Character Creation & Options

This page lists which character options are allowed, and details a few house rules for creating characters in this campaign. Most character creation options are provided in the D&D Rulebooks folder in the google drive.

Character Creation Options

Most officially published D&D books with character creation options may be used, with few exceptions. The full list of available options are as follows:

• The Player's Handbook
  • All races + variant humans
  • All classes
  • Multiclassing
  • All feats
  • All spells, with certain exceptions listed in House Rules
• Elemental Evil Player's Companion
  • All races exept aarakocra
  • All spells (also found in XGE)
• Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
  • Race: ghostwise halfling
  • All spells
  • All backgrounds
• Volo's Guide to Monsters
  • All races except yuan-ti
• Xanathar's Guide to Everything
  • All subclasses
  • All feats
  • All spells
• Tortle Package
  • Race (tortle)
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
  • Most race options (tiefling variants, eladrin, sea elf, shadar-kai)
    • Exception: gith do not exist in this setting.
    • Lore adjustment: instead of the Shadowfell and the Raven Queen, which do not exist in this setting, shadar-kai are considered a variation of drow and are typically found in Subterranea.
• Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
  • Artificer class
  • All subclasses
  • All feats
  • All spells
  • All optional class features
    • Versatility features that allow characters to exchange spells/features/styles when they level up
    • All additional class spells
    • Features that explicitly replace a specific feature must do so.
    • Features without a replacement are free.
• Curse of Strahd
  • Background: Haunted One
• Ghosts of Saltmarsh
  • All backgrounds, except Marine
• Strixhaven
  • All feats
    • Adjustment: Strixhaven Mascot does not require the Strixhaven Initiate feat.
  • All spells
  • (Backgrounds and Owlin race are not permitted)
• Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
  • Variant dragonborn, except gems (gem dragons do not exist in this setting)
  • All subclasses
  • All feats
  • All spells
• Wild Beyond the Witchlight
  • Race: harengon
  • Background: Feylost
• Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
  • Subraces: Pallid elf, Lotusden halfling, Draconblood dragonborn, Ravenite dragonborn
  • Subclasses: Echo knight fighter, Chronurgy wizard, Graviturgy wizard
    • Adjustment: For chronurgy wizards' arcane abeyance feature, activating a spell from a spell mote requires the same casting time as casting the spell normally, instead of an action. Action activation might be problematic; this might change later when I've had time to ponder it.
  • Dunamancy spells
• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
  • Subclass: Lunar sorcerer
• D&D Beyond
  • Class: Blood hunter (may choose INT or WIS)
• Bigby presents: Glory of the Giants
  • Subclass: Path of the Giant barbarian
  • All backgrounds
    • Adjustment: When taking a background feature that provides a feat, the character must forfeit 2 racial ability points.
  • All feats
    • Adjustment: Rune Shaper and Strike of the Giants are half-feats; they come with a +1 to any ability score.
• Mordenkainen presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
  • Variants for all previously included races (excludes: aarakocra, centaur, changeling, fairy, gith, minotaur, satyr, shifter, yuan-ti)
  • Long rests and night rests still require 8 hours, even for characters with Trance.

The following custom options/sources are also approved for use:

• Race: Shadowborn
• Fighter: Scofflaw

Resources not listed above are not available for character creation, but may become available. Players can send content to the DM for approval; if approved, the source will be added above. The following are examples of custom content that is not available, but could be requested for approval:

• Official 5e source books not listed above
• Custom content on the DM's Guild
• Unearthed Arcana (official playtest material)

Creating a New Character

Each player may create any number of characters, although they may play only one in a given session. Players may build new characters without DM oversight, as long as all rules on this page are followed. A character is not considered to be part of the campaign until it has been played at least once. If your new character's backstory defines an organization that exists in the world, that organization won't be canon until the character has been played, for instance.
New characters begin at level 1. Additional options might be added later for creating characters at higher level.

Creating a character

Full character creation instructions are provided in The Player's Handbook. To summarize, the steps are:

• Choose a class. This is the primary description of what your character does and how they fight. Most class abilities are combat-focused, but some affect skills or provide out-of-combat utility.
• Choose a race. D&D has many options for different humanoids, from sturdy dwarves to devilish tieflings to scaly dragonborn. Each race has a few unique features.
• Choose a background. Backgrounds are a summary of who your character was before becoming a fledgeling adventurer, and provide extra skills and starting items.
• Set ability scores. There are six ability scores. Take note of the ones most important to your character, both for their class features and their skills. Add a few points depending on your race.
• Choose spells, if applicable. Some classes prepare their spells, some know them permanently, and wizards are mixed. In any case, choose your first set of spells as described in your class's spellcasting feature.

