The Explorer
Humming a wordless song as he walks through the jungle's dense fauna, a gnome looks to his trusty map and jaguar guide to find the long lost temple he's been searching for.
A female half-orc sits at a table full of shot glasses and foreign coin, but before she can trade her fist-sized diamond for the key to a spell-sealed tomb, she has to throw a few fists as the bar erupts into a fight.
Deftly stepping from one flagstone to the next, a dark-skinned elf uses her strangely glowing relics and an improvised grappling hook to dodge ancient booby traps and find the archmage's treasure room.
Explorers are an odd class of characters in the worlds of dungeons & dragons. While others desire adventure to right wrongs or gain wealth, explorers seek to unearth lost knowledge and history. Whether worldly academics seeking to preserve the past, treasure hunter's solving long lost mysteries, or wayfaring wanderers hoping to roam ruins and repositories left untouched for centuries, they all share a deep appreciation of the world and peoples who came before.
Explorers can often be at odds with other adventurers, but when their goals align, an explorer always has a trick up their sleeve when situations look the most dire.
Academic Adventurers
When other people look at a map, it was likely an Explorer who helped to craft it. Explorers travel to diverse locations around the world in an effort to become more informed about a specific area and its peoples. The goals of any given explorer are quite varied, and range from finding a route for trade with foreign countries to discovering the final resting place of a mythic sorceress.
All explorers encompassed an element of intellectual inquiry. Whether daredevils, pacifists, or brawlers, at their core explorers are academics. They have spent their lives in the pursuit of learning and gaining knowledge about the history of the world and the cultures within it, both past and present. And, in their own way, they attempt to protect it.
The Explorer
| Level | Proficiency Bonus | Tricks Known | Tricks per Day | Ingenuity | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | ----- | ----- | ----- | Wild Rover, Fighting Style |
| 2nd | +2 | 2 | 2 | 3d8 | Tricks of the Trade, Unarmored Defense |
| 3rd | +2 | 2 | 3 | 3d8 | Explorer's Calling |
| 4th | +2 | 2 | 4 | 3d8 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 5th | +3 | 2 | 5 | 4d8 | Extra Attack |
| 6th | +3 | 2 | 6 | 4d8 | Calling Feature |
| 7th | +3 | 4 | 7 | 4d8 | Tricks of the Trade Improvement |
| 8th | +3 | 4 | 8 | 4d8 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 9th | +4 | 4 | 9 | 5d8 | Delving Expertise |
| 10th | +4 | 4 | 10 | 5d8 | Calling Feature |
| 11th | +4 | 6 | 11 | 5d8 | Tricks of the Trade Improvement |
| 12th | +4 | 6 | 12 | 5d8 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 13th | +5 | 6 | 13 | 6d8 | Calling Feature |
| 14th | +5 | 6 | 14 | 6d8 | Quick Wits |
| 15th | +5 | 6 | 15 | 6d8 | Jury-rig |
| 16th | +5 | 6 | 16 | 6d8 | Ability Score Improvement |
| 17th | +6 | 8 | 17 | 7d8 | Tricks of the Trade Improvement |
| 18th | +6 | 8 | 18 | 7d8 | Calling Feature |
| 19th | +6 | 8 | 19 | 7d8 | Critical Insight |
| 20th | +6 | 8 | 20 | 7d8 | Always Prepared |
Rough and Ready
Not every wanderer or grave robber is fit to be part of the explorer class. A true explorer is the uncommon mix of survivalist, combatant, scholar, and problem solver. Life beyond the edges of the map is fraught with all manner of dangers: strange illnesses, hostile locals, deadly booby traps, and ancient guardians. Explorers use their knowledge, wits, and a few tricks of the trade to overcome any obstacle.
Their curious blend of rough-and-ready physicality and clever thinking makes explorers an asset to any adventuring party. Traveling the world, and plumbing the depths of long forgotten tombs and ruins is already their stock in trade. Some explorers struggle with the destruction and pilfering that can occur among adventurers, but most find it better that such artifacts are preserved for posterity than lost to time or the greed of dragons.
Creating an Explorer
The most important aspect of an explorer character is the nature of his or her calling. Although the class features related to your calling don’t appear until you reach 3rd level, plan ahead for that choice by reading their descriptions at the end of the class. Are you a barfighting professor preventing nefarious agents from finding long forgotten super weapons? Are you a crypt raider of questionable ethics, digging through the past to find the answer to your mysterious obsessions? Or are you a bright eyed wanderer, experiencing cultures and people, new and old, to better understand the world and planes you traverse?
How did you stumble upon your calling as an explorer? Perhaps in your studies you found evidence of a lost civilization. Or your parents may have instilled a lifelong interest in cultures other than your own. You might have known from your earliest memories that the explorer’s life was your path. Or perhaps a friend or mentor gave you a map or key with their dying breath, propelling you into a world of adventure.
As students of history and lovers of the past, explorers are rarely of an evil alignment. Most of them seek to preserve and share the past, rather than to hoard it. That said, they may see no problem with breaking a law or two to return an artifact to its rightful owners. Consider how your alignment defines the way you pursue your calling and how far you're willing to go, to find the answers you seek. Your calling might put you at odds with those around you, or your methods may ultimately undermine your ideals.
Quick Build
You can make an explorer quickly by following these suggestions. first, make Intelligence your highest ability score. Your next-highest score should be Dexterity or Constitution. Lastly, choose the Sage background.
Class Features
As an Explorer, you gain the following class features
- Hit Dice: 1d10 per explorer level
- Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
- Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per explorer level after 1st.
Proficiencies
- Armor: None
- Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, pistols (if available), scimitars, whips
- Tools: Thieves' tools, cartographer's kit
- Saving Throws: Constitution, Intelligence
- Skills: Choose three from Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, History, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival.
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) a scimitar or (b) a whip
- (a) a short bow with 20 arrows or (b) a hand crossbow with 20 bolts
- (a) an explorer's pack or (b) a dungeoneer's pack
- Two daggers, thieves' tools and a cartographer's kit.
Wild Rover
Beginning at 1st level, you have learned to traverse the wilderness without impediment. You gain a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed and non-magical difficult terrain doesn't slow your movement.
Fighting Style
You have also adopted a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Archery
You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
Blind Fighting
You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.
Dueling
When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Thrown Weapon Fighting
You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon. In addition, when you hit with a ranged attack using a thrown weapon, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll.
Unarmed Fighting
Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren’t wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8. At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by you.
Tricks of the Trade
Starting at 2nd level, you learn how to utilize what you have on hand, and what you can quickly scrounge or think up, to aid you in your endeavors. Traps, devices, improvised tools, and the clever use of specialized knowledge all fall under the explorer’s tricks of the trade.
You have a number of uses of these Tricks determined by your explorer level, as shown in the Tricks per Day column of the Explorer table. You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Tricks. You learn four tricks of your choice, which are detailed under "Tricks of the Trade" below. Unless otherwise noted, tricks have a range of 15 feet and an activation time of 1 action. You may use your Intelligence modifier whenever a Trick requires an attack roll.
You learn two additional tricks of your choice at 7th, 11th, and 17th level. You can also replace one trick you know with a different one, each time you gain a level in this class.
Components. Some tricks of the trade require particular objects to function, specified in the trick description. A character can scrounge appropriate materials in their environment, or spend 25g to acquire all the odds and ends they may require in a satchel or backpack.
Preparing a Trick. The Ready action can be used on any trick of the trade, but many tricks have enhanced effects when the Ready action is taken to prepare them for a specific trigger. Some Tricks require no uses of this feature unless they are prepared.
Outside of initiative order, a prepared trick can be be held on its trigger for up to 1 hour, without expending additional uses of this feature.
Ingenuity Dice. When a trick is enhance by being prepared, The normal dice listed on a trick may be replaced with your Ingenuity Dice. These dice represent your clever use of materials or synergies with the environment, when taking a moment to prepare. Your Ingenuity dice begin as 3d8, and increase as you gain explorer levels, as shown in the Ingenuity column of the Explorer table.
