Feats & Skills

Feats
    List of Feats and Their Prerequisites
    Feat Descriptions
Skills
   Intuit Direction (Wis) New use
   Speak/Write Language (Int) Revised use

List of Feats and Their Prerequisites

Aura of Mystique [General]
Bareback Riding [General]
        Ride skill
Calligraphy Master [General]
        4 or more ranks in Craft (Calligraphy)
Chaer' Run Warrior Training [General]
        Korobokuru
    Superior Chaer' Run Warrior Training [General]
            Korobokuru
Clan Provider [General]
Dedicated [General]
        8 or more ranks in a skill
        Skill Focus in appropriate skill
Easy Listening [General]
Flower Arranging Master [General]
        4 or more ranks in Craft (Flower Arranging)
Guiding [General]
Inertial Shield [Psionic]
        Inertial Armor
        Con 11+
        Reserve power points 4+ 
Light Sleep [General]
        Listen skill
Makuran Fire-Walking [General]
Martial Art Dodge [General]
        BAB +1
        Dex 13+
        Improved Unarmed Strike
        Dodge
        Wis 13+
Meditate [General]
        Concentration skill
    Heal Self [General]
            Meditate
            Concentration skill
            Wis 15+
    Levitate [General]
            Concentration skill
            Meditate
            Wis 15+
Mountain Hermit [General]
Painting Master [General]
        4 or more ranks in Craft (Painting)
Poetry Master [General]
        4 or more ranks in Craft (Poetry)
Psychic Awareness [Psionic]
        Awareness
        Wis 13+
        11 reserve power points or more
Shou Ken "Flight" [General]
Sleep in Armor [General]
        Armor proficiency
Tael's Blessing [Ancestor]
Tea Master [General]
        4 or more ranks in Craft (Tea Ceremony)
Thick Skull [General]
        Con 13+
Wako [General]
Wolf Handling [General]

Feat Descriptions

Aura of Mystique [Ancestor]
Your origins in a fabled place make you a popular person.
Region: Makura (Wei Than), Kainuik Wastelands (Sefa), Takara Ken (Tengu), Miusha
Benefits: Due to the aura of mysterious you possess as one coming from a fabled place, you are often the object of suspicion. You obtain a +2 bonus to Intimidate. Additionally, you know hengeyokai, tengu, or the spirit tongue (or have 1 rank in it if using the revised Speak Language skill).

Bareback Riding [General]
You are skilled at riding without a saddle.
Prerequisite: Ride skill
Benefit: You suffer no penalty for riding bareback on a chosen type of mount.
Normal: Riding bareback imposes a -5 circumstantial penalty on Ride skill checks.
Special: This feat can be taken more than once, and each time it applies to a different type of mount (note that all normal horses count as one type of mount), although the DM may require a check when an unusual mount is doing unusual maneuvers (e.g., a griffon flying loops).

Calligraphy Master [General]
Your mastery in shodo, the art of calligraphy, extends into your daily life.
Prerequisites: 4 or more ranks in Craft (Calligraphy)
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to Intuit Direction and Innuendo skill checks.

Chaer' Run Warrior Training [General]
Training as a member of the warriors from Chaer' Run tribe has made you durable.
Region: Kainuik Wastelands (usually Chaer' Run Tribe)
Benefits: You receive damage reduction against blunt attacks equal to -/1. Chaer' Run warriors are known among their brethren for training by smashing themselves with stone anvils. Most PCs and NPCs that take this feat are korobokuru.
Special: This feat stacks with any class feature or magic that also grants damage reduction.

Clan Provider [General]
You can survive in harsh climates and hunt food effectively.
Region: Kainuik Wastelands
Benefits: Your rearing in some of the harshest climates of Kainuik has taught you to survive off the land; you receive a +2 bonus to Wilderness Lore skill checks. You are also a skilled hunter or fisher; choose either Profession (Hunting) or Profession (Fishing) and add +2 to your skill checks.

Dedicated [General]
Your devotion to an activity allows you confident success.
Prerequisites: 8 or more ranks in any one skill, Skill Focus in that skill
Choose any skill in which you have 8 or more ranks and for which you have taken the Skill Focus feat. From this point on, you can "take 10" with that skill even if the situation has dire consequences for failure or if you are under pressure.
Note: This feat is inspired by the Japanese propensity to practice a single activity (e.g., baseball, calligraphy, etc.) to the exclusion of any other. While it disallows such people the "Renaissance man" ideal, they become true experts.

Easy Listening [General]
Your experience in one of the volatile communities of Kokubura has enabled you to decipher when it's safe to stay, and when it's time to evacuate before the monks or some such horror come down out of the mountains.
Region: Kokubura cities of Himei (on Makura), Sakara (Takara Ken), and Marahiru (Kukuri Prefecture).
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to Gather Information and Innuendo.

