Cartomancy Feats

Ace in the Hole

Portents you have already used today become incredibly easy to repeat.

Prerequisite: Ability to place two copies of the same least portent into an active deck

Benefit: You may spend 2 fate points to look through your active deck for a portent that matches a portent in your discard pile. Reveal this portent, put it into your hand, then shuffle your active deck. This is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity. This ability can cause you to exceed your maximum hand size, but cannot be used if your maximum hand size is already exceeded.

Always Another Option

You have access to more fate at once than the average cartomancer, but have trouble converting it to more generic forms when you’re fully loaded with the stuff.

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature

Benefit: Your maximum hand size is increased by +1. Whenever the number of cards in your hand is greater than or equal to your maximum hand size, the fate point cost of your seals is increased by +1.

Bottom-up Design

Decks you build focus on variety at the expense of large effects.

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature

Benefit: When building an active deck, you may choose to reduce the number of lesser portents in the deck by 1. If you do, the number of least portents in that deck is increased by +3.

Concatenated Sacrifice

The realization was sudden. If a seal requires portents as fuel, how many least portents would make a lesser portent? The answer, it turns out, is three.

Prerequisite: Efficient Seal, Extra Seal, maximum hand size of 4 or higher

Benefit: Whenever you use a seal, you may discard three least portents and treat it as though you discarded a lesser portent. Similarly, you may discard three lesser portents and treat it as though you discarded a greater portent. Using this feat increases the fate point cost of the seal by +1.

Declaimer of the Present

You tell your immediate surroundings how they should be arranged, and it is so.

Prerequisite: Weaver of the Present, maximum hand size of 5 or higher, Wis 17

Benefit: Whenever you cast a greater portent that targets a single creature, you may spend 3 fate points to have that portent affect a second creature within 10 feet of the primary target. Both creatures must be legal targets for the portent.

Deep Association

When you apply your willpower just right, you can absolutely assure that fortune and misfortune will spread without fail in certain situations.

Prerequisite: Fate by Association, heightened fortune class feature

Benefit: When spreading fate with the Fate by Association feat, you affect creatures within 20 feet of the targeted creature. Additionally, creatures within 5 feet of the targeted creature are not entitled to a Will save to negate the spread.

Normal: When spreading fate with the Fate by Association feat, you affect creatures within 10 feet of the targeted creature. All those affected are entitled to a Will save to negate the spread.

Detail-oriented

Nearly all practitioners of divinatory showmanship claim that the insights they gain from a single palm are legion. For a very select few, this is not a Beowulfian boast, but rather a totally honest statement.

Prerequisite: Fortuneteller, complex fortune class feature

Benefit: Whenever you tell a mark’s fortune using the tell fortune class feature, roll an additional time on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes.

Efficient Seal

Having used a particular seal over and over again, you have learned how best to manipulate fate in the precise manner required to elicit the effects of that seal.

Prerequisite: Know at least 3 seals

Benefit: Choose a seal you know. The fate point cost of that seal is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, select another seal to which this feat has not been applied.

Extra Seal

Drawn to the utility of seals in the manipulation of fate, you have taken it upon yourself to master more of them than the average cartomancer.

Prerequisite: Seals class feature

Benefit: You gain one additional seal. You must meet all of the prerequisites for this seal.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, select another seal that you do not know for which you meet all of the prerequisites.

Fast Seal

Seals are, by their very nature, quite inefficient, but that inefficiency can allow a seal to be used very quickly once fate is already shifting to make way for a portent of great power.

Prerequisite: Recycler of Fate

Benefit: You may use a seal as a swift action if you have already cast a greater portent in the same round. Seals to which you have applied the Efficient Seal feat do not have their fate point cost reduced when used quickly in this manner.

Fate by Association

A powerful cartomancer learns not only how to influence the fate of others based on the fortunes she tells, but also how to spread that individual’s awakened luck or misfortune to others.

