Traits (4E)

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

Talents are an optional set of rules that give characters more options out of combat. They are purchased separately from the skills, feats and powers described in the Player's Handbook. The talent rules can thus be dropped into a game without affecting existing characters, albeit at the cost of some extra bookkeeping.

Basics

Talents are non-combat versions of feats. They give special abilities that are used to define a characters background and Talents are used to represent your character’s livelihood outside of adventuring. This includes role-playing gimmicks and background options. They are also used to purchase professions (non-combat skills).

All characters start with three talents. You gain talents at the same rate as you get new feats; at level 1, 11, 21, and every even level. You can retrain one talent every level, in addition to normal retraining limits.

There are three types of talents. Like so much else about talents, these classifications are a general guide and not hard and fast rules. Personal' talents are innate abilities, similar to skills. Perks are social advantages or privileges. Subplots are recurring events that comes up again and again in your character's life.

Heroic Talents

These deal with personal abilities of modest power and sublots and relationships on the local level.

Adopted Race

Perk

Prerequisite: Speak the language of the race that adopts you (if there is such a language).

Benefit: You have very good relations with a race other than your own, to the point that you are considered a member of this race for social purposes. You are considered to be as honorable as any other member of this race, accepted as one of their own. Among humans, this only applies to one human culture; humans are too diverse for any one nonhuman to become accepted among all of humanity.

Agent

Perk

Prerequisite: Level 4

Benefit: You have an agent who will act on your behalf and represent you. While unwilling to risk his or her life, the agent will carry out instructions to the best of his ability, and look out for your interests when you are otherwise occupied. He will also travel to represent you in other places and can be sent on missions on his own. In return, the agent expects advice, patronage, and that you use your contacts on his behalf.

An agent is an NPC two levels lower than yours of a class and race agreed upon with the DM. If your agent is killed, you will want to retrain this talent.

Special: The agent is and NPC and is thus designed by the DM. You can take this talent several times, each time gaining a separate new agent.

Artiste

Personal

Benefit: You get a +3 feat bonus to Actor, Dancer, Lover, Musician, Orator, and Singer.

Authority

Personal

Benefit: You get a +3 feat bonus to Lawman, Merchant, Sailor, Soldier, and Valet.

Awe-Inspiring

Personal

Prerequisite: Trained in Intimidation.

Benefit: You are very good at projecting your image, be it scary or dazzling. This is great for becoming the center of attention. You can make an Intimidate roll as a free action when someone first spots you, on a success they take note of you. They do not become friendly or hostile; they merely focus some of their attention on you.

Blue Blood

Perk

Benefit: Your family is old and recognized for its nobility, one of the most prestigious in the land. In a campaign where most everyone is a noble (a chivalry campaign, for example) you may even be of royal blood.

Those who care about such things will see you as a born leader, and your career often benefits. It is easy for you to be invited to parties and social functions, and you have relatives in high places. Your word is given due consideration, you are a valuable and reliable witness, and you will mostly be assumed to have a good reason to be wherever you are doing whatever it is you are doing, even if it might seem fishy. Even those who don't respect nobility find it hard to ignore your manners and bearing, it is clear that you are a person not to be trifled with.

You're not automatically wealthy, some nobles are dirt poor. If you get caught with your hands dirty, Blue Blood may backfire; everyone loves a good scandal.

Contacts

Perk

Benefit: Contacts are persons you know and who are friendly to you and sympathetic to the same cause as you, but not your direct servants or allies. They will gladly supply information, acting as your eyes and ears. They also willingly perform services for you at normal cost, which can be a boon if they deal in something that is outlawed, rare, or otherwise hard to come by. Over time, your network of contacts grows, you gain new ones while some of your old contacts become obsolete.

This talent gives you a number of contacts equal to half your level, with a minimum of one contact. You generally acquire a new contact once per level, replacing an old one at odd levels and gaining a new one at even levels. Sometimes, your contacts change slower or quicker than this, but can never have more contacts than your level indicates.

A contact should ideally be someone you met and befriended during play. In this way, you can gain influential contacts; kings, courtiers, important heroes and other famous individuals. You can flesh out your stable of contacts with NPCs of your own invention, but these are generally not as important or influential as the ones you meet during play; typical examples are city guardsmen, traders, shopkeepers, local clergy, or minor mystics.

