To quickly summarize what I want to do: I want some house rules similar to Hero Points or Action Points that PCs can earn and spend in order to "fudge" dice rolls. I also want to reward good behavior over bad behavior. Additionally there is the ability for PCs to "go into debt" with karma points but at the cost of having that benefit rebound against the user in time and manner of the GM's choosing.
Please critique and offer suggestions for improvement.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Karma Basics
Karma is a metaphysical representation of what some would think of as "luck" or perhaps "poetic justice" pertaining to the ordinary odds of success for a certain task. To put it another way, "what goes around, comes around."
Every character (PC or NPC) can use Karma points to increase the odds of success in a given task (defined as any die roll mandated by the rules or GM fiat to determine the outcome of a character's actions, which can include anything from caster level checks and percentile miss chances to skill checks and critical hit confirmation.) Although Karma is rightly thought of as an abstract force holding sway over the entirety one's life and behavior, for purposes of these rules, Karma can only be applied to tasks that could be framed as an action of some kind: whether as a free action, immediate action, standard action, full-round action, or some other action type.
There are two common kinds of Karma: Good Karma and Bad Karma. Good Karma is always beneficial, and carries no penalties for its use. Bad Karma can hurt you, though the consequences of its use are seldom immediate and can harm you in ways you may not anticipate. The karmic powers do not like Bad Karma because it creates an imbalance, and they will seek to rectify that imbalance. Hence, there is a third kind of Karma called Retributive Karma, which is directly tied to Bad Karma and is the direct manifestation of the universal motivation to repay evil for evil.
Initial Karma Pool
All characters at creation have an initial Karma pool based on their alignment and adjusted by Wisdom. Charisma, although key to winning friends and influence people, has no power to manipulate whoever (or whatever) pulls the karmic strings of the universe.
Alignment points are as follows:
Lawful good or neutral good: 4 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic good: 3 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Lawful neutral or true neutral: 2 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic neutral, lawful evil, or neutral evil: 1 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic evil: Wisdom modifier only (minimum 0)
Obtaining Good Karma
Good Karma is earned whenever you attempt a challenging task (an action requiring a d20 roll) and you have an altruistic or selfless intent; i.e., an attempt at any action that is considered "good" and at the same time non-trivial. Being non-trivial, this excludes simple acts of common courtesy such as holding a door open for someone and asking politely to have someone pass the sugar, because actions such as these present little challenge for the average person. Generally, a task will qualify for earning Good Karma if the DC for the task is at least 10 + your character level.
On qualifying tasks, if you roll a Natural 20 on your check and if you beat the task's assigned DC, then you may roll a Karma check (whose operation is identical to a critical confirmation roll, requiring you to beat the task’s assigned DC for a second time to confirm). A successful confirmation awards you Good Karma. If the task’s DC is less than 20, you earn 1 Good Karma point; if its DC is at least 20 but less than 30, you earn 2 Good Karma points; if its DC is 30 or more, you earn 3 Good Karma points.
The maximum number of Good Karma points you can have at any one time is 5 + half your character level (rounded down) + your Wisdom modifier.
Obtaining Bad Karma
Bad Karma is not so much "earned" as asked for, whether by calling upon the gods, entreating the fates, or crying out to some other supernatural force ("whoever might be listening") to aid you in your time of need. The intent behind this form of Karma is fundamentally different, because you are acting out of selfish need and perhaps a desire to triumph over an opponent or some impersonal challenge regardless of what outcome may be more "just". Effectively, you are calling upon the karmic powers to cheat your way out of a situation and to escape the consequences of your actions, even if the mess you are in is entirely your own fault. You need not even have any Good Karma saved up in order to ask for Bad Karma, and even if you have plenty of Good Karma you can ask for Bad Karma (if, for example, if you wanted to save your Good Karma for some more dire situation).
