Boons

Boons are special abilities separate from Talents that may be purchased with Experience. You may spend a maximum of 25 Experience on Boons in character creation. In order to gain extra Experience to purchase Boons, a player may wish to select Drawbacks for their character.

At GM discretion, Boons may be purchased after character creation for up to double their value in experience points. Consult your GM prior to purchasing any Boons after character creation.

You know your business, and you always know where to find like-minded individuals.

Effect: Choose a specific category of merchandise, such as melee weapons, bows, guns, armor, scrolls, wondrous items (must be a specific slot, such as head, belt, gloves, etc.), or any other applicable category, at GM discretion. You gain an NPC contact (or contacts) who serves as a source for such items. You gain a 10% boost in your favor when purchasing or fencing such items. For example, if you make a Diplomacy check to procure an item for 10 Common Crafting Goods Parts, this Boon would discount that negotiated price to 9 parts instead.

The player and the GM should discuss what type of item you trade, and the finer details of your connections, such as how you became involved with them.

You are remarkably unremarkable.

Effect: Anyone attempting to describe your character cannot come up with anything more precise than “average height, average build, average hair, etc.” In addition, any memory checks relating to this character are made at a -5 penalty. Lastly, anyone attempting to spot you in a crowd takes a -10 penalty to their Perception check.

Due to either earning it, or being born into it, you are famous - your name is known throughout the game setting.

Effect: You may choose a single appropriate skill which results from your fame. Common choices are Perform or Knowledge (Nobility). You gain this specific skill as a Key Skill, and you also gain a +2 miscellaneous bonus towards it. In addition, as you are well known; other characters in the world may look upon you with a particular favor, bestow gifts upon you, or otherwise provide special treatment due to your status. The GM and the player should work together during character creation to determine the source and effects of this status. This Boon usually costs about 10 Experience.

Nobody downs drinks as fast as you - nobody.

Effect: You may drink a potion or a similar consumable liquid as a Move action. This cannot be used with your extracts or mutagens, but can be used with another's infusion.

Through rigorous meditation, you can exercise a semblance of control over your body’s needs by sheer force of will.

Effect: As a full-round action, the character may enter a meditative state, which slows effects on their body. During this time, the character may hold their breath for a number of minutes equal to their Constitution modifier. Any poisons or diseases or similar afflictions affecting the character have their duration paused for the duration of the meditation, and they resume from where they left off afterwards. Lastly, a character may forgo water for a number of days equal to their Constitution modifier, and may forgo food for a number of weeks equal to their Constitution modifier. Whilst in this state, the character may not take any other actions. However, they remain aware of their surroundings and may end the meditative state at any time.

Not as common as its name purports.

Effect: A number of times per session equal to your total Hero Points, you may consult with the GM about a specific course of action in a given session. The GM is then required to explain if the action would be a good or a bad idea, and why. Note that the GM is not required to answer with information that the character does not know.

You have contact(s) who can help you with any number of activities, depending upon who they are, and how far up the ladder they might stand.

Effect: Each Contact has a Connection and a Loyalty rating. Any Contacts a player buys must have a minimum rating of 1 in Connection and a minimum rating of 1 in Loyalty. Connection represents how much reach and influence a Contact has, both within the shadows and in the world at large, to get things done or to make things happen. Loyalty reflects how loyal the contact is to the character, and how much they’ll endure without shattering whatever bond the two have.

At Loyalty 1 or 2, the Contact has only a business relationship with the character. Any qualms they have about turning the character in are tied to profits they may lose if the adventurer isn’t around, not so much because of any close personal feelings. With a higher Loyalty rating, the Contact has a stronger and more personal relationship (i.e friendship) with the character, and is more likely to take some risk or go out of his way to help the character. For each Depth spent on this Boon, you gain a like amount of points to spend on a Contact’s Loyalty and Connection ratings. Each contact must have a minimum of one point in both Connection and Loyalty. Additionally, a Contact may not have a Connection rating above 6 without the Friends in High Places Feat. With this said, you may otherwise have as many contacts as you can afford to purchase, though having multiple “1-1” level contacts is usually ill-advised. All Contacts must be discussed with the GM. The GM has final say on the feasibility of a contact.

You are capable of contorting your body in strange ways to get where you shouldn’t be.

Effect: You gain the compression universal monster ability.

You are capable of a particular intertwining of magical effects.

Effect: You may concentrate on a spell as a Move action, instead of a Standard action. This in turn allows you to concentrate on two spells at once, at the cost of both actions. However, doing so demands incredible focus - if you are maintaining concentration on two spells, any concentration check DCs are doubled. In addition, failing a concentration check ends both spells.

