Dear Paizo community,
I am a DM about to start the Iron Gods campaign for my players. One of them thought it would be really cool to add a random oddity or quirk to their characters, in homage to the strange qualities you could add in many old school rpgs, such as fallout. I love the idea.
I've come up with a few examples, but I could really use the communities help and creativity with making many more! Ideally, it would be awesome to have enough to fill out a d100 table. These quirks can run the gamut of terrible, fantastic, strange, useful, burdensome, interesting and everything in between.
Here is what I came up with so far, can you write more of your own for my group (and anyone else) to use? Thank you so much!
Examples:
Quirks and Oddities
Bird-Boned “You get a broken jaw from a stiff slap, and falling down stairs is a recurring nightmare for you. At least in the right wind, and with a running start, you feel like you can almost fly.”
Benefit(s): You weigh 30% less than normal; You gain a +5 bonus on Jump checks; You gain a +2 bonus on Fly checks; You take 1d6 less falling damage than usual
Drawback(s): You have a weakness to bludgeoning damage (50% more)
Hemophiliac “You always bruised easily and your nosebleeds would last for hours. Your blood is thin and runny, and every time you cut yourself it’s always a struggle to get the wound to stop bleeding.”
Benefit(s): None
Drawback(s): All bleed effects continue for 2 rounds after they would have otherwise stopped.
Hater of Doors: “What is best in life? The sound of splintering wood, the crushing of portals, and the lamentation of former door owners. For some reason, you’ve always hated closed doors, likely due to some unremembered childhood trauma. Maybe you’re just crazy. Now you treat all closed doors as a mortal enemy and a personal affront. You’ve spent a lot of time in jail for property damage. “
Benefit(s): You roll twice on strength checks to force open a door, taking the better result; You always deal a critical hit when attempting to sunder doors.
Drawback(s): If you ever try and fail to open a closed door in one shot, (via sunder or strength check), you become shaken as you lose faith in yourself. This penalty lasts until you successfully defeat a door in one shot.
Large Lungs: “You have lungs like bellows, and they have served you well every time you went swimming or diving. If you could only breathe fire, you’d be the mightiest dragon.”
Benefit(s): You can hold your breath twice as long as usual; Any breath attacks you make have their cone or line effect increased by 50%
Drawback(s): In combat and other physically exciting situations, roll a d20 at the start of your turn, on a result of 1, you momentarily pass out. You become prone and staggered for your turn, and drop what you were holding.
Thrill-seeker: “It’s better to burn out, than to fade away. You’ve always felt that life is only thrilling when you’re riding the edge of death. Safe is boring, you live for risk.’
Benefit(s): If you’re below 50% hit points, gain a +1 bonus on your d20 rolls.
Drawback(s): If you’re at full hit points, take a -1 penalty on your d20 rolls.
Odd Glow: “There are places in the world where you simply start glowing like a faint will-o-wisp, usually in the Numerian Wastes or next to technological items and scrap.”
Benefit(s): Whenever you’re within an area of radiation, you give off dim light in a 10’ radius.
Drawback(s): None
Free Fated: “You’ve always felt like you had an extraordinary will and an ability to control your own fate, to bend luck to your bidding. Maybe you’re just extraordinarily confident.”
Benefit(s): You can control your fate to re-roll any d20 roll as a free action, keeping the better result. Doing so earns you a Debt Token.
Drawback(s): The DM can use a Debt Token to force you to re-roll any d20 roll, keeping the worse result. You cannot Control your Fate while you have a Debt Token.
Alcoholic: “You’ve hit the bottle so long you’ve nearly forgotten what being sober is like.”
Benefit(s): You can consume twice the alcohol as usual without becoming drunk.; You gain a +2 diplomacy bonus in bars, taverns, parties and with fellow connoisseurs.; You gain a +1 bonus on saves vs. poison
Drawback(s): You take a -1 penalty on saves vs. disease; You must consume alcohol each day or you take 2 points of Constitution damage from withdrawal. You are too far gone to quit without it killing you.
Light Sleeper: “You awaken at the slightest sound, at the gentlest breeze or even a shadow passing over you. It’s a curse and you envy others restful sleep.”
Benefit(s): You automatically awaken when anything at all is wrong. You can wear earplugs and a sleeping mask to intentionally lose this benefit.
Drawback(s): You gain the fatigued condition for the following day, due to your inability to get proper sleep. You can wear earplugs and a sleeping mask to intentionally lose this drawback.
Hodor: “Some people are fat, some people are big boned, but you’re clearly just a small giant.”
Benefit(s): You are treated as one size bigger for purposes of CMD, BAB, AC and Natural Attack Dice
Drawback(s): You have never squeezed into anywhere, and you never will.
Know-It-All: “You know a lot of useful information, odd pieces of knowledge and obscure trivia. The problem is that when you don’t know something, you just give it your best guess instead of admitting your ignorance.”
Benefit(s): You roll two dice when making knowledge checks.
Drawback(s): The DM secretly and randomly picks which of your two rolls is used.
Heartbomb: “At one point in your life you’ve had a particularly critical need to implant an explosive into your body that would explode if you died. Eventually, the need passed, and the bomb stayed.”
Benefit(s): If anyone kills you, they’ll die too. You bomb explodes for 10d6 fire damage in a 30’ radius. Anyone affected can take half damage with a Reflex Save DC of 15 + your character level.
Drawback(s): There won’t be much left of your body for a nice funeral.