Cute

Personal

Benefit: Being cute makes it easy for you to get into social events, make acquaintances, and generally be very popular in a non-domineering sort of way. There is something about you that makes others care for you if you succeed on a Charisma roll against Will defense. People would ordinarily be hostile might instead kidnap you instead of kill you.

Deduction

Personal

Prerequisite: Int 13, Wis 13.

Benefit: You are an expert at applying logic to real-world situations. Once per encounter when you are speculating as to the best course of action or about the motivations of a given character, you can have the GM tell straight out you whether your speculation is correct or incorrect.

Disguise

Personal

Prerequisite: Trained in Bluff.

Benefit: With a few minutes of work you can disguise yourself as another person of your approximate size and same basic body shape. Imitating a specific individual is also possible, but takes a day of preparation and you need to find appropriate clothes, wigs etc which can be costly, especially if impersonating someone rich. Make a Bluff check opposed by passive Insight to pass inspection.

Normal: Anyone with Bluff can maintain a disguise, but it takes longer to don one and they will need more special materials.

Drifter

Subplot

Benefit: You spend a lot of time on the road, and have a tendency to just happen to be there when it happens. Any time another character is alone and needs help, you can show up if it's at all plausible. Even in non-dangerous scenes you have a tendency to just be there.

Eerie

Perk

Benefit: There is something odd and unusual about you, that makes others leave you alone. This might be a mannerism, such as talking to yourself or staring vacantly into space, or an indefinable aura. The end result is that people expect odd tings from you and around you, and will pay no heed to such occurrences unless they cause some kind of direct harm. They might think you a harmless eccentric or leave you alone out of fear. If there is a witch-hunt in the area, this can backfire; people too cowardly or reserved to do something yourself might still report on you.

Fame

Personal

Prerequisite: Trained in the Celebrity profession.

Benefit: Gain a +3 feat bonus to the Celebrity profession.

Fans

Perk

Prerequisite: Trained in the Celebrity profession.

Benefit: You have a group of followers who look up to you, but who do not work for you. On many occasions, they will turn up and offer to help, fawn over you, or just hang around. This is often helpful, but sometimes annoying. They will not generally accompany you on adventures and never enter dungeons.

At any time, you have a number of fans equal to your Charisma score hanging around. All your followers are NPC minions no higher than two levels lower than you. All details are determined by the DM. Rarely, a powerful person or even a monster might turn out to be a fan, in which case he or she is likely to be extra pushy and demanding.

Fashion Sense

Perk

Benefit: You have knowledge of fashions of your time and understanding of what can be worn when and to provoke which reaction. This lets you dress for every occasion, and also gives you the know-how to dress unusually without causing a scandal.

Al tough fashion sense most commonly applies to dress and toilette, it can apply to art, architecture, cuisine and other cultural traits as well.

Followers

Perk

Benefit: You have a group of followers who work for you. They serve in some capacity; for example as a garrison, police force, ship’s crew, caravan drivers, or guild thieves. They report to you, and you can give them orders slightly outside the scope of their normal activity, but they will not generally accompany you on adventures and never enter dungeons.

You have a number of followers equal to your Charisma score, and it they take losses they return to this number as soon as plausible - either because you get new followers, or because defeated ones return to action.

All your followers are identical NPC minions two levels lower than you of a class and race agreed upon with the DM.

Special: You can take this talent several times, each time getting a separate group of followers.

Gold Digger

Personal

Benefit: You are good at ingraining yourself with rich and powerful people. Having you around and spending money on you makes people feel rich and successful. This makes it easy for you to live off others and join parties and social occasions as a hanger-on. Actually gaining riches or influence will require more effort.

Guild Member

Perk

Benefit: You are a member of an established guild; a conservative organization that exists to further the professional interests of its members. A guild provides little direct help, but has facilities you can use with skills and rituals and can provide access to markets. Typical guilds for heroes are mages' and thieves' guilds. Guilds are a great source of trainers, aides, and expertise. Guilds also have medical resources, act as insurers and advocates, and have a pension fund, but such services are generally of little interest to adventurers.

Handyman

Personal

Benefit: You get a +3 feat bonus to Jeweler, Leatherworker, Mechanic, Smith, Stoneworker, and Tailor.

