All About Prestige
Prestige is a rating of how famous (or infamous) a character is. Adventurers start play with a Prestige of 1 and gain Prestige when moving to new tiers of play at levels 5, 11, and 17, when acquiring strongholds, and from accomplishing great deeds during play.
When a character needs to make a Prestige check, she rolls 1d20 + her Prestige rating against a difficulty of 12 + double the tier of the region she is in. If she is outside the area described by her Prestige rating, the character has disadvantage.
Those familiar with our ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution adventure path will already be familiar with the concept of Prestige, although it works slightly differently in Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition.
For example, Zidi Wheatling, the “Halfling Titan”, has a Prestige rating of 5. She is known across the county for her great strength, and stories of how she beat a minotaur in an arm-wrestling match have become a regional legend. She has traveled all the way to the country’s capital (a tier 2 region) and seeks an audience with a wealthy noble.
Zidi rolls a Prestige check with disadvantage, adding 5 to the roll (from her Prestige rating) against DC 16. Unfortunately the result is an 11—the noble has not heard of her and will not grant her an audience. Zidi has to find some other way to attract their attention!