Racial and Cultural Factors

(How To Pick Your PC's Race And Then Pick Their Culture)

OVERVIEW: Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons Racial Factors and Cultural Factors have been separated in this work so players may more easily pick their PC's race, THEN pick their PC's culture, which may be different, all while maintaining game balance. This article attempts to spell out details following the suggestions on page 94 (Customizing Your Character) of 3e's PH. Furthermore, new races and subraces fill out the list of standard choices. Some rule adjustments were required and have been made.

Why Is This Important?

I'm of a mind that Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons - or 3e for short - seriously failed in certain aspects in their approach to character generation. Of particular concern was the way they seemed to have freely categorized racial and cultural factors together as if they were one and the same thing, and subsequently misclassified them all as simply RACIAL. This made it difficult to mix and match races and cultures, like having a dwarf raised in human society or an elf raised by halflings, etc. True, they did suggest later on - past the actual chapters on race and class and finally on page 94 - one could customize such things for a better fit, but they didn't really give detailed steps or complete examples for each race and culture on how to do this, particularly in regards to the problems of maintaining game balance. They left it wide open for the DM to figure out for them self, and it's not always an easy thing to do. Hopefully, this article will help DMs and Players more quickly find game balance in their campaigns while allowing them to customize their PCs and mix differing races and cultures together.

To make matters more difficult, their basic approach to game balance for the standard rules - almost necessitated by their unrealistic method of multiclassing - proved woefully inadequate. For example, experience point penalties for unrealistic reasons like 'uneven levels,' is one problem. The justification for favored classes used in some ways but ignored in others - like how elves are gifted wizards but apparently take an average of 21 years longer to learn that class - is another. And added 'extras' given only to humans to try to balance things without adequate justification for how this works by somehow affecting the learning of only skills and feats while not seeming to affect other cognitive abilities is yet another problem. There are a host of other similar contrivances that made the problems of character generation seem badly devised and poorly play tested on roleplaying fronts.

With board games, it makes little difference since your 'game pieces' don't question their own existence, but for a roleplaying game, it left something to be desired since your characters should ask such questions. One might be oblivious to such problems or just consider them too subtle to bother with, or even more likely, simply ignore them if they wish, mostly under the theory that 'it's a game and doesn't have to make sense.' But I'd rather not ignore such problems when one may yet endeavor to correct them with relative ease.

Since much of 3e had some rather nice improvements, I thought it worthwhile to fix some of the obvious problems so the rest of it could still be used by those with a roleplaying philosophy closer to my own. If this is you, you may find this article of use. If this is not you, then I'm a little surprised you are even reading this, even if you may find some things of worth in other areas.

If you are still wondering what I'm talking about, quite simply, I had serious reservations with 3e as it was released concerning how some of these factors would impact upon the realm of ROLEPLAYING your PC as you saw fit, while simultaneously adhering to the logical consequences of certain stated notions within the rules. Notions, I might add, seemingly only tossed in to try to balance things or help fix badly designed rules in other areas. That is, their poorly designed system was out of balance, and to fix it they threw in sloppy rules in ways such that the rules themselves could be discerned on the character level, thus revealing the Gamer's Footprint.

The Gamer's Footprint (Why Some Rules Designed For Game Balance Leave Something To Be Desired.)

In short, I felt it could have been done better. Therefore, this is my first attempt to fix some of the more obvious problems surrounding character generation and the game balance problems that are inherent therein. I felt one should be free to use characters of one race that have been raised in a different culture without fearing that mini-maxers and/or inexperienced newbies would constantly abuse this and play only powerful race/culture combinations, thus ruining game balance. For the serious roleplayer, the point isn't to somehow get the best of both worlds and avoid any drawbacks or penalties, but to have more interesting choices as possibilities for their character concepts.

To this end, I have separated true racial abilities from the more cultural ones, adjusted a few rules, and tried to explain them and how they operate in a more realistic way. Here, truly racial traits are probably more genetically based, while other traits are more likely culturally derived and due more to nurture rather than nature. I tried to bring a better and more natural game balance to it all without forcing it on the game world by using unrealistic rules or clearly artificial constraints. Or put another way, I tried to better cover the footprints of the Gamer so our characters couldn't as easily see them.

Even if you feel these problems are not detrimental to your game, you may yet find something useful here in the added PC race selection since I added some new races and subraces to the standard list of choices for PCs, or you may find a few of the other house rules useful. If your DM has no objection to the inclusion of such a race on their world, these new races and sub races may find an interactive place in your game world's environment. And some of these house rules do add more realism without unnecessarily bogging the game down, so they're worth inclusion.

