Note: even more so than other fan-created knacks, you really should make sure your GM has read and is comfortable with this knack before selecting it. Some ST's rely heavily on improvisation, and thus rarely have this kind of detailed info available on every NPC. This knack would only serve to annoy them.
See The Inner Self - Manipulation Knack (Prerequisite: Stench Of Guilt)
You are an incredibly good judge of human nature. You pick up on subtle clues and telltale signs that reveal a persons' true inner self.
Once during any scene in which you had interactions with a PC or NPC (or immediately after, if there was no good point to interrupt during the scene), you may spend a Willpower and roll Manipulation + Empathy. The difficulty is 1/2 the target's Manipulation + Presence. The GM will reveal one trait about that character's persona, plus one for every threshold success up to a maximum of your dots of Epic Manipulation.
The Storyteller determines which traits to reveal. Examples include Nature, Pantheon (if any), Legend Rating (or lack thereof), Willpower total, dots of interpersonal skills such as Integrity/Presence/Command, rating of one mundane attribute, whether or not they have any dots of a specific Epic Attribute (but doesn't reveal the rating), or the name and level of their highest-rated Virtue that had not previously been told to you. The GM may choose to share other revelatory secrets about the NPC too, with each secret replacing a trait. The ST is obligated to give you information you didn't previously learn by this power - they can't give you the same data scene after scene, unless you've already learned all there is to give you. If two or more virtues are tied, he or she can reveal them in whichever order they choose.
You can only use this power on one target per scene. To use this power, the scene must involve at least 10 minutes of observation or interaction. Especially long scenes (such as montages that wrap whole days into a couple quick sentences) may, at the GM's discretion, allow you to use this knack on more than one person, or more than one time on the same person.
This was originally written as a Wits knack. I now (2 months after the original post) realize it makes more sense as a Manipulation knack.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about how fast you think, or how sharply perceive things, it's about how well understand human nature. That's Manipulation - not Wits (or Perception or Intelligence).
Since this was initially penned, Scion: God came out, with a knack called Psychic Profiler. Both do similar things, but the official knack generates the info faster.
ReplyDeleteTo keep this knack useful (one of the PCs in my game has it) I have broadened the list of data it can collect. Given enough scenes (or enough Epic Manipulation) a PC could piece together large swaths of an NPCs character sheet with the current version. The GM, however, has control of what order they gather that info, so it doesn't totally wreck plots.