SRD:Perform Skill

This material is published under the OGL

Perform (Cha)

Like Craft, Knowledge, and Profession, Perform is actually a number of separate skills.

You could have several Perform skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.

Each of the nine categories of the Perform skill includes a variety of methods, instruments, or techniques, a small list of which is provided for each category below.

• Act (comedy, drama, mime)
• Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
• Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
• Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
• Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
• Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
• String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
• Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet)
• Sing (ballad, chant, melody)

Check

You can impress audiences with your talent and skill.

Perform DC	Performance
10	Routine performance. Trying to earn money by playing in public is essentially begging. You can earn 1d10 cp/day.
15	Enjoyable performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 1d10 sp/day.
20	Great performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 3d10 sp/day. In time, you may be invited to join a professional troupe and may develop a regional reputation.
25	Memorable performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 1d6 gp/day. In time, you may come to the attention of noble patrons and develop a national reputation.
30	Extraordinary performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 3d6 gp/day. In time, you may draw attention from distant potential patrons, or even from extraplanar beings.

A masterwork musical instrument gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Perform checks that involve its use.

Epic Check

You can sway an audience’s attitude with your performance.

Initial Attitude	New Attitude (DC to achieve)
	Hostile	Unfriendly	Indifferent	Friendly	Helpful	Fanatic
Hostile	Less than 20	20	25	35	50	150
Unfriendly	Less than 5	5	15	25	40	120
Indifferent	—	Less than 1	1	15	30	90
Friendly	—	—	Less than 1	1	20	60
Helpful	—	—	—	Less than 1	1	50

Attitude	Means	Possible Actions
Hostile	Will take risks to hurt you	Attack, interfere, berate, flee
Unfriendly	Wishes you ill	Mislead, gossip, avoid, watch suspiciously, insult
Indifferent	Doesn’t much care	Socially expected interaction
Friendly	Wishes you well	Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate
Helpful	Will take risks to help you	Protect, back up, heal, aid
Fanatic	Will give life to serve you	Fight to the death against overwhelming odds, throw self in front of onrushing dragon

Fanatic

The attitude of fanatic is added here. In addition to the obvious effects, any NPC whose attitude is fanatic gains a +2 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution scores, a +1 morale bonus on Will saves, and a –1 penalty to AC whenever fighting for you or your cause. This attitude will remain for one day plus one day per point of your Charisma bonus, at which point the NPC’s attitude will revert to its original attitude (or indifferent, if no attitude is specified).

Treat the fanatic attitude as a mind-affecting enchantment effect for purposes of immunity, save bonuses, or being detected by the Sense Motive skill. Since it is nonmagical, it can’t be dispelled; however, any effect that suppresses or counters mind-affecting effects will affect it normally. A fanatic NPC’s attitude can’t be further adjusted by the use of skills.

Action

Varies. Trying to earn money by playing in public requires anywhere from an evening’s work to a full day’s performance. The bard’s special Perform-based abilities are described in that class’s description.

Try Again

Yes. Retries are allowed, but they don’t negate previous failures, and an audience that has been unimpressed in the past is likely to be prejudiced against future performances. (Increase the DC by 2 for each previous failure.)

Special

A bard must have at least 3 ranks in a Perform skill to inspire courage in his allies, or to use his countersong or his fascinate ability. A bard needs 6 ranks in a Perform skill to inspire competence, 9 ranks to use his suggestion ability, 12 ranks to inspire greatness, 15 ranks to use his song of freedom ability, 18 ranks to inspire heroics, and 21 ranks to use his mass suggestion ability. See Bardic Music in the bard class description.

In addition to using the Perform skill, you can entertain people with sleight of hand, tumbling, tightrope walking, and spells (especially illusions).

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