Prerequisite: Fortuneteller, manipulate fortune class feature

Benefit: As a standard action, you can expend a use of your tell fortune class feature to spread all bonuses, and penalties, that your rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes have caused to a single creature within 30 feet to all other creatures within 10 feet of that creature. It does not matter whether these bonuses or penalties are the result of the tell fortune class feature, the seal of the read palm, or the random happenstances that occur to you whenever you spend fate points? they all spread.

Each creature to which the bonuses and penalties are being spread is entitled to a DC 10 + 1/2 your cartomancer level + your Charisma modifier Will save to negate their spread. Once spread, the bonuses and penalties last for rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.

Forced Reading

Most fortunetellers receive a more-or-less steady custom. Those who don’t weren’t very good at telling the future. For those with a chronic inability to get willing customers, there are a few ways to get around it. This is one of the less subtle ways.

Prerequisite: Instant fortune class feature

Benefit: You no longer require a mark’s consent when using the instant fortune class feature. If you do not have the mark’s consent, you must succeed on a melee touch attack in order to grab hold of a part of the mark’s body for a moment in order to take a reading. If this melee touch attack fails, you provoke attacks of opportunity. The mark is entitled to a DC 10 + 1/2 your cartomancer level + your Charisma modifier Will save to negate the benefits granted by, and the penalties imposed by, your reading.

Fortunate Dealer

You are capable of eliminating the negative effects of fate upon yourself.

Prerequisite: Lucky Dealer, maximum hand size 4 or larger

Benefit: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on

Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes are insight bonuses instead. They are still treated as penalties for the purpose of duration reduction by the Lucky Dealer feat and are spread as penalties by the Fate by Association feat.

Normal: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes are penalties.

Fortuneteller

Whether it is palms, tea leaves, crystal balls, entrails, dissection of owl pellets, the examination of the flight formation of a flock of birds, the examination of birth defects, astrology, or tarot, you have done it.

Prerequisite: Tell fortune class feature, Cha 15

Benefit: You can use the tell fortune class feature two additional times per day.

Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Lucky Dealer

You are capable of mitigating the negative effects of fate upon yourself.

Prerequisite: Fatespinning class feature, Cha 15, Wis 15

Benefit: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes that were triggered by spending fate points last for 1 round per class level.

Normal: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes that were triggered by spending fate points last for 1 minute per class level.

Mighty Fortune

When you mess with fate, the response is particularly strong.

Prerequisite: Manipulate fortune class feature

Benefit: All bonuses, and penalties, granted by the tell fortune class feature are increased by +1. This does not apply to rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes that were triggered by spending fate points.

Morning Rush

Some cartomancers, such as you, just live for that first mark of the day.

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature, ability to place a greater portent into your active deck

Benefit: When you shuffle your discard pile and hand into your active deck and draw new cards at the beginning of the day, you draw until you have cards in your hand equal to two greater than your maximum hand size. Whenever you have no cards in your hand, it is a full-round action to draw a card rather than a move action.

Normal: When you shuffle your discard pile and hand into your active deck and draw new cards for the beginning of the day, you draw until you have cards in your hand equal to your maximum hand size.

Multitudes of Fate

Roll their fate like a die…

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature

Benefit: Choose both a least portent and a lesser portent from the list below. You add one copy of each of the chosen portents to your collection.

Note: Usage of this feat will break all poker equivalencies. You’ll have to use the official cartomancy decks.

Least Portents
The Choice

Power Level: least
School: divination
Activation Time: 1 immediate action
Duration: 1 round
Range: personal
Spell Resistance: no
Effect: Choose Fortitude, Reflex, or Will. You gain a +1 luck bonus to the chosen saving throw. This increases to a +2 luck bonus starting at 11th level.

The Packrat

Power Level: least
School: conjuration
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: instantaneous
Range: personal
Spell Resistance: no
Effect: You conjure a non-comestible item with a market price of up to 5 gp. If this item ever leaves your possession for any reason other than active use, it vanishes immediately? otherwise, the item persists for days equal to your cartomancer level. Skillfully manufactured items may require a skill check to produce. For example, creating the key to a lock requires a Disable Device check that meets the DC of that lock.

