Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Revised Skills

Revised Skills

This chapter contains the meat of this work, the revised skills. Unfortunately, listing all of them on one wiki page makes the page extremely long, so this page contains only summaries of the skills and their abilities. Each of the skill names and abilities links to the full text, however.

Acrobatics

Acrobatics is a movement skill. It allows you to move over terrain that would obstruct you, land a fall more gracefully, and maneuver around opponents. As you grow in level and skill, you can learn how to balance on water, clouds, air, energy, and even void, learn how to slow a fall to land on each of those things, and how to balance on a thing so it does not feel your weight and can carry you great distances.

Key Attribute: Dexterity

Rank 0 Abilities

Balance On Difficult Surface

Slippery or obstructed surfaces don’t lend themselves to heroic charges, since heroic slipping is never sung about in stories. In order to move across an obstructed or slippery surface without losing your balance, you must succeed at an acrobatics check. At this level of skill, you are flat-footed on any surface with a DC of 7+ and may not attempt to cross a surface that is more narrow than a fifth of your shoulder width.

Rank 2 Abilities

Controlled Landing

It's easy to take the edge off a fall, as long as you're expecting it. When you intentionally fall from a higher point, you do not take damage for the first 10' of the fall and the next 10' of the fall deals only nonlethal damage. It doesn't matter whether it's because you hop off a roof or pull a lever to activate a trap door.

Rank 4 Abilities

Competent Balancer

You can try to keep your balance across normal, solid surfaces of any width. You are considered flat-footed while balancing only if the surface DC is 12 more than your ranks in Acrobatics.

Tumble Through Threatened Area

Opponents with weapons generally stab you when you try to move around them. You can move through threatened spaces, both occupied and unoccupied, without provoking attacks of opportunity as long as you can get the footing right.

Rank 6 Uses

Roll With the Landing

Turning some of your downward momentum to other uses can make a fall much more survivable. Half of any lethal damage you would suffer from falling is instead treated as nonlethal.

Rank 8 Uses

Weightless Balancer

Moving across things that can't support your weight requires a keen sense of balance and a fair amount of skill, skill you've acquired through training and practice. You can attempt to balance on surfaces and objects without your weight pushing them down. When balanced in this way, you do not cause the surface to fall or break, whether it's the surface of a liquid, a flimsy tree branch, or a weapon being held aloft by another creature. Attempting to balance weightlessly increases the DC by +8 and tires you out as a flat-out action for the round regardless of which actions you actually use.

Rank 10 Uses

Cat's Fall

Twisting in the wind and simply not fighting back against it can do wonders for your landing. All lethal damage you would suffer from falling is instead treated as nonlethal. (Note that long falls can still knock you out.)

Rank 12 Uses

Wind Balancer

Balancing on smoke, clouds, and even air is among the most impressive of things an acrobat can do. You can perform this feat through the skill you've developed. When balanced in this way, you may move along the air in any direction, but may not move up or down at a greater than 45 degree angle. Attempting to balance on air increases the DC by +12 and tires you out as a flat-out action for the round, regardless of which actions you actually use. Weightless balancing no longer tires you out in this fashion, however.

Rank 14 Uses

Leaf's Fall

When you can balance on the air itself, it's not really a surprise that you can slow yourself on it. You can fall any distance without suffering falling damage, and can stop your fall at any point if you make a successful check to balance on the air.

Perfect Balancer

The only things that you can't balance on by this point aren't physical at all. You are no longer flat-footed on any surface, and wind balancing does not tire you out as if you took a flat-out action.

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Affability

Affability is a social skill. It allows you to influence how people feel about you, and use their fondness for you to push them a bit farther than they would go for others. Those with exceptional skill in Affability can talk others out of blinding rages or into potentially suicidal actions.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Minimum Rank 0 Uses

Push an Agreement

Sometimes you can present an agreement or offer that the other party is hesitant to accept. Maybe you have to talk people into going along with a crazy plan or otherwise helping you out when they don’t really want to, or maybe they’re just being indecisive. You can push them a bit and get people to agree when they otherwise might not, just because you’re a nice guy who knows how to talk to people.

Minimum Rank 2 Uses

Improve Rapport

You know how to win friends and influence people, and a smile or kind word from you can melt even the coldest heart. With a bit of time, you can get people to like you more than they otherwise would. This is a natural shift in rapport, one that is not magically enforced. If you mistreat or disappoint a person after changing their rapport with you, they are likely to respond more negatively than before. After all, no one likes false friends.

Minimum Rank 4 Uses

Delay Aggression

Sometimes people try to stab you before you can give them a reason not to. You can delay a hostile creature from attacking you and your allies with just a well-turned phrase. "Delay" is the key word here, as it does not last long and you may not hold an opponent back once the attack has begun.

Minimum Rank 6 Uses

Push a Group Agreement

You've mastered the technique of getting multiple people to go along with a plan at the same time. When you push an agreement, you can try to push it onto a group rather than an individual.

Minimum Rank 8 Uses

Campaigner

You don't need one-on-one interaction to convince people that you're a great person, you just need time. When you attempt to Improve Rapport, you can do so with an entire group rather than an individual.

Minimum Rank 10 Uses

Purge Aggression

When you successfully delay aggression, any creature you affect with a CR less than your CR − 4 cease to desire to fight you at all. They won't stand aside and let you do what you like if they have reason not to, but they will resist fighting with you and may stop others on their team from fighting as well. This is a [Compulsion] effect, and will not affect creatures immune to compulsions.

Push a Suicidal Agreement

Your tongue is so gilded you can make really terrible things sound acceptable sometimes. You may push agreements that would result in serious harm or death to a creature. These are still considered repugnant agreements. This is a [Compulsion] effect, and any save bonuses that a creature has against compulsions are added to the DC for them to accept the agreement. If they are a member of a group half that you are trying to push the agreement on, the bonus is added to their CR for the purposes of determining what the EL of their group would be.

Voice of Serenity

It really is hard to get or stay mad at you, and your voice can calm even the most chaotic of minds. When you turn on the charm, marshals find it hard to inspire either courage or ire against you and even berserkers find you difficult to hate. You can counter morale, emotion, and confusion effects just by talking.

Minimum Rank 12 Uses

Call of Serenity

You can direct your calming voice to desired targets, rather than letting it wash over those nearest you. When you use Voice of Serenity, you can affect all creatures in a cone out to 10' per rank in Affability, instead of the normal area.

Minimum Rank 14 Uses

Purge Enmity

You can build someone up and show them what a great person you are even in the middle of talking them out of the grievous bodily harm they would suffer by fighting you. Creatures with a CR less than your CR - 6 have their rapport shifted positively by one degree, to a maximum of friendly. They don’t necessarily become your ally, but they may try to convince any remaining hostile members of the group to just let you go about your business. This is a [Charm] effect, and will not affect creatures immune to charms.

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Appraisal

Appraisal is an analysis skill. It signifies an attention to detail that allows you to recognize forgeries, doctored goods, or knockoffs as well as price and identify goods and even share your insights with those suffering from a lack of logic. Those with attention to detail are also those who make good adulterers and forgers of work, so this skill is also used to make objects appear to be worth more than they are. Those with substantial skill in appraisal can even determine the functions of magical objects simply by examination.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Untrained Uses

Appraise Common Items

When you’re out shopping, it’s nice to not be ripped off by the merchants. You can appraise common or familiar goods and objects. You cannot appraise uncommon, rare, or exotic items untrained. You also use Appraise to see past knockoffs and forgeries (but not forged documents or other non-trade goods).

