Local Hero Traits

[Mr. Peepers]

WooHoo! I'm getting together with my players tonight to roll up their SCAP PCs. I am wondering if people have chosen to use the Local Hero traits for any PC designating the Cauldron region as his or her place of origin.

If you did use the traits, did you roll them randomly for a PC or did you let them decide? If you let them decide, how much info did you give them?

I am considering letting my local PCs decide on their traits with full knowledge of the benefits and drawbacks (without telling them about the secret effects, of course). Is this too generous?

Thanks!

[James Jacobs]

Mr. Peepers wrote:

WooHoo! I'm getting together with my players tonight to roll up their SCAP PCs. I am wondering if people have chosen to use the Local Hero traits for any PC designating the Cauldron region as his or her place of origin.

If you did use the traits, did you roll them randomly for a PC or did you let them decide? If you let them decide, how much info did you give them?

I am considering letting my local PCs decide on their traits with full knowledge of the benefits and drawbacks (without telling them about the secret effects, of course). Is this too generous?

Thanks!

If I were starting a SC Campaign I'd give the PCs all the info for the traits (except for the secret effects) and let them choose one they liked. It's always better to let the PCs determine their own fate rather than letting the dice or the DM do that for them.

[Tristan]

I will be starting this game in October... intend to let my PCs choose those traits and will definately tell them the good and bad of each one. The secret stuff is that, secret.

I will probably jazz them up a bit to encourage the PCs to take them since having local PCs will make things easier for me.

Going to drop the Noble one though.

[Samael]

Pardon my ignorance, but where can I find the info on a Local Hero?

[delvesdeep]

You will find it in the Character Creation section in the back portion of the Shackled City Adventure Path Hard Cover.

Delvesdeep

[evilash]

Unlike the other on this thread I would not let the players choose their trait freely, but would instead give them a trait or a choice of traits depending on their background.

For example: I have a new player coming into the campaign next session. He's made a fighter turned "demon hunter" after he was captured by demons and tortured with scarification tatoos which they then filled in with demon blood giving them a black/red almost living appearance, before he were able to escape. The Scion of Surabar trait were a given for this character.

I agree then the players should know all the mechanics of the trait they have.

[Ace Smith]

Since the players and I collectively come up with the backgrounds for the PC's, I took where they were already going with their background and incorporated whichever one of the traits fit best into their background. If none of the traits fit into their chosen background then I made sure they were either not from Cauldron or just not one of the "important" people from there. Out of 5 PC's, I gave out 2 of the hero traits, the scarred soul and the mark of the beast since these two fit in so well with the backgrounds that they came up with.

[Mr. Peepers]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up just handing over a list of the LH traits to my players and said, "If you decide you are from Cauldron, pick a trait that makes sense for the character you want to play."

The dwarf wizard will be a Cauldron native (possibly with ties to Zenith) and he is taking the Scion trait. Apparently Surabar had widely varied tastes. This wizard plans to specialize in Divination, he is one of two Good aligned PC's, and he is the oldest PC by far (everyone else is like 21-25yrs) so he will likely be a focal point for getting some of Cauldron's history and current state of affairs across to the other players.

The halfling rogue is also a native to the region--not the city itself--and she is taking Nobility... The idea being that her family is very well to do, but somehow her grandma got mixed up with a thieves' guild (possibly Last Laugh). Mom doesn't know anything about grandma's seedy history, and now the rogue PC is slowly learning the trade from her grandma during visits to her textile shop. The player came up with the idea of a high-class thief/spy and I like it...it's very Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The rest of the PCs have journeyed to Cauldron for various reasons to be determined.