Talk:Bully Vendetta (3.5e Flaw)

Flaws and Roleplaying
Reading this flaw is a bit of a mess. There's non-rule open-to-interpretation roleplaying stuff mixed in with the actual rules stuff. Even then, it never quite gets the point across on what this flaw does. It's also missing the "Benefit:" section at the end (which is normally assumed to be a bonus feat, but can be different). Reading through it, I get the impression that this flaw turns the character into a bully for bullies, which I'm not sure if that was the intent or not, due to all that roleplaying interpretation stuff. Now, I was going to go through and point at all the flaws with this and explain why in detail in a big long wall of text... but instead, here's just a quick reworking of what the core concept appears to be:

Judgmental Retaliator

You stand up for the abused, often with disproportionate retaliation… even when you misinterpreted the situation.

Prerequisite: No immunities to mind-affecting compulsions.

Effect: You cannot use the Intimidate skill. You suffer a -2 penalty to Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive because of your judgmental mindset. Whenever you see and/or hear a creature instigate attacks, Intimidation or insults on a creature that is smaller and/or has less than half the offending creature's HD, you must make a Will save (DC 10 + the offending creature's HD total). On a successful save, you're able to ignore the "abuse" and act normally. On a failed save, an extraordinary mind-affecting compulsion activates, forcing you to intervene for a number of rounds equal to your HD total. Any round not spent on aggressive retaliation toward the offending creature during this time counts you as flat-footed and distracted (for the purposes of making certain skill checks) due to your preoccupied focus. You can only be under the effect of one compulsion at a time.

Benefit: A bonus feat for which you meet the prerequisites.

This version strips out (almost) all the roleplaying stuff, since that's up to the player anyhow. With just the rules, it's a shorter read and easier to integrate into actual gameplay. It also serves as a flaw that the other players in the group won't immediately hate and call out a player for taking as it breaks the Gentlemen's Agreement. It does leave one thing open to interpretation, and that is "aggressive retaliation", allowing the player to play his character how he wants and not force him to murder the party wizard because he was preemptively attacking a stirge. --Ganteka Future (talk) 19:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure the tiny penalties to skill checks were for when you succeed on the save, because not flipping out makes you grumpy. --70.199.130.4 19:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, they were tied to save-only penalty in the original. I switched it up in the reworking because they were minimal, this is a flaw and to trim out having to remember that change when playing (so, minor bookkeeping reason). --Ganteka Future (talk) 20:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Gan: there is no Benefit section in the source UA material, and so there isn't one in the template. I can add one if you think it's needed for some reason, but I thought "take flaw, get feat" was the standard and didn't need explaining like the trait benefits did. - Tarkisflux Talk 20:31, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I'll be a son-of-a-diddly. I popped open a bunch of the other homebrew Flaws and saw the "Benefit" line on there, figured it was standard. Apparently it isn't. Perhaps if it were on the template and had default "you get feat" text with the option of putting in your own benefit, that might be nice. --Ganteka Future (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it's extremely redundant in this case, but it's easy enough to add for defaulting purposes. And so it is done. - Tarkisflux Talk 22:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC)