Contacts
A contact is a unique NPC with useful skills or powerful connections. You can call upon contacts for aid to accomplish specialized tasks without getting directly involved. A low-level contact can dig up a local rumor, direct you to a reputable merchant, or impart basic knowledge. As you earn more of a contact's trust, he might take on greater tasks with greater personal risk — helping you track down an adversary, bailing you out of jail, or loaning you a magic item.
Contacts can be childhood friends, former adversaries, war buddies, former colleagues, or family connections — there is no limit on social class or profession. A contact's ability to help may even shift over the course of a campaign as his profession, social standing, or personal circumstances change.
Contacts sometimes need compensation for their trouble. Criminal contacts almost always charge for services or demand favors in return. A temple or guild contact might expect a donation or membership fee. Costs also arise from necessity — bribes, covert access fees, or costly spell components that the contact should not be expected to cover personally.
Two factors govern a contact's effectiveness: Trust (how much the contact believes in you) and Risk (how dangerous the task is). A contact who doesn't fully trust you won't risk his neck, though he might perform low-risk tasks to see if you warrant further confidence.
Trust
Trust is measured on a scale of 1–5 and is built through successful interactions. A contact can have different Trust scores for different PCs — the same city guard might fully trust a paladin he's known for years while remaining wary of a newly arrived wizard. For some contacts, Trust decays if they haven't heard from you in a while, though rebuilding it is faster than starting from scratch.
Risk
Risk is measured on a scale of 1–5 and represents the potential danger of a task to the contact. Each level describes the typical punishment the contact faces on a critical failure (a failed skill check by 5 or more — see Negotiation Checks below). The GM uses these examples as guidelines to assess task risk.
A contact refuses any task whose Risk exceeds his Trust score unless you offer an enticement worth at least half the value of the contact's gear — this temporarily raises the effective Trust by 1. You cannot stack enticements to raise Trust by more than 1 at a time.
| Risk | Typical Tasks | Consequences if Caught / Critical Failure |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — None | Carry a message, direct you to a merchant, get equipment repaired, provide minor rumors, show you a map. | No consequences worth considering. |
| 2 — Minor | Leave a door unlocked, acquire a semi-legal item, find a place to lie low. | Small fine or imprisonment with bail. You must spend ⅓ the value of the contact's gear to rectify the situation; otherwise you lose the contact and all current/future contacts have Trust lowered by 1. |
| 3 — Moderate | Lie to authorities, make forgeries, help you evade pursuit, loan money or equipment worth up to ⅓ your WBL. | Fine or imprisonment with bail. You must spend ½ the value of the contact's gear to rectify; otherwise you lose the contact, all current/future contacts have Trust lowered by 2, and future Trust-raising Diplomacy DCs increase by 5. |
| 4 — Considerable | Explicitly illegal acts (burglary, robbery) or morally questionable acts exploiting legal loopholes (fraud). | Imprisoned without bail or social status reduced to peasant. You must restore the contact's status — free and vindicate him, or rescue him and establish a new life. Failure: lose the contact, all current contacts have Trust lowered by 3, and future Trust-raising DCs increase by 5. |
| 5 — Great | Murder, grievous assault, treason — failure risks death, exile, or life imprisonment. | Within 1 week you must negate, overturn, or revoke the contact's sentence, or otherwise save him from his fate. Failure: all current contacts have Trust lowered by 4, and future Trust-raising DCs increase by 5. Extraordinary measures (e.g., raising the contact from the dead) allow you to retain the contact, though the Trust penalty for other contacts may still apply if your intervention is unknown. |
Negotiation Checks
To use a contact, compare the task's Risk score to the contact's Trust score:
- Risk > Trust: The contact refuses unless you offer an enticement (see above).
- Trust ≥ Risk: Make an opposed Diplomacy check. The contact adds the task's Risk score to his Diplomacy check. If you succeed, the contact is willing and able to attempt the task (though he may have a price). Failure doesn't necessarily mean refusal — the contact might be unavailable or unable to help at that time.
Once a contact agrees, the GM rolls the contact's most appropriate skill (or ability check) against:
"GM modifiers" include situational factors — heightened scrutiny at a noble's party, a temporary shortage of black-market goods, and so on. Failing by 5 or more is a critical failure (see the Risk table above).
Most tasks require 1 day. The contact may reduce the DC by spending additional time:
- Subtract 1 from the DC per extra day (max 4 extra days)
- Long-term tasks (1+ week): subtract 1 per extra week (max 4 extra weeks)
Very long tasks should be broken into smaller daily or weekly checks.
If a task becomes riskier while in progress, make another opposed Diplomacy check at the new Risk score. Failure means the contact abandons the task.
Each time a contact fails or abandons a task, he gains a cumulative +1 bonus on future Diplomacy checks to negotiate with you. Attempting the same task again gives the contact an additional +4. The contact typically needs 1d4 days before another attempt.
Gaining, Cultivating, and Losing Contacts
The GM may allow PCs to begin the campaign with one contact (typically Trust 2 or 3). Otherwise contacts are gained through roleplaying over the course of the campaign.
Accrue 5 positive interactions or 1 profound interaction with an NPC to treat him as a contact.
- Positive interactions
- Regular patronage, extra compensation, performing a deed on his behalf, using personal influence to improve his standing.
- Profound interactions
- Saving his life or a loved one's, protecting his reputation from ruin, preventing major loss of property or finances.
Each time you have a positive or profound interaction (once per character level per contact), attempt a Diplomacy check to raise the contact's Trust score by 1. A profound interaction grants a +5 bonus on this check.
| Trust Score | Diplomacy DC |
|---|---|
| Wary (1) | 20 |
| Skeptical (2) | 15 |
| Reliable (3) | 10 |
| Trustworthy (4) | 15 |
| Confidant (5) | 20 |
| Add any accumulated failure penalty to this DC. | |
Trust Decay & Ending Relationships
If you are away from a contact for a month or longer, that contact's Trust score may decrease. Attempt a Diplomacy check against the DC above; failure reduces Trust by 1 (minimum 1). Some contacts — childhood friends, old mentors — may not lose Trust this way, or may require checks only once per year.
Ending a relationship by gradual neglect (letting Trust drop to 1) typically causes no hard feelings. The GM should err toward leniency — building many contacts should not be punished by cascading Trust penalties simply because some relationships fade.
Types of Contacts
Contacts range from simple information sources to powerful brokers with significant resources. Some contact types carry a Minimum Risk (MR) — when making the negotiation check, use the task's Risk score or the contact's MR, whichever is higher. For example, asking an assassin (MR 3) to acquire a black-market item (normally Risk 2) uses Risk 3 for the negotiation check, though the DC of the contact's skill check still uses the actual task Risk. A contact may have a higher MR than the category default at the GM's discretion.
Associating with high-MR contacts draws attention. A conversation with a lumberjack goes unnoticed; repeated visits to the grand vizier or known criminals may imply guilt by association in the eyes of local authorities.