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Character Creation: Source Material

When making your character, you may choose your race, subrace, background, class(es), subclass(es), feats, spells, and equipment from any of the official published 5th Edition Dungeon and Dragons books by Wizards of the Coast. You may not use any Unearthed Arcana material, playtest material, or homebrew material.

Character Creation: Starting XP and Level

Unless otherwise stated, start with 0 XP at 1st level. If you are creating a replacement character because your previous character died or was retired, consult the Game Master regarding your starting experience and level.

Character Creation: Starting Ability Scores

Use the Point Buy system for your starting ability scores. For a list of all possible starting ability score combinations using the Point Buy system, see Character Creation – Ability Scores.

Character Creation: Hit Points

Do not roll dice for your hit points at 1st level. Instead, take the average value:

Hit Die	Hit points at 1st level
d6	6 + Constitution modifier
d8	8 + Constitution modifier
d10	10 + Constitution modifier
d12	12 + Constitution modifier

Do not roll dice for hit points gained above 1st level. Instead, take the average value:

Hit Die	Hit points gained per level above 1st level
d6	4 + Constitution modifier
d8	5 + Constitution modifier
d10	6 + Constitution modifier
d12	7 + Constitution modifier

Remember that whenever your Constitution modifier changes, you must recalculate your 1st-level and higher-level hit points as if you had always had that different modifier.

Character Creation: Race

You may customize your race as described in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

Character Creation: Height and Weight

Some races are missing official heights and weights, and some races have inconsistent heights and weights. See Character Creation – Height and Weight for more consistent height and weight data. Your height and weight must lie within the minimum and maximum bounds of this data for your race.

Character Creation: Starting Equipment and Coinage

The variant rule from the Player’s Handbook where you start with coinage instead of equipment is used. Use your starting coinage to purchase your starting equipment. This starting coinage depends only on your 1st-level class; you do not receive any starting coinage or equipment from your background.

Class	Starting Coinage
Artificer	125 gp
Barbarian	50 gp
Bard	125 gp
Cleric	125 gp
Druid	50 gp
Fighter	125 gp
Monk	25 gp
Paladin	125 gp
Ranger	125 gp
Rogue	100 gp
Sorcerer	75 gp
Warlock	100 gp
Wizard	100 gp

If you are creating a replacement character because your previous character died or was retired, you start with additional wealth. Consult the Game Master regarding your starting wealth.

Character Creation: Class

Above 1st level, you may multiclass. Your multiclass selections must make sense given your character’s backstory and experiences during the campaign.

Regarding the druid class’ armor proficiencies, they are understood to effectively be “light armor, hide armor, and shields”. A character with one or more levels in the druid class refuses to wear other types of armor regardless of their multiclass choices or feat selection.

If you have one or more levels in the cleric, paladin, or warlock class, or if you intend to multiclass into either of these classes, consult the Game Master to discuss your otherwordly affiliations.

If you have one or more levels in the cleric class, your alignment must match the alignment of your deity, and your cleric domain must match one of the domains of your deity. See Deities for a list of pantheons and their deities. Many pantheons are differentiated by the race of their worshippers, and members of a given race generally worship deities within that race’s pantheon. Make careful note of the tenets of your deity; your behavior must be consistent with the tenets of your deity. If you stray from the tenets of your deity, you run the risk of losing your cleric class features and spells. Depending on the severity of your infractions, you may or may not be able to recover your cleric class features and spells.

If you have one or more levels in the paladin class, make careful note of the tenets of your sacred oath; your alignment and behavior must be consistent with the tenets of your sacred oath. If you stray from the tenets of your sacred oath, you run the risk of losing your paladin class features and spells. Depending on the severity of your infractions, you may or may not be able to recover your paladin class features and spells. If you abandon your sacred oath completely, you might become an Oathbreaker paladin as described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

If you have one or more levels in the warlock class, carefully detail your pact with your otherwordly patron. Depending on the specifics of your pact and the disposition of your otherwordly patron, your otherwordly patron may or may not tolerate your straying from your pact, in which case you may or may not run the risk of losing your warlock class features and spells.