Honest Joe

Subplot

Prerequisite: Good alignment

Benefit: Your good nature inspires trust and confidence without you really trying to. With a Charisma vs. Will roll, a basically good and law-abiding NPC that knows nothing of you gladly gives you a hand, though there must be a reason if they are to accept discomfort or danger to help you. Sometimes, you can even inspire this trust in goons and villains, but usually only after you have soundly trounced them.

Influential Friend

Subplot

Benefit: You have a friend in a high position, corresponding to a perk talent one tier above your own. This can be a childhood friend, an accidental acquaintance, a lover, or otherwise someone in an official capacity who you know privately. For example, at the heroic tier, you might have an influential friend with an Army or who is a Minister, while at the paragon level your influential friend can even be a King. At the epic level, you can potentially have divine beings as your influential friend.

Inclined to act in your favor, an influential friend has many other obligations and is unreliable. An influential friends likes you and wants to correspond with you or sped time with you, but is aware that showing you preferential treatment is somewhat irresponsible and thus does not provide the full support of a Mentor. Pressuring an influential friend can produce grand results in the short term, but can easily backlash.

Insider

Personal

Prerequisite: Skilled in Diplomacy.

Benefit: You are quick to learn the codes and behaviors that make you an accepted member of a social circle. Once in a group, you are quick to integrate yourself and get treated as an insider; a member rather than an associate, family rather than a friend. You are good at understanding the unwritten rules that holds a group together and exploit them. However, if you break the tenets of the group, people might suddenly realize you were never really a member at all.

Knight

Perk

Benefit: You are an acknowledged member of a warrior caste with a code to uphold. This is not nobility, but close to it. In many cultures, knighthood is a martial archetype, but it need not be; Chinese knights were martial artists and a fantasy world can easily have supernatural guardians with a similar creed. As a knight (or local equivalent) you are known to follow a code, which makes you trusted and respected. Your word is held in high regard. You can expect free room and board almost anywhere you go. People turn to you with their troubles and expect you to help.

Lackey

Perk

Prerequisite: Level 4

Benefit: You have a lackey who will provide for and serve you as long as it involves little personal risk. The lackey will travel with you, take care of your mounts or carriage, arrange for food and lodging, set up camp, stand guard, and do other domestic duties. A lackey avoids combat and only fights if sorely pressed. Sometimes, a lackey might provide more exiting services, such as opening a locked chest you bring back to camp, scouting, or acting as a foil, but never in competition with another player character. A lackey can have an interesting background or personal relationship with you.

The lackey is and NPC and is thus designed by the DM of a level two levels lower than yours and of a class and race agreed upon with the DM.

Special:. You can take this talent several times, each time gaining a separate lackey. If your lackey is killed, you will want to retrain this talent.

Language

Personal

Benefit: Choose a language. You can now speak, read, and write this language fluently.

Special: You can take this talent more than once. Each time you select this talent, choose a new language to learn. Unlike the Linguist feat, this has no prerequisite. Using this talent in a campaign invalidates the Linguist feat.

Lip Reading

Personal

Prerequisite: Training in Insight.

Benefit: You have the ability to decipher what people are saying merely from looking at their lips moving, as long as you can get a reasonably good view of a speaker's lips and know the language. Certain parts may be obscure or missing or require an Insight roll to understand correctly. If they have reason to be careful, an Insight roll against their Bluff is required.

Medium

Personal

Benefit: You are sensitive to psychic impressions, and can often catch the mood of a place and get glimpses of important events that happened there in the past. You are aligned with a particular type of spirits, who sometime give you visions. You can use a relevant skill to seek answers from spirits, which is much the same as asking around or doing research in a library, only the answers are colored by the nature of the spirits you commune with.

Type	Skill	Region	Goals
Ghosts	Religion	Shadowfell	Individualistic. Wants to carry out unfulfilled desires from their lives.
Nature spirits	Nature	Natural world	Primordial. Care about environmental issues, daily life of animals, rituals and taboos.
Elementals	Arcana	Elemental Chaos	Wild. Sometimes out to right a perceived wrong, many just want to vent their rage
Fey Spirits	Arcana	Feywild	Mischievous. Want to bring magic into the world, for good or ill. Love riddles and tricks.
Abberant Spirits	Dungeoneering	Far Realm	Incomprehensible. Give visions both incomprehensible and profoundly disquieting.
Virtues	Religion	Astral Sea	Idealistic; some are benign, others infernal. Visions have to do with morals and ideals.

Mentor

Perk

Benefit: You have mentor or employer that sees you as a trusted agent. The mentor is a constant source of information, employment opportunities, and often useless advice.

The DM is encouraged to use the mentor as an adventure hook and patron, and might tailor benefits and rewards to the mentor’s outlook on you. You can also turn to the mentor for help and advice, but a mentor will not accept being used and will avoid becoming directly involved in the action. The mentor is a powerful figure, which might or might not mean that he is a high-level character. A rich merchant, influential queen, or behind-the-scenes monster can also function as a mentor just as well as the classic warrior lord or wizard sage.

The exact details of your mentor are up to the DM and might even be unknown to you; a mentor might have a secret agenda.

Mistaken Identity

Subplot

Benefit: Your identity are commonly mistaken; either for a specific person or for a role other than your own. You are known for traits and abilities you do not possess, based on misinterpretation, rumors, or just plain lies. A commoner fighter could be known as a magical prince, a holy man, or a demon summoner. People influenced by your Celebrity status will have heard of this false repute, and react accordingly

Nemesis

Subplot

Benefit: Your fate and purpose is linked to a particular enemy. You and this enemy are bound to run across each other again and again, and you have a mysterious way of ending up in one-on-one encounters with this enemy. In addition, your nemesis advances in power as you do, and has an amazing ability to survive and return to fight another day. And should he die, there is always someone else on the sidelines, ready to step in.

The DM has to approve your choice of nemesis; it is generally best to pick a nemesis you've met during play and that proved particularly interesting, memorable, and loathsome.

Ordained Priest

Perk

Benefits: You are an ordained and recognized member of the official clergy of an important religious order. You can officiate at ceremonies and perform religious functions; this makes you a trusted individual and makes sure you are aware of the local gossip. People will naturally turn to you with spiritual and supernatural problems.

Note that not all divine characters need to have this talent. Many clerics have internal duties within their churches and almost never meet lay people, others are free wanderers with no official sanction or responsibilities. Many churches do not have the formal structure this feat implies at all.

Perfect Recall

Personal

Benefit: You have perfect recall; years afterward, you can call up the precise words of a conversation or recall details of a room seen only at a glance. This allows you to analyze as scene from memory as though you were actually present there. You can retroactively use the Perception skill to notice things you didn't think of looking for when you were actually there, which in turn might give more information from knowledge skills.

Power Signature

Personal

Benefit: There is something special about the way you use powers. This is a purely visual effect and does not change what the powers actually do, but it makes your power-use distinctive and noticeable. Choose one visual effect for your powers; this can be something like flaming skulls, psychic shock waves, or celestial light. A martial character would usually have a more mundane power signature, such as carving your initials or leaving a signature item behind, tough some actually leave traces of ephemeral energy when they perform their amazing moves.

A power signature generally makes it easier for others to recognize your handiwork. If you succeed at a Celebrity roll, people will recognize your power signature even from a distance and react accordingly. It can serve as an alibi (I could never have done that; everyone knows I leave a rose behind) or as a lead for an investigator. It is possible to fake your power signature, so it is not enough to count as evidence against you.

Professional Training

Personal

Benefit: You gain training in one profession.

Special: You can take this talent more than once. Each time you select this talent, choose a profession in which you are not trained.

Romance

Subplot

Benefit: You have a complex and troubled romance that enhances your role in the campaign. This is not just any relationship, but one involving someone you cannot easily get together with; your king and sovereign or the daughter of an arch enemy, perhaps even a nemesis. There are usually other complications as well; unrequited love, duty, racial differences, and other hindrances. Alternatively your romance is trouble-prone, and needs constant help or rescue.

Romance-Prone

Subplot

Benefit: You constantly tend to get romantically entangled, but these romances rarely last.

Scholar

Personal

Benefit: You get a +3 feat bonus to Architect, Alchemist, Governor, Painter, Scribe and , Stargazer.

