Flaws In Character - The New And Improved Flaws Supplement

I'm not going to detail what this thread is about; if you don't already know, check the link at the bottom of this post; it has everything you want to know.

I am, however, gonna lay down some rules for this thread:

1. If you have an idea for a Flaw (or want one updated), send me an e-mail. Not a PM; not a post in this thread; an E-MAIL. My address is also at the bottom.

2. Make sure, when you do e-mail me, to include a user name so that I can give you proper credit.

3. Please include the words "Flaw Idea" in your e-mail's subject line. Otherwise I may not notice it.

4. If you merely have a question about a specific Flaw (or think one is unbalanced, or you saw a typo, or some other little thing) this thread is a good place to post it. But, I won't guaranteed that I'll notice.

A couple of other notes: Yes, there's a reason I decided to make a new thread. Namely, the other one was getting kind of cluttered. The rules I laid down will help prevent that. It will also act as a sort of archive for the older talents that have been annihilated.

Speaking of which; yes, quite a few have been deleted, and I apologize to the people who made or used these Flaws. If you think one was deleted unfairly, send me an e-mail and we'll discuss it.

I think that's all for now.

The Document

My e-mail address:

dagrizkordatar(AT)yahoo(DOT)com

Added a new one, made by moi:

Mutated
Due to scarring, a magical accident, or a genetic quirk, you have a very unusual appearance that makes people distrust you. You suffer a -5 penalty to Persuasion checks. You gain an additional 3 points of racial traits from the Genetic Engineering Supplement. (Ask your GM before you pick this flaw.)

Discuss.

My main problem is min-maxing...

My secret problem is how is the penalty justified if you are disguised as something, via A Thousand Faces or something along those lines?

I like the imagination here.

Overall, I thin there are two types of flaws that work.

1) Flaws that have universal downsides for their benefit - a downside that is impossible for any character to ignore entirely (like Derp). This way it can't really be minimized for the maximization.

2) Flaws that are only about as strong as a normal utility talent (or whatever you're using as a gameplay element) - but with a downside that is easy to avoid and is expected to be avoided. This way even if you ignore all the downsides in your min/maxing - there won't be so much maxing that it actually becomes a problem. Then it just lets players feel clever for dodging downsides without actually ruining the game balance.

Paper Shadow wrote:My main problem is min-maxing...

My secret problem is how is the penalty justified if you are disguised as something, via A Thousand Faces or something along those lines?

Like Mystique? Lol.

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:

Paper Shadow wrote:My main problem is min-maxing...

My secret problem is how is the penalty justified if you are disguised as something, via A Thousand Faces or something along those lines?

Like Mystique? Lol.

DON'T THROW YOUR COMIC BOOK REFERENCES AT ME!

I DON'T KNOW BATMAN!

Woah, take it easy brony! Why so serious?

Silliness aside, Mystique was actually my initial inspiration. Like Dan said, there's two types of Flaws, and that seemed like a good shot at the second kind.

Granted, maybe 3 points is a little much... but, if we downgraded it to 2 points it would A) make the penalty seem quite a bit harsher to those outside the loop, and B) could still be largely negated via Alter Ego.

'Twould seem I'm going to make an awful lot of double posts in this thread... grumble...

Anyways. Made some minor updates here and there, and fixed some typos/grammar errors. Not gonna say what changed (it's all pretty minor) but here are the affected flaws:

Phobia
Obsession
Appleteenie
Bigger Mac
Mutated
Quirky
Everything Has To Be Perfect!
Lucid Dreamer
Snail's Pace

Mutated
Due to scarring, a magical accident, or a genetic quirk, you have a very unusual appearance that makes people distrust you. You suffer a -5 penalty to Persuasion checks. You gain an additional 3 points of racial traits from the Genetic Engineering Supplement. You can not take this flaw with the "True Shifting" racial trait. (And you should ask your GM before you pick this flaw.)

...Why?

A little story about that.

When I played my first Changeling (Konorad, in GLA) we were just hovering between the 6 and 8 point racial update: everyone knew we would have 8 now, but it hadn't officially updated yet. Changeling's Trickery was still only a 5 point racial.

What that meant, in effect, was I had 3 free points, that I could only access when in my true form... moreover, at the time you still had to spend a Magic Point to undo CT's effects as well as change them.

Now, granted, all of those problems are fixed.... but, mixing the new True Shifting and Mutation would, if the above experience is any indicator, still be somewhat confusing.

Now, if someone wants to house-rule-play-test it and show me otherwise, be my guest... until then, I think it might be best to avoid it.

