New feats: Heroic Heritage / Heroic Legacy

[paddyfool]

Hm. Well, that could be an interesting wrinkle, then.

Hardly - they're still very good feats.  The Heroic ones in particular are more powerful than any of the Heritage/Legacy options in the main rulebook (unless the GM gets nasty about the ties to the ancestral weapon), all of which are weighted around the same interpretation of altered type, and the Villainous ones seem pretty well balanced (although I'd have to check the rules on Damage Defiance to be sure of this) and fun besides.  I really wouldn't worry about it, on the whole.

[Morgenstern]

Just some grammar smoothing.

Heroic Heritage
   Adventuring is in your blood - literally.
   Prerequisites: Str 13+
   Benefit: Choose a single melee weapon as your "ancestral weapon". When wielding this weapon, you may add your Charisma bonus to attack and damage rolls instead of the normal attribute for these rolls. You also gain Stress Resistance 5 and a trick.
   "Guide my hands!" (ancestral weapon attack trick): If you miss with this attack but don't score an error, you may choose to succeed anyway as if you rolled the minimum amount required to hit. If you do, your Defense is reduced by the difference between the target's defense and your original attack roll until your initiative count the following round. You may use this trick a number of times per combat equal to your starting action dice.

Heroic Legacy
   You're the latest - and greatest - in a long line of adventurers.
   Prerequisites: Heroic Heritage
   Benefit: You gain the Cagey I NPC quality, the higher of your Strength or Charisma scores rises by 1, and your Stress Resistance increases to 10 (this replaces the stress resistance 5 from Heroic Heritage).
   You may choose to embrace your larger-than-life nature once, when you level, gaining the Horror type. If you do, your starting action dice decrease by 1 and you find it much harder to hide your true self, suffering a -5 penalty with Disguise checks.

[Sletchman]

Now I'm really curious what I've stumbled upon here. Would you at least tease me with which product I managed to sense through the tinfoil barrier?

Sorry. No can do.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's for Godspawn - from what I've seen of the setting, this sorta stuff seems right up its alley.


That said, the only problem I see with the feats [aside from obvious power level issues, which was part of their design] is that there is no built in way to replace/fix your ancestral weapon - and it really rubs me the wrong way that your ancestral weapon can be smashed by an enemy, and you can go to "Honest Dave's Slightly Used Killing Supplies" and grab a new "ancestral" weapon.  Personally, I'd alter the feats as follows, and players can roleplay the special section as they will - you take it to a temple of your ancestors and beg forgiveness in a complex ritual, or you go to a good forge and have it reforged, Narsil style.

Heroic Heritage
   Adventuring is in your blood - literally.
   Prerequisites: Str 13+
   Benefit: Choose a single melee weapon as your "Ancestral Weapon". When wielding this weapon you gain Stress Resistance 5 and may add your Charisma bonus to damage rolls instead of the normal attribute for these rolls. You also gain a trick.
   "Guide my hands!" (ancestral weapon attack trick): If you miss with this attack but don't score an error, you may choose to succeed anyway as if you rolled the minimum amount required to hit. If you do, your Defense is reduced by the difference between the target's defense and your original attack roll until your initiative count the following round. You may use this trick a number of times per combat equal to your starting action dice.
   Special: If your Ancestral Weapon is broken or destroyed you lose a number of reputation equal to your Career Level and it is replaced at your next downtime.

Heroic Legacy
   You're the latest - and greatest - in a long line of adventurers.
   Prerequisites: Heroic Heritage
   Benefit: You gain the Cagey I NPC Quality and the higher of your Strength of Charisma increases by 1.  Further, when weilding your ancestral weapon you may add your Charisma bonus to attack rolls instead of the normal attribute for these rolls and your Stress Resistance increases to 10 (this replaces the stress resistance 5 from Heroic Heritage).
   You may choose to embrace your larger-than-life nature once, when you level, gaining the Horror type. If you do, your starting action dice decrease by 1 and you find it much harder to hide your true self, suffering a -5 penalty with Disguise checks.


FWIW I'm really not a fan of PCs with the Horror type, simply due to how by taking a feat they penalise their group, which is not cool in my eyes [especially in this particular instance - given the flavour of the feats].  I'd also consider removing the word "melee" from the Heritage feat, mainly because I like the idea of an Elven ancestral bow, or a Pech with a lucky ancestral sling - I can't see it suddenly unbalancing the feats either.

The villainous feats look a bit underpowered too [compared to their heroic counterparts], particularly Villainous Heritage.

[paddyfool]

@ Sletchman

I'd very much agree.  In fact, I was also thinking of something like this:

Special: If your Ancestral Weapon is broken or destroyed you lose a number of reputation equal to your Career Level and it is replaced at your next downtime.

Except that I was thinking that if it gets taken away from you/stolen, you temporarily suffer the hit to reputation until you get it back.

[Sletchman]

Except that I was thinking that if it gets taken away from you/stolen, you temporarily suffer the hit to reputation until you get it back.

I agree - I didn't want to put anything about it being stolen in the feat mechanically, because taking away a piece of gear like that is always the GM making a choice about the kind of adventures they want to run.  I definitely don't think a player should get it back for free if it's stolen [by just having some downtime], and would myself only steal it to use as an adventure seed - maybe a group of brigands is stealing relics for whatever reason.

Of course I would make sure the player I stole it from wasn't going to have a bad reaction to the theft.

On the other hand, if the player lost it [without any input from me that is].  They would absolutely not get it back without substantial legwork.

[Gatac]

FWIW I'm really not a fan of PCs with the Horror type, simply due to how by taking a feat they penalise their group, which is not cool in my eyes [especially in this particular instance - given the flavour of the feats].  I'd also consider removing the word "melee" from the Heritage feat, mainly because I like the idea of an Elven ancestral bow, or a Pech with a lucky ancestral sling - I can't see it suddenly unbalancing the feats either.

The villainous feats look a bit underpowered too [compared to their heroic counterparts], particularly Villainous Heritage.

I'm curious, in what way does the Horror type disadvantage the team? I thought it said precisely that the Will save penalty didn't apply to anyone on the horror's team.

100% with you on the removal of the melee requirement on the ancestral weapons. Go ahead, make your ancestral slings.

Just some grammar smoothing.

Coolness, thanks. Sietchman, I like your Reputation addition, too.

EDIT: On the Villainous feats, yes, I deliberately didn't make them *quite* as powerful, but that's because I realize the Heroic feats went a little far. Looking at them again, I'm probably eliminate the "character level" limit to Holding scale and just let them buy whatever they can afford from the word "Go!" - less fiddly, more awesome.

[Sletchman]

Horror (+5 XP): The NPC has an alien appearance or psychology that undermines an observer’s psyche. Any character other than one of the NPC’s teammates who see it suffers a –3 morale penalty with Will saves.

[Emphasis is mine] The way I read it, it's only one specific teammate that doesn't suffer the penalty.  I could be paying too much attention to word choice though.  I'll post a question in the FAQ thread too.

[Mister Andersen]

I'd bet a whole pile of money you're reading it wrong