Akashik!

[Emerikol]

So I like the idea of some people having the ability to tap into the collective mind. So for knowledge based skills it’s kind of like a bang skill. It won’t give anyone the ability to do a skill based task. Just pure knowledge like you’d read in a book but never practiced.

I was thinking though that this would be more like an inate ability improved by talent. It lets you roll IQ + talent

1. If anyone has witnessed directly something recently it’s at no penalty.
2. If only the dead remember it’s a penalty.
3. If it’s not been thought about for a long time there is a penalty.

Penalties would be cumulative.

What would this cost you think? Not a lot if anything for the base because in some ways thats a default already. Maybe the talent though has a price. 5/level maybe?

[Anders]

This sounds a lot like Wild Talent limited to skills. Have you looked at that?

[whswhs]

It sounds sort of like a Modular Ability with an unusual source for the abilities.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

So I like the idea of some people having the ability to tap into the collective mind. So for knowledge based skills it’s kind of like a bang skill. It won’t give anyone the ability to do a skill based task. Just pure knowledge like you’d read in a book but never practiced.

See "Reading the Akashic Record" on p. 213 of Banestorm. It's Modular Abilities (Cosmic) with limitations. If you want to avoid it being used for doing things, limit it to Expert Skills.

[Ulzgoroth]

It actually sounds superficially a lot like Racial Memory.

Except that it's way, way more powerful as an immediate intelligence source. You can, rolling at no penalty, report on every currently-active secret project on the planet in detail. It's fantastically powerful post-cognitive clairvoyance. Using it to get knowledge of actual skills is overlooking the real power.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It actually sounds superficially a lot like Racial Memory.

Except that it's way, way more powerful as an immediate intelligence source. You can, rolling at no penalty, report on every currently-active secret project on the planet in detail. It's fantastically powerful post-cognitive clairvoyance. Using it to get knowledge of actual skills is overlooking the real power.

This. I like all the other ideas presented, even made an RPM spell for it "Hall of Records" but I go the Racial Memory route with some modifiers and alternative abilities.