Finally putting together my thoughts on Honor for Kaidan (for Pathfinder RPG).
Honor in a Pathfinder setting would most likely affect social interactions, which means skills: diplomacy, intimidate and sense motive. Based on a single class character the maximum skill point score is their character level. If any of these skills are a class skill then they get 3 bonus points, so for a normal maximum level character at 20th, the max skill points are 23.
Using that number for comparison, I'm choosing 25 as the maximum Honor Score (+2 points for exemplary Honor, and to make the math easier.) Dividing a max 25 score by five, we get five ranks of Honor or Rank 0: Honorless, Rank 1: Untrustworthy, Rank 2: Expected, Rank 3: Exceptional, Rank 4: Above Reproach, and each Rank contains five degrees of Honor.
Various acts affect one's honor gaining points or penalties and losing points. Having high honor means its more difficult to achieve greater honor, but easy to lose honor. Thus an act that might grant a honorless person 5 points of honor, might only grant 1 point to a Rank 5 character. However a dishonorable act like lying might penalize an Honorless person by a point, whereas a higher rank honorable person could lose five points and drop a rank.
Because Kaidan's population is divided into the Caste System and the default starting Caste for new characters is the Commoner Caste (and because new characters are an unknown factor at the start of the game) Rank is 1: Untrustworthy with 6 honor points. Samurai begin the game as Rank 2: Expected or 11 honor points. Members who are criminals, actors, musicians, or of the tainted classes begin at Rank 0: honorless.
I need to come up with a list of acts that affect honor - I have the L5R RPG 3rd edition for reference, might borrow heavily from that.
There are four instances where an honor score is use in the game:
1. Committing any of the acts that alter one's honor that grant honor or penalizes the score.
2. Your honor rank score grants a bonus of your rank when performing: Diplomacy, Intimidation or Sense Motive checks. Rank 1 character with 6 to 10 honor points gains a +1 bonus to those skill checks.
3. Honor Rolls - once per day, on a failed skill check to diplomacy, intimidate or sense motive, one may reroll using your honor score instead of the skill check. A failed reroll results in loss of honor up to 5 points.
4. Test of Honor - on circumstances where a given act could result in loss of Honor, obeying your lord while dishonoring your family, for example, a test of honor check is made using a d20 with modifiers up to + or - 5 points can affect the test.
This is what I've come up with so far. Any other circumstances where Honor might come in effect? Any critiques or comments.
I think I need to develop a Reputation Score, based on a similar mechanic which could also affect those same social skill checks. Need some thoughts there too, if you got them.
GP
PS: perhaps your Honor Rank could grant bonuses in combat as well, in those circumstances where combat results will affect the honor of yourself, your lord or your emperor. Rank score provides bonus +1 to +5 to hit/damage rolls.
How is honor defined conceptually in this system of yours? Is it how society perceives a character (similar to reputation), how the character perceives himself, or how some cosmic "observer" (whether intelligent or not, doesn't really matter; could be just a force of nature such as the wheel of life or the universe as a whole, etc) perceives him? This is an important question because human perception is always limited and biased. If no one knows that you just did something dishonorable, their perception won't be affected unless some external force influences it. And if a character smears his honor, and then for any reason loses the memory of this action, his perception of himself would likewise be reset.
Then there's also the question of whether honor is personal or communal, or a combination of both. If your brother acts dishonorably, does it reflect on your honor?
Reputation is perception. Honor is cosmic. Most every person see themselves as honorable, but that has little relation to the values set for giving bonuses or penalties because of accumulated honor. Honor may or may not reflect how a superior may see you, but there are arcane/divine tests to measure one's honor, so that others could recognize the stat on your character sheet.
Families have honor, as well as your noble lord - their honor affects your honor, though personal honor can exceed both. Haven't defined the mechanic of how related honor affects your honor directly, it would be a small modifier, however.
GP
One change - default honor is Rank 2, which grants a +0 bonus to diplomacy, intimidation and sense motive checks, Ranks 0 and 1 provide penalties to these checks, while ranks 3 and 4 grant bonuses. Instead of by rank, it is by degree, thus if you have Rank 2: +4 degrees (2 away from the next rank) you gain your score as a modifier or as in the sample score a +4 bonus.
GP
I just thought of a new use for Honor in Kaidan.
I am introducing ancestral relics, a kind of legacy item that contain multiple powers, that require levels ups, feat expenditure and an event trigger. An ancestral katana for example is granted to a first level samurai and with first successful duel is a +1 weapon and spending a feat slot towards Ancestral Relic. Then at third level while grabbing your katana hilt, but not unsheathing it and a successful Intimidation attempt against a more powerful opponent grants an additional +1 bonus.
Most items seemingly do not possess more than three powers, however, the higher the Honor Score of the individual the greater the potential in possessing more powerful abilities. 8 powers would the most powerful an item would get and would mean reaching 20+ levels (epic).
Feat: Ancestral Relic - applies to a single weapon or item granted as a hereditary right of passage as an heirloom. The feat allows access to ancestral powers locked in unique family weapons or items. Loss or destruction of the item is catastrophic to your honor and your family's honor. This feat can be taken repeatedly, but limited to once every four levels, except for samurai who gains a faster progression as a class feature of the Samurai class.
In Kaidan, this is a general feat that can be taken by any class, just that Samurai with their weapons gain powers faster. Thus a ninja's chain weapon or monk's nunchaku can gain powers as they level up. Plus some unique folding fans, sets of chopsticks or other normally mundane devices make interesting martial arts weapons for an oriental setting.
The feat is Ancestral Relic, not Weapon, because other rare wondrous items category might also have this progessive power enhancement capability, such as a handsomely painted folding fan might give suggestive powers to the women of a particular noble house using it... skill focus: bluff or diplomacy, +1 charisma bonus, Suggest as spell, Command as spell, Charm Person as spell.
Tying Honor Score to this, Honor Rank 2 allows an item/weapon to access five powers, Rank 3 +1 power, Rank 4 +2 more powers, while Rank 1 subtracts one power and limits to four, and Rank 0 might limit to 2 powers.
Its seems right that personal honor is directly related to family honor, thus ancestral honor which grants bonus powers with higher honor scores.