Secondary Skills for fun and (no) profit.

[dr_venture]

I'm working on a bunch of them for the 3.0 ruleset of my Greyhawk game, so I figured I might as well share some here... gratis!

FORTUNE TELLING (Charisma)

Secondary skill.

This is not a skill of actually foretelling the future (that's magic or religion for the most part). This is rather the layman's version, where a character uses the art of 'cold reading' to deceive a mark into believing the character has extraordinary powers.

This ability allows the character to 'cold read' some general assumptions about a mark by making a snap mental assessment of their body language, dress, and conversation. Additional seemingly innocent conversation, along with additional attribute checks, may result in more specific information. Any attribute check that fails by more than 10 will alert the mark that the character is working them for information.

As told by an old Gypsy woman to he young pupil, regarding cold reading in fortune telling:

"When thou wilt tell a fortune, put all thy heart into finding out what kind of a man or woman thou hast to deal with. Look keenly, fix thy glance sharply, especially if it be a girl. When she is half-frightened, she will tell you much without knowing it. When thou shalt have often done this thou wilt be able to twist many a silly girl like twine around thy fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a snake’s and when thou art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half the business, my dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure people.

"When a girl has anything unusual in her face, you must tell her that it signifies extraordinary luck. If she have red or yellow hair, tell her that is a true sign that she will have much gold. When her eyebrows meet, that shows she will be united to many rich gentlemen. Tell her always, when you see a mole on her cheek or her forehead or anything, that is a sign she will become a great lady. ... Praising and petting and alluring and crying-up are half of fortunetelling. There is no girl and no man in all the Lord’s earth who is not proud and vain about something, and if you can find it out you can get their money."

[dr_venture]

Military Drumming (Dexterity)

Drums are used by many militaries to send signals on the battlefield, in camp, and to troops marching in formation - telling them all sorts of things like which direction to march, when to gather water or wood, when officers of certain ranks should assemble, etc.

This ability allows the character a basic ability to play a military-style drum as a percussion instrument. The character can also make an attribute check to correctly understand unfamiliar battlefield drum signals. And should the need arise, the character can send basic signals to troops using drum signals of which the character is aware.

[dr_venture]

Huh... no interest... oh well.

[damned]

read and digested - always interesting - just didnt have anthing to add

[JohnD]

read and digested - always interesting - just didnt have anthing to add

Agreed!

[S Ferguson]

Military Drumming (Dexterity)

Drums are used by many militaries to send signals on the battlefield, in camp, and to troops marching in formation - telling them all sorts of things like which direction to march, when to gather water or wood, when officers of certain ranks should assemble, etc.

This ability allows the character a basic ability to play a military-style drum as a percussion instrument. The character can also make an attribute check to correctly understand unfamiliar battlefield drum signals. And should the need arise, the character can send basic signals to troops using drum signals of which the character is aware.

The Bagpipes (Constitution) was also used in the same manner. Still, other than that....