Give Exhibition (sage ability)
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Give exhibition is an amateur-status sage ability enabling the character to put on a acrobatic performance, incorporating elements of juggling, tumblings and — having acquired more knowledge — other feats such as equilibrialism, tightrope walking, corde lisse and so on. Naturally, the character likes to perform tricks regularly, and is assumed to be working at his or her craft to invent something new.
Performances
And so, once per month, or after a period of at least 30 days, the acrobat may give a performance, presenting the new feats that have been mastered. The pleasure received from watching gives the audience a thrill of excitement, astonishment and courage, which translates into a +5% experience bonus that lasts for twenty-four hours. Since the acrobat can decide precisely when to give this performance, presumably this can be prior to an expected battle or in the hours before entering a dungeon. The exhibition must last 15 minutes and can be given while waiting on the battlefield or — if practical for the performance being given — while approaching the dungeon or enemy's lair.
An exhibitioin can be given in any new venue the character enters, for the patrons there won't have seen the acrobat perform before — thus the "once a month" requirement is met for each stranger. The party may not receive any special benefit from most of these nights, but the new audience will. Importantly, the audience must be ready and appreciative of the would-be performer! A performance cannot be forced on a crowd who happens to be present, but are not interested in listening. An introduction by the proprietor is therefore necessary for a performance to take place.
Additional Acrobats
Tumbling is a kind of exhibition that lends itself to multiple performers, improving the overall effect. For each additional acrobat that takes part, the percentage experience bonus is increased by ½%. Thus, 4 acrobats working together would give a bonus of 6½% to the overall experience gained by the audience. The maximum increase that can be gained is +2%, or four additional acrobats; beyond this limit, there are just too many performers for the audience to watch, to gain any further benefit.
Other Acrobats
From the above, it can be extrapolated that if the player characters seek out and visit venues where qualified non-player acrobats are performing, the 5% bonus can yet be obtained. This is true. Players are encouraged, when in a city, to find such places and enjoy the pleasantries of being entertained in a manner that provides a practical game benefit — remembering that this can only be gained once per month from any specific performer, regardless of the skills they present.
| Settlement | Population | New Acrobats |
Time Period |
Performing Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| large city | per 15,000 | 0-2 | weekly | 1-4 |
| small city | 5,000 - 10,000 | 0-1 | weekly | 0-1 |
| town | 1,000 to 4,999 | 0-1 | fortnightly | 0-1 |
By seeking out population centers, the players can amuse themselves and enjoy the experience boost, while feeling part of the artistic scene. Encountering a musician or a troupe at random while travelling becomes a reason to be excited, with real game benefits to boot.
Equipment
When juggling, the character should designate what objects are being manipulated ... but as it's presumed the character will learn to juggle knives, flaming torches and so on, no special experience bonus is given for choosing these objects. They may look very dangerous to the audience, but the juggler knows better. Forcing the juggler to make an ability check each time would be fruitless and annoying, and not in the spirit of the sage ability. Still, the player can definitely choose what they'd like to juggle, and obviously appreciate that juggling something dangerous would produce an astounded audience.
Likewise, other acrobatic skills require objects, such as a balance beam, rope, see-saw, etcetera, which would need to be carted around. At present, this is left to role-play, rather than attempt to create detailed rules for what performances needs what precise object to obtain what precise effect.
Expectation
Not every audience is impressed with an amateur, or even an authority-status performer. Members of the higher classes have seen virtually every trick an ordinary exhibitionist can provide. Therefore, audiences can be rated on a scale of 1 to 100, depending on how jaded they are ... in which case, the knowledge of the performer must outdo the expectations of the audience, in order for the benefit to be received. This is easy to do in a small venue like an inn or a tavern, but much harder to do elsewhere. As a rule of thumb, allow that for every experience level of the audience, a knowledge level of 6 points are needed to impress. To affect a 12th level lord, then, the character would need 72 knowledge points as an acrobat.
See also,
Acrobatics (sage study)
Circus (sage field)