Scrounging

Personal

Benefit: You have a tendency to pick stuff uå and keep it around for no clear reason, and an ability to find uses all this junk. This lets you improvise and scrounge for food and gear in trash bins and ruins. Use your Dungeoneering, Nature, or Streetwise for this, depending on the environment. You can come up with improvised weapons like staves, clubs and daggers, as well as makeshift tools that negate the penalty for lack of a toolkit. You do not need to exactly specify your equipment list. You can specify items that are in your pack, without specifying them ahead of time. Such an item must be reasonably common in the area, the DM can veto items he considers outrageous. It can neither weight more than 1 lb per point of Strength you have nor cost more than 5% of your available free gold. When you specify an item like this, you immediately pay its normal cost.

Secret Agent

Perk

Benefit: You are the member of a secret society, a fanatic group with a specific agenda. As long as you obey all orders and devote yourself to the organization, you can expect their support. You have no control over what for this takes; it can range from payment for special missions, information, and fencing loot, to a suicide assault by fanatic cultists. In general, a player character will not be given suicidal orders, but of you don't live up to the expectations of the organization, you can expect very stern reprisals indeed. Typical secret societies are cults, spy rings, cabals, mystic orders, and the most close-knit of criminal gangs.

Secret Identity

Personal

Benefit: You know how to keep a low profile. Your personal life is your own, and people in general do not know who you are or what you can do. This might be because you have a secret identity or simply stand back and let your companions take the limelight. Streetwise rolls to find out things about you suffer a +10 difficulty modifier.

If you are a Celebrity, you are a mysterious adventurer who’s true identity no-one knows. Regardless of how famous you are, you won’t be generally recognized unless in your heroic identity.

Sheriff

Perk

Benefit: You have law enforcement powers and can make arrests, repossess goods, hand out fines, and otherwise disperse justice. You can deputize others to act under your supervision.

Signature Item

Perk

Benefit: You possess an item that has a great potential as a magic item. You know a special ritual to transfer the power of other magic items into your signature item.

Choose one specific type of magic item to be your signature item. This must be a weapon, implement, suit of armor, or amulet/cloak. Your signature item does not start out with this enchantment, but you know a special variant of the Create Magic Item ritual that only works on your signature item. You can only enchant your signature item with the one enchantment you choose when you selected the item, or with a generic “plus only” enchantment if your level is too low to create an item of your chosen type. If your signature item is lost or destroyed, you will want to retrain this talent.

Special: You can take this talent several times. Each time you do, it applies to a different item.

Special Mount

Perk

Benefits: You have acquired the services of a special mount, often of a type not easily found. Choose a creature of your level or lower. The mounts from Adventurer’s Vault page 11 are all available, and the DM might allow you to select a truly exotic creature such as a Unicorn if it makes sense in play. The mount will carry you in combat, but will not otherwise partake in adventures or fight for you except to defend itself.

Notes: Tough not required, the feats Mounted Combat and Mount Companion greatly increase the value of your special mount. To gain a new special mount, either to change or because the old one died, you must respecify this talent.

Spin Yarn

Personal

Prerequisite: Trained in Bluff.

Benefit: By continually speaking, you may keep your audience captive with outrageous tales, distracting them. You can keep this up beyond all reason. You must first engage the victim in conversation, and then make a Bluff roll against the targets' passive Insight. You can target several people at once with no penalties, but use the highest value in the audience for a difficulty. A successful roll lets you keep telling the story for five minutes before you need to make a second roll.

Combat, an alarm, and other direct threats and immediate situations will break your hold on people. You might have to use your Spin Yarn on someone who comes to interrupt, or lose your audience.

True Identity

Subplot

Benefit: You have a secret but significant identity, and this identity is destined to become known and/or play a part in upcoming events. You can be the long-lost child of the old king, the destined savior of all lizardfolk, or a dragon bound to human form and abilities by a curse. The DM has to approve your choice, and its usually best to pick your true identity in play, once you know what the campaign is all about.

Victim

Subplot

Benefit: You have a tendency to end up as a victim; when someone is to be captured, mugged, or otherwise fall victim to a subplot, it tends to be you.

Unusual Background

Personal

Benefit: You have an unusual or incredible background, such as having been teleported across half the world by a crazed wizard. While this does not allow you to take the DM does not want in his game, it can serve as an excuse to play something odd or unusual. Obviously, you have to take this talent at level 1. You can only respecify it if the campaign changes so that your background is no longer unusual.