Ampersand: Martial Rituals in Martial Power 2

[MrMyth]

Wrong. You're totally taking it out of context. As I said above, that +5 bonus has the cost of a feat (two if you aren't a martial class) plus a healing surge and 50gp every time you want to use it.
It also has the hidden cost of not being able to get assistance from the other PCs on the roll.

Ok, that's just silly. The +5 bonus is a benefit. Yes, it has a feat cost - a feat that gave access to various other effects as well. The question at hand was whether there was a difference between the Alter Ego martial practice and just using a skill check to disguise yourself, and the answer is yes.

Cadfan has some very legitimate points about the oddity of the way these skills are presented in the PHB, and I think my differences with him are entirely a matter of intepretation (and the text itself isn't clear enough for either of us to truly be 'right'). But making the claim that this one ability is worthless because of the presence of the Skill Focus feat, which doesn't encompass the myriad other abilities available in martial practices, is completely absurd. Having handwaved away that +5 bonus, and trying to then use that as evidence that this ability is, thus, the only way to adopt a disguise (despite the PHB outright stating otherwise) is a completely bad-faith argument that outright contradicts the core rules themselves.

You can genuinely feel that this isn't enough of a worthwhile bonus for a martial practice to provide, given the costs involve. (Though I tend to think +5 is a pretty big deal.) But to say that because it isn't game-breaking effective, it means we should throw out the rules of the PHB... sorry, I simply cannot agree with that.

 

[gribble]

You can genuinely feel that this isn't enough of a worthwhile bonus for a martial practice to provide, given the costs involve.

That's exactly my point. It isn't enough of a bonus, given the opportunity and actual costs involved.

Even without Skill Focus, assuming a party of 5 PCs, that's 4 assistances the primary roller can call on when making a straight skill check (that he can't call on when using a MP), even assuming +0 skill bonuses across the board, that's better than a 50% chance he'll end up with a higher bonus than +5 (+6 from three assists). And he can do that without spending 50gp and a healing surge...


Therefore, in order to make it attractive enough the DM has to give some other encouragement to take it - like making it the only way to achieve this feat. IMO, any DM not doing that is essentially house ruling that MP don't exist in his campaign, because any halfway optimised PC wouldn't choose the option of investing in MP when he can achieve the same thing through more efficient means.

 

[The Little Raven]

Alter Ego allows you to make the Bluff check to pass off someone else's disguise. This means the rogue with his obscene +20 Bluff check (+25 with Alter Ego's bonus) can make the check to pass off the barbarian's disguise, instead of the barbarian's pitiful +5 Bluff check (+13 with everyone assisting him).

 

[gribble]

Alter Ego allows you to make the Bluff check to pass off someone else's disguise.

Right, except that the person with the best disguise using his skills on someone else is a fairly regular occurance (at least as far as disguise checks go), and I certainly have - and would continue to - allow another character (the disguiser) to make a skill check on behalf of another character (the disguisee).

At least I would have before these rules were published. Now, I feel as if I have to either limit that behaviour or ignore MPs.

 

[Cadfan]

I wouldn't have allowed it. I would have allowed the character with the most experience with disguises to help the others and give them a bonus on their check, though. I find that a bit more... aesthetically pleasing than just letting the disguiser roll his own skill in place of his ally.

I'd like Alter Ego if it read something like,

Alter Ego, Cadfan's Version
With a little makeup and a bit of misdirection, you can be anyone.

Level: 8
Time: 1 hour
Duration: 24 hours Component Cost: 50 gp
Market Price: 275 gp
Key Skill: Bluff

You can create cosmetic alterations to your appearance or to the appearance of a willing ally, and can train yourself or coach others to mimic even the slightest idiosyncratic traits of the target of your impersonation.
Make a Bluff check and divide the result by four, rounding down. The subject of your ministrations receives the result as a bonus on Bluff checks to disguise themselves using the disguise you create with this practice. You may use this practice on yourself.

There. Now it doesn't add new rules or neuter any standard skill uses. It functions like Aid Another, except that you can break the usual +2 that you get from Aid Another, possibly surpassing it by a significant amount, and you can essentially use Aid Another on yourself by means of this practice. It adds something genuinely new, and doesn't function as a stealth errata of the existing (admittedly very short and vague) disguise rules.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

However, take a wizard who's creating a magical item. Even one as deceptively simple as one that can do fire damage at will.

The wizard has the sword, which has been suitably forged. Perhaps sharpened using ground up dragon teeth and such. The Wizard spends half an hour painstakingly drawing the right signs, sigils, runes and such using precious materials. Because God help them all if the powers invoked are not properly contained. He then, using nothing less then the power of his Arcane Will, opens up a fissure to the elemental plane of fire, ripping out a Fire Elemental, a being that has existed since the dawn of creation and binds it into the giant elemental ruby at the heart of the sword.

And this is less physically and mentally taxing then playing charades?

Note that none of this is actually required. All he needs is an hour and "materials" in 4e. And the appropriate ritual knowledge.

But now an experienced tourist, needing so desperately to wee in a foreign country and is willing to give it his all to make sure he's understood is somehow doing something more physically and mentally taxing?

You'd be amazed at how talking to people is taxing and tiring.

Especially compared to sitting at a workbench and sprinkling residuum on a sword.

Brad