ToME WikiContents
Note on Contents: This page details not only those abilities that can be bought with skill points but all kind of stuff... I may have to do some restructuring/page deleting once I figure out how to arrange all of this nicely.
A General Note on Sensoria
Every human and non-humam player character has a sensorium which grants increased senses. If you wondered how a character in a roguelike game could have an idea of what was behind him or her while surrounded by monsters, now you have an explanation. For mechs a sensorium or something like it is a part of their fundamental circuitry. In the case of humans the sensorium was added in order to stay competitive with the mechs.
The size of a sensorium field, a tactics setting, can be turned down or it can be shut down altogether. Humans retain the power of natural sight even without a functioning sensorium, but mechs are blind. A powered-down sensorium makes it harder for mechs to notice someone's presence by affecting their detection radius. On the other hand many pseudo-magical effects, most notably things like all detection effects, use sensorium as a tool they depend on and have a power level that correlates with it. Some mechs can have very wide sensoria.
Some mechs can attack the sensorium of another being causing various effects. Mindcraft in this context would be turning their tricks against them. A completely shut sensorium does not make one immune to mental attacks, since the circuits are still there, but may provide some extra saving throw. Mindcraft is another of those things that depends on one's sensorium.
Having sensorium turned down is a very good way to avoid seeing invisible monsters, even warm-blooded ones in the case of humans.
Overall, the characters in the books kept their sensorium up and turned it down for special situations. I think a similar pattern should be sensible in this module too.
Abilities
Aura of Fear
You can make some enemies flee by your imposing presence alone.
Food Safety Detection
You have a chip in your little finger that automatically warns you if you try to eat contaminated food.
Forage
You can find something edible pretty much anywhere.
Invisibility
Invisibility is at its bottom an real physical effect caused by an ability to project an illusionary image that matches the real background. No illusion is perfect, but some can be very hard to detect.
Both player and monster invisibilites work somewhat like player invisibility in the current ToME. An invisible creature may or may not be visible in a given turn. The probability of seeing an invisible creature depends on the following:
- Level of invisibility
- Perception
- Intelligence bonus
- Random equipment bonuses
- Guaranteed bonuses from things like mapping gear
- Distance
Invisibility should be quite a bit rarer and more valuable than in ToME. If it's possible to gain see invisible at all, it's a very deep flag. Perhaps it could be possible to sense the presence of something (but not the location) in circumstances where the die throw to see it fails only moderately.
Trapping
You can create traps for monsters.