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What do people think of flaws? I want to provide my PCs with mechanical ideas of how negative personality traits should work. By taking a flaw, you may take an additional feat. Most flaws are taken at character generation. However, at DM’s discretion, you may take this flaw after character generation if you character becomes very religions in game.
Chemical Dependence-Flaw-you need something or things go bad in a hurry-Choose one of two levels for this flaw-Minor or Major-Minor is equivalent to one feat, while Major is equivalent to two. You must consume the object of your dependence once every 24 hours for minor or twice every 24 hours for major. If you fail to do so, you take a -2 on all check for minor, and a -4 for major. When presented with an opportunity to use the object of your dependence you must make a will save-DC 10+1/2 level for minor and DC 15 15+1/2 level for major. Your dependence may be used against you to force your character to things they would normality not do.
Quick to Anger-Flaw-you find it hard to control your temper-When a character says anything that would anger or contradict your character, you must make a diplomacy check using your own charisma for the check DC. If you fail you become one step more hostile to the character. You may need repeat this check several times. If you become hostile toward the character and must attack the character. After this attack your attitude become unfriendly.
Anxiety-Flaw-You always believe the worst thing is coming and this makes it that much more likely to happen-When planning any event more then one turn in the future, you take a -2 penalty to all checks as part of this plan as your are distracted by thinking the worst thing could occur during any event. If you are making checks that are not part of any planning, you do not suffer this penalty.
Defensive-Flaw-when a character criticizes your character you gain a -4 penalty to bluff and diplomacy checks with that character for a minimum of one hour and as long one day as determined by the DM.
Religious obligations-Flaw-You are devoted to your religion to the extent it interferes with your work and life-Select a religion and choose holy days for it. This must include major holidays and weekly obligations. These obligations must include at least 20% of your time. You may select a day of the week when you are fasting or some how otherwise unable to perform at your best. On those days you take a -1 to all checks. On major religions occasions you may simple be unable to contribute to your parties abilities or you taken a major penalty of -3 to all checks due to extreme hunger or thirst.
Thoughts?
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All too often flaws fall prey to power-gaming and become an excuse to have another feat. Traits were supposed to give some flavour to characters too, and look what happened to them...
Basically what VRMH said.
I stopped playing 3.5 when someone in our group legitimately came up with a disembodied flying Monk/Rogue Kobold (Changling-bloodlined) head, that at level one could bite attack something with a +12 dealing 2d12+3d6+9 damage. He could also turn invisible at will, teleport and deroot a tree with his teeth.
This is what Flaws did.
Also these flaws are terrible as their all subjective and detract from actually participating as part of the group. It sounds like an excuse for the DM to be a dick, like back in the day when You got handed a pamphlet of laws to abide when you wanted to play a paladin.
Addictions and Chemical Dependancies already exist in Pathfinder, and already have their own pros and cons, you shouldn't get a free feat for something you plan to do anyways.
Anything involving "insults" is beyond subjective, I don't want the DM to be rolling for my character just because some other PC told me jokingly "Your mother was a hamster, and you father smelt of elderberries."
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Flaws aren't bad.
Anything like that just gives your character more personality and screen time.
Think of Raistlin's chronic illness, or Snake Pliskin's missing eye.
Those aren't penalties. They are defining character traits that make them more interesting.
If you want your character to have a "flaw", just give them one. Don't ask your GM for an extra cookie for something that already makes your character cooler.
Traits were supposed to give some flavour to characters too, and look what happened to them...
They add to the character and allow you to create characters who are good at things they otherwise wouldn't without being overpowered. I don't see a problem with this.
Flaws are nice. I loved them in 3.5 for creating characters. My favorite was by far corteous chivalry to create a heroic knight who isn't keen on hitting women(a real flaw, and only comes up when the GM wants it to. Most monsters are monsters). They could really add to the character, though there are those people who can't use ranged weapons who take shakey...
That said, yours are subjective. Giving them a heavy roleplay penalty isn't the best way to go about it. Make it descriptive and give it a light mechanical penalty. Not all flaws are weighed the same either. Who wants to play with someone who refuses to eat for 3 days in a row or has a chemical dependancy? Those people don't look cut out for adventure to me, and less so if they have to work in a party of people who have to put up with things.
I use Flaws, and I have found the following suggestions very valuable:
1. Make sure that the Flaw has a pre-requisite that it can only be taken by a character that it is actually going to negatively effect. A Flaw that negatively impacts a spellcaster should never be allowed for a Fighter. That character would not have any problems arrising from the Flaw.
2. Only allow at most 2 Flaws per character and only at creation. A character may pick up some flaws later on via the story, but these should never equal a bonus Feat.
3. Vary up what can be gained with a Flaw. I allow the character to take a bonus Feat, 2 additional Traits, or 4 additional skill ranks for each Flaw. The choice is the player's to make.
Using these rules should produce good results, but if you have a min/maxer, you could run into trouble. The kobold mentioned above must have used some very specific Feats to accomplish all that, and I can't see all those Feats in Pathfinder (they may be somewhere, as there are quite a few Feats in the game, I just don't know where they might be. Certainly not the Core Rulebook.)
BTW: The Chemical Dependence-Flaw seems to be just addiction. There are rules for that in the Gamemastery Guide.
I notice you didn't mention kleptomania. a halfling with this problem is a Kender. You cannot role play a Kender because you don't have the choice of not stealing from party members.
Rule one is fun. If the GM can roll dice and tell your character what to do, I'm having no fun.