Saving Throws. Some of your tricks of the trade require your target to make a saving throw to resist the trick's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Trick Save DC
Unarmored Defense
Also at 2nd level, while you are not wearing any armor, your Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Intelligence modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
Explorer's Calling
At 3rd level, you find your calling as an explorer, choosing to become an Expeditionist, Treasure hunter, or Wayfarer. Each calling is detailed at the end of the class description, and your choice grants you features at 6th, 10th, 13th, and 18th level.
Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, and 16th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.
As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Extra Attack
beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Delving Expertise
By 9th level, your time spent exploring cursed tombs and crumbling necropoli has honed your reflexes. You gain proficiency in Dexterity saving throws and resistance to damage dealt by traps.
Quick Wits
At 14th level, your gifts for lateral thinking and clever solutions grant you proficiency in Wisdom saving throws.
Jury-rig
Beginning at 15th level, you are able to produce more tricks with less material. As a bonus action, you can regain all expended uses of Tricks of the Trade.
Once used, you must finish a long rest before you use this feature again.
Critical Intuition
By 19th level, When a creature succeeds on a saving throw against a trick you've prepared, you can choose to have them fail instead.
You can use this feature two times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
Prepared for Anything
At 20th level, you gain the ability to use tricks of the trade on your turn as a bonus action, rather than as an action.
Tricks that benefit from Ingenuity dice when prepared with the Ready action are considered prepared when used as a bonus action.
Explorer's Calling
Every explorer leaves their home in pursuit of lost and forgotten knowledge, but how and why an individual might want that knowledge leads them to their Calling. The calling you choose is a window into your ambitions as an explorer, not necessarily an indication of your chosen profession. Your calling is a reflection of why you search for lost cultures and dangerous secrets.
Explorers who share the same calling may see each other as instant friends, professional colleagues, or professional rivals.
Expeditionist
One would be forgiven for mistaking these brainy scholars as a better fit for a classroom than an ancient archmage's tomb. In truth, expeditionists speak half a dozen languages, seem to have friends in every town and village, know every local custom, and can punch their way out of any problem that can't be solved with their wits.
Expeditionists use brain and brawn to unearth the past, often working with libraries and museums to collect what they discover, and preserve it for future generations.
Worldly Wise
Starting at 3rd level, you are a student of the world. You learn three languages of your choice and gain proficiency in the Insight skill, if you don't already have it.
Additionally, Whenever you make an ability check to intuit local customs, decipher and translate writing, or determine the purpose or significance of an artifact or relic, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.
Thick Skinned
You've learned how to take a beating. Your hit point maximum increases by 3, and each time you gain another explorer level, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 1 hit point.
Improvisational Pugilism
Also at 3rd level, you are proficient in using improvised weapons and you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack rolls and damage.
When you take the Ready action to prepare an improvised weapon or unarmed attack, you may use your ingenuity dice for the attack's damage on a successful hit.
Take it on the Chin
Beginning at 6th level, you can throw yourself in the line of fire to give your allies an opening. When you are targeted by an attack, but before the roll, you can decide to take it on the chin. Doing so gives your attacker advantage on attack rolls against you during this turn, but all attack rolls against the target have advantage until the start of its next turn.
Sucker Punch
At 10th level, When you deal damage to a creature, you can make the creature vulnerable to a damage type of your choice until the end of your next turn.
If the creature is otherwise immune to the damage type chosen, it is instead considered resistant to that damage type while under the effects of this feature.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend 4 uses of tricks of the trade to use it again.
The Old 1-2
Beginning at 13th level, When you use your reaction, you can choose to immediately make two melee weapon attacks in addition to the reaction
Uncommon Resolve
Beginning at 18th level, you can no longer be charmed or frightened, and you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
Treasure Hunter
Of all explorers, the calling of the treasure hunter is perhaps the least academic. Their education often centers on particular artifacts or lost cultures and they have a reputation for using, or misusing, magical relics to achieve their goals.
