Features
Traits, Powers, and Classes
What's a fantasy game without magical powers and fantastic swordplay?
We use traits, powers, and classes to represent the various unique quirks, powerful abilities, unique connections, and practiced tricks that characters can have; collectively, we call these features.
- A trait represents an innate property that a character has,
- a power represents an action that a character can perform, and
- Classes are a little more variable, but they often represent an experience that a character has had.
A trait represents an innate property that a character has, like being particularly brave or having unusually fast reflexes. Most traits are "always-on"; if someone is ambidextrous, they're ambidextrous all the time, not just some of the time, after all. Importantly, traits aren't actions (like powers), and traits usually aren't acquired through experience (like classes).
A power represents a unique ability that a character has. Powers are usually discrete actions (even a sustained action is still an action that you're consciously performing at some times and not others). Also, powers are often learned: they often represent a "trick" that a character has drilled to perfection, possibly with the aid of magical preparation or mundane set-up. (Although some powers may represent a unique ability that members of some races possess.)
Classes are a little more variable. They often represent an experience that a character has had. Very often, they represent a membership a character has (or had) in some organization — which might have given them some special training, or access to their resources, or reciprocal obligations. These Classes commonly take two forms: they either let you "break the rules" in some interesting way (like the Channeler) or they give you access to an organization's resources (like Guild Member).
More rarely, Classes can give a character a special feature, like Corpse-Herder and Familiar-Bound Mage. Both conceptually and mechanically, these are a little awkward: they're classes essentially because they're not traits (since they're not innate), and they're not powers (because they aren't discrete actions—"having a magical pet" isn't really an action that you perform). They're closest to an experience that you've had — the experience of "having made a magical companion."
Traits
Powers
- Spell: a power that requires ranks in the Spellcraft skill; assumed to draw power from ambient magical energies.
- Sleight: a power that requires ranks in the Control skill; assumed to draw power from personal magical energies.
- Maneuver: a power that requires ranks in a Combat skill; a combat maneuver achieved by great skill, without the aid of magic (unless it’s also a spell, sleight or boon)
- Boon, Blessing: a power that has been granted by a Spirit, possibly drawing power from them or their Basin.