Rank 1 Uses

Appraise Anything Mundane

You know what you’re looking for, and have a fair guess of what most things are worth. In addition to common items, you can also appraise uncommon, rare, exotic, and one-of-a-kind mundane items. This includes artwork, gems, jewelry, and all of the other pieces of loot that adventurers often find themselves saddled with. Some items, like artifacts or poorly-made jewelry pieces with high emotional value to wealthy kings, are fundamentally un–appraisable and likely to return a completely objective measure of their worth (which, due to their value being largely subjective, will be completely wrong). These should be rare; otherwise, this ability is worth considerably less and you should complain loudly to your GM about it.

Rank 4 Uses

Forgery

Attention to detail can go both ways, allowing you to find or create forgeries and knockoffs. Anything that you can create, you can create in ways that make it look like something official or more expensive. For example, you can create fake documents, make a normal sword appear to be a masterwork one, or remove the signs from a barrel of fish that would indicate its low quality.

Rank 6 Uses

Eye for Magic

You can tell if an object is magical just by handling it. You may appraise magical items as easily as mundane ones, though you may still not know what it does afterwards.This ability may work on artifacts, but only on ones that you would have a reasonable chance of recognizing from stories or research.

Rank 8 Uses

Identify Magic Items

You’ve learned enough about items that you can identify them fairly accurately. You can determine the properties of any item you know to be magical, or you may attempt this check on an item you simply believe to be magical.

Think It Through

Your ability to appraise a situation also lets you talk others through them. You can counter confusion and fascination effects just by talking to those suffering under them. You can not affect yourself with this ability, however, as those conditions detract from your ability to analyze a situation.

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Arcana

The Arcana skill represents dedicated study into the workings of arcane magic. While that study manifests itself most strongly as the ability to better understand and recognize arcane magics, those who study Arcana also learn the underpinnings of creatures created and maintained with those magics, namely constructs and the undead. Characters with substantial training in Arcana can even use arcane spell trigger and spell completion items containing spells not normally accessible within their class, as well as ignore attribute requirements on magical items.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Minimum Rank 2 Uses

Creature Insight

While learning more about how arcane magic functions, you've also learned more about what makes some of the most common arcane creations and allies, constructs and the undead, "tick". Constructs are solid, lifeless creations animated by magic bound to their frames. The undead are the remains of once living creatures, animated to serve even in death or to grant a form of immortality. You know enough about the basic working of these creatures to recognize what abilities any individual member might have, even those you’ve never seen before.

Identify Magic

When you run across magic, it’s nice to know if it’s magic that will help you or flay you alive. The Arcana skill primarily deals with the esoteric magic of wizards, though it can be used to identify spells or effects from any source. This ability allows you to identify a spell as it is being cast, identify a standing magical effect, identify magical residue after an effect ends, etc. Additionally, it allows you to learn the spell stored within an arcane spell completion or spell trigger item. However, you must have detect magic or an equivalent spell active, or else wield an etheliometer to learn anything with this ability.

Minimum Rank 4 Uses

Arcane Item Affinity

A little knowledge about obscure arcane magical theory goes a long way. With it, you can attempt to use arcane spell trigger or spell completion items even if you lack the ability to normally use the spells within them. But your skill with the arcane doesn’t stop there. Arcane magic is based on tricking the world into doing what you wanted it to do all along, and some of those tricks work to coax magic items into working for you even when you lack the prerequisite attributes. If a magic item requires a certain ability score to function, you can try to ignore that requirement as well.

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Athletics

The athletics skill is a movement skill. It allows you to ascend surfaces, swim through waters, or swing through a jungle on vines that would otherwise block you. Those with a lot of skill in athletics can even climb walls of force or swim against tsunamis and in other conditions that have no terrestrial analogue.

Key Attribute: Constitution

Untrained Uses

Climb and Hang

Walls and barriers are meant to be overcome, and it’s often easier to climb over, along, or around it than it would be to smash it down. You can move up, down, across, or even just cling desperately to a slope (an inclined surface of 46 to 60 degrees), a wall (an inclined surface of 61 to 120 degrees), or overhang (an inclined surface of 121 to 180 degrees). With this level of skill, you can not even attempt to climb surfaces with a base DC greater than 20 and automatically fail them with the worst result.

Swim

Sometimes the moat is too wide or you’ve walked the plank, and water is just one more obstacle to overcome. The swim ability is used to traverse liquids you can’t generally walk on or need to dive into, like water, acid, lava, and other fun things. With this level of skill, you can not even attempt to swim in conditions with a base DC greater than 20 and automatically fail them with the worst result.

Rank 4 Uses

Brachiation

There are lots of places where it’s easier to swing around instead of walk. Swinging by your arms and occasional leg, you can move through tree branches, jungle vines, banquet hall chandeliers, complex monkey bars, etc. at half of your base land speed.

Rank 6 Uses

Combat Athlete

You’re getting the hang of moving in different ways while people try to fill you with arrows or spears or whatever. You are no longer flat-footed while climbing or swimming.

Fleet of Arm and Leg

You are quite proficient at dragging and kicking yourself through liquids. You may swim, and make progress, in any conditions with a base DC of 30 or less.

Touch of a Spider

Your fingers are amazing at finding things for you to grip. You may climb any surface with a base DC of 30 or less.

Rank 8 Uses

Arms of a Monkey

You’ve got some nice coordination and muscle strength. Your brachiation speed is now equal to your land speed. You may also brachiate with one hand occupied at half your base speed.

Ein Hander

You only need one hand free to climb walls or swim, and freeing up a hand comes with a few perks.

Rank 10 Uses

Touch of a Gecko

Your fingers are amazing at finding things for you to grip. You may climb a surface of any DC; there really isn’t much that stops you.

Torpedo

You swim better than most fish. You can swim, and make progress, in any liquid conditions regardless of DC.

Rank 12 Uses

Nein Hander

Your toes, feet, and legs are very strong and well adapted. They're about all you need to to swim against a tsunami or stand on a cliff overhang.

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Bluff

The Bluff skill is a social skill involving the art of trickery. With it, you can convincingly lie, hurt the image of others, and take on the identity of another individual. Those with advanced training in Bluff can even lie to spells and effects that would determine their information without giving the target a chance to lie about it.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Minimum Rank 0 Abilities

Innuendo

Words and glances can mean different things to different people. You know what to say and how to say it, and can use that to pass secret messages to others during public conversations.

Lie Convincingly

You generally want people to believe that you are telling them the truth, especially if it isn’t the truth. You know how to craft lies well, so that they are more likely to be believed by those you are telling them to.

Minimum Rank 4 Uses

Combat Distraction

If you just need to buy yourself a moment to escape, it’s hard to beat the old “Hey, what’s that behind you!” You can attempt a similar distraction, buying yourself a bit of time to start on your escape.

Minimum Rank 6 Uses

Mock and Deride

Anyone can heckle a speaker or slander a public figure, but you can do it with style. When others speak and attempt to garner favor for themselves, you can twist their words and otherwise cause them to err. This allows you to counter the Improve Rapport ability of the Affability skill, blunting the goodwill they would gain or even causing them to lose it entirely.

Minimum Rank 8 Abilities

False Nature

Most people answer inquiries truthfully when those inquiries don’t use words. So you've learned how to conceal your alignment, and even wear a more appropriate one. You don’t want evil cultists to block you at the door because you don’t pass an alignment check, after all.

