Ettes Eternal RPG

7. Perks

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What Are Perks?

Perks represent special abilities, training, and talents that set your character apart from each other.

Every character gains exactly 1 Perk per level by default, providing a steady progression of new abilities throughout your adventures. By Level 20, each character will have accumulated 20 Perks total by default.

Perk Categories

Perks are organized into six categories:

Combat Perks

Combat-focused abilities and benefits that enhance your effectiveness in battle. These include weapon training, defensive techniques, and special maneuvers that make you more dangerous or survivable in conflict.

Magic Perks

Abilities that enhance spellcasting, or grant divine favor. Most of these require existing magical ability, though some allow non-casters to dabble in magical effects.

Multiclassing Perks

Special perks that allow you to gain abilities from a secondary character class. These follow specific rules and limitations detailed in the Multiclassing system. There are only a couple of these, as it was the easiest way to balance Multiclassing in Ettes Eternal.

Roleplaying Perks

Narrative-focused abilities that enhance your character’s story and social interactions. These Perks create interesting roleplaying opportunities and help define your character’s unique quirks and background. Often these Perks won’t even have a directly stated mechanical effect, similar to your Roleplaying Bonuses from Backgrounds.

Skill Perks

Enhanced applications of your existing skills or entirely new ways to use them. These Perks often represent specialized training or exceptional talent in particular areas of expertise. These are broken up between the different Skill Categories:

Tier System

Perks are organized into four tiers that reflect their power level and complexity. Higher-tier perks provide more significant benefits but require greater character advancement to access, and often will require earlier-Tier Perks before they can be taken. Perks are, like many other systems, based on the Apprentice → Legendary Tier System.

Ettes Eternal endeavors to keep “prerequisite chains” as simple as possible, rather than complex dependency trees.

Stacking Perks

Some perks have a table showing a “stacking” effect, or will describe one. The Multiclassing perks are both “stacking”. Another good example is Last Stand: Each time you take this Perk, you gain an additional effect (up to 5 effects). You must take these Perks multiple times to gain the increasing effects.

Tiered Perks

Some Perks you may notice have a table associated that has different effects based on Tiers. The effect of the perk automatically increases as you gain each new Class Tier. For example, Critical Focus gives you expanded critical range by 1 when you first take it. When you reach Journeyman, this critical range increases by another 1 automatically (you do not need to take the Perk a second time)

Prerequisites

Many perks have prerequisites that must be met before you can select them:

  • Skill Levels: Most skill-based perks require minimum competency in relevant skills
  • Other Perks: Some perks build upon earlier abilities, creating progression chains
  • Class Features: Certain perks require specific class abilities or spellcasting capability

Perk Advancement

Perks are gained automatically as you level up. Every time you gain a level (including Level 1), you choose 1 perk from those available to you based on your current Class Tier and any prerequisites you meet.

You must select your perk immediately upon leveling—there is no saving or banking perk selections for later. You are not allowed to save a low level Perk choice until later to get a higher Tier Perk.

Alternate Rule: Mythic Perks

There exists an incredible boon to brave adventurers known as Mythic Perks. Refer to their section for more information.

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