This material is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
Hosted by Scratch Factory
ROLES: THE BASICS
Heroes in DPoNI games come in different types and from many walks of life. Your hero's role is the part he or she plays in the game. A role is like a character's part in a story; stories have different sorts of heroes, from brave and skilled warriors to cunning diplomats to wise wielders of the arcane arts. The role you choose for your hero affects the other choices you make, including your hero's skills and feats. However, roles in DPoNI are broad enough to allow plenty of freedom of choice in creating your hero.
There are four roles in DPoNI, in addition to heroes with mixed, or multiple, roles. The roles are:
- Adept:
- Someone with a keen intellect and usually a talent for the arcane arts.
- Expert:
- Someone experienced in a wide range of skills.
- Warrior:
- Someone with unmatched skill at arms and training in many forms of combat.
- Generalist:
- Someone with a good mix of skills, combat ability and supernatural powers.
You can switch roles as your character gains levels.
Level-Dependent Benefits
Heroes improve in experience and power by advancing in level. This represents the progress of a hero's career during a long series, from novice to seasoned expert. As heroes advance in level, they gain additional bonuses and access to more skills and feats, improving and expanding their capabilities. After 1st level, heroes also get the opportunity to begin mixing roles to further expand their options and capabilities.
Certain benefits are based on a hero's overall level, regardless of role. The Level-Dependent Benefits table summarizes these. See each role description for the benefits specific to each.
- Maximum Ranks:
- This lists the maximum rank a hero can have in any known skill. The rank is equal to the hero's level + 3. See Skills for details.
- Good Save:
- This is the bonus the hero gets for their good saving throws.
- Normal Save:
- This is the bonus the hero gets for their normal saving throws.
- Ability Increase:
- Upon gaining any level divisible by six (6th, 12th, and 18th), heroes can increase an ability score by 1. You choose which ability you want to improve, and the improvement is permanent. You can increase the same ability more than once or a different one each time. You can increase an ability score above +5 in this way.
- Conviction:
- Heroes start out with 3 points of Conviction at 1st level and gain a point of Conviction every two levels thereafter (3rd, 5th, and so on). The number indicated at each level is a hero's maximum Conviction points at that level. See Conviction for details.
- Feats:
- Your hero gets 6 starting feats at 1st level (2 bonus feats provided by your background, plus four), plus an additional feat for each level beyond 1st. You choose feats from among those available to your hero's role.
LEVEL-DEPENDENT BENEFITS
| Level | Maximum Ranks | Good Save | Normal Save | Ability Increase | Conviction | Feats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 4 | +0 | +0 | -- | 3 | 4 |
| 2nd | 5 | +1 | +0 | -- | 3 | 1 |
| 3rd | 6 | +1 | +1 | -- | 4 | 1 |
| 4th | 7 | +2 | +1 | -- | 4 | 1 |
| 5th | 8 | +2 | +1 | -- | 5 | 1 |
| 6th | 9 | +3 | +2 | 1st | 5 | 1 |
| 7th | 10 | +3 | +2 | -- | 6 | 1 |
| 8th | 11 | +4 | +2 | -- | 6 | 1 |
| 9th | 12 | +4 | +3 | -- | 7 | 1 |
| 10th | 13 | +5 | +3 | -- | 7 | 1 |
| 11th | 14 | +5 | +3 | -- | 8 | 1 |
| 12th | 15 | +6 | +4 | 2nd | 8 | 1 |
| 13th | 16 | +6 | +4 | -- | 9 | 1 |
| 14th | 17 | +7 | +4 | -- | 9 | 1 |
| 15th | 18 | +7 | +5 | -- | 10 | 1 |
| 16th | 19 | +8 | +5 | -- | 10 | 1 |
| 17th | 20 | +8 | +5 | -- | 11 | 1 |
| 18th | 21 | +9 | +6 | 3rd | 11 | 1 |
| 19th | 22 | +9 | +6 | -- | 12 | 1 |
| 20th | 23 | +10 | +6 | -- | 12 | 1 |
Role Descriptions
Each role's traits are organized as follows:
Abilities: What ability scores are most important to the role and why? While you can certainly choose your hero's abilities as you wish, you might want to keep these important abilities in mind, if you want your hero to be effective in the chosen role.
Core Ability: Each role has a special ability that they acquire only at character creation. Your character's first level determines this core ability, and whatever roles you may choose after first level, your Core Ability never changes.
Skills: The number of skills you choose for a hero of that role at 1st level. You apply your hero's Intelligence modifier to this number, but it cannot be lower than 1, no matter how low a hero's Intelligence might be. All starting skills come at 4 ranks. At higher levels, this is the number of skills ranks you gain by taking a level in this role.
Feats: The feats a hero starts with at 1st level. Each role allows you to choose some or all of these feats from lists of feats available to characters of that role.
Saving Throws: Each role has one good save and two normal saves, yielding the bonuses listed on the table above. In addition, each role gains a +2 bonus in one save at character creation. This bonus is only gained once per character, and never changes no matter what additional roles the character may take.
Powers: Some roles can acquire supernatural powers. How those powers are acquired and used depends on the role.