Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Just a simple house rule, wondering if it adds enough to be worth adding a rule.
Dealing with your weakness is a common themes in stories, but not as much in RPGs like D&D. Having a flaw is interesting, but how do we incentivize it?
Lack of the Knack: You fail at some everyman skill. You may pick 1-3 skills that you are "no good" at. You have disadvantage on all rolls with them. Whenever you use that skill in a meaningful way, success or failure you gain Inspiration. If you gain proficiency with a skill, the disadvantage and the ability to gain Inspiration both disappear. You may also remove this from a skill each time you level.
So basically, players can voluntarily take some things they aren't good at and make them worse, but if they do end up using it they get Inspiration.
"Meaningful" is a bit subjective. Climbing up a cliff when you are bad at Athletics is definitely meaningful, juggling for your party's amusement probably isn't even if you get prickly when people laugh at you.
This can reinforce stereotypes - the barbarian is never going to understand Arcana, but can also have some surprising depths, such as the urban (and urbane) Cleric who just can't get the hang of the outdoors and is bad at Survival and Animal Handling, even though they are Wisdom based skills. The bard who's a horrible liar and has disadvantage at Deception.
So, what do you think? Would you take advantage of this with your own characters?
Dealing with your weakness is a common themes in stories, but not as much in RPGs like D&D. Having a flaw is interesting, but how do we incentivize it?
Lack of the Knack: You fail at some everyman skill. You may pick 1-3 skills that you are "no good" at. You have disadvantage on all rolls with them. Whenever you use that skill in a meaningful way, success or failure you gain Inspiration. If you gain proficiency with a skill, the disadvantage and the ability to gain Inspiration both disappear. You may also remove this from a skill each time you level.
So basically, players can voluntarily take some things they aren't good at and make them worse, but if they do end up using it they get Inspiration.
"Meaningful" is a bit subjective. Climbing up a cliff when you are bad at Athletics is definitely meaningful, juggling for your party's amusement probably isn't even if you get prickly when people laugh at you.
This can reinforce stereotypes - the barbarian is never going to understand Arcana, but can also have some surprising depths, such as the urban (and urbane) Cleric who just can't get the hang of the outdoors and is bad at Survival and Animal Handling, even though they are Wisdom based skills. The bard who's a horrible liar and has disadvantage at Deception.
So, what do you think? Would you take advantage of this with your own characters?