Talk:Traits (4E)
Basics
Talents come in three basic types; persona, subplots, and perks. Personal talents affect yourself and your abilities, and include all professions. Subplots have an effect on the story, and is an invitation to the DM to weave stories around your character; it is a statement of interest in a certain type of plot. Perks are social advantages your character enjoys in the game world.
Heroic Talents
Cute
Should these variants exist alongside cute, or should you choose between them when you pick cute? Are these three variants enough?
If you have to choose you have to have more, like charming and beautiful. I don't like the idea that a talent many picks has to be split up. It's like every feat or skill that more than one character picks has to be split up. "Oh no, you picked perception too, well I'm better at eyesight, you have to be better at listening or smelling." --TexaS 10:46, 12 December 2008 (CET)
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. People who would ordinarily be hostile might capture ore use you instead of killing you.
- Adorable: You inspire others to take care of you. This often goes with a somewhat infantile presence. As long as you stay somewhat subdued or submissive you can expect many people to give you favorable treatment, with minor gifts, favors, and treats.
- Alluring: You have a mystery about you that is appealing to others. By remaining silent and aloft, you inspire others to think about you and perhaps even approach you. Once they get to know you, they will slowly realize what is under the surface and the allure is replaced by other feelings. This can be bad if there is nothing beneath.
- Perky: You have an upbeat personality and your antics are generally taken in a positive way. This cheers up those around you and contributes to a positive atmosphere. You often serve to inspire others to action, though sometimes not into doing what you want them to.
Lackey
Prerequisite: Level 4
Benefit: You have an lackey who will provide for and serve you as long as it involves little personal riskt. The lackey will travel with you, take care of your mounts or carriage, provide food, 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 scouting or acting as a foil, but never in competition with another player character.
A lackey is an NPC two levels lower than yours of a class and race agreed upon with the DM. All lackeys are trained as Valets, tough not all are good at it. If your lackey is killed, you will want to retrain this talent.
Special: The lackey is and NPC and is thus designed by the DM. You can take this talent several times, each time gaining a separate lackey.
Paragon Talents
These talents become available at level 11. At this level, character can assume social obligations and responsibilities, gaining power and influence thereby. You should choose such positions sensibly. While it is certainly possible for a rogue to be a High Priest in church that has gone political, such a position is generally more appropriate to a divine class character.
The practical benefits of such a position rarely applies to adventuring, but is a reward in itself as it gives you prestige and social status. It is generally a good idea to have an Agent to run the practical side of such a position, leaving you free to adventure.
In many cases, paragon talents build on heroic talents, but they generally do not replace them. For example, it is possible to be a Baron without having Blue Blood, but you do not get the respect due a blue-blooded scion of an ancient lineage. You can retrain your heroic talent, but in this case this means you have advanced beyond your origin; your family is ancient but nor baronial, and you are still seen as an upstart when you become a baron. In many cases, this has been explained as a part of the paragon talent, but even when it is not, paragon talents expand upon but do not supercede heroic talents.
Army
Benefit: You have a horde or army of low-level followers you can call upon. When in active service, these followers take time and money to maintain, tough a successful campaign generally pays its own expenses and you can employ them to patrol or as a garrison to defray costs. The army generally has a comprehensive look-and-feel; an infantry force, engineering corps, barbarian horde, or cavalry army. You build it like an encounter, with an XP budget equal to the gp cost of a magic item of your level. No member of your army has a higher level than half your level. An army can be used for military campaigns, as guards, and for other tasks that need a lot of people; they are not very useful on adventures.
Special: This feat can be taken several times, each time with a different army, often different in style.
Baron
Benefit: You are a regional landowner of considerable power, controlling a town or several villages. Benefits include a corps of guards similar to half an Army and a castle, but these guards are needed in the area and cannot range far or take part in adventures. You are also a political figure of importance, and your voice will be heard on most matters.
