Conversion Suggestion: Give Flenta proficiency with Arcane Items

[Yewstance]

A small request; but as-written Flenta has some role powers which fall greatly away from their intended use if she's used partially or exclusively with post-Core cards (such as in home Core/Curse play).

Flenta (Fighter CD), Arcane Pretender Role wrote:

□ You automatically succeed at your check to recharge (□ or acquire) an item that has the Magic trait.

Pre-Core, whilst this could be used for a few things, but was primarily intended to be used with Wands or other means of using items that required an Arcane check to recharge. The Fighter Class Deck came with the Necklace of Fireballs and Wand of Treasure Finding items, most assuredly only relevant to Flenta.

With a very small number of exceptions (Mist Horn, Harrow Deck), all post-Core Items that allow for checks to recharge require a proficiency which Flenta doesn't have. Flenta cannot recharge Core or Curse Wands, nor the post-Core Fireball Beads[/b] (which is almost a carbon copy of Necklace of Fireballs, incidentally, but requires proficiency to recharge).

It seems in-line with design intent that Flenta (who's backstory references her reliance on magic items) should be able to utilize these more effectively, which Arcane Item proficiency covers. (I was going to suggest "Arcane Wands" proficiency, originally, until I realized that Fireball Beads wouldn't be counted, despite being an almost-copy of a item intentionally made available to her in the Fighter Class Deck).

(Flenta's other role also provides some benefit to recharging said cards as well, incidentally.)

[zeroth_hour2]

I believe RotR Merisiel's Thief role may also have a similar power (it's meant to mimic Use Magic Device skill):

"You may use Charisma in place of any skill on any check to recharge an armor, item, or weapon with the Magic trait."

I don't think it works on Items for sure; not sure if it works on anything at this point.

[Longshot11]

zeroth_hour2 wrote:

I believe RotR Merisiel's Thief role may also have a similar power (it's meant to mimic Use Magic Device skill):

"You may use Charisma in place of any skill on any check to recharge an armor, item, or weapon with the Magic trait."

I don't think it works on Items for sure; not sure if it works on anything at this point.

Look at Meri's Charisma. Look at the *items*, **armors (!)** and **weapons (!!!)** with a "check to recharge" in RotR. This power NEVER worked .

(though, as an obvious artifact from earlier design, it offers a curious insight into Lone Shark's initial intent that weapons and armors use the same recharge checks as a spell or item... which the Armors have gone a full circle and returned to, in a manner)

[Yewstance]

zeroth_hour2 wrote:

I believe RotR Merisiel's Thief role may also have a similar power (it's meant to mimic Use Magic Device skill):

"You may use Charisma in place of any skill on any check to recharge an armor, item, or weapon with the Magic trait."

I don't think it works on Items for sure; not sure if it works on anything at this point.

(It does work on at least 3 post-Core items; Harrow Deck, Zellara's Harrow Deck, and Mist Horn. Good luck recharging any of those with 1d6 Charisma and no other reasons to focus on the skill, though.)

Do you know; I thought about that very example when making my post.

The only reason I didn't mention it, is because that comes damn close to winning my award for the "Worst power feat option ever put on any character in the history of PACG", since she has a mere 1d6 Charisma with barely any skill feat options on it and no other skills referencing it. (Most of the powers that I can think of that are worse than it are just because they actually make you weaker, like Olenjack "enhancing" a draw power by forcing you to recharge a card afterwards.)

To extrapolate:

Admittedly, it's become a tiny bit better since RotR. RotR didn't have any armors/items/weapons with recharge checks except for a couple of items that required at least an Arcane 8 check; and even then all of the RotR items with recharge checks weren't good with a rogue and mostly featured using your Arcane skill in combat.

Hey, for the first time (I think) in all of PACG history the Core Set actually has armors with checks to recharge, despite the template referencing it originating in RotR with Merisiel... except she's not proficient with heavy armor, so it still is a useless component of a near-useless power. It's actually funny to me how aggressively bad that power is in general.

However... if you really try, with more modern cards... you can make it work, I suppose, in very corner case situations. The Curse 6 Item "The Lost Harrows" can give Merisiel a killer Charisma skill, so it could actually be meaningful, for example, but you'd pretty much need to pair it with pre-Core items that she's actually allowed to make recharge attempts against. A very odd use of that card, but I suppose I shouldn't judge.

I guess, sure, RotR Merisiel should probably be errata'd so that power works... but I'd MUCH rather the entire power was replaced with, like, a hand size feat or something. Her design has aged really badly, and that power was never usable in the first place.

[eddiephlash]

I just want a new version of Flenta (and so many other characters who've only shown up once) included in the next Adventure Path. I'd love to see the team approach some of the community's favorite characters in a post-Core world.

[Vic Wertz]

Added Flenta to the list of characters that gain new proficiencies.

[Brother Tyler]

Just to be clear, Flenta is only gaining 1 proficiency: "Arcane Item" not 2 proficiencies "Arcane" and "Item", correct? I just want to make sure I get it correct (and clear) on the updated character sheet.

[Mike Selinker]

Correct.