Faceless 5e
Being who you are, you could never be a hero. Whether due to your class, your people, your family, or your sins, something about you prevents you from effectively pursuing the path you've chosen. Even so, that doesn't stop you. You've left your old face behind, taking on a new persona, becoming something more.
Characters with the faceless background don a disguise—literally or otherwise—as they adventure. This persona might be dramatic or subtle. In a way, though, many characters have such larger than life personalities. Therefore, this background largely focuses on detailing the hero behind the mask.
Source: Baldur's Gate - Descent into Avernus
Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Intimidation
Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit
Languages: One of your choice
Equipment: A disguise kit, a costume, and a pouch containing 10gp
Features
Faceless Persona: A faceless character adventures behind a mask of a public persona. This persona is as natural to them as their hidden, true face, but it disguises their identity. Roll on the Faceless Persona table to determine your persona, or work with the DM to create a persona that's unique to your character and suits the tone of your game.
Faceless Persona Table
| d10 | Faceless Persona |
|---|---|
| 1 | A flamboyant spy or brigand |
| 2 | The incarnation of a nation or people |
| 3 | A scoundrel with a masked guise |
| 4 | A vengeful spirit |
| 5 | The manifestation of a deity or your faith |
| 6 | One whose beauty is greatly accented using makeup |
| 7 | An impersonation of another hero |
| 8 | The embodiment of a school of magic |
| 9 | A warrior with distinctive armor |
| 10 | A disguise with animalistic or monstrous characteristics, meant to inspire fear |
Dual Personalities: Most of your fellow adventurers and the world know you as your persona. Those who seek to learn more about you—your weakness, your origins, your purpose—find themselves stymied by your disguise. Upon donning a disguise and behaving as your persona, you are unidentifiable as your true self. By removing your disguise and revealing your true face, you are no longer identifiable as your persona. This allows you to change appearances between your two personalities as often as you wish, using one to hide the other or serve as convenient camouflage. However, should someone realize the connection between your persona and your true self, your deception might lose its effectiveness.
Suggested Characteristics
A faceless character usually plays their persona—the hero or extraordinary person they are every day. That's all a facade, though, or a part of them expressed to an extreme. To define a persona, feel free to choose characteristics from other backgrounds, particularly folk hero, hermit, or noble. For the person behind the persona, the one who truly strives to be faceless, consider a distinct set of faceless characteristics. As a result, those with this background have two sets of characteristics, one for their persona, and one for their faceless selves.
Faceless Personality Traits
| d8 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I'm earnest and uncommonly direct. |
| 2 | I strive to have no personality—it's easier to forget what's hardly there. |
| 3 | I treasure a memento of a person or instance that set me upon my path. |
| 4 | I sleep just as much as I need to and on an unusual schedule. |
| 5 | I think far ahead, a detachedness often mistaken for daydreaming. |
| 6 | I cultivate a single obscure hobby or study and eagerly discuss it at length. |
| 7 | I am ever learning how to be among others—when to stay quiet, when to laugh. |
| 8 | I behave like an extreme opposite of my persona. |
Faceless Ideals
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Justice. Place in society shouldn't determine one's access to what is right. (Good) |
| 2 | Security. Doing what must be done can't bring the innocent to harm. (Lawful) |
| 3 | Confusion. Deception is a weapon. Strike from where your foes won't expect. (Chaotic) |
| 4 | Infamy. My name will be a malediction, a curse that fulfills my will. (Evil) |
| 5 | Incorruptibility. Be a symbol, and leave your flawed being behind. (Any) |
| 6 | Anonymity. It's my deeds that should be remembered, not their instrument. (Any) |
Faceless Bonds
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | I do everything for my family. My first thought is keeping them safe. |
| 2 | What I do, I do for the world. The people don't realize how much they need me. |
| 3 | I've seen too many in need. I must not fail them as everyone else has. |
| 4 | I stand in opposition, lest the wicked go unopposed. |
| 5 | I am exceptional. I do this because no one else can, and no one can stop me. |
| 6 | I do everything for those who were taken from me. |
Faceless Flaws
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I am callous about death. It comes to us all eventually. |
| 2 | I never make eye contact or hold it unflinchingly. |
| 3 | I have no sense of humor. Laughing is uncomfortable and embarrassing. |
| 4 | I overexert myself, sometimes needing to recuperate for a day or more. |
| 5 | I think far ahead, a detachedness often mistaken for daydreaming. |
| 6 | I see morality entirely in black and white. |
Should You Be Faceless?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Baulder’s Gate: Descent into Avernus added a single new background: Faceless. This may be the most dramatic background in the game- you don a persona ranging from a different identity to the living embodiment of a culture or idea. You could be a regular adventurer with some unique armor or a living manifestation of a kind of magic. That range paired with its feature makes it not the best fit for some tables and groups, but a smash hit at others.
Feature: Faceless Persona and Dual Personalities
Faceless Persona sets up Dual Personalities; mainly, it's a way to determine what your outer look is that you present to the world.
Dual Personalities feels close to Disguise Self, but you’ve only got the two looks. There is a decent amount of utility here- I’d say probably as much utility as a disguise kit offers you. Having the guarantee that people won’t recognize you in either presentation is a boon over that kit, but with only the two modes there is only so much you can do before you’ll need another disguise anyway.
A problem is that you also get disguise kit proficiency, which I think can largely do what this feature is doing anyway. I’d read this as a passive improvement to using the kit; in that context, it's fine, but you’re likely going to get a lot more value out of the presentation and flavor of it than actual practical effects, as those aren’t that challenging to replicate with a mundane cloak.
Skills
Deception goes right alongside Persuasion as a default social check; its how you can compel people to act in certain ways and will be a tool charismatic characters frequently reach for.
Intimidation fills a similar role for different kinds of characters. I generally find a character wants one of these skills on their sheet that they’ll reach for in social encounters. Having redundant charisma skills isn’t that useful.
Other Proficiencies
The disguise kit proficiency sets this character up with everything it needs to work. Disguise kits are the tool kit I tend to see used most after thieve’s tools; not only do get the proficiency and start with it in your equipment, but you get an “empowered” version with Dual Personalities that will ensure at least one of the disguises convincingly deceives people.
Bonus Tables
The personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws tables range about as wildly as the variation in personas. There are mundane choices like “I cultivate a single obscure hobby or study and eagerly discuss it at length.” to the extreme “My name will be a malediction, a curse that fulfills my will”.
The extreme options when played up will be obnoxious for some groups. Others will have a fantastic time with the wacky and wild outcomes.
All Together
Usually, I’m all for unique options, but with traits like “I behave like an extreme opposite of my persona”, some people may find themselves in uncomfortable realms of roleplay that’s a bit too over the top for their liking. Knowing your playgroup will inform you if this kind of character will work, and what degree of Facless will work. Beyond the hiccups the bonus tables provide, there are decent abilities and a reasonable skill accessible here- if the Spy Criminal variant isn’t good enough for you, this could be a fine upgrade.
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