Gifted Stuff

GIFTED FEATURES:

Improved Defenses
Ritual Caster or Practiced Study if you qualify for them
Expertise(a new generic "Weapon Expertise" and "Implement Expertise" feat), along with the custom bonuses of one of the specific Expertise feats, found in the Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms/Heroes of the Fallen Lands supplements.

EXPERTISE
You gain a +1 feat bonus to attack rolls with weapons and implements. This bonuses increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level.

IMPROVED DEFENSES
You hone your body and mind to guard against a variety of attacks.
Benefit: You gain a +1 feat bonus to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. This bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level.

RITUAL CASTER
Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana or Religion
Benefit: You can master and perform rituals of your level or lower. See Chapter 10 for information on acquiring, mastering, and performing rituals. Even though some rituals use the Heal skill or the Nature skill, the Arcana skill or the Religion skill is required to understand how to perform rituals.

PRACTICED STUDY
Prerequisite: Any martial class
Benefit: You can master and perform martial practices (page 147 of Martial Power 2). You acquire one martial practice of your level or lower.


Changes to Rituals and Martial Practices:

1. Rituals/Martial Practices have their base cast times lowered. A ritual with a casting time of ten minutes or under is reduced to one minute. A ritual with a casting time greater than ten minutes but takes thirty minutes or less instead becomes a ten minute ritual. Rituals that take longer than that have their casting time unchanged.

2. Rituals/Martial Practices no longer cost anything to use. You are not deducted GP or healing surges, except for rituals that are prohibitive in cost for a reason, such as Raise Dead or Enchant Magic Item.

3. Rituals/Martial Practices with a cast time of one minute (previously ten minutes or less) may now be cast as a Standard Action, in return for paying the former component cost of the ritual. For the Knock Ritual, for instance, you might pull a bronze door knocker worth 35 GP from your belongings and consume it in the ritual (with some of your stamina in the form of a healing surge) to quickly open a locked door. The exception to this is rituals for which this action shortening would be extremely ridiculous to justify - like creating a forgery of an official document with Precise Forgery in a single action.