I want characters to be different. I think other people want charaters to be different too. What I don't want is to have to sift through stacks of rules to find things that make a character unique. (Don't get me wrong I love reading rules but I think it slows things down to lug two back packs full of books to the table.)
To this end I've attempted to come up with a mechanic that a player can use to make their character unique. I call it a "Boon". It works by assigning a boon to your character. This is something like saying Jored is not just a rogue he's "a guildsman of Roughswater". In much the same way that Conan isnt just some guy with a sword he's "A barbarian from Cimeria" or Aragorn is "The heir to the Throne of Gondor" These little tags hint at so much about the character and are used in the stories to justify tons of things without having to get fiddly. This part will take some work between DM and player but it can also give the players a chance to help build the world a bit too.
After choosing a boon players are then free to assign a favor and at every odd level they get a new favour. (1st, 3rd, 5th etc.) A favour allows a character to get a second roll of a d20 anytime the conditions of the favour are met. So you could say Renteg the Red spent time studying the blade in the slave pits of Azgalot, so even though he is a wizard or what have you when he swings his sword he gets 2 rolls and chooses the better one. No need to multiclass or fuss about with feats. You just need to declare that your character has a valid Story Reason for their ability and aslong as the DM is ok with it BAM your fighter can sneak your wizard can swing a mean sword or your rogue can be mightily resiliant.
To this end I've attempted to come up with a mechanic that a player can use to make their character unique. I call it a "Boon". It works by assigning a boon to your character. This is something like saying Jored is not just a rogue he's "a guildsman of Roughswater". In much the same way that Conan isnt just some guy with a sword he's "A barbarian from Cimeria" or Aragorn is "The heir to the Throne of Gondor" These little tags hint at so much about the character and are used in the stories to justify tons of things without having to get fiddly. This part will take some work between DM and player but it can also give the players a chance to help build the world a bit too.
After choosing a boon players are then free to assign a favor and at every odd level they get a new favour. (1st, 3rd, 5th etc.) A favour allows a character to get a second roll of a d20 anytime the conditions of the favour are met. So you could say Renteg the Red spent time studying the blade in the slave pits of Azgalot, so even though he is a wizard or what have you when he swings his sword he gets 2 rolls and chooses the better one. No need to multiclass or fuss about with feats. You just need to declare that your character has a valid Story Reason for their ability and aslong as the DM is ok with it BAM your fighter can sneak your wizard can swing a mean sword or your rogue can be mightily resiliant.
