Vengeful flaw...

Awhile back, Ineti placed his thoughts for a new vengeful flaw on the boards for our feedback. I was keenly interested in this flaw, as I had the perfect use for it in my new chronicle... a Firebeard Dwarf who, at the age of 10, watched a band of Orcs murder his older brother. This Dwarf is out for revenge! But HATRED and ENEMY just didn't seem to fit the feel of the story. And then Ineti posted the VENGEFUL flaw and my worries were over!

Anyway, Ineti and I (along with some others) have chatted back and forth about this flaw, tweaking it... and I wanted to put up a 0.9 version for one last look from all of you before I cement it as a true 1.0 version and allow my Dwarf PC to use it. Here it is, with some of the previous thoughts below...

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VENGEFUL
You have reason for extreme hatred of a person or group, to the extent that you will rush headlong into battle against them if you are unable to keep your wits about you.

Effect: Choose a person or group for which you have reason to desire revenge. Consult with your Narrator regarding story concerns. Whenever you have an opportunity to gain revenge on the object of your hatred, you must succeed at a TN 10 Willpower test or immediately make an attack against your enemy. You may spend a point of Courage to avoid the attack. If you make the attack, you gain 1 point of Corruption for an unheroic action.

Improvement: For one additional pick, you may increase the Willpower TN by +5. You may only improve this flaw once (TN 15 max).
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The TN was played with a lot, but we settled with 10 because, once we added the Corruption point, we didn't want this to be a "for sure" thing that the PC couldn't avoid with a strong Willpower roll (the TN had been as high as 16 starting!).

The Corruption point was added because, even though one could argue that the PC is "redeeming" the memory of someone (or whatever the reason for revenge is) it still doesn't feel like a very heroic action to take out one's anger on the innocent (even when they are Orcs or another evil creature).

The improvement was left to once so that a player doesn't get carried away and jack up to a TN he can't hope to beat, therefore causing his PC to become a roving revenge machine... constantly attacking his enemy at every encounter; and falling deeper into Corruption each time.

Finally, we wanted there to be a way for the PC to avoid the attack if desperately needed, even if s/he fails the test. So, there is the ability to spend a Courage point to, in a sense, *cancel* the attack. The idea here is that the PC "tries in a heroic sense" to avoid the attack because doing so would be extremely detrimental to his group.

The Courage point is one place where I'm still a little unsure on. I like the idea, but should it be able to completely *cancel* the attack, or should we just allow the PC to use Courage in the normal way... i.e.- adding a +3 to his Willpower test?

Thanks for your input. Hope you like the flaw. And thanks to Ineti for coming up with it and helping it along.

P.S.- (belgarion = ck4jc) ... just couldn't get the other name to work on this board... somehow missed the confirmation email

I agree that committing a vengeful attack should have the potential for corruption. However, I think you should make it a Corruption Test, similar to the one for casting a Sorcery spell. This might be a way to symbolise a possible "redeeming" feature. It should probably Narrator's discretion, however. Also, you might make the Corruption when first purchasing the flaw, or when it is improved.

I like it exactly as it is. I think the corruption truely makes it a flaw. Otherwise its not much differant then attacking any enemy. This it way it shows how truely you despise the individual. How bad you lust for vengance has affected you.

Im a little torn on the courage part however. Normally i would say that the person should be able to spend the courage to get out of it, but the fact that you've included the will save as well is what gets me. Its making it too easy to get out of the effects of the flaw. If you fail the save then you have to spend one of your points of courage. I'd say go with one or the other, leaning more to the point of courage.

As the player the flaw was initially designed for, I like the take. I agree on a Corruption test, though. Sometimes it's nice to be able to give into the vegence without having to worry about turning evil. :)

Looks good.

That's quite the conundrum. If the hero fails the Willpower test, but spends a Courage point to not attack, that's cool.

If the hero fails the Willpower test, and chooses not to spend Courage, then I think I'd lean toward having them make the usual Corruption test rather than just handing them a Corruption point. It would really depend on the in-game circumstances. Just handing them a point of Corruption seems overly harsh.

To get away from Narrator tweaking, though, I'd leave it as is for the 'official' version and leave it to the Narrators to revise to taste. (How's that for the ultimate in cop-outs?)

Thanks for the thoughts. After thinking about all you said, below is what *I* am going to use in my chronicle... as Ineti said, if a Narrator is going to use this, feel free to tweak as needed... using whatever version you like (or can make up).

For me, though, here's version 1.0:

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VENGEFUL
You have reason for extreme hatred of a person or group, to the extent that you will rush headlong into battle against them if you are unable to keep your wits about you.

Effect: Choose a person or group for which you have reason to desire revenge. Consult with your Narrator regarding story concerns. Whenever you have an opportunity to gain revenge on the object of your hatred, you must succeed at a TN 10 Willpower test or immediately make an attack against your enemy. You may spend a point of Courage to avoid the attack. If you make the attack, you must immediately succeed at a TN 10 Corruption test, or suffer the effects of Corruption.

Improvement: For one additional pick, you may increase the Willpower TN by +5. You may only improve this flaw once (TN 15 max).
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