Enigmatology
Starting at 3rd level, you are an expert at solving, or avoiding magical puzzles and booby traps. You gain proficiency in the Arcana skill, if you don't already have it, and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check to determine the physical or magical mechanisms of a puzzle or booby trap.
Additionally, you gain a bonus to disarming traps equal to your intelligence modifier.
Spell Novice
At 3rd level, you learn two cantrips of your choice from any spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Ready for Trouble
Also at 3rd level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Quick Draw. On your turn, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow or pistol you are holding and can add your Dexterity modifier to the damage.
Use Magical Devices. you have learned enough about the workings of magic that you can improvise the use of items even when they are not intended for you. You ignore any class and race requirements on the use of magic items. Intelligence is your spellcasting modifier if an item requires one.
Danger Sense. You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws against effects that you can see, such as traps and spells. To gain this benefit, you can't be blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.
Reliquarian
At 6th level, you have become the keeper of one of the following relics of your choice. You can use this feature once with no ill effects. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, you take 1 point of exhaustion.
Lantern of Seven Sents. A small, heptagonal sensor for the burning of incense. You can cast protection from evil and good at will without components.
Obsidian Mirror. A disk of polished black glass. You can cast mirror image at will without components.
Adderstone Talisman. A three inch ring of polished, milky stone. You can cast see invisibility at will without components.
Magical Trigger
By 10th level, you've learned ways of magically empower many of your tricks of the trade. The range of your tricks increases by 15 feet and when you take the Ready action to prepare a trick that deals damage, you can choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder for the damage type.
Devil May Care
At 13th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Tomb Runner. A lifetime of avoiding death traps, makes you difficult to hit on the run. You can use a bonus action to Dash and for each time you take the Dash action on your turn, you receive a +2 bonus to your AC and Dexterity saving throws.
Cursed Attack. You know how to turn the dangerous effects of cursed artifacts against your foes. Once per turn when you damage a creature with an attack, you can cause the attack to deal extra necrotic damage equal to twice your intelligence modifier.
Rapid Fire. When you use your bonus action to make an attack, you can attack twice, instead of once.
Life's Elixir
By 18th level, you have discovered a powerful relic of healing. At the start of each of your turns if you are nt unconscious, you gain 5 hit points up to your current maximum, and you immediately stabilize if you start your turn with zero hit points.
The Wayfarer
All who wander are not lost, and there could be no better description for a Wayfarer. These explorers travel the world, seeking out hidden cultures and long forgotten mysteries for nothing more than the joy of knowledge and to share in the diversity of life. Just don't mistake their wonder and excitement for innocence or weakness.
Wayfinders utilize a magical map and the ability to turn enemies into allies to protect the history of the world and preserve its wonderful diversity.
New Friends
Starting at 1st level, you are a friend to people and beasts alike. You learn one language of your choice and gain proficiency in the animal handling and persuasion skills, if you don't already have them.
Additionally, as a bonus action, you may attempt an animal handling check on a hostile beast with an intelligence of 4 or less. On a success, the creature will become neutral to you until you or your companions do anything harmful to it.
Map of Learning
Anything that you might need to know can be found with the right map. You have been given, or found, a sentient magical map that will help and protect you on your travels.
While you are holding the map it grants you the following benefits:
- Your Tricks count a magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
- You have a +2 bonus to your AC
- The map can plot out the safest, or quickest route between two locations you've visited before.
- As a bonus action, you can make an Intelligence (Investigation) check against a creature's AC to determine any immunity, resistances, or vulnerabilities it has.
If the map is ever destroyed, it will reconstitute itself 24 hours later in the last place it existed. As long as it is on the same plane of existence, you can summon your map as an action on your turn, causing it to teleport to your hand.
Helping Hand
At 6th level, you gain a unique Tricks of the Trade, called Helping Hand, with a component requirement of goodberry jam, slaked lime and coca leaves.
