[Variant] New Flaws

[ghost_warlock]

Bad Luck
Fate has it in for you.
Drawback: On any d20 roll that carries the chance for an automatic failure on a natural roll of 1 (such as a saving throw), you suffer a failure on a natural result of 2 as well.

Old Injury
You were wounded in battle long ago and, poorly treated at the time, the wound still haunts you.
Drawback: Up to once per encounter, when performing strenuous activity, you must make a DC 15 Con check or take 1 point of Con damage. Example of strenuous activity include, but are not limited to, taking damage, performing any skill relying on a physical ability score (including Concentration), making an attack, and making a Fortitude or Reflex saving throw.
Special: Neither natural nor magic can remove this flaw, although they can heal the Con damage (and subsequent hit point damage) when this flaw is triggered.

As always, removing a flaw in any way also removes the feat gained by taking the flaw.

[I_Got_This_Name]

I'd probably make Old Injury be a Constitution check, rather than a Fortitude Save with a scaling DC.

Also, define "strenuous." For a disabled character, it means, basically, any combat action; I don't think that you want this flaw to be 1d3 points of CON damage per round, or even per battle.

[ghost_warlock]

Forgot about the 1/encounter thing when writing this up. Also, I think you're right about makingit a Con check. I dropped the damage down some, too. Combat actions would be considered strenuous, but this flaw really isn't for a heavy-melee character (although if they really wanted to...).

[ishi]

I think that "Old Injury" may be able to be expanded to encompass a variety of injuries that force Con checks under different circumstances, for example a leg injury that affects you when you Run, Charge, or carry a heavy load.

You said that this was not designed to be taken by heavy-melee characters, but what sort of disabling effect does it have on others? If I take this feat as a Wizard, what will it actually do to me, aside from give me a free feat? Make running harder?

[Fizban]

I like the idea of a poorly treated wound flaw, it could let you get a flaw in-game, and adds a lot of flavor. I agree that Old Injury should have a couple specific things. I don't like the con damage, maybe fatigue or exaustion (sp?): more in-fight penalty, but less "crap, I'm dead".

[BelkarsDagger]

Bad Luck seems a bit underpowered to me. If I'm not mistaken, taking a Flaw grants you an extra Feat. I'd take Bad Luck if it means another Feat, hands down. Maybe on a 1-3? 1-2 just seems... too little.

[Elrosth]

Technically, it effectively doubles the amount of times you get critical failures. That isn't too shabby.

[TheOOB]

Bad Luck does seem a little weak, there is virtually no chance your succeed on any important check on a 2 anyways, so it doesn't do much. However, if you made it so either a)a natural one fails all rolls, not just attacks or saves, or b)gave a penalty for rolling a natural 1 on an attack roll or save other then automatic failure.

Old Injury is too vauge when it applies, there needs to be specific conditions that cause it to require a check. Also, con damage doesn't really make sense, as usually only poison disease and magic deal ability damage. Fatigue would make more sense.

[Brickwall]

Old Injury can, unfortunately, be fixed eventually (a high level healing spell of some sort, probably). While pretty much any flaw can be fixed with limited wish, it'd probably be better if it required XP expenditure to get rid of, at least.

[Fizban]

Ah, but that's where we institute the "magic can't fix everything" rule: for flavor purposes, some stuff just can't be fixed. Then, to stop people from cutting off their bum legs and casting regenerate, we assume that people in the world don't try to get around the rules ;)

[Brickwall]

But we do. We amputate bad limbs and put in prosthetics as-is. If we had magic, we'd use that. People do try to get around the "rules".

[ghost_warlock]

I've noted some examples of "strenuous activity" as well as stated the consequences of removing a flaw.

As far as players trying to get around the rules to minimize the effects of a flaw, that's completely expected. If the DM thinks that they're abusing it, though, she's well within her rights to remove the flaw from the character (and take away the bonus feat, too).

Flaws vary quite a bit in how effective/severe they are. Here's a list to compare to. Some have a flat save to resist, some have scaling DCs. Some flaws would have virtually no effect on a character, others would be crippling. It's up the DM to review the flaws a player selects for his character and decide whether or not to allow a given flaw. For that matter, if you don't review the characters, then you'll likely have bigger problems than a player getting a free feat!

Bad Luck, although apparently not too bad, is the kind of flaw that will continue to be a fairly minor annoyance throughout a character's whole carreer. It might even be a larger drawback at higher level than at low level because it means a character will automatically fail about 10% of their non-skill rolls.

In the case of the alternate Old Injury, there's already a number of flaws that do similar things to the alternative suggestions (reduce speed, inflict penalties on attack rolls, etc.). This Old Injury is supposed to be the "oh, I think I just ruptured something!"-type wound. Old Injury will also scale with the character because, when taking Con damage, you'll always lose roughly the same percentage of hp throughout a character's career. 1 hp when you have 1 HD, 8 hp when you have 8 HD.