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Hello,
I apologise on advance if this has already been asked but what skill would you use to represent "having a bad feeling" about an area or situation. I thinking of something akin to your "spidey sense tingling". For example, being in close proximity to an evil artifact, room or altar and getting a weird sense of unease.
Is there a skill that cover this use case or is that handled more as a supernatural ability or feat? What would be the particular ability used in this case?
Thanks!
I feel like Sense Motive would be a good one. Usually used to tell if someone's lying, but I could see it used as getting a feeling for someone, something, or someplace. Alternatively, you could always use Perception.
It sounds like the sense of something 'off' that spooks animals and the like. You don't actually have to spot anything definite to trigger the fight-flight reflex. I'd use perception to notice 'animals seem spooked' if there are any, or 'the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up', or something similar. Then probably spell craft to realise there's some bad magic around.
I agree with Sence Motive or otherwise a wisdom check?
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Detect evil (pally/quis) lets you smell evil things. And possibly get stunned if the aura is too strong. I think inquisitors are best at sniffing stuff out with all their detect alignment SLAs. Feather domain gives god like perception. Find traps is on the inquisitor spell list for temporary trap finding. Or you could dip 2 lv rogue for trapspotter.
I will use Sense Motive.
The closest thing I can think of is the spell Augury. Sense motive works for social situations but does not work for environmental or many combat situations. A generous GM may allow a perception roll in some cases.
The closest thing I can think of is the spell Augury. Sense motive works for social situations but does not work for environmental or many combat situations. A generous GM may allow a perception roll in some cases.
I could see some combat situations.
"The way they flee...it is almost like they are leadings us somewhere....a trap?"
"They seem unwilling to fight, but they apprehensively look towards the treeline with a terrified glance. Are they more afraid of something over there than of us killing them?"
That kind of thing. So, it could be useful to get a read on any madmen that are hanging around the place, corrupted by the evil artifact. Perhaps they are trying to drive you off, or kill you, so you don't suffer the same fate.
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It is sense motive.Hunch: This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another's behavior that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.
I apologise on advance if this has already been asked but what skill would you use to represent "having a bad feeling" about an area or situation. I thinking of something akin to your "spidey sense tingling". For example, being in close proximity to an evil artifact, room or altar and getting a weird sense of unease.
Bolded relevant portions.
Sense Motive is used for getting hunches about other peoples' behavior, not about objects or environments.
Sense Motive is useful if the person offering you a glass of wine is secretly a cultist planning on drugging you and sacrificing you to their evil god.
But it does not help if you are snooping around in their house and spot a valuable-looking silver goblet that is, in fact, an evil artifact that poisons anyone who drinks from it.
I think by RAW sense motive doesn't apply. But I'd go for it regardless. Rename Sense motive as "insight" and done
Honestly, this is something that should be expressed in roleplaying.
People can just simply be extremely untrustworthy if they think the situation isn't 100% cut and dry. There's no mechanical way of explaining "I don't like this" than your character saying just that.
If you're looking for a way to determine if you're going down a bad path, then I would suggest some sort of Divination abilities, such as Scrying, Augury, etc.
A more mundane sort of thing would be Perception; Perception covers not only sight, but listening, tasting, physical contact, or smell, so you can use it to determine whether a situation or location looks good or if there's something amiss.
I just tell my players that something feels off or wrong about the place they enter when something is giving off bad juju.