How about an expanded option to work at the opposite end of perc health. One that works tactics slightly and shows a list of "weakness'" that creatures or players have much like the actual tactics skill. Maybe even as far as being an empathy only means to sense a shorter tactical maneuver list such as below...

i.e.)
regular tactics-
You reveal a moderate weakness in a hulking Xala'shar thrall's defense.
A chance for a stun can be inflicted upon the enemy by landing a slice, a lunge, and a draw.
Roundtime: 1 sec.

Empath perc weakness
Focusing your senses on a hulking Xala'shar thrall you're able to pinpoint a drastic weakness in its defense
A chance for a stun can be inflicted upon the enemy by landing a slice.
Roundtime: 1 sec.


Being an empath and being able to sense weakness should go hand in hand... at least in my mind :p

and go...

<<It's not a physical weakness that is applied to or inherent to the enemy. It's a weakness in their combat technique or prowess that your skill is able to exploit. I.e. there's nothing there for empathic senses to perceive.>>

On the other hand, such physical or inherent weaknesses could plausibly exist and be exploited in some way. Or maybe you're sort of "getting in their head" to intuitively know what their combat technique or prowess is so that you don't have to take the time to actually look for a way to exploit it. You can see the fight from both your own perspective and that of your opponent, and can get a sense of what they're up to via Empathy instead of mundanely reading their movements. It's sort of an "I know what you're going to do as soon as you know, because I practically am you" idea that takes advantage of Empathy's ability to blur the boundary between you and another being. Personally I like the idea of a way to Empathize with an opponent in such a way as to gain some sort of insight into how to better combat it. I could take or leave the particular form that was suggested here (shorter tactical combos), but the concept is solid.

Thanks,
-Life Weaver Karthor

>It's sort of an "I know what you're going to do as soon as you know, because I practically am you" idea that takes advantage of Empathy's ability to blur the boundary between you and another being.

It never occurred to me before that Empaths are Bene Gesserit.

---

"Warrior Mages don't bother covering up their disasters.

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

The Bene Gesserit order is a faction in the Dune series, noteworthy for being a nominally religious (but not really) order of women that concocted miillennia-long plans to steer government and for their nigh-supernatural body control abilities. Including crazy martial arts, the ability to speak in a way that causes people to instinctively obey them, and access to ancestral memories.

One book in the series goes far enough to say they have such precise control over their bodies that Bene Gesserit masters can achieve agelessness if they wished, but they're broadly intelligent enough to know that the rest of society would rise up against them if they did.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino