Whether or not Encourage is a good racial skill is besides the point: it's boring. I'm wondering what a more interesting version of Encourage would be. I've actually already started reworking the racial skills to be more interesting and effective overall, trying to match Flesh Sacrifice's overall power and fun factor. Sure, modding already is premature, but I don't really expect Larian to massively change the racial skills at this point.
I'm a bit unsure about Encourage, though. I'm trying a complete makeover: Tactical Maneuver. This is a single target skill that either boosts an ally's initiative by 5, or reduces an enemy's initiative by 5 for 2 turns. This won't let you target yourself, and it will be combat only so you can't boost an ally right before combat. 0-1 AP, 3-4 turn CD.
What's interesting is that changing a character's initiative doesn't take effect until the next turn. So 2 turn duration really basically means the next character's turn is ahead or behind their standard order.
At a 5 initiative bonus/malus, you'll be able to move most characters pretty far up or down the turn order, though in later levels 5 initiative might be a non-factor so maybe it will scale up. You'll probably mostly want to target an ally, but maybe if there's a particularly dangerous enemy you'll want to slow them down.
Does this sound balanced? Powerful/underpowered? Fun? Let me know the numbers you think sound good. Not sure if it should be 0 or 1 AP.
Unless there's big changes in the racial skills next patch, I think I'll release a racial skill redux after the patch for people to try out. And yes, it's a bit silly to be modding an alpha. But I can't help myself :P
