I am hoping to get some feedback on the Character Traits I've come up with for my campaign thus far. Any feedback would be incredibly valuable. These are all a work in progress and I plan on making more, hopefully, with some constructive feedback.
Thanks in advance!
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I'm not a fan of the concept of negative traits, but they seem significantly stronger (for the most part) than the positive traits you'd be able to pick up with them, so they certainly don't seem unbalancing.
A few traits seem to give larger bonuses than is typical, such s Natural Swimmer (on the other hand, I'd be inclined to go with that specific one, as Swim is a much more situational skill than, say, Perception).
Borderlander feels too good, which, again, is a problem with Perception being so much better than the other skills (Swim, Climb, Knowledge (local), etc.) you've been enhancing. Perhaps, to better represent the constant danger of life in the borderlands, you get a +1 to Perception checks and a +1 to Initiative checks?
Dazzling Urbanite has just a bit too many options, I think, +1 to all three of those options would be fine, or the current numbers would be fine if applied to a single city.
Desert-Dweller, again, is too much. The +2 saves vs. poison by itself is pretty darn nice (although it may be that you intended to make it only apply to imbibed poisons). Dropping everything to +1 would be more trait-worthy, or just whittling it down to a couple of benefits (+4 days without water, +2 survival checks to find water, for instance).
Hermit is very cool. I like the built-in weakness.
Plains-Dweller's 'gain ground' feature is just flat out creative. Neat!
Underdark-Dweller may or may not be 'too good' for something you can get for a Trait, even with the weakness built in. I'm on the fence about this. Given that a Rogue pretty much *needs* some sort of darkvision to be able to Sneak attack people, I'm of a mind to be generous in granting it (or some other means of Sneak attacking people in shadowy areas), and yet it still feels like 'too good' for a Trait.
Wastes-Trained is just about as good as Skill Focus Survival, which makes it a bit too good for a Trait, IMO. (+1/+3 in favored terrain, sounds better.)
Woods-Dweller should, IMO, just eliminate some natural (non-magically affected) vegetation penalties to movement. As written, this Trait, in the hands of a human Druid, would allow her a 40 ft. movement rate through forests, which seems a little odd. Perhaps, an alternate Trait (or added to this one) would make someone so skilled at fighting in wooded / overgrown areas that they can avoid concealment penalties to fire through underbrush.
Any Race or Regional trait I didn't mention, like Sight of the Depths or Stalawrt or whatever I think is fine as written.
The One with the Land trait is neat, but would require the use of Negative Traits or the Extra Traits feat to take advantage of. It might be better to follow the model of the Adopted Social Trait and allow the person who takes this Trait to choose a Regional Trait, even if he already has a Regional Trait.
Thank you VERY MUCH for your appraisal!
It will be most helpful. You know, it's funny, Borderlander started as +1 perception, +1 initiative and I changed it because I was worried it'd be too powerful. On second thought, I'm going to change it back immediately.
EDIT: Underdark-Dweller