Lords of Gossamer and Shadows Addendum: Empathy (Diceless)

This pdf clocks in at 14 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, leaving us with 12 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

This supplement details a new Lesser Power for LoGaS, namely empathy. the power costs 30 points and is based on Psyche, though long-term use also makes endurance important. As you probably have gleaned by now, Empathy allows you to open a gate to other minds, for better and for worse – causing or diminishing pain, even controlling lesser minds becomes possible, but at a risk – the channel opened goes two ways and makes one susceptible to psychic attacks, Icons and magic in general – empaths better tread carefully, especially when faced by the Dwimmerlaik’s channeling. On the upside, they have an easier time with invocations since they can *relatively* easily glean True Names.

It should be noted that Empathy is neither aligned with Umbra, nor Eidolon and available to all. So how does it work? Well, first, one requires an empathic link – more of a passive ability that requires line of sight or similar long-range means of establishing contact. Sensing psyches, auras and reading items becomes possible. Mind reading and sensing thoughts and probing minds have already been hinted at in my above explanation. Where there’s detection, there better ought to be hiding and camouflaging one’s psyche becomes a distinct opportunity, just as well as the sending of messages or the manipulation of emotions.

Now if that is not enough for you, for 50 points you can instead gain advanced empathy to enter an empathic, problem-solving trance, increase healing, transfer energy from minds and environment, control lesser minds and even gain a measure of prescience.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are good, though not as good as in most Rite Publishing books – I noticed sentences with verbs missing and minor formatting glitches, though nothing that would break the book. Layout adheres to the gorgeous full-color two-column standard of LoGaS-releases and the copious original pieces of artwork are impressive and stunning. The pdf comes fully bookmarked with nested bookmarks.

Jason Durall’s Empathy is a cool ability to have in LoGaS and comes with quite a lot of interactions with established abilities – and it covers most bases. Now where it somewhat falls flat is with regards to the Typhonians – being essentially fragments of a larger entity, some advice on handling empathy with regards to these extremely compelling adversaries, especially since these fragments potentially can be played, would have been helpful . That being said, this is me being nitpicky and chances are, you won’t have an issue here. The ability per se is well-constructed and hence, my final verdict will clock in at a solid 4 stars – a good, if not perfect addition to LoGaS.

You can get this cool addition to LoGaS here on OBS and here on d20pfsrd.com’s shop!

Endzeitgeist out.

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