Deeper in the Game

Zealots are Errant’s take on clerics. In your standard D&D descended type game, a cleric is one of the safest classes to play; you get good armor, you’re alright in a fight, you have magic and healing. In Errant, the Zealot is the character most likely to die every single session; push your powers too far and the Great Power you worship “blesses” you out of a physical form and you die instantly.

The Zealot plays dice with God, and the house always wins.

Covenants
The book gives you one default Covenant, and there’s a couple more you can download but I ended up making my own personal set, which was the longest prep for the campaign. If you’re thinking of playing a Zealot, talk to your GM – unlike many D&D style games, the Covenant will affect play, not because the Gods will be everywhere, but because when your Zealot pursues the actions that permanently increase your Favor pool, you’re eventually going to end up at odds with normal, non-Errant society.

You’re not playing a healer and mender of the world with divine insight, you’re playing a cultist whose “Great Power” needs you to carry out increasingly terrifying acts until it can rewrite reality…

Of course, maybe you won’t go that far…

Miracles
You get near freeform magic; if it’s under your Covenant’s “Eminences” (Domains, Spheres of power, whatever) you can try to make a miracle happen. The bigger the miracle, the higher roll you need to make with a pool of D6s. You can spend some Favor to add to the roll, and you pretty much are going to want to do that…

A failed roll of Apotheosis causes your body to explode into a manifestation of your Covenant’s divine expression; if people are lucky it’s only a terrifying artifact or symbol, and if they’re unlucky it’s something like a biblical angel, all eyes, wheels and 10,000 voices in your head.

Less bad, but still bad is the “Table of Woe” which inflicts a great number of curses or injuries, but usually worse than the Occult’s Miscasting costs.

Oh, healing? Healing is a miracle. Luckily for you (but not for the patient), the consequences of a low roll fall on the person you’re healing, and not yourself.

Relics

I’ve been running Errant for 2 years and my Zealot player never uses his Relic powers. I don’t understand why. I hope you will use your Relic powers, because they’re pretty badass.

Zealot relics come in 4 types, based on the Tarot Suits: Blades, Chalices, Wands, and Talismans. Based on the type, you can spend as little as 1 favor and do things like inflict status on enemies, make your party immune to a status effect, reduce damage just like armor, or make improve an attribute check or even make it automatically succeed for yourself or allies.

The ability to force enemies to fall asleep, be poisoned, blinded, turned to stone? Like… for 1 point to even get it happen 1 turn? “The giant spider is sticking to the ceiling” “I throw a dart at it and spend 1 Favor. It turns to stone” “ooof, falling damage, enhanced.” “yep”.

Likewise, the ability to make the party immune to effects for a few rounds is huge. To guarantee some check is 100% a success “If you can knock down this statue we have a bridge across the chasm…It’s difficulty value 6” “I’ll spend 7 Favor and make it Difficulty Value -1, we just do it”

And the best part is there’s no risk of it not working and having your body get turned into a videogame nightmare glitch in front of the world.

Blessings

Every Covenant also gives 2 Blessings. These are minor powers that are a little helpful but nothing major. You’re probably not making your choices around these, but it’s worth remembering them since they can be a nice extra.

What should I think of if I want to play a Zealot?

The appeal of the Zealot is having your intrusive thoughts given magic power. The drawback of playing the Zealot is having your intrusive thoughts given magic power.

Anyway, as a Zealot the main thing you’re trying to manage is your Favor. It only recharges on downtime turns, so once you spend it on an adventure, it’s spent.

I think it makes more sense to spend some on guaranteed Relic powers rather than spend most on miracles… but on the other hand, a miracle IS very flexible and can fill in to solve problems you don’t have other options for.

In one recent session, our Zealot summoned a rock elemental that smashed it’s way through about 3 rooms jam packed full of skeletons, and last year, they also summoned a fire elemental that saved their lives against a blizzard… Hell, earlier this year he sunk a supply tent full of smugglers and the rest of the warcamp had to make morale rolls. So…. maybe as long as you can judge when you can get the most bang for the buck it’s worth it.

You are going to want a high Presence to get additional Favor, which also means you’re probably going to be the face character of the party. That said, you’re not bad at combat and it’s probably a good idea to get a decent Physique and stack on some armor – miracles aren’t affected by encumbrance so you can be a good secondary pack mule character. If you’re not the type to get into combat, be sure to carry a lantern or light source and extra ammo for other characters.

Later Zealot Stuff
The main thing that getting more Relics does as you gain levels is that it makes lower level miracles more reliable, and high level miracles become within reach.

Your high presence makes you ideal for being the sort of character who tries to edge their way into social power – building institutions, making contacts, etc. However, the accomplishments you need to earn bigger Favor pools are going to put you at odds with society. Tread carefully!

All the other usual downtime stuff matters too: Alchemy, Tinkering, etc. you can supplement and fill in gaps on areas so you don’t have to burn so much Favor. Summoning a fire elemental is good but making a firebomb out of the flammable gas glands you peeled out of a magical salamander might be just as good.

