Character Traits/Flaws/Points...........

[Heretic Apostate]

For flaws, I'd like to see something used in other RPGs:

You take a penalty. In return, whenever a certain situation comes up, you get extra experience points. If it doesn't come up within a certain time frame, the DM has to pay back the penalty, with a little bit extra thrown in.

Thus, for instance, the player is encouraged to roleplay their flaw. The only benefit you get from your flaw is if it is roleplayed, for the extra XP gained. If you ignore your flaw, you paid a penalty for nothing. And if the DM fails to incorporate the flaw, you get back the penalty you took.

For instance, you might have an enemy. Every time the enemy shows up, you get an extra bonus for roleplaying your enmity. If the enemy doesn't show up within four or five levels, you get back the penalty you took.

Et cetera...

 

[Darklone]

UA has traits and flaws... you get feats for the flaws, the traits are already a "feat and flaw" package.

Most of them looked nice to me.

 

[Silveras]

My copy arrived today. From the "Behind the Curtain" piece on creating Flaws, they are meant to avoid some of the problems mentioned before.

The groundrules for designing a flaw include:
Flaws offer a greater penalty than feats offer a bonus. A flaw that affects skills causes a -4 penalty to 2 skills, compared to a feat's +2. Flaws should only be designed to affect all characters; a flaw that primarily affects one class is likely to see a character multi-class away to escape the penalty. Flaws that impose a role-playing penalty should be avoided; they are not equally balanced in all campaigns.

The sample Flaws presented seem to follow those bits of design philosophy well.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

So, if I'm a fighter, what's to stop me from taking a flaw that gives me a penalty to Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana), thus earning myself another feat?

 

[Stalker0]

So, if I'm a fighter, what's to stop me from taking a flaw that gives me a penalty to Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana), thus earning myself another feat?

Rule 1: The DM has the final say on any character choice

 

[Stalker0]

Frankly, I'm tired of the min-max argument for not allowing concepts in dnd. I like 3e a lot but I do think its kind of handholds players a lot more than in 2e. Sometimes you have to trade security for flavor, to allow the option is of character customization is to open the potential door of abuse, but I think its better than cookie cutter characters every time

 

[AeroDm]

95% of all the problems and min/maxing annoyances can be avoided with common sense on the part of _anyone_ at the gaming table.

 

[Crothian]

Who builds cookie cutter characters? Why do players need to be bribed with a free feat to accept a flaw in their character? The min max arguement is presented becasue so many people try to abuse the rules. A DM can easily control it, but by reading threads on different boards it seems that few do.

I have no problem with concepts. It just that it has been my expoerience that players who want characters to have flaws don't need specific rules to incorperate them.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, you can take a Flaw or Disadvantage from some PDF I bought off rpgnow.com, and if you RP it interestingly you get bonus XP for that session.

-- N

 

[Silveras]

So, if I'm a fighter, what's to stop me from taking a flaw that gives me a penalty to Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana), thus earning myself another feat?

Because the combination of skills is weighted for arcane spellcasters, this is the kind of Flaw that they recommend you DON'T create.

The Player does not choose which skills are affected. Flaws are "like Feats" in that they impose a specific penalty on a specific facet of the game. Some also have qualifications like Feats; at least a couple say that you cannot take the Flaw if it would not be a significant hindrance for your character. The "Pathetic" Flaw, for example, is not allowed if your character's scores are too good.

Don't misunderstand me; I am not trying to sell anyone on using Flaws or Traits. I am, however, a little tired of "the sky is falling" reactions before a book even gets out. Now that the book is arriving, people can make informed choices as to what to use, or not use.