Faults
Although we love to build up the sorts of powerful things players can do in 5E, there are those who say the most interesting parts of a character are their weaknesses and limits. Super strength and eye-beams are great, sure, but Kryptonite and an ironclad moral code? That's the good stuff.
With this in mind, I am pleased to introduce our first selection of faults, optional weaknesses for your next character. Mechanically, they act as variant feats, but with a specific detriment rather than a boon or specialty. Julie, the author behind these, has helpfully included several different ways to incorporate these new anti-feats into the existing character-building ecosystem. However, as with any variant, we hope it inspires you to make something we never could have thought of, and make them your own.
There could be a lot more content here if we get inspired, so if there are weaknesses you think we missed or that we ought to make next, tell us! But for now, we hope you enjoy our first foray into the concept.
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Variant Feats: Faults
Adventurers are often renowned for their charismatic personalities, heroic deeds, and extraordinary feats of power and grandeur. However, what is often left neglected in the awe-inspiring tales told of them are their faults: the unsavory aspects of their personalities that are often left unmentioned by those they interact with, often out of respect or fear. But, these traits make the most compelling adventurers; after all, even adventurers are mere mortals. Usually.
Still, given their line of work, adventurers often find ways to cover for these faults, lest they be their downfall. With time and experience, an adventurer may find that their greatest faults have been turned into their most formidable strengths. With each fault that a character possesses, they gain a form of compensation made to alleviate the negative effect of these faults. Each of the following feats are composed of a fault and a compensation, the fault introducing penalties to a character’s playstyle, and the compensation introducing strengths that your character has learned as a result of carrying the fault.
Faults begin at the inception of an adventurer’s career, as most adventurer’s can only improve if they wish to survive the perils awaiting them. As you create your character, you can choose to begin with one of these special feats.
Variant: Journey of Afflictions
Some journeys tend not to improve adventurers, but instead weaken their character and constitution instead. Be it because they grow a bit too comfortable with their personal development or because the horrors of the sights they have seen leave effects on the mind and body, it is possible for an adventurer’s faults to flourish at any point in a campaign; not just the inception. When a player could normally choose a feat or ability score improvement, they can also choose one of these feats with the DM’s approval. Alternatively, the DM can assign one of these feats at any time in the campaign that they feel is appropriate. For example, an adventurer cursed with disease can be given the Sickly feat by the DM.
Variant: Highs and Lows
Some adventurers have crippling weaknesses that they compensate for with their notable unrelated strengths. With the DM’s approval, players who wish to emulate this effect with their characters can take one of these feats and opt to only receive the effects of the ‘fault’ section of the feat. They can then take an additional feat rather than receiving the fault’s compensation.
Awkward
You have never been particularly fluent in conversation and pleasantries. You find yourself frequently suffering from one of the following social ailments of your choice:
Earnest. When you roll a 5 or lower on the d20 for a Charisma (Deception) check, the person or people that you are attempting to deceive can immediately tell that you are being dishonest, and they have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks against you for 1 minute.
Embarrassing. When you roll a 5 or lower on the d20 for a Charisma (Performance) check, the person or people that you are performing for find you embarrassing and repugnant, and they are inclined to distance themselves from you.
Harmless. When you roll a 5 or lower on the d20 for a Charisma (Intimidation) check, the person or people that you are attempting to intimidate view you as pathetic and easily taken advantage of.
Offensive. When you roll a 5 or lower on the d20 for a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you offend the person or people that you are attempting to persuade, and they are disinclined to believe or oblige to anything you say.
Compensation. With your awkward mannerisms comes an undeniable sincerity. Depending on which social ailment you picked, you gain one of the following benefits:
Earnest. You have advantage on Charisma checks made to convince people that you're telling the truth, so long as you are.
Embarrassing. You have advantage on Charisma checks made to try and make others take pity on you. How that character acts on said pity is dependent on their own personality.
Harmless. You have advantage on Charisma checks made to convince others that you are weak or harmless.
Offensive. You have advantage on Charisma checks made to convince others to leave you alone, often resulting in those people having negative feelings towards you.
Clumsy
Your graceless lack of coordination continuously plagues your adventures with chances for failure. Whenever you move through difficult terrain or interact with an object, roll 1d4. On a roll of 1, you fall prone or drop the item.
Compensation. Being quick to fall has taught you to be quick to recover. In response to falling prone while not in difficult terrain, you can use your reaction to stand up. In addition, reduce any fall damage that you may otherwise take by 1d6.
Dense
You are impressively oblivious to your surroundings. Subtract 2 from your passive Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) score. You have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to identify hidden creatures unless their location is pointed out to you. You also make Intelligence (Investigation) checks to identify illusions with disadvantage.
Compensation. Your thick head is thick enough to repel even magical effects. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened, as well as against spells and other effects that read your mind, such as the detect thoughts spell.
Lazy
Considering your talents, you like to take things a bit too easy, and you are more aversive to work than others in your field. When you roll for initiative, you do not add your Dexterity modifier. If you have a Dexterity score of 11 or lower, you instead roll initiative with disadvantage. In addition, whenever you are missing half or more of your hit dice, subtract 5 feet from your walking speed.
Compensation. When it comes to relaxing, you're a natural, your laid-back energy even rubbing off on your friends. Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you and all allied creatures near you can regain an additional hit die, which you can expend immediately. Creatures with all of their hit dice can instead roll a hit die without expending it. You and any other creature can only benefit from this ability once before completing a long rest.
Sickly
You have been afflicted by a crippling ailment of some kind. When you take this feat, choose from one of the following:
Crippled Constitution. Your hit point maximum decreases by an amount equal to your level when you gain this feat. Whenever you gain a level thereafter, your hit point maximum decreases by an additional 1 hit point.
Demanding Contagion. In order to complete a long rest, you must consume 5 gold worth of medicine made with alchemist's supplies or an herbalism kit every 24 hours. In addition, whenever you would roll an exhaustion check, you instead must roll 2 exhaustion checks. The price of the medicine and its materials may vary by campaign setting, at the DM’s discretion.
Compensation. Living with your condition has been a trial that, up until this point, you have overcome with tenacity, determination, and luck. You have proficiency with your choice of alchemist’s supplies or herbalism kits. In addition, when you are rolling death saving throws, you stabilize after 2 successes, and you gain 1 hit point on a roll of 19 or 20.
Unlucky
Your adventures and day to day life have been riddled with unexplainable and unfortunate circumstances. Once per long rest, the DM can choose to impose disadvantage on any roll that you make.
Compensation. You can only be unlucky if that luck is going somewhere else. After the DM has used this feat to make you roll with disadvantage, you gain one luck point. You can spend this luck point when you see another creature make an attack roll or ability check. They roll the attack or check with advantage. You can only have one luck point at any given time from this feat.
Faults and Game Balance
Dungeons & Dragons is an ever-evolving game, developing new mechanics and concepts the longer it runs. However, many of these changes throw the original game balance into question. Faults present such a change.
The introduction of intentional mechanical weaknesses supplemented with complementary benefits is one that is difficult to seamlessly include into the game’s existing ruleset. This is compounded by the decision to allow characters to freely take one of these feats at both character inception and ability score improvement. As a result, we advise that DMs and players alike con- sider that these special feats may alter the balance of games in notable ways. Players may find themselves much weaker than they intended, or they may exploit compensations in unforeseen ways.
We strongly advise playgroups to be open to revisions and experimentation should they wish to include faults in their game. That being said, we hope that this unpredictability and freshness will bring new and exciting expression!