Giving benefits to "flawed characters" / Is it ok to alter the Leadership feat

[stevelabny]

So for our next campaign, I have a player who wants to play a deaf bard.
She knows this will give her auto-fail Listen checks, -4 on Initiative, and other problems. She would like me to shrink or removie the 20% spell failure chance because of how crippling it is. And she will be playing a percussion instrument. (keeping a beat doesnt involve sound in the same way other instruments do)

Also, she would like to be able to take the Leadership at 3rd level rather than 6th. As far as I can tell, the 6th level prerquisite only exists for the flavor of not attracting followers until you have at least some prestige, but since her cohort will be a family appointed warforged bodyguard, I dont really have an issue with that.

Finally, she would like her bodyguard warforged fighter type to be blind. (of course) Would letting the cohort be one level below the party instead of two even out this weakness?

So is ignoring the spell failure chance acceptable since the character will already have other severe problems?

And what is the downside to allowing the Leadership feat to be taken at 3rd level instead of 6th, and allowing the cohort to be one level less rather than 2? I don't see a game-breaking problem, but I figure I better ask.

My main concern is that the other players will think I'm favoring this one by allowing "freebies" for flaws, but I think I can ask them that and get honest answers.

 

[John Crichton]

I would let this in my campaign in a heartbeat. Even thought the numbers may not pan out I think the flavor is really good. You can adjust on the fly if you find that things are unbalanced a bit. I guess it would also depend on how much I trusted the player.

As for the spell failure, I would offer a progression. Start at 20% failure and each level having it go down 5% until it was completely gone as long as enough spells were cast during that level to show that she was learning by doing.

And asking the other players is a very good idea. If I was a player I would like to know that my DM was open to good ideas and able to let me work outside the box if I had a concept that I wanted to try.

 

[argo]

Honestly I think the ony person qualified to answer this is you. Generally speaking ads/disads systems are more trouble than they are worth and 3E is specifically designed not to use them. You need to worry about not only the possibility that the benefits could overpower the character (for example, a deaf character should be immune to all sonic, language dependent spells) but also weither or not the disabilities will make for an unworkable character or a character who is too much of a burden on the rest of the party (a deaf character with a blind bodyguard? How is that going to play in your campaign? planning many dungeon crawls? How will a socially oriented character like a bard make out in a world where presumably nobody knows sign language?).

I think that a decision like this depends on how you and your player feel about such a character concept, what kind of game you had planned, and how the rest of your players feel about adventuring with such a character.

Hope that helps.

 

[Umbran]

A blind bodyguard? That sounds... less than grand. More trouble than it is worth, really. A bodyguard that cannot even be counted upon to walk along next to you on a crowded street really isn't plausible, IMHO.

I've come to dislike merit/flaw systems that give you benefits in character generation. I prefer the "if the flaw actually comes into play, you get a reward for playing it well" system - extra XP or action points of the like.

 

[Geoff Watson]

So, I get all this extra stuff for starting with a deaf/blind character?
Cool. I hire a cleric to cast Remove Blindness/Deafness, and keep all the extra stuff.

Geoff.

 

[stevelabny]

Geoff... all the extra stuff? what extra stuff? i'm aware that i myself said I was giving "benefits or freebies" but i didnt really feel it was that much.

The only benefit of a deaf character is sonic immunity and the only benefit of a blind character is gaze immunity. both of which would be voided if you cured them. instead both have numerous penalties.
All i'm thinking of doing for the character is negating or reducing the spell failure chance which is LESSENING the overall penalties, not actually granting something.
And then letting them take Leadership earlier, and have the cohort be 1 level stronger. THIS is a benefit. but as it is directly tied into the characters back story and concept, I was asking if this was unbalancing.
You seem to think it is insanely so, but don't give any reasons why.
And for the record,I KNOW the PC isn't attempting this cheap trickey, and wouldn't allow it if they did. (For these characters are obvioulsy blinded or deafened for greater reasons. As a matter of fact, WHY are they blind and deaf? What DID they see and hear when they were younger? Thanks for the plot hook)

Umbran... the blind bodyguard is a warforged, so i'm assuming it wont immediately be obvious to anyone that he's blind. Also, being the less important "handicapped" member of the family, the PC got the shaft with the "factory defect" bodyguard. Or perhaps the family didnt even know, and the bard had already befriended his fellow misfit. The backstory hasnt gotten that detailed yet. At they very least the bodyguard would have blind-fight. And the two would often wind up being the others eyes/ears. I'm sure I've seen THAT fight scene in numerous movies.
Also, as I am planning this next campaign to be VERY character-driven, the deafness thing is bound to come up very often.