Any Bad Karma you ask for remains “active” until paid back in the form of Retributive Karma. You can have number of active Bad Karma points equal to your maximum allowed Good Karma points, and the benefits gained by spending Bad Karma are identical to those of Good Karma (as described below). However, unlike Good Karma, Bad Karma must be spent immediately. What is more, Bad Karma allots an equal number of Retributive Karma points for the GM's use against your character, which can manifest in any number of ways and in the form of any character of creature the GM controls, whether it be a randomly-encountered monster or the party's chief villain. Retributive Karma points are "spent" by the GM only to modify an action directly involving your character as a target, although this does not exclude the possibility of fellow party members or innocents suffering collateral damage. Your party wizard ought not worry overmuch about being a guaranteed victim of a successful sneak-attack by an enemy rogue just because his cleric buddy asked for Bad Karma in winning a fight against the rogue's lady friend a few days ago (but the cleric sure needs to!)
In certain rare cases, a GM may see fit to grant a PC one or more Retributive Karma points to use against an NPC or monster whom the GM has assigned a “tab” of Bad Karma to be paid off. As with Good Karma, the option to spend these Retributive Karma points is entirely voluntary, and no evil will befall a character who makes optimal use of Retributive Karma so long as they apply it wisely. Retributive Karma may only modify actions directly involving the "marked" creature or character as a target, and the character who is granted the Retributive Karma should take care to involve as few innocents as possible—if one is granted Retributive Karma and uses it to inflict widespread destruction without just cause, this will draw unwanted attention from the karmic powers and possibly bring Retributive Karma down upon one’s own head.
Finally, certain extraordinarily awful or nasty behavior can "earn" a character Retributive Karma even if they had not asked for Bad Karma. Only actions truly befitting an evil character will qualify, in accordance with the qualifications for earning Good Karma as outlined above. Normally this ought only apply to NPCs (and even then only NPCs of a species which does not naturally incline itself to evil, such as aasimar--tiefling, drow, and fiendish NPCs will seldom worry about Retributive Karma because evilness is an innate behavior for them, and the karmic powers find other ways of striking the balance against their misdeeds). However, players who go out of their way to roleplay their characters toward one of the evil alignments may find their PCs saddled with Retributive Karma in this way.
Spending Karma
Up to seven Karma points can be spent at a time to modify a task, with multiple points ensuring an ever greater chance of success, but the player can only modify a task with Karma once—if a Karma-modified die roll still does not produce a desirable result (either as a failure or insufficient success), the player cannot spend Karma a second time to try to reverse what is to be considered a "fated" result.
Karma can only be spent to modify die rolls that the player would make on behalf of their character. For instance, the player could use Karma to guarantee her PC’s success on a Reflex save against a Fireball from an ally that accidentally caught her in its area of effect, but could not use Karma to improve an ally’s touch attack with the Fireball, since the attack rolle is not being rolled by her on behalf of her character.
For any task you wish to modify, you must declare that you are using Good Karma (or asking for Bad Karma) before making the actual die roll. You can use both Good and Bad Karma (and even Retributive Karma, if any) when modifying a task. In all cases, spending Karma does not count as an action, but is considered part of the action you are modifying.
Spending one Karma point grants you the ability to reroll once after an initial die roll if you do not like the first result. You may make your initial roll and decide not to reroll, in which case the Karma points are not spent. But if you do reroll, you must accept the second result even if it is worse. [average d20 result is 13.0 when rerolling on 10 or less]
Spending two to six Karma points grants you the ability to roll multiple times for a task and take the best result from all of them. Every Karma point spent in this way grants you that many total dice to choose from, including the original—three Karma points gets you three total d20’s to roll, five points gets you five, and so on. [average d20 result is 13.8 for 2 Karma/d20's, 15.5 for 3 Karma/d20's, 16.5 for 4 Karma/d20's, 17.1 for 5 Karma/d20's, and 17.6 for 6 Karma/d20's] [not 100% sure about these numbers]
Spending seven Karma points grants you the ability to "maximize" your die result—for instance, you would be considered to have rolled a 20 for your modified caster level check or to confirm a critical hit. Spending Karma to gain an automatic 20 in this way does not qualify you as having rolled a “natural 20.”
