Weekly 4e Homebrew: Character Reputation

Have you ever wondered how well people know of your exploits? Wonder no longer. Your character's reputation is on the line with this week's Character Reputation mechanics.

Character Reputation
Mention your name at a nearby tavern. Do the NPCs shiver or laugh? Or do they lack a reaction entirely?
To see what happens, have the NPCs make a History/Streetwise check with a DC of 25 - 1/2 PC Level.

You can modify the difficulty by...

• ...having Bards sing of your adventures, lowering the difficulty by 2.
• ...spreading rumors of your exploits, lowering the difficulty by 2.
• ...having bards AND rumors spread your legend, lowering the difficulty by 5.
• ...taking some secret quests, increasing the difficulty by 2.
• ...taking primarily secret missions, increasing the difficulty by 5.
• ...the distance you have traveled from the point of origin of your adventures, increasing the difficulty by 5 for ever 10 miles.

Your Character Reputation can come in handy. When Intimidating an opponent, your Reputation allows you to make the Intimidate check even if the creature is not bloodied, and could drop a hostile creature to unfriendly, and an unfriendly creature to neutral, etc. Your Dungeon Master should take into account how arrogant the enemy is when this check is made. Enemies full of themselves, or with a lot of allies on their side, could ignore the change in defenses.

When using Diplomacy, your Reputation can give you a +2 to your Diplomacy check, +5 if your acts were exceptionally good.

However, your Reputation can also be a problem if you are trying to remain incognito. A successful Reputation check can give the NPC a +2 to Insight versus your Bluff check to remain anonymous.