Characters Comprise the Vast Majority of the Adventurers Found in Faerun
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Running the REALMS Additional PC Races Humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and the other races described in Chapter 1: Characters comprise the vast majority of the adventurers found in Faerun. However, there are many intelligent races on Toril, and most of those give rise to the occasional individual of exceptional ability or drive who is willing to take up the career of the adventurer. The most common of these monstrous races include the drow, duergar, svirfneblin, and planetouched—all described in some detail in Chapter 1. Some of the other races that could reasonably become adventurers are summed up on Table 8-1: Common Monstrous Adventurers. t its heart, the FORGOTTEN REALMS is neither an imaginary world of shining heroes and terrible Table 8-1: COMMOn MONSTROUS ADVENTURERS monsters nor a real world whose mystic echoes are Race Level Adjustment Source Alost in our past. It's a setting for your DUNGEONS & DRAGONS cam- Aarakocra +2 Monster Compendium paign. This book provides an entire world (well, a continent, anyway) Alaghi +11* Monster Compendium in which you can create all kinds of adventures for your players and Bugbear +4* Monster Manual link them together in the ongoing story of Faerun. Centaur +7* Monster Manual This chapter is aimed at the Dungeon Master, providing tips Fey'ri +2 Monster Compendium and rules for creating your own FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign Gnoll +2* Monster Manual and running DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures in the world of Goblin +0 Monster Manual Toril. The subjects covered here appear in the same order in which Hobgoblin +1 Monster Manual they're covered in the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide. Fach topic Hybsil +2 Monster Compendium expands on the information in that book. If you're not sure where Kobold +0 Monster Manual to find a piece of information about how to run a DUNGEONS & Kir-lanan +8* FR Campaign Setting DRAGONS game, refer to the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide if you Lizardfolk +4* Monster Manual don't see it in this chapter. Ogre +8* Monster Manual Orc +0 Monster Manual Shade^^ +5 FR Campaign Setting Siv +1* Monster Compendium Characters Troll +11* Monster Manual The FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign takes advantage of several Wemic +8* Monster Compendium options and variants for characters described in the Dungeon Werewolf **^ +3 Monster Manual Master's Guide. The players are encouraged to create any kind of *These races have more than 1 Hit Die. character they can imagine within the rules of the game, but as the **Choose a standard race for the creature's base race. Dungeon Master it falls to you to ground these characters in the set- ^Character must be at least 2nd level. ting and help the players bring them to life. Chapter 1: Characters ^^Character must be at least 5th level. contains everything players need to create characters suitable for a campaign set in Faerun. This chapter offers additional options and Level Adjustment: Add this figure to the character's character information on character creation to help you anchor the player level to determine his effective character level. For example, a 3rd- characters in your FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign. level alaghi cleric is effectively a 14th-level character. Source: The sourccbook in which the creature's monster descrip- tion appears: the Monster Manual, Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun, or Chapter 9 of this book. Monster Levels ABILITY SCORES FOR MONSTROUS PCs Creatures with more than 1 Hit Die function as multiclass characters Ability scores for these races are generated according to the proce- with levels in a favored "racial" class equal to the creature's base Hit dure described in Chapter 2 of the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide. The Dice. For example, an alaghi has 9 Hit Dice, so an alaghi PC begins unusual races covered in Chapter 1 of this book (the drow, duergar, play with nine levels of "alaghi." As player characters, their first racial svirfneblin, and planetouched) do not follow this procedure; their Hit Die has its maximum value, A creature's HD is not always the racial ability score modifiers can be found in the race descriptions. same as the creature's level adjustment, since creatures with many spe- cial abilities have a level adjustment higher than their actual Hit Dice, A race's level adjustment measures just how powerful the race is ALLOWING POWERFUL RACES IN PLAY compared to a standard character race such as human or dwarf. Since these are not standard character races, you should decide if you When creating a character of this race, add the level adjustment to are willing ro allow a player to generate a character from any of the character level of the creature to determine the effective char- these races. acter level, or ECL. If the character's ECL is higher than the average character level Because charactcrs of these powerful races possess a higher level of the other player characters in the group, the character is proba- than just their character level alone, they do not gain levels as fast bly too powerful for the current group. You should not allow this as a normal character. The character uses his ECL to determine how character into the group unless you are willing to deal with the dif- many experience points he needs to reach a new level. See Table 1-2: ficulties associated with a group composed of characters of varying ECL Experience Requirements for a summary of how a character's power levels. An inequality of one level for high-level characters is ECL affects the XP needed to advance a level. The table covers probably not a problem, but it can make a significant difference in characters with a level adjustment of +1 (planetouched), +2 (drow a low-level group. and duergar), and +3 (svirfneblin). For level adjustments greater Even if the character falls within the power range of the rest of than + 3, extrapolate from the given information to determine the the group, you can disallow it if you don't think the character suits character's XP requirements. your campaign—you have the final say on what sorts of characters For example, a centaur has a level adjustment of +7, so a 1st-level the players can create for your game. centaur paladin has an ECL of 8 (1 character level plus the level adjustment of +7). A normal 1st-level character needs 1,000 XP to get to 2nd level, but this centaur paladin is an 8th-level character Creating Characters beginning play with 28,000 XP who needs to reach 9th level before he can add another character level. In this case, he needs a total of Above 1st Level 36,000 XP to become a 2nd-level paladin, a total of 45,000 to You may choose to begin your campaign with relatively experienced become a 3rd-level paladin, a total of 55,000 to reach 4th level, and heroes instead of 1st-level novices. If you do so, use Table 2-24 in so on. Essentially, instead of needing your character level x 1,000 to the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide to determine the value of the char- reach the next class level, your character needs your ECL x 1,000 to acter's equipment. If the character chooses a class encouraged by his reach the next class level. native region (see Chapter 1: Characters), add 300 gp to the value Characters Above 20th Level Some of the characters described in this book go beyond 20th levels are effective levels of wizard (included in the "Wiz20"), and level. They use terms that are fully detailed in the upcoming D&D five are effective levels of archmage (included in the "Acm5"). Epic Level Handbook. When present in the character statistic The remaining four are other epic-level benefits. block in the class/level area, the word "Epic" refers to a character's +1 Ability: Add 1 to one ability score. This epic-level benefit epic-level benefits. At each level beyond 20th, a character-selects a replaces the ability score increase that characters normally get single epic-level benefit. Characters do not gain level-based ability, every four levels. score increases and feats beyond 20th level as they did before. +1 Attack: Add +1 to base attack bonus. (Monks also add this to Those epic-level benefits that a character has are described in the their unarmed attack bonus.) This bonus does not increase the Special Qualities section of the character's statistic block. number of additional attacks you get due to a high base attack +1 Effective Level: The character gains a level in a class, acquir- bonus (so a 20th-level fighter's base attack bonus increases to ing the class features and skill points for that class level, and +21/+16/+11/+6 without getting a fifth attack at +1). increasing his maximum skill rank by 1. He does not increase his +1 Bonus Spell Level: The character gains 1 spell slot per day base attack bonus, Hit Dice, hit points, or base saving throws. You whose level is one higher than the highest level spell he can cannot use effective levels to increase a character's class level already cast in a particular class. This benefit is only available if a above 20. You cannot use effective levels to increase a character's character already has 20 levels in a spellcasting class. For example, level in a class that he abandoned (such as becoming an ex-cleric, if Elminster chose this benefit, he would gain one 10th-level ex-monk, or ex-paladin). wizard spell slot. If he chose it again, he would gain one 11th-level When a character chooses an effective level as an epic-level ben- spell slot.