As an action, you can expend two uses of your tricks of the trade to restore hit points to a creature within 5 feet of you equal to your ingenuity dice. If the creature would gain hit points that place it above its maximum, it gains the difference as temporary hit points.
If you use this trick on a hostile creature that has been knocked unconscious, in addition to receiving hit points, the target becomes indifferent towards creatures of your choice for the next hour. This indifference ends early if the target is attacked, or is harmed by a spell. When the effect ends, the creature becomes hostile again, unless the DM rules otherwise.
Map of Finding
At 10th level, your map is able to find what others intended to keep hidden. The location of invisible objects, doors, or creatures within 20 feet of you now appear on the map and creatures no longer gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being hidden from you.
Additionally, you can use your map as a spellcasting focus to cast the locate animals or plants, locate object, or locate creature spell once.
After using this feature to cast a spell, you must complete a short rest before using it again.
Guided by the Past
By 13th level, your knowledge of creatures and cultures gives you and edge when danger is near.
Your movement Speed increases by 10 feet, and attacks of opportunity against you are made at disadvantage.
Map of Doors
At 18th level, you can use your map to cast teleport once. If you have ever been to your desired location before, your map acts as an object associated with that location for purposes of familiarity. Otherwise you are considered very familiar with your desired location. After using this feature you can't do so again until you complete a long rest.
Tricks of the Trade
Tricks are listed in alphabetical order. Unless otherwise noted, Tricks take 1 action, have a range of 15 feet.
Antidote
- Components: fine alchemical powder
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 1
If used before a target creature begins their first turn subject to the blindness, deafness, paralyzed, or poisoned condition, antidote can end one condition afflicting it.
Biting Snare
- Components: metal wire and a handful of caltrops
- Duration: Until destroyed.
- Cost: 0
You create a looped snare of wire with sharp barbs to entangle a creature within 15 feet of you that you can see. The creature must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your Trick save DC or take 1d6 piercing damage and be restrained.
While restrained by the snare, the creature takes an additional 1d6 piercing damage and repeats the saving throw at the start of each of its turns. It can also use an action on its turn to repeat the saving throw. On a success, it incurs the damage but frees itself, breaking the wire.
This trick's damage dice increase by 1d6 when you reach 11th level (2d6), and 17th level (3d6)
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, you may expend 2 uses of your Tricks of the Trade to replace the damage dice with your Ingenuity Dice.
Bolas
- Components: rope or wire and two small weights
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 0
Make a ranged weapon attack against a creature you can see within 30 feet. On a hit, the creature's speed is reduced to zero until the end of its next turn.
Prepared. On a hit, you may expend 1 use of Tricks of the Trade to force the target to make a wisdom saving throw or be stunned until the end of its next turn.
Cutting Line
- Components: metal wire and two spikes of wood or metal
- Duration: Until destroyed.
- Cost: 0
You toss a razor-sharp trip line across 5 ft. of ground that you can see within range. The line has an AC equal to your Trick Save DC and 1 hit point. Any creature in the cutting line’s space when you set this trick must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 slashing damage and be knocked prone.
A creature must also make the saving throw when it moves into the cutting line’s space for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there.
Cutting Line increases in length by 5 feet at 11th level, and another 5 feet at 17th level.
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, you may expend 2 use of your Tricks of the Trade to replace the damage dice with your Ingenuity Dice.
Deadfall lever
- Components: rope, a set of pulleys, and something heavy
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 0
Choose one object weighing 5 to 10 pounds within range that isn’t being worn or carried. Triggering your deadfall lever, you pull the object in a straight line up to 15 feet towards a target. Make a ranged weapon attack. On a hit, the creature takes 1d8 + Intelligence modifier bludgeoning damage.
This trick's damage dice increase by 1d8 when you reach 11th level (2d8), and 17th level (3d8)
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, you may expend 2 uses of your Tricks of the Trade to replace the damage dice with your Ingenuity Dice.
