Psychic skill unlocks? What are they?

[Segev]

I recently played my first PFS modules while at GenCon, and came across a reference to psychic skill unlocks. As I have the potential opportunity to pick one up for my character, I am curious what, exactly, they are. I know what regular skill unlocks are, and imagine these are similar, but I do not know what makes them different from the regular type, nor what the options for them are. This character is particularly Diplomacy-focused, so that would be the likely choice.

I'm told it has something to do with the new Occult book coming out. Any information people can share to help me figure out what it is and how worth it it is to look into is highly appreciated.

[Extra Anchovies]

They're cool things like hypnotism, automatic writing, aura sight, and dowsing that you get if you A) are trained in the relevant skill (respectively Diplomacy, Linguistics, Perception, and Survival for those listed) and B) can cast psychic spells or have the Psychic Sensitivity feat (you don't need both, so if you're a psychic caster, i.e. any OcA class except the Kineticist, you get them for free).

You can find them in Occult Adventures, at the start of the Occult Rules chapter. You should get the book; it's definitely worth $10 to have the PDF.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Classes with access to psychic spells or who pick up the feat "Psychic Sensitivity" get some additional options from a few skills.

Linguistics: Automatic Writing - Once per week, you can spend 1 hour asking questions and your hand will write down scribbles that could be random nonsense or the actual answers.

Survival: Dousing - Once per day you can use a dowsing rod. Lets you find water, graves, metals or gems.

Heal: Faith Healing - Once per day. Lets you temporarily suppress ability damage, curses, diseases or poisons. With an 8 hour ceremony and high DC you can remove curses, diseases or poisons.

Diplomacy: Hypnotism - Once per day you can implant a suggestion in a target or draw out a hidden memory.

Knowledge Arcana: Prenology - Once per day you can spend a minute being really creepy, rubbing somebodies head to get some knowledge about them.

Sense Motive: Prognostication - Once per day lets you cold read a target (getting info on their alignment, class and hit dice) and then get the benefits of casting Augury.

Appraise: Psychometry - Once per day, fiddle with an object to learn more about its last owner and the object's significance. There's potential to mess with your GMs plans if they give you a mysterious macguffin.

Perception: Read Aura - 1pd, look at a person's aura to determine their allignment, determine their emotional state (grants a bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and Sense Motives), determine they state of health (specific details on debuffs & usage of class resource pools), or ready magic aura's to skip past magic that attempts to block you from identifying the magical properties of an item.

[Segev]

Cool, thanks.

The Diplomacy one uses the rules for suggestion? Or does it have its own?

How obvious to observers are they when used?

And yeah, $10 doesn't sound too bad.

[Psyren]

You can also wait a few weeks for it to hit the PRD/PFSRD, but personally I find it's easier to browse the book or PDF when I'm learning something new, and these mechanics can be a bit tricky. I'm still trying to fully grok the Kineticist.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Cool, thanks.

The Diplomacy one uses the rules for suggestion? Or does it have its own?

How obvious to observers are they when used?

And yeah, $10 doesn't sound too bad.

Built off of Suggestion, but with changes to the rules. Your Diplomacy check is DC 20 + target's Will Save against mind affecting Enchantment (Compulsion) effects. If successful you implant the Suggestion (as per the spell) with a duration of 10 minutes + 10 additional minutes times the amount by which you exceeded the check. You also add a trigger for when the suggestion takes effect.

If the target is unwilling, the DC is increased by 10. Unwilling targets (or ones that become unwilling) get a will save against a DC equal to 10 + half your hit dice + your Cha mod.


You can also wait a few weeks for it to hit the PRD/PFSRD, but personally I find it's easier to browse the book or PDF when I'm learning something new, and these mechanics can be a bit tricky. I'm still trying to fully grok the Kineticist.

I'm also working through the mechanics so let me know if you want to chat. I think the class is going to excel as a switch hitter, as Kinetic Blade lets you take a full attack. I'm going to have to run through a lot of math, but I think Elemental Annihilator winds up being a straight down-grade.