New Flaws? Bigger Flaws!

[Morph Bark]

Hi, I'm Morph, and I... I let my players take Flaws. :smallfrown:


Here are some of them!


Alcoholic
Every time you finish a drink, you must make a Will save (DC 15, -1 per previous save) or continue drinking. The drinks must be alcoholic, and therefore impose a -1 penalty to your Dex and Wis scores for every pint you've drunk. If you reach 0 on either score, you get 1d4 Con drain.

Demon-Bonded Pet
Prerequisite: Harrowed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188148) level 1
You have a pet creature, an animal of size Medium or smaller and 2 HD or less. The Monster Within of the Harrowed is instead within your pet, and failing a Will save while using a class ability that would normally have the monster within take over will instead cause it to take over your pet, making it go on a rampage against anyone other than you. If your pet ever dies, a demon lord will show up out of nowhere and devour you body and soul. You are always aware of the general direction your pet is in and your pet cannot wander further away than 1 mile from you, though you can wander away from your pet.
You may take the Wild Cohort feat to make this pet creature your wild cohort, and your level will count as one higher for the purposes of that feat. However, you can never switch your wild cohort to any other creature but your pet. Similarly, if you ever gain the Animal Companion class feature, you must select your demon-bonded pet as your animal companion (though your level will not count as one higher).

Kleptomaniac
When you're in a situation in which it would be very easy to steal something without anyone noticing (from a sleeping target, for example), you must make a Will save (DC 15) or steal an object from the target.
Even if you save, you may still end up stealing something anyway, simply because you wanted to, rather than being compelled by your obsessive behaviour.

Sense of Misdirection
Every time you are alone and going to a specific location or in a specific direction, you must roll 1d8 to determine the direction you go into (on a result of 1, you go back in the direction you came from and most likely realize quickly you went the wrong way, allowing you to reroll).
If you work with a hex-based grid instead of the normal grid, use a 1d6 instead.
If others do not lead the way for you while you're travelling in a group, it's possible you lead them in the wrong direction as well. If you get directions from someone, you roll two d8s and the DM gives you the better result.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

I really like the Sense of Misdirection thing, it's really cool. Though the 'kleptomaniac' is all-too-often called 'being a Rogue'.

[Domriso]

I don't suppose you have any more of these flaws? These seem pretty awesome, and I'd love to see some others (mostly to steal the shamelessly for my own games).

[Morph Bark]

I do have more, yes. :smallsmile:

I added one more now, so that now all the custom flaws in play right now in my current campaign are up right now (I had left out only one, which was more complex and class-specific), but there are still more to come.

[Amechra]

Nice variant on the Pig flaw.

But I do see one problem with Demon-Bonded Pet; unless you go out of your way to turn it into something tougher (I'd Ubermount it, honestly, and play as an utter sociopath who threatens death by way of his scary, scary putty-tat), it will die the first time it rampages at later levels, and then you will die.

[PEACH]

The only problem with alcoholic and kleptomaniac (besides being, in general, more avoidable than normal flaws) is that since it's a fairly low will save, it shouldn't be especially difficult to have the flaws almost entirely negated before you hit 10, if not earlier.

Demon bonded pet is problematic because, well, a flaw that has a huge risk of directly killing you is really problematic; the flaw essentially requires you to entirely work your character around not letting your pet die.

EDIT: I suppose if you want to be cheesy, you could lock the pet in a box somewhere and essentially be a lich-lite while being able to use the harrowed class with impunity, which is a pretty decent benefit for a flaw, but still.

[Eldan]

If I can make a suggestion, scale the will saves with character level. Because epic people have epic character flaws. Just look at your average Greek or Norse god. Thor didn't drink two beers, he drank an ocean.

[Morph Bark]

Nice variant on the Pig flaw.

Thank you. That was indeed the point we started out from. :smallamused:


But I do see one problem with Demon-Bonded Pet; unless you go out of your way to turn it into something tougher (I'd Ubermount it, honestly, and play as an utter sociopath who threatens death by way of his scary, scary putty-tat), it will die the first time it rampages at later levels, and then you will die.

Demon bonded pet is problematic because, well, a flaw that has a huge risk of directly killing you is really problematic; the flaw essentially requires you to entirely work your character around not letting your pet die.

EDIT: I suppose if you want to be cheesy, you could lock the pet in a box somewhere and essentially be a lich-lite while being able to use the harrowed class with impunity, which is a pretty decent benefit for a flaw, but still.

That's sort of the idea, in a way. The standard flaws from Unearthed Arcana (and thus the SRD) are weaksauce and uninteresting, only really fit for mechanical optimization. These are moreso "you have something that can REALLY make you suck, good luck with it."

The players are still free to pick whichever they want, and the player who has that flaw has so far had his pig kill a dragon and maul his butler twice (all times by accident, the butler ended up with a wooden arm graft and dragon balls, courtesy of a Xenoalchemist PC) and taken real good care not to have the pig near the fights. I could make it an auto-Wild Cohort, but then it'd be more of a trait than a flaw. For that reason though, I did put in that making the pet a wild cohort gave an increase in effective level.

Maybe giving the creature half your hit points as temporary hit points every day might be a good idea? It would toughen it up a little in a similar way to a familiar.


If I can make a suggestion, scale the will saves with character level. Because epic people have epic character flaws. Just look at your average Greek or Norse god. Thor didn't drink two beers, he drank an ocean.

