Heralds in general are among the most versatile and highly trained of adventurers, and scholar knights take this training even further, augmenting their ideological, martial, and magical training with a deep knowledge of the arcane and a smattering of general academics. Often associated with magic colleges and royal courts, these learned heralds apply their intellect as well as their conviction to the problems they face.
All scholar knights hold similar tenets, regardless of the deity they serve.
Rigor. Be sure you know what you know. Go beyond quick answers and surface information.
Integrity. The truth, however inconvenient or distasteful, is still better than a lie.
Excellence. Keep your skills, both mental and physical, sharp through training and practice.
Curiosity. No matter how much you know, it can always be more. Cultivate a curious mind.
Add the knowledge school of magic to your list of herald spells.
At 3rd level, your studies pay off. You gain proficiency with the Arcana and Religion skills, two languages of your choice, and Bookbinder’s Tools (see below).
Beginning at 3rd level, you gain the ability to learn magic rituals and cast them.
You acquire a spellbook. When you find a spell with the ritual tag, you can transcribe it into your spellbook if the spell’s level is equal to or less than the highest-level herald spell you can cast. For each level of the spell, the transcription process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gold for the rare inks needed to inscribe it. Once a spell is transcribed in this manner, you can cast it as a herald spell.
You can cast a herald spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your spellbook.
At 3rd level when you choose this archetype, you gain the following two Channel Divinity options.
Eyes of the Knower. As a bonus action, you can gain supernatural clarity for one minute. While this ability is active, you gain immunity to the Charmed condition and automatically succeed on saving throws to disbelieve illusions and contested Insight checks to determine if another creature is lying or withholding information from you.
Mental Archives. When you would fail on an Intelligence ability check or saving throw, you may spend your reaction to succeed instead.
Beginning at 7th level your knowledge of anatomy and physiology shows you where to strike. As a bonus action, you may make a skill check to recall knowledge of a creature’s physiology and focus on that creature (use the same skill that you would use for lore on the creature; Narrator’s call if not specified). The DC is equal to the creature’s CR + 5 (creatures with a CR of less than 1 count as having a CR of 0 for the purposes of this ability). If you succeed, once per round, when you hit that creature with an attack, you deal an additional 2d6 points of damage. This damage increases to 3d6 at level 9, 4d6 at level 13, and 5d6 at level 17. Your focus lasts for an hour or until either you or the focused creature falls unconscious or dies, or until you dismiss your focus (no action required). You may switch your focus to another creature as a bonus action (making a new check to do so), and may only focus on one creature at a time.
At 15th level, knowledge and experience shield your mind. You have resistance to psychic damage and you gain advantage on saving throws to prevent gaining levels of strife. In addition, whenever you finish a long rest outside a sanctuary, you recover a level of strife. Whenever you finish one inside a sanctuary, you recover two levels of strife instead.
At 20th level, your breadth and depth of knowledge seem infinite. You automatically succeed on all Intelligence checks and saving throws with a DC of 15 or less, you may cast tongues at will as a bonus action, you become immune to psychic damage, and you have truesight with a range of 30 feet.
New Artisan's Toolkit: Bookbinder's Kit
This kit costs 15 gp and weighs 5 lbs. To use it, spend 15 gp worth of wood pulp, leather, ink, and animal glue. Doing so takes a week of 8-hour days. On a successful DC 15 check, you can sell the finished book for 25gp, on a DC 20 one, you receive 50 gp instead, and on a DC 25 one, you receive 250 gp. The DC 20 and 25 books are suitable for use as spellbooks.