I hope you will at least find some of my labors useful, and I trust they will mesh well with the rest of 3e without any great additional effort. The hardest part for you will be ignoring certain 'standard' rules that will no longer be applicable.

The basic gist of this article, then, is to pick your PC's race and write down its racial adjustments, and then pick your PC's cultural background - which may or may not match their race - and write down those cultural adjustments. More often than not, your PC's race and cultural background will match, as in an elf growing up in an elven culture, or a dwarf being raised in a dwarven culture, etc. But this isn't always necessary, so this article helps players mix races and cultures for their PCs while simultaneously keeping a handle on the problems of game balance.

In addition to the main topic of racial and cultural mixes, certain rules have been altered to be, I hope, more realistic, more logical, and quite natural. Part of the reason for this article's length is due to the inclusion of explanations - as complete as I can reasonably make them - for why I feel 3e's rules came up short and how and why I feel the proposed rules are better. Of particular importance will be the N level rule, pre-aging your multiclass PC, changes to starting ages, and more realistic rules in regards to increasing your PC's statistic scores while gaining levels. And at the end, I make a few notes on rule changes concerning CLASSES.

The N Level Rule

Age: Starting Ages And Adjustments To Your PC's Age.

Increasing Ability Scores

Naturally, DMs will still have to allow or disallow the extra races or any other changes for their own worlds, but if they care about such things as I do, then I think this will not be a problem. Still, you should ask first before assuming you can show up with a PC from a new race here or following new rules and simply be allowed to play it.

CHOOSING A RACE

A number of races and sub races are alphabetically presented here for your consideration. It is not my intent to reproduce chapter two of 3e's PH or PHB, or major cultural descriptions that may be found in some Monstrous Manual, but only to make apparent the major differences between the standard write ups and the write ups given herein. Thus, much of what the PHB or other sources have to say about a race is probably true, though some of it will surely no longer be applicable or even correct, and where such deviation occur should be obvious.

ABILITY ADJUSTMENTS

These house rules assume that no starting adjustments will take any PC's STARTING statistic score below 3 or above 18. Therefore, when given an adjustment to make due to one's race or culture, if this raises your PC's stat above 18, it will simply remain at 18. Similarly, if it lowers it below 3, it will simply remain at 3. If you have other adjustments to make, they are unaffected by this, so you get no refunds and can't use them elsewhere. For example, if your PC's INT is 18 and you get +2 INT for your race, it will be 18 and that +2 is just lost. You do not get to add it elsewhere on another attribute score.

NOTE: One should still go above 18 or below 3 and keep these numbers until ALL adjustments are done. Only when you are finished with all beginning adjustments will any 19's or higher become 18's, and any 2's or lower becomes 3's. Thus, if you had an 18 INT, for example, and +2 to INT, but later also had a -1 to INT for a different reason, you would first go to 20, then to 19, and then end up at 18 when you finish character generation, instead of staying at 18 and then being reduced to 17. In this way, the order of the adjustments does not matter. This does not mean, however, that after character generation, one still really has a hidden higher ability or maintains a few invisible points in reserve. So if some curse during the game zapped your PC's INT by one point, it would become 17.

Recall, this is for STARTING statistics only. One may still go above 18 or below 3 later in life. And though the occasional NPC can be found to have a stat that starts above 18 or below 3, we will simply assume no PC will be amongst these phenomenally rare individuals. The PCs are already, more often than not, pretty impressive as it is.

NOTE: This rule means there is no special rule on starting statistics for half-orcs now since this rule applies to all PC races equally.

NOTES ON CHARISMA

Charisma (CHA) is partially persuasiveness, perception, trust, familiarity, confidence, and just plain good looks, as subjective as that may be. Though CHA is more than just these things, since these things are a large component of it, each sentient race will view a member of another known sentient race as if their CHA score were 2 points lower than it really is. This is due to the fact that one never fully appreciates the 'good looks' of another race - which is one of the reasons why one is more apt to be sexually attracted to a member of one's own race due to visual cues - and the fact one is less inclined to trust a member of another intelligent race as much as a member of their own race.

If you attempt to use a CHA based skill like Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform, or even sometimes Use Magic Device on a member of another race who has better than animal intelligence, or just make a simple CHA roll vs. another of such a race, be sure to calculate your roll based on your PC's adjusted CHA score at -2. Remember the CHA ability statistic is at -2, and not the roll.