Well, we had this argument while you were gone. True Shifter still only allows you to get 8 points, even if you have more. Also, you could get rid of Changeling's Trickery immediately for free...

Hmm. Okay then, I'll change it back and someone can try it out.

As long as I'm talking to you, are there any talents there that still bug you at all?

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:As long as I'm talking to you, are there any talents there that still bug you at all?

I feel that a lot of the points I've made before still stand, but I'd have to look at it a lot when I get a chance if you want a fresh opinion. Instead, have some sort of demented min-maxed Arcana character I made to show just how crazy a character can get with these flaws when you put a bit of backbone in (heh, it's funny because he doesn't have one), and you can have this at Level 2, or Level 1 if you are in a game that allows a free flaw. I don't know if it's overpowered or working as intended (most likely the latter), but it should be something to note...

His name is Cortex II. I bet you can't guess his gimmick...

It does appear that it is yet to be shared...

tygerburningbright wrote:It does appear that it is yet to be shared...

That's a relief. I had turned my PC off and then realised that Cutie Marks cost 2 Racial Points. Give me a second to fix some stuff...

EDIT: Done, and shared...

Magical Attunement wont do much with that brain in a jar.

OK, Paper Shadow. Congratulations! You have made, more or less, a physical god. I had actually been contemplating a similar build for a bottled-genie character. (Though I hadn't thought of using Muffins; I was gonna go for This Is Whining.)

Now, what is a GM to do about such a build? In this case, I might require re-flavoring (who wants to play with a brain in a jar?) But, mechanically speaking, there wouldn't be much else I could say about it. Sooo, I'm going to draw on a bit of advice a friend of mine gave me once, someone who has been GMing a variety of games, on and off the table (We do LARP stuff as well.)

He saaaiiid...

God-like characters, god-like challenges.

Lemme do the math here... you've got an Arcana check of 25 if I counted correctly, plus 10 re-rolled 1s per day. So, barring CMC and Magic Points, and assuming Heart Of Courage is always running, you've got a difficulty range of 32 - 49.

Now, why would someone like that be doing dinky little echo-spells to help make themselves heard? (To borrow an example from Khan Of The Steps, with my first Magecraft character.) That's right, you're a master mage, you need big challenges, like hypnotising Ursa Majors or some such like that.

What's that? My campaign isn't supposed to be that epic? Well, there's always one other tool at a GM's disposal, though nobody likes to use it.

It is the words, "No, you can't do that." The Magecraft talent explicitly states you need to ask the GM first; and, it's an unspoken rule of RPGs in general that the GM is always right. Yes, it stings a little to hear it; I heard it from Dr Blight not too long ago, and I didn't use any Flaws at all. But there it is.

There we are. My opinion on any overpowered build, in any system.

I think I'd go with the reasoning that no pony would want to group up with it because of its negative persuasion modifier. (congratulations on actually making a negative modifier, though)

Hehe, that's true Kal. Though it's not quite my point...

My point being that in any system, for any game in which everyone doesn't have the exact same things all around (Like Chess; and even then sometimes) there's going to be some way to get a ridiculously overpowered character that is (supposedly) un-arguable. But see, they're all just games; if everyone doesn't have fun, nobody has fun, and if one guy isn't willing to settle for less in the interest of fun, then it's up to everyone else to decide if he's worth having around.

But, we're getting a little of

I still want my old Appleteenie back so I can give myself 0 athletics while getting huge stealth bonus's...

On the topic at hand! Cortex is awesome and I want it. But yeah, a few of these flaws encourage a tiny bit of min-maxing. A simple as dirt way of stopping cortex would be limiting a character to a max of 1-2 flaws.

Xel Unknown wrote:Magical Attunement wont do much with that brain in a jar.

I could have sworn that it didn't require Perception checks, but I guess I've overlooked. No matter, I'll just take Cultural Knowledge in Altering Magical Effects and Creating Magical Effects, or Brains or something I dunno. Basically, even more magic...

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:

God-like characters, god-like challenges.

Obviously, you've already answered a problem with this, but I think I'll add that just because you are a God, doesn't mean your team mates are...

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:It is the words, "No, you can't do that." The Magecraft talent explicitly states you need to ask the GM first; and, it's an unspoken rule of RPGs in general that the GM is always right. Yes, it stings a little to hear it; I heard it from Dr Blight not too long ago, and I didn't use any Flaws at all. But there it is.

That's true, but if something is balanced because "The GM can say no you can't do that", then it's not balanced, is it? Now, be this a problem with Magecraft or a problem with the flaws, there's a problem somewhere, and it needs to be stomped out...

