Character Background Benefits...Revised [Archive] - Wizards Community

Character Background Benefits...Revised [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
phillipjp
11-05-03, 05:41 PM Ok, this should avoid some confusion about the earlier post (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1763504#post1763504).

I'm about to start DMing a new campaign. As the players develop their 28-point buy characters, I thought I would not only give them a nudge into a unique background for their character, but also grant their characters something unique to set them apart as "heroes". They will randomly draw from a list of unique backgrounds.

The list is below, modified by suggestions from the earlier post (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1763504#post1763504). My question to other DMs is: Are any of these whackily out of balance with the others? Are some uber while others suck? Realize that the more "powerful" ones are supposed to be offset by limiting restrictions. Opinions please.

* You are the child of a famous adventurer. He was a good, kind hearted man, always eager to help those in need. You have unwittingly inherited his reputation and are expected by all those who knew/heard of your father to be the same. You are constantly bombarded by requests for help by those in your village and surrounding areas. Any negative acts would obviously tarnish yours and his reputation. Your father's legendary weapon, which is now rightfully yours, was lost with him on his last great adventure. (Restrictions: Origin must include starting city.)

[This allows me to scale the power of the weapon. The longer they wait to recover it, the better it gets. That should offset some of the more immediate bonuses below.]

* You are the child of an infamous adventurer. He was an evil, power-hungry wizard, always looking out for himself. You have unwittingly inherited his reputation and are expected by all those who knew/heard of your father to be the same. You are constantly greeted with fear and prejudice by those in your village and surrounding areas. Any negative acts would only reinforce that reputation. The location of your father's secret laboratory, which is now rightfully yours, was lost with him on his last terrible adventure. (Restrictions: Origin must include starting city.)

[Same as above, the longer they wait to recover it, the better it gets.]

* You are the child of wealthy nobles. Tragedy overcame your estate and you were forced to flee on your own. You have no home, title or name to speak of. You have survived thus far, but anxiously await the day you can restore your noble house. (Starting bonus: You start with an additional 500gp, a noble's outfit and are granted the Noble Breeding feat [+2 to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility)]. Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) become class skills for you. Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.)

* You have some innate spell abilities. You discovered this during adolescence and have been hiding it from everyone since. Your family and village have a great distrust and fear of the arcane, which kept you from embracing the ability, and instead you consider it a curse. You will do everything you can to keep this ability a secret out of fear of prejudice. (Starting bonus: Innate spell-like abilities 1/day—dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation. Caster level 1st; save DC 10 + Cha modifier. Restrictions: Must have at least CHA 10. Origin cannot include starting city.)

* You are a hunted man, accused of heinous crimes. The evidence was weak, yet your accusers were powerful figures in the village. Only YOU know if you are truly innocent. You escaped from trial and have been on the run ever since. You are sure that there is a bounty on your head, and you must always be wary of guards and authority figures. (Starting bonus: You are granted the Charlatan feat [+2 to Disguise and Bluff]. Disguise and Bluff become class skills for you. Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.)

* Since childhood, you have felt a divine calling and purpose. You feel your fate is part of some master design, controlled by the gods. Yet, you are not even sure what deity controls your destiny. However, you have grown to depend upon the "divine inspiration" that sometimes leads you, and you obey those whims whenever they come to you. (Starting bonus: You are granted the cleric Luck Domain ability. Restrictions: Like a fickle god, the DM can deny use of this ability at any time. Origin must include starting city.)

* You have fiendish blood in your ancestry. Though all but forgotten by the past few generations, a faint but distinguishable trace has manifested in you. Your family has been prejudiced against and disgraced by the slight physical features that reveal your bloodline. Your family finally asked you to leave the village for fear of their safety and yours. Everywhere you go, you are looked down upon and treated poorly. (Starting bonus: Choose one of the following:

- Darkvision 60’; Light sensitivity; minor visual clue (ex. abnormal eye color, etc.)
- Fire Resistance 5; Cold Vulnerability; minor visual clue (ex. abnormal hair color, etc.)
- +1 Str, -1 Cha, -1 Wis; minor visual clue (ex. natural tattoos, etc.)
- +3 bonus to Intimidate, Intimidate becomes a class skill for you; major visual clue (ex. abnormal skin color, dermal thorns, etc.)

Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.)

* You have been blind from birth. However, your bloodline includes powerful woodland hunters and druids deeply tuned to nature, and their natural abilities have carried down to you. You have honed your other natural senses to an incredible heightened ability, and can "sense" your immediate surroundings. (Starting bonus: You begin with Blindsense 60' and the Blind-Fighting feat. Restrictions: The Blindsense is effective through line-of-sight only. Partial cover and concealment are irrelevant, but it does not work through walls, around corners, or against opponents with total cover. You are otherwise considered blind. If you are ever magically cured of your blindness, you loose the Blindsense.)
Xychotic
11-05-03, 07:00 PM I'll do a quick critique of your backgrounds, and offer interesting suggestions. Take them in the spirit in which they are given.

--Descended from a righteous adventurer (I'll not assume it's dad)

The character might actually start with the weapon. If you do this, then you might consider it to be a "slightly' magical weapon, i.e. it requires a magic weapon to sunder and it gets saving throws against magical effects. A special quest might be required to awaken the magic within it, something that the ancestor. Then you have a levelling weapon (see Dragon #289).

--Descended from a wicked adventurer

The character will have to hunt down this character's lab? Kinda lame. I'd just mix this one with the above, but have the weapon have inherently evil powers. Maybe even needs to be cleansed to become the light formed from darkness. If you must give this to the player, require that they be a wizard.

--Descended from a fallen noble house

What were you thinking? Where the heck does the character get extra wealth from if his family collapsed. Go ahead and give him a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) checks (and they are class skills), and consider awarding him the Landlord feat from Stonghold Builder's Guidebook (but only after he reclaims his noble line).

--Innate magic

Again, that's really weak. Maybe something that gets more powerful as the character gains levels? That would warrant a EL modification, usually somewhere around +2 or +4. At this point, you should at least consider changing the spells available too: mage hand, prestidigitation, light. But, it seems like the character will just be getting Drow or gnome spell-like abilities.

--Hunted

It's a nice RP based background. You don't need to change this one too much.

--Lucky bastard

No, no. The DM should not simply refuse the player this ability. Usable once per day is fine. But don't ever spontaneously say "no."

--Fiendish descent

The tiefling is just fine for this. You might consider granting the extreme end and going for the half-fiend template. Either way, racial ability score changes come in multiples of 2 for a reason.

--Born Blind

Can we say "Daredevil?" Seriously though, this is a good one.
john53704
11-05-03, 08:03 PM Overall the idea seems very cool. Xychotic
has many good points, though. I may have to borrow some of the ideas for the next campaign I start up... in a few years.

Good work, but some need a little tweaking - much like Xychotic
suggested.
Dowanroden
11-05-03, 08:16 PM Why are you rewarding yourself just cause you wrote a good background? The background serves the purpose of justifying the character, nothing more. To assume you are due rewards for it is twinkish at the nicest, raw munchkinistic powergaming at it's worst. I have a DM that makes his players use the Hero Builder's Guide for backstories then assigns 'bonuses' for the results which, to me, is total BS. I don't need a book to tell me how to write a backstory and I certainly don't want anything just cause my character 'is from a family of monks'... it's stupid.

If you want to see what my writing skills are just click the link in my name. Her backstory is written to justify her, not be justified by her. I wish people will make the distinction.
phillipjp
11-05-03, 09:25 PM Originally posted by Xychotic
--Descended from a righteous adventurer (I'll not assume it's dad)

The character might actually start with the weapon. If you do this, then you might consider it to be a "slightly' magical weapon, i.e. it requires a magic weapon to sunder and it gets saving throws against magical effects. A special quest might be required to awaken the magic within it, something that the ancestor. Then you have a levelling weapon (see Dragon #289).

Well, in the previous post, I did start him with a weapon and got flamed for giving magic items to a 1st level character. Thanks for that Dragon #289 reference. Read the article, that's exactly what I needed.
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Descended from a wicked adventurer
The character will have to hunt down this character's lab? Kinda lame. I'd just mix this one with the above, but have the weapon have inherently evil powers. Maybe even needs to be cleansed to become the light formed from darkness. If you must give this to the player, require that they be a wizard..

But I don't want to force the character to be any specific class. Their characters will be done before they draw one of these backgrounds. In the previous post, I was giving out a spellbook before I found out the player running the arcane caster chose a sorcerer. Spellbook wouldn't do him any good (if he happen to draw this one). By leaving undecided what's actually in the secret lab, I can tailor it to which character draws it.

The righteous one gets an item I can throw anywhere in any module. This one is a location-based sidequest.

Also, the players are limited to good or neutral alignments.
-Originally posted by Xychotic
-Descended from a fallen noble house

What were you thinking? Where the heck does the character get extra wealth from if his family collapsed. Go ahead and give him a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) checks (and they are class skills), and consider awarding him the Landlord feat from Stonghold Builder's Guidebook (but only after he reclaims his noble line).

What noble, when fleeing his own estate, wouldn't grab whatever he could? I anticipate that Knowledge (nobility) might be considered weak by whichever player drew it (I don't, btw), so I threw in the cash. I don't have the Str Bui GB, so no clue what the Landlord feat does.
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Innate magic

Again, that's really weak. Maybe something that gets more powerful as the character gains levels? That would warrant a EL modification, usually somewhere around +2 or +4. At this point, you should at least consider changing the spells available too: mage hand, prestidigitation, light. But, it seems like the character will just be getting Drow or gnome spell-like abilities.

Yes, its probably weak, but it has no real drawbacks either. (And yes, they are the gnome's innate spell abilities.) I didn't want to put anything stronger in there in case the lucky character was a fighter perhaps. They would get frustrated with it if they had to content with 50% spell failure on an ability they depended on heavily. This way, its an interesting thing to toy with or use in RP. If they choose to develop the ability, the can take a level or two of sorcerer. :D
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Hunted

It's a nice RP based background. You don't need to change this one too much.

:cool:
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Lucky bastard

No, no. The DM should not simply refuse the player this ability. Usable once per day is fine. But don't ever spontaneously say "no."

You're right, of course, but I intended for this to be used in a desperate situation to save their lives, or better yet the life of a party member or NPC. You know what I mean, the "you have to make this roll or we're all dead" situation. If they start using it for selfish reasons, i.e. "Whoo hoo, I crit'ed and killed him in the first round! Another notch on my hilt!" then I'll stop granting it till they get the picture.
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Fiendish descent

The tiefling is just fine for this. You might consider granting the extreme end and going for the half-fiend template. Either way, racial ability score changes come in multiples of 2 for a reason.

I was trying to avoid templates or ECL adjustments. That's why each ability comes with a disadvantage to offset it. (Besides, a tiefling must be evil. See above--no evil chars.)

Racial ability scores come in multiples of two? Doesn't the half-orc get +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Cha?
Originally posted by Xychotic
--Born Blind

Can we say "Daredevil?" Seriously though, this is a good one.
:rolleyes: I can't win. Last post, I got flamed for this one too.
Originally posted by Dowanroden
To assume you are due rewards for it is twinkish at the nicest, raw munchkinistic powergaming at it's worst.
I can't see any of these bonuses being munchkinistic.

* The descendants have to wait for their bonus. They can either gather treasure from a published module as part of their normal adventuring career or from a sidequest designed for their character related to their background. I think the sidequest would be more fun.

* The noble gets a wee bit of cash that he won't be able to spend on much at level 1, and a few roleplay skills that most munchkins would avoid.

* The innate caster get three 0 level spells, which he can use once a day. Again, I don't anticipate any plot shattering uses.

* The hunted gets a roleplay skills.