Minimum Rank 10 Abilities

False Thoughts

As with alignment, so too with thoughts. You don’t want the thought police to know what you really think of them, and you don't want magic to give away a skillful lie. You've learned to conceal the aura changes that give away falsehoods, as well as how to conceal your thoughts from inspection. You can even craft new ones to wear around.

Minimum Rank 12 Abilities

False Self

As with alignment and thoughts, so too with location. Those who know who you are can simply locate you, which is often inconvenient while you’re working a job as someone else. You've learned how to hide from these magical tracking abilities, and even how to throw them off your scent entirely.

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Ciphers

Ciphers is an analysis skill. It is primarily concerned with the obscuring or discovering of meaning in written words, whether they be encrypted or written in common, obscure, or dead languages. With it, you can piece together patterns in written work to translate foreign or ancient languages or crack codes that hide meaning, as well as create your own codes to hide meaning in your own correspondence. Those with a great deal of skill in Ciphers can even avoid triggering written trap effects or create special attuned books.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Special

Learn Written Language

The first ciphers to learn are the trivial ones that help you decipher the greatest amount of secrets – other written languages. For every odd rank in this skill that you possess, you know the written form of a language for which you already know the syllabary or alphabet. For every even rank that you possess in this skill, you may learn one additional alphabet, syllabic, or logographic system as well as the written form of a language that uses that system.

Rank 1 Uses

Decipher Text

Dusty tomes and ancient manuscripts are rarely written in the current common tongue. They may not even be written with the common letters. But they may contain useful information, and you have enough experience with other languages to glean meaning from them. With a bit of time, you can find meaning in the meaningless strings of characters of other, often older, languages. These are the first ciphers that you learn to decode, though with practice, you will be able to find meaning in work that has been intentionally obscured.

Rank 8 Uses

Rosetta Stone

You know your way around a text, even when it’s written in an obscure, insane, dead language. If you read enough of a dead language, you can eventually become fluent in it.

Rank 10 Uses

Defensive Reading

Familiarity with dead languages and codes alone won’t get you access to all of the secret writing in the world. There are many magical tricks to be prepared for, both those that might conceal truth and those that might harm you. You are familiar with these magical writings, including spells such as explosive runes, illusory script, sepia snake sigil, secret page, and the various symbols, and you are prepared for all of them.

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Concentration

Concentration is a purely mental skill. Those trained in it can ignore distractions and focus on a complicated task and perfectly memorize complicated things. Those with a great deal of skill in concentration can even focus their way past spell effects that would paralyze or alter their minds.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Rank 1 Uses

Split Focus

It’s tough to focus on two things at once, and if you're not careful, your lack of attention can cause you to perform poorly at a task. You know how to split your focus without either task suffering, and can better deal with or even ignore distractions while you work.

Rank 4 Uses

Get Out of my Head!

When someone else gets a hold in your mind, it can be difficult to block their influence. You can focus your mind on the task of fighting them off, and push back or eliminate any lingering effects from a failed Will save.

Manage Interruption

It's tough to disarm a trap while you’re trying to not be molested by plants, or cast a spell while you’re being stabbed in the side. These sorts of interruptions can ruin your attempts, but if you focus hard enough, you can work around them or block them out entirely.

Photographic Memorization

Once you’ve seen something, you can pretty easily recall it. You can attempt to memorize a written string of numbers, a long passage of verse, a street scene, or some other particularly difficult piece of information.

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Creature Handling

Creature handling is a social skill, where you spend a lot of your time talking to creatures unlikely to talk back. It allows you to make a creature perform a trick (even those it hasn't been trained for), influence how creatures feel about you, train creatures to perform tasks, and even keep rabid beasts at bay without drawing blood. It is also the default skill used in riding, though there are alternative methods of acquiring the ability to ride well. Those with exceptional skill in animal handling can even train animals almost instantly, a skill prized among those who would teach their creature friends to defend their territory against invaders.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Untrained Uses

Perform Trick

Many creatures regard the tricks they have been taught as "work" and, like people, may not want to do them without some pushing. You can get animals to do things that they already know how to do.

Ride

Ride is really less of a singular ability, and more a collection of abilities you can use while sitting or standing on another creature that you nominally direct. A ride check is made each round you sit atop a mount. The results of your check are further explained in the revised riding rules section; it is included here to indicate that this skill is used for the check unless you have taken the Mounted Combat feat.

Rank 1 Uses

Creature Insight

When you spend enough time and effort training creatures, you learn to recognize similar traits in other creatures, even if you've never heard of them before. Animals are the most common of your trainees, and you can make inferences about rare, exotic, and even dire varieties. Magical beasts are those animals who have been enhanced by magic, but generally have the same base motivations as normal animals. Vermin are giant insects and bugs, possibly created eons past, that most others ignore, but are well suited to repetitive tasks and certain styles of training.

Push Creature

Creatures, even the mindless ones, have instincts that are hard to overcome. Sometimes, these instincts get in the way of a creature performing a trick or task that it has been trained to do. You can get creatures to do things, even when an instinct makes them really not want to do them.

Rank 4 Uses

Perform Unknown Trick

After working with creatures for a while, you start to learn how to guide them to do things they wouldn't otherwise consider doing. You can get animals to do things that they haven't been taught to do.

Train Creature

You can train animals, magical beasts, and vermin to perform specific tricks and prepare them for a specific task.

Rear Creature

If you have a creature from birth, you can make it more accepting of training. You can rear wild creatures of these types so that they become slightly domesticated, and take on a more trusting attitude to people.

Quick Mount & Dismount

Leaping into the saddle requires a knowledge of creatures and mutual trust that you can engender. You can leap atop your mount, transitioning into or away from them as if they were a natural extension of yourself.

Rank 6 Uses

I’m A Friend

Creatures of all types like you, and you know how to treat them to build trust and good feelings.

Rank 8 Uses

Whoa There

A hungry, rabid animal is just as likely to see you as a meal or a target as something to be avoided. You know how to soothe hostile beasts and can delay them from attacking you. Delay is the key word here, as you can not hold an animal from attacking you if it has already started gnawing on your leg or if it has seen you hacking at its pack mate.

Rank 10 Uses

Through The Hoop

Animals like doing what you ask of them, and they get the hang of things quickly. You gain new, extraordinarily fast methods of training creatures.

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Cultures

The cultures skill represents your dedication to the studies of the peoples of the world, their languages, and cultures. Those who spend time learning about others learn their language and can better recognize them when they meet, in peacetime or war. Those who learn a great deal about others can also use that knowledge to try to activate magic items, even when they have no idea what the item would do. They can also pick up new languages just by being exposed to them.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Special

Speak Language

Each rank, up to 5, that you put into cultures allows you to speak and write one additional language. You must receive approval from your DM before learning any secret or planar languages with these ranks.

Untrained Uses

Culture and Creature Insight

Your worldly knowledge of places and the people who live in them has also given you some understanding of the strengths and weakness of various humanoids. For example, you may recognize the difference between the goblins of the Frostmire and the goblins that plague the Forests of Durmalin. Or know the differences between a hill giant and a cyclops. You have a bit of knowledge about all of the humanoids, monstrous and otherwise, as well as the giants who inhabit your world.

Rank 4 Uses

Blindly Activate Item

Magic items, like other crafted objects, are a product of their time and culture. You know enough random bits about magic and devices from assorted cultures and traditions that you can try to activate magic items even when you have no idea what they do or how they work.Activating it doesn’t mean that you necessarily control it, however, and there is a chance that you may not actually get the item to do what you want it to when activating it in this way.

