Cosmere RPG Future

[SteelBagel]

Does anyone know if there will be new heroic paths, or just new Invested paths? also, how are they doing that system? will there be 32 total paths for each possible power, and you either have 1,2,16,17, or 32 of them depending if youre ferring/misting, twinborn, mistborn/feruchemist, mistborn ferring/misting feruchemist, fullborn? will we even have options for mistborn and full feruchemists? they're pretty powerful without needing to "level up" in oaths the way radiants do, so you'd be acessing a ton of versatility right off the bat, seems kinda OP. 
speaking of a ton of versatility, does anyone know anything about elantrians?

[Erremin]

There will be new heroic paths, partially to "era up" as it were (so to include more specifics for guns), but I believe a Brawler path and Hazekiller path have also been announced (along with a bunch of others). There will be more invested paths for the metallic arts, but we don't know how they will work necessarily. Do note that to get access to the more powerful abilities, you'd have to take talents in those trees, so you're sacrificing flexibility for power. We do know that the metallic arts trees won't always be as big as the Heroic paths or radiant paths are. So it may take less talents to fill out duralumin than steel for example. 

Elantris is confirmed to be coming, and the way the action system has been designed was done with them in mind, but we don't know more about it right now (and probably won't for a while)

[SteelBagel]

12 hours ago, Erremin said:

There will be new heroic paths, partially to "era up" as it were (so to include more specifics for guns), but I believe a Brawler path and Hazekiller path have also been announced (along with a bunch of others). There will be more invested paths for the metallic arts, but we don't know how they will work necessarily. Do note that to get access to the more powerful abilities, you'd have to take talents in those trees, so you're sacrificing flexibility for power. We do know that the metallic arts trees won't always be as big as the Heroic paths or radiant paths are. So it may take less talents to fill out duralumin than steel for example. 

Elantris is confirmed to be coming, and the way the action system has been designed was done with them in mind, but we don't know more about it right now (and probably won't for a while)

true. Though 32 different powers (or more likley 16, I doubt fullborns will be playable), is still quite a bit of flexibility compared to the 2 surges radiants get, or 1 ability heroic paths get. 

[iceblade44 he/him]

21 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

Does anyone know if there will be new heroic paths, or just new Invested paths? also, how are they doing that system? will there be 32 total paths for each possible power, and you either have 1,2,16,17, or 32 of them depending if youre ferring/misting, twinborn, mistborn/feruchemist, mistborn ferring/misting feruchemist, fullborn? will we even have options for mistborn and full feruchemists? they're pretty powerful without needing to "level up" in oaths the way radiants do, so you'd be acessing a ton of versatility right off the bat, seems kinda OP. 
speaking of a ton of versatility, does anyone know anything about elantrians?

So the devs have gave us details.

In Mistborn here are the things that are different.

In the 6 Heroic Paths, they will replace at least one specialty talent tree from each Path and two for Hunters and Warriors with specialties more fitting for Scadrial, stuff like Hazekiller, Gunslinger, Masterminds and so on. This would replace the specialties like Shardbearer and Artifabrian.

For the Invested Paths, there will be five. Mistborn, Feruchemist, Misting, Ferrings, and Twinborn. They will get access to 17 talent trees, the 16 metals and atium. These trees will typically be be shorter then the Surge trees with their number ranging from 6 to 3 and having no talents for Allomantic Aluminum and Feruchemical Nicrosil. 

There won't be a Path for Hemalurgy, they want to hold back on it until ethical Hemalurgy shows in the books. Instead Hemalurgic Spikes will be Rewards you get on completing goals, like the Ideals or Shardblades. You can get them you just won't be able to make them.

For Ancestries there will be humans, Kandra, and Koloss-blooded. Kandra and Koloss-blooded will have their own talent trees.

 

Thats pretty much everything we know as of now

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 9/1/2025 at 11:02 PM, iceblade44 said:

There won't be a Path for Hemalurgy, they want to hold back on it until ethical Hemalurgy shows in the books. Instead Hemalurgic Spikes will be Rewards you get on completing goals, like the Ideals or Shardblades. You can get them you just won't be able to make them.

 

Spoiler

Naw, if I ever play a Mistborn game I'm 100% ignoring that rule. If a hostile Pewterarm hasn't the sense to leave me the rust alone, they officially lose their Spiritweb privileges. 

[Qianweilian He/him]

On 9/1/2025 at 10:02 PM, iceblade44 said:

For the Invested Paths, there will be five. Mistborn, Feruchemist, Misting, Ferrings, and Twinborn.

This probably means no fullborn. I wonder if they're going to block these for kanda/koloss-blooded.

On 9/1/2025 at 10:02 PM, iceblade44 said:

There won't be a Path for Hemalurgy, they want to hold back on it until ethical Hemalurgy shows in the books.

But what if I want to be the ethical hemalurgist? I don't think this is a great approach from a player agency perspective.

23 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

If a hostile Pewterarm hasn't the sense to leave me the rust alone, they officially lose their Spiritweb privileges. 

I don't think @Trusk'our has the same reasons for wanting hemalurgy that I do...maybe he does, considering my profile picture. (It was painful to get a skin cap on and paint it every time I wanted to wear my inquisitor costume)

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

But what if I want to be the ethical hemalurgist? I don't think this is a great approach from a player agency perspective.

I don't think @Trusk'our has the same reasons for wanting hemalurgy that I do...maybe he does, considering my profile picture. (It was painful to get a skin cap on and paint it every time I wanted to wear my inquisitor costume)

Eh, in reality the character I'd like to play most is an engineer/scientist who's trying to harness Hemalurgy. 

Micro-excisions from hundreds of donors or Bloodmakers would be optimal to create viable spikes, all without reducing the quality of life for the donor.

[Qianweilian He/him]

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

an engineer/scientist who's trying to harness Hemalurgy.

I agree. Something similar to what the Set was doing, except actually humane and "the good guy"

[Jult]

Homebrewing a Hemalurgy path would be interesting. It's not like being a Hemalurgist comes with a ton of unique skills. It'd mainly be borrowing talents from other paths. Or maybe it would look similar to the Singer Ancestry tree but instead of unlocking 2 forms with each talent point, you'd unlock the knowledge to create/use 2 or 3 types of spikes?

[Trusk'our he/him]

3 hours ago, Jult said:

Homebrewing a Hemalurgy path would be interesting. It's not like being a Hemalurgist comes with a ton of unique skills. It'd mainly be borrowing talents from other paths. Or maybe it would look similar to the Singer Ancestry tree but instead of unlocking 2 forms with each talent point, you'd unlock the knowledge to create/use 2 or 3 types of spikes?

How much of a Path is necessary?

I don't have a copy of the rulebook yet, but from what I've pieced together from online, paths add skill trees where you take talents for specific abilities. 

Expertise and a separate, unique skill you can dump points in might be enough for most Hemalurgy shenanigans. Once you know where to stab, it's not complicated to transfer powers (attributes would be substantially more difficult though, probably requiring superhuman aid from other Investitures. Not something you could just take a talent for).

 

Maybe you're right though. Game balance would probably demand something like you propose, and even if it's a bit unrealistic canonically, making real changes with Hemalurgy is one of the main draws.

Edited September 10, 2025 by Trusk'our

[Jult]

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

How much of a Path is necessary?

I don't have a copy of the rulebook yet, but from what I've pieced together from online, paths add skill trees where you take talents for specific abilities. 

Expertise and a separate, unique skill you can dump points in might be enough for most Hemalurgy shenanigans. Once you know where to stab, it's not complicated to transfer powers (attributes would be substantially more difficult though, probably requiring superhuman aid from other Investitures. Not something you could just take a talent for).

 

Maybe you're right though. Game balance would probably demand something like you propose, and even if it's a bit unrealistic canonically, making real changes with Hemalurgy is one of the main draws.

Yeah I don't think a very detailed Path would be necessary. I at first considered something similar to the Artifabrian tree. Like start with a slightly modified version of the Prized Aquisition talent to craft a specialized gem spike for the purpose of capturing stealing a specific spren  attribute. But then I literally couldn't think of another talent that a Hemalurgist would even need.

As you guessed, I went with the option proposed above mainly for balancing. Because a level two player who chooses to go full Inquisitor and spike himself 11 times sounds overpowered. 

However, the more I think on it, that player may be in the same party as someone playing a Mistborn... I have no idea how natural born Mistborn are going to work from a balance perspective. It feels like they'd have to start with the equivalent of 16 talent points unless you throw some really arbitrary restrictions on them.

Breaking Hemalurgy into 4 separate talents (maybe Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual, and Temporal) doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Each talent would require you to learn the metallurgical natures of 4 metals and the correct stabbing point for those spikes. It's a little off canon, but explainable because some effort needs to go into learning that information. I don't see how to do something similar for a Mistborn without it feeling super limiting. Their powers are much more instinctual and readily available.

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Jult said:

Yeah I don't think a very detailed Path would be necessary. I at first considered something similar to the Artifabrian tree. Like start with a slightly modified version of the Prized Aquisition talent to craft a specialized gem spike for the purpose of capturing stealing a specific spren  attribute. But then I literally couldn't think of another talent that a Hemalurgist would even need.

As you guessed, I went with the option proposed above mainly for balancing. Because a level two player who chooses to go full Inquisitor and spike himself 11 times sounds overpowered. 

However, the more I think on it, that player may be in the same party as someone playing a Mistborn... I have no idea how natural born Mistborn are going to work from a balance perspective. It feels like they'd have to start with the equivalent of 16 talent points unless you throw some really arbitrary restrictions on them.

Breaking Hemalurgy into 4 separate talents (maybe Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual, and Temporal) doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Each talent would require you to learn the metallurgical natures of 4 metals and the correct stabbing point for those spikes. It's a little off canon, but explainable because some effort needs to go into learning that information. I don't see how to do something similar for a Mistborn without it feeling super limiting. Their powers are much more instinctual and readily available.

I suppose Hemalurgy has a built-in limitation since it also causes some kind of penalty with each additional power.

One to three spikes might be manageable with only relatively small flaws, but any above four will cause larger problems. 

[DSCrankshaw]

I imagine Mistborn will work the same as a First Ideal Radiant-a base Mistborn will have all of the skills associated with their metals, but none of the trees. You have to buy those as normal. The base Radiant does start with 1 skill point in each surge, and I'm not sure you'd want to do that with a Mistborn. Maybe they just have all the skills, meaning they can attempt to use them, but no skill points in them unless they spend them.

Edited September 10, 2025 by DSCrankshaw

[iceblade44 he/him]

On 9/8/2025 at 12:45 PM, Qianweilian said:

This probably means no fullborn. I wonder if they're going to block these for kanda/koloss-blooded.

Brandon has said Fullborn are impossible to happen naturally. A spirit web cant get that much power without an intervention of some kind. 

 

As for the Ancestries. All of those should be open to Koloss-Blooded, no reason why not. The Kandra however is more a mystery, Brandon has been cagey on them getting powers other then from Hemalurgy so the Brotherwise team will have to bring this up to Brotherwise.

[Qianweilian He/him]

9 hours ago, iceblade44 said:

Brandon has said Fullborn are impossible to happen naturally

Really? That's interesting. So Rashek's genocide was completely unnecessary

[Jult]

10 hours ago, iceblade44 said:

Brandon has said Fullborn are impossible to happen naturally. A spirit web cant get that much power without an intervention of some kind. 

Not to nitpick, but he hasn't said "impossible" as far as I know. Just "highly unlikely".

Quote

Windrunner

Is it is even possible for a full Feruchemist Mistborn to be naturally born, or will the genes for the two interfere with one another too much?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible, but highly unlikely.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 6, 2015)

[Shadeshadow227]

On 9/8/2025 at 10:45 AM, Qianweilian said:

This probably means no fullborn. I wonder if they're going to block these for kanda/koloss-blooded.

Koloss-blooded can have metallic arts, Tarson is a koloss-blooded Misting in the Era 2 books. Kandra may be blocked from obtaining Allomancy or Feruchemy without some weirdness/homebrew, but they're also probably going to have some insane durability and self-healing features in a setting where not much healing is present, in contrast to the Stormlight side of things where health-restoring magic items were a thing and literally all Invested paths could Regenerate.