Specialist

The team does the work. The specialist makes sure the work takes.

Favored Save: Body Save (+1D to Body + Fortitude rolls), specialists operate in field conditions while managing tradition use; physical resilience is foundational.

Power Access: Mediumship, Glamourist, Blood Sense, Hollow Pact, Sacred Fire, or Pact-Shifting (as appropriate to Lineage). The Specialist role exists specifically for operators with tradition access. Any Lineage that provides Power Access can produce a Specialist. The Vanguard does not prefer one tradition over another; it prefers effective resolution.

Starting Resources: Personal tradition Focus (if applicable), sidearm, field medical kit, threat-specific material for their tradition's relevant applications (blessed water and cold iron for Mediumship specialists; silver residue samples for Blood Sense practitioners, etc.).

Lineage Affinity: Any lineage with tradition access.

Progression Track: Specialist

Stage 1 (10 XP), Tactical Integration
  The specialist has learned to use their tradition under field conditions
  rather than controlled environments.
  - Strain Under Fire: The specialist can use their tradition on the same
    Turn they take damage, without the standard Concentration check (Wit Save
    vs Threshold 2) that damage typically imposes on tradition use.
  - Threat Assessment: Before a mission, the specialist may perform a
    preliminary assessment of a known threat using their tradition. A Governing
    Attribute + Tradition roll vs Threshold 2 surfaces one tactically relevant
    piece of information about the target, weakness, current location, active
    capabilities; that the targeting package did not include.

Stage 2 (25 XP), Senior Specialist
  The specialist has accumulated enough operational experience to have opinions
  about which engagements their tradition is the right tool for.
  - Coordinated Application: Once per scene, the specialist may use their
    tradition to set up an attack or action for another team member. A
    successful tradition application (Threshold 2+) grants the next operator
    to attack the same target +2D on that attack roll.
  - Recovery Protocol: The specialist can clear Veil Strain as a Minor Action
    rather than a Primary Action (Governing Attribute + Resolve vs Threshold 3).
    Field conditions have taught them to do it faster.

Stage 3 (50 XP), Expert Specialist / Asset
  The specialist has become the person the Vanguard calls when the engagement
  requires something beyond standard doctrine.
  - Doctrine Expansion: The specialist's operational history has contributed
    to Vanguard doctrine. Choose one application of their tradition. That
    application's effective Threshold is treated as one lower (minimum 1) for
    all Vanguard-designated threat engagements, the specialist has done it
    enough times in field conditions to have optimized it.
  - Standing Resource: The specialist has access to Vanguard's classified
    tradition-support materials, pre-consecrated items, specialized focus
    components, tradition-research data, as a standing personal resource rather
    than a mission-by-mission allocation.