Question about Distracting Performance

[Southern Claw]

My Battledancing Kitsune Swashbuckler has taken Distracting Performance at level 4. The rulebook has this to say about it:

Prerequisites expert in Performance
Your performances are especially distracting, allowing your allies to Sneak away with ease. When you Aid an ally who is trying to Create a Diversion, instead of the usual effects of Aid, you can roll a Performance check and use that result to determine the outcome of the diversion, instead of the ally rolling a Deception check.

It reads as if I can only use the skill to aid an ally's distraction. But my character is a performer and it seems that I should be able to create a distraction by myself. (For example, doing a dance performance on a city dock so that my friends can sneak onboard a ship.)

How does this work?

[Jared Walter 356]

It works pretty much like you described. you create a distraction to pull attention away from the one creating the diversion, to yourself.

Mechanically, creating a diversion gives the hidden condition to the character that created the diversion, which is why it appears to be worded weird. In other words, allows observed characters to become hidden, so that they can hide to become undetected.

If you are trying to get on lookers to pay attention to you to make them less attentive, then fascinating performance is more what you are describing. Applying a -2 penalty to perception DCs. In other words making them less observant.

[Cordell Kintner]

The Create a Diversion action's Success entry states: "You become hidden to each creature whose Perception DC is less than or equal to your result. (The hidden condition allows you to Sneak away.) This lasts until the end of your turn or until you do anything except Step or use the Hide or the Sneak action of the Stealth skill. "

This would make no sense if you were the one creating a diversion with Performance. It makes perfect sense if you were creating one for an ally to be able to Sneak away though.

[Eoran]

Southern Claw wrote:

My Battledancing Kitsune Swashbuckler has taken Distracting Performance at level 4. The rulebook has this to say about it:

Prerequisites expert in Performance
Your performances are especially distracting, allowing your allies to Sneak away with ease. When you Aid an ally who is trying to Create a Diversion, instead of the usual effects of Aid, you can roll a Performance check and use that result to determine the outcome of the diversion, instead of the ally rolling a Deception check.

It reads as if I can only use the skill to aid an ally's distraction. But my character is a performer and it seems that I should be able to create a distraction by myself. (For example, doing a dance performance on a city dock so that my friends can sneak onboard a ship.)

How does this work?

Mechanically an example scenario where this is useful is as follows:

I am wanting to sneak away. I have decent Stealth skill, but my Deception is untrained and terrible.

Fortunately, you are around and wanting to help out. So you ◆prepare to help, as is needed for Aid, and I use the ◆Create a Diversion action anyway since it is an untrained action. But then instead of your ↺Aid reaction giving a +1 circumstance bonus to my roll, you roll your Performance check and I use your result in my Create a Diversion action instead of my own terrible Deception roll.

So narratively, your performance is drawing the attention of everyone away from me, and I can sneak away.

[Southern Claw]

Eoran wrote:

Southern Claw wrote:

My Battledancing Kitsune Swashbuckler has taken Distracting Performance at level 4. The rulebook has this to say about it:

Prerequisites expert in Performance
Your performances are especially distracting, allowing your allies to Sneak away with ease. When you Aid an ally who is trying to Create a Diversion, instead of the usual effects of Aid, you can roll a Performance check and use that result to determine the outcome of the diversion, instead of the ally rolling a Deception check.

It reads as if I can only use the skill to aid an ally's distraction. But my character is a performer and it seems that I should be able to create a distraction by myself. (For example, doing a dance performance on a city dock so that my friends can sneak onboard a ship.)

How does this work?

Mechanically an example scenario where this is useful is as follows:

I am wanting to sneak away. I have decent Stealth skill, but my Deception is untrained and terrible.

Fortunately, you are around and wanting to help out. So you ◆prepare to help, as is needed for Aid, and I use the ◆Create a Diversion action anyway since it is an untrained action. But then instead of your ↺Aid reaction giving a +1 circumstance bonus to my roll, you roll your Performance check and I use your result in my Create a Diversion action instead of my own terrible Deception roll.

So narratively, your performance is drawing the attention of everyone away from me, and I can sneak away.

OK, I think I get it. It's just worded a bit oddly. Thanks.