You have the uncanny ability to remember all sorts of things.

Effect: Also known as photographic memory, you never have to roll to remember mundane information that your character has heard. In addition, you gain a +4 bonus to saves against spells and effects that are memory related, and a +4 bonus to remember distant or very specific information.

Special: You can’t take this Boon if you have the Airhead drawback.

You require less training than most due to your natural aptitude for new things.

Effect: When you select this Boon, Skill ranks now cost twice as much (multiply the normal Experience cost by 2), but Ability Score increases are cheaper (Ability increases now cost 2 * [New Score], rather than 3x).

You’re a consistent patron of breweries, taverns, and inns across the land, and your “experience” has made you get the most out of your booze.

Effect: You gain a +4 bonus to Fortitude saves against all ingested poisons, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic. In addition, whenever you imbibe alcohol, you gain the Barroom Brawler Talent for a duration dependent on the quality of the drink. Note that you must wait for the effects of an active drink to expire before you may “refresh” with another to gain a different benefit from the feat.

• Cheap Drink - 1d4 rounds
• Solid Ale - 1d4 minutes
• Battle Brew - 1d20 minutes
• King’s Drink - 1d6 hours

You wield the blade of your father’s, father’s, father’s, father’s…

Effect: Gain a single specific masterwork weapon at no cost to you. You are proficient with this weapon, and only this specific weapon, regardless of its category.

Some people are born great.

Effect: You gain an extra Hero Point.

So fast.

Effect: You may spend a Hero Point to move up to double your base speed, or to charge, as an Immediate action.

One of your senses is particularly effective.

Effect: Choose a single sense (Sight, Scent, Hearing, Smell/Taste, or Touch). When rolling Perception checks that use this sense, you gain a +10 bonus on the check. You may use this sense to pinpoint a target’s location within 30 feet, with a sufficient Perception check (DC subject to DM discretion).

You possess an innate aversion to scrying magic.

Effect: Whenever a caster attempts to cast a Divination [Scrying] spell on you, they must make a Caster Level check with a DC of (10 + Your Hit Dice). If they fail, the spell is expended and nothing happens. If they succeed, you roll a Will save against the spell as normal, but your character knows they have been scryed on, and by specifically what spell, but not the identity of the caster.

You leave few signs of your presence for others gifted in magic.

Effect: Your spells never leave a lingering aura of magic. In addition, other casters must make a Perception check (DC 10 + your Caster Level) to see magical effects on your person. This effect does not transfer to spells you cast on other characters, such as turning your party's Rogue invisible.

You are particularly adept at modifying a specific spell.

Effect: Select one spell. When altering that spell with a Metamagic Feat, the corresponding Mana cost multiplier total is one level lower than what it would normally be, to a minimum of 2x. Your favored spell may be retrained as if it were a known spell.

Some people collect stamps, others collect voices. Nothing strange about that.

Effect: You can mimic almost any sort of voice, or even animal calls and sound effects, and you can throw your voice at a distance. This functions similarly to a combination of the ghost sound, ventriloquism, and vocal alteration spells, thought it is Extraordinary in nature.

You wield the unwieldy with surprising effectiveness.

Effect: Select a single, specific weapon which you are proficient with. You may use an oversized version of that weapon without penalty. However, the weapon may not be more than one size category above you. For example, this would not allow a Halfling to wield a Large-sized Greatsword. The weapon in question must still be wielded with the appropriate number of hands as if you were sized appropriately.

Through a genetic mutation, a magical effect, or similar effects, you are completely immune to a particular threat.

Effect: Pick a single disease, poison, or toxin - you are considered immune to that effect. Specific applicable spells are suitable selections for this Boon, such as Stinking Cloud. This example selection would not render you immune to other cloud based spells.

You are capable of drawing on a power to bolster your magical abilities, at the cost of using your own body as the conduit.

Effect: Whenever you cast a spell, you may give yourself a +2 trait bonus to your caster level for that ability, or increase the saving throw DC by 2, but you become fatigued afterward. If you are already fatigued, you become exhausted. If you are exhausted, you collapse to the ground unconscious and prone for 1d4 hours.

Creatures immune to fatigue cannot benefit from this boon. The fatigue and exhaustion from this ability cannot be cured by any means other than a full 8 hours of rest, even if the character needs less than 8 hours to recover their spells or other abilities. Similarly, if you are rendered unconscious from using this ability, you may not be revived through any means aside from resting for the number of hours rolled.

You have the uncanny ability to keep track of the time.

