New Power: Bless

[The Shadow]

Bless (Fatiguing)

Make a power check as if it were an Aid Another attempt. The subject (who you must touch) gets that bonus to a type of check or save of your choice for a number of times equal to your Wisdom. Alternatively, you can apply half that bonus to *all* of the subject's checks and saves, again for a number of times equal to your Wisdom. No subject may benefit from more than one Blessing at a time; generally only the most recent Blessing applies. You can't Bless yourself.

Time: Full-round action.

Is it balanced? One could replace Wisdom with one's key ability if desired, to make a more generic "buff" spell. Perhaps attack rolls should be forbidden, to avoid stepping on the toes of Enhance Other.

One could also reverse this into a Curse power, I suppose - the subject would get a Will save to resist. Not as flavorful as aaronil's delightful Curse power, but still fun. :)

[DnDChick]

I've been thinking about doing something like this myself!

Thanks for saving me the trouble.

When I have a bit more time, I'll see if I can come up with some suggestions for your concerns.

[The Shadow]

Free o' charge. :)

I wonder if it's a wise idea to have the most recent Blessing apply. I can see how it could lead to metagamey stuff like Blessing your enemies at minimum rank to get rid of the powerful Blessings they had before.

Maybe if someone is already under an unexpired Blessing, new Blessings just don't work.

EDIT: One could also take a page from GURPS...

The Blessing lasts until the subject rolls a natural 1. At that point, the Blessing "gives its all" to turn the roll into the minimum required for a success and expires.

This doesn't feel quite right for True20, though. It could be really long-lasting, depending on the type of roll chosen.

[Jonathan Moyer]

FWIW, for a Bless effect, I would use the Enhance Other arcana but just allow it to apply to any ability score. I would explain the bonus as a god granting his/her/its grace, so a +2 to Int doesn't necessarily mean you get smarter, it just means the god reveals certain information (covertly or overtly) that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

EDIT - I guess I'd do a curse similarly, perhaps make an "Inhibit Other" arcana that gives out penalties instead of bonuses.

EDIT 2.0 - I made a typo!

[The Shadow]

FWIW, for a Bless effect, I would use the Enhance Other arcana but just allow it to apply to any ability score. I would explain the bonus as a god granting his/her/its grace, so a +2 to Int doesn't necessarily mean you get smarter, it just means the god reveals certain information (covertly or overtly) that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

Hmm. Short and sweet - I like it!

Though I'd like the ability to Bless a type of check that isn't necessarily affected by any one ability score... imagine blessing someone's next few Wealth checks, for example. I suppose that's an easy enough thing to put in.

[Jonathan Moyer]

Though I'd like the ability to Bless a type of check that isn't necessarily affected by any one ability score... imagine blessing someone's next few Wealth checks, for example. I suppose that's an easy enough thing to put in.

Perhaps Enhance Other can be expanded to also bestowing a Feat of the caster's choice on the subject of the spell. So the subject could temporarily gain the the Wealthy feat or something.

I think a +1 ability = 1 Feat would be a good tradeoff. So if you roll a "+2" result, you could bestow a +2 on one ability, a +1 on two abilities, a +1 on one ability and one Feat, or two Feats. Does that sound reasonable?