Character Creation: Background

You may customize your background as described in the Player’s Handbook. In summary:

Skill Proficiencies: Each background grants proficiency in two skills. You may choose any two skills.
Language and Tool Proficiencies: Each background grants proficiency in either two languages, two tools, or one language and one tool. You may choose any of these three options, and make any choices within that option. Languages and tools are described in the Player’s Handbook. Additional details regarding tools are described in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
Starting Coinage and Equipment: Since we are using the variant rule where you start with coinage instead of equipment, you do not receive any starting coinage or equipment from your background.
Feature: Each background grants a passive feature. This is what effectively identifies the background, so you gain this feature as usual.

Regardless of your background, you are assumed to have a modest lifestyle, and lifestyle expenses are ignored.

Character Creation: Personality

Your alignment, personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw must:

fit the campaign setting and tone,
be consistent with the adventuring party’s goal,
be such that you want to go on adventures with the adventuring party, and
be such that you generally get along with your fellow adventuring party members.

You may choose your two personality traits, your ideal, your bond, and your flaw from any background. See:

Character Creation – Personality Traits for a list of personality traits from all backgrounds,
Character Creation – Ideals for a list of ideals from all backgrounds,
Character Creation – Bonds for a list of bonds from all backgrounds, and
Character Creation – Flaws for a list of flaws from all backgrounds.

Your bond must involve one of your fellow adventuring party members. You may optionally have a second bond unrelated to the adventuring party.

Character Creation: Backstory

Write a brief backstory of a few paragraphs describing your character. The primary purpose of your backstory is to answer the following two questions:

Motivation: Why do you want to be part of this adventuring party?
Pedigree: How does your past explain your current skill set?

The secondary purpose of your backstory is to describe the following:

Background: One paragraph of your backstory must explain your background, including any non-player characters or factions from your background’s passive feature.
Bond: One paragraph of your backstory must explain your bond. If you have two bonds, an additional paragraph must explain your second bond.
Class: One paragraph of your backstory must explain your 1st-level class and subclass as well as any other classes you plan on taking in the future if you choose to multiclass.

You may optionally write one or more additional paragraphs to explain your alignment, ideal, personality traits, and flaw. Your backstory must fit the campaign setting and tone, and your backstory must be appropriate for your starting level. Greatness is something that is earned while adventuring, not something that is written into a backstory. You may use the following template for your backstory:

I am (NAME), a (AGE)-year old (RACE & SUBRACE), from __________.
Prior to becoming an adventurer, I was a (BACKGROUND), which involved __________.
I first encountered the adventuring party through __________.
I want to be part of this adventuring party because __________.
I care about (BOND) because __________.
I learned (CLASS & SUBCLASS) from __________.
I intend to progress into (MULTICLASS & SUBCLASS) through __________.
My conduct most closely matches the (ALIGNMENT) alignment because __________.
I idealize the concept of (IDEAL) because __________.
I am (PERSONALITY TRAITS & FLAW) because __________.

Character Creation: Portrait

Find an image depicting your character, ideally a full-body image or a “from the waist up” image, to serve as your character’s portrait. This portrait will be used to create a token for your character. Your portrait must fit the campaign setting and tone, and your portrait cannot be lewd or inappropriate.

Advancement

Levelling
Absenteeism
Death and Retirement

Advancement: Levelling

Your character can only gain new levels in-between game sessions. When you acquire enough experience points to gain a new level, continue gaining experience points as usual, but wait until the end of the game session to gain your new level. If you do not have time at the end of a game session to gain your new level, make sure to schedule time to do so before the next game session.

When you gain a new level, gain all of its benefits instantly, including new spell slots or newly-learned spells, even if the session ended in the middle of an encounter. Furthermore, if you are able to prepare one or more additional spells, you may do so instantly, although you cannot change your already-prepared spells.

(Back to Advancement)

Advancement: Absenteeism

Please inform the Game Master and the gaming group ahead of time if you will be absent from an upcoming game session, if you will be late to an upcoming game session, or if you will need to leave early from an upcoming game session.

Strictly more than half of all players must be present for a game session to take place. If there are not enough players, the game session will be cancelled. Regarding tardiness, if it is 15 minutes past the start of a game session and not enough players are present, the game session will be immediately cancelled.

If you are absent from a game session, your character fades into the background of the story. Your character is assumed to follow the adventuring party around, but your character cannot directly impact the game, and the game cannot directly impact your character. While absent, you do not receive any experience points or treasure except for treasure hoards and quest rewards.