Distraction
- Components: a piece of mirror or pinch of sand
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 1
When an ally within 15 feet of you is hit by an attack, you can expend 1 use of your Tricks of the Trade to impose a penalty to the attack roll equal to your Intelligence Modifier.
Dust bag
- Components: finely ground pearl dust and rose hips
- Duration: 1d4 rounds
- Cost: 1
You throw a handful of fine powder out in front of you. For 1d4 rounds, each object in a 10-foot cube of your choosing within range is outlined in a thin coating of pearl dust. Any tangible creature in the area when dust bag is utilized is also outlined the dust, if it fails a Dexterity saving throw.
Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it, and the affected creature or object can't benefit from being invisible.
Elastic defense
- Components: none
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 2
When you are hit by an attack, you can expend 2 use of Tricks of the Trade as a Reaction to roll your Ingenuity dice and reduce the damage you take from the attack by the total rolled + your Intelligence modifier.
Fascinator
- Components: a spring-loaded trinket worth 10 gp
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 1
You quickly distract a creature who can see or hear you. The next attack roll against the target, before the start of your next turn, is rolled with advantage. On a hit, the attack deals extra damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.
Fox hunter trap
- Components: sulfur, niter, clay jars and ball bearings
- Duration: Until destroyed
- Cost: 2
Spending 2 uses of your Tricks of the Trade and 10 minutes, you plant four explosive devices in the ground within 15 feet of each other and set a triggering mechanism between them. When a creature other than you, or anyone you allow safe passage to, comes within 10 feet of the trap for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there, one concussive device is launched towards the creature and explodes with a bang audible from as far as 100 feet away.
The creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take your Ingenuity Dice + your Intelligence modifier piercing damage or half as much on a save.
The trap ends when all four devices have exploded or been deactivated.
You can spend an additional 10 minutes to deactivate the trap and recover its components.
Glassicles
- Components: lens glass and brass or leather fixtures
- Duration: 1 minute
- Cost: 1
For the next minute, you see in natural or magical darkness up to 60 feet and are able to see into the Ethereal plane.
Glue pot:
- Components: Alcohol, arsenic, and pearl ash
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 3
Expending 3 uses of your tricks of the trade, you throw a rapidly drying mass of thick, sticky glue at a point of your choice within range that fills a 10-foot square and lasts for 1d4 rounds. Any creature in the affected area when the glue is thrown must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is Petrified for the duration.
Otherwise, the area is considered difficult terrain, and a creature must expend 4 feet of movement for each foot it moves.
Harmful ointment
- Components: Oil, Rancid garlic, Slaked lime
- Duration: 1 minute
- Cost: 1
You apply a harmful ointment that lasts for one minute to a weapon or up to 8 pieces of ammunition. Successful attacks with a weapon or ammunition coated in this ointment prevent any innate healing your target possesses and reduces any magical healing they receive by half.
Healing Vapors
- Components: Goodberry Jam, Coca leaves, Sage posey, and Sugar.
- Duration: 1d4 rounds
- Cost: 3
Expending 3 uses of tricks of the trade, You ignite the bundle and throw it into a 5 foot space up to 60 feet away where it smolders and smokes for 1d4 rounds.
A creature that enters the space for the first time on their turn, or begins their turn there gains hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier.
Prepared. When you prepare this trick, roll your Ingenuity dice and use the highest single die value for the trick's duration in rounds.
Improvised descent
- Components: rope and sheet cloth or metal hooks
- Duration: 1d4 rounds
- Cost: 1
As a reaction, expend 1 use of Tricks of the Trade and roll a d4. A willing creature gains the effects of the feather fall spell for a number of rounds equal to the number rolled.
Prepared. You can prepare this trick, rolling your Ingenuity dice and using the highest single dice value for the trick's duration in rounds.
Improvised Equipment
- Components: Scavenged items (per DM)
- Duration: 1 minute
- Cost: 1
Making use of whatever items are at hand, you fashion a set of tools or a simple weapon that lasts for 1 minute's worth of use.