* The favored gets to reroll once. My group already suffers from "oooo, the die was cocked on 3 sheets of paper" syndrome. This just lets them do it without lying about it. :angel:

* The fiend has to really want those bonuses because, IMHO, the penalties are hefty. (On purpose.)

* The blind one... well 50% miss chance every attack is a heafty price for not getting surprised or snuck up on.

These aren't intended to twink or munchkinize my players. They're to help give those players (two of which have only played a few sessions before) a background if they can't think of one themselves. (Most players don't bother.) For those that do, they can certainly decline drawing one of these--especially the blind one. I wouldn't force a player to accept any of these.
Xychotic
11-05-03, 09:59 PM You must have missed my intent when I was referring to ability mods in multiples of 2. What I meant was that whenever a creature gets a change to one of their ability scores, it always comes in a +/- 2, never actually an odd number.
Mock26
11-05-03, 11:47 PM This is something different from which you are talking about, but you might want to consider doing my idea with your idea. I give every character in my group, when they are created, 3 minor contacts. This costs them nothing. Here are some examples of minor contacts:

A bartender at a local tavern
A serving wench at a local inn
A librarian
A sgt. in the town guard
A clerk at the mage's guild

In lieu of 2 minor contacts, the player could have a major contact:

The owner of a local tavern
The head of research at a university
A Lt. or Cpt. in the town guard
A high ranking rogue in the local guild

In all cases, the player has to come up with a reason to know these people. I am fairly lenient and if the character says that he is a friend of his contact or that the contact is his cousin or something like that, I let it go. For the most part the contacts don't come into play, but they have. On the group's first adventure they had to research a demon who was known to occassionally visit some local ruins. One of the players had chosen a librarian as a contact and went to her for help, and another had chosen a bartender and went to him to see if he knew of any story tellers in town who knew a lot about local lore. The players really seem to enjoy the contacts as they give more depth to the group. I have, every once in a while, seen a player trying to find some way to bring the contact into the game, but not as a crutch or some way to cheat, but because he likes the NPC I've evolved from his contact!