Rank 6 Uses

Acquire Tongue

Your knowledge of languages makes it easy for you to pick new ones up. You no longer select new languages after you gain 6 ranks in this skill. Instead, anytime you are exposed to a language you do not speak, you receive a check to see if you learn it after 1 minute. There is no limit to the number of languages you can learn to speak in this way.

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Devices

The devices skill is an applied skill that helps you bypass dangers. With it, you can disarm mechanical traps, disable waiting magics, open secured locks, and sabotage complex devices. Those with advanced training in devices can even trap magical items, lay false traps to slow pursuit, and even disable spell effects like arcane lock or wall of fire.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Untrained Uses

Smash Simple Devices

While anyone can point a spike into an arrow trap they've found to prevent it from coming out or dip a lock in acid to get it to open, it takes a check to disable simple things with less brute force. This ability allows you to find and disable obvious, relatively simple stuff without triggering it, like trip wires. This also includes simple bits of sabotage, such as jamming a lock so it is unusable rather than smashing it into bits. With this level of training, you may disable any device or perform an act of sabotage with a base DC of 10 or less.

Rank 1 Uses

Disarm Tricky Devices

You know a bit about how mechanical traps, locks, and other devices work, and can successfully disable more difficult devices. This means you can disarm tricky devices, mechanical traps with DCs between 11 and 20. You can also complete more complicated acts of sabotage. Straightforward sabotage of mechanical devices like weapon handles or wagon wheels rests in the DC 11-15 range, while more delicate sabotage like bowstrings that snap on first use are between 16 and 20.

Rank 4 Uses

Disable Fiendish Devices

You’ve got all the basics down and can attempt to disable anything you run across, mundane or magical. You can attempt to disarm any mechanical trap with a DC of 21 or higher, as well as perform complicated, precision sabotage. You can also disarm magical traps, which makes you fun to take into wizard tombs.

Rank 6 Uses

Item Feedback

While arming your foe tends to not be an optimal strategy, it is significantly improved if you have rigged things in advance. You can use your knowledge of magical traps and items to rig magic items to backfire when next used.

Rank 8 Uses

Pick Arcane Locks

Nothing is more annoying than a lock you can’t pick. You have learned how to disable the binding created from an arcane lock and similar spells in addition to regular locks.

Look, A Trap!

Sometimes you need to buy some time, and people who are looking for and dealing with traps are people who are moving slowly. With a bit of work, you can make it look like an object or location is trapped.

Rank 10 Uses

Disable Active Spell

Spells waiting in traps are really just practice for active spells that are less forgiving. You are able to dispel magic that is active on objects or in an area, but you are unable to dispel magic that is active upon specific creatures. This would allow you to disable invisibility on an object, a wall of fire, or even an antipathy effect (since it affects an area), but not to remove a charm monster or sleep effect (which affects specific creatures in an area at the time of casting).

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Dowsing

Dowsing is an active skill used to learn about the world. Those who practice dowsing can find fresh water in the desert, the most choice vein of minerals, and read the future in tea leaves. Those with substantial skill in dowsing can track individuals through the world, sense the world through their mind's eye, and even scry on other people and places.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Rank 1 Uses

The Pull of Water

Fresh, drinkable water is a necessity for most of the life in the world. The world knows where it is, and can guide you to it if you know how to let it. You can attempt to find the available sources or fresh drinkable water within a 1 mile radius.

Rank 4 Uses

The Pull of Wealth

The world has troves of natural wealth, waiting to be discovered. You can follow the pull of the world to these hidden troves and find mineral wealth within a 1 mile radius.

Augury

Portents, omens, and signs surround us every day, telling us what our fates will be if we make one decision instead of another. Other people ignore them because they don’t see them, but you know what to look for when you need to seek guidance on a question and may attempt to read the future to judge what a course of action will yield.

Rank 8 Uses

The Individual’s Pull

Water and wealth give off strong pulls that often drown the subtle pull that every object and person in the world gives off. By focusing on a specific object or person, you can draw upon your connection with them to block out the stronger pulls of the world and follow the individual's specific pull instead. This pull will lead you right to them if you follow it, though not in the same way as other pulls.

Sense Presence

The world is full of creatures that cannot be detected with normal senses or have trained themselves to avoid the senses of others. You have trained yourself to feel their presence anyway, and can spend some time attuning yourself to the world to detect those hidden within it.

Rank 10 Uses

Sensor Familiarity

Sensors are commonly used to look upon distant locations. You are familiar with their function, even if you are unable to create them yourself, and can disable them. If you notice a scrying sensor or remote viewing window nearby, you may attempt either to return or break the scrying.

Rank 12 Uses

Sense Coplanar Presence

There are places and planes in the multiverse that overlap, where a creature can be right on top of you but hidden by the veil of reality. You can sense them anyway. When you use the Sense Presence ability, your blindsense now detects coplanar creatures within range, such as those on the ethereal plane or plane of shadow while you are on the prime material.

Rank 14 Uses

Remote Viewing

A pool of water, a silvered mirror, a crystal ball, these are windows to other places if one is properly trained. You are able to use reflective surfaces as scrying devices, to see and hear locations or even people far away.

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Endurance

Endurance is a reactive skill; you will only roll it in response to outside stimuli. It allows you to ignore your own physical limits and push on despite fatigue, aggravated wounds, or continually damaging environments. Characters who invest heavily in this skill can push themselves much longer than those who do not, ignore or fight off debilitating magical effects like disintegrate, and sprint for hours at a time.

Key Attribute: Constitution

Special

Taking actions at the different paces tires a character out at different rates. Everyone can move flat-out for 1 round per point of constitution, so even those of average constitution can run for at least a minute. Moving at a hustling pace for 1 minute is equivalent to 1 round of running. As most fights happen at this pace, this means that battles lasting longer than 1 minute per point of constitution may be hazardous for characters. Lastly, moving in a normal way for 15 minutes is equivalent to 1 round of running. While that doesn’t have much bearing on combat, it does mean that you can walk across the mountains for a few hours, resting for a few minutes every hour, without really wearing yourself out. Abilities in the Endurance skill can extend these times, and characters who invest in this skill can do substantially more.

Untrained Uses

Continue Exertion

Whatever action pace brings you to your limit, characters have to start making checks to see if they become tired once there. This is an endurance skill check, or just a constitution check if the skill is untrained.

Rank 1 Uses

Suck It Up

Some hazards and battles will be painful, and that pain can interrupt and ruin an action or drive you closer to death. You can ignore that pain to some degree.

Rank 4 Uses

Not… Finished… Yet…

Alternate Ability

As discussed in the related concentration ability, this ability may not be appropriate for some styles of games. You can go ahead and substitute the following ability if you prefer, though it drastically reduces the value of the skill: Not... Finished... Yet...: You may add the higher of your Strength or Constitution modifier to your Fortitude saving throws. You may change which bonus is applied at any time, with no action required.

Some people just refuse to lay down and die, even as their bodies are slowly turning to stone, and can even turn the process back. You may attempt to fight off any lingering effects resulting from a failed Fortitude save. This includes death effects like finger of death, petrification effects like flesh to stone, and other status effect inducing abilities.

Cardio Trained

Adventurers ran and climbed and swam, and they did it for longer periods than the peaceful masses. You can move flat-out for two rounds per point of your Constitution score, and after you reach this limit, you make checks for each additional two rounds of flat-out action.