Class

Class is the largest descriptor of a character. Most of the abilities granted by class are combat-focused, although some enhance skills or provide utility for social situations. There are 13 classes in 5e:

• Artificer. A magic engineer that deals in technology and arcane magic
• Barbarian. A durable, powerful rage-fueled warrior
• Bard. A utility mage with a musical theme and strong social skills
• Cleric. An armored mage that channels the divine magic of spirits
• Druid. A mage that channels the divine magic of nature and can transform into animals
• Fighter. A tactical combatant with a variety of fighting styles
• Monk. An unarmed, unarmored warrior that employs ki, the energy of the body
• Paladin. An armored melee warrior that protects their allies and smites their enemies
• Ranger. A warrior skilled in leading others through the wilderness
• Rogue. A stealthy, tricky fighter adept at infiltrating dangerous places
• Sorcerer. A mage capable of manipulating their spells, whose power comes from a bloodline or accident
• Warlock. A flexible mage with a mix of abilities, whose power comes from forming a pact with a powerful being
• Wizard. A mage with an ever-growing collection of spells and a specialization in one type

Warlocks involve some kind of relationship with a powerful NPC; for guidance about choosing or creating a patron, see Warlock Patrons

Ability Scores

New characters will use the point buy or standard array (15/14/13/12/10/8) options for ability scores. We will not roll abilities in this campaign. Hit points will also not be rolled, and will increase by the average amount at each level.
When gaining ability score boosts from your character's race, you may change which abilities you gain, but cannot combine or split them. Nonvariant humans may change one ability to another even if it overlaps, resulting in +1/1/1/1/2/0 rather than +1/1/1/1/1/1. For instance, a wood elf gets +2 DEX and +1 WIS. You could change this to +2 STR and +1 INT, but not +3 WIS.

Race

Race determines what kind of humanoid your character is, such as a dwarf, elf, or gnome. Each race provides some stats and unique abilities, called racial features.
The custom race options from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything can only be used with DM consultation. See "Ability Scores" above for a house rule that provides alternative flexibility here. Additionally, as a house rule for this campaign, all characters have a minimum base walking speed of 30 feet.
For races with multiple printed versions (e.g. dragonborn in both the PHB and Fizban's) included in character options above, players may choose which version their character uses.

Background

A character's background is the summary of their life before they decided to be come a novice adventurer. The background provides items, language/tool proficiencies, skill proficiencies, and a background feature with minor out-of-combat utility.
Custom backgrounds are permitted as described in the PHB. When creating a custom background, choose an existing background to gain the feature and starting items from. You may choose any two skill proficiencies in place of the recommended ones, and you may choose a total of two languages/tool proficiencies.
You may customize your background's starting equpiment to a limited extent. If you have a tool proficiency (from class, background, etc.) you may replace either your background starting items or your starting gold with that tool. If you have multiple tool proficiencies, you may replace both your starting items and gold with two different tools that you are proficient with.

Languages

Race and background allow a character to begin with a few languages. Common is the most popular language in Archestria, and all characters should know it. PCs may learn the languages listed in The Player's Handbook, and can learn a new language by spending 150 downtime days.

Items

Every new character begins with a potion of healing in addition to the starting items for their class and background.

Backstory

When creating a new character, players are encouraged to write more detail about the character's past experiences prior to setting out as an adventurer. This is completely optional. If a backstory is written, provide it to the DM so that they can incorporate story features into the game. Backstories should be no longer than one page (and ideally, much shorter- one or two paragraphs is fine, depending on the amount of detail you want).
A well-written character backstory includes as many of the following as possible:

• Why the character chose their class
• Why the character left an easier, simpler life to become an adventurer
• The character's primary goal
• An explanation of the character's personality traits, ideals, flaws, fears, etc.
• People in the character's life (friends, family, enemies, rivals)

Players are welcome to add small features to the world in their backstory, within reason. If a character's backstory tells how they angered a cult and fled, then the DM can add that cult to the world (or choose a fitting one that already exists). This is a great way to intertwine the character with the world: they now have enemies searching for them, and they are trying to gather allies to destroy the cult permanently so they can be ultimately be safe. When other players are inconvenienced by this cult, they will get involved in your character's story.
A backstory can also include as much ambiguity or mystery as desired, leaving the DM to fill in unknowns with future discoveries. Your character was robbed of something precious to them, and they don't know why or who took it. Great! That's an opportunity for the DM to build a mystery for your character to unravel during their travels.

Alignment

Alignment is not required; it is an outdated construct that tries to categorize complex personalities. It can be useful as a guideline to the player reminding them of their character's motivations and mentality, but provides no mechanical effect in-game. If alignment ever does have a mechanical effect, such as determining attunement eligibility with a magic item, the DM will adjudicate the character's effective alignment based on their actions and choices.
Evil characters are not permitted in this campaign. See Safety and Etiquette for information about collaboration and PvP, which are the primary reason for this decision.

Rebuilding a character

Characters below level 5 may be rebuilt between game sessions. This allows players to adjust aspects of their character in the early levels so they can experiment with different options. Rebuilt characters keep everything their previous iterations acquired in earlier adventures. Rebuild modifications are allowed as long as they don't conflict with the character's previous adventures or rewards. If a dwarf character gains a special boon that is only granted to dwarves, they can't be remade as an elf with that boon. Contact the DM if you really want to make this change; most likely you'll have to give up the boon.
Don't stress over your early character choices; you'll be able to make adjustments up until you reach level 5. If you want to adjust your ability scores after realizing that your bard doesn't need wisdom, go ahead and move those points into constitution. If you discover you don't like playing a barbarian, change your character to a rogue without starting over. If you want to try out different cleric domains, you can switch to a new one before each mission. If you want to compare multiclassing vs singleclassing, try them both. Don't be afraid to take advantage of this rule to try out new things.

Lost or Dead Characters

See Managing Characters for details on character state.