Then there’s Rituals. You do need to offer up 1 Grimoire, but you can permanently spend Favor to create a long term magical effect upon a place or a land. This seems like a high cost, but if the effect fulfills the requirements to GAIN permanent Favor, it might be worth it. Or maybe you lift the curse on the local baron’s family that has haunted them for 8 generations and you get in political favor something that opens up other doors.

Other Errant Class Guides: Occults, Deviants, Violents

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The Violent is Errant’s Fighters, and while at least by the core abilities, seems like a relatively standard fighter-with-feats set up of D&D fighters, the way it interacts with the core Errant combat mechanics makes it a much more powerful class than you get from first read.

Rolling 20s
So… the first thing to know about Errant combat is that the basic rules around attacks are very simple – you roll your damage die and that’s the damage you do. If you have advantages, it bumps the die size up each advantage. If you have disadvantage, you bump the die size down.

As a Violent, you have a d8 damage die. It’s not hard to be consistently rolling a d10, or d12. And if your party works together to disadvantage the enemy through stunts and spells, you can be rolling a d20…

• Do you spend a Combat die to Smite? that’s an extra improved die.
• Do you have multiple attacks (after 3rd level)? those are improved dice too
• Did the enemy roll a 1, granting you an extra action? That’s another attack with improved dice.
• Did you use Armor blocks forcing the enemy to roll a 1? Etc.

In our two year campaign, the Violent is basically our big damage dealer. She takes the Act Slow action, giving her two actions a round, with two attacks an action, and her goal is to get into the thick of things and go off.

Situation Changer
Now that’s the easy part: “Fighter do damage”. The other side is that the Violent is very good at tactically changing the situation.

Position matters a lot in Errant, and with characters random rolling their total movement available, the ability to get somewhere quick can matter a lot. Fighters can spend a Combat die and add a d8 to their movement roll, while most characters are probably rolling 2d4.

The Intimidate Feat has you roll a Combat Die (d8) and penalize the opponent’s Morale check (on a 2d6 roll…), which often results in them failing. Strategize has you do a Gambit (stunt), the die roll is a DV penalty against the enemy, AND they have to do it at Dire Position & Weak Impact.

Many of the other feats can become quite nasty when combined with other party actions – Command lets you have someone else take an attack, with the Combat Die as bonus. That doesn’t sound like much; you give up one attack, they get one, however if they’re set up in a way that they have several steps of Enhanced dice, maybe it’s better for them to take the shot. Or maybe your Deviant spent their actions hiding or climbing and now you’re giving a chance to take the sneak attack right away.

Let’s not forget the stunts
The Gambit mechanic is simple; give up X amount of damage from your attack, to do a stunt against a foe. They have to make a Save with X as the increased Difficulty Value.

Since your class does the most damage, generally…. you get the best odds of throwing a huge DV penalty on the enemies.

So now you can start doing combos; spend your first attack as a Gambit (“I’m tripping them so they’re prone”) then take advantage of the effect on your second attack (“Well, now they’re prone, get a die Enhancement”). You can combo with other players (“Hey the Maleficience fireball that got cast still has the alchemical table on fire, right?” “Yeah….” “I’m using a gambit and throwing the guard on the flames”).

What should I think of if I want to play a Violent?
Every other archetype class gets a benefit from having a specific high attribute; a resource that keys off of it, or rolls they have to make with it. As a Violent, having a high Physique helps you have more HP and wear more armor, but you don’t need to have it. As such, if you roll up stats that are all very middling, you can make a Violent and still be quite successful, and train up your Physique at later levels.

If you do have a high Physique, you’ll be able to carry more than anyone else, and a good strategy is carrying a lot of consumable supplies the party needs; as it gets used up, you get more space to carry treasure.

When it comes to weapon selection, I usually would say a melee weapon and some throwable ranged weapons are good choices. The main thing to think about with weapons aren’t so much the Light/Medium/Heavy stats, as much as what might get you advantage Enhancements or at least avoid disadvantage Impairments: “smashing weapons vs. skeletons” “I better have a dagger in case I have to fight under water” etc.

Later Violent Stuff

Tinkering allows you to improve and alter armor and weapons. Many times you might get an advantage in one aspect and a disadvantage in another, which sounds like a zero sum result… except with a high Physique you can carry 2 of things and have a custom version for specific situations – a spear better suited for fighting large beasts, a boomerang tweaked for flying targets, etc.

Look to your Occults & Zealots to give you some kind of magical buff so you get improved dice. Alchemical items might also be a good option for things to coat your weapons, armor, or things you can throw on enemies to debilitate them.

Once you get a magic weapon, True Strike can become truly nasty if you get the damage die enhanced to a d20. Deflects from magic armor are less useful for you, as you already end up being the person with the most Armor blocks – other classes need the “oh shit don’t hit me” escape more than you do.

