Charon's boon

[Soul Devourer]

So here goes Charon's second boon for sentinels:

On a Pale Horse (Su): You gain the ability to invoke the power of the Pale Horse. As a swift action, you cause a flickering image of the Pale Horse to appear in a 10-foot square adjacent to you. It then moves up to 120 feet as you mentally direct its movement (doing so is a move action that requires concentration). The image of the Pale Horse ignores difficult terrain and can walk over water or other surfaces that would normally not bear a creature’s weight, but it cannot fly. Any creature whose space the image of the Pale Horse passes through must succeed at a Fortitude save or take a –6 penalty to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, as if it had suddenly aged to become venerable. Creatures (like dragons) that normally gain benefits from aging do not gain any benefits, and they instead take the ability score penalties described above. These penalties do not stack with themselves or with existing penalties from aging. A creature can resist the effects of the Pale Horse with a successful Fortitude save (DC = 10 + half your Hit Dice + your Charisma modifier). A creature can be affected by the Pale Horse only once per round, regardless of how many times the Pale Horse moves through its space. This is an aging curse effect.

My question is: as there is no mentioning of a limited use per day, is it an at will power? If so, is it not OP (it comes at 13th or 16th level, levels which admittedly I am not familiar with)? Yes, it is limited by concentration, but you could simply "turn it on" whenever you like by spending a swift action.

[Xenocrat]

Since no duration is listed, I'd say you can use it as much as you want per day, but the effects only last while the horse is actually occupying the space of an enemy. That's workable and balanced.

[Soul Devourer]

Xenocrat wrote:

Since no duration is listed, I'd say you can use it as much as you want per day, but the effects only last while the horse is actually occupying the space of an enemy. That's workable and balanced.

Ah, I see. I thought it was a permanent effect

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Looks to me like a permanent effect. I don't think Xenocrat's reading is consistent with the text, esp "Any creature whose space the image of the Pale Horse passes through...."

[Xenocrat]

It can't possibly have been intended to be a permanent affect or they would have given it a curse descriptor or similar and a DC for removal. Ability damage/drain is permanent, because there are rules to heal it, but there are no examples of permanent ability penalties that I can think of.

It's poorly written on at least two fronts.

[dragonhunterq]

ability text wrote:

This is an aging curse effect.

The curse descriptor is covered.

ability penalty wrote:

Some spells and abilities cause you to take an ability penalty for a limited amount of time. While in effect, these penalties function just like ability damage, but they cannot cause you to fall unconscious or die. In essence, penalties cannot decrease your ability score to less than 1.

It really does need a duration though. The text is inconsistent with it just being while the image shares a space with a creature.

If I were house-ruling it I'd probably be looking at something like 1 round/character level with a save (at the same DC to avoid it) at the end of every turn (with a caveat that I may change that when I see it in play). It feels about right for an ability coming on line when full casters are getting 7th level spells.

[ShroudedInLight]

Its a curse, so it probably lasts until you get hit with a Remove Curse spell.

[Cavall]

Curses tend to be permanent until removed.

That being said there should have been a daily limit. Its swift action multiple curses. That's crazy.