The Rebound

Power Level: least
School: transmutation
Activation Time: 1 swift action
Duration: 1 round
Range: 30 feet
Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Effect: The subject can stand up from a prone position without provoking attacks of opportunity. At 11th level, the activation time of the rebound improves to 1 immediate action.

The Thunderhead

Power Level: least
School: evocation
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: 1 round/level
Range: 30 feet
Spell Resistance: yes
Effect: Immediately upon casting this portent and again at the beginning of each of your turns, you may hurl a ball of electricity at a creature within 60 feet as a free action, dealing 1d4 points of electricity damage on a successful ranged touch attack.

Lesser Portents
The Exchange

Power Level: lesser
School: divination
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: 1 minute/level, or until discharged
Range: personal
Spell Resistance: no
Effect: Roll 2d20, record each result separately, and label them result #1 and result #2. The next time you roll a d20, if the result is odd, then treat it as a natural roll of result #1 instead. If the result is even, you treat it as a natural roll of result #2 instead. The round you discharge this ability, the next attack made against you is treated as a natural roll of the unused result.

The Fortuitous

Power Level: lesser
School: abjuration
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: 1 minute/level, or until discharged
Range: 30 feet
Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Effect: Choose acid, cold, electricity, fire, force, or sonic at random. The subject is immune to the next source of energy damage of the chosen type that deals more than 15 points of damage.

The Inquisitor

Power Level: lesser
School: transmutation
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: 1 minute/level
Range: 30 feet
Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Effect: Choose silver or cold iron. Weapons the subject wields are treated as though they were made of the chosen material, overriding those weapons’ native material type.

The Ultimatum

Power Level: lesser
School: abjuration
Activation Time: 1 standard action
Duration: 1 minute/level, or until discharged
Range: 30 feet
Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
Effect: You target an unoccupied square in range. The next creature to enter that square is stunned for 1 round with a saving throw to reduce the effect to staggered for 1 round. A creature that has been staggered in this manner ends its action immediately if it is in the middle of performing a full-round action.

Portentous Mastery

Even complex magic finds a way to feed off of you.

Prerequisite: Portentous Training, character level 9th

Benefit: Whenever you replenish your fate pool, you gain 2 temporary fate points that last for 24 hours. If you pay the entire fate point cost of a use of the portentous magic class feature with temporary fate points sourced from this feat, then you do not discard portent(s) as part of that use of portentous magic.

Portentous Training

Your stories have begun to feed off of your own charisma rather than the fate of others.

Prerequisite: Portentous magic class feature

Benefit: Once per day, you may cast one of the following spells through the use of the portentous magic class feature without discarding a portent or expending fate points: burning hands, cause fear, charm person, command, cure light wounds, ear-piercing scream, enlarge person, identify, ill omen, obscuring mist, ray of enfeeblement, reduce person, sleep, true strike, or unseen servant.

Note: The spells listed for the Portentous Training feat are the same as the list of spells to which a taleweaver has access at 2nd level.

Special: You can gain Portentous Training multiple times. Each time, you can cast a spell from the above list with the portentous magic class feature an additional time per day without discarding a portent or expending fate points.

Professional Dealer

You are adept at dealing people into the game of fate.

Prerequisite: Ante up class feature

Benefit: The number of face-up portents you can maintain with the ante up class feature at one time increases by +1.

Recycler of Fate

Seals can have part of their wasted energy reclaimed by savvy cartomancers.

Prerequisite: Seals class feature

Benefit: Whenever you use a seal, return a least portent from your discard pile to your hand. This ability can cause you to exceed your maximum hand size, but cannot be used if your maximum hand size is already exceeded.

Repetition of History

History, being the record of the fate that alters the present as it occurs, is doomed to repeat itself in much the same way that a crochet needle follows the same path again and again to produce a scarf.

