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After reading up on the investgator and perusing these forums I noticed that many people seem to agree that the investigator doesn't really sell the feeling of devilishly clever detective well enough. I like to believe that I would not be a good GM if I weren't a back seat game designer as well, so I thought up this ability. Now I am curious what you guys would think about it, or maybe you even had similar ideas yourselves?
I'd call it "study up", a 10 minute activity which allows the investigator to study up on one particular topic. The options would be: Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion or Society. (The investigator can only be studied up on one of these topics at a time). Being studied up on a topic does two things:
-While studied up on a topic the investigator gains a +2 bonus on any recall knowledge checks of that particular topic.
-Whenever the investigator uses his study suspect ability on a creature that can be identified with a recall knowledge check of his current topic, he treats the degree of success as one step higher.
So I think this should achieve two things. Firstly, this sells the idea of the investigator as an intellectual better, with his ability to quickly attain a large amounth of extra information. Secondly, and most importantly, it rewards the player for being able to sleuth out what kind of enemy they are dealing with ahead of time. It rewards the player for doing actual detective work and paying attention to context clues to deduce a culprit before the fighting starts. Big claw slahes and bites? Probably an animal, so study up on nature. An undead? Religion, etc.
I'm curious, what do you guys think of such an ability? Do you feel it sells the aesthetic, or do you feel like this is too convoluted? Does it run into too many problems? Maybe you have some different ideas for new abilities as well? I'd be glad to hear any you might have!
