Using Disadvantages Disadvantages work well to enhance the role-playing of a character, and as such they should be the player’s responsibility to remember and employ. A character with an irritating personality, for example, can be role-played in such a way that the DM never has to do anything to enforce the disadvantage. Good role-players will create their own trouble, so to speak.

However, some aspects of disadvantages require DM input. Somewhere amid copious volumes of notes, the DM should keep a list of each character’s disadvantages, making sure than none of them are overlooked. For example, if a character has a phobia of spiders, the DM can insure there will be a chance every once in awhile to encounter some big, hairy-legged arachnids.

If a disadvantage falls to the player’s responsibility, and that player tends to ignore it, the DM should create a few situations where the disadvantage is impossible to overlook. For example, if the player does not role-play the character’s irritating personality disadvantage, NPCs might suddenly become enraged at the character for imagined slights—insults that the NPCs claim result from the PC’s irritating personality.

Moderate/Severe Disadvantages

A character with a moderate disadvantage checks against ability or sub-ability scores, while a character with a severe disadvantage rolls at half of the ability scores, rounded up.

For example, a character with a Wisdom/Willpower score of 17 would need to roll a 9 or less to resist the effects of a severe disadvantage, whereas a roll of 17 or lower would resist the effects of a moderate disadvantage.

Removing Disadvantages

If the DM is agreeable, a player can remove a character’s disadvantage by spending character points. Disadvantages rated as moderate can be eliminated, while severe disadvantages can be reduced to moderate at one level advancement for a character, and then removed at a subsequent advancement.

The cost to remove a disadvantage is 1 character point more than the points gained when the disadvantage is first acquired. For example, the colorblind disadvantage gains 3 character points. Removing this disadvantage costs 4 points.

A severe disadvantage is reduced to a moderate disadvantage for 1 more character point than the difference between the severe and moderate costs. For example, severe allergies award 8 character points, moderate allergies 3—a difference of 5 points. Thus, the cost to reduce severe allergies to moderate is 6 character points.

Table of Contents