Character Creation

# Building Your West Marches Character

There are some slight changes when building a character for a West Marches campaign. Certain feats, spells, and abilities may differ slightly to suit the gritty, exploration based style of the game.

Each player can have up to three characters in existence at any given time. New characters are always built at the lowest level of the tier of the highest level character.

### 1. Roll Ability Scores

Character ability scores can be generated by roll 4d6 and dropping the lowest *or* taking a standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

**All scores must be rolled in Roll20. You cannot roll on D&D Beyond or in a third-party app.**

You cannot choose to take the standard array after rolling your scores *unless* you have no scores of 13 or above.

Starting scores cannot be higher than 18 in any one score. This is *after* racial ability modifiers.

You may 'burn' a stat down to increase another at a cost of 2 for 1. For example, you could turn a 17 into a 15 in order to put a +1 to a score elsewhere.

### 2. Select Race

Any race from a licensed Wizards of the Coast book may be used.

Races from third party supplements - even those in the Google Drive - require prior DM approval.

When assigning racial ability modifiers, you may assign these to whatever ability you like, although the +2 and +1 both need to go to different abilities.

Variant humans and Tasha's Custom Lineage are not allowed. Races with a flying speed are not available before level 5.

#### A Note on Darkvision

D&D 5e's hard-on for giving everybody *darkvision* doesn't exactly jive with the old-school feel of a West Marches campaign.

With that in mind, races with darkvision will now have low-light vision (see below), while races with superior darkvision will have darkvision.

Goblins, kobolds, gnomes, dwarves, and other subterranean creatures retain darkvision.

**Low Light Vision**: A character with low-light vision sees in low light as if it were bright light.

### 3. Select Class

Any class from a licensed Wizards of the Coast product may be used.

Unearthed Arcana and classes from other third party supplements - even those in the Google drive - require prior DM approval.

#### A Note on Multiclassing

Multi-classing will be allowed, but the following classes **cannot** be taken at later levels without a well-established in-game reason: Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard.

Bear this in mind when choosing your character class, as trainers for these classes (or opportunities to gain patrons/innate powers) are incredibly rare in the Savage Frontier.

#### Rangers and Getting Lost

The rangers' Natural Explorer ability has been tweaked somewhat as below:

*When you are in the wilderness, you can at any time retrace your steps exactly the way you came, until you return to the Town. Once you return to the Town, this ability resets.*

### 4. Select Background

Any background from a licensed Wizards of the Coast product may be used.

Unearthed Arcana and classes from other third party supplements - even those in the Google drive - require prior DM approval.

When adding your Background to your character sheet, **do not add your character's background feature**. Many of these break West Marches campaigns, so it is easier to ban them all than to ban a select few.

### 5. Select Alignment & Deity

You ***must*** select an alignment at character creation. This is an important decision, as certain spells (such as Protection from Evil & Good) will have an in-game effect based on your alignment.

For religious characters (clerics and paladins) and warlocks, your alignment must be **no more than one step** from the alignment of your chosen deity/patron.

Clerics and paladins **require** a deity, while other characters can opt to make note of one.

Evil alignments are not allowed without prior DM consultation.

### 6. Equipment

You may start with your choice of character equipment or you may roll for starting wealth.

All standard equipment as well as equipment from the Comprehensive Equipment Manual (see Google Drive) can be purchased.

Firearms are not available in this campaign. An exception *may* be made for artificers or gunslingers.

All players may also start with a trinket of their choosing from the Player's Handbook (pg. 160).

Additional equipment may be purchased between or during sessions from the inventory listed in Goldar's Emporium/Muredach's Smithy.

**Any purchases made need to be sent to the DM, as Hope has a limited inventory.**

### 7. Level

All starting characters begin at level 1 or, at later levels, at the lowest level from the current tier of your lowest level character.

If you have a character die, your new character will begin at the lowest level within that character's 'tier'.

* Tier 1: 1 - 4
* Tier 2: 5 - 10
* Tier 3: 11 - 15
* Tier 4: 16 - 20
* Tier 5: 20+

### 8. Why Are You Here?

Your character should have a reason for being in the Savage Frontier and a reason why they would want to work with others.

Edgy loners will not work in a campaign built around cooperative exploration, nor will characters with no reason to remain indefinitely in these dangerous lands.

Beyond that, be as descriptive with your backstory as you like. While I cannot guarantee I can weave it in (as all action is player driven), I will do my best to weave in elements where I can.

### 9. Feats & Idle Talents

Feats may be taken in place of an Ability Score Increase starting at level 4.

The Lucky feat requires DM approval, as do all third party and Unearthed Arcana feats.

You can find Daerdan's Class Feats (1 & 2), Feats Don't Fail Me Now, and a variety of other feats online. The Enchiridion of the West Marches also has feats specific to the style of game.

Each character should also select an idle Talent from the Rest for the Weary document in the Google Drive. As we are using Gritty Realism, these will be vital to ensure you are able to survive the adventuring experience.