Basically a way to redo the Inspiration mechanic, this also gives a crunchy outcome to fulfilling a roleplaying goal throughout a game, as well as an easier way to adjudicate the gaining of Inspiration.
First of all, let’s take a quick look at how Inspiration is flavoured here – you can use it to give a bonus to yourself or an ally within 60 feet of you. That’s nice, and something I might have to steal.
Next, Destiny.
Destiny is like an overarching motivation for your character, a way to tie them easily into a plot arc, but also to see them evolve.
If you don’t fulfil your destiny by level 16, you still get the bonus benefit from it – but unlike other characters you can;t move on to a new Destiny.
You can still always change your Destiny when you level up, which makes sense in a few circumstances.
They basically give you a source of gaining Inspiration, a way to use that Inspiration, and another feature once you’ve fulfilled that Destiny.
Chaos Destinies gain Inspiration through deceit and disorder when they get away with it and it benefits the party or the story. They can spend it to avoid consequences for failing Deception and Persuasion checks, both for themselves or an ally. Destiny fulfilled, they can re-roll damage dice or randomised spell effects. They also exude chaos if anyone is looking for it.
They might want to have fun or fight for freedom, but they can just as easily want to watch the world burn.
Knowledge Destinies gain Inspiration when they make some new arcane, divine, scholastic or scientific discovery. They can spend it t quickly evaluate creatures or items – learning resistances, languages or armour class for a creature, or determining approximate value or if a magical or curse property might be on an item. Fulfilled sees a pretty big benefit – Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores all increase by 1, and the max moves up to 22.
Revenge Destinies gain Inspiration when they outwit a foe with Deception or Persuasion checks. They can spend it to avoid the consequences of failed Sleight of Hand or Stealth checks, again both for themselves or an ally. Once the Destiny is fulfilled, any hostile creature starting within 20 feet of the character have to make Wisdom saves vs. passive Intimidation or be frightened until the end of their next turn. Passing the save once is good for 24 hours.
These are all a lot of fun, and certainly something missing from the Inspiration mechanic as written.
I like the idea of having a Coming of Age Destiny, but for story reasons changing to Revenge or Chaos.
And some of the abilities are fun. The Wealth Destiny can accurately reckon if a creature could be bribed and for how much, and once fulfilled they can cure disease and poison just by carousing. Excellence Destinies can gain Inspiration by rolling a 1 and failing miserably, and the Coming of Age fulfilled option is just ‘pick one of the other fulfilled options’.
Yeah, this is a very good packet, and I like where these rules are going.
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