Argo... your concerns for party chemistry are duly noted. After a campaign of mostly dungeon crawls, I was hoping for a more-character based game in the Eberron setting and the PCs will be able to communicate freely in regular situations thanks to a maxed out spot/lip reading skill. In regular social situations, one can assume that the bard will also have a clear line of vision to the speakers lips. Of course, the fun "encounters" will involve situations where the speaker is a new race with a much higher DC to lip-read, or where cultural customs dictate that the bard and the party cant actually see their host. (an emperor or queen who is always veiled). But thats where the challenge of it comes in. The only problem with the party as a whole would be in sudden situations where line of sight is blocked and just yelling too each other would leave the bard out. Need to call for a full retreat in the middle of a fog cloud? Oh well. But that still seems FUN to me. And my players have been pretty much on the same page as me fun-wise so far.

John... I like your idea of the spell failure progressively getting lower. It will make the early levels VERY challenging, but I like the idea of having to earn it.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

So, I get all this extra stuff for starting with a deaf/blind character?
Cool. I hire a cleric to cast Remove Blindness/Deafness, and keep all the extra stuff.

Geoff.

Which presumes two things:

1) That the player's only interest in creating the character is to get free stuff. Given the nature of the concept, I doubt that's very likely.

2) That the deafness can be cured. "The spell does not restore ears or eyes that have been lost, but it repairs them if they are damaged." It's entirely possible, particularly in a magical world, that the character was born without the mechanisms required for hearing at all, or that these mechanisms were removed entirely after birth. You can't repair what isn't there.

For myself, I'd allow it if the player could be trusted to do something with the concept - it's all too easy for a character to come up with a seemingly interesting idea that they can't actually play worth a damn in game. If she can do it, then more power to her, and you - it could spark some interesting RPing.

Patrick Y.

 

[Hawkeye]

The only benefit of a deaf character is sonic immunity and the only benefit of a blind character is gaze immunity. both of which would be voided if you cured them.

That isn't quite true. While the auditory organs would undoubtably be the first part of the body affected by a sonic attack, the rest of the body can also be affected by a sonic attack. Think of this: When you go to a concert nd the volume is right or ou are close enough to the speakers not only can you hear the music, you can feel it with your body, particularly in your abdomen. Imagine the damage you would take if your liver is lacerated sonically or if your hollow internal organs (primarly GI organs) being crushed under a sonic wave. I have always believed that is what was happening in a sonic based attack.

Hawkeye

 

[Geoff Watson]

The only benefit of a deaf character is sonic immunity and the only benefit of a blind character is gaze immunity. both of which would be voided if you cured them. instead both have numerous penalties.

A deaf character isn't immune to Sonic spells. They might be immune to Language Dependent spells, and a few others that require the victim to hear (such as Holy Word), but they can still be blasted by Cacophonic Burst or Orb of Sound.

Unless the two characters have some sort of telepathic connection, they will have real trouble communicating and adventuring.

Geoff.

 

[irdeggman]

Ever see the movie "See no evil, hear no evil" (I think that was the title) with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor?

Wilder's character was deaf and Pryor's was blind. There was a scene where Wilder's character was "searching" a room while Pryor's kept watch outside. Absolutely hilarious - image how they would communicate.

I'm sorry that max on Spot/read lips isn't really going to help on the communications side, even Listen/Read Lips would cause severe problems.

One has to be facing in the correct direction. The blind character doesn't know which way the other is facing and the deaf one can't hear the blind one telling him to stand somewhere better.

Something else that has to be taken into consideration is the fact that deaf people cannot speak clearly. It has to do with not hearing themselves speak and knowing how words are supposed to sound. A deaf character doesn't know how to be quiet since he can't hear any sound to make a comparison with.

While I think the reasons for the player wanting to play this way are most likely real legitimate I do think that there will be far too many problems with team unity and such to make it worth it without bypassing the whole flaw issue with magic or something else.

In a campaign I ran using the 2nd ed Player's Option series I allowed a player to take a restriction that made his PC a manic/depressive. He wanted the role-playing issue and played it real well. The problem came about because his PC was a king and in charge of a realm (we were playing Birthright). He knew what his PC's role was going to be before setting up the restriction (flaw). My mistake was in allowing it to happen in the first place. I the PC was not a king then it would have been alright, but because of the PC's role it made him totally ineffective and pretty much useless. It ruined many storyline threads that could have been and the player was sort of ticked off when his PC ended up assassinated by who he thought was a life-long friend.

While I don't see the trade-offs as being unbalanced by themselves the problems they cause can quickly become so. If the deaf PC doesn't suffer the spellcasting penalties for being deaf then justifying the effect on NPCs (or other PCs) when they are deafened becomes difficult. This can lead to having no line to cross when attempting to ejudicate other rules.

If the blind NPC has gained no "benefits" from having the flaw (e.g., no extra feat) then treating him as being of a lower level makes sense to me. This is not the same as allowing the deaf PC access to the leadership feat early. If you do that then you really need to allow all of the other PCs access at the same level - to keep things balanced. Forgetting the cohort/level issue the leadership feat also gives access to followers which are based on leadership score, which is affected by charisma, which happens to be a bard's most important ability score.