Flower Arranging Master [General]
Your expertise in ikebana, flower arranging, allows you insight into normal life.
Prerequisites: 4 or more ranks in Craft (Flower Arranging)
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to Detect Motive and Innuendo.

Forlorn [General]
You face adversity with determination.
Region: Miusha Wastelands
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to all Will saves and +2 to Intimidate skill checks.

Guiding [General]
The itinerant nature of your past has taught you to go and come back again - without getting lost.
Region: Kainuik Wastelands
Benefit: The marshes of the Kainuik Wastelands can seem monotonous and without landmarks; thus anyone with a good sense of direction is valuable to the tribes that wander across it's terrain. You receive a +2 bonus to Intuit Direction and Profession (Guide) skill checks.

Heal Self [General]
You have mastered the power of your mind over your body.
Prerequisites: Concentration skill, Meditate, Wis 15+
Benefit: By meditating, you can cause your body to heal faster than if it were simply resting. You recover a number of hp of damage equal to your Wisdom bonus (if any) per hour. You can maintain this curative state for a number of hours equal to your Wisdom bonus per day, with at least 8 hours between uses. If your concentration is broken (e.g., by being attacked), you cannot recover hp that hour and you "spend" that hour from your daily allotment.  This ability can be combined with nomral rest (or full rest) when a character is recovering from wounds.

Inertial Shield [Psionic]
You can use your inertial armor as a shield.
Prerequisite: Inertial Armor, Con 11+, Reserve power points 4+
Benefit: Once per round as a free action on your move, you can decide whether to evoke inertial armor as an all-around defense (providing a +4 armor bonus) or as a shield that provides cover for half the battlefield and a +7 armor bonus against physical attacks.  You can pivot the shield as a free action once per round, with you as the point of rotation.  If you have between only 1 and 3 power points, you are limited to manifesting the normal form of inertial armor.  Inertial shield does not stack with other armor bonuses, and does not provide a bonus to Reflex saves.
Normal: Inertial armor normally provides a +4 armor bonus to attacks from any direction..

Levitate [General]
You can "fly" simply by focusing your mind.
Prerequisites: Concentration skill, Meditate, Wis 15+
Benefit: When you enter a state of meditation, you can will yourself to float slowly off the ground. Your base speed is 10' per round with perfect maneuverabilty, and you must maintain concentration. Distractions require you to pass a Concentration check (with a DC as if you were casting a second level spell), or fall to the ground from your current altitude. Although this feat is called "levitation," you are not restricted to vertical movement. Nevertheless, you cannot do anything more than meditate and float; casting spells, combat, reading, and even speaking break your concentration.
        Note that normal use of the Meditate feat does not allow you to make Spot checks (and thusly implied, "see").  When levitating however, you are visually aware enough of your surroundings to guide yourself.

Light Sleep [General]
The character awakes with the slightest stimulus.
Requirement: One or more ranks in the Listen skill
Benefit: The character can make listen checks at anytime when he is asleep. The character will awake instantly and will be ready for combat that same round.
Normal: Characters are usually penalized when making Listening checks while asleep.

Makuran Fire-Walking [General]
Due to devotional practices involving walking across rocks heated by volcanic action, you are especially resistant to fire damage.
Region: Must have spent time as a devotee of the Temple Makura on the island of Makura.
Benefits: You obtain a +2 bonus on saving throws against fire and have a fire resistance of 2.

Martial Art Dodge [General]
Through your training in the martial arts, you have learned to dodge and deflect blows.
Prerequisites: BAB +1, Dex 13+, Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, Wis 13+
Benefit: You can add your Wisdom modifier to you AC when fighting with an unarmed fighting style, wearing no armor, and lightly encumbered.  This bonus does not stack with other Wisdom-based bonuses to AC, and unlike that of a monk's, it doesn't apply when you are flat-footed or would otherwise be denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.  It's a pet peeve of mine that unless you're a monk in D&D, knowing martial arts does nothing for your AC.

Meditate [General]
Through a variety of mental means, you can concentrate on inner peace while not shutting out the outside world.
Prerequisites: Concentration skill
Benefit: You can meditate. It takes one minute to enter a state of meditation, but it can be relinquished immediately and without penalty. While meditating, you are somewhat oblivious to hunger and thirst; you starve and dehydrate at half the normal rate. Every round, you also gain a damage reduction against fire and cold of 1 hp per point of Wisdom bonus you possess (if any). One hour of meditation is as restful as two hours of sleep. While meditating, you cannot make Spot checks, but Listen checks are made as normal.

