Character Building Guide

These rules have been chosen to give the campaign a sense of darkness, mystery, and discovery. You are, on the face of it, normal people facing an unknown world, and your characters should reflect that. However, this is your game too, so if you have your heart set on a character with elements that are homebrew or outside of the restrictions, talk to me and we can try to work something out.

Race Restrictions

No monster races or exotic races, except Aasimar (refer to the Races list here). Variant Human is allowed!

Stat Generation Restrictions

Stats rolled by 4d6, discarding the lowest die. (e.g. a roll of 5, 6, 1, 4 becomes 5 + 6 + 4 for a total of 15) Any rolls that total less than 8 may be rerolled. After all stats have been rolled, if the Point Buy total of the stats (before racial bonuses) is less than 27, players may reroll their lowest stat until the point buy value is at, or above, 27. Stats will be rolled in order: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. (for this reason, it is recommended that players choose their character race and/or class after rolling for stats)
If your first character dies (and you still want to play), you may build a new character normally, using any stat gen. method you wish. Race restrictions still apply.

Classes

No restrictions on official classes or subclasses. Unearthed Arcana classes and subclasses must be approved first! The Gunslinger subclass is available for Fighters and Rogues.

Advanced Backgrounds

Your background plays a bigger role in Grim Hollow than in standard 5e D&D. Refer to chapter 6 of the GHCG (Grim Hollow Campaign Guide) for information on Advanced Backgrounds. Each Advanced Background gives you proficiencies and starting equipment like standard backgrounds, but also they provide Background specific abilities and give you options for chosing a Profession, gaining Holdings, and gaining Talents. It's a LOT to look through, so I suggest you don't try to min-max this, but simply pick the Background and Profession that sounds right to you.

Below are the backgrounds outlined in the book. If none of these fit the character you want to make, pick another background from D&D and we'll work together to turn it into an Advanced Background.

• Academic (p 72)
• Aristocrat (p 77)
• Clergy (p 81)
• Common Folk (p 86)
• Criminal (p 90)
• Militarist (p 94)
• Outlander (p 99)
• Seafarer (p 102)

A few words about alignment

It's dumb. Alignment is dumb.
I think players get caught up in their alignment as something they need to choose, like their stats and subclasses, but that sucks tbh, don’t do that. Your alignment should not determine your character, rather, it should be a useful tool for describing how your character views the world. Honestly, consider just not picking an alignment and instead, really think about how your character views the world and what their attitude is towards other peoples’ problems, and let that influence your character's decisions.
(Also the distinction between “Good” and “Evil” is dumb. Heroes can’t be evil. They’re heroes. It should be read as “Altruistic” vs “Selfish”.)

Advanced Abilities

The GHCG provides more things for your character to do such as:

• Advanced weaponry
• New feats
• New spells
• Curses

Refer to chapter 3 of the GHCG for more information on Advanced Abilities.

Transformations

The GHCG provides rules for transforming characters into monsters and monster hybrids. A character can start a transformation willingly, but most often transformations are forced upon a character. You can read more about Transformations in chapter 5 of the Campaign Guide.