some (kind of) wealth-related feats

[Salamander Napolean]

I know it's wierd, and a little hard to get used to, but I think the D20 Modern Wealth System is pretty cool. These are some feats using the new system.


Feat: Junk Hoarder
You have piles and piles of miscellaneous items stored in your place of residence. Chances are you’ve got some blank video tapes in there somewhere; all you have to do is find them.
Benefit: You can make a purchase check to see if you already own any item with a purchase DC of 10 or below. It takes 15 minutes to locate and dig out the item.
Normal: You have to go the store and buy it, like normal people.
Special: A Junk Hoarder never sells or gives away anything, although he may lend things to trusted friends.

Feat: Ebay Master.
Prerequisites: Junk Hoarder, Permanent Disability
You are an expert and finding good deals on the internet. It takes a bit longer, but in the end it’s worth it.
Prerequisites: Junk Hoarder
Benefit: Subtract 2 from the purchase DC of any item except firearms, ammunition, or explosives, but the time required to make the purchase is multiplied by 100 or by 2000(!) when taking 20.

Feat: Scavenger
You are skilled at finding broken but repairable items that others have thrown away.
Prerequisites: Junk Hoarder, Craft skill 4 ranks
Benefit: Instead of making a wealth check to purchase an item, you can make an intelligence roll against the item’s purchase DC. Success means the character can find the item, but it is damaged and unusable w/o repairs. You cannot take 10 or take 20 on a scavenging check. You can only scavenge items that you have the ability to repair. Instead of going to a store or a mall, you must search through dumpsters or a junkyard.
Normal: To gain an item you have to make a successful wealth check.

Feat: Junkyard Warrior
You are a master at finding garbage and turning it into something useful.
Prerequisites: BAB+2, Scavenger, 8 ranks of craft skill
Benefit: You can take 10 or take 20 on your scavenger checks. You receive a +3 competence bonus to your scavenger checks. This bonus is never decreased after a successful scavenging.
Normal: You cannot take 10 or take 20 on your scavenger checks.

Anti-Feat: Vow of Poverty
You donate all of your non-essential income to charities. Helping others is the only reward you need.
Prerequisite: None
Draw Back: Your wealth bonus may never exceed +3.

Feat: Permanent Disability
You receive a disability check from the government for doing nothing. Your life is a year-round vacation.
Benefit: You never have to go to work. Ever.
Drawback: You never gain more than a +1 wealth bonus for successfully making a profession check at the attainment of a new level.

Anti-Feat: Serious Habit
Maybe it's drugs, maybe it's fine-dining, maybe it's super-rare ska records. Whatever it is you spend way too much money on it, and have little to show for your trouble.
Drawback: Once a week you have to buy an item with a purchase DC equal to your current wealth bonus +11.
Special: You can't collect anything useful like ninja eqipment or jet packs.

Feat: Semi Professional Gambler
You are a compulsive gambler and your finances fluctuate depending on your current run of luck.
Prerequisite: Gambling 1 rank
Benefit: Whenever you are about to make a purchase check add d6-4 to your current wealth bonus. This is a temporary modifier which does not permanently change your wealth bonus. If you have a poisitive modifier it effects all purchases made that day. If you have a negative modifier it lasts for one week.
Drawback: When making a profession check at the attainment of a new level, you must confirm it by making a successful gambling check versus the same DC.

Feat: Crocodile Hunter
You are an expert at fighting animals and not being killed by them.
Prerequisites: Animal handling, 7 ranks.
Benefit: You can make an unarmed attack against an animal w/o triggering an AoO. You can make a non-lethal attack against an animal w/o suffering the typical –4 penalty. You receive a +2 competence bonus to your defense against animal attacks, "when animals attack."
Normal: Making an unarmed attack triggers an AoO. Making a non-lethal attack incurs a –4 penalty. Messing around w/venomous snakes gets you killed.
(Okay. It's not wealth-related at all, but I like it.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

I hate to say it, but most of these, while cool, are either nonsensical or broken.

It's entirely possible these feats are just for humour purposes. Try not to be personally offended if they weren't.

Junk hoarder is already (somewhat) covered by the rules. All you've got to do is build up your wealth bonus and you're set.

Ebay master is just cruddy. 3 feats for a -2 to purchase DC's as long as you take 100! times as long to buy stuff? Why not just pick up windfall 3 times?

Scavenger and Junkyard warrior are just too good. What's the penalty for taking 20 on these again? Woohoo! Taking 10 I can find rocket launchers at the junkyard. If I take 20 I can pick up HMG's like nothing.
And then I can sell them off!

All the anti-feats - WTF is an anti-feat?

Permanent disability. Since when do PC's actually have to work anyway? This gets you what precisely? Whoopee! A feat which will basically give me nothing and take away plenty!

Semi-professional gambler - hmm, looks like a bigger penalty than a benefit again. Why not just use the gambling rules??

Crocodile hunter - ok, this one is actually cool. It's probably a bit too good for a single feat though.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Yeah, I basically agree with Saeviomagy. They don't seem too useful except for Crocodile Hunter. I like that one. Not only is it useful, but it's funny when you consider what (I assume) inspired it.

I'm guessing the anti-feats figure into something else that SN hasn't mentioned yet. I would hope...

