REPUTATION

Reputation is the record of a character's fame, a measurement of how well known they are and how likely they are to be recognized. A character's Reputation can go up or down over the course of a game, as outlined below, but it can never fall below the minimum Reputation for their level.

A character's minimum Reputation score is their level divided by 5, rounded down. Under no circumstances can a character's Reputation fall below the minimum for their level (even if they take the Low Profile feat).

Minimum Reputation = Character Level / 5 (round down)

The higher a character's Reputation, the more famous (or perhaps infamous) they are, and the more likely they are to be recognized.

Using Reputation

Disguise and Gather Information

One of the downsides of Reputation is that it makes you easier to recognize and find out about. Characters attempting to see through your Disguise attempts gain a bonus to their Notice checks equal to your Reputation. Likewise, any attempts to use Gather Information to find out about you get to add your Reputation to the Gather Information check.

Reputation Checks

Once per encounter, you can use your Reputation to gain an "automatic success" with one of your interaction skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate and Perform). To do so, you have to make a successful Reputation check: roll a d20 and add your Reputation (and other modifiers) and equal or exceed a Difficulty of 5 plus the target's level and Wisdom.

Reputation Check: d20 + Reputation + modifiers

Reputation Check Difficulty: 5 + target's level* + target's Wisdom

*Note that Minions and Ordinaries add only half their level to the Difficulty.

On a successful Reputation check, you can use any interaction skill against the target as if you had just rolled a 20 on the die. You apply your normal skill modifiers to that result to determine the actual outcome of the skill use.

Modifiers: Characters attempting to make Reputation checks in combat take a -10 penalty on their check.

Failed Reputation Checks

If the Reputation check is UNsuccessful, all your interaction skills against that target suffer a -2 penalty for the duration of the encounter.

Using Reputation Against Groups

You may only impress one heroic character with a single Reputation check, but you can affect groups of Minions or Ordinaries. A group uses the highest level of all the characters in the group, and the highest Wisdom modifier, even if these are two different characters. The difficulty of such a Reputation check is modified by the size of the group:

Number
in Group		Bonus to Reputation
check Difficulty
3-5+1
6-10+2
11-20+3
21-50+4
51-100+5
101-200+6

Every one hundred individuals in excess of 200 adds a further +1 to the Difficulty of the Reputation check.

Taking Advantage of Reputation

Characters may choose to take advantage of another's Reputation. To do so, the character spends a Conviction point and selects a target character as a free action. For the rest of that encounter, that character has a bonus to resist any of the target's interaction skills equal to the target's Reputation bonus. Any Minions of the character gain a similar bonus to their rolls to resist the target's interaction skills. The target may spend a Conviction point to end this effect.

In addition, the target cannot make a Reputation check against the character who spent the Conviction point this encounter, even if the target spends a Conviction point to end the bonus to resist interaction skills. If these two characters meet again in a separate encounter, either may attempt Reputation checks against each other as normal, and all interaction skill checks are made without penalty. Minions of the character who spent the Conviction point are not immune to Reputation checks from the target.

When confronting a group, a character may choose to take advantage of one member's Reputation as above. They can apply the target's Reputation to their efforts to resist interaction skill checks made by any member of the group, but unlike the target other group members may make Reputation checks against the character who spent the Conviction point. Only the target character may spend a Conviction point to end the bonus to resist interaction skills.

Losing Reputation

The more you try to trade on your reputation, the less valuable it becomes. Characters can lose their reputation even as they try to use it.

If the Difficulty of a Reputation check is higher than your current Reputation, your Reputation decreases by one after you make the check (unless you have the minimum Reputation for your level, in which case it remains at that level). If the Difficulty of the Reputation check is higher than 15, your Reputation decreases by one after you make the check. If both of these conditions are true, your Reputation decreases by two. Your Reputation can never decrease below your minimum. Your Reputation decreases regardless of whether or not the Reputation check succeeds.

Gaining Reputation

Characters gain reputation in one of two ways: either by employing their professional skill in order to gain in recognition, or by earning Reputation awards through daring feats of bravery or skull-duggery.

Professional Skills

A character can choose to use their professional skill to improve their Reputation rather than their Wealth when they gain a level.

Reputation Awards

Characters can gain Reputation awards through adventuring just as they can gain Wealth awards.