Tag: ACKS (Page 2 of 7)

At one time, I had about 20 wild talents. I whittled them down to a handful. The main reason for this was that I didn’t want a first level character with a Wild Talent to be a vastly more powerful than other characters. The idea of characters with wild talents is that they can do some unusual things, but nothing as powerful as a magic missile or similar spells.

Wild Talents

Those with wild talents cannot perform psionic attacks, but can use psionic defense. Another psionic creature cannot use psionic powers against a character with a wild talent until the character with a wild talent has lost one round of psionic combat and taken power point damage. Despite the fact that a character with a wild talent does not have any power points, they must have less than zero power points, just like psionic characters, before psionic powers affect them.

To determine the presence of a Wild Talent, roll 2d20 and add the ability score bonuses for Wisdom and Charisma. Any roll 40+ indicates a wild talent. This roll can be made at any time, but only once in a character’s life.
Wild Talents are added to characters of any class as a proficiency. It is up to the GM if this will be added as a general or class proficiency. I prefer to add them in lieu of a class proficiency.

Burst
This power allows a character to move at a faster rate for one round. To determine the new movement rate, treat the character as if he or she has 3 less stone in encumbrance. If a character has less than 5 stone encumbrance, the combat movement rate will be 50? per round and the running movement rate will be 150? per round. This power can only be manifested once per hour and no more than four times a day.

Compass
With this power, the character will know which direction is North. This knowledge prevents the character from becoming lost. The individual with this talent will gain a +4 to save against any spell or spell-like effect that creates disorientation.

Control Shadow
With this power a character can manipulate any normal shadow within 30? (usually their own) like a puppet. This power will not affect Shadows listed in the Monster section of the core rulebook.

Detect Poison
With this power, a character can determine if an object or creature he is touching contains poison or has been poisoned.

Exchange
This power allows a character to transform any non-intelligent object into any raw substance or plant. Regardless of the character’s skills, the result of an exchange cannot be a manufactured item like a sword, a table, a meal or even a bolt of cloth. Common items created by an exchange include grain, trees, stone, even small quantities of gold or uncut gemstone. During the transformation, some value is lost. This means that turning lead to gold will never be profitable.  The rationale for turning any object into gold is that it is worth losing some value to transform a barrel of preserved fruit, a heavy treasure, into a small quantity of gold, a much lighter treasure.

One common story tells of a man that overcame a powerful orc warlord. When the orc died, the man took the orc’s magic sword and transformed it into enough grain for the people of nearby villages to eat until the next harvest season.

Results of Proficiency Roll
Roll — Pct. Value Lost
1 — 100
2-6 — 75
7-14 — 50
15-19 — 25
20 — 10

Float
This power allows a chosen object within 30? to float on any liquid. Roll 2d6 on the following table to determine the amount of weight that the power can affect:

2 — One small item
3-5 — One stone
6-8 — Two stone
9-10 — Three stone
11 — Four stone
12 — Five stone

Snatch
This power will allow a character to catch any one missile weapon throw at him or her. The character must make a successful saving throw vs. Staff & Wands to catch the missile. The character will not be able to do anything else in a round besides catch the missile weapon. When the character declares that he or she will be using this wild talent, he or she will act last in a combat round and will not roll to determine initiative.
It should go without saying, but this power provides no benefit for catching boulders thrown by giants or other large creatures. It's not catching the boulder that's tricky, it catching it and not being crushed by it that is difficult.

Potential Additions:

Argentum Touch
This powers causes a weapon to do damage as if made of silver.

Use of this talent is limited to once per day for characters of any class except psionicists. Psionicists with this wild talent can use it once per level.

Note: Lycanthropes are traditionally vulnerable to silver weapons. In some myths, mostly modern ones, vampire are also allergic to silver. For this power to be useful, a campaign must have some creatures vulnerable to silver. Another idea for this is to create a separate form of animated corpse that are not traditional undead. These unalive creatures can be radically different, yet vulnerable to silver.

Boomerang
This power creates a boomerang effect for any thrown object. The object must weigh less than 1 stone and is limited to being a small item. The normal range for this power is 90?. However, the minimum range if used as a weapon is 20?. Any object used as a weapon does 1d4 damage on a successful hit. After attempting an attack on a target, the object returns to the manifester’s hand in time for action during the next round.

Note: This basically creates an auto-loading sling with half the range and normal damage as listed in the core rulebook. However, this can also do cool things with enchanted stones. Charge a stone with a power that takes effect upon a successful strike.

Intangible Touch
The character with this talent can strike any incorporeal creature while unarmed. This talent will not work in conjunction with other powers or spells. On a successful attack, the Intangible Touch does 1d4 points of damage.
A character with this talent can also briefly hold an incorporeal creature for one round, once per encounter.

Note: Examples of incorporeal creatures include shadows, ghosts and vampires in their gaseous form.

Two of these powers are derived from Encyclopaedia Psionica: World Shapers by Mongoose Publishing. They are weaker than the powers as described on the Grand OGL wiki, but this book will be credited as a source in the final published document.