Please critique and offer suggestions for improvement.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Karma Basics
Karma is a metaphysical representation of what some would think of as "luck" or perhaps "poetic justice" pertaining to the ordinary odds of success for a certain task. To put it another way, "what goes around, comes around."
Every character (PC or NPC) can use Karma points to increase the odds of success in a given task (defined as any die roll mandated by the rules or GM fiat to determine the outcome of a character's actions, which can include anything from caster level checks and percentile miss chances to skill checks and critical hit confirmation.) Although Karma is rightly thought of as an abstract force holding sway over the entirety one's life and behavior, for purposes of these rules, Karma can only be applied to tasks that could be framed as an action of some kind: whether as a free action, immediate action, standard action, full-round action, or some other action type.
There are two common kinds of Karma: Good Karma and Bad Karma. Good Karma is always beneficial, and carries no penalties for its use. Bad Karma can hurt you, though the consequences of its use are seldom immediate and can harm you in ways you may not anticipate. The karmic powers do not like Bad Karma because it creates an imbalance, and they will seek to rectify that imbalance. Hence, there is a third kind of Karma called Retributive Karma, which is directly tied to Bad Karma and is the direct manifestation of the universal motivation to repay evil for evil.
Initial Karma Pool
All characters at creation have an initial Karma pool based on their alignment and adjusted by Wisdom. Charisma, although key to winning friends and influence people, has no power to manipulate whoever (or whatever) pulls the karmic strings of the universe.
Alignment points are as follows:
Lawful good or neutral good: 4 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic good: 3 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Lawful neutral or true neutral: 2 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic neutral, lawful evil, or neutral evil: 1 + Wisdom modifier (minimum 0)
Chaotic evil: Wisdom modifier only (minimum 0)
Obtaining Good Karma
Good Karma is earned whenever you attempt a challenging task (an action requiring a d20 roll) and you have an altruistic or selfless intent; i.e., an attempt at any action that is considered "good" and at the same time non-trivial. Being non-trivial, this excludes simple acts of common courtesy such as holding a door open for someone and asking politely to have someone pass the sugar, because actions such as these present little challenge for the average person. Generally, a task will qualify for earning Good Karma if the DC for the task is at least 10 + your character level.
On qualifying tasks, if you roll a Natural 20 on your check and if you beat the task's assigned DC, then you may roll a Karma check (whose operation is identical to a critical confirmation roll, requiring you to beat the task’s assigned DC for a second time to confirm). A successful confirmation awards you Good Karma. If the task’s DC is less than 20, you earn 1 Good Karma point; if its DC is at least 20 but less than 30, you earn 2 Good Karma points; if its DC is 30 or more, you earn 3 Good Karma points.
The maximum number of Good Karma points you can have at any one time is 5 + half your character level (rounded down) + your Wisdom modifier.
Obtaining Bad Karma
Bad Karma is not so much "earned" as asked for, whether by calling upon the gods, entreating the fates, or crying out to some other supernatural force ("whoever might be listening") to aid you in your time of need. The intent behind this form of Karma is fundamentally different, because you are acting out of selfish need and perhaps a desire to triumph over an opponent or some impersonal challenge regardless of what outcome may be more "just". Effectively, you are calling upon the karmic powers to cheat your way out of a situation and to escape the consequences of your actions, even if the mess you are in is entirely your own fault. You need not even have any Good Karma saved up in order to ask for Bad Karma, and even if you have plenty of Good Karma you can ask for Bad Karma (if, for example, if you wanted to save your Good Karma for some more dire situation).
