Uncanny Perception is a work in progress name, but essentially it's an ability that allows the character to gain various sensing abilities as they level up and expand the range of the abilities.
At 1st level, you gain extraordinary sensory powers. You can choose any ability from the list below, as long as you meet the requirements to do so, and gains its basic range.
At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, you can gain a new way of perceiving the world around you and increases the range of each of your uncanny perception abilities by 5ft (10ft for Darkvision).
*Darvision (Ex) 30 feet (+10 to existing darkvision if you already have darkvision)
*Blindsense (Ex) 20 feet (minimum 9th level)
*Blindsight (Ex) 5 feet (minimum 12th level), maximum range 10ft
*Fogsight (Ex)
*Greensight (Ex) 30 feet (you can see through solid wood less than 6in thick once maximum range is achieved)
*Low-Light Vision (Ex) (doubles range if you already has low-light vision), range does increase
*See in Darkness (Ex) 10 feet (minimum 12th level), maximum range 30ft
*Tremorsense (Ex) 30 feet
*True Sight (Su) 5 feet (minimum 15th level), maximum range 20ft
Fogsight (Ex): You can see through fog, mist, smoke, and other similar conditions (including underwater), normally, without penalty, as long as there is enough light to allow you to see normally.
True Sight (Su): You can see things as they truly are, as if using the true seeing spell. You can use this ability for a maximum number of minutes each day equal to your phantom fist level. When you use this ability, you use your available time in half minute intervals (5 rounds), but they need not be used consecutively.
I had the idea while listening to a book and thought it might fit a rogue or ranger.I tried to match (as much as possible) the abilities to around the same time characters would be able to have access to either spells or items that grant them the abilities. Do you think it would work? Do you think any of them are too much? Or that their ranges are too big starting out, or even at their maximum?
What is this? A feat, class/race ability?
It would be a class ability, it would be absolutely silly for it to be a single feat.
it would be absolutely silly for it to be a single feat.
Agreed. That's why I asked. What are you looking for, exactly? Balance? Utility? Sheer coolness?
Because as a class ability, it's hard to determin balance without seeing the whole class.
And as far as utility and coolness go, I'd say it's pretty solid. It's all just different kinds of sight, though. Maybe that's enough for uncanny sight, but I think you could branch out a bit. What if you become so attuned to fine detail that you can effectively "sense" the past on an object or person, like reverse-tracking that sort of works like divination? Or a more extreme version, where you can read the portents of the world around you and glimpse the future? What about sixth senses, like mediums and psychics?
I also think there should be prerequisites. If you want Blindsight, you need Blindsense. If you want See In Darkness, you need Darkvision. Etc.
Balance mostly. I've had characters have these various abilities, and I've had player characters do the same, just not all at the same time. It doesn't feel like too powerful to me, but I wanted to see what others thought in case I'm overlooking something.
The book I was listening to had a character who is very rogue-like with a bit of body enhancing and shadow-themed magic. At first his vision just got better in dim light and then he could see in the dark. Eventually he moved on to being able to sense the world around him even with his eyes shut, including seeing through the illusions others like him made.
He was also (at least later on) able to see and sense magic, and even destroy it to some degree, but I felt that was a bit out of the range of this specific ability, so I left it out.
I did think about adding something about needing blindsense before getting blindsight, but since there are currently so few options as it was, it seemed as if someone with this class ability would gain both anyway.
As for See in Darkness, I did originally have darkvision automatically become see in darkness, but, if for some reason, a player didn't want their character to gain see in darkness, or wanted them to gain it suddenly, for fluff reasons either way, I wanted to allow for those possibilities.
I'm open to other ideas to add to this, as long as the 'sensing' ability is, or can be refluffed as, extraordinary (true sight is kind of as 'magical' as I wanted the ability to go, that's why it has a time limit).
For instance, seeing the past of an item, at least its recent past, I could see it as the character picking up small details of the item, where it was found, its condition, etc, and creating a mental timeline in their head to come up with the item's past. Even if that ability went a bit beyond that limited scope, the fluff would still work in my head for this ability.
I'm curious about your thought/idea about the future sight, and what you mean by 'sixth sense'.
Balance mostly...I'm curious about your thought/idea about the future sight, and what you mean by 'sixth sense'.
Well like I said, it's hard to determine how balanced it is as a class ability when I can't see the whole class. If it's a replacement for the barbarian's faster movement, it's rather too good. But if it replaces a wizard's spells, then it needs a bit more.
I would not call all of these abilities extraordinary, though. Supernatural is more appropriate for the ones that simulate spell effects.
As far as "future sight" goes, I'm talking about oracles and farseers and prophets; people who claimed they could predict the future by studying the stars or reading portents. On a smaller and more technical level, it could be a matter of using logic, reason and observation about the world around you to gain an insight into the immediate future, like Sherlock Holmes.