I loved flaws, they made human less of the obvious go-to race for any build, and a lot of builds really need a lot of feats up front to function. That said, I think you should stop beating around the bush and just give people more feats at 1st level for free.
Because that's effectively what flaws were, in practice.
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I did like the flaws in one of 3.0's books, but I'm not familiar with flaws from any other source (previous posters have listed quite a few I've never heard of).
Two of the biggest rules listed in that book for making your own flaws:
1: Never make it anything that only effects certain classes (the spellcasting flaw above is a perfect example)
2: Never make the flaw directly related to roleplaying. Your Quick to Anger flaw unfortunately does this exactly--attitude levels are never meant to be used for PCs, as their attitude is supposed to be their own in order to avoid situations of "well the inkeep rolled a 28 on his diplomacy check, so you're Helpful now and are not allowed to refuse his request".
It also makes the suggestion that you don't make flaws relating to the social skills--they sound nice but in practice there's generally one "face" of the party (perhaps two) that tend to do most of the rolling. If you penalize certain characters for interacting with others, the players will then learn to sit back and let others handle the "talky bits." This is not a power-gamer thing, just human nature to avoid what you get punished for. Effectively, this means that after a few learning sessions the flaw no longer applies to them except in situations you arbitrarily force on them--which will frustrate the player.
As others said, personality flaws should be a full roleplaying thing. You can ad hoc problems that their actions or specific words cause (i.e. i gave one of my players a -5 penalty when they tried Diplomacy with essentially "stop that or I'm kicking you out") If you have players that love roleplaying, they'll be willing to play out these personality traits regardless of what it says on their paper
As for Religious Obligations, I wouldn't consider it a strong enough negative to be worth a feat due to its infrequency. Plus, do you really want to keep track of what day of the week or YEAR it is, all the time? And if your campaign spans enough time for the annual holidays to come up multiple times, how many times can you have it come up without purposely skipping months and having adventures always "conveniently" happening around a major holiday? Certainly you may keep this idea (it's especially likely for the more lawful religions), but I wouldn't make it a choosable Flaw.
I don't mean to be confrontational with this, but these kinds of things tend not to work out well. If your players want to play quirky, flawed characters (I certainly do!), let them do it! Just don't make the role-playing so dependent on dice rolls.
I've used Flaws in the past, and I didn't like the result - power creep supposedly offset by drawbacks that, whatever the design intention, never see play (not blaming the players - it's only logical to choose a flaw that will penalize you the least).
I recently came across a Drawback system that I like more. While Drawbacks have many of the same features as flaws (it would be simple to use Flaws in place of them), they reward 4 skill points rather than a feat. Since skill points are capped by level, the result is increased versatility without a significant power boost.
The Drawback system can be found on the d20PFSRD; I don't like all of them, and only award skill points for Drawbacks that will actually see play.
I used flaws in a 3.x game where character could take 1 flaw to get a background feat from the Greyhawk background feats published in Dragon mag. Or you could at DM discretion take 2 flaws for a Trait from Iron Heroes.
The only way I would introduce something like flaws into my game is with something im working on that is like aspects from the fudge system.
You have a flaw, or aspect. At appropriate moment the dm 'invokes' the aspect or flaw for instance, you are at a fancy noblemans party, with an open bar, and the dm invokes a characters drinking problem flaw/aspect. The player can choose to accept the invocation and allow it to complicate their life. IE they get roaring drunk at the party where they were trying to make a good impression. If they do, they and the dm work out the details of how the flaw takes effect, and the player gets a hero point (or something similar) for it. If they dont want accept it, they move along normally.
This allows characters to have flaws that have a real impact on their characters and the story, without the room for munchkining that the bonus feats give. But they still get something back for the problems the flaw gives.
I've seen such a system implemented with the star wars saga edition rules and force points, so I am fairly sure it will work just fine with pathfinder and hero points.
You could also develop story points, where some of the noble persons have the same flaw. When they wake up in jail with a plot hook, and the eccentric uncle gets bailed out, along with the adventurer. Then the party tries to find the real murderer, which turns out to be a monster.
I loved Flaws in 3.5, but they did get out of control in our group. It's just too easy to take a flaw that's going to have minimal effect on your character, in exchange for a Feat that could mechanically define your character.
If I used Flaws again, I'd lower it to having to take 2 Flaws in order to grab a single Feat. The 1 for 1 buy was just overpowered.
I like flaws, but I don't like feats as what you get in return for them.
I would, instead, reward PCs with hero points when flaws come up that affect them in play, more like how Aspects work in the FATE system. The GM encourages you to act in a certain way, and in exchange you get a hero point. You can choose not to act that way, but then you don't get the point, and if you ignore your flaw often enough you're going to lose it - someone who never spends any time drunk isn't playing someone with the Drunkard flaw very well, for example.
Soooo, now that I've read all the responses - I agree wholeheartedly with Kolokotrani.
I just remembered something kind of funny. When Unearthed Arcana first came our, our DM picked it up. He went over the Flaws for Feats thing, and asked us if we wanted to use it. Not knowing any better, we said "sure, more feats are great!"
He proceeded to assign the Flaws to a table and roll ours randomly. Ouch. It was like watching our stats and saving throws, lined up in front of a blindfolded and drunken firing squad.
I treat flaws similarly to what SteelDraco wrote, except as follows: flaws and other "background" statistics are roleplaying tools (not mechanical/set in stone penalties). When a player roleplays their flaws, especially in a situation where it's particularly detrimental to do so, they receive my tables equivalent of a hero point.