Sophist

Rather than seeking truth, sophists use rhetorical tricks to obfuscate the knowledge and focus of others. Their words, imbued with false notions of magic, carry no deeper meaning but can be quite effective in swaying foes.

Sophistry (Su)

Through covert fallacies, irrational appeals, and instilled biases, a sophist can hamper a foe’s reasoning to a dangerous degree. Whenever a creature within close range of the sophist and which the sophist can understand makes a die roll associated with one of the sophist’s models, the sophist may expend hypothesis dice assigned to that model to apply a penalty on the roll. The penalty is equal to the bonus which would be granted by a normal theorist’s theory bonus if the same number of assigned dice were expended. This penalty cannot exceed the bonus which a theorist of equal level to the sophist could grant with their theory bonus. This is a language-dependent mindaffecting effect.

This replaces theory bonus.

Manipulator’s Postulates

Sophists may select the following additional postulates.

Foundational Flaw

Sophistry ignores any immunity to mind-affecting effects which targets may possess.

Nonsensical Origin

Sophistry loses the language-dependent descriptor.

Reaching Words

The range of sophistry improves from close to medium. The sophist may take this postulate a second time, in which case the range increases to long.