Mountain Hermit [General]
Your lone wandering in the mountains has enabled you to overcome obstacles (literally, by climbing) and defend yourself against angered spirits.
Region: Kokubura (Ki Mai Mountains, Shau Lai Mountains, Tai Pho Mountains, Sheng and Myo Sheng Mountains).
Benefit: You receive +1 to Climb and Wilderness Lore skill checks and +2 to saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities used by creatures with the Spirit subtype.

Painting Master [General]
Your ability to depict life enhances your own life.
Prerequisite: 4 or more ranks in Craft (Painting)
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to Search and Concentration skill checks.

Poetry Master [General]
Your verse imparts a virtue into the way you relate to the world.
Prerequisite: 4 or more ranks in Craft (Poetry)
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to Innuendo and Diplomacy checks

Psychic Awareness [Psionic]
Your psionic powers allow you to detect subtle nuances in the environment.
Prerequisites: Awareness, Wis 13+, 11 reserve power points
Benefit: Whenever you have 11 reserve power points or more, you can add a +2 bonus to Spot and Listen checks.

Shou Ken "Flight" [General]
Religious devotion to the Shou Ken philosophy allows you to spring into motion from a standstill faster than most.
Region: Must have spent time as a devotee of the Shou Ken Cloisters on the island of Makura.
Benefits: You add +2 to initiative rolls and +2 to all Jump skill checks.

Sleep in Armor [General]
You can sleep in armor without ill effects.
Prerequisite: Armor proficiency
Benefit: You can sleep in armor with a -5 penalty check to skills or greater and not suffer ill effects.
Normal: Resting in sleepwear (armor) with a -5 or greater penalty to skill checks requires a Fortitude save to avoid fatigue. At the DM's option however, some types of armor can be "stripped down," such as half-plate being reduced to breastplate.

Superior Chaer' Run Warrior Training [General]
You are truly hardened against pain, perhaps because you can't feel it.
Region: Kainuik Wastelands (usually Chaer' Run Tribe)
Prerequisite: Chaer' Run Warrior Training feat
Benefit: You receive damage reduction against all physical attacks of -/1. Most PCs and NPCs that take this feat are korobokuru. Your Intelligence is reduced by 2 in addition to any modifiers on account of race, etc.
Special: This does not stack with the damage reduction provided by the Chaer' Run Warrior Training feat; it supplants it.  It does stack with other types of damage reduction.

Tael's Blessing [Ancestor]
Your origins from Tael lend you an aura of fear - foes are reluctant to put you to death, at least with their own hands.
Region: Makura (Village of Tael)
Benefits: Any foe that physically exacts damage to you sufficient to reduce you below 0 hp also receives damage equivalent to the number of hp they reduce you below 0. This does not alleviate any of the damage you receive, however. For example, Myora has 8 hp and is struck by a dai-oni for 15 hp, bringing her to -7. The dai-oni thus receives 7 hp of damage. The maximum damage any foe can receive is 10 hp per character from Tael they take down.
Tael is noted for its "curse" which supposedly will wreak unparalleled misfortune upon any who plunder there.
Special: Some people from this village play into this protective curse by openly wearing the insignia of Tael, though doing so also incurs a -4 penalty to Bluff, Gather Information, and Diplomacy skill checks.  Likewise, informing a person of your origins will usualy result in the same penalties.

Tea Master [General]
You have discovered not only calmness but purpose in the way of serving tea.
Prerequisites: 4 or more ranks in Craft (Tea Ceremony)
Benefit: You gain +2 bonus to saving throws against fear and a +2 bonus to Concentration.

Thick Skull [General]
You are inured against stunning attacks.
Prerequisites: Con 13+
Benefit: You receive a +4 to your saving throw against magical or mundane stunning attacks. You also have damage reduction of normal attack/1 (that is, you have a damage reduction of 1 hp against subdual damage).

Wako [General]
Your ability to pilot a ship and plunder is truly fearsome.
Region: Wako-to archipegio, southern coast of Makura (Korububara, T'aeru Ko, or Tara Ko).
Benefits: You add +2 to your Profession (Sailor) and Search skills.

Wolf Handling [General]
You are skilled at calling and taming wolves.
Region: Kainuik Wastelands (usually Kainuik or Yoroke Tribe)
Benefits: You gain a +2 bonus to Handle Animal skill checks when dealing with dogs (including wolves) and a +1 bonus to Ride skill checks when using them as mounts, if you can. You can also imitate wolf calls, and with a successful opposed check between your Wilderness Lore check and a wolf's Will save, you can call any to within sighting range if any of the animals are close enough to hear you. Most PCs and NPCs who take this feat are korobokuru.