Any Bad Karma you ask for remains “active” until paid back in the form of Retributive Karma. You can have number of active Bad Karma points equal to your maximum allowed Good Karma points, and the benefits gained by spending Bad Karma are identical to those of Good Karma (as described below). However, unlike Good Karma, Bad Karma must be spent immediately. What is more, Bad Karma allots an equal number of Retributive Karma points for the GM's use against your character, which can manifest in any number of ways and in the form of any character of creature the GM controls, whether it be a randomly-encountered monster or the party's chief villain. Retributive Karma points are "spent" by the GM only to modify an action directly involving your character as a target, although this does not exclude the possibility of fellow party members or innocents suffering collateral damage. Your party wizard ought not worry overmuch about being a guaranteed victim of a successful sneak-attack by an enemy rogue just because his cleric buddy asked for Bad Karma in winning a fight against the rogue's lady friend a few days ago (but the cleric sure needs to!)
In certain rare cases, a GM may see fit to grant a PC one or more Retributive Karma points to use against an NPC or monster whom the GM has assigned a “tab” of Bad Karma to be paid off. As with Good Karma, the option to spend these Retributive Karma points is entirely voluntary, and no evil will befall a character who makes optimal use of Retributive Karma so long as they apply it wisely. Retributive Karma may only modify actions directly involving the "marked" creature or character as a target, and the character who is granted the Retributive Karma should take care to involve as few innocents as possible—if one is granted Retributive Karma and uses it to inflict widespread destruction without just cause, this will draw unwanted attention from the karmic powers and possibly bring Retributive Karma down upon one’s own head.
Finally, certain extraordinarily awful or nasty behavior can "earn" a character Retributive Karma even if they had not asked for Bad Karma. Only actions truly befitting an evil character will qualify, in accordance with the qualifications for earning Good Karma as outlined above. Normally this ought only apply to NPCs (and even then only NPCs of a species which does not naturally incline itself to evil, such as aasimar--tiefling, drow, and fiendish NPCs will seldom worry about Retributive Karma because evilness is an innate behavior for them, and the karmic powers find other ways of striking the balance against their misdeeds). However, players who go out of their way to roleplay their characters toward one of the evil alignments may find their PCs saddled with Retributive Karma in this way.
Spending Karma
Up to seven Karma points can be spent at a time to modify a task, with multiple points ensuring an ever greater chance of success, but the player can only modify a task with Karma once—if a Karma-modified die roll still does not produce a desirable result (either as a failure or insufficient success), the player cannot spend Karma a second time to try to reverse what is to be considered a "fated" result.
Karma can only be spent to modify die rolls that the player would make on behalf of their character. For instance, the player could use Karma to guarantee her PC’s success on a Reflex save against a Fireball from an ally that accidentally caught her in its area of effect, but could not use Karma to improve an ally’s touch attack with the Fireball, since the attack rolle is not being rolled by her on behalf of her character.
For any task you wish to modify, you must declare that you are using Good Karma (or asking for Bad Karma) before making the actual die roll. You can use both Good and Bad Karma (and even Retributive Karma, if any) when modifying a task. In all cases, spending Karma does not count as an action, but is considered part of the action you are modifying.
Spending one Karma point grants you the ability to reroll once after an initial die roll if you do not like the first result. You may make your initial roll and decide not to reroll, in which case the Karma points are not spent. But if you do reroll, you must accept the second result even if it is worse. [average d20 result is 13.0 when rerolling on 10 or less]
Spending two to six Karma points grants you the ability to roll multiple times for a task and take the best result from all of them. Every Karma point spent in this way grants you that many total dice to choose from, including the original—three Karma points gets you three total d20’s to roll, five points gets you five, and so on. [average d20 result is 13.8 for 2 Karma/d20's, 15.5 for 3 Karma/d20's, 16.5 for 4 Karma/d20's, 17.1 for 5 Karma/d20's, and 17.6 for 6 Karma/d20's] [not 100% sure about these numbers]
Spending seven Karma points grants you the ability to "maximize" your die result—for instance, you would be considered to have rolled a 20 for your modified caster level check or to confirm a critical hit. Spending Karma to gain an automatic 20 in this way does not qualify you as having rolled a “natural 20.”
Last edited:
