimidation check (you have a +3 bonus to this check). Every target that fails becomes [Fearful] and has a -3 penalty to skill checks until they gain awareness of you.

Angel of Death allows you to rapidly Coup De Grace multiple targets in a single turn, potentially allowing you to deal with situations that would otherwise expose you. When coupled with Swift and Silent you become a true spectral reaper, stealing life from your foes without them ever seeing you coming. Lastly, when enemies survive to see their friends fall but remain unaware of you they are filled with dread and you begin to further control the battlefield with fear. 

All together, The Shadow tree is a powerful stealth tree that allows mastery of the stealth sphere, allowing the character to dominate this sphere of play. The ability to stay hidden from your enemies while simultaneously picking them off makes this tree very lethal and gives the character some cushion in an otherwise high-stakes sphere of play. 

The Guise:

The Guise tree melds the stealth sphere of play with the social sphere of play. This tree embraces the concept of a con artist and plays into remaining concealed while right in front of people. It is all about deception and becoming a social chameleon. 

The first ability of The Guise tree is called A Ghost in Plain Sight:

When around at least 2 other people you may use Guile in place of Stealth or Concealment to move or hide undetected through the crowd from any observer. Creatures trying to detect the character make an Intuition check rather than an Awareness check. Automatic security systems and robots still make Awareness but vs Guile.

A Ghost in Plain Sight dramatically changes the functionality of the Guise ability, allowing your character to use Wisdom as the primary attribute for stealth when around others. This opens up a whole new avenue of play and the possibility of being a social stealth character without a very good Dexterity attribute. It will allow for the character to also operate in plain sight of people without being caught due to their ability to just blend into the crowd, a very useful application that traditional stealth would have a hard time achieving. 

The second ability of this tree is called Magicians Finesse: 

When you make a Sleight of Hands check in plain sight you suffer no penalties to your check. In addition, if the Sleight of Hands is being made against a creature you are actively using the Guile, Charisma, or Intimidation skills against, you gain a +3 bonus to the Sleight of Hands check.

You may use the martial combat Disarm ability and you may make it as a reaction. In addition, you use Sleight of Hand when making the check for this ability.

Magicians Finesse further plays on covert operations while in plain sight, giving you significant advantages to lifting, pick-pocketing, or planting objects while in a target awareness and even having advantages if also socially manipulating them. This makes for some clever play and again opens up options that traditional stealth simply could not achieve. Secondly, it further amplifies Sleight of Hand, turning it into a key defensive and offensive tool allowing the character to proactively and reactively disarm an enemy without needing a good Strength Attribute. This can often lead to a reversal of dangerous situations making you you dangerous even when without a weapon of your own. 

The third ability of this tree is called Con-Artist:

You gain a Criminal EMS Mapping Expert contact for free.

• Before the start of a mission, you may spend 2 Influence on this contact to procure an EMS Guise that is mapped to a known target’s EMS profile, effectively disguising your EMS as the target’s.

• You may pay this cost for any number of profiles.

• You may apply a profile using a full action.

• Only a single EMS Guise may be mapped to your EMS at a time

• Profiles are considered consumables and once used for a mission are lost at the end of the mission.

• You may carry a total of 5 EMS profiles

Con Artist gives your character the ability to disguise their EMS signal to be a replication of another target's EMS. This allows the character to not only physically impersonate a person but also deceive security systems and netdivers into thinking you are someone else entirely. This is an extremely powerful tool that is only available through this tree, making you the perfect con artist. 

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called Handshake & A Knife:

You may, with an individual you have successfully made a Charisma or Guile check to gain their trust, use an action and make one additional Guile vs Intuition check. On success, you may perform a Coup De Grace against the target even if the target is fully aware of you.

The Handshake & A Knife ability again provides a new type of Coup De Grace to the character allowing them to execute a target who is fully aware of them but who has been fooled into trusting them. It is the ultimate skill for the femme fatale or con artist assassin, allowing you to gain trust and then stab that mark in the back, or face. 

The Guise is an exceptionally fun tree that seamlessly fuses stealth and social manipulation to make the ultimate con artist/femme fatale character. The ability to be unknown while surrounded by others is an abstract and rewarding space to be in, allowing you possibilities no other character has access to. 

