Prestige Awards

The people at Paizo put out a supplement called the Faction Guide, which detailed a mechanic called Prestige; a way of expressing reputation, wealth and influence socially, rather than monetarily. This can expressed in game as favors owed, banking on one's reputation and other methods of flexing one's political muscle. In order to gain Prestige, or to spend or lose it, you must belong a sizable organization; one large enough that you cannot easily know every member. Examples include, but are not limited to, dragonmarked houses, churches, cults, thieve's guilds, adventurer's guilds, magical societies or other large group.

Organizations

In order to have Prestige, you must be a member of an organization, either officially or through close association. Different organizations have different sizes, realms of influence, access to different resources and different requirements for their members. While some organizations have strict guidelines as to what kind of perspective member they will accept, others are far more open. Here is how to categorize different organization.

Membership

Every organization has particular requirements that they look for in new members. Some of these requirements are mandatory, while others are just qualities that they prefer in their members. This can range from specific race(s), class(es), religion, region of origin, alignment or simply having the same goals. Anyone that meets the mandatory requirements can ask to join. Those that meet all of the requirements is seen as a promising applicant, which is the requirement for the Favored in House feat. It is possible to join multiple organizations so long as it is not publicly known that you belong to two or more groups that are rivals (see Allegiances & Rivalries). If this is discovered, you will loose any Prestige on at least one group, your choice.

Size

The size of an organization represents not only the total number of its members, but also the geographical area that it has influence over. The size of an organization always falls into one of the four categories below, followed by the area it covers. Any Prestige you spend with an organization always originates in the area that they have influence over.

  • Local: A local organization rarely has more than a few hundred members. It usually covers the area of a large city, metropolis or a section of countryside of 100 square miles. Examples would include Local (Sharn), Local (Thronehold) or Local (The Dagger River).

  • Regional: A regional organization rarely has more than a few thousand members. It covers an entire country, kingdom or other geographical region of a few thousand square miles. Examples would include Regional (Breland), Regional (Karrnath) or Regional (Adar).

  • Continental: A continental organization has tens of thousands of members, if not more. It covers an entire continent and sometimes beyond it. Examples would include Continental (Khorvaire), Continental (Sarlona) or Continental (Argonnessen).

  • World: A world-sized organization has hundreds of thousands of members and spans the entire world. If there is civilization of any form, you will find its members.

Influence

Each organization has at least one area of influence that they exert a measure of control. Some organizations are large enough to cover more than one area of influence. Regardless of their type of influence, its effect is still mostly limited to the size of the organization. The influence(s) your organization has determines the cost of a specific favor in CPA.

    • Community: This is the most basic kind of influence; simply knowing a lot of regular people that you see every day. While they may not have any specific specialties, there sure are a lot of them.

  • Criminal: Criminal organizations handle all manner of illegal activities, from simple theft and extortion or blackmail and assassination.

  • Espionage: Espionage organizations trade in information. While similar to criminal organizations, they differ significantly in what kind of actions they will partake in.

  • Exploration: Organizations centered around exploration often have a much larger size than their numbers would represent.

    • Faith (by Religion): Organizations that would sway over religious follows manipulate entire churches. This is related to, but not the same as Magic (Cleric). This deals with people and politics and not the magic.

  • Industry (by Area): Organizations that cover large scale industries control entire guilds or financial institutions. Examples include Banking, Farming, Magical Items, Notary, Land Shipping, Sea Shipping or by specific craft.

  • Government (by Nation): The government of a specific nation or kingdom is an organization in its own right. The government of one nation might have influence over another, but this rare in the extreme.

  • Military: This organization has members trained in the ways of combat and war.

  • Magic (by Type): Organizations centered around the pursuit of magical forces have access to the skills and knowledge of its members. Examples include Arcane, Cleric, Dragonmarked, Druidic or Psionic.

  • Nobility: The upper crust of society has secluded themselves from the general populace. This allows them to share influence exclusive to themselves.

Allegiances & Rivalries

Many organizations will have allegiances with some other organizations and/or rivalries with others. These can be as temporary or as permanent as the situation needs. Should the organization you belong to have allegiances or rivalries, your association with them will affect your social interactions. See Prestige Benefits below.

Prestige Points

At its most basic representation, a single Prestige Point is worth roughly 300 gp worth of services or 150 gp worth of goods. The exact application of Prestige Points will vary greatly and 1 Prestige Point in one organization is not worth the same in all circumstances as it is in another organization. Prestige Points are measured in two groups: Total Prestige Awards (TPA) and Current Prestige Awards (CPA). By default, you have a TPA and a CPA of 0 in every organization in the campaign. Anytime you gain 1 or more points of Prestige with a particular group, both your TPA and your CPA increases by the appropriate number. The TPA is your overall reputation within the group and will only decrease in response to some transgression or social faux paw against the organization. Your CPA, however, is a representation of your reputation right now and will decrease as you use your Prestige for assistance and favors.

