Perk Suggestion Thread

[Egon the Monkey]

The fact Bards now get 6 Skill Points a level makes a stealth bard actually feasible at last. I'm excited to give it a go in future! And yet although there's a good selection of martial perks, there's no stealth ones. They're all a bit of an afterthought if you want to play a sneaky bard.

Bard Perk: Whisper
The gossip in the shadows. The raconteur telling dangerous stories of stealth and guile.
+2 Hide and Move Silently

[Egon the Monkey]

I tried a sonic-spell focused bard last chapter. Even with 2d8+level Sound Bursts, the trouble was the lack of spell slots and Multi-Attribute Dependency. It definitely wasn't worth 2 feats to get the cool GSF bonus on Wounding Whispers, given how few casts per day you get. might as well have Extra Music and Curse Song and do the same thematic thing but more often! Caster bard is a bit more appealing with the Arcane Armour Training, and again, it seems like a fun future idea. But there's no perk that really supports it. Despite the fact bards now have a damage cantrip and some fun new direct damage spells.


Satirist
"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but my words hurt you more"
Vicious Mockery: Now does 1d8+1 damage
Bonus Feat: Spell Focus: Evocation.

Getting SF Evocation for free would open up use of the Bard AOEs. It also avoids being cheesy, as Evocation doesn't have any long-duration 'fuck you' spells for Bards like Enchantment or Necromancy have.

[Draugir]

Fencer Lunge Techniques

Pierce the Back
Grants 1d6 sneak attack. Can be taken any number of times.

Heightened Velocity
Grants a permanent 20% concealment

[Egon the Monkey]

Favoured Enemy: Aberration could use a tune-up
It feels like a Perk that's scaled for Chapter 4, where Aberrations were common because it was the Underdark. Thanks to the Board, I've had a look at a bunch of quests and none of them obviously mentioned Aberrants so far. And I've been exploring and questing a bit and not spotted any, even on Tracking, except Nyths and very occasionally Eyeballs. I took the FE for flavour reasons and because I thought it might be fun vs Horrors if those were a regular enemy.

Compare this perk to other non-player-race ones. Many of them feel like 2 Feats' worth of stuff. Aberration feels like 1 weak Feat's worth:

• Monstrous Humanoid. That's an absolute cracker with all these gnolls etc around, plus of course the 5% physical DI (cool, -1 dmg from most common sources), +5% increased movement and +1 Fort.
• Vermin. Lots of nasty vermin around and a popular Spider quest. Lots of enemies with onhit Poison, Cloud of Bewilderment, Stinking Cloud etc so +4 vs Poison slaps. +1 Reflex to a weak save is very good, Spell Immunity: Web lets you use items of that to fight in, and +AB/AC/Spot/Listen in the Gutters is alright, but sounds great for the right sort of PvP.
• Undead. There's always loads of undead and Negative damage, so 10% Negative Damage Immunity is nice. And everyone loves +2 Death and Negative saves as Death, Level Drain, STR drain etc. instantly ruin your day. Not bad for PvP either as those are all things a Necromancer uses. +1 Divine vs Undead is just the icing on the cake vs damage-resistant bastards.
• Aberration: +1 Will, +2 Concentration, +2 Heal.

You can see you get a lot more general-use bang for your Perk with some of the more PVE-useful FEs. As it looks like Heal no longer contributes to Herbalism checks, I reckon there's going to be fewer rangers benefiting from that or even training it.

So, since the mechanical 'unblockable' Drowning, Resting etc effects aren't Magic Damage any more but True Damage. And since Nyths chuck out Magic Missiles, and I'm going to take an educated guess that some of the horrors from beyond the stars do Astral Damage as it's thematic. What about 10% Damage Immunity to Astral and Magic Damage? It's not something you could have coded in previously, but the new damage types make it possible.

[The Crimson Magician]

Barbarian Perk Suggestion

Raider

Level 1

• +3 Search
• Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat
• Ambidexterity as a bonus feat
• While raging, gain no bonus to Strength
• While raging, gain +2 Attack Bonus and +2 Slashing Damage

Level 5

• +3 Navigation
• While raging, Attack Bonus and Slashing Damage are increased by 1 for each even step of the barbarian's base Charisma modifier. (14 and 16 CHA yield 3 total Attack Bonus and Slashing Damage, 18 and 20 CHA yield 4 total Attack Bonus and Slashing Damage, etc)

Level 8

• +3 Archaeology
• Called Shot as a bonus feat
• While holding a torch, gain +2 dodge AC

[Nevrus]

Fencer Lunge Suggestion: Devastating Riposte

Increases critical multiplier by 1 while in Parry mode.

(I bet someone could make it work)

[LoveLess]

Invoker

Beckoning ancient powers or drawing on some deep reservoir of internal power Invokers project into being forces far stronger than themselves.

1:
- Summon Familiar is replaced by a creature from your summoning theme of the highest spell tier you can cast.
- Summon Familiar persists until your creature dies or you rest.
- Your Familiar receives +AB equal to your base INT mod.
- Your Familiar receives +AC equal to your base WIS mod.
- Your Familiar receives +HP equal to your CHA mod times level.
- You cannot use normal summoning spells. They are barred to you.
- You cannot possess your Familiar.
- You do not lose experience when your familiar dies.

5:
- Augment Familiar 1/day token, works on your modified Familiar.
- Familiar gets special VFX to indicate that it is more dangerous than normal summons.

8:
- Your Familiar can no longer be banished by dispel or dismissal. Banishment still destroys it as normal.
- You can now possess your Familiar.

Invoker alt idea

Spell Modifications

Summon Familiar
- Replaced with Summon Creature X, where X is half your caster level
- Summon Familiar persists until your creature dies or you rest
- You cannot possess your familiar

Summon Creature
- Duration increased by 1 minute

Augment Familiar
- Physical damage soak increased from 5/+1 to 10/+1

Level 1
- You may only have one summon active at a time
- Summoning Invocation: +1 Summoning Theme
-- Only when Summon Creature or Summon Familiar is cast, does not work from trinkets
-- Once per unique summoning theme, per rest
-- Summoning from the same theme twice in one rest will default to non-invoked summons

Level 5
- Summoning Invocation: Increase your summon's max hp by 2 per caster lever

Level 8
- Summoning Invocation: Grants your summon 5/+2 physical damage soak
- Summon Familiar: Grants the Invoker the effect of Greater Sanctuary (Ethereal) for 2 rounds on use

9 Spell:    Summon IV
10 Spell:    Summon V

[Walrus Warwagon]

Beautiful. Remidns oe of Pathfinder's Summoner and his eidolon.

[Egon the Monkey]

L4 Rogue Perk: Ruins Raider
You have long experience of the undead and ancient constructs, and know just how best to break them
Bonus: 5% Negative Immunity. +1 Dodge AC vs Construct.
Pure Bonus: When you land a Sneak Attack on a target that is immune to Critical Hits, you deal 1d3 damage per 3 rogue levels instead.

Look at "Lunge Technique:Pierce the Soul" from Fencer. It's the perfect fix for a class that relies on things not being crit-immune.
Let rogues have something like this, given so much high level stuff is undead/constructs.
If that's too hard to code, could be a flat +1d4/4 Rogue levels or something.
Yes it's strong but only because it removes the utter disappointment of fighting crit-immune stuff.

L4 Rogue Feat: Combat Momentum
Pure Bonus: Gain the Cleave feat.

One of the reasons rogues struggle is they can kill things quick but then not follow up. And they are generally DEX builds that can't cleave.

[Egon the Monkey]

L4 Rogue Perk: Second Skin
A street tough or a soldier, you wear mail like a dune lizard wears its scales.
Pure Bonus:+2 Tumble, Hide, Move Silently, Disable Trap when wearing Medium Armor. Evasion works in Medium Armor.

I know that Evasion was set not to work in Medium or Heavy. I believe largely to stop low-dex/high saves multiclasses being stupid.
However, that's pretty rough on Strength rogues, and I really like the aesthetics of 'Thug in chainmail'.

Dirty Fighting perk:
Give this Power Attack as a Pure Rogue Bonus, so it stays relevant once you have a 2nd attack.

[Draugir]

Fighter Perk: Shieldbearer

You let others take the credits of the kills on the battlefield. At the end of the day, you know that your talents with the shield is what separates your group from those lying on the ground.

Fighter Perk "/c fighter_perk"
- 50% of the damage caused to the nearest neutral creature within 10 feet is instead directed to you. Lasts 1 turn

Lvl1:
- +1 AC when using a shield and wielding a small or tiny weapon

Lvl5:
- allies within 6 feet of you receive a +1 AC dodge bonus, when you are wielding a shield and using a small or tiny weapon
- 10% physical immunity when wielding a shield and using a small or tiny weapon

lvl8:
- allies within 6 feet of you receive a total of +3 AC dodge bonus, when you are wielding a shield and using a small or tiny weapon
- +1 reflex save when using a shield and wielding a small or tiny weapon