Traits

Traits
Character traits are abilities that are not tied to your character's race or class. They help you build a character background that fits into your campaign world. Character traits are story seeds for your background.

Many traits grant a trait bonus. Like most other bonuses in the game, trait bonuses do not stack. Character traits are only for player characters. Player characters are special; they're the stars of the game, after all, and it makes sense that they have an advantage over the NPCs of the world in this way.


Gaining Traits
When you create your character for a campaign, ask your GM how many traits you can select. In most cases, a new PC should gain two traits. Some GMs may wish to adjust this number somewhat, depending upon their style of play. You may only select one trait from each trait category.


Types of Traits
There are seven types of character traits to choose from: combat, faith, magic, race, regional, religion, and social. Most traits have no restrictions but there are a few exceptions as noted below.

Race Traits: Race traits are keyed to specific races or ethnicities, which your character must belong to in order to select the trait. If your race or ethnicity changes at some later point (perhaps as a result of polymorph magic or a reincarnation spell), the benefits gained by your race trait persist—only if your mind and memories change as well do you lose the benefits of a race trait.

Regional Traits: Regional traits are keyed to specific regions. In order to select a regional trait, your PC must have spent at least a year living in that region. .

Religion Traits: Religion traits indicate that your character has an established faith in a specific deity; you need not be a member of a class that can wield divine magic to pick a religion trait, but you do have to have a patron deity and have some amount of religion in your background to justify this trait. Unlike the other categories of traits, religion traits can go away if you abandon your religion, as detailed below under Restrictions on Trait Selection.


Restrictions on Trait Selection
There are a few rules governing trait selection. To begin with, your GM controls how many bonus traits a PC begins with; the default assumption is two traits. When selecting traits, you may not select more than one from the same list of traits. Certain types of traits may have additional requirements, as detailed in the section above.

Remember also that traits are intended to model events that were formative in your character's development. Even if your character becomes a hermit and abandons society, he'll still retain his legacy of growing up an aristocrat if he took the relevant social trait.


OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a - All text is Open Game Content.