Skills

Intuit Direction (Wis, New Use)
You can intuit direction when you can't normally sense your environment (e.g., when blinded).
Check: When blinded or in darkness, you can make a skill check with a DC of 15 to find your way to a specific destination (e.g., back to a doorway). Unless you were specifically immobile, for every round you spend blinded or in darkness, the DC increases by 1. If finding your way to the desired locale takes more than one round, you must make an additional skill check each round. You must have an idea where the desired locale is (e.g., you must know that a doorway was in front of you before you were blinded). The DM may allows certain checks to be easier or more difficult, depending on circumstances, such as companions calling for you. This skill does not allows you to locate creatures when you are blinded or in darkness (the Blind Fighting and Blindsight feats can do that); it simply applies to direction.
        When moving in darkness or if blinded you move at one third your normal speed, unless you have the Blind Fighting feat, in which case your movement penalty is halved.
Retry: You must make a new check each round you use this skill. If you fail, you cannot make any more use of this skill until you are re-oriented (e.g., sight is restored, or a friend points you in the correct direction).

Speak Language (Int, Trained Only; Revised)
You can speak and write a language with proficiency.
Note: This skill has been revised because learning to speak and write another language takes a lot more effort than the simple spending of one or two skill points, as the PHB would imply. I know!  I have been living in Japan for the last 3 years!
Check: You never need to make a skill check to use your native language (that is, you can always "take 20," even under stressful circumstances. You can also "take 20" for languages normally granted your race (e.g., elves speak elven and common). In a sense, these are not skill-based since they never require checks.
If you learn a new language however, or earn a bonus language through high Intelligence, these are subject to the rules governing skills. That is, you must make skill checks to see if you can communicate with another creature in that language.  The skill checks are as follows:

* These are cumulative.
** This can be used to reduce the communication time between two parties to a "natural" pace (as if they were natural speakers). In this case, the normal amount of time required for a check should be determined by the DM.

To use the Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Innuendo skills in a learned language, the character must first succeed in a language skill check. You might also be required to use this skill before you make a Perform check, depending on the type of performance. A character can "take 10" in a situation that isn't urgent or stressful, but can never "take 20," except with languages that he knows through his race (explained above).
        If two speakers of a non-native language meet (e.g., a dryad and a derro speaking to one another in elven), they only need make one skill check, but use the skill check of the member who has the lowest score, since that person is who will limit communication.
        The DM can always rule that a character, can speak as if a native (e.g., always "take 20") after having spent a long time (many years) in an "immersion environment" (that is, in a place where the character's native tongue is not spoken).

Use: Speak Language takes at least one round per point of the DC to convey or receive information. That is, a conversation about magic (DC 18) in an urgent situation (+5) would require 23 rounds to complete (one party explaining and the other listening and asking questions). How often the skill must be utilized in a conversation or while reading written work is left to the DM to decide. After the requisite time span, the DM makes a skill check to determine if the character understood or made himself understood. Failure indicates the information was not conveyed; a failure by 5 or more means that incorrect information was interpreted.

Retry: You can make as many retries as your audience has patience for, although the DM may rule that some conversations are simply beyond your listener's (or your) ken. If you are using this skill to interpret something written, you cannot make a retry until you earn at least one more rank in the language you are trying to interpret.

Special: You gain a +2 synergy bonus to this skill check if you have 5 or more ranks in Innuendo. You also receive a +2 synergy bonus to understand other's communications when they are speaking to you if you have at least 5 ranks in Sense Motive. If you have 5 or more ranks in Decipher Script, you gain a +2 synergy bonus when attempting to read a "foreign" language with this skill. These bonuses stack with each other and apply to the use of any languages you can utilize with the Speak Language skill.

Special: High Intelligence grants the ability to learn bonus languages, but these must be learned with this skill. If a character has access to a bonus language, he can know any language to which he has access, and he has 1 rank in the skill to speak that language. Subsequent Intelligence bonus points can be devoted to learning other languages or "spent" on a one-for-one basis as skill points to improve a character's ability with a language he already knows (although Speak Language is a cross-class skill for most classes, and each point only buys half a rank). These extra skill points can only be spent on a language and are available to a character usually only at first level or if his Intelligence increases. They are in addition to any normal skill points granted by class, level, and race.

Special: At the DM's option, you can spend one point on this skill to either read and write OR speak and listen to a language. In this case, the skill point should count double (for 1 rank if Speak Language is a cross-class skill, for 2 ranks if it is a class skill). You should also keep track of how many ranks you have in each aspect of the language (oral or written).

The Wu Jen