Restorative salts
- Components: Hartshorn powder, ammonia, sprig of fresh lavender
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 1
An acrid liquid, fumes waved beneath the nose of the target. If used before a target creature begins their first turn subject to the Stunned or Charmed effect, restorative salts can can end one condition afflicting it.
Secrets seeker
- Components: none
- Duration: Instant
- Cost: 1
Focusing for a moment, your proficiency bonus is doubled for any check that uses either the investigation or perception skill to find secret doors, compartments or traps.
Smoke Bomb:
- Components: Sugar, Niter, colored dye
- Duration: 1d4
- Cost: 0
You throw your smoke bomb up to 30 feet away, and for 1d4 rounds, your smoke bomb creates a 10-foot-radius sphere of thick smoke of a color you choose. The sphere expands by 5 feet each round it is active and spreads around corners, heavily obscuring the area. It ends early if a wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it.
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, you may expend 1 use of your Tricks of the Trade to roll your Ingenuity dice and use the highest single die value for the trick's duration in rounds.
Thundercrash Bomb:
- Components: Sulfur, Niter, and an iron shell
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 3
Expending 3 uses of tricks of the trade, You light the fuse and throw the thundercrash bomb at a point up to 60 feet away. Each creature within 5 feet of that point must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw as the bomb explodes with a bang audible from as far as 300 feet away.
On a failure, they take 1d8 fire damage plus 1d8 thunder damage and are blinded and deafened until the end of their next turn. On a success they take half damage and are not blinded or deafened.
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, roll your Ingenuity dice for the damage, half as fire and half as thunder damage.
Triage Kit:
- Components: Alcohol, Gauze, White Willow Bark,1 gp worth of powdered silver cream
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 1
Acting quickly to close wounds, you help a creature within 5 feet of you to recover 1 hit point or gain temporary hit points equal to 2d8 + your Intelligence Modifier.
Prepared. If you prepare this Trick, you may expend 2 additional uses of Tricks of the Trade to use your Ingenuity dice when rolling for temporary hit points.
Vaporized Vesicant:
- Components: Alcohol, arsenic, and pearl ash
- Duration: instant
- Cost: 2
Spending 2 uses of your tricks of the trade, you ignite the mixture and produce a thick, violet-black miasma in a 5 by 20 foot line. All creatures in the path of the miasma must make a Constitution save against your trick save DC or take 3d4 poison damage and become paralyzed until the start of their next turn. On a success, targets take half as much poison damage and are not paralyzed.
This trick's damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (4d4), 11th level (5d4), and 17th level (6d4)
Prepared. When this trick is prepared, use your Ingenuity dice for the damage.
Explorer Background
"What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature, brushing dust from the upturned tables of history. She is the will of the universe, that no secret remain buried forever."
~Opalina Crooks
To Magistrate Gaisarm, under interrogation.
At odds with other adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons, the explorer rarely solves problems for coin, or becomes embroiled in the political machinations of civilization. They generally take far more interest in delving into the secrets of the past and finding what is thought to be mere myth or legend. Explorers will likely chart a course towards mysterious places, searching the world for powerful and dangerous artifacts, strange rituals, and knowledge from cultures lost to history.
They may begin as founders of adventurous expeditions, or as specialists called upon to aid in the discovery, reclamation, or safekeeping of some ancient legacy — but what ultimately leads an explorer to join the adventuring party can be a deeply personal quest. While the adventuring explorer has tenets which guide their actions, teachers that showed the way, ultimately what defines them is the objective of their ambitions.
Pages 160 and 161 of the Player's Handbook contain the Trinkets table. Consider including a trinket as part of your explorer's backstory, as a token of their ambitions, or possibly the first clue that lead them on their path. Perhaps it was given to the character by a parent or guardian, or was found by accident at a dig site or discovered in the restricted section of a house of learning. Perhaps its connection to the character remains a mystery, or perhaps it is the first key to greater mysteries in store.
You can further explore the unique aspects to your explorer character by considering the suggestions that follow.