ciao,
john.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
phillipjp 11-05-03, 05:41 PM	Ok, this should avoid some confusion about the earlier post (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1763504#post1763504). I'm about to start DMing a new campaign. As the players develop their 28-point buy characters, I thought I would not only give them a nudge into a unique background for their character, but also grant their characters something unique to set them apart as "heroes". They will randomly draw from a list of unique backgrounds. The list is below, modified by suggestions from the earlier post (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1763504#post1763504). My question to other DMs is: Are any of these whackily out of balance with the others? Are some uber while others suck? Realize that the more "powerful" ones are supposed to be offset by limiting restrictions. Opinions please. * You are the child of a famous adventurer. He was a good, kind hearted man, always eager to help those in need. You have unwittingly inherited his reputation and are expected by all those who knew/heard of your father to be the same. You are constantly bombarded by requests for help by those in your village and surrounding areas. Any negative acts would obviously tarnish yours and his reputation. Your father's legendary weapon, which is now rightfully yours, was lost with him on his last great adventure. (Restrictions: Origin must include starting city.) [This allows me to scale the power of the weapon. The longer they wait to recover it, the better it gets. That should offset some of the more immediate bonuses below.] * You are the child of an infamous adventurer. He was an evil, power-hungry wizard, always looking out for himself. You have unwittingly inherited his reputation and are expected by all those who knew/heard of your father to be the same. You are constantly greeted with fear and prejudice by those in your village and surrounding areas. Any negative acts would only reinforce that reputation. The location of your father's secret laboratory, which is now rightfully yours, was lost with him on his last terrible adventure. (Restrictions: Origin must include starting city.) [Same as above, the longer they wait to recover it, the better it gets.] * You are the child of wealthy nobles. Tragedy overcame your estate and you were forced to flee on your own. You have no home, title or name to speak of. You have survived thus far, but anxiously await the day you can restore your noble house. (Starting bonus: You start with an additional 500gp, a noble's outfit and are granted the Noble Breeding feat [+2 to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility)]. Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) become class skills for you. Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.) * You have some innate spell abilities. You discovered this during adolescence and have been hiding it from everyone since. Your family and village have a great distrust and fear of the arcane, which kept you from embracing the ability, and instead you consider it a curse. You will do everything you can to keep this ability a secret out of fear of prejudice. (Starting bonus: Innate spell-like abilities 1/day—dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation. Caster level 1st; save DC 10 + Cha modifier. Restrictions: Must have at least CHA 10. Origin cannot include starting city.) * You are a hunted man, accused of heinous crimes. The evidence was weak, yet your accusers were powerful figures in the village. Only YOU know if you are truly innocent. You escaped from trial and have been on the run ever since. You are sure that there is a bounty on your head, and you must always be wary of guards and authority figures. (Starting bonus: You are granted the Charlatan feat [+2 to Disguise and Bluff]. Disguise and Bluff become class skills for you. Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.) * Since childhood, you have felt a divine calling and purpose. You feel your fate is part of some master design, controlled by the gods. Yet, you are not even sure what deity controls your destiny. However, you have grown to depend upon the "divine inspiration" that sometimes leads you, and you obey those whims whenever they come to you. (Starting bonus: You are granted the cleric Luck Domain ability. Restrictions: Like a fickle god, the DM can deny use of this ability at any time. Origin must include starting city.) * You have fiendish blood in your ancestry. Though all but forgotten by the past few generations, a faint but distinguishable trace has manifested in you. Your family has been prejudiced against and disgraced by the slight physical features that reveal your bloodline. Your family finally asked you to leave the village for fear of their safety and yours. Everywhere you go, you are looked down upon and treated poorly. (Starting bonus: Choose one of the following: - Darkvision 60’; Light sensitivity; minor visual clue (ex. abnormal eye color, etc.) - Fire Resistance 5; Cold Vulnerability; minor visual clue (ex. abnormal hair color, etc.) - +1 Str, -1 Cha, -1 Wis; minor visual clue (ex. natural tattoos, etc.) - +3 bonus to Intimidate, Intimidate becomes a class skill for you; major visual clue (ex. abnormal skin color, dermal thorns, etc.) Restrictions: Origin cannot include starting city.) * You have been blind from birth. However, your bloodline includes powerful woodland hunters and druids deeply tuned to nature, and their natural abilities have carried down to you. You have honed your other natural senses to an incredible heightened ability, and can "sense" your immediate surroundings. (Starting bonus: You begin with Blindsense 60' and the Blind-Fighting feat. Restrictions: The Blindsense is effective through line-of-sight only. Partial cover and concealment are irrelevant, but it does not work through walls, around corners, or against opponents with total cover. You are otherwise considered blind. If you are ever magically cured of your blindness, you loose the Blindsense.)