Rank 8 Uses

Paragon Athlete

Running twice as far as others before tiring isn't enough. You can move flat-out for one minute per point of your Constitution score, and after you reach this limit, you make checks for each additional minute of running.

Rank 12 Uses

Marathon Machine

You could probably sprint marathons without much difficulty. You can move flat-out for ten minutes per point of your Constitution score before you need to begin making checks.

Rank 14 Uses

Chase the Setting Sun

Your races are the things of legend, lasting longer than most people regularly stay awake. You can move flat-out for an hour per point of your Constitution score before you need to begin making checks.

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Escape Artistry

Escape Artistry is an active skill that you can use to remove yourself from tight situations. With it, you can escape bindings or grapples and slip through tight spaces. Those with substantial training in Escape Artistry can slip free of magic that has grabbed hold of them, pass spaces where they wouldn't normally fit, and even move without passing through the intermediate space.

Key Attribute: Dexterity

Untrained Uses

Slip Grapple

Instead of trying to overpower a grappler or burst an entangling effect, you can just try to wriggle free. You also use this ability to escape entangling effects of all kinds.

Rank 1 Uses

Pass Tight Space

Any space that you can fit both your head and shoulders into is a space that anyone can crawl or wiggle through. You've practiced with these spaces a bit, and are comfortable navigating them.

Rank 4 Uses

Escape Magic’s Embrace

Alternate Ability

As discussed in the related concentration ability, this ability may not be appropriate for some styles of games. You can go ahead and substitute the following ability if you prefer, though it drastically reduces the value of the skill: Escape Magic’s Embrace: You may add the higher of your Dexterity or Intelligence modifier to your Reflex saving throws. You may change which bonus is applied at any time, with no action required.

Magical bonds are like any other bonds in that you can work your way free if given enough time, but they tend to reassert themselves until you have slipped them entirely. The escape artistry skill may be used to fight off any lingering effects that would require a Reflex save.

Pass Compressed Space

While anyone can move through a space that you can fit both your head and shoulders into, you can actually move through spaces where your head fits and your shoulders don’t..

Slip Bindings

Ropes and manacles can really get in the way of doing what needs to be done. So it's a good thing they can’t keep you bound.

Rank 8 Uses

Slip Magic’s Grasp

Magic walls aren’t as perfect as they appear. Those who know how to time it can slip right through the wall without feeling its touch. You can temporarily reduce the effect any temporary wall generated by magic would have on you.

Rank 10 Uses

Pass Miniscule Opening

Some spaces, like prison bars, are designed to be open while stopping people from moving through them. Even these gaps, so small that your head shouldn’t even fit, don’t stop you anymore.

Rank 14 Uses

Slip Between Space

You can even slip between space itself now, travelling a fair distance in a single step and ignoring the interposing obstacles.

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Geomancy

The Geomancy skill represents dedicated study into the primal magics that flow through the world. While that study manifests itself most strongly as the ability to better understand and recognize primal, elemental magics, those who study Geomancy also learn about the elemental creatures at its source, the elemental reflections of other outsiders, and how the natural magic of the world can coalesce into a more material form in the fey. Characters with substantial training in Geomancy can even use natural spell trigger and spell completion items containing spells not normally accessible within their class, as well as ignore racial or type requirements on magical items.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Minimum Rank 2 Uses

Creature Insight

Your meditations on primal magic has granted you knowledge about the creatures nearest it, whether they be pure examples or living reflections of it. Elementals are creatures composed entirely of a single element (fire, wood, or even iron depending on your cosmology) and represent the fundamental pieces of the world itself. Outsiders with an elemental subtype are slightly removed from the pure form, but share enough traits to be identifiable. Fey creatures are incarnations of the complexity of nature itself, and as such are capricious beings as wild and free as the darkest old wood or tallest mountain. You know enough about the basic working of these creatures to recognize what abilities any individual member might have, even those you’ve never seen before.

Identify Magic

When you run across magic, it’s nice to know if it is magic that will cause food to flow from the earth or suck the air from your lungs. The Geomancy skill primarily deals with the primal magic of druids, though it can be used to identify spells or effects from any source. This ability allows you to identify a spell as it is being cast, identify a standing magical effect, identify magical residue after an effect ends, etc. Additionally, it allows you to learn the spell stored within a primal spell completion or spell trigger item. However, you must have detect magic or equivalent spell active, or else wield an etheliometer to learn anything with this ability.

Minimum Rank 4 Uses

Primal Item Affinity

A little connection with the world can help you to call upon its hidden power. With it you can attempt to use primal spell trigger or spell completion items even if you lack the ability to normally use the spells within them. But your skill with the geomantic doesn’t stop there. Primal magic is based on a deep connection with the world, and you if you know how to ask it will grant you powers reserved for other beings. If a magic item functions differently for a particular race or type, you may attempt to have the item treat you as such for a short time.

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Healing

The healing skill is an active skill that allows you restore the health of yourself and your allies. With it, you can bind wounds, treat poison, accelerate natural healing, and determine what effects a patient is suffering under. Those skilled in healing can heal others an amount near instantly, find hidden health concerns, treat temporary and permanent physiological conditions, and even bring the recently dead back to life.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Untrained Uses

Treat Wound

Most cases of bleeding out or caltrop damage can be remedied by pulling a bandage tight, and it doesn't require any specialized training to do so. You can reduce recurring hit point loss, like the 1 point/round suffered while at negative hit points or bleeding damage, or attempt to treat a debilitating injury, like those suffered from caltrops.

Rank 1 Uses

Care for Patients

Caring for the sick and injured requires a bit more knowledge than how to pull a bandage tight. You know the rudiments of healing, and can provide more care in excess of simple wound bindings.

Mitigate Poison

Poison is a bad way to go, and a treatable one if you get there in time. You can help victims survive beyond the initial effects of a nasty poison.

Rank 4 Uses

Triage Assessment

It’s useful to know who you can save with your healing knowledge, and who you’d be wasting your time on. You know how to tell what conditions a helpless or willing target is suffering under.

Rank 6 Uses

Immediate Healing

You can work wonders with bandages, leaches, and almost no time, healing substantial wounds and helping people to continue fighting.

Treat the Symptoms

Your knowledge of the body and its functions allows you to work around certain reactions and debilitating conditions. You can relieve the blinded, dazed, dazzled, deafened, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, sickened, and stunned conditions from those you treat, though you can not treat permanent conditions with this ability.

Rank 8 Uses

Accelerated Care

A trained healer can cure more than simple injuries and diseases, they can speed recovery and heal more fantastic afflictions. Patients under your care, as defined in the Care for Patients ability, receive additional benefits.

Battlefield Surgery

Sometimes you can't wait for a full night of rest to start the healing, like when you're about to go fight another spider and your friend can't lose much more Constitution. You know how to quickly reduce an ability penalty, though some types of wound are harder to fix than others.

Detailed Assessment

Triage assessments are useful things, but detailed analyses often give more information. After completing a Triage Assessment on a patient, you can spend a bit more time with them to learn things about their health they might not know themselves.

Rank 10 Uses

Practiced Physician

You spend enough time putting arms back into sockets and setting limbs, and you get pretty good at it. The first use of immediate healing, or any ability that counts as a use of that ability, on a person after a full night's rest does not count against you for the purposes of determining your penalty for future uses of the ability or related ones.

Rank 12 Uses

Resuscitate

Patients whose hearts recently gave out are only mostly dead. You can drag the recently dead back to the land of the living, kicking and screaming if necessary.