Game session notes in the form of an adventuring journal are written by the Game Master and posted publicly. At the beginning of each game session, the previous session’s journal is read as a recap. If you are absent from a game session, it is your responsibility to read the game session notes that would have been recapped during the game sessions you missed, so make sure to schedule some time to do so. You are encouraged to keep your own notes regarding story elements, such as events that occur, characters you encounter, places you visit, objects you find, knowledge you gain, and so on. The adventuring journal written by the Game Master serves as a useful summary but is in no way exhaustive, and failure to keep your own notes will result in you potentially forgetting important details of the story.

(Back to Advancement)

Advancement: Death and Retirement

Experience points are considered to be a property of the player that carry over to the player’s current character. Thus, as long you are present at the gaming table, you gain experience points as they are awarded. If your character dies or retires during a game session, you continue to gain experience points during the game session as long as you are present at the gaming table, and your experience points transfer from your dead or retired character to your new character. Consult the Game Master when making a new character.

Unlike experience points, treasure and equipment is lost when your character dies or retires. Additionally, it is generally not possible for your teammates to recover the wealth and equipment of your dead or retired character for themselves. If you have enough experience points for your new character to start at 2nd level or higher, you start with additional wealth, which you can use to purchase additional mundane or magic equipment in addition to your normal 1st-level starting equipment. Consult the Game Master regarding your additional starting wealth.

(Back to Advancement)

Adventuring

Initiative
Going Unconscious
Movement
Falling

Adventuring: Initiative

Player characters roll initiative as normal. However, all other creatures controlled by a player do not roll initiative and instead share the initiative of their respective player character. Such creatures include pets, mounts, summoned creatures (including arcane familiars), sidekicks, hirelings, and so on. Summoned creatures can act on the same turn they were summoned.

Adventuring: Going Unconscious

The Lingering Injuries variant rule from the Dungeon Master’s Guide is great but introduces a lot of complexity, so a simpler rule is used instead that leverages the amazing and underutilized exhaustion mechanic:

You gain one level of exhaustion each time you drop to 0 hit points.
When you make a death saving throw, you may choose to gain two levels of exhaustion to reroll the death saving throw, using either result. You may do this multiple times per death saving throw.

These rules also apply to certain monsters and non-player characters:

Beasts, dragons, giants, humanoids, and monstrosities fall unconscious and gain one level of exhaustion upon dropping to 0 hit points and make death saving throws just as player characters do.
Constructs, oozes, plants, and undead are immediately destroyed upon dropping to to 0 hit points.
Celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends discorporate and eventually reform in their home plane upon dropping to 0 hit points in the Prime Material Plane, or are destroyed upon dropping to 0 hit points in their home plane.
Aberrations might fall in any of the above categories depending on the particular kind of aberration.

Adventuring: Movement

Movement on a grid uses the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rule for diagonal movement: every second diagonal grid tile of movement on a 5-foot square grid costs an additional 5 feet of movement.

Vertical movement is counted separately from horizontal movement, even when moving diagonally-upwards or diagonally-downwards. See taxicab geometry for more information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry).

When a creature is mounted on a larger creature, the “center of mass” method is used to determine that rider’s position and reach: the rider occupies the center-most 5-foot square in the mount’s space, or, if the mount’s center is an intersection, the rider occupies the four 5-foot squares that touch that intersection. For example, a Medium human riding a Large horse occupies the horse’s entire space. A Medium human riding a Huge elephant occupies only the elephant’s center square. A Medium human riding a Gargantuan brontosaurus occupies a 10-foot square space in the center of the brontosaurus’ space. In the case of the elephant and the brontosaurus, the Medium rider would need a reach weapon to attack creatures within 5 feet of the mount.

Adventuring: Falling

Regarding falling, the rules from the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything apply, with the following exception: at the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 50d6 (rather than 20d6).

Equipment

Encumbrance
Coinage
Wilderness
Ammunition
Thrown Weapons
Spell Scrolls
Magic Items

Equipment: Encumbrance

Track your encumbrance. A variant encumbrance rule is used, similar to that from the Player’s Handbook, but modified as follows.

A Small or Medium creature’s carrying capacity is its Strength score multiplied by 10. This is the weight in pounds that it can carry without penalty. For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity, while for a Tiny creature, halve its carrying capacity.

