This update has nothing to do with combat.

It's the CHARACTER REACTION SYSTEM- how characters react to you, karma, charisma, and all that lovely stuff.

Charisma is counted as a resistance [substitute +-X for +-6] and defaults at 0. It affects Reputation- namely, reduces the impact of negative actions and increases the impact of positive reactions [or vice-versa, if Charisma is negative]; and it also affects an NPC's initial reaction to you. Non-combat abilities can affect charisma.

Charisma, BTW, is somewhat but not anywhere near entirely related to appearance; therefore, it has rather little affect on people who have just first laid eyes on you. It's tragically bad at stopping people from attacking you. And no matter how much charisma you have, gaining and losing reputation in areas you haven't been is the same as always.


Reputation is a real beast to deal with. It works on a sliding scale from Idolized to Universally Reviled and will dramatically affect how NPCs react to things you say in that particular region. Actions you do go from small noticeable- which might only slightly modify your reputation in a particular city- to grand-scale, which can affect your reputation in neighboring countries. Charisma will make things better or worse for you in matters of reputation FOR REGIONS YOU'VE BEEN TO.

And Karma is the gods' way of keeping track of your items; it is taken or rewarded at the DM's discretion. Neither Charisma nor Reputation have any impact on it.

I don't have the exact numbers for any of this, and I'm rotten at that sort of thing. Any help in that area would be helpful.

 Making Charisma a resistance seems somewhat silly, but oh well.

Anyway, Reputation consists of two separate stats: Fame and Popularity.

Fame goes from 0 to 100. Categories are as follows:

<10: Unknown
10-29: Obscure
30-49: Noted
50-79: Eminent
>79: Renowned

Fame is basically how well-known you are in a region. It serves two purposes. Firstly, it's the percentage chance that an average person will recognise you - and therefore the chance that your Popularity will alter their reaction to you. Secondly, important people usually aren't going to waste their time talking to you unless your Fame is at least a certain level. Note that it takes more effort to raise your Fame in a larger area than a smaller one.

Popularity goes from -100 to 100, and it's how much people like you. The categories are as follows:

>89: Idolised (+20 Reaction) (x5 Bad Rep)
60_89: Esteemed (+15 Reaction) (x3 Bad Rep)
40_59: Admired (+10 Reaction) (x2 Bad Rep)
20_39: Respected (+5 Reaction)
-19_19: Controversial
-39_-20: Disliked (-5 Reaction)
-59_-40: Despised (-10 Reaction) (/2 Good Rep)
-89_-60: Reviled (-15 Reaction) (/3 Good Rep)
<-89: Notorious (-20 Reaction) (/5 Good Rep)

Popularity is a tricky thing - it's easier to have a bad reputation than a good one. Scandals and so on will reduce your popularity more if it was originally good, while it's harder to convince people you're a good person if they hate you. Therefore, reputation awards are altered as shown on the table above.

Some may complain that it's strange for charisma to potentially have more effect on a reaction than reputation. (Each point of charisma gives +/-5 to reactions, for a total of up to 30.) I'd argue that it's realistic - not very many people are extremely charismatic, but those few very often have a large group of supporters no matter how hated they are in the general population. On the other hand, if the famous hero turns out to be a jerk in person, it can really disillusion people.

Anyway, the first thing to do when calculating reactions is to draw up a reaction table listing all the possible reactions of an NPC to a character's request:
---
Best Reaction
Good Reaction
Bad Reaction
Worst Reaction
---
Now, assign minimum required point values from 0 to 100 (limits of about 0-50 recommended in most circumstances, unless the PC is trying something unlikely) to the reactions - higher is better, and harder to achieve. The worst possible reaction, of course, has no minimum required point value.
---
Best Reaction - 45
Good Reaction - 35
Bad Reaction - 20
Worst Reaction
---
These numbers are the minimum values needed to trigger that particular reaction. Now, when a character says something to which the NPC will react, give the character's statement a persuasiveness ranking of 0 to 5, with 5 being most persuasive. Multiply the ranking by 10. Now, add/subtract 5 points per point of charisma. If the correspondence is not occurring in person, but through a letter, for example, effective charisma is brought 2 points closer to zero (+1 becomes 0, -3 becomes -1, etc.) Finally, where appropriate, apply the reaction bonus or penalty appropriate to the character's popularity. This is pretty confusing, isn't it? An example probably won't explain it much better, but I'll try...

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Example: A PC acting as a diplomat for the nation of Alelith writes a letter to the emperor of Emnar, a rival nation, requesting a peace agreement. It has been determined that 70 points are needed for the best reaction (agreement to the peace treaty), 50 are needed for the next best (agreement to negotiate), and 20 for the next best (ignoring the offer). The worst reaction - in this case, a declaration of war - has no point requirement, as always.

The PC writes a decently persuasive letter, but nothing spectacular - the DM decides to assign it a persuasion value of 3, giving it a base reaction value of 30. The PC's charisma is +4, but he can't really transfer that charisma across into a written medium nearly as well, so he only gets a +10 bonus - reaction value is now 40. The PC's respected in Alelith, but this letter's getting read in Emnar, not Alelith - and over in Emnar, he's despised (-10). Luckily, he's also quite obscure in Emnar (25 Fame), and the emperor of Emnar's never heard of him or his bad reputation - no bonus or penalty there. Therefore, his total reaction value adds up to 40. This is above the 20 required for the emperor to not declare war, but below the 50 needed for the emperor to negotiate - the emperor laughs and throws the letter away. Oh well.

***

As far as karma goes, let's just say that certain good events will only be triggered if a character has enough good karma, and certain bad events will only be triggered if a character has enough bad karma. Since karma is a kind of 'cosmic payback', once paid back the 'debt' is settled - the amount of karma required to trigger the event is subtracted from the current amount of good or bad karma.

Example: A character does a couple of lousy things and earns 15 points of bad karma. Because he has at least 10 bad karma at a certain point in time, he's struck by lightning. The 10 bad karma required to trigger the lightning is subtracted from his bad karma, leaving him with 5 bad karma to come back to haunt him some day.