Add half character level to the DC, perhaps?

[Eldan]

Should probably be okay. That still makes them easier as you level, at least if its your good save. (The base save scales at the same speed, but you get higher attributes and boni).

[PEACH]

I think a semi reasonable suggestion for Demon Bonded Pet, since it's still a part of you, is that when it goes into a rage whatever damage it takes is given to you in some fraction. "Any damage that would render it unconscious" or 50-50 might work, and anything that's a save or die could be transferred to you. It gets wordy at that point, sure, but it keeps things reasonable if you happen to have an average pet and not a cohort optimized to keep up.

Unless I've missed something major, the only potential "abuse" of that rewrite would be tanking HP damage and true save or dies for an actually strong cohort, but *in general* that shouldn't be problematic because you should be stronger than your cohort anyway.

[JoshuaZ]

Alcoholic as written looks a little problematic since there are a lot of ways to avoid having to drink anything (e.g. being an Elan). Maybe one should also have to make a will save when confronted with alchoholic drinks?

[Lord_Gareth]

I'm Lord_Gareth, and I disapprove of your Harrowed flaw. Say it with me: DO NOT RELEASE THE PLANE-DEVOURING ABOMINATIONS!

[willpell]

Where is the Pig flaw?


If your pet ever dies, a demon lord will show up out of nowhere and devour you body and soul.

BAD. Bad bad bad. A 2-HD creature is hard enough to keep alive that nobody will ever take a flaw with this kind of downside. I'm guessing you intended this as a way to keep players from suiciding the pet, but please reroll.

EDIT - Ninja'ed, but I think it bears repeating.

[TuggyNE]

Where is the Pig flaw?

From a Dragon Magazine issue, probably the same one that has Chicken-Infested. (I tend to look with disfavor upon horribly-imbalanced material even if it is intended as a joke, which those were.)

[willpell]

Hey MorphBark, can we put our own custom flaws in this thread, or is it meant to be exclusively for yours?

[Morph Bark]

If you got any, go ahead. I'd love seeing more flaws. :smallsmile:

As for the Demon-Bonded Pet flaw... yes. Yes, it is bad. The player wanted it that way, and I provided. Hmmm, maybe I should add in that it automatically turns into a Wild Cohort? Maybe give it the Fiendish and later Half-Fiend templates down the road? That's what my Pig Master PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9342772) does.

[willpell]

Here's one I made for a character who's involved with thieves, spies and assassins, playing a dangerous game where he needs to know too much to kill, but little enough to not kill. It mostly just officializes the backstory that he's in hot water with large numbers of very dangerous organizations who fortunately don't know exactly who he is; as written it could easily be munchkin fodder, since it's basically free XP, but it seemed vaguely appropriate for the style of game I run, in which "kill it for XP" is generally a second or third resort at most.

Wanted
You are pursued by powerful enemies, and do not always succeed in becoming lost amidst the city's crowds or vanishing into the wilderness.
Effect: Each day the DM secretly rolls a 1% chance of the character suffering an ECL+1d6-2 attack from hitmen, bounty hunters or the like connected with the persecuting organization. The attack usually comes while the character is alone, and preferably when he has partially depleted his resources and cannot easily escape (the GM may make appropriate skill checks for the assassins to determine how much of an advantage they can gain). If the roll is 2-10, character has a brush with danger and gets away just in time, but must Will save or be Shaken for the rest of the day because of the near miss.

*****

Here are a couple more that I created for a character who was a Binder, and thus needed to have high Charisma, but was flavorfully not supposed to be charismatic at all. I ended up allowing Flaws in my game not to enable minmaxing, but to nuke this guy's Charisma-based skill checks to suit his concept as a generally pathetic and untrustworthy individual who happened to be really good at binding vestiges.

Unlikeable
People tend not to respond positively to your attempts to appeal to them.
Effect: You suffer a -4 penalty to Diplomacy and Perform checks.

Ill-Respected
You make a less than effective bully.
Effect: You suffer a -4 penalty to Intimidate and Gather Information checks.

A similar such flaw from a different character:

Unmistakable
Everyone recognizes your face, your voice, and your handwriting. You might be famous in your realm or just have a uniquely distinctive style and mannerisms.
Effect: You suffer a -4 penalty to Disguise and Forgery checks.

[WaylanderX]

Yo Morph, you forgot the Leerooooy! one Skarr had, I'll put it up.

Danger Junky
You cannot resist the allure of a worthy challenge.
Effect: Every time you are confronted with a fight, contest or another test of power or skill, no matter how big or small, you must make a Will Save (DC becomes lower the more dangerous the situation, precise DC up to the DM) or charge into the fray with all your might (or join the contest or test). Obviously suicidal or impossible situations (such as charging into an army alone) don't need a Will Save to resist.

[Lord_Gareth]

If you got any, go ahead. I'd love seeing more flaws. :smallsmile:

As for the Demon-Bonded Pet flaw... yes. Yes, it is bad. The player wanted it that way, and I provided. Hmmm, maybe I should add in that it automatically turns into a Wild Cohort? Maybe give it the Fiendish and later Half-Fiend templates down the road? That's what my Pig Master PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9342772) does.

I will again state that the Harrowed creator shakes his head at your flaw >.> If your player was at my table, I would've smacked him with a rolled-up printout of the class.