A creature can carry weight up to 1½ times its carrying capacity, but it becomes heavily encumbered if it carries weight in excess of its carrying capacity. A heavily encumbered creature has its speed reduced by 20 feet, cannot fly, and has disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. If a creature carries weight in excess of 1½ times its carrying capacity, in addition to being heavily encumbered, it falls prone and its speed is zero.

A creature can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to 1½ times its carrying capacity. However, while pushing or dragging weight in excess of its carrying capacity, its speed drops to 5 feet.

Armor types retain their Strength requirements, even with this variant encumbrance rule. If an armor type has a Strength requirement, the armor reduces the wearer’s speed by 10 feet unless the wearer has a Strength score equal to or higher than the listed score.

Equipment: Coinage

Keep track of how many copper pieces (cp), silver pieces (sp), gold pieces (gp), and platinum pieces (pp) you carry on your person. Electrum pieces (ep) are not used. 50 coins weigh 1 lb as usual. You can exchange coins for coins of different denominations in most settlements: 10 cp = 1 sp, 10 sp = 1 gp, and 10 gp = 1 pp.

Instead of carrying all of your coinage on your person, you may deposit excess coinage at a bank. Large cities are generally home to well-established and reputable banks. Consult the Game Master when doing so. Furthermore, most banks also feature safety deposit boxes, so in addition to depositing coinage, you may also deposit equipment at a bank for safekeeping.

Equipment: Wilderness

While adventuring in the wilderness, you must have the following equipment at minimum:

Suit of armor or traveler’s clothes (2 gp, 4 lb).
Backpack (2 gp, 5 lb).
Bedroll (1 gp, 7 lb).
Blanket (5 sp, 3 lb).
Mess kit (2 sp, 1 lb).
Waterskin (2 sp, 5 lb full or 1 lb empty).
Rations (5 sp, 2 lb per day) or access to a ready source of food.

Each adventurer must have their own copy of the above equipment. However, you can ask one of your companions to carry your equipment for you. While traveling through the wilderness, keep track of how many rations you have as you consume them each day. You also drink the contents of one or more waterskins per day depending on the climate, so you will usually need to find one or more sources of water each day.

Equipment: Ammunition

If you carry one standard bundle of mundane ammunition along with an appropriate container for this ammunition, it is assumed that you effectively have a limitless supply of ammunition of that type such that you do not need to keep track of its expenditure. Darts also follow this rule: if you have 10 darts, you are assumed to effectively have a limitless supply of darts. The following ammunition sets apply to this rule:

Bow: Quiver (1 gp, 1 lb) and 20 arrows (1 gp, 1 lb).
Crossbow: Crossbow bolt case (1 gp, 1 lb) and 20 crossbow bolts (1 gp, 1.5 lb).
Sling: Pouch (5 sp, 1 lb) and 20 sling bullets (4 cp, 1.5 lb).
Blowgun: Pouch (5 sp, 1 lb) and 50 blowgun needles (1 gp, 1 lb).
Darts: 10 darts (5 sp, 2.5 lb).

However, magical ammunition (such as a +1 arrow, +1 crossbow bolt, and so on) is expended as normal when used.

Equipment: Thrown Weapons

If you carry 5 copies of a melee weapon with the thrown property (such as 5 javelins, 5 handaxes, 5 daggers, and so on), you are assumed to have an effectively limitless supply of that weapon, such you do not need to keep track of how many you have thrown. This applies whether the 5 thrown weapons are mundane or magical.

Equipment: Spell Scrolls

Spell scrolls normally need to be carried in scroll cases that can each contain a few spell scrolls. However, counting scroll cases and tracking which spell scroll is in which scroll case is tedious and cumbersome. Instead, each spell scroll is assumed to simply be encased in a small lightweight container such that each spell scroll effectively weighs ¼ lb. Other than this, the usual rules apply for scribing and using spell scrolls.

Equipment: Magic Items

Most magic items have costs and can be purchased and sold. However, buyers and sellers of magic items can generally only be found in large cities, and certain magic items may be more difficult to obtain than others. Consult the Game Master whenever you wish to purchase or sell a magic item. For magic item costs and weights, see Consumable Magic Items and Permanent Magic Items. Some magic items do not have a listed cost; these magic items cannot be purchased, sold, or crafted.