Feats of Foretelling
Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another great edition of Extraordinary Feats, where we bring you new and exciting feats to help improve your game by giving you new ways to outfit your heroes, villains, and even minor supporting cast. This week is Divination Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, and as such today’s feat offerings will relate to the ancient and noble art of foretelling. Below you’ll find feats which relate to augury, cleromancy, omens, and even one of the more new age techniques.
Auspicious Portents
Omens are powerful signs of coming change, and your skills as an augur allow you to interpret those omens as good or bad.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 15, Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (religion) 1 rank, Spellcraft 1 rank, Take Auspices.
Benefit: Whenever you discover an omen, either through the use of the Discover Omen feat or through some other means,* you may reroll the d% roll allowed by the Take Auspices feat, using the new result of the roll in the place of the old roll and gaining an additional +2 bonus to the morale bonus (if the result is 41 or higher) or a -2 penalty (if the result is 40 or lower) to the dice roll chosen for this roll.
*One of our contributors wrote an extensive From the Workshop article on the subject of omens, which is both fascinating and fairly comprehensive. This might prove an excellent source for more information on omens.
Card Reading
The cards speak to you and you can hear the future in their words.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13, Knowledge (arcana) 1 rank or Knowledge (religion) 1 rank.
Benefit: You can use a deck of tarot or similar cards to tell fortunes. In order to use this ability, you must pose 3 questions to the cards and spend at least 1 minute conducting a reading. While you conduct this reading, you cannot perform any activity which would break your concentration. At the end of this one-minute period, you gain a +4 bonus on the next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Knowledge checks you make to answer one of these three questions. The check is made immediately, and the bonus cannot be held until a later time. You may not gain any of these bonuses to a particular question more than once until you gain another rank in the appropriate skill.
Cast Bones
You cast bones, entrails, or runes and infuse them with your magical power, allowing you to gain insight into the future.
Prerequisites: Spell Focus (divination), ability to cast spells from the divination school.
Benefit: Once per day you may spend three full rounds using stones, bones, entrails, or some other assorted items in order to divine the future. As long as you have at least one divination spell of 1st level or higher prepared, or, if you are a spontaneous caster, have a remaining spell per day and know a divination spell of 1st level or higher, you may pose a single yes or no question to the gods. After three rounds, you have a 10% chance per spell level of the highest-level divination spell you have prepared, or in the case of a spontaneous caster, the highest-level divination spell known which you can still cast today, of receiving an answer. Answers given this way are always true. In the case of questions where a simple yes or no will not suffice, you are made aware of this fact but receive no answer.
Discover Omen
You have a deep understanding of the natural and the supernatural world and can interpret the omens that surround all living people every day.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13, Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (religion) 1 rank.
Benefit: Once per day, you may meditate on the events of the recent past in order to attempt to discover an omen hidden among those events. In order to use this ability you must succeed on a Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (religion) check with a DC of 20. If you succeed on this check, you discover an omen which indicates a coming change in fortune. The exact meaning of this omen is always ambiguous, but you may interpret it in a number of ways, gaining one of the following sets of benefits and drawbacks.
Firstly, you may gain a +2 insight bonus to your AC and suffer a -1 penalty to your attack rolls. Secondly, you may gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your Hit Dice and suffer a -3 penalty to all weapon damage rolls. Thirdly, you may choose to gain a +2 luck bonus to the saving throw of your choice and reduce the saving throw DCs of your spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, extraordinary abilities, and feats by 1. Fourthly, you may choose to gain a +4 bonus to your CMD and suffer a -4 penalty to your CMB. Finally, you may choose to gain a +3 bonus on all skill checks and suffer a -6 penalty on all opposed skill rolls. You may not select the same pair of bonuses and penalties two days in a row. Interpreting these omens may or may not confer additional insights into the nature of the change to come. These benefits and drawbacks last for 24 hours.
Magical Auspices
The magic of true divination truly empowers your expertise in determining the will of fate.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 15, Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (religion) 1 rank, Spellcraft 1 rank, Take Auspices.
Benefit: Whenever you use your Take Auspices feat, you may choose to expend a prepared divination spell, or expend a spell slot of any level for which you could cast a divination spell if you are a spontaneous caster, in order to increase the bonus to a single dice roll of your choice by an amount equal to ½ the level of the spell or spell slot expended in this way, rounded down.
Masterful Divination
Truly a great diviner, even the most powerful defenses are nothing before your skill.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 17 ranks, Greater Spell Focus (divination), Spell Focus (divination).
Benefit: Your divination spells can affect even creatures that would normally be immune, including creatures affected by the mind blank spell. Any creature who would be immune to the spell in question gains a +4 bonus on his saving throw.
Ritualistic Divination
You utilize a number of ritual components that increase the power of your divination spells.
Prerequisites: Spell Focus (divination).
Benefit: Whenever you cast a spell, you may choose to spend three times the normal casting time of that spell in casting it, incorporating additional ritual components. If you do, increase the saving throw DC of that spell by an additional +1. This feat may only be used to augment spells with a casting time of at least 1 standard action.
Take Auspices
Each day you can observe the movement of birds, the position of clouds, and the shadows cast by the sun in order to determine if a course of action is favored by fortune.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 15, Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (religion) 1 rank, Spellcraft 1 rank.
Benefit: At the beginning of each day you may attempt to divine whether or not a specific, decided-upon action is favored by the gods. You must choose either attack rolls, saving throws, or skill checks, then roll a d%. On a result of 1-40, your augury determines that the chosen action is ill-fated and you suffer a -2 morale penalty to the chosen type of dice rolls for the next 24 hours. On a result of 41-100, your augury determines that the chosen action is auspicious and you gain a +2 morale bonus on the chosen type of dice rolls for the next 24 hours.
Thaumaturgic Divination
You understand the connection between people and things and can use that to enhance your divination.
Prerequisites: Spell Focus (divination).
Benefit: If you possess an item that was owned by the target of a divination spell you cast, that spell is treated as though your caster level is 2 higher than it actually is.
View Aura
Experience with people and a talent for mystical divination allow you to read the auras of those around you, learning important information about their core person.
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13+ Sense Motive 5 ranks.
Benefit: As a full round action, you may make a Sense Motive check (DC 15 + the target’s Hit Dice) against any creature you can see within 10 feet. If successful, you can identify any aura that creature has, such as the evil aura possessed by an evil cleric. If you exceed the DC by 10 or more, you may also discern the target’s alignment, unless he is under the effects of undetectable alignment or a similar spell or effect.