Son Goku wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, David Johnston wrote:

Akane:  Falling blunt objects, or changes in to a boy at will
Genma:  The power of avoiding responsibility.
Nodoka:  The ability to find anyone

Interesting.  Jenny Elf's cat Sammy? has this ability.  But then, he had
it before coming to Xanth.

Ryouga:  Right place right time:
Kasumi:  Nice field
Nabiki:  Magic contracts
Soun:  Cry a river
Ukyo:  Changes into a boy at will, or conjure Oknomiyaki from thin air
Shampoo:  clean
Kuno: thunderbolts
Kodachi:  Poison touch

What about Ranma?  or is that way to obvious?  =)

How about the ability to avoid cold water?
Hm.. Maybe to attract water?  Wait... he seems to do that pretty well,
already.

Ah, but the ability to consciously attract water is another issue

By the way, what exactly is a 'nice field'?

I'm not sure exactly what would happen to someone who already had
a Talent, and the Jyusenkyo curses would qualify as Talents by
Xanth standards.  For that matter, in it's own way so would
Ryoga's power to defy distance and geometry or Soun's demon head
trick.

What's the problem?  There are several people with the same Talent.  The
Curse Fiends in particular.

This would be one person who already had a Talent getting a
second or third one.  

Talents can come in a matter of degree of strength.

A "nice field" would be the ability to persuade everyone to be nice,
if they are close enough to Kasumi.

And, Jeremy Walker:  The "clean" power would be the ability to
cause anything to be magically cleaned, on the principle that
anyone named Orient will be able to find things and so forth.

What I can't figure is how Genma's power works.

Maybe something like Bink's talent?  A Talent that works in the background
and not many can figure it out nor remember it afterwards.  Ie Genma has
no conscious control.  It is a self-reliant Talent that centers around its
owner.

I don't think that would be funny enough, unless of course it
was a conscious power with a limited duration.