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Intimidation

The intimidation skill is a social skill involving the threat of force, violence, and other unpleasantries. With it, you can scare people into helping or running from you. Those who practice intimidation intensely can scare off larger groups of people, demand obedience from others, and break fear’s grasp over people.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Rank 1 Uses

Coerce Assistance

Fear is a powerful tool in social interactions. If you have at least one minute to interact with someone, you may make someone temporarily more “helpful”.

Rank 4 Uses

Shake Resolve

With threats, gestures, and posture, you can make even the bravest foe cower. You may attempt to scare off an enemy rather than, or in addition to, trying to stab them in the face.

Rank 6 Uses

Shout Them Down

It's easy to project an air of confidence and menace when you know what you're doing. You can get multiple creatures to run from you instead of fighting.

Snap Out Of It

Intimidation is a skill all about making people afraid of you, and that fear can be used to break people free from the grip of inaction. Maybe you threaten them, maybe you just glare; the simple fact is that you can shake your friends (or your "friends", in some cases) free of [Fear] effects and the stun condition. You may only affect these conditions if their remaining duration is less than 1 hour.

Rank 8 Uses

New Orders

You’ve learned which tones of voice work best to get people to obey you without thought. Under most circumstances, you can make a target drop what they’re doing and follow your orders instead.

Rank 10 Uses

Cowards, All of You!

You don’t just shake the resolve of your enemies with your actions and combat prowess, but with your very presence. You don't even have to know a creature is present to make it run from you instead of fighting.

Rank 12 Uses

Go Jump Off A Cliff

Some tones of voice can override a person's natural sense of self-preservation. You have practiced these tones, and may use them where you feel appropriate.

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Jump

The Jump skill is a movement skill. It allows you to cross gaps in floors, hop over barriers, and quickly reach high ledges overhead. Those who train hard at it often jump as much as walk, as they can cross great distances with the combination, and can leap great distances into the sky.

Key Attribute: Strength

General Rules

All jumps are resolved on the same turn as they are initiated. Distance traveled on the ground must be paid for with move actions, whether it is a single move action, a double move action or charge, or even the run action. If completing a jump would cause the jumper to exceed the movement allowed by a single move action, they may spend another move action if it is available to continue the jump. They may spend any unused movement from this action when they land if they land on their feet. If they do not have any additional actions to spend on movement, or elect not to spend one, they still benefit from the full jump distance, but they are flat-footed for the remainder of the distance and land prone at the end. They may not regain their footing this round, even if they have actions to spend on doing so.

Most jump abilities are modified by the type of start you have before you attempt the jump. The table below indicates the distance you must move in order to qualify for the listed start type. This movement must be in the same direction as the jump, and must occur immediately before you make the jump. If you have an ability that allows you to make a turn while taking a run or charge action, only the last 5 feet must be in the same direction as the jump. You can use up to two sequential move actions to move a sufficient distance to qualify for a start type, even if this means that you take your jump check in the middle of a turn other than the one you began moving in.

Also note that you can achieve some large heights with this jump skill. A character does not suffer falling damage for landing from one of their own jumps unless they land below the elevation they jumped from. In that case, they only suffer damage for the difference in elevation. If they jumped 50 feet in the air, and then fell 90 feet to land 40 feet beneath their initial height, they only suffer damage as if the fall was 40 feet high. They still suffer damage from falls as normal, even if they could easily jump such a height, however, as the preparation for the jump is not there to mitigate the fall in these cases.

Untrained Uses

Hop Up

Hopping up onto a counter or table happens all the time in bar fights to get up on tables for a quick height advantage, and is useful for clearing very low obstacles. You can make short hops, using them to better deal with your situation.

Just Do It!

Even without any practice, most people can jump a fair bit. It's just not always pretty. You may attempt the rank 1 High Jump and Long Jump abilities without the normal -5 untrained penalty in exchange for not being able to control your height or distance. The distance of your jump is determined exactly by your check result, and may result in you jumping farther or higher than you intend.

Rank 1 Uses

High Jump

Climbing isn’t as convenient as simply jumping over an obstacle when the wall in your path is more of a razor fence. Likewise, you may not have time to climb up to the balcony before the demon hordes overwhelm you. You can make a vertical high jump to deal with situations like these (and even if a jump won't suffice all by itself, it can at least give you a head start on your climb).

Long Jump

Pits and moats are meant to be overcome as well, and if you can jump over them, it’s easy to ignore them and move on. You can make a long, horizontal jump to bypass these sorts of hazards.

Rank 4 Uses

Competent Jumper

Practice does indeed make perfect, and perfect in this case often means "sticking the landing". You no longer take a penalty to your jump checks when you attempt to land on your feet at the end of a jump.

Rank 8 Uses

Atlas Jumps

You are growing adept at throwing yourself, whether along the ground or at the sky. When making a long jump, only one-half of your jump distance counts towards determining when you have exceeded your base move. Additionally, when you make a high jump, the maximum height you can achieve is now equal to half the distance you would have attained on a long jump with the same roll.

Rank 12 Uses

Leap of the Winds

You've gotten extremely good at hurling yourself forward when you jump. When making a long jump, only one-quarter of your jump distance counts towards determining when you have exceeded your base move.

Rank 14 Uses

Leap of the Heavens

Sometimes you need to take the fight into the sky, to deal with a strafing creature that won't fight on solid ground. The maximum height of your high jumps is now equal to the long jump distance indicated in the table. Go jump at some dragons.

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Legerdemain

Legerdemain is an active skill involving distraction, deception, and dexterity. With it, you can trick people in combat, lighten pockets, poison drinks, conceal weapons on your person, and perform other feats of misdirection. Those with advanced skill in legerdemain can throw their voices, make large objects or people seemingly vanish, and even swipe attended objects without the target noticing.

Key Attribute: Dexterity

Untrained Uses

Feint

A bit of misdirection can get a foe to drop their guard for a moment. You can feint in combat, and if successful, gain an opening for a potentially more damaging strike.

Rank 1 Uses

Conceal Object

Hiding contraband on yourself so you can walk it through a checkpoint or carry it into a peace treaty is a time-honored tradition. As is concealing contraband in furniture or other objects so that it is missed during a search. You have a bit of knowledge in both of these areas.

Rank 4 Uses

Conceal Action

Sometimes, you just don’t want people to notice exactly what it is that you’re doing. You can actually hide small actions while under scrutiny so that no one is the wiser.

Improved Feint

A little sleight of hand goes a long way on the battlefield. Your practice has made your feints faster and harder to predict.

Rank 6 Uses

Plant Evidence

Instead of concealing that you’re taking something from another person, you can hide that you’re planting incriminating evidence on them instead. You can attempt to conceal an object on an unwilling, non-helpless, and unaware target.

Ventriloquism

Sometimes it's nice to be able to talk without letting people know where you are. You can throw your voice so that it appears to come from someone or somewhere other than yourself.

Rank 8 Uses

Disappearing Pig Trick

Shifting small unattended items around doesn't do it for you anymore. You've moved on to bigger and better things.

Rank 10 Uses

Faster than the False Eye

Tremorsense, blindsense, blindsight, and scent are strong enough as to be almost cheating. Luckily, you can cheat right back. Your concealed actions and objects show poorly against these senses, at least for a time.

Rank 12 Uses

I Can Work With That

You've had a lot of practice making people not see the things you're doing, and it would show if you ever let anyone notice. There aren't a lot of things that you find difficult to work with.

