Special Abilities

AX.C.08.03.05

Special Abilities are Extra-Normal capabilities that function as standalone mechanics rather than Tradition applications. Unlike Traditions (which generate many applications from a few Disciplines), each Special Ability does one specific, powerful thing usually within well defined limitations.

Classification

Fully Defined (below): Special Abilities that have a clear mechanical analog in AxiomRPG core and can be specified to table-ready precision regardless of genre. These are universally applicable and may be assigned by any Genre Catalog.

Genre Catalog: Special Abilities that require setting-specific fiction to function, their effect is meaningful only in context of a specific power system, cosmology, or setting premise. These are listed as names with brief descriptions; Genre Catalogs define their full mechanics locally.

Fully Defined Special Abilities

Danger Sense

Resonance Adjacent

A persistent awareness of immediate threats, operating below conscious processing.

Effect: The character cannot be Surprised. They always act during the Surprise Round, even when other characters cannot. Additionally, the character gains +1D on all Initiative rolls and on Speed Saves triggered by traps, area effects, and environmental hazards.

Activation: Passive, always active.

Scope: Self.

Design Note: Danger Sense does not grant information about the threat, only the reflexive awareness that it exists. A character with Danger Sense who is ambushed acts in the Surprise Round but does not automatically know where the ambusher is.

Genre Note: Precognitive reflex, combat-honed survival instinct, proximity sensor implant, predictive combat algorithm, supernatural threat-awareness.

True Seeing

Resonance Adjacent

Perception that cuts through deliberate concealment, magical, technological, or probabilistic.

Effect: The character sees through active illusions, invisibility, optical camouflage, and Obscurement effects (including Marginal Harmonics Obscurement) within Near range. Passive concealment (darkness, fog) is not affected; this ability specifically counters deliberate concealment mechanisms. The character is aware that they are seeing through concealment, not that they would have been fooled by it.

Additionally, the character may make a Wit + Notice check (Threshold 2) as a Minor Action to determine whether a specific statement made in their presence is believed by the speaker to be true (does not detect objective truth, only sincerity).

Activation: Passive for visual concealment penetration. Minor Action for sincerity detection. Scope: Near range (visual); Close range (sincerity detection, must be able to perceive the speaker directly).

Recovery: Sincerity detection, once per scene.

Genre Note: Divine sight, magical true sight, multi-spectrum imaging implant, probability-layer visual processing, psychometric reading of intent.

Shapeshifting

Form Tradition

The ability to alter your own physical form deliberately and substantially.

Shapeshifting is a Form Tradition Special Ability with variable scope depending on the degree of transformation. The following tiers define the mechanical scope, Genre Catalogs assign specific fictional forms within each tier:

Tier 1

Minor Shift (Threshold 2, Short Rest recovery): Alter superficial physical features, hair color, eye color, skin tone, minor facial structure. Cannot change Size category. Cannot replicate a specific known individual without a successful Wit + Attunement roll vs Threshold 3. Duration: scene.

Tier 2

Partial Shift (Threshold 3, Long Rest recovery): Alter significant physical structure, add or remove Natural Weapon perks (one), change apparent Size by one step, alter limb configuration. Cannot replicate specific individuals at this tier. Duration: scene, or until deliberately reversed.

Tier 3

Full Shift (Threshold 4, Full Rest recovery): Assume a completely different physical form within the same mass range (±50%). May replicate a specific individual if the character has spent at least one scene in close proximity to the target and succeeds on Wit + Attunement vs Threshold 4. Duration: scene, or until deliberately reversed.

Tier 4

Mass Shift (Threshold 5+, Full Rest recovery): Shift to a form dramatically different in mass, Swarm form, elemental matter, gaseous state. GM approval required. Duration: scene.

Maintaining a shifted form beyond its natural duration requires a Body Save vs Threshold 2 each additional scene. Failure ends the shift immediately.

Each Tier is a separate access grant, a character may have Tiers 1–2 without access to Tier 3–4. Genre Catalogs assign which Tiers a Lineage or Profession can grant.

Activation: Primary Action to shift.

Backlash (on Critical Failure): The shift occurs partially or incorrectly, a feature of the target form appears uncontrolled, or the character is locked mid-shift (Stunned, cannot shift or fully revert) until they succeed on a Body Save vs Threshold 3 (attempted each Turn).

Luck

Resonance Adjacent

An innate capacity to influence probability in one's own favor.

Effect: Once per session, the character may reroll any single Challenge, replacing the result entirely with the new roll. Both the original dice pool and any Focuses are rerolled. The new result stands regardless of outcome.

Luck may be declared after seeing the original roll result but before the GM narrates the consequences.

Activation: Free Action, declared immediately after seeing the roll result.

Scope: Self only.

Recovery: Once per session.

Design Note: Distinguish carefully from Marginal Harmonics' Nudge (which forces a re-roll of a single die) and the Human Lineage's Determined perk (which re-rolls the Wild Die on Implosion). Luck replaces the entire roll. A character with both Luck and Nudge/Determined has genuinely distinct tools, Luck is the most powerful but also the most limited.

Genre Note: Innate fortune biology, probability-attuned nervous system, divine favor expression, quantum-luck field, Halfling-lineage passive probability warping at the individual scale.