New skill based of Steven Brust's Dragaera novels

[zilvar]

For those of you who do not know the series, in the referenced world, most or all citizens of the Empire have the ability to send psionic messages to one another if they know the other person fairly well. I've been considering the idea and came up with this as a rough draft of a skill to allow the same sort of ability.

Psionic Communication (INT; TRAINED ONLY)

Check: The character can attempt to establish psionic communication with someone that they know well. It takes one minute to attempt psionic communication, and only messages of approximately 25 words can be sent. If the person receiving the message wishes to respond, they must make an attempt to connect as well. A link can be established in an extended, two-way form, but both parties must pass the check, and it is very difficult. An extended link allows free communication for an hour, but will be broken if either party takes damage.

The DCs for the various tasks associated with this form of communication are as follows:

Task                           DC      Notes
----                           --      -----
Establish Psionic Link         15      Can take 10 (10 minutes to establish link if so)
Imprint person                 15      Requires at least 10 minutes of conversation/activity with person
Extended Link                  35

Retry: Yes


This skill is a class skill to wizards and sorcerers, cross-class to everyone else.

Simple enough in theory. Any thoughts and/or suggestions?

 

[Rackhir]

Considering that it duplicates so fairly high level spells and powerful magic items, I'm not thrilled by the idea. Frankly I would really only bother with something like this if you were simply running a campaign set in the Brust's books.

 

[the Jester]

I think the instant psionic messaging they have is connected to the Orb, right? So rather than a skill, it's a function of what is a greater artifact.

I think it's way overpowered as a skill (or even feat) on its own.

 

[zilvar]

I'm not really sure why...but then I'm not exactly sure why Sending is Wiz/Sorc5 either.

I have considered some of what's been said. I think it would be appropriate to add a range modifier to the skill check. Anything over a few hundred feet (a small city block?) adding penalties.

The skill has minimal combat application, as written, seeing that it takes a minute to even attempt to use.

At any rate, thanks for the input guys

 

[Rackhir]

I'm not really sure why...but then I'm not exactly sure why Sending is Wiz/Sorc5 either.

I have considered some of what's been said. I think it would be appropriate to add a range modifier to the skill check. Anything over a few hundred feet (a small city block?) adding penalties.

The skill has minimal combat application, as written, seeing that it takes a minute to even attempt to use.

At any rate, thanks for the input guys

I guess I would have to ask, what IS your goal for adding this to a campaign? If it's just a "Neat" thing out of a book, then you should probably avoid it. They have a way of seriously screwing up campaigns and expectations ( I once let a Lenseman/Jedi Knight into a Space Opera Campaign for that reason - Brrrrrr, (shudder)).
Yes it is not directly useful in combat, but it IS very useful in scouting and advanced warning. Also it can spoil any number of plots where the characters would have to see/visit/talk to someone for information/advice/aid who is far away. I suspect that is the reason why a spell like Sending is 5th level (same as teleport) because it makes distances almost irrelevent.

The Communications ability exists for effectively the same reason in the Dragnera books along with Teleportation. It's convenient for the plots and the author as he doesn't have to spend pages explaining how character X got to character Y to talk/join up/attempt to kill/threaten/bribe.