Prerequisite: Student of the Loom

Benefit: Once per day, you can play a least or lesser portent from your discard pile as though it were in your hand. On-play effects, such as all least portents in the discard pile shuffling into your active deck when a lesser portent is played, are not triggered.

Seal Focus

Though generic and inefficient, your seals are big, garish, and particularly hard to ignore, much like most other obvious manifestations of Fate.

Prerequisite: Seals class feature

Benefit: Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws made against your seals.

Seal Focus, Greater

You direct some of the excess fate liberated in the creation of seals to ensure that your seals go through and hit their intended target like a ton of unlucky bricks.

Prerequisite: Seal Focus

Benefit: Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws made against your seals. This stacks with the bonus granted by Seal Focus.

Shaper of the Present

You are adept at spreading the least of your portents far and wide.

Prerequisite: Student of the Loom, cartomancy class feature, maximum hand size 3 or higher,Wis 13

Benefit: Whenever you cast a least portent that targets a single creature, you may spend 1 fate point to have that portent affect a second creature within 10 feet of the primary target. Both creatures must be legal targets for the portent.

Student of the Loom

Fate is merely the loom that weaves the fabric we know as history. You are determined to learn its secrets.

Prerequisite: Fatespinning class feature

Benefit: The size of your fate point pool is increased by +3 points.

The Full Monty

”Aww, too bad!”

Prerequisites: The Monty Scoop, The Monty Shuffle, character level 15th

Benefit: Once per day, when your target’s player chooses two cards as detailed in The Monty Scoop feat, you may resolve the Monty deck twice, once for each card picked.

Normal: You choose one of your target’s player’s two picks and resolve the Monty deck once as though the chosen pick were the only card picked.

The Monty Scoop

“I’m sure you’ll win next time. Double or nothing?”

Prerequisites: Three Card Monty

Benefit: Whenever you spread your Monty deck face-down in front of your target’s player, that player picks one card, then you shuffle the Monty deck, spread it face-down again, and the player picks a second card. Choose one of your target’s two picks, and resolve the Monty deck as though that were the only card picked.

Normal: Whenever you spread your Monty deck face-down in front of your target’s player, that player picks one card, and then the Monty deck resolves.

The Monty Shuffle

“Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. Hey, what’s that over there!?”

Prerequisites: Three Card Monty, character level 7th

Benefit: After you use your Monty deck, put all of its portents into your discard pile. The portents that make up your Monty deck can now be shuffled back into your active deck, or otherwise interacted with, just like any other portent in your discard pile.

Normal: Once used, the Monty deck is set aside. It does not go into the discard pile, and it does not get shuffled into the active deck.

Three Card Monty

“Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.”

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature, ability to place a greater portent into your active deck

Benefit: You gain a Monty deck. A Monty deck is built from cards in your collection, much like your active deck, and can be altered whenever you alter your active deck. A Monty deck must contain two least portents and a lesser portent. All of these portents must be able to target individuals other than just you. Once per day as a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, spread the Monty deck face-down in front of the person who is playing a target creature within 30 feet. That person picks a card. If he picks the lesser portent, you cast it on the target as a free action. If he picks one of the least portents, reveal the rest of the cards and cast both of the least portents on the target as a free action. Once used, set the Monty set aside. It’s its own separate thing. Do not put it in the discard pile.

Top-down Design

Your active deck focuses on large, powerful effects at the expense of variety.

Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature, ability to place a greater portent into your active deck

Benefit: When building an active deck, you may choose to increase the number of greater portents in the deck by +1. If you do, the number of least portents and lesser portents allowed in that deck are each reduced by 2 and the first greater portent you play each day does not trigger on-play effects.

Weaver of the Present

Your portents are the thread with which you weave a tiny part of the tapestry of Now.

Prerequisite: Shaper of the Present, maximum hand size 4 or higher,Wis 15

Benefit: Whenever you cast a lesser portent that targets a single creature, you may spend 2 fate points to have that portent affect a second creature within 10 feet of the primary target. Both creatures must be legal targets for the portent.

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