Notes: If you lack the Blue Blood talent, you are newly ennobled; while admired for your prowess, you do not gain the full respect due ancestral peers of the realm.
Environmental Echo
Benefit: Your association with an element or force is strong enough that the effect goes with you wherever you go. Decide on an effect related to the powers you have, typical examples include elements, times of day, seasons, and so on. Wherever you go, the effect you are related to grows stronger. If you are related to winter, it is always cold where you are, if you are related to spring flowers bloom in tour path, and so on. While this has no direct game effect, it establishes you as a personage of power and importance.
Genius
Prerequisites: Celebrity
Benefit: You are recognized as especially gifted, your works are given the highest regard. This is usually applicable to artists, but activists, muckrakers, priests, scholars, and philosophers can also qualify. Whatever you say or do is news, and your opinion weights heavily on public opinion. This gives you little direct power, but access to the highest circles. And if you are insulted or express your dislike of something, it can cause social chaos.
Guild Master
Benefit: You are a master of a guild, or in the case of very large and powerful guilds, a ranking official and regional leader. A guild is a professional organization as outlined under Guild Member above. You can call on your subordinates for support and professional services; this allows you to delegate work related to your organization. The guild also reports to you, which gives you a great deal of information.
Notes: Unless you are also a Guild Member, you do not gain access to guild resources like a guild member does; you are assumed to lead the guild from above, not be a working member.
High Priest
Benefit: You have a high position in a church or religious order, generally being the regional leader comparable to a bishop. You can set the policy of the local church, and learn a lot of information about religious and magical events. You can declare holidays and feast days, and are expected to officiate at important ceremonies; if you do not it is seen as divine censure and can have political and divine repercussions. Unless you are also an Ordained Priest, you do not have the grassroots contacts that position brings.
Lord Justice
Benefit: You are in a high judiciary position; depending on the locale, this can be a barbarian law-speaker or a robed and bewigged judge. In either case, your voice is given high regard on matters judiciary, and you are expected to resolve conflicts and settle disputes. Though it is not mandatory to be a skilled Governor to take this position, it is generally very hard to be a respected judge without such expertise.
Magical Warden
Benefit: You are the guardian of a magical site; this can be a gateway to another world or a place of power. It is best to choose a place of power that has already appeared in the campaign, so that it has an already established magical effect. Typical effects of such sites are to aid certain rituals or allow travel to other planes. They also act as monster magnets; your presence influences what kinds of monsters appear, generally insuring they are amenable to your cause. A site with a responsible warden is an asset to its neighbors, and this position gives you social standing approximately equal to that of a baron or bishop.
Mastermind
Benefit: You are the regional master of an organization of Secret Agents. Your word is law to your lesser brothers. They will report anything they hear and are willing to do anything for you, but their fanaticism makes the society frail; it is easy to carelessly throw away the lives of your followers if you are not careful.
Minster
Benefit: You have made a political career and won access to important political venues; as a royal council, minister, or otherwise close to the seat of power. In this way you are a power behind the crown, with insight in and influence over policy.
Benefit: You have one or more ships at your command. These vessel can be worth as much as a magic item of your level, and the crew is an Army with an XP budget of half that. You might not own these ships - it can be a merchant flotilla, part of a navy, or pirates, but you can use it on adventures and the crews are loyal to you; for all practical purposes it is yours. The crew generally stays with the ship and will not enter a dungeon.
Oracle
Benefit: Your visions are recognized; people believe you speak with the voice of supernatural authority. They might not agree, but they certainly take note of what you say. A true oracle is also a Medium, and now spiritual visitations are common; your fame has spread both in the spirit world and the mundane world. otherwise, you are a fake oracle and can invent your own mystic revelations.
Representative
Benefit: You are a political representative on the ruling body of your country. If your country has a parliament, you can be a member. You might also be a spokesman for a noble family, burgomaster, ambassador, elected judge, governor, or otherwise be an officer of whatever political system you are a member of. This does not mean you have access to government (choose Minster for that), but you can make political appeals and have them respected and your opinion is given due weight. If you are mistreated or ignored, there might be unrest in the group you represent.
