Reason
Description
Ability Score Used: Choose One Usable Untrained? No (Bailiwick) Armor Check Penalty Applies? No
Only Alchemists and Monks may learn this bailiwick skill. No other class may place ranks in it unless they have an ability which specifically states they may put ranks into a bailiwick skill not normally offered by their class. A bailiwick skill is a new skill that represents the core competency of a style of adventure, and has many useful applications.
The Reason skill is an expression of your practical knowledge of all things related to cognition, philosophy and thinking, regardless of your intelligence score. Inductive and deductive reasoning comes naturally to you. For each rank a character places in Reason, the character receives a free rank in Knowledge (Logic). Note that no character may ever have more ranks in a skill than her character level.
Each character class gains a single bailiwick skill at character creation, and this bailiwick skill is always a natural talent for your character. When you place your first rank in this skill, you must select one of your ability modifiers, and use that ability modifier as the key ability modifier for this skill. Once selected, this ability modifier may not be changed, except through the Character Retraining rules. Natural talent skills never suffer an armor check penalty, even if you associate that skill with your STR or DEX modifier.
If you gain a second bailiwick skill (usually through a racial trait), it is not automatically a natural talent (even though you typically get to choose which of your ability score modifiers is aligned to the second bailiwick skill). Armor check penalties do apply to the second bailiwick skill if you choose to associate it with your STR or DEX modifier, and you do not gain matching ranks in the linked skill for that bailiwick skill (in the case of reason, Knowledge (Logic)).
As with all skills, the uses below are merely suggestions, and by no means the full gamut of possible ways a skill can be used. Players and GM's are encouraged to find additional ways to use each skill.
Determine Tactics of Mindless Creature
| Reason may be used to figure out how a creature that is mindless will behave based on its situational awareness and general purpose. This requires a standard action to perform, and the DC is 10 + the creature's CR. Characters may instead attempt a DC of 20 + the creature's CR to perform this as a swift action. | |
| Action Required: | |
| DC of Check: |
10 + creature's CR (or 20 + creature's CR) |
| Modifiers to Check | |
| Take 10? / Take 20? | |
| Allows Assists? | |
| Results of Success | |
| Consequences of Failure | |
| Retry Allowed? |
Yes, this can be attempted on a subsequent round. A character may not make more than one attempt in the same round, however. |
| Provokes AOO? | |
Rapid Mathematics
| It is a standard action to tally loose coins, or perform some other feat of mathematics in your head. | |
| Action Required: |
Free action (during your turn) |
| DC of Check: |
10 + double CR of the feat attempted |
| Modifiers to Check | |
| Take 10? / Take 20? | |
| Allows Assists? | |
| Results of Success | |
| Consequences of Failure | |
| Retry Allowed? |
No. If you fail at your first attempt, you will most likely believe you are correct until shown otherwise, and then only if the person correcting you shows all their work. |
| Provokes AOO? | |
Convert Spell to Extract
| It takes one hour of studying the spell to be converted before a Reason check may be made. If the check is successful, it takes another 1 hour per spell level (or 30 minutes for a zero-level spell) to inscribe the formula of the new extract into your formula book. | |
| Action Required: | |
| DC of Check: |
15 + spell level |
| Modifiers to Check | |
| Take 10? / Take 20? | |
| Allows Assists? | |
| Results of Success | |
| Consequences of Failure | |
| Retry Allowed? |
If you fail to convert a spell to an extract, you must wait at least 1 week before you can try again. |
| Provokes AOO? | |
Identify Magic Item
| You can use reason to identify the properties and command words (if any) of a magic item you are holding. This is identical to the Divinity and Spellcraft ability to identify magic items. It is also very similar to the Barter ability, except that it is faster.
Reason may also be used to assist another party member's attempt at determining the properties of a magic item, even if the other party member is using a different skill to make the check. | |
| Action Required: |
3 rounds per item you are attempting to identify |
| DC of Check: |
10 + double the caster level of the item |
| Modifiers to Check |
- |
| Take 10? / Take 20? |
No |
| Allows Assists? |
Yes (up to 5 allies). |
| Results of Success |
Item is identified, including the command words (if any) needed to trigger its magical properties. |
| Consequences of Failure |
Item is not identified |
| Retry Allowed? |
You must wait 24 hours before retrying on the same item. Any attempts in the meantime always fail. |
| Provokes AOO? |
Yes |
Craft Magic Item
| When combined with the Creator feat, reason can be used to create magic items.
A day of crafting a magic item is 8 uninterrupted hours of work in an appropriate work space. While you can do other things during that day, you must have 8 consecutive hours in your work space for it to count towards the number of days required to make the magic item. Working fewer than 8 hours at a time fails to reduce the number of days required to finish the work – you can't work fractions of days and then add them together to create a day of work. Days of work need not be consecutive. You can take breaks or go adventuring, then come back and keep working, and this does not harm the final product in any way, except to delay its completion date. However, if you begin working on a different magic item before the first one is finished, all work on the first one is lost, and any components used for its creation are destroyed, just as if you had failed the check. | |
| Action Required: |
2 days, +1 day per caster level of the item being created. You can never reduce the time to create a magic item below 3 days, no matter how well you roll. |
| DC of Check: |
|
| Modifiers to Check |
If you are attempting to create a magic item that has more than one enchantment on it, the caster level of the item is determined by taking the highest caster level of the enchantments you wish to add, and then adding +3 caster levels to that number for each additional enchantment you are adding after the first. The maximum caster level of an item is 35, and if an item's caster level is above 21, you cannot create that item until you have at least 21 ranks in your bailiwick skill. |
| Take 10? / Take 20? |
No |
| Allows Assists? |
Yes, but only if each assisting ally has Cooperative Crafting (Feat). Up to 5 allies with that feat may assist. |
| Results of Success |
You create the magic item after the designated number of days. |
| Consequences of Failure |
|
| Retry Allowed? |
Yes, though you must procure new components to replace the destroyed ones, and begin the process again. You gain a +5 circumstance bonus on each retry after a failure, as you incorporate your new knowledge of what not to do. |
| Provokes AOO? |
Yes. Don't try this during combat. |
Identify an Object's Creator (Epic Use)
| Action Required: | |
| DC of Check: |
DC 40 + caster level of item |
| Modifiers to Check |
|
| Take 10? / Take 20? | |
| Allows Assists? | |
| Results of Success |
You learn the name of the creator. If you succeed by 5 or more, you learn the name of the creator, infer all professions that creator is skilled at (not just the one used to create this object), and surmise the city in which their primary work space is located. |
| Consequences of Failure | |
| Retry Allowed? | |
| Provokes AOO? | |
Learn Secret Language (Epic Use)
| Action Required: | |
| DC of Check: | |
| Modifiers to Check | |
| Take 10? / Take 20? | |
| Allows Assists? | |
| Results of Success | |
| Consequences of Failure | |
| Retry Allowed? | |
| Provokes AOO? | |