Tenet
Few people leave their homes to go exploring without some guiding principal to drive them. For some explorers these tenets become a sort of credo that defines the lines they are willing to cross to reach their goals, while for others, it helps to define why they have become explorers in the first place.
What underlying belief shapes your explorer, and what drives them? If you haven’t given these questions much thought, you can do so now, and the answers you come up with will likely affect how your future unfolds.
Tenet
| d6 | Tenet |
|---|---|
| 1 | "What has been lost, was meant to be found." |
| 2 | "Our collective history must be preserved." |
| 3 | "The difference between junk and riches is a thousand years buried in the sand." |
| 4 | "X never, ever, marks the spot." |
| 5 | "A trap only means there's something valuable to protect." |
| 6 | "What the dead owned, the living can take." |
Teacher
Some explorers are naturally curious and have a talent for uncovering historical mysteries. Others were educated in their formative years through organized academic, taught by professors and experts in relevant fields of study.
A third type of explorer comes from the ranks of those who inherited a desire for exploration, either from a parent, guardian, or a discovered legacy. These explorers likely received one-on-one instruction from a teacher who was themselves an accomplished veteran of the craft. That teacher was, or perhaps still is, well versed in a certain legend or mystery that has become the student's focus.
If you decide that your character had an individual instructor, what is that person’s specialty? Do you emulate your teacher in how you pursue or goals or define your tenets, or did you take the instructor’s teachings and adapt them to your own purposes?
Teacher
| d6 | Tutor |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lifetime Learning. Your teacher was widely read and widely respected, making discoveries to expand their own knowledge and share their findings with the world. |
| 2 | Fame and Glory. Your teacher taught you that the only immortality was having your name carved into the history books. |
| 3 | Patron. Your teacher used their personal wealth to educate and fund countless explorers over the years. |
| 4 | Noble Thief. You were taken under the wing of a grave robber or bandit king, who tought you the value of artifacts. |
| 5 | Obsession. Your teacher was obsessed with finding a specific object, uncovering a specific civilization, or finding evidence for a specific legend or myth. |
| 6 | Academic. Your favorite tutor, professor, or other member of academia instilled in you a love of the past or other cultures. |
Objective
Ambition and personal history provide purpose to the explorer character and dictate an objective or an ultimate goal that the explorer tries to advance. Some are driven by an objective that complements or transcends the life they have lead, while others struggle to reconcile objectives and beliefs that are in constant conflict. Explorers with different callings might have the same ultimate objective for their lives, differing only in how they attempt to achieve that goal.
If your explorer character has a objective, it likely came from a significant life event.
Objective
| d8 | Objective |
|---|---|
| 1 | Posterity You will protect the past from being lost, you've seen one too many great mysteries destroyed. |
| 2 | Light Bringer. The past holds knowledge the modern age has lost, and you will lead the way to a new enlightenment. |
| 3 | Debt You owe a great debt, to powerful beings. Perhaps the treasures you find in the dark corners of the world will appease them. |
| 4 | Recognition. You wish to be known as the greatest explorer, with your name carved into houses of learning. |
| 5 | Lineage. Your family has been ridiculed in the past for their obsession with the past. You will prove your, or your ancestor's theories right. |
| 6 | Power. The past holds the key to great wealth and power, magic and knowledge, and you will claim it. |
| 7 | Rival. You and a rival explorer seek answers to the same mystery, and you cannot let your rival find it first. |
| 8 | Legacy. You are next in line to a grand tradition of exploration, and will add your name to the history books with your discoveries. |
Multiclassing
Ability Score Minimum:
Intelligence 13
Proficiencies Gained:
Simple weapons, Hand Crossbows, pistols (if available), scimitars, and one skill from the class's skill list.
Class Features
Extra Attack
If you gain the Extra Attack class feature from more than one class, the features don't add together.
Unarmored Defense
If you already have the Unarmored Defense feature, you can't gain it again from another class. The Strategist Tactician can choose which unarmored defense feature to utilize if they would acquire the feature from another class.