Paragon Adventurer
Prerequisites: Trained as a Celebrity.
Benefit: You are recognized for your superior class abilities. Whether you are known as a magus, master thief, dragon-slaying warrior or whatever other famous deed you have done matters not; whatever your abilities they have given you recognition. You can freely associate with nobility as an equal, and your advice is sought on matters great and small.
Epic Talents
At this level you approach absolute power as an independent monarch or other great leader. Granting such powers is always at the discretion of the DM, who should be consulted before taking these feats. If your area of expertise is the focus of the campaign, you should expect to have to work for your advancement; becoming the king might be the focus of a campaign. In other games, this is just a backdrop, a wayside honor largely irrelevant to your adventuring activities; in this case it is usually easier to gain power, but the impact is also much less.
Epic talents often give worldwide influence, but this influence is vague. If you want direct influence in a smaller area, it is generally wise to hold on to your paragon talents. If you retrain those, you are assumed to have retired from such lower positions in order to enjoy the benefits of your new exalted position, leaving day-to-day activities (and the influence they bring) to someone new.
Archpriest
Benefit: You are the titular head of your religion, and can give orders to bishops. Your word is law in religious matters, tough it takes tact and diplomacy to get the law implemented across the world.
Chancellor
Benefit: You are the prime minister of a major power, responsible for day-to-day policy decisions and in charge of the judicial, financial, and diplomatic corps.
Epic Adventurer
Prerequisites: Trained as a Celebrity.
Benefit: You are recognized for your superior class abilities. Whether you are known as an archmage, legendary thief, or master of dragons. Whatever your abilities they have given you world-wide recognition. You can associate with royalty as an equal, and your personal influence is that of a small nation.
King
Benefit: You are the lord of a county. You might bear a different title and your powers might not be absolute, but you are the final executive authority of a nation, if not a major power.
Magical Locus
Benefit: The mark of a saint or archmage, you embody a magical phenomena to such a degree that supernatural effects happen spontaneously up to a mile away from you. Choose one type of effect such as plants growing in barren soil, the dead reanimating, the sick getting cured, or supernatural creatures of a certain type manifesting. You have no direct control over this, but effects are generally benign to you and your interests. The level of such events is on the heroic scale and around 20 levels below your own.
Marshal
Benefit: You command the military forces of a major power; a large nation or military alliance. You can call a levy and demand armies from regional lords and allies.
Mogul
Benefit: You are a master of professional and commercial ventures, a merchant lord or guilder of worldwide repute. Wherever you go, members of your profession come out to greet you and seek your aid and advice. You do not hold direct authority, but your influence can drive nations bankrupt.
Shadow Lord
Benefit: You are a master of plots and secrets; aware of and in a position to manipulate several Masterminds, either because you are their shadow mentor, or because you have spies planted in their organizations. Your information network is vast, and you can cause all kinds of events all over the world, but you have little direct control over what your minions do; such control would jeopardize security.
Prophet
Benefit: You receive direct guidance from a supernatural source - or at least people believe you do. Strangers treat you as the emissary of a god - or demon. If you are also a Medium, your visions are genuine, and the power level of the spirits guiding you has increased manifold; you now hear the voice of past kings, primordials and demon princes, archfey, or gods. If you are also an Oracle your visions are frequent.
Notes: There is a danger in playing a genuine prophet; you are a tool of fate and lose some control over your character. In many cases, it is more interesting to play a false prophet or one at odds with his visions, who sees but does not fully believe. In other cases, the Dm might simply let you decide what your visions are.
Visionary
Benefit: Your ideas run like wildfire trough the world. Whether the listener knows who spoke them or not, your views and ideas spread rapidly, possibly changing the life of millions. If you express dislike for something, it comes under immediate public scrutiny. If you express a preference for something, it is likely to garner followers and grow into a popular movement.