Quietkal wrote:I think I'd go with the reasoning that no pony would want to group up with it because of its negative persuasion modifier. (congratulations on actually making a negative modifier, though)

To be fair, it doesn't become negative until someone sees Cortex II use his Arcana skill. Before then, it's just a modifier of 0 (or possibly +2 if I decide to use one of the spare Quirky bonuses on it). And of course, the problem can be solved with backstory. Intertwine Cortex with another character. Maybe have it so Cortex and this other character knew each other very well before a crazed spell backfires on Cortex, causing him to explode, but also making his brain mutate and survive, and the other character has sworn to help Cortex find a better alternative for his mind than a measly jar...

Also, at Level 4 you can take the Mind Sculptor Destiny. Let's see someone say no to you now...

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:My point being that in any system, for any game in which everyone doesn't have the exact same things all around (Like Chess; and even then sometimes) there's going to be some way to get a ridiculously overpowered character that is (supposedly) un-arguable. But see, they're all just games; if everyone doesn't have fun, nobody has fun, and if one guy isn't willing to settle for less in the interest of fun, then it's up to everyone else to decide if he's worth having around.

Well, that's more about player personalities then how overpowered their characters are. Either way, I don't agree with your statement about how there is going to always be a ridiculously overpowered character. Sure, characters are going to be other stronger than other characters, but it's up to those who make the game to provide ways to make other characters just as strong, just strong in a different way. I mean, this early in the design process you can horribly cripple something and be okay with it, but I feel it's better to nerf something slightly and make other things more appealing, than to nerf it into oblivion...

Hayatecooper wrote:On the topic at hand! Cortex is awesome and I want it. But yeah, a few of these flaws encourage a tiny bit of min-maxing. A simple as dirt way of stopping cortex would be limiting a character to a max of 1-2 flaws.

Flaws should be equal to Utility Talents, so making them their own thing is not the way to go...

---

Anyway, while I don't really have the time to over-analyse, here's a list of talents that bug me. Most of them for the same or similar reasons to last time. They are in order of how they appear in the document, so while I may have a bigger problem with, say, Extrovert more than Appleteenie, Appleteenie is higher on the list because it appears first...

Flaws I Believe Are Mechanically Broken:
Appleteenie (How does it stack with Longrunner? Do you roll only twice, or roll both rolls twice as separate instances, or roll four times?)
Bigger Mac
Mutated
One Trick Pony
(Maybe Quirky, I haven't decided)
Eerie Focus
Everything Has To Be Perfect!
Crashmaster
Delicate Flyer (although on a lesser scale to Crashmaster, since you can force Endurance Checks)
Extrovert

Flaws I Don't Like On A Personal Level (whatever that's worth):
Hyperactive
Lucid Dreamer
Storm Hopper
Haunted
Amnesiac (How does one go about choosing the random talent? What would you do?)
Volatile Temperament

Paper Shadow wrote:Flaws I Believe Are Mechanically Broken:
Appleteenie (How does it stack with Longrunner? Do you roll only twice, or roll both rolls twice as separate instances, or roll four times?)
Bigger Mac

Yes. This is what I refer to as "Big Mac's Flight Issues" (It occurred to me on seeing the new Flying Ace). Naturally the GM would be the final deciding factor, but my solution would likely be one of the following two:

A) Roll once on Flight checks. (They cancel each other out.)
The issue here is that, while perfectly fine for Flying Ace/Longrunner, what about Bridle Gossip? Which brings up...

B) Roll 2 sets of 2 (Or 2 sets of 3, in case of Bridle Gossip), take the highest from each set, and take the lower of the two.

Paper Shadow wrote:
Mutated

There are (currently) only two issues I can see here: the possibility for a negative stat (as Cortex demonstrated) and....

NOPE! Not A Thousand Faces! My issue is Adaptable. (Off-topic: How come nobody uses this talent? Adaptable is AWESOME!)

See, Adaptable basically lets you spend a Magic Point to have any 3-point-or-less racial trait - including Naturally Skilled - for the rest of the day. By dint of Naturally Skilled, that includes just about any Utility Talent as well. Pair it with Derp (or, heaven help us, Herp Derp) and that extends to Magic Talents as well.

Now, in and of itself, that's fine and dandy... the balancing factor is that you're effectively 3 points short until you use it. But Mutated makes it A) open to anybody who has it regardless of whether (heaven forbid) anyone else has Genetic Engineering, and B) gives you those 3 extra points to work with.

This is why you're told to ask the GM before taking a Mutation... because, in my campaigns, Mutated and Adaptable will never appear on the same character sheet. That is where that line gets drawn, for me.

