Rivethun Psychic: Best Infiltrator?

[Palanan]

The Rivethun psychic has a discipline power which allows you to transform into “anything possible for creatures of your type and subtype.” This is hardly overpowered, but as near as I can tell the baseline ability persists indefinitely, until you choose to make another transformation.

This sounds ideal for someone operating undercover, especially if they need to maintain multiple identities. It takes 24 hours to transform, so not as useful for quick getaways as a spell would be—but the Rivethun metamorphosis won’t ping as illusion magic, so it may be easier to slip through some forms of magical detection.

I’m also wondering if this would be overlooked by true seeing, since this isn’t technically a polymorph effect. Am I missing anything that would keep this from being a good option for an infiltrator?

[TheFamilarRaven]

Certainly a potent ability for infiltration scenarios, yes. But True Seeing does still detect it.


...sees the true form of polymorphed, changed, or transmuted things.

Basically True Seeing doesn't care if an ability is strictly called out as a [Polymorph] effect. As long as the creature or object was altered in some way by supernatural means, True Seeing picks up on it.

put another way, if True Seeing wouldn't detect the Rivethrun ability, you'd would necessary have to declare that True Seeing would not detect a lycanthrope when in animal form. (Since there transformation is an Su ability that is not labeled as a polymorph effect.)

[Palanan]

Okay, thanks for clarifying that this won't defeat True Seeing.

Still, it's an interesting ability, and I'm intrigued by the fact that you can take it at first level. Also handy for those of socially inconvenient heritage, such as tieflings or dhampirs.

[Florian]

It´s fitting to the lore and overall intend, as this is more or less the "trans" faction of Golarion, and also goes so far to not only be the basic male/female thing that we know in RL, but also goes into the whole fantasy species aspect of it.