Homebrew Flaws

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Flaws are optional drawbacks that a character can choose upon character creation in order to gain an extra feat. By default the number of flaws you can select is two but your GM may want to only use one if they want to avoid PC's with too many feats to start out with. In general a flaw should be as bad as a feat is good (although that is very subjective). Flaws are being used as intended if they are custom to your character and apply a penalty that will actually be detrimental. For example, a character focusing exclusively on ranged combat should not be allowed to take a flaw that gives them a penalty on melee attack rolls. Although the character being worse at melee attacks feels thematic, the penalty will rarely hamper them in anyway and thus is not a good flaw.

Here are some examples of flaws made for PC's in the past to get a general idea of what they should look like...

Scorched Past ''Sometime in your past you were marked by flame and those memories have never left you. While conjuring fire the build up of heat in your hands rekindles those memories, making it harder to finish the spell.'' Whenever casting a spell, or activating a magic item that has a spell, with the fire descriptor you must make a concentration check or fail to cast the spell or use the item. If you're required to make a concentration check already, such as casting defensively, the DC is increased by 2.

Failed Experiments Repeated exposure to chemicals, explosions, and a combination of the two have thrown off your center of gravity and left you partially deafened. You suffer -4 to perception, -2 stealth, and -2 on acrobatics checks to balance.

Life is Precious Your training as a physician has left you unable to turn a blind eye to the taking of another life. After delivering the killing blow to a living humanoid of which you are aware of its sentience, you gain the sickened condition for some time. Although you’re never able to truly get over this feeling, exposure to these hard truths does eventually lessen the time it takes you to push it back in your mind. You have the condition for 10/LV minutes, rounded to the nearest minute (minimum 1 minute).

Hydrophpbia Be it a traumatic childhood experience or maybe just a deep fear of the deep, you can't stand being in water You suffer -2 on Swim checks and you cannot take a 10 on Swim checks. In addition, whenever you enter waist-deep water make a Will saving throw DC 13 or become Shakened until you leave the water.

Racial Photosensitivity Many members of your race have trouble seeing in the bright light of the surface but you face another challenge as well, becoming deeply tired after extended exposure to the sun. If you spend at least an hour in direct sunlight, you gain the fatigue condition. If you continue to be exposed to sunlight for an additional hour you gain the exhausted condition and after three hours of exposure to sunlight you fall unconscious. Resting for an hour in an area shielded by the sunlight restores the fatigued and exhausted conditions or causes you to awaken from unconsciousness (you then need an additional hour of rest to remove the exhausted condition)

Marked by Fey Either taken as a child or whisked away after a night of revelry in the forest, you've been marked by the creatures of the Feywild and now find yourself unable to be comfortable while in contact with metal for too long. You have the same armor restriction as the Druid class, being unable to wear any metal armor.