1.5.16 The Thought Noble
This partial Mage class allows a PC to subtly manipulate the thoughts of others and control their own mind and body’s operation.
Thought Noble Benefits
A Thought Noble Exists Only As a Partial Mage Class, To Be Taken By An Adventurer Alongside Another Partial Class. A Partial Warrior/Thought Noble Might Be a Cunning Duelist Who Chooses His Enemies With Uncanny Foreknowledge, While a Partial High Mage/ Thought Noble might be an arcanist who has managed to unearth the secrets of these psychic arts in the course of their own studies.
All Thought Nobles gain Notice as a bonus skill, acquiring it at level-0, or level-1 if they already have it at level-0. An ability to clearly sense perceptual inputs is fundamental to a Thought Noble’s training, and it is all but impossible to make sense of foreign mental inputs without a disciplined and trained sensorium.
Thought Nobles do not cast spells. Instead, they develop various cognitive and telepathic abilities based on the focus of their studies.
1.5.16.1 Thought Noble Arts
Thought Noble Effort is calculated with Notice rather than Magic, with each PC’s maximum being equal to their Notice skill level plus the better of their Intelligence or Wisdom modifiers, to a minimum of one point.
All Thought Nobles are trained in the Open Mind art, but may develop other techniques with time. If an art allows a saving throw to resist it, success renders the target immune to that art for the rest of the scene. Thought Noble arts are all entirely invisible to any but magical senses and provide no hint as to who is using them, even on a successful Mental saving throw.
- Open Mind: Commit Effort as an On Turn action. While Effort remains Committed, you may detect the current emotional state of a visible living creature as a Main Action. This discernment isn’t fine enough to identify the object of their emotions unless it’s obvious from the context.
Other Thought Noble Arts
- Block Memory: Target a Visible Living Creature And Commit Effort For The Day As a Main Action While Specifying a Particular Event Or Situation That Didn’t Extend Longer Than a Scene. The Target Gets a Mental Saving Throw; On a Failure, They Simply Cannot Remember The Event And Will Construct a Plausible False Memory To Paper Over The Gap. The Memory Can Be Restored By Use Of This Power Once More Or a Magical Dispelling Ability, But Detecting The Alteration Is Difficult; any power that detects enchantments on a target does so with a +2 difficulty penalty to any skill check made to discern the ban.
- Elicitation of Truth: This art can only be taken by those who have mastered Surface Apprehension. It can only be used on a helpless or cooperative target; the Thought Noble may Commit Effort for the day and ask the target a question that takes no more than two sentences to ask. If the target fails a Mental saving throw, they must fully and completely answer the question. They need not exercise any personal judgment or speculation, but they must answer directly and without conscious deception.
- Facile Speech: An improvement to the Far Speech art, you may now nominate up to a half-dozen companions to be favored targets for Far Speech. You may link with a favored target as an On Turn action without Committing Effort. The range to contact a favored target is one mile per Thought Noble level. You can change your nominated companions with an hour’s meditation in the new companion’s presence.
- Far Speech: Commit Effort for the scene as an On Turn action and target an intelligent creature known to you that is within two hundred feet per level. If they consent, you forge a telepathic link with them that can convey thoughts, speech, and images even without a common language. The link lasts for the rest of the scene. While linked with someone, both of you may reroll failed Mental saving throws and neither of you can be surprised unless both are.
- Hypercognition: You can drive your mind to tremendous feats of calculation, estimation, and recall. You have an eidetic memory and can perform extremely advanced calculations in your head. As an Instant action, Commit Effort for the day and reroll any failed Int-based skill check. This ability can be used only once on any given check.
- Iconograph: Commit Effort for the scene as a Main Action and tar get a visible written text, piece of sculpture, iconographic symbol, or other visible artifact. You receive a short description of the message or idea the maker was trying to convey with the object. Optionally, you may use this art when making a sigil, art object, or text of your own; any valid target will automatically understand your intended message when they see the item. You may restrict your audience to particular people or types if you wish.
- Impress Imperative: Commit Effort for the day as a Main Action while targeting a visible living creature. You may give it an over whelming urge to perform some action that takes no longer than a round and is not completely contrary to its nature or wishes. It can make a Mental save to resist, but on a failure it spends its next action carrying out the imperative.
- Mind Light: Your Open Mind art is enhanced. While active, you become aware of the location of all living minds within sixty feet of you provided there isn’t a physical barrier between you and the subject and they are not actively hiding from you. You can identify the species of these minds, if the species is known to you, any strong emotional states, and can recognize known individuals. While Open Mind is active you cannot be surprised by a living creature.
