PEACH balancing a mental projection skill

[Zero grim]

First a note, DM's only, if your part of my D&D group looking at this post will cause a time paradox, tigers will be involved in some way.



Now that's settled, in an upcoming session i am going to give my players the ability to acquire a special skill called dream projection, they will gain this by trading away their ability to dream to a fey spirit.

the skill itself will allow you to project your dreaming mind outside your body and observe the world while you sleep, your projection is ethereal in all regards and cannot affect the waking world in any way but can communicate with other projections, touching your sleeping body while projecting ends the effect.

going more then 30ft away from your body requires a dream projection check (thinking DC 10) and that allows you to operate within a mile of your body, if you fail the check you take 1 point of damage to a random ability score as your mind and body get unhinged. passing the check by an additional +5 lets you go an extra mile safely.

I want this skill to be something the players don't want to lose (new characters that come in wont have an opportunity to learn it) but at the same time I don't want it to ruin anyone's usefulness, as it stands we have a pixie rouge, a marshal, a soon to be master of nine, a psion and a warlock, so far none of them have any divination powers so I believe it wont overlap to much.

Does this sound like a skill that's to good to pass up maxing out or does it sound just about right for the costs you put in? (comparing it to other powerful skills such as UMD)

also at present it has no stat modifier, Probably will be Wis.

[gomipile]

First a note, DM's only, if your part of my D&D group looking at this post will cause a time paradox, tigers will be involved in some way.



Now that's settled, in an upcoming session i am going to give my players the ability to acquire a special skill called dream projection, they will gain this by trading away their ability to dream to a fey spirit.

the skill itself will allow you to project your dreaming mind outside your body and observe the world while you sleep, your projection is ethereal in all regards and cannot affect the waking world in any way but can communicate with other projections, touching your sleeping body while projecting ends the effect.

going more then 30ft away from your body requires a dream projection check (thinking DC 10) and that allows you to operate within a mile of your body, if you fail the check you take 1 point of damage to a random ability score as your mind and body get unhinged. passing the check by an additional +5 lets you go an extra mile safely.

I want this skill to be something the players don't want to lose (new characters that come in wont have an opportunity to learn it) but at the same time I don't want it to ruin anyone's usefulness, as it stands we have a pixie rouge, a marshal, a soon to be master of nine, a psion and a warlock, so far none of them have any divination powers so I believe it wont overlap to much.

Does this sound like a skill that's to good to pass up maxing out or does it sound just about right for the costs you put in? (comparing it to other powerful skills such as UMD)

also at present it has no stat modifier, Probably will be Wis.

The main problem I can think of is the fact that this skill could be useful for anyone. Where will the skill points come from? Will characters have to forego party-saving skills that they would otherwise have in order to devote skill points to this new skill?

Basically, try to make sure that adding this skill doesn't upset the role balance of your campaign.

Also, what makes sense to me is to have the penalty be temporary mental ability damage, not random damage that could include physical stats. Better yet, make it a 1 day ability penalty that doesn't change the underlying score, so that it can't make it easier to kill a character with Con damage if they happened to roll Con, for instance.

I'd probably make the distance that can be traveled exponential, doubling for every 5 points the DC is made by. One mile at 10, two at 15, four miles at 20, eight at 25, etc.

[Zero grim]

Thanks for the input, I suppose mental damage is a bit more fitting, I wanted going past your limit to hold risks, but I suppose falling into a coma is risk enough.

I was going to give the players a free skill point when they initially get the skill, originally I was thinking of having it run off feats, but I think the ability is to cost for feat slots.

my worry about making it going exponential further was that they could scout too much of the world, but then they're still limited to actually having to fly there, base land speed as fly speed (perfect)

in my settings I don't use a lot of dungeons or other such maze type areas the mysteries to uncover are usually around different groups and affiliations so I don't think it will ruin anything that way.