Your TPA within an organization must always be equal to or greater than your CPA. If it ever becomes less than your CPA, you loose an amount of CPA to make it equal again.

Earning and Gaining Prestige Points

Prestige points are typically earned through actions that are beneficial toward the organization. Like regular treasure, it is possible to rack up a significant amount of TPA and CPA for completing quest and quest for an organization. Where prestige is different, however, is the need for finite completed goal on behalf of the organization. Typically, a single quest would reward 1 or 2 Prestige, assuming that nature of the quest was simple enough to complete 2 to 3 per level. However, a longer quest that takes more time might not give a proportionate Prestige award. For example, a quest to deliver a package that takes 3 levels to complete might only reward 2 Prestige on its own.

When determining the amount of Prestige to award, gauge the worth of the effort against the organization's goals and needs, not against a fixed scale like Character Wealth By Level. A 1st level fighter that happens to be in the right place at the right time can easily gain more Prestige in a single act than a 5th level fighter that gives only a mediocre effort. That said, realize that Prestige is a form of treasure and if a hefty amount of Prestige is award, some forms of other rewards may need to be scaled back to compensate.

It is also possible to gain Prestige Points without earning them in the traditional since. This would apply for situations where someone regularly tithes an appropriate amount or donates a significant amount of resources to the group. Simply being a long standing member has its rewards. Listed below is a list of examples of how to gain Prestige Points and by how much.

Losing Prestige Points

Rarely, it is possible to lose Prestige. If you are believed responsible, willingly, knowingly or not, for some transgression against your organization, as part of your punishment, you will loose TPA and, if necessary, CPA. The exact nature of the transgression will depend on the organization, but as a general rule, anything that you are believed responsible for that weakens the organization is worth the loss of TPA appropriate to the weakening of the organization. Should you loose all TPA with an organization you are no longer part of that organization and gaining further Prestige with them will be difficult (at a 3:1 ratio) to impossible.

Prestige Benefits

You get a +1 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy checks with other members of your organization for every 10 TPA you have. You gain half this benefit with organizations that are allied with yours, rounded down, but you get a penalty for you Diplomacy checks with members of your rival organizations (if any) equal to -1 for every 10 TPA you have.

Spending Prestige Points

Any Prestige Points that you have acquired can used anytime you are able to contact your organization by spending your CPA. However, the request is much more expensive if it does not pertain the areas of influence that the organization or is needed outside of the size that the organization covers. Requests are arraigned in 1-3 days for most examples, but can be done faster if needed. Use this table as a guide to CPA expenditures. Player are encouraged to come up with other uses, following the same pattern.

Services: If the organization has Magic (Dragonmarked) influence, then the expert and warrior options can have the Least Dragonmark for 1 additional CPA. If the organization has Industry (appropriate) influence, then use their industry services as intended does not cost any TPA.

Spellcasting: 0th level spells and powers do not cost Prestige for those that the appropriate influence. They cost 1 CPA for those that do not. If the spell or power has an expensive material component, then increase the CPA cost by 1 per 100 gp, although the material cost can be paid for directly with coinage.

Contacts: It is possible, even common, to spend Prestige to be introduced to important people in your organization. These individuals are to be treated like Contacts (UCam, pg. 148). The CPA cost to gain a person as a contact is equal to 5 + the Minimum Risk (MR) for that particular type of contact. Your organization can only introduce you to contacts that are in that organization. Using a contact for a task requires the same Diplomacy check, but you can spend CPA to gain a circumstance bonus to the Diplomacy check equal to +1 per CPA spent. However, if the request is a critical failure, you loose TPA equal to twice the Risk of the request unless you resolve the situation.

Prestige vs. Leadership

Given how versatile the use of Prestige is, it is important to note that it is not intended to cover the same uses as the Leadership feat or the rules for Contacts (UCam, pg. 148). No use of Prestige can cause the organization, or significant part of it, to follow a character like the troops given by the Leadership feat. There is a case to be made that once the number of followers that a character reaches 100 that his group is considered an organization, but the rules for Prestige is meant for people working from the bottom up in an organization, not the top down.

Example Organizations

Listed below are a number of sample organizations typically found in Eberron campaigns. Allegiances and rivalries are not listed because that would be unique to your campaign.