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Perception

Perception is both an active and a passive skill. It is used continuously in a passive state to determine what events characters are simply aware of, from whispered conversations to bursts of light to scents drifting on the breeze. It can also be used actively to learn more about an event or detect a forgery. Those who put effort into sharpening their senses can even pierce illusions or detect magical transformations in others, sometimes automatically.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Special

All conscious characters are considered to be taking 0 on their perception checks, all of the time, and this does not require an action. They may not be actively paying attention to a particular thing, but they don’t ignore everything either. This is true whether they are walking down the street, chatting with a friend, or even sleeping. This change allows us to do away with reactive perception checks and instead make it an active choice to attempt to pay more attention to their surroundings, as a character no longer needs to spend an action or make a check to detect or notice something that they could not fail a check to notice.

This means that anytime a character is not distracted and is exposed to an event with a DC no greater than their perception ranks +5, they are at least aware of it. If the event has a notice DC no greater than their perception ranks, they detect it clearly. And if the event has a DC no greater than their ranks in perception -5, they know details about it because they can make them out. Being distracted just means that the characters have one step less information. This is simply the effects of the Notice ability applied to taking 0 on a roll.

At lower levels, there is not a large change in the game as a result of this, aside from the elimination of reactive perception checks. At higher levels, however, a character might automatically detect poor magical forgeries or see right through low level illusions. It is possible for a high level character to automatically see a low rank sneak without even rolling or announcing that they are keeping a wary eye, and all of that is both fine and good. It’s part of what makes higher-level characters harder to manipulate in social settings, and also the only way to write a perception skill so that actually keeping a wary eye or actively trying to see what's going on means anything.

Untrained Uses

Discern Fraud

Forged documents are as good a liar as any silver tongued devil, but they sit in front of you and let you examine them for a longer time. Disguised individuals aren’t much different, since they practically parade in front of you. With a full-round action and a perception check, you can spot counterfeit objects and creatures, and deal with those who would pass them off on you appropriately.

Notice

You have eyes, ears, and various other sense organs that allow you to notice things going on in your world. While you are always assumed to be paying some attention to the world, and thus taking 0 with the ability, actually making a check with this ability implies that you are focusing on your senses to better understand something in your surroundings.

Rank 1 Uses

Stand Guard

As a standard action, you may "take 10" instead of 0 on your passive perception checks. If you wish to perceive something more clearly, you must make the check as normal and "take 0" with your passive perception checks for the round instead.

Rank 4 Uses

Uncover Secrets

People hide secret doors, caches, triggers, traps, and similar bits all over the place. If you want to use, loot, or avoid them, you have to be able to find them first, and you have a knack for locating them.

Rank 8 Uses

See the Invisible, Hear the Silenced

By focusing on one of your senses, you can ignore illusory sensation and instead notice the reality beneath. You can pierce illusions affecting only one sense at a time: sight, smell, taste, touch, or hearing.

Rank 10 Uses

Discern Transmutation

Magical transmutations of objects are basically forgeries as well, since they could revert to their original form at some point in the future. And the most skilled of transformation artists don't simply put on suits of scales, they actually coax them from their skin. You can discern these magical alterations, in both people and objects.

Rank 14 Uses

Sight Beyond Sight

Perception is strong with you, so strong that you can pierce illusions affecting all of your senses at once. Even without focusing your senses can pierce an illusory veil, even those that wouldn’t normally allow a save.

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Psychology

The psychology skill is a generally reactive skill that you use to learn things about those that you interact with. With it, you can spot lies and get a feel for a situation before it turns on you. Those who practice at it can tell when someone has been charmed, determine motivations of others, learn the secrets of others during casual conversation, and even predict the actions of others before they occur.

Key Attribute: Intelligence

Untrained Uses

Check For Deceit

People lie and act like other people, and it’s good to know when they’re doing that so you don’t get taken advantage of. You can attempt to determine if someone is lying to you, whether it's something as simple as a single lie or if they're actually attempting to pass themselves off as someone else.

Rank 1 Uses

Assess Situation

People have a really hard time hiding things, and you can learn all sorts of things if you know what to look for. You can read people or groups to get a feel for the situation, or learn that something is wrong before things fall apart.

Rank 4 Uses

Detect Influence

Magic can make people do weird things, and sometimes it’s obviously the cause. You can tell when people are acting under magical influence.

Rank 6 Uses

What’s Your Motivation?

People are pretty poor at disguising their motivations. You know that what people really like to talk about is themselves, and this gives you a window into their motives.

Rank 10 Uses

Would You Like To Talk About It?

It's incredibly difficult to not think about something once it's been brought to mind, and things brought to mind have an annoying tendency to slip off the tongue. You know the psychological tricks to coax out the inner secrets and workings of a mind.

Rank 12 Uses

Before They Know It Themselves

Most people fall back on old habits and patterns in a fight. This makes them predictable if you know how to read people, like you do.

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Stealth

The stealth skill is a movement skill involving cover, concealment, and blind spots. With it, you can walk past guards without their noticing, sneak up on a sentry, or slip unnoticed through a crowd. Those who specialize in stealth can help carry their friends when stealth matters and even tip toe past a creature that sees everything touching the earth nearby.

Key Attribute: Dexterity

Special

You can hide behind a curtain, a well, or a hill and people on the other side of it can’t see you; they may not be able to hear or smell or otherwise sense you, either. This isn’t a skill or ability; it’s just what happens when something sits between people. While that’s useful, and not anything you should ever roll a stealth check for, sometimes you need to expose yourself and break cover to check out the people on the other side. That’s where the avoid notice or detection abilities of stealth are useful.

For the purposes of a stealth check, you are treated as being only as big as your exposed parts. If you are walking in the open casing a joint, the whole of you is exposed. If you are simply performing reconnaissance from cover, your exposed parts are generally three or more sizes smaller than your environment, and so you probably gain a substantial bonus on this check as indicated on the table above. You likely gain a similar bonus for traveling slowly with a very dense crowd, as only your head may be uncovered by the press of bodies. In general, the more you have to surround yourself with and the harder it is to pick you out of a crowd, the better the bonus you get to your stealth checks.

Untrained Uses

Avoid Notice

Anyone can keep their head down and their hood up when they have to. If someone is searching a crowd for you, or you are being generally observed but haven’t been specifically picked out, you may make a stealth check to continue to avoid notice.

Rank 4 Uses

Avoid Detection

You know enough about slipping away from attention to be pretty good at it when you need to be. There is no limit to your check result with the Avoid Notice ability.

Rank 6 Uses

Team Player

Sometimes you have to bring the team with you into the shadows, and they may not have any idea what they’re doing. You know how to help keep those who lack your knowledge of stealth from bringing the team down.

Rank 8 Uses

Foil Senses

When you hide, you can even mask your echo and vibrations. You show poorly against tremorsense and blindsense, and creatures must make a Perception check to locate you with these abilities.

Rank 10 Uses

Foil False Sight

Even the keenest of senses must work to find you if you don't want them to. In addition to tremorsense and blindsense, you also show poorly against blindsight. This otherwise functions as Foil Senses.

Rank 12 Uses

Fade Into the Background

People have a really hard time keeping an eye on you, even when they know you’re there. You can attempt a stealth check after someone has spotted you without first breaking line of sight or otherwise losing your pursuer, or while you are under any other sort of direct observation.

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Survival

Survival is an active skill related to the great outdoors. With it you can bind foes or prey, set minor traps in the wilderness, find food while traveling, and tie some impressive knots. You can also recognize the creatures you encounter in the wilds, and thus know whether to fight or flee them. Those who learn the secrets of survival can fashion protective gear from natural resources, predict the weather, hide their own trail, use their knowledge to survive on other planes, and even find any location they have ever visited.

Key Attribute: Wisdom

Untrained Uses

Bind Adversary

The ability to bind objects and tie knots is extremely helpful when attempting to survive outside the bounds of civilization. You can apply that knowledge to binding adversaries, even if your knowledge is pretty rudimentary.

Rank 1 Uses

Creature Insight

Knowing how to get by in the uncivilized world means you also need to recognize the threats and creatures within it. Animals are the most common example of these creatures, and your knowledge of them includes rare, exotic, and even dire varieties. Magical beasts are those animals who have been enhanced by magic. Dragons are ancient and powerful creatures, the largest of which tend to shape their territory in ways important to one traveling through it. Oozes are creatures with neither spine nor nervous system that know neither mercy nor hatred, only hunger. Plants are no less dangerous, however, and you are familiar with plants that walk around and plants that swallow men whole.

Hunter’s Traps

Hunting in the wild is as much about setting an ambush or trap for a quarry as putting an arrow through them. You can set traps for creatures, for eating or other reasons.

Live Off the Land

When you’re between towns and have lost all of your food to bandits, you have to find more if you want to eat. You are able to find sustenance almost anywhere you are.

Rope Tricks

Fancy knots and special rope tricks are not particularly impressive, but are sometimes very useful. You can use some special knots with your rope as well as properly set a grapple.

Track Game

You know how to spot the signs that an animal has passed by. Conveniently enough, people and monsters leave lots of the same signs. You can find and follow any trail with a DC of 15 or less. Locating or following any trail more complicated requires the Tracker feat.

Rank 4 Uses

Navigate Wilds

It’s a big world out there, and lots of it will kill you if you get lost or don’t know what you’re doing. You can guide yourself through that big world with landmarks and generally avoid getting lost or killed by natural hazards.

Rough It

If you have to spend a long day on the ice planes braving deadly icicle storms in sub-freezing temperatures, it's nice to do so in clothing that protects you. And at the end of that long day, it's nice to be able to return to a nice warm structure where those things can't affect you. If you find yourself unprepared for these conditions, you're well equipped to make your own gear. You can turn natural flora and fauna in an area into protective clothing and shelters for yourself or others.

Rank 6 Uses

Dead Reckoning

You are so used to making your way in the wilderness that you seem to have a compass installed in your head. As long as there is a "true north" or similar cardinal direction on your current world or plane you always know which direction it points in. Always.

Weatherman

You know what that soreness in your bones means. You can be pretty accurate about the future weather in your area.

Rank 8 Uses

Break Trail

Being pursued is not fun, especially when they're using your own trail against you. You can mask the passing of an entire group of people, even if they continue moving at full speed.

Rank 12 Uses

Infinite Adaptations

The multiverse is a lot larger and a lot more varied than the little world you call home. You have learned how to apply your survival tricks to other environments, and can survive pretty much anywhere.

Rank 14 Uses

The Long Road Home

You have a sort of sixth sense about distant places you have visited before, as well as places where the world is thin and you could step across to another. With a bit of time to scan the horizon, you can determine direction and approximate distance to any location you have ever visited on your current world or plane. You can also determine the direction and distance to the nearest portal, conduit, or other magical link that leads to any other plane or world.

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Thaumaturgy

The Thaumaturgy skill represents communion and study of the divine magics that flow through the world. While that study manifests itself most strongly as the ability to better understand and recognize divine magics, those who study Thaumaturgy also learn about faith and belief as well as gain an understanding of the creatures who often serve the divine or spring from ideals: demons, devils, angels, and other non-elemental outsiders. Characters with substantial training in Thaumaturgy can even use divine spell trigger and spell completion items containing spells not normally accessible within their class and ignore alignment requirements on magical items.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Minimum Rank 2 Uses

Creature Insight

Your communions and learning about faith, religions, and the afterlife also includes knowledge of the most common servants of the divine and those who would share the afterlife with them. Collectively referred to as outsiders or exemplars, this group also contains the Demons, Devils, Angels, and more who act as the embodiment of belief and faith in the planes.

Identify Magic

When you run across magic, it’s nice to know if it’s magic that will heal you or drag your soul to the Abyss. The Thaumaturgy skill primarily deals with the divine magic bestowed by the gods on their priests, though it can be used to identify spells or effects from any source. This ability allows you to identify a spell as it is being cast, identify a standing magical effect, identify magical residue after an effect ends, etc. Additionally, it allows you to learn the spell stored within a divine spell completion or spell trigger item. You must have detect magic or equivalent spell active, or else wield an etheliometer to learn anything with this ability however.

Minimum Rank 4 Uses

Divine Item Affinity

A little knowledge about faith and the power of belief can help you to call upon those powers when you need a boost. With it you can attempt to use divine spell trigger or spell completion items even if you lack the ability to normally use the spells within them. But your skill with thaumaturgy doesn’t stop there. Divine magic is based on a strong and unyielding belief, one that can reshape the world around them or force others to follow along at times. If a magic item functions differently for a particular alignment, you may attempt to force the item to respond as if you had such an alignment for a short time.

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Transformation

The Transformation skill is an applied skill that allows you to change appearances and form. With it, you can disguise your features, disguise the appearance of others, and even alter your weight or height. Those with substantial skill in Transformation can craft creams and objects that bring a more substantial physical or magical change, a transfigurement, and gain abilities to better emulate those they seek to impersonate.

Key Attribute: Charisma

Untrained Uses

None. Sorry, you actually can’t do real disguise stuff without a bit of training. You can cut your hair, put on a wig, change your clothes, and do other extremely superficial changes, but these generally do not hold up to close scrutiny unless you’re also a very good actor.

Rank 1 Uses

Craft Disguise

With a bit of putty and some makeup, you can hide or alter physical features. You may disguise yourself or otherwise alter your appearance such that you do not appear to be yourself, but you can not disguise yourself as a particular person with this level of skill.

Rank 4 Uses

Cunning Disguise

Putty and makeup are quite familiar to you, and you can work them into many forms. You can even use them to imitate the appearance of a specific person, though people who are familiar with the individual will have an easier time finding your flaws.

Rank 6 Uses

Masterful Disguise

You are truly a master of humanoid imitation, and have learned skills that let you imitate a wider variety of people. When crafting a disguise, you may incorporate elements to exceed the general height and weight alterations limit.

Rank 8 Uses

Fire Retardant Face Paint

Some people look very similar to you, but they live in the frozen north and have blue skin. You can disguise yourself as one of them now as well, even gaining minor resistances to help you pull it off.

Rank 10 Uses

Extraordinary Transfiguration

The best sahuagin disguise in the world won’t fool anyone if you can’t also breathe underwater. Similarly, some roles may require that you brave temperatures or climates you couldn’t normally survive in, be taller or smaller than normal members of your species, or even fly. You can create and apply special compounds and objects that allow you to overcome these obstacles.

Rank 12 Uses

Fantastic Transfiguration

You can imitate a bulette adolescent if you want, but there are probably more useful things out there. You gain additional transfiguration ability selections, and may ignore the first 2 selections when determining your check penalty.

Rank 14 Uses

Mythic Transfiguration

You could probably imitate a Cornugon if you felt like it. You gain additional transfiguration ability selections, and may ignore the first 6 selections when determining your check penalty.

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