Paper Shadow wrote:
One Trick Pony

This one I actually rather like. At the cost of effectively one utility talent's worth of bonuses (Applejack Of All Trades) you get to use one of your dailies twice as often. Never minding the negative for a moment, it's essentially like taking This Is Whining (for instance) twice; plenty of people are willing to do it, and ordinarily you can't. This allows you to do so - ONCE - with a passive, easy-to-remember penalty that makes it a little more palatable for GMs.

Paper Shadow wrote:
(Maybe Quirky, I haven't decided)

Here's my logic on this one. The new version of I've Read A Lot About It gives a +3 bonus to 2 skills, which must be different from each other. Quirky gives a +2 bonus to 3 skills, which again must be different from each other; but, the two abilities can stack, which (I should think) is balanced by the chance of more critical failures.

Paper Shadow wrote:
Eerie Focus
Everything Has To Be Perfect!

....Yeah, I'm kind of inclined to agree with you there. Ideas, anyone?

Paper Shadow wrote:
Crashmaster
Delicate Flyer (although on a lesser scale to Crashmaster, since you can force Endurance Checks)

I can see the issue here, and one maybe you didn't; Crashmasters (and maybe Delicate Flyers too) could, theoretically, roll Endurance to dampen or negate the damage done. Perhaps if we lowered the bonus some, and/or changed the failure consequences?

Paper Shadow wrote:
Extrovert

Not too sure about this one either.

Paper Shadow wrote:
Flaws I Don't Like On A Personal Level (whatever that's worth):
Hyperactive
Lucid Dreamer
Storm Hopper
Haunted
Amnesiac (How does one go about choosing the random talent? What would you do?)
Volatile Temperament

The only one of those I'm going to address is Amnesiac, which has been bugging me for the exact same reason.

My solution would be, "have the GM pick a couple at whim, using whatever method he thinks is most convenient." (Personally, were I that GM, I would think about what all is planned for the day, and pick talents accordingly to watch the players squirm around. Hehe.)

That's all, folks! There be goats to milk!

Quick responses due to being in a rush, I'll have better ones later...

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:

Paper Shadow wrote:
Mutated

There are (currently) only two issues I can see here: the possibility for a negative stat (as Cortex demonstrated) and....

NOPE! Not A Thousand Faces! My issue is Adaptable. (Off-topic: How come nobody uses this talent? Adaptable is AWESOME!)

See, Adaptable basically lets you spend a Magic Point to have any 3-point-or-less racial trait - including Naturally Skilled - for the rest of the day. By dint of Naturally Skilled, that includes just about any Utility Talent as well. Pair it with Derp (or, heaven help us, Herp Derp) and that extends to Magic Talents as well.

Now, in and of itself, that's fine and dandy... the balancing factor is that you're effectively 3 points short until you use it. But Mutated makes it A) open to anybody who has it regardless of whether (heaven forbid) anyone else has Genetic Engineering, and B) gives you those 3 extra points to work with.

This is why you're told to ask the GM before taking a Mutation... because, in my campaigns, Mutated and Adaptable will never appear on the same character sheet. That is where that line gets drawn, for me.

People don't take Adaptable because it costs three racial points (which you normally can't get more of until Level 7 with the Morph Destiny), and a Magic Point, so people look over it, despite its power as a Racial Magic Element. Personally, I saw the problem that, if a player doesn't care about their persuasion and doesn't have Naturally Talented, or is in a game where the GM allows multiple Naturally Talented, you can take it for a free racial point. Anyway, as I said before, I don't consider "The GM Saying No" a good enough reason to ignore something that is strong. If it's a problem, it should be fixed...

Grey Pen The Flawed wrote:

Paper Shadow wrote:
One Trick Pony

This one I actually rather like. At the cost of effectively one utility talent's worth of bonuses (Applejack Of All Trades) you get to use one of your dailies twice as often. Never minding the negative for a moment, it's essentially like taking This Is Whining (for instance) twice; plenty of people are willing to do it, and ordinarily you can't. This allows you to do so - ONCE - with a passive, easy-to-remember penalty that makes it a little more palatable for GMs.

I can't remember my problem with One Trick Pony, to be honest. It'll come back to me. Quick question/s though, does it work with the Magic Utility Talent you gave Spellchild to, thus giving it a 1/Day use as well? If yes, does it then work on your element?

No, it doesn't. It's still a Magic Talent, even if you do have a free use of it.

What about something along these lines as a possible rebuild for Amnesiac?

Amnesiac- You may use a daily talent after all its uses are spent. Do this only once per talent per day. If you do so, you are unable to use that talent on the following day.

Although that seems to get into Narcoleptic territory, encouraging lots of extended rests to overcome the penalty.