Effect: You always know the time, down to the minute, and also have a perfect sense of rhythm and timing. This sense can only be disrupted through prolonged isolation, unconsciousness, or disruption through being drugged or similar effects. On any Performance check involving such skill with rhythm, you gain a +5 trait bonus.

Lastly, you act as a temporal anchor - you know when an event has caused a temporal distortion, such as a timeline branching, time traveling, or similar 4th dimensional effects, provided that your ability has not been disrupted by one of the above caveats. This perception may be subject to an appropriate skill check, at DM discretion.

Under duress, you gain the abilities of a master hunter.

Effect: As a swift action, you may activate this ability by spending a Hero Point. Doing so grants you thermal vision against applicable living targets for a duration of (Your Hit Dice) minutes. This thermal vision negates all concealment for such targets that would normally be granted by smoke, darkness, invisibility, or similar effects.

Special: You cannot take this Boon if you have the Blind drawback or Oracle curse.

You were raised by or around a specific type of animal, and have grown close to their kind after learning their ways.

Effect: Choose a single animal type. You are capable of freely speaking to animals of this type, as if under the effects of Speak with Animals. In addition, all animals of your selected type possess a starting attitude of Friendly towards you.

You have a place to hide, in a pinch.

Effect: You begin the game with a Safehouse, which functions as a barebones, standalone Storage room (4-8 squares). You must specify the exact location of the safehouse within the world, and certain locations may be deemed unsuitable by the GM at their discretion. The location of the Safehouse may only be revealed through the character who owns it deliberately leading someone there - another character or NPC trailing the owner will always lose them when trying to locate the safehouse independently. If the owner is mind controlled, or otherwise not in charge of their actions, they may lead others to the safehouse unwillingly.

Additionally, the safehouse provides protection from all means of divination and scrying. Creatures and objects within the safehouse are completely immune to such effects, for as long as they remain in the safehouse. The safehouse may never be increased in size, but items and accommodations may be added within the space. If the safehouse is ever destroyed, or the character wishes to move it, they must spend one week of downtime and appropriate funds or materials to create a new one in a suitable location (this amount is determined by the GM).

You practice an unconventional approach to moving around on the battlefield.

Effect: As part of a move or charge action, you may toss your shield onto the ground and ride atop it. Doing so sets your move speed to 50 ft. for the duration (however, if your base move speed is faster, you instead add +10 ft. of movement to it when using this ability). Surfing down a slope can up to double this speed, at GM discretion. Whilst surfing, you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from moving through enemy squares. Additionally, you ignore 10 ft. of height per character level when falling, as long as you’re riding the shield. At the end of your movement, you may re-equip the shield as a free action. You do not gain the benefits of the shield when using it in this manner.

Note: You may not use this ability with bucklers.

You are capable of processing information at immense speed.

Effect: When researching in a Library, the time unit is reduced to minutes, in place of hours. This effectively translates to mean that this character can read a full page of written text (~800 words) in 5 seconds, or an 800 page book in approximately one hour. The information is not memorized unless the character also possesses Eidetic Memory, but they gain a basic understanding of the contents, meaning that this works well for quickly finding a specific piece of information.

Special: You can’t take this Boon if you possess the Illiterate Drawback.

You always manage to find your way back to camp.

Effect: You always know which way is North. In addition, if you have one or more ranks in Survival, you may always retrace your path, even in locations where this would be impossible, such as a Maze or in the Feywild. You gain a +2 trait bonus on Survival checks, and lastly you gain a +4 trait bonus on saves versus the Maze spell.

Through training or pure necessity, you’ve learned to accomplish certain tasks in an unorthodox way.

Effect: Select a single skill and a single ability score. The skill in question now scales off of the selected ability score, in place of its default. This does not allow the skill to scale off of two ability scores, and this Boon does categorize the skill as a class skill. You may only select this boon once, and only for a specific skill (for example, you could only select “Craft: Underwater Basket Weaving”, rather than just “Craft”). This Boon must be approved by the DM in order to be selected.

Requirements: Able to cast 1st level spells

Effect: Although not necessarily wise, or a Wizard, you have developed a unique approach to spellcasting compared to others of your class. When you select this Boon, you may permanently change your primary spellcasting attribute to one other mental ability score of your choosing. This Boon must be selected at character creation, and it only adjusts your spellcasting. For example, if Dimbledob the Wizard selects this boon to use Wisdom instead of Intelligence as his primary casting stat, and then later selected the Knowledge is Power Arcane Discovery, that discovery would still function off of Intelligence as listed, as it is not a feature from his Spellcasting.