Karma Points

Karma Points

Similar to inspiration, I use Karma points to reward players for actions taken in game. However, unlike inspiration, karma points are accumulative. In other words, you can have more than 1 karma point at any given moment.

Karma can be used to influence the world & the DM. You can use several karma points to achieve something you desperately want for your character/party. Want to find more gold? Offer up karma points to the DM and see what more you can find. Want to convince an NPC to help you? For the weather to be sunny? Whatever you want to happen in the game can be purchased with karma points. The more difficult of a task requires more karma.

How to earn karma:

  • Any particularly cool action made, unique way of handling things, unusual tactic employed, etc. will earn you a karma point.

  • Solve a puzzle/situation in an unexpected way: earn a karma point.

  • Use an item in a unique way to solve a problem: earn a karma point.

  • Do a particularly heroic deed or commit a completely selfless act: earn a karma point.

  • Party vote: your fellow players can privately message the DM asking to possibly give you karma points for something they feel you did to earn it. Final decision to grant points is always up to the DM.

How to lose karma:

  • Purposely keep information another player rightfully earned either through an opposing roll or clever investigative skills: a karma point is removed.

  • Commit an act against humanity and/or a heinous crime for the sake of doing the crime: a karma point is removed.

  • Party vote: If your fellow players feel your character has done something to cause major distrust, dislike, and/or harm, they can vote to remove your karma points (and they can do so without saying anything to you, simply by telling the DM they vote to remove karma points from you). Final decision to remove points is always up to the DM.

How to use karma:

  • To re-roll any roll during combat: once per 3 rounds.

  • To re-roll any roll out of combat: once per situation/occasion (see example 1 below).

  • To complete something otherwise extremely difficult/impossible for your character/party (see example 2 below).

  • You can combine karma points with other party members if they’re willing to give you their points.

  • The party can only combine karma points once per long rest.

  • Enough karma points makes things instantly happen. Ask your DM how many karma points would be needed to accomplish something.

  • Cast a spell at a higher level. You can only cast a spell at your current ability level (ex: if you can only cast 3rd level spells, you can only cast a 1st level at 3rd level until you are able to cast any spell at a higher level). You can only cast it if you have used all your higher level spell slots first. Cost: 5 points per level you want to cast it higher at (ex: a level 1 spell cast at 2nd level is 5 points but at 3rd level it’s 10 points).

Example 1: While talking to the local major about getting a friend out of jail, you can use your karma points to re-roll any persuasion check only once during that conversation. If you then talk to the bailiff about your friend, it’s still considered the same situation and you cannot use your karma points to re-roll anything.

Example 2: Just as in example 1, you can only use karma points once per situation. However, you can use more than 1 karma point to make it happen. Say your character wants to pick a lock but doesn’t necessarily have any skill in it, you can use a karma point to either re-roll something or roll with advantage (just once per situation). If you know that the lock has a particularly high challenge rating, you can use as many karma points as you have available to make it happen! So if you have 2 karma points, you can use 2 points to lower the CR on scale to the situation (a locked door in a tavern may only require 1 karma point to open, but a magically locked chest you know is filled with treasure might require 10 karma points to make it happen).

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