 

[Salamander Napolean]

Well, I was going for flavor above function. One of my main problems w/ D20m is its lack of interesting options. I understand that they were going for a unbreakable, and efficient gaming engine, but sometimes it's like reading the SRD.
Also, a lot of this is about gaming style; about 60% of the characters my group ends up making are homeless or institutionalized. That's why I made feats for atypical heros, and ones who will probably have a very low wealth bonus. Think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; they don't have any money, but they still get ninja gear.
Anti-feats are from the Villains Design Handbook. The idea is that you take two anti feats and gain one bonus feat. A typical anti feat works just like a feat, but backwards, making you weaker instead of stronger. Did you ever play GURPS? The thing about GURPS is that it sucks to play, but the characters that get made for it are awesome. You get extra points for taking disadvantages, so characters are really flawed and colorful. My favorite character for Gurps Supers was practically deaf and so incredibly obese he could hardly walk, so he had to ride around on a bear. I'm hoping that more people use the idea, esp. for Modern. (not bear riding but anti-feats)

Okay, now is the time one traditionally defends their opinions.
Here goes:

Junk hoarder is already (somewhat) covered by the rules. All you've got to do is build up your wealth bonus and you're set.

This one is pretty worthless, as it's mainly just the prerequisite feat. I thought about making making the purchase DC higher, but the items they can get shouldn't be too good. The advantage here is that it works w/any wealth bonus (even 0) and it saves valuable role-playing time you would otherwise be using to go to K-mart. It also means the character doesn't have to write down the entire contents of his garage.

Ebay master is just cruddy. 3 feats for a -2 to purchase DC's as long as you take 100! times as long to buy stuff? Why not just pick up windfall 3 times?

Windfall gives a bonus to your wealth bonus, but that is in constant flux. You never loose this feat's advantage (basically +2 wealth) no matter what purchase you make. And again, the characters w/low wealth.
You're right though, 3 feats is too much. Maybe I won't have any prereqs.
(As a side note, I would never personally take Windfall for one of my characters. Why waste a feat on a temporary bonus? No, I'd just buy a .22 and then pick weapons off the corpses of my enemies.)

Scavenger and Junkyard warrior are just too good. What's the penalty for taking 20 on these again? Woohoo! Taking 10 I can find rocket launchers at the junkyard. If I take 20 I can pick up HMG's like nothing.
And then I can sell them off!

Alright, the idea isn't that you just find the bazooka laying among some pizza boxes; you find a broken version of it or a bunch of parts you can turn into a bazooka. Look at the chart for craft:mechanical (page 55). All this talent really does is get rid of the purchase DC (for parts) off those charts. You still have to craft the item. If you only have a craft: visual-art skill then all you can make is a neat sculpture.
Note that you have to be a junkhoarder first. That means no selling items. These feats are for characters who don't fit into the normal wealth system, and probably don't want to have a high wealth bonus. Imagine that.

Permanent disability. Since when do PC's actually have to work anyway? This gets you what precisely? Whoopee! A feat which will basically give me nothing and take away plenty!

This is the question I don't get. What's the advantage of not going to work? You can play role-playing games all day or go on adventures. I think the whole idea behind the wealth system is that the characters DO work full time jobs in the day. Picking an occupation and making profession checks assumes that you've got a job you go to at 8a.m. whether you stayed up all night fighting dinosaurs or not. I guess it's all about how you play it. If your GM ignores all that, than it would be a stupid feat to take.

Semi-professional gambler - hmm, looks like a bigger penalty than a benefit again. Why not just use the gambling rules??

Gambling rules are for specific role-played encounters, and this is supposed to represent gambling as part of your occupation, like you're constantly buying lotto tickets or going to the casino on your free nights. This one's the most buggy, but I like the idea of a slightly fluctuating wealth bonus. Maybe I should make it a d4-1 to wealth? and keep the confirmation for the profession check?

 

[Saeviomagy]

The problem with 'gambling' is that it's already somewhat factored into wealth checks. You make a roll, remember?

Windfall also gives you a +1 bonus to profession checks, which in turn means that you always have some more money. It's not a simple one-off thing.

In addition, bonuses to your wealth bonus have a longer-term effect in that purchases will cause your wealth bonus to decrease much more slowly.

As for atypical heroes - if the players are doing them as bums and jobless individuals, then what precisely is the problem with them continuing to do so despite a large wealth bonus? Saying that you need feats to facilitate roleplaying a flaw is just being silly. It's like saying that your character can't be angry if there's no 'angry' feat/flaw. It's only slightly better than demanding extra character creation points because your character is angry.

Finally - wealth bonus represents what you have on hand. Not necessarily in cash, not necessarily in stocks. Having a high wealth bonus could perfectly well represent having a garage full of useful stuff, especially if the PC in question never actually spends enough money to make his wealth bonus go down. Hell, every time the guy spends money, it could be described as him pulling something out of his collection. It's descriptive stuff, not game mechanics.

As for having a job? The game never assumes you have a job. Because some of the campaigns for instance assume that your job IS monster hunting, while others assume that it's just a sideline. Either way, time working at a regular job is never mandated. By creating that feat, you mandate it. Furthermore you basically make it an all-or-nothing feat. Either everyone is forced to take it (because otherwise they get to have the fascinating experience of spending every roleplaying session saying "no, I'm not there, I've got to work apparently"), or noone can (specifically to avoid that). Why not just make the "50% chance that no character without this feat gets to be used tonight" feat? Each night, you can roll, and everyone without the feat gets to spectate if you roll a 1-50.

See how silly that is?