Thoth64024scustom

I couldn't find a page for community created Backgrounds... a quick search only turned-up The Occult Library by Moxiane. Mine will reside here for now, since it is only one. Here is the rough draft. I am also submitting it for perusal on Exaltedcompendium.com for feedback there.

Area Knowledge

I was looking over some old D&D first and second ed stuff, and realized that Exalted is missing streetwise and area knowledge skills that city-dwelling pc's often have in those games. Oh sure, a character with Larceny or Survival could specialize in a particular geographic area, or streetwise... but specialty points are a precious commodity, and too narrow in focus when tied to just one ability.

Stunts are another good way to do this, and I advocate and suggest the use of Stunts outside of combat. I'm not suggesting a replacement to Stunts, since the Background requires the player to describe how the character's geographic knowledge would benefit the roll that the bonus dice are being applied to. If the explanation is colorful enough, the Storyteller should award Stunt dice in addition.

The mechanics are thus:

If the player believes that his character's previous knowledge and familiararity of a locale would benefit a roll, then he may attempt to use the appropriate Area Knowledge Background. The player rolls a number of dice equal to the Background. Each success adds one bonus dice to the roll in question. 10's count as 2 successes. It is possible to botch the roll (a character's knowledge is fatally incomplete or incorrect), in which case the character subtracts a number of dice equal to the Background from the dice pool in question. The dice pool cannot be reduced below 1 in this fashion.

Each use of Area Knowledge must be accompanied with a colorful explanation as to why the character's familiarity with the area would aid his roll. As mentioned above, this could possibly cross into Stunt territory. Character's should be able to benefit from both Stunts and Area Knowledge (you can Stunt Charm assited rolls, can't you?).

Area Knowledge can only be bought at character creation, and only with bonus points awarded by the Storyteller for a written character background. It may also be bought at the end of downtime if the character has spent a significant amount of time living or working in a locale during said downtime... the exact amounts should be determined by the Storyteller on a per-character basis, but at least one year per point sounds right.

Now the only thing I am having problems deciding is the REACH of this ability... It must be bought separately for each locale... but how big can a locale be? A neighborhood? A city? A kingdom? I don't think the reach should get longer as you put more points into it, because someone could be VERY familiar with the neighborhood they grew up in while knowing almost nothing of the rest of the city. Maybe. Maybe you can put 5 points in your neighborhood... that would give you 3 points in surrounding neighborhoods and 1 point in other parts of the city???

Discuss