NOTE: Rather than consult the table, just remember a -2 penalty to a statistic score is ALWAYS the same as a -1 to their normal skill roll. This is because the table goes in increments of 2. 10-11, 12-13, 14-15, etc.

For example, Jenny (human female rogue) tries to BLUFF her way past some dwarven guards. Her CHA is naturally 14 so her Bluff skill is normally based on this and normally gets a +2 bonus (PHB, Page 8). But the dwarves are more inclined to distrust her since she is not a member of their own race, so her bluff roll is calculated as if her CHA were 2 less, or 12 in this case. Her ranks in this skill still apply as normal, but her bonus vs. these dwarves now only has a +1 bonus instead of a +2 bonus as if her CHA score were 12, not 14.

Or more simply, anyone's CHA based rolls are -1 to the roll when dealing with a member of a different race.

For the most part, the standard adjustments to CHA scores during character generation for 'race' are pretty unrealistic. A dwarf, for example, is unlikely to find another dwarf less charismatic simply because of their race. There may be, however, cultural components that might still justify such adjustments, but they are cultural and not racial. If a culture has them, it will be noted in their cultural section.

THE CHARISMA ADJUSTMENT FOR
MIXING RACE AND CULTURE

One IMPORTANT new rule will apply to ALL characters whose race and culture does not match. Growing up in a mismatched or 'alien' culture will AUTOMATICALLY give your PC a -2 to their CHA statistic above and beyond any other adjustments (a min. of 3 still holds here). This is not just perception, but a real, permanent adjustment. Why? Feeling alone, isolated, different, and just an odd duck will make one less certain of themselves, less certain of fitting in, and less out going. Maturing at a different rate also plays a large part here if your PC's friends grew up quicker than your character or vice versa, or your PC even out lives their adopted parents before they reach maturity (perhaps growing up under the care of a sibling or even another couple or guardian, possibly passed around for several generations). Finally, feelings of racism in the population at large will likely be directed now and again at your PC since they are in an alien culture.

All these factors tend to degrade one's confidence at least to a small degree (-2 to CHA). This natural inclination toward introversion and away from extroversion is why an individual growing up in a culture - other than the natural one for their race - will incur this -2 CHA penalty during character generation. This will be one of the factors to help maintain game balance, but it also makes sense on the IC (In Character) level, which is important for roleplaying and roleplayers and a deterrent for mini maxers.

NOTE: This rule does not normally apply to half-folk, such as halfelves growing up in human or elven cultures or half-orcs growing up in human or orcish cultures, since their write ups already assume such things and they do fit in better and are more accepted than totally alien races. So halfelves growing up in human cultures or elven cultures do not incur a -2 CHA penalty, and similarly half-orcs growing up in orcish cultures or human cultures are free of this penalty. They would, however, get this penalty if they grew up in a culture that belonged to NEITHER of their parents. For example, a halfelf growing up in the dwarven culture WOULD get a penalty to CHA of -2.

The DM may adjust this for any character. They may rule a half-folk character should have a -1 penalty anyway (more than normal), or some character should have only a -1 penalty instead of -2 (less than normal) if they grew up in a section of a city that was significantly large and culturally distinct, like China Town or Little Italy, as such minorities may be large enough there so one doesn't feel AS culturally isolated, thus receiving only a -1 penalty instead of -2. For example, with DM permission, an elf growing up in a human culture, though in a section of the city with many elves, may only incur a -1 penalty instead of the normal -2 penalty. This should only be done if the DM has already decided such culturally distinct areas of a city exist, and they should never make one just to help mini maxers get around penalties.

FAVORED CLASSES

The normal rules on favored classes mostly involve being free of a certain experience point penalties in multiclassing. These penalties were apparently applied to prevent abuses in the unrealistic multiclass system by discouraging the easy practice of taking a single level in a class one didn't really want to play just to gain its benefits. By using the N level rule, they are no longer applicable under this system. So Favored Class no longer means a way to avoid xp penalties for multiclass characters since those penalties no longer exist. It WILL, however, mean something else.

Some races or some cultures may have an advantage for a particular class. If this advantage is cultural, and not racial, this will mean your 1st level character will start with 500 experience points (xp) instead of 0 xp in that class IF they grew up in that culture and IF they choose that class as their first class. This is the head start their culture gives them. If they take such a class as their second class, they do not get this bonus.

On the other hand, if it is a bona fide racial affinity, this means your PC will gain a 5% experience point bonus for