Daily Ability Discussion

They were designed to help enable "minion-boss" concepts, like necromancers, conjurers, disney princesses...

Eagle Eye (1)
You take no penalties to your Perception checks from weather or atmospheric conditions such as smoke, fog, rain, etc. You can also clearly see small objects and fine details up to a mile away.

Cunning Disguise (2) – At Will
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Spend the preparation time studying a medium-sized creature. Once you have done so, that creature becomes your ‘mark’. You may add half of your Perception or Persuasion modifier (whichever is higher) as a bonus to any skill checks you make to impersonate that creature. You may only have one ‘mark’ at a time.

Alter Ego (2) – 3/Day
Preparation Time: 5 Minutes
Choose a race when you take this ability. You may spend 5 minutes to shift between your race’s natural appearance and one of your chosen race. However, this appearance is unique to you, so you cannot impersonate another specific individual. Furthermore, you always look the same in a particular race’s form. You may end the effect at any time, taking 1 minute to revert back to your natural form. You may take this ability multiple times, choosing a different race each time.

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I'll post my thoughts later.

Eagle Eye has always seemed a bit off to me. Either because it isn't as detailed in its explanation as it could be, or just because players are too liberal in interpreting it, but it doesn't ever seem to get used the way its meant to. I'll see people asking to get bonuses for their perception checks because of Eagle Eye, even though it only says you don't take penalties, and often it has nothing to do with weather conditions, but instead the "fine details"- they think that because they can see the details a mile away, it should doubly enhance their vision up close, which it doesn't. I don't understand the seeing through fog and stuff, either- birds can't do that. The Ability itself is fine, though, considering- when its used how its meant it works fine, nothing wrong with it.

Cunning disguise is meant for a spy, ninja, or assassin character, and its never seemed that useful to me. If I need something like that, I'll put points into persuasion and get one of the higher level disguise/shapeshifting Abilities.

...And Alter Ego would be something I take to supplement Cunning Disguise. I've only had one character that played with any kind of shapeshifting, and I went all out on the biggest one they had. Alter Ego would have been more useful that Cunning disguise in that regard, but I don't like the mechanics of it. You can shapeshift to another race, but according to the mechanical rules you're still limited by your own Abilities- so you can't adequately impersonate a griffon if you aren't something that can already fly, or a seapony if you can't breathe underwater, etc. Cunning Disguise has the same problem, the mechanics of these two don't take into account basic racial/species biology that is often represented through Abilities on the Character sheet. That's why I used the old GE Changeling's trickery, because when you changed to that race, you got a whole new Racial Trait list along with it, so you could do what that race could do, and lost what your own race could do.

I like the current form of Eagle Eye since the removal of the direct stat buff makes it less of a guaranteed pick and more of a choice. Seeing a mile away makes it an interesting power for some of the details you can setup for it.

Cunning Disguise & Alter Ego seem much more spy than shapeshifter oriented. I get why the old Changeling's Trickery doesn't exist since players don't use the default racials and if they don't, CT gives a ton of variable power like the old Element of Magic. There's a bit of cause and effect to it.

You Don’t Know Where It’s Been (3) – At Will
You can quickly hide any item smaller than yourself upon your person, making the object nigh-impossible to find. Make a Stealth check with a +15 bonus. The result becomes the DC for a perception check to beat in order to find the item. You can only have one such concealed item on your person at a time.

Dirty Look (3) – 1/Day
Target creature suffers a –10 penalty to its next skill check.

• Hex (3)
  Prerequisite: Dirty Look
  Dirty Look now causes the target creature to take a –10 penalty to all skill checks for the next hour.
  

Light Trap (3) – 1/Day
Preparation Time: 10 Seconds
Pull all the light within 50 feet of you into a small object you are holding. For the next 1 minute or until the object is destroyed the area affected is completely black. Treat the area as if it was obscured by a cloud of total darkness.  You may release the light trapped within the object at any time you are not in combat, either returning the area to normal illumination or releasing the light in a brilliant flash that blinds all creatures seeing it for five seconds.

Opinions:

Don't Know Where Its Been seems like a good skill to have, though still a little on the "situational" side. I've never come across a time when it needed to be used, but its usefulness is much more appreciable than some previous abilities.

Dirty Look and Hex fall into that category of Abilities that require a DM to make rolls, and for those rolls to be publicly made. A lot of DMs don't do the former, let alone the latter. I have actually used both of these to great extent- but only in trolling other party members with a character designed to be annoying and under everyone's feet. The only time it was used against NPCs was when the DM specifically designed NPC skill checks so everyone could make use of their level 10 Destinies.

Light Trap is a cool showoffy thing, like rabbit out of a hat or prestidigitation would be, but in games there aren't a lot of uses for it. Maybe to distract guards or sneak by something, but only lasting for a minute means it's still borderline unhelpful in some of those cases. The one time I actually used it, unfortunately, we discovered that the monsters attacked in the darkness, so it became entirely pointless.

Really hoped there'd be more participation.

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Nimble Hooves (3) – 3/Day [Created by JasonShadow]
Gain a +5 bonus to a Mechanics check or any other check that deals with fine manipulation using your hooves, claws and similar.

• Steady Hooves (2)
  Prerequisite: Nimble Hooves
  You may use your Nimble Hooves an additional 2 times per day.
  

Stealth Mode (3) – 3/Day
Preparation Time: 5 Seconds
You become invisible for the next five minutes or until you enter combat. While you are invisible, you gain a +10 bonus to your Stealth checks.

Leggo! (3) – 3/Day
Gain a +10 bonus to a skill check made to escape from physical restraints.

Spoiler:

Ask and thou shall receive

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Nimble Hooves
helps with filling a niche mechanics and thieves but well mechanics has never really been the best of defined skills meaning much of the power of the skill and therefor the talent varies from Dm to Dm. P
Upgrade
In theory a decent buy for the value but well there are a lot of good talents that cost two points.

Stealth Mode
At certain points this was the must have skill if you are building a stealth focused character probability still is.
Now that I think about it (and the fact that they are right next to each other) it really is more powerful than hooves dispute having the same cost and number of uses, +5 on one check vs free pass against certain things and +10 on as many checks as you need to make.

Leggo!
never seen it ever actually used really its one of the reactive type of things that mostly depends on either the PCs failing or the DM railroading.

Haste (3) – 3/Day
Preparation Time: Instantaneous
For the next 5 minutes, you or an ally you can see gains a +5 bonus to Athletics or Acrobatics checks made to move quickly (such as chasing down a thief or trying to outrun a boulder). This effect ends if you engage in combat.

• Speedy (1)
  Prerequisite: Haste
  Increase the duration of Haste by 5 minutes. You may take this ability twice.
  

Art of the Dress (3) – Magic
Preparation Time: 5 Minutes
You may change the appearance of up to six willing creatures. For the next four hours they each appear as a similarly-sized creature of your choice.

• Suited for Success (1)
  Prerequisite: Art of the Dress
  The effects of you Art of the Dress last for an additional two hours. You may take this ability twice.
  

Frozen Time (3) – Magic Interrupt [Created by Ramsus]
Trigger – You or an ally you can see makes a Precision check.
Effect – After seeing the result of the roll, you can choose to add a +20 bonus to the check.

OOC: