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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ravenheart" data-source="post: 5436132" data-attributes="member: 72088">Looks interesting! I always liked the idea of extra quirks and perks for your character, really helps you define your PC! Having said that, I do have a few suggestions:1) I think a talent should be something you gain on more of a plot specific progression rather than being dependent on level. So you gain a few to start out with, say 3, and then after every story arc, chapter or similar plot conclusion you gain 1 or 2 additional talents (this may be level dependant, as in on how extensive the adventure arc was - 1 talent for an adventure that took the PCs from 1st to halfway through 2nd level, 2 talents for an adventure that took them all the way to 4th, etc.).Talents seem like gradually increased benefits, even more so than powers or feats do. Therefore they are a natural fit for something gained during downtime between story arcs. And I don't see why certain talents would only be available at character creation; what if I discover my lineage late in life or become associated with a powerful organization as a culmination of the quest I had undertaken for them - couldn't that improve my reputation and status in society? Or what if my eyes suddenly turned golden or my scales took on a scintillating hue as I was bathed in dragon blood- wouldn't that be even command even greater respect and authority, as the boon was granted due to my actions or excellence?2) Skill Focus and Training can be quite powerful feats in the right hands, and having them as choices among other more spicy-but-non-mechanical options might entice the more cautious player to pick the more bland variety. There is also a point in characters not being trained in every skill, as it allows every part of the group to shine in different situations - allowing extra trained skills might make challenging the group as whole more difficult. One idea could be to make Skill Training/Focus a Talent only benefit, as in not being available as feats (skills gained through multi-classing would be an exception, of course). This might seem to go against everything I just said, but hear me out - what if you separate them into two groups: Talents and Traits, where talents are such things as skill training/focus, rituals, martial practices etc., and traits are more flavourful, non-mechanical social and plot derived benefits? Then you could, by using my 1st suggestion, alternate between the two (or give them option of either) whenever the characters experience some downtime. If you really want to hand out Talents (and maybe Traits) and emphasize a slightly simulationist aspect, you could disallow skill retraining, and only allow power and feat retraining during downtime (the lack of opportunities could be compensated with not limiting the retraining to just a single choice, maybe 3 or even unlimited?). To help counter situations where no one in the group is trained in a particular skill you could devise a talent such as this: 3) Some more suggestions to round things out for the general talents: Alchemist, Experimenter (Learn one formula), Practiced Study. You could possible even add other ritual adding feats here, such as Herbalist or Wild Sage. I guess some of the more flavourful (ex. Heritage feats) or other resource dependant (ex. Mounted Combat) feats could be added to this list as well. And if you separate Skill Training/Focus from feats, I guess you might aswell separate all Talents from feats. This would create more of a trinity of character defining perks; Feats being strictly mechanical, combat and class related, Talents being resource demanding, utility and/or skill related and finally Traits being flavourful boons that are roleplaying and story related.Well those are my thoughts, feel free to use them! I might pilfer this idea for my own game aswell, I seem to have been inspired... :dEDIT: One more thing, you might want to take a second gander at the internal balance of these talents. Language of Trade (2 languages) is far inferior to Linguist (3 languages, can be taken multiple times) as it stands now. Maybe LoT could have an additional benefit, something like a +2 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Insight when using these particular languages? Perhaps a completely non-mechanical benefit would be more suitable?</blockquote>

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