- Mind Over Matter: Your mental control over your physical process es is considerable. Commit Effort for the day as an Instant action to gain one of the following benefits: automatically stabilize if Mortally Wounded, go without sleep for twenty-four hours, heal 1d6 hit points of damage you’ve suffered, or completely ignore normal climatic extremes of heat or cold for one day. Similar tricks of bodily control may be allowed at the GM’s discretion.
- Mirror Mask: You become instantly aware of any mind-affecting power directed at you and can identify the user if they’re within your current sensory range. You may reroll any Mental saving throw the attacking ability allows you; if it doesn’t allow a save, you get a single Mental save to resist anyway. If you succeed, you may Commit Effort for the day as an Instant action to give the power false information of your choice or a false impression of success.
- Positive Association: As a Main Action, Commit Effort for the day and target a visible sentient creature. It gets a Mental saving throw to resist; on a failure, any thought of you or your actions is suffused by a glow of benign happiness and admiration. They will treat you as an admired friend and find all your actions to be eminently reasonable and wise until you or your allies attack them, bring harm to something they love, or leave their presence for more than an hour. Affected creatures that were not misused are unlikely to think themselves bespelled when this power ends unless given reason to. This ability can affect only one target at a time.
- Read Intent: As an Instant action, Commit Effort for the scene and target a visible living creature. It gets a Mental saving throw to resist; on a failure, the GM will tell you exactly what it is currently intending to do on its next turn, or its next relevant action if used out of combat. If you perform a Total Defense action this round, your insight into its motions ensures that no attack it makes that you could theoretically physically avoid can hit you for the rest of the round.
- Surface Apprehension: Commit Effort for the scene as a Main Action while targeting a visible living creature. If it fails a Mental saving throw, you become aware of its immediate surface thoughts for the rest of the round. If you ask specific questions of the creature during this round it will instinctively think of the answers, though the detail of these surface thoughts is generally limited to one or two sentences of information.
- Thoughts Like Razors: As a Main Action, Commit Effort for the day to launch a psychic assault on any visible living creature within sixty feet. The target gets a Mental saving throw to resist; on a failure, it takes 1d8 damage per level of the Thought Noble. The damage can knock it unconscious but cannot kill. On a successful save, the Thought Noble is stunned by the backlash, taking one quarter of the damage, rounded down, and losing their next turn’s actions. This ability can be used only once per scene.
- Unthinkable Thought: Target a visible living creature and Commit Effort for the day as a Main Action while specifying a particular person, object, or situation that is currently ongoing in their presence. The target may make a Mental save to resist; on a failure, they simply cannot consciously acknowledge the existence of the subject or its actions unless ignoring it would obviously put their life at risk. This forced ignorance lasts for up to a scene; at its end, the target will have no memory of the subject.
Partial Expert/Thought Noble
| Level | Hit Dice | Attack Bonus | Focus Picks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d6 | +0 | 1 Expert +1 Any |
| 2 | 2d6 | +1 | +1 Any |
| 3 | 3d6 | +1 | |
| 4 | 4d6 | +2 | |
| 5 | 5d6 | +2 | +1 Any |
| 6 | 6d6 | +3 | |
| 7 | 7d6 | +3 | +1 Any |
| 8 | 8d6 | +4 | |
| 9 | 9d6 | +4 | |
| 10 | 10d6 | +5 | +1 Any |
Partial Other Mage/Thought Noble
| Level | Hit Dice | Attack Bonus | Focus Picks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d6-1 | +0 | 1 Any |
| 2 | 2d6-2 | +0 | +1 Any |
| 3 | 3d6-3 | +0 | |
| 4 | 4d6-4 | +0 | |
| 5 | 5d6-5 | +1 | +1 Any |
| 6 | 6d6-6 | +1 | |
| 7 | 7d6-7 | +1 | +1 Any |
| 8 | 8d6-8 | +1 | |
| 9 | 9d6-9 | +1 | |
| 10 | 10d6-10 | +2 | +1 Any |
Partial Warrior/Thought Noble
| Level | Hit Dice | Attack Bonus | Focus Picks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d6+2 | +1 | 1 Warrior +1 Any |
| 2 | 2d6+4 | +2 | +1 Any |
| 3 | 3d6+6 | +2 | |
| 4 | 4d6+8 | +3 | |
| 5 | 5d6+10 | +4 | +1 Any |
| 6 | 6d6+12 | +5 | |
| 7 | 7d6+14 | +5 | +1 Any |
| 8 | 8d6+16 | +6 | |
| 9 | 9d6+18 | +6 | |
| 10 | 10d6+20 | +7 | +1 Any |
Thought Noble Arts
| Level | Thought Noble Arts |
|---|---|
| 1 | Open Mind and Any One |
| 2 | Any One |
| 3 | Any One |
| 4 | Any One |
| 5 | Any One |
| 6 | Any One |
| 7 | Any One |
| 8 | Any One |
| 9 | Any One |
| 10 | Any One |