Marcia and I have been talking about feats for her delightful 5e sorta-pseudo-clone, Cinco. I find Cinco really charming and have been toying with it as a set for Gran Carcosium, a dumb Final Fantasy-inspired setting living in my head that I will probably never develop enough to blog about in any serious matter. Cinco’s feats work a lot like, well, 5e D&D’s feats (or those of the OG feat-haver, 3e). If you’re not familiar, they’re just little character options you slap on that let you do more and/or better stuff. So I’ve been using feats to try and nudge Cinco in the direction of the dumb, high-powered JRPG antics I want to see in Gran Carcosium.

I don’t really have much to say about them, I’m just having fun and I think they’re neat. As you can see, I’ve mostly been focused on fighters lol.

Black Magic

  • As long as you wield a staff, rod, or dagger, you have access to 4 of the following motifs: lightning, flame, frost, torrent, darkness, and poison. Spells using these motifs to attack have range 1. You may spend downtime imbuing another item with your power (subject to the GM’s approval); in your hands, that item counts as having these motifs. You may only have one such item at a time – if you imbue another, the previous one loses its power.

White Magic

  • Spend Inspiration and 1 action to align mist with a body’s natural flow, instantly healing a target in the same zone as you for 1 Heart of damage per point of Inspiration spent.
  • When you observe someone plainly wearing their emotions, you can always sense what they intend to do next. If they are concealing or disguising their true feelings, you sense the emotion they are trying to hide, but not their intentions.
  • As long as you wield a staff, rod, or have both hands free, you have access to the light, air, and shield motifs.
  • You may spend Inspiration and 3 actions to mantle yourself in swirling wind. While so veiled, you are light as a feather, resist missile attacks, and can move through an additional combat zone per round without spending an action. This effect lasts for the duration of one scene or until you dismiss it. Reduce the cost of this ability by 1 action if you have the air motif or similar.

Martial Arts

  • Spend Inspiration to infuse a weapon with elemental power for the duration of a scene. It deals damage as a magic attack.
  • Spend inspiration to perform feats of strength well beyond your normal limits.
  • Choose a weapon on your person when you take this feat. That weapon is now tethered to your body. When you throw or fire this weapon, you can instantly teleport to its location as soon as it makes contact with another surface. This ability can only be used immediately after using the weapon, and costs 1 inspiration if used with a projectile weapon such as a gun or a bow. You may transfer this
  • Spend inspiration to instantly travel along a straight line along a flat surface to a close location you can see. You cannot pass through obstacles or other bodies, but you ignore terrain and cannot be interrupted.
  • You can attune a weapon to your spirit and convert it to and from mist at will, with a touch. You may have a number of attuned weapons equal to your Hearts. While a weapon is mist, it takes up no space (even in your inventory!), cannot be taken from you, and can be called to hand at will.
  • You can leap extraordinary heights. If you land an attack while in midair, you can hover in place for a few seconds, and can lunge a few feet in midair to reach a nearby target. You can continue using this ability as long as you keep landing hits.
  • Spend inspiration to immediately interpose yourself between a nearby ally and an oncoming attack. When you do, make an attack roll with your current weapon. If your roll is higher than the roll against your ally, it is deflected and you ignore all damage.

Gambits

  • Spend Inspiration to choose a target who is not aware of your presence. As long as you keep them in sight, stay on the move, and have places to hide, they will not see or hear you until you interact with them directly. This only applies to the target; roll as normal for anyone else.
  • When you take the time to carefully study a broken-down machine, you can always get a general sense of its purpose and what it would take to fix it. When you spend Inspiration to repair a machine, you count as an additional person working on it for each point of Inspiration spent.