List Of your favorite Custom Perks

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by onetrikpony

would this count as a perk or a feature?

Killer Smile

Your smile is a portent of doom.
you can make an intimidation test simply by smiling in your certain way, this requires no other overt action or dialogue on the part of the character.

If it's only a feature what benefit would make it a perk?

Being able to make an Intimidation attempt by doing essentially nothing, and not suffering any penalties, is a canonical Perk.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

Weasel Ward
In supernatural terms, you count as a weasel regardless of your actual form. This protects you from the petrifying gaze of the cockatrice, but no other magical hazards, and you cannot pass through magical barriers that block weasels.

It would let you pass wards that block humans but normally don't block weasels, though, which is appropriate for some magic systems. Check with your GM before getting it, of course.

Originally Posted by malloyd

I think the usual GURPS nomenclature would be Affected as Weasel, which is probably a better description (this doesn't *ward off* weasels) and somehow sounds funnier to me anyway.

Yeah, I'd say 'Affected as Weasel' works better, as long as you are also affected by spells like 'Summon Weasel' or 'Detect Weasel.'

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Accent adaptation (language): You can speak a specific foreign language without any accent, or at the very least with a local accent. Usually, slight accents will betray your origins as a foreigner even if your language is flawless enough to count as "Native". This perk allows you to speak like a native (If you have English as a second language, you will be able to flawlessly speak English with the accent of any English Speaking place you have this perk for (London accent, Scottish accent, Texan Accent...). This perk is mostly useful for spies or people wishing to cancel reaction penalties for people with people who are distrustful of your nationality.

Androgynous voice: You can flawlessly sound like a male or female of your species, regardless of what your actual biological sex is, whichever may be convenient for you at any given moment. A variation can be taken for a robot with a flawless voice module that has a male and female setting, or for any given species for a shapeshifter (each species (elf, dwarf, human, whatever alien lives in the setting...). You mitigate -1 of penalty to disguise yourself as the other sex, and in purely audio conversation where nobody can see you, you can pass as either male or female, at your convenience, without having to roll. Many professional Japanese voice actors have this perk as they are often cast as both sexes during their career.

[Flyndaran]

Accents?
I wonder how one would develop a Linguistic Talent but limited only to accents. I don't even know if normal Language Talent would or should include it.

There are some interesting youtube videos by linguists analyzing movie actors' attempts at such things.

Of course shibboleths being very important to real world spy detection.

Which also relates to your androgynous voice perk. It's not overt, but men and women talk slightly differently even in English. Not just in pitch, but in word choice and certain intonations. For example, around here and back in the 90s, the only people I heard end statements with a questioning tone were female. It's common now for both genders.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I wonder how one would develop a Linguistic Talent but limited only to accents. I don't even know if normal Language Talent would or should include it.

Well, ordinary Language Talent makes it cheaper to have Native ability, which is much less accented than Accented ability. I've seen players take Accent perks (Power-Ups 2, p12) for languages that weren't their native one, to help with masquerades. I think I'd be happy as a GM with a Meta-Accent advantage [5] which lets you adopt any accent you're familiar with (8 hours conversation with people who have it) in any language you have at Broken or better.

Which also relates to your androgynous voice perk. It's not overt, but men and women talk slightly differently even in English. Not just in pitch, but in word choice and certain intonations.

It's really pretty obvious in Glasgow English. I once encountered a dispensing optician who was clearly from Edinburgh, which is a distinctive accent for women. But her technical vocabulary was pronounced like a Glaswegian man, which sounded very weird. I asked about it, and she'd been one of two women in a cohort of about fifty at college in Glasgow, which made perfect sense.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Accents?
I wonder how one would develop a Linguistic Talent but limited only to accents. I don't even know if normal Language Talent would or should include it.

What would it even do? Remember you always speak with *some* accent - people with "no accent" typically are using a high prestige one - so you can't just say it removes them. If you want to be able to imitate a lot of different accents, you want the Mimicry skill.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

What would it even do? Remember you always speak with *some* accent - people with "no accent" typically are using a high prestige one - so you can't just say it removes them. If you want to be able to imitate a lot of different accents, you want the Mimicry skill.

That's a much more encompassing ability yet always limited by rolling. If I know West Coast English and Boston English, then I wouldn't ever need to roll to speak them.

[Celti]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

Accent adaptation (language): You can speak a specific foreign language without any accent, or at the very least with a local accent. Usually, slight accents will betray your origins as a foreigner even if your language is flawless enough to count as "Native". This perk allows you to speak like a native (If you have English as a second language, you will be able to flawlessly speak English with the accent of any English Speaking place you have this perk for (London accent, Scottish accent, Texan Accent...). This perk is mostly useful for spies or people wishing to cancel reaction penalties for people with people who are distrustful of your nationality.

Accent is a canonical perk, page 12 of Power-Ups 2.

[Donny Brook]

Multifaceted - Similar to Dabbler, Multifaceted allows you to buy off one point of negative die modifier for eight defaulting skill rolls, however Multifaceted is for defaults between related skills. The -1 for eight subjects is fungible between bonus and number of skills in the same way Dabbler is. The maximum improvement is to a -1 default roll.

Example 1: Dawn is trained in Electronics Repair (Sensors), but hey, she loves electronics, so she's always reading what's going on in other fields. So she buys Multifaceted, Electronics Repair (Force Fields, Security, Comm, EW, Media, Scientific, Surveillance and Medical). She can now default her rolls against those specialties at -3 instead of -4.

Example 2: Phil is a famous lion tamer. He has Animal Handling (Big Cats). He is also an avid conservationist and his success has allowed him to fund an animal rescue center in Kenya. He lives there and works with the staff. He has now done a lot of work with other fauna, and has Multifaceted, Animal Handling (Canines, Ungulates, Primates and Rodentia). He can now default his rolls against those specialties at -2 instead of -4.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Multifaceted - Similar to Dabbler, Multifaceted allows you to buy off one point of negative die modifier for eight defaulting skill rolls, however Multifaceted is for defaults between related skills. The -1 for eight subjects is fungible between bonus and number of skills in the same way Dabbler is. The maximum improvement is to a -1 default roll.

If I've understood this correctly, it under-prices improved defaults considerably.

Say I have one Electronics Repair (IQ/A) specialty at IQ+4, which costs [16]. All the other specialties default at IQ, and it would cost [2] each to buy them up to IQ+1. With Multifaceted, I can buy 8 of them up to IQ+1 for [1], which does seem a bit too good.

Alternatively, I can use Multifaceted to buy two of them up to IQ+3 (a default penalty of -1) for [1], instead of the [24] it would cost to buy the specialties that high.

This only really bites when you have more than [4] in a single skill. That's comparative rare for IQ skills in my experience, but fairly common for DX skills, notably weapons and Stealth.