Trevelian
2012-12-23, 10:59 PM
I am planning a game that is heavily weighted toward courtly social contests and subterfuge rather than melee combat. This was inspired by a realization one day of the large number of fun feats, abilities, and spells that exist in the Pathfinder system that are little-to-not use during a dungeon crawl or fight against the Orc Horde.
While the game will have a level progression and the characters will use standard classes and feats, I am also trying to represent the PC's growing social power. Things like social position (guild leader, duchess), military rank (knight, captain), artistic reputation (patron of an important artist, or being an important artist), and political alliances (friend of the Duchess MacGuffin) will be very powerful things.
How does one represent that in 3.5/Pathfinder? Do I just create a series of custom feats or some other hand-wave?
To be clear, I'm not as worried about relationships or reputations forged in-game, as those will be fairly well established within the verisimilitude of the game. But, I'd like each character to have a 'hook' during character creation, and a potential social ladder to climb. I'd like their "background traits" and "earned rank" to be roughly balanced at creation and during the climb.
Since I've played a lot of Champions/Hero System, I've seen this handled as "perks" that are worth certain character creation points.
Am I in complete House Rule territory here?
While the game will have a level progression and the characters will use standard classes and feats, I am also trying to represent the PC's growing social power. Things like social position (guild leader, duchess), military rank (knight, captain), artistic reputation (patron of an important artist, or being an important artist), and political alliances (friend of the Duchess MacGuffin) will be very powerful things.
How does one represent that in 3.5/Pathfinder? Do I just create a series of custom feats or some other hand-wave?
To be clear, I'm not as worried about relationships or reputations forged in-game, as those will be fairly well established within the verisimilitude of the game. But, I'd like each character to have a 'hook' during character creation, and a potential social ladder to climb. I'd like their "background traits" and "earned rank" to be roughly balanced at creation and during the climb.
Since I've played a lot of Champions/Hero System, I've seen this handled as "perks" that are worth certain character creation points.
Am I in complete House Rule territory here?