Xychotic 11-05-03, 07:00 PM	I'll do a quick critique of your backgrounds, and offer interesting suggestions. Take them in the spirit in which they are given. --Descended from a righteous adventurer (I'll not assume it's dad) The character might actually start with the weapon. If you do this, then you might consider it to be a "slightly' magical weapon, i.e. it requires a magic weapon to sunder and it gets saving throws against magical effects. A special quest might be required to awaken the magic within it, something that the ancestor. Then you have a levelling weapon (see Dragon #289). --Descended from a wicked adventurer The character will have to hunt down this character's lab? Kinda lame. I'd just mix this one with the above, but have the weapon have inherently evil powers. Maybe even needs to be cleansed to become the light formed from darkness. If you must give this to the player, require that they be a wizard. --Descended from a fallen noble house What were you thinking? Where the heck does the character get extra wealth from if his family collapsed. Go ahead and give him a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) checks (and they are class skills), and consider awarding him the Landlord feat from Stonghold Builder's Guidebook (but only after he reclaims his noble line). --Innate magic Again, that's really weak. Maybe something that gets more powerful as the character gains levels? That would warrant a EL modification, usually somewhere around +2 or +4. At this point, you should at least consider changing the spells available too: mage hand, prestidigitation, light. But, it seems like the character will just be getting Drow or gnome spell-like abilities. --Hunted It's a nice RP based background. You don't need to change this one too much. --Lucky bastard No, no. The DM should not simply refuse the player this ability. Usable once per day is fine. But don't ever spontaneously say "no." --Fiendish descent The tiefling is just fine for this. You might consider granting the extreme end and going for the half-fiend template. Either way, racial ability score changes come in multiples of 2 for a reason. --Born Blind Can we say "Daredevil?" Seriously though, this is a good one.
john53704 11-05-03, 08:03 PM	Overall the idea seems very cool. Xychotic has many good points, though. I may have to borrow some of the ideas for the next campaign I start up... in a few years. Good work, but some need a little tweaking - much like Xychotic suggested.
Dowanroden 11-05-03, 08:16 PM	Why are you rewarding yourself just cause you wrote a good background? The background serves the purpose of justifying the character, nothing more. To assume you are due rewards for it is twinkish at the nicest, raw munchkinistic powergaming at it's worst. I have a DM that makes his players use the Hero Builder's Guide for backstories then assigns 'bonuses' for the results which, to me, is total BS. I don't need a book to tell me how to write a backstory and I certainly don't want anything just cause my character 'is from a family of monks'... it's stupid. If you want to see what my writing skills are just click the link in my name. Her backstory is written to justify her, not be justified by her. I wish people will make the distinction.
phillipjp 11-05-03, 09:25 PM	Originally posted by Xychotic --Descended from a righteous adventurer (I'll not assume it's dad) The character might actually start with the weapon. If you do this, then you might consider it to be a "slightly' magical weapon, i.e. it requires a magic weapon to sunder and it gets saving throws against magical effects. A special quest might be required to awaken the magic within it, something that the ancestor. Then you have a levelling weapon (see Dragon #289). Well, in the previous post, I did start him with a weapon and got flamed for giving magic items to a 1st level character. Thanks for that Dragon #289 reference. Read the article, that's exactly what I needed. Originally posted by Xychotic --Descended from a wicked adventurer The character will have to hunt down this character's lab? Kinda lame. I'd just mix this one with the above, but have the weapon have inherently evil powers. Maybe even needs to be cleansed to become the light formed from darkness. If you must give this to the player, require that they be a wizard.. But I don't want to force the character to be any specific class. Their characters will be done before they draw one of these backgrounds. In the previous post, I was giving out a spellbook before I found out the player running the arcane caster chose a sorcerer. Spellbook wouldn't do him any good (if he happen to draw this one). By leaving undecided what's actually in the secret lab, I can tailor it to which character draws it. The righteous one gets an item I can throw anywhere in any module. This one is a location-based sidequest. Also, the players are limited to good or neutral alignments. -Originally posted by Xychotic -Descended from a fallen noble house What were you thinking? Where the heck does the character get extra wealth from if his family collapsed. Go ahead and give him a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Knowledge (nobility) checks (and they are class skills), and consider awarding him the Landlord feat from Stonghold Builder's Guidebook (but only after he reclaims his noble line). What noble, when fleeing his own estate, wouldn't grab whatever he could? I anticipate that Knowledge (nobility) might be considered weak by whichever player