By "sixth sense", I mean just what I gave as examples. Seeing or talking to ghosts, hearing people's thoughts, etc. Like the movie "The Sixth Sense".
Also, scent. It should have scent on the list, too.
Fogsight (Ex)What kind of range does Fogsight have? The character's normal line of sight?
Yes, their normal range of sight, that's why I didn't give it a defined range.
Greensight (Ex) 30 feet (you can see through solid wood less than 6in thick once maximum range is achieved)What is the maximum range?
I didn't think I needed to add it in since +5ft x 6 (one for each time a character gains Uncanny Perception, assuming character is at least 18th level) = +30ft, so the maximum range would be 60ft.
True Sight (Su) 5 feet (minimum 15th level), maximum range 20ftThis doesn't add up. If you get 5 feet at 15th level, then your only opportunity to increase the range comes at 18th level and at 18th level, you can only add +5 feet. So that puts an effective cap of 10 feet of range on True Sight, and the defined maximum range can't be reached as far as I can tell.
Ah, I see the issue. Each time the character gains Uncanny Perception, each of the abilities gain +5 feet of range (+10 for darkvision), it's not meant to be 'for each that the character has' but all of them. So if the character selects True Sight, it will be at its maximum range of 20ft when they select it. There are abilities that are similar to this that give a minimum and have an increase, but a character will never be at that minimum because by the time they can get the ability, it already has an increase. Maybe the wording could be more clear, but I can't think of how to do it atm.
Well like I said, it's hard to determine how balanced it is as a class ability when I can't see the whole class. If it's a replacement for the barbarian's faster movement, it's rather too good. But if it replaces a wizard's spells, then it needs a bit more.
As I said in the first post 'fit a rogue or ranger', though I lean heavily towards rogue. If rogue I think it could replace Danger Sense and/or Rogue's Edge, and for ranger replace Favored Terrain and/or Favored Enemy. (I've never been a fan of either ranger ability as they are way too situational for my taste.)
I would not call all of these abilities extraordinary, though. Supernatural is more appropriate for the ones that simulate spell effects.
As far as I can remember, off the top of my head, except for True Sight, all of the other abilities are actually classified as Ex abilities.
As far as "future sight" goes, I'm talking about oracles and farseers and prophets; people who claimed they could predict the future by studying the stars or reading portents. On a smaller and more technical level, it could be a matter of using logic, reason and observation about the world around you to gain an insight into the immediate future, like Sherlock Holmes.
By "sixth sense", I mean just what I gave as examples. Seeing or talking to ghosts, hearing people's thoughts, etc. Like the movie "The Sixth Sense".
I don't know about the ghost part, but something like this?
Deduce Thoughts and actions (Ex):By spending a full round paying close attention to a creature's eye movements, speech patterns, emotions, body language, and other subtle cues, you are able to determine whether the creature is intelligent (animal like Int 1-2, or complex Int 3+) or not. If it is intelligent, you can make an educated guess as to what they are thinking or what actions they may take.
(Not fleshed out, just spitballing. Maybe have it rely on Sense Motive vs the target's Bluff or Will save?)
And again, just spitballiing here.
Brilliant Foresight (Ex):
By spending a full round studying your surroundings, the people around you, details about your immediate environment, and hundreds of small details others normally overlook or dismiss, you can create a mental 'plan' for what you believe is about to occur within the next minute. The base chance of being correct is 40% and increases by 5% at 3rd level and every three levels thereafter, to a maximum of 70% at 18th level. If you are correct, you gain a +1 insight bonus to use on any attack, damage, skill, or saving throw roll. You can use this bonus yourself or add it to an ally's roll as a free action any time within one minute. Once it is used, or one minute passes, this bonus is gone. The insight bonus increases by +1 at 9th and 18th level, to a maximum of +3 at 18th level.
Alternatively, you may use knowledge and information you have and what you can sense around you to extrapolate if a given action will bring good or bad results. This functions like a non-magical augury spell, with a chance of 60% + 5% at 6th, 12th, and 18th level to give a meaningful result, with a maximum chance of 75% at 18th level. At 9th level, this can also function like a non-magical divination spell, using the same chance for a meaningful result as noted above.
Also, scent. It should have scent on the list, too.
I left out scent because only the very last part (tracking) of it isn't covered by one or more of the other abilities listed (same with Thought Sense I think it's called, which allows a character to sense things and know whether they are intelligent or not, and another ability that allows a character to sense invisible or ethereal beings).
Scent gives, what seems to me, to be a very small bonus to tracking as it is, and I wasn't sure how to increase that part of it to fit with the rest of the ability.But, as I think of it, it should be on here as well, if for no other reason than for fluff and character/player options (like keeping darkvision and see in darkness separate).