Perform (Cha)
Like Craft, Knowledge, and Profession, Perform is actually a number of separate skills.
You could have several Perform skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
Each of the nine categories of the Perform skill includes a variety of methods, instruments, or techniques, a small list of which is provided for each category below.
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Act (comedy, drama, mime)
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Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
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Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
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Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
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Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
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Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
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String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
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Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet)
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Sing (ballad, chant, melody)
Check: You can impress audiences with your talent and skill.
| Perform DC | Performance |
|---|---|
| 10 | Routine performance. Trying to earn money by playing in public is essentially begging. You can earn 1d10 cp/day. |
| 15 | Enjoyable performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 1d10 sp/day. |
| 20 | Great performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 3d10 sp/day. In time, you may be invited to join a professional troupe and may develop a regional reputation. |
| 25 | Memorable performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 1d6 gp/day. In time, you may come to the attention of noble patrons and develop a national reputation. |
| 30 | Extraordinary performance. In a prosperous city, you can earn 3d6 gp/day. In time, you may draw attention from distant potential patrons, or even from extraplanar beings. |
A masterwork musical instrument gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Perform checks that involve its use.
Action: Varies. Trying to earn money by playing in public requires anywhere from an evening’s work to a full day’s performance. The bard’s special Perform-based abilities are described in that class’s description.
Try Again: Yes. Retries are allowed, but they don’t negate previous failures, and an audience that has been unimpressed in the past is likely to be prejudiced against future performances. (Increase the DC by 2 for each previous failure.)
Special: A bard must have at least 3 ranks in a Perform skill to inspire courage in his allies, or to use his countersong or his fascinateability. A bard needs 6 ranks in a Perform skill to inspire competence, 9 ranks to use his suggestionability, 12 ranks to inspire greatness, 15 ranks to use his song of freedomability, 18 ranks to inspire heroics, and 21 ranks to use his mass suggestionability. See Bardic Music in the bard class description.
In addition to using the Perform skill, you can entertain people with sleight of hand, tumbling, tightrope walking, and spells (especially illusions).
PROFESSION (WIS; TRAINED ONLY)
Like Craft, Knowledge, and Perform, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill. While a Craft skill represents ability in creating or making an item, a Profession skill represents an aptitude in a vocation requiring a broader range of less specific knowledge.
Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.
Action: Not applicable. A single check generally represents a week of work.
Try Again: Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn an income cannot be retried. You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.
Untrained: Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.
RIDE (DEX)
If you attempt to ride a creature that is ill suited as a mount, you take a –5 penalty on your Ride checks.
Check: Typical riding actions don’t require checks. You can saddle, mount, ride, and dismount from a mount without a problem.
The following tasks do require checks.
| Task | Ride DC | Task | Ride DC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guide with knees | 5 | Leap | 15 |
| Stay in saddle | 5 | Spur mount | 15 |
| Fight with warhorse | 10 | Control mount in battle | 20 |
| Cover | 15 | Fast mount or dismount | 201 |
| Soft fall | 15 | ||
| 1 Armor check penalty applies. |
*Guide with Knees:*You can react instantly to guide your mount with your knees so that you can use both hands in combat. Make your Ride check at the start of your turn. If you fail, you can use only one hand this round because you need to use the other to control your mount.
*Stay in Saddle:*You can react instantly to try to avoid falling when your mount rears or bolts unexpectedly or when you take damage. This usage does not take an action.
*Fight with Warhorse:*If you direct your war-trained mount to attack in battle, you can still make your own attack or attacks normally. This usage is a free action.
*Cover:*You can react instantly to drop down and hang alongside your mount, using it as cover. You can’t attack or cast spells while using your mount as cover. If you fail your Ride check, you don’t get the cover benefit. This usage does not take an action.
*Soft Fall:*You can react instantly to try to take no damage when you fall off a mount—when it is killed or when it falls, for example. If you fail your Ride check, you take 1d6 points of falling damage. This usage does not take an action.
*Leap:*You can get your mount to leap obstacles as part of its movement. Use your Ride modifier or the mount’s Jump modifier, whichever is lower, to see how far the creature can jump. If you fail your Ride check, you fall off the mount when it leaps and take the appropriate falling damage (at least 1d6 points). This usage does not take an action, but is part of the mount’s movement.
*Spur Mount:*You can spur your mount to greater speed with a move action. A successful Ride check increases the mount’s speed by 10 feet for 1 round but deals 1 point of damage to the creature. You can use this ability every round, but each consecutive round of additional speed deals twice as much damage to the mount as the previous round (2 points, 4 points, 8 points, and so on).
*Control Mount in Battle:*As a move action, you can attempt to control a light horse, pony, heavy horse, or other mount not trained for combat riding while in battle. If you fail the Ride check, you can do nothing else in that round. You do not need to roll for warhorses or warponies.
*Fast Mount or Dismount:*You can attempt to mount or dismount from a mount of up to one size category larger than yourself as a free action, provided that you still have a move action available that round. If you fail the Ride check, mounting or dismounting is a move action. You can’t use fast mount or dismount on a mount more than one size category larger than yourself.
Action: Varies. Mounting or dismounting normally is a move action. Other checks are a move action, a free action, or no action at all, as noted above.
Special: If you are riding bareback, you take a –5 penalty on Ride checks.
If your mount has a military saddle you get a +2 circumstance bonus on Ride checks related to staying in the saddle.
The Ride skill is a prerequisite for the feats Mounted Archery, Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge,
Trample.
If you have the Animal Affinity feat, you get a +2 bonus on Ride checks.
Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in Handle Animal, you get a +2 bonus on Ride checks.