Probably by 2nd or 4th level you’ve got a core set up as far as what you want to do with your Feat choices and while you’re not going to see drastic changes the way an Occult does finding a new grimoire, you are mostly going to just keep getting better at the things you do.

If you like playing “the calvary” that sweeps in and does the big damage at the end of a round, this is pretty much the role for you.

Other Errant Class Guides: Occults, Deviants, Zealots

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Deviants

Deviants are Errant’s thief class, and while they get access to special skill-type abilities, it’s more that they enable you, the player, pulling off clever stunts and tricks, rather than the numbers doing all the work for you.

Jettons

Jettons are the furthest step from D&D thieves and probably the biggest thing to have ready in your mind at all times.

Wager some Jettons around one of your Proficiencies, and you get to simply state something is true, and it just has to be remotely plausible: “The door has a rock stuck in the jamb, it didn’t close all the way and lock” “The gust of wind flaps the wizard’s hood over his sight, causing him to miss us with the lightning” “I’ve seen this kind of magic trap before. They all use the same disarming phrase, ‘kuzolalaboopboop'” “The ogre stumbles back just enough and falls down that cliff.”

Two sessions ago in our campaign, our Deviant, the cat man Mittenthrift, spent a bunch of Jettons “I wager I can swing and sling myself from clotheslines and such to get to the wyvern several streets over and stab it in the eye”.

Anytime the party has run out of options OR, you see something that will become a bigger problem and you want it it be a not-problem RIGHT now? Jettons.

Proficiencies

Proficiencies all have two levels; Expertise & Mastery.

Expertise gives you -2 Difficulty Value, which doesn’t sound like much until you remember that any time you get the Difficulty Value below 0, you automatically succeed, no roll needed. Now, all you need is one advantage – the right tools, a little extra time, a bit of help, a good idea, maybe a little magic – and now you’re automatically succeeding anything below DV4. Get two advantages? You’re automatically succeeding on those too.

Now… yeah, you do need to think a little bit to have that happen, but for some actions, you’re going to be doing them often, so you can pack some tools or things to help, you can figure out what strategies your other party members can do to help you.

Or, the other use of Jettons is to spend on a 1 for 1 basis to reduce DV and make automatic successes. You make risky actions into sure wins.

What about Mastery? Well, Mastery pumps up your Position & Impact, and you’ll want to remind the GM about this, because it can sometimes be easy to forget. Mastery also gives you unique abilities, and this is probably what most players will fixate on when they look at this class.

All of the proficiencies have great value, but there’s 3 I think aren’t immediately obvious about their value.

• Anatomy – the ability to harvest extra is pretty strong once you can regularly convert monster bits into alchemical tools. It’s almost like getting specialized magic effects.
• Speechcraft – Errants are… not good at dealing with normal people. The dice rolls get harder, and frankly few people are open minded enough once your money starts running out in town. The bonus die to the Reaction Rolls can help you avoid problems.
• Survival – An animal companion might not seem that strong but a) they use your Skill stat to act with and b) they can use ALL of your proficiencies.

Sneak Attack

Most people used to D&D-descended games think “rogue=sneak attack” but Errant takes a bit more of the old-school D&D view of it; you have to actually sneak up and surprise a target – you can’t just flank them or “they haven’t acted yet”. As such, it’s not going to happen every encounter.

That said, when you DO get a sneak attack, your attack dice are now going to be bumped up 1-2 steps. If you have some kind of way to make that especially appropriate (“I’m using a wooden stake on the vampire”) it can get bumped up even more.

But let me make a suggestion – if you don’t think you’ll be able to drop the foe in one go, consider using the Gambit rule to stunt on the target and (push them down stairs, cover their head with a sack, throw chalk in their eyes, etc.) so that they cannot retaliate easily and the rest of the team gets enhanced attacks upon them.

What should I think about if I want to play an Deviant?

The funny part about a Deviant is you easily have the capabilities to become the most reliable bedrock for a party. Having a high Skill already means you’ll be the one doing Navigation checks during travel, or being the scout or investigator of weird things. You basically stop problems before they become problems.

Then you add on the Proficiencies and the increased ability to auto succeed, or at least spend some Jettons to do so, and again, you can become a key player, in a non-flashy way. Also, when it comes to actions outside of a dungeon, your Proficiencies could make you the best person to deal with a lot of problems surface side or in town.

While both the Zealot and Violent will probably pack a lot of armor, you will be lightly armored at most and best thinking of how to do support actions in combat. Being mobile means you’d be the best person to race to grab or plant an object somewhere, to take the torch or lantern from an ally who is about to get into the front line of battle, or run over and push over that shelf of books onto enemies.

During Downtime, Alchemy, Tinkering and Training up any of your Stats will give you a broad array of tools to solve problems and threats while adventuring.

Other Errant Class Guides: Occults, Violents, Zealots

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