Well if I had an idea to present, it would be that the command would work like the @mark command, in which you'd do "@disguise [new name] <Followed by new description>" instead of "@mark [name of mark] <followed by description>". For the problem with checking the player's list, maybe it'd need to "hide" the player's presence in the so said list, or just change the character's name in the list itself. Maybe it could also block the player's pseudo if someone click on the profile picture, which would be replaced by the boring brown face of male or female, depending on the gender.
HOWEVER... The main problem of this system would be how balanced it is, in the sense of discovering the identity of the disguised character. My suggestion would be to include rolls in the whole thing. There are a lot of factors which could affect one's disguise, often depending from person to person... But the skills which made the more sense to me were
Perform and
Influence. I'd keep it down to one skill to not go into the extremes, which would be
Influence over
Perform, since
Influence includes 14 classes and
Perform only covers 4 over the 20 supported classes.
List as follow:
Perform Classes: Bard - Monk - Rogue - Shadow Dancer
Influence Classes: Bard - Druid - Paladin - Sorcerer - Cleric - Monk - Rogue - Assassin - Blackguard - Divine Champion - Pale Master - Red Dragon Disciple - Shadow Dancer - Shifter
I'd give an advantage for people using the @disguise, such as setting the DC as follow:
Disguise DC = 15 + (influence_mod), since people are not generally prepare to meet a disguised person...
What about the counter roll? Well, the three main perception skills would be
Concentration,
Spot and
Listen, which affects 15, 11 and 14 classes respectively as followed:
Concentration Proficiency: Bard - Cleric - Druid - Fighter - Monk - Paladin - Ranger - Sorcerer - Wizard - Blackguard - Divine Champion - Dwarven Defender - Pale Master - Red Dragon Disciple - Shifter
Spot Proficiency: Druid - Monk - Ranger - Rogue - Arcane Archer - Assassin - Dwarven Defender - Red Dragon Disciple - Shadow Dancer - Shifter - Weapon Master
Listen Proficiency: Barbarian - Bard - Druid - Monk - Ranger - Rogue - Arcane Archer - Assassin - Dwarven Defender - Pale Master - Red Dragon Disciple - Shadow Dancer - Shifter - Weapon Master
As far as I've seen skills be rolled, most people counters an influence check using
Concentration, as to pierce through the gesture and acts of a lying person... Which makes less sense than either looking at a mistake in their dressing using
Spot or hearing a false accent with
Listen. However again, Ravenloft being a world where magic exists, I also paid attention to spells that may affect the so said check, leading to the following:
Concentration spells: Heroism - Greater Heroism, leading to a maximum of +4 concentration per caster lvl.
Spot check: Clairaudience/Clairvoyance - Insight - True Seeing, +15 + 1 per 2 caster lvl.
Listen check: Amplify - Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, +25, always.
Influence: Glidness, +1 per caster lvl.
Of course we should not forget the effect of items, but I think there are far more enhancements on Listen and Spot and Influence, compared to Concentration... Which would lead me to propose
Concentration as a counter skill for a disguise feature. (The sad part being that it excludes Rogues and Assassins!)
The rest would be balancing the time between which each checks would be made and how would someone find out that a person is acting in disguise... To which I'd propose again a 30 min IG (each 3 min IRL like the Vistani Caravan wait) in presence of a disguised person. If a character was to succeed the revealing check, the disguised person, viewed by the player, would be surrounded by an aura (maybe a yellow version of ghostly visage), but only to the player seeing through the disguise. This would also reveal the true identity of the disguised character, though if the two never met before, it'll be to the player to keep his RP straight, but can still mention to his allies how the disguised person is acting strange from his point of view.
I send it out there. Seems like a nice function to add to the server, or to the game in general, without any DM assistance.