Osvald V. Vanstein Character Guide

Osvald that ends well

Osvald is the Scholar of Octopath Traveler 2. If you’re looking for a powerful magic user, this is it. With a multitude of elemental attacks in his kit, Osvald is potentially one of the best damage dealers in the game. He additionally has Support Skills that aid exploration, making him an undoubtedly valuable pick in almost any party.

Osvald can only equip Staves, which is unsurprising given his focus on magic. To learn more about this unique character, check out the rest of his kit below.

Osvald’s Path Actions and Talents

Like Cyrus from Octopath Traveler, Osvald’s daytime Path Action is Scrutinize. This lets you obtain information from NPCs, similar to the Inquire Path Action. While you can potentially get information earlier than you technically should, Scrutinize occasionally has a chance to fail. This will decrease your reputation in town, eventually locking you out of Path Actions if you aren’t careful.

At night, Osvald can Mug NPCs. Like the Challenge command, this puts Osvald in a one-vs-one fight against the NPC in question. If you win, you’ll take all their items. This draws from the same inventory pool that actions like Entreat and Steal do, so this is a good way to circumvent high level requirements that some items may have.

Finally, Osvald’s Talent is Study Foe. This reveals at least one weakness on every enemy in battle, which saves some trial and error of figuring out how to break a foe’s shield. Study Foe naturally won’t trigger if all weaknesses are revealed.

Related: Should You Play the First Octopath Traveler Before the Second? on Prima Games

Scholar’s Job and Support Skills

Here are all the Job Skills Osvald can acquire via his base Scholar job. The last skill listed requires obtaining the other skills first.

Fireball: Deal fire-based damage to all foes.
Icewind: Deal ice-based damage to all foes.
Lightning Bolt: Deal lightning-based damage to all foes.
Analyze: Reveal the HP and 1 weak point of a single foe.
Stroke of Genius: Grant yourself 2 attribute-raising effects at random. (Effects will stack.)
Elemental Barrage: Deal either fire-, ice-, or lightning-based damage to random foes 3 to 5 times.
Advanced Magic: Boosts the intensity* of a single ally’s spells 2 times.
[Divine Skill] Alephan’s Wisdom: Greatly boosts the intensity* of a single ally’s spells 3 times.

*A note about what spell intensity means in Octopath Traveler 2: when a spell’s intensity is boosted, it will hit multiple times. Advanced Magic will boost the number of hits to two, and Alephan’s Wisdom will make a spell hit three times. This doesn’t necessarily apply to every spell, but the upgraded effects will be reflected in the skill’s description before use.

Finally, here are the Support Skills for the Scholar job. These will unlock as you learn more Job Skills.

Evasive Maneuvers: Reduces the rate of random encounters. (Equipping multiple characters with this skill will have no added effect.)
Elemental Augmentation: Raises the equipping character’s elemental attack by 50.
Extra Experience: Receive additional EXP after battles. (Equipping multiple characters with this skill will have no added effect.)
Advanced Magic Master: Raises the number of times the equipping character can use more intense spells by 1.

Osvald’s EX Skills

EX Skills are character-specific skills. One will be acquired by finding the Altar of the Scholarking, the other will unlock after completing Osvald’s story.

Teach: Grant a single ally your attribute-raising effects for 2 turns.
One True Magic: Deal highly powerful magic damage that transcends the elements to all foes, and reduce their Shield Points regardless of their weak points.

If you’d like to read about Osvald’s Latent Power, check out our dedicated guide here!