The Broker

The Broker tree sets you up to play the role of the mastermind, planning out the job and using your contacts to maximum efficiency to ensure all the angels and unknowns become known and setting up the mission board like a chess game. It is a difficult tree to learn and master but if pulled off well can be the single most impactful role in the success and efficiency of the entire mission. 

The first ability of The Broker tree is called Money Talks:

You may spend crypt as if it were influence when hiring and using contacts. The cost is $250x[Contact-Level].

You also gain +2 Contacts when selecting this ability

Money Talks not only gets your character an extra two contacts straight away but also allows you to spend crypt in place of influence to use contacts. In this way, you may really utilize many of your contacts and ensure they have excellent rolls for the information you need, even after spending all your influence. Money management becomes an important part of this play-style and you will always want to keep a good chunk of crypt on your character to make sure you can get all the information you need or task your contacts accordingly. 

The second ability in this tree is called Bench Warmer:

Each contact not used for the current mission gains 2x[Contact Level] experience at the end of the mission.

You also gain +$100 crypt for every contact not used for the current mission at the end of the mission.

Bench Warmer ensures that contacts who do not get used for a particular mission still progress to higher levels. Not only so, but they also help you generate income, that can then be used to further influence your contacts for the next mission. This passive-like ability further maximizes your contacts and ensures that whether active or on the bench they are contributing something to the broker. 

The third ability of this tree is called Social Butterfly:

You may add your Charisma skill value to checks made by contacts

You gain +1 edge dice during mission execution for every contact that you utilized in the preparation for this mission.

Social Butterfly further steroids your contacts by ramping up their rolls and benefits you in the mission by providing additional edge dice for each contact used. This ability helps ensure that your contacts are getting you the highest quality of information so you may plan a flawless mission execution. Not only that but because your character is so focused on the pre-mission planning they often are less developed when it comes to the mission execution, the extra edge dice help provide some additional support to the character in the mission, keeping them functional and effective. 

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called Influencer:

When you use a contact they gain +1 dice when making a check

In addition, When a mission goes sideways or rotten and your contacts must check to see if they lose influence you may spend $250x[Contact Level] to reduce the number of dice they roll by -1. You may use this ability multiple times.

Lastly, you gain +50% influence for the completion of a mission. 

Influencer further solidifies your mastery of pre-mission contact utilization. It ramps up your contacts well beyond what other classes could achieve with their contacts and protects them from blowback due to mission failure. Lastly, it further increases your influence reward from successful missions and objectives allowing you to use and hire more contacts, steadily increasing your effectiveness.

The Broker tree is the tree for those who want to be the party's mastermind, perfectly planning out each job. On its surface, it seems lackluster and wanting but the power of perfect information and contact utilization goes a very long way in the success of completing and achieving objectives and side tasks. As one becomes familiar with the system they will realize the value of a rock-solid pre-mission plan. A squad that has a Broker on it will never want to play without one again, their influence though subtle is massively impactful. 

Conclusion of the Class

That is the Agent class! Whether you want to slide through the shadows selectively executing the resistance and securing the objective, or do the same thing but right under the noses of the enemy while disguised as them, or be the hand moving the pieces of the game board with masterful execution the Agent is the right class for you. Stealth and Social manipulation are your weapons, your tools, and utilizing them well will make you an uncatchable and daunting adversary that the enemy will struggle to expect. As the Agent, you are the spy, assassin, and mastermind of the future.

I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the class and I hope you consider giving this class a try. It is a great class for those who really enjoy the stealth and social elements of a game and will feel slick and powerful in an abstract sort of way. Though this class can be a bit daunting for a brand-new TTRPG player it is a great one to graduate into or to try out to get a feel for just how impactful the stealth and social spheres of the game can be. For the veteran I highly recommend The Broker tree, it will give a TTRPG experience that few other games can give

Next week, we dive into the Netdiver. Hope you join me again for that class and don’t forget to follow me on social media for more news and updates! Social links can be found on the right-hand side of the page.

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Until next time!