Martial Scientist Techniques
The Martial Studies feat lets a character of any class make limited use of the Savant class’s tricks. Herein is a selection of renowned martial theses from around the world, and the tricks they let you acquire. A Savant or character with the Martial Studies feat that has a copy of one of these theses can spend a long rest to swap one of the tricks they know for the trick the thesis details.
As a reminder, there are two main categories of savant tricks – aegis and flourish.
An aegis is a technique that can turn the momentum of a fight by not only avoiding an attack, but also putting your opponent in a bad position.
A flourish is a technique that you can add to an attack that meets a certain condition.
Every graduate of a martial academy must defend their thesis from a group of challengers, and has been taught that scientific breakthroughs are born of both careful study and wild experimentation, so most graduates will have these Committee Defense and Experimental Flourish. However, amateurs or people who received private tutelage may start with other tricks known. Some examples follow.
Ber
Beran soldiers are often trained with a no-frills text called How Not to Get Shot, by Kenna Vigilante. This teaches the Serpentine Rush Aegis.
Crisillyir
Before becoming Prime Cardinal of the Clergy in the 3rd century, Glorius Willis was a famed instructor at the College of Divine Trials in Sid Minos, where he penned Liturgical Lessons: Applications of Psalms in a Battlefield Context. This teaches the Saving Advice trick.
Danor
The late Lya Jierre, a scion of the prominent tiefling Jierre family, published her thesis Field Study of Melee Effectiveness and Foe Debilitation through Focused Limb Severance Techniques Contrasted with Mainstream Opportunistic Techniques. This teaches the Surgical Flourish.
Drakr
A respected artillerism student at the Boehno Texhnyeconn made a splash with her text, Suppressing Dissent and Incentivizing Disengagement through the Fervent Deployment of Loud Weapons. This teaches the Frightful Suppression trick.
Dreaming
Though the fey do not have any organized academies of martial science, some powerful warriors of the Dreaming take it upon themselves to write up their often-nonsensical tactics as if they were war veterans. From among sheafs of pointless blathering, a handful of intelligible texts emerge, which give some insight into the way these beings think about battle.
A Record of the Applause at a Production of ‘The Burning Heart of a Warrior’ was composed by a fey lord named Karrest, who wished to record how well an audience received his autobiographical play. Excessive attention is paid to just how the actor was meant to appear to fall in battle in order to best persuade the onlookers that their hero had perished, suggesting that for this fey, at least, the story of the battle was at least as important as the threat to life and limb.
A derivative and simplified version of this technique was presented in the far less compelling thesis Unexpected Tactics of Fey Swordsmen.
Either version teaches the Sweeping Stride trick.
Elfaivar
The oldest and deadliest Elfaivaran warriors were known as dreadnoughts, who fought implacably, using tactics to awe their enemies into submission, often capable of facing hordes of common soldiers and winning the day. One survivor of such an engagement published Lessons from a Battlefield Engagement between an Elfaivaran Dreadnought and Seven Riflemen. This teaches the Tangled Dance Aegis.
Malice Lands
The monster hunter Xavier Sangria mastered hunting malice beasts, and he learned to use the chaotic magic that once suffused the Malice Lands as a defensive shield. By training himself to intensely feel the emotion of malice at will, he could briefly create a sympathetic link to the region’s wild magic, and so cause magic that would harm him to instead suffer a mishap. However, holding a reservoir of such latent evil will was perilous.
He recorded his insights in his thesis, Intentional Emotions as Sympathetic Invocation of Malice Mishaps, but mastering this technique requires practicing it in a place of wild magic. Older martial scientists might have visited the Malice Lands, but modern scholars can only find suitable conditions in the dead city of Methia, or in a few scattered pockets of wild magic around the region. This teaches a rare trick that is not normally available to Savants.
Malicious Deflection (Aegis)
As you prepare this trick, you build up a reservoir of seething malice and then tamp it down. While this trick is prepared, you have disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws.
When you succeed a saving throw against a spell or other magical effect, as a reaction you can use this technique to release your pent up malice, which causes a sudden wave of wild magic to disrupt that spell or effect. The magic does not affect you, but instead you choose a new target within 30 feet, which must save as if it were the original target.
Miscellaneous
A treatise often edited and amended, the original author of Methods of Extricating Warriors from a Variety of Tentacled and Tendriled Monsters is unclear. It is kept in collections in academies around the world, and many students have heard the humorous rumor that the first copy was dictated by a ghost who died facing horrors from other worlds. This teaches a rare trick that is not normally available to Savants.
Tentacle Technique (Aegis)
When you or an ally you’re aware of becomes grabbed by a creature, you can use this trick to let the grabbed creature spend a reaction to make a melee attack against the enemy that is grabbing it. If this attack hits, the grab ends in addition to the attack’s normal effect.
Risur
District Mayor Dale, tasked with protecting the city of Flint from the dark forces atop the infamous mountain Cauldron Hill, wrote Meditation, Coffee, and Cherry Pie: Unorthodox Salves Against the Supernatural. This teaches the trick Mindful Reason Aegis, and has tips on where to get excellent food in the city of Flint.
Vagabonds
Strangers from beyond this world possess many fascinating fighting techniques. A sailor from the Yerasol Archipelago was inspired to enroll in the Jierre Sciens d’Arms after he witnessed an aged monk from Caeloon dodge a jaguar’s lunge and fling the cat thirty feet, an event he later recorded in Artistic Paper Folding and Humanoid Anatomy: Theories on Implicit Extradimensionality. This teaches a rare trick that is not normally available to Savants.
Stance of the Paper Wind (Aegis)
When a creature you have not attacked since the start of your previous turn attacks you in melee, you can use this trick to fold your body away from the attack’s full force, then unfold and use your enemy’s momentum against them to hurl them away. You gain resistance to that attack’s damage, and after the attack, you throw the attacker a distance equal to 5 feet times your proficiency bonus in the direction of your choice. The attacker can make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid being moved.