drew it (I don't, btw), so I threw in the cash. I don't have the Str Bui GB, so no clue what the Landlord feat does. Originally posted by Xychotic --Innate magic Again, that's really weak. Maybe something that gets more powerful as the character gains levels? That would warrant a EL modification, usually somewhere around +2 or +4. At this point, you should at least consider changing the spells available too: mage hand, prestidigitation, light. But, it seems like the character will just be getting Drow or gnome spell-like abilities. Yes, its probably weak, but it has no real drawbacks either. (And yes, they are the gnome's innate spell abilities.) I didn't want to put anything stronger in there in case the lucky character was a fighter perhaps. They would get frustrated with it if they had to content with 50% spell failure on an ability they depended on heavily. This way, its an interesting thing to toy with or use in RP. If they choose to develop the ability, the can take a level or two of sorcerer. :D Originally posted by Xychotic --Hunted It's a nice RP based background. You don't need to change this one too much. :cool: Originally posted by Xychotic --Lucky bastard No, no. The DM should not simply refuse the player this ability. Usable once per day is fine. But don't ever spontaneously say "no." You're right, of course, but I intended for this to be used in a desperate situation to save their lives, or better yet the life of a party member or NPC. You know what I mean, the "you have to make this roll or we're all dead" situation. If they start using it for selfish reasons, i.e. "Whoo hoo, I crit'ed and killed him in the first round! Another notch on my hilt!" then I'll stop granting it till they get the picture. Originally posted by Xychotic --Fiendish descent The tiefling is just fine for this. You might consider granting the extreme end and going for the half-fiend template. Either way, racial ability score changes come in multiples of 2 for a reason. I was trying to avoid templates or ECL adjustments. That's why each ability comes with a disadvantage to offset it. (Besides, a tiefling must be evil. See above--no evil chars.) Racial ability scores come in multiples of two? Doesn't the half-orc get +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Cha? Originally posted by Xychotic --Born Blind Can we say "Daredevil?" Seriously though, this is a good one. :rolleyes: I can't win. Last post, I got flamed for this one too. Originally posted by Dowanroden To assume you are due rewards for it is twinkish at the nicest, raw munchkinistic powergaming at it's worst. I can't see any of these bonuses being munchkinistic. * The descendants have to wait for their bonus. They can either gather treasure from a published module as part of their normal adventuring career or from a sidequest designed for their character related to their background. I think the sidequest would be more fun. * The noble gets a wee bit of cash that he won't be able to spend on much at level 1, and a few roleplay skills that most munchkins would avoid. * The innate caster get three 0 level spells, which he can use once a day. Again, I don't anticipate any plot shattering uses. * The hunted gets a roleplay skills. * The favored gets to reroll once. My group already suffers from "oooo, the die was cocked on 3 sheets of paper" syndrome. This just lets them do it without lying about it. :angel: * The fiend has to really want those bonuses because, IMHO, the penalties are hefty. (On purpose.) * The blind one... well 50% miss chance every attack is a heafty price for not getting surprised or snuck up on. These aren't intended to twink or munchkinize my players. They're to help give those players (two of which have only played a few sessions before) a background if they can't think of one themselves. (Most players don't bother.) For those that do, they can certainly decline drawing one of these--especially the blind one. I wouldn't force a player to accept any of these.
Xychotic 11-05-03, 09:59 PM	You must have missed my intent when I was referring to ability mods in multiples of 2. What I meant was that whenever a creature gets a change to one of their ability scores, it always comes in a +/- 2, never actually an odd number.
Mock26 11-05-03, 11:47 PM	This is something different from which you are talking about, but you might want to consider doing my idea with your idea. I give every character in my group, when they are created, 3 minor contacts. This costs them nothing. Here are some examples of minor contacts: A bartender at a local tavern A serving wench at a local inn A librarian A sgt. in the town guard A clerk at the mage's guild In lieu of 2 minor contacts, the player could have a major contact: The owner of a local tavern The head of research at a university A Lt. or Cpt. in the town guard A high ranking rogue in the local guild In all cases, the player has to come up with a reason to know these people. I am fairly lenient and if the character says that he is a friend of his contact or that the contact is his cousin or something like that, I let it go. For the most part the contacts don't come into play, but they have. On the group's first adventure they had to research a demon who was known to occassionally visit some local ruins. One of the players had chosen a librarian as a contact and went to her for help, and another had chosen a bartender and went to him to see if he knew of any story tellers in town who knew a lot about local lore. The players really seem to enjoy the contacts as they give more depth to the group. I have, every once in a while, seen a player trying to find some way to bring the contact into the game, but not as a crutch or some way to cheat, but because he likes the NPC I've evolved from his contact! ciao, john.