[HoneyBadger]

I like it. I like it a lot.

I'm all for making our Pretenders more important and special, and this seems like it would go a long way towards fulfilling that purpose.

Yeah, I think the typical pathing choices for Pretender builds should be extensively researched, and a lot of testing should be done to make the costs for this as balanced as possible, but I think this could have the potential to add a whole new dimension to MP.

One thing I'd like you to consider is that, if some Pretenders have this power, the ones that don't may have other strengths/abilities that could balance against this. I realize that there's a cost in points, but if there's a choice to make, say, a Dagon with the "sentience" ability, then Dagons without it might have better stats or additional abilities to compensate. In other words, it wouldn't always have to be a tradeoff in *just* the points involved.

On the flipside of that, there might exist a class of new Pretenders that are specifically "sentiencers", or whatever you want to call it, that either have that ability as their prime ability, or as their only real ability (outside of whatever magic paths they might have).