Concealment Boon (Replaces Invisibility)

Rules Discussion House Rules
1

At the moment this is a rough draft. Several things in consideration for this.

  1. Started out as a separate boon that could be combined with Invisibility
  2. Based on the idea of Silenced Bane into an Alteration Action Roll with CR 14~16
  3. Looked a little at Phantasm Bane
  4. @Hassurunous and @VanGo input from Discord Chat

I’ll update the boon idea below as suggestions and playtesting might happen with it.

#Concealment
this replaces Invisible Boon

Description
The target is concealed from forms of detection, either by altering their surrounding or creating illusions. This boon is a particular favorite to assassins, thieves, shadow dancers, illusionists, inventors, and similar characters.

Invocation Time
1 Major Action

Duration
Sustain Persists

Power Level
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Attributes
Alteration, Influence

Effect
The invoker may choose one sensory element (such as Scent, Sound, Light [sight], Heat, etc) to restrict. This causes all such elements of the chosen type to be suppressed within 5’ of the target though extraordinary means, making it very difficult to detect. The target gains advantage according to the boon’s Power Level on Action rolls to hide and/or remain undetected.

When making attacks against enemies that are unable to detect the target, their Guard defense is reduced. Likewise, the target’s Guard defense is increased against enemies that can not detect them, though is unchanged against area attacks.

You cannot be the target of opportunity attacks unless the enemy is somehow aware of your location through another sensory element, applicable attribute roll, or other effect that allows them to locate you. This opportunity attack may be subject to disadvantage (0, 3, or 5) as determined by the GM for the given situation.

Power Level 3 - Invoker is able to conceal either Scent or Sound. Advantage 1 to hide, +1 Guard against attackers that can’t detect the target, -1 to Guard for enemies that can’t detect the target.

Power Level 4 - Invoker is now able to conceal any 1 sensory element.

Power Level 5 - Advantage 3 to hide, +3 Guard against attackers that can’t detect the target, and -2 to Guard for enemies that can’t detect the target.

Power Level 6 - Invoker may combine up to 2 sensory elements. Advantage 5 to hide, +5 Guard against attackers that can’t detect the target, and -4 to Guard for enemies that can’t detect the target.

Power Level 7 - Invoker may combine up to 3 sensory elements

Power Level 8 - Invoker may combine all sensory elements

6 Likes
2

The first iteration was basically the same as what is currently above, BUT, it was worded as it effects “non-visual sensory elements” when it wasn’t included with invisible.

3

Will this at some point officially replace Invisibility or is it just a possible replacement? (Though I guess it’s the latter because this is the House Rules section after all, but just making sure)

4

Yes, this is in House Rules for that reason.

Right now the Core Rules are locked, but publisher can add things (like this) to campaign settings or supplements.

It won’t affect Invisible as the 5 & 6 are still there, it only adds to. So GMs could feel free to use this instead of invisible for their games.

5

What are your thoughts on allowing agility to access this boon? Why would you/on what basis would you separate concealment boon from attribute check to “hide”. I also understand that it would largely depend on setting and what “extraordinary” means. I generally understand the distinction between this boon and hiding but am curious where you would draw the line. For the sake of this discussion lets say we’re in a sci-fi setting

6

So, Agility is largely needed on this boon for the actually hiding part of it.

I had thought about this a lot recently, not directly with Agility, but allowing certain attributes to access boons (and maybe banes) that they can’t normally, but at a modified PL.

For example, allowing Deception/Persuasion to access some of Influence’s banes, but maybe half the power level.

With that logic, Agility accessing concealment, but you’d need a score of 6 to access PL 3.

Note, I haven’t fully thought this out, these were some shower thoughts that I was thinking of exploring more later. Maybe putting it behind a 1 feat point cost.

@SamWilby @VanGo you two have thoughts on my rough thought idea?

2 Likes
7

Agility already has stealth through a straight attribute roll, and in fact that’s also required on top of the boon when someone is searching for you. What does an Agility boon (and it would be the only Agility boon) represent that takes concentration to sustain but isn’t just normal sneaking?

As for Deception or Persuasion accessing Influence banes or boons, that sounds like an Attribute Substitution to me. I could maybe see granting them Charmed this way, but anything more is a stretch. Overall I feel like the characters that would want these kind of abilities are probably better served by just picking up substitution or putting some points into the Extraordinary attribute they want.

8

I mostly agree with Sam here: Giving access to Invisibility through Agility makes sneaking and hiding rolls very redundant.

I think we already have a perfectly acceptable mechanism in place for situations that need narrative discretion: Want to distract an enemy using deception “Look behind you, a three headed monkey!”. If you succeed the enemy’s attention is diverted and he has disadvantage on his round. So I don’t see much need for that change, but if you want follow through with that idea, than seeing an exhaustive list of what some attributes would gain could be an interesting exercise.

1 Like
9

Updated this with the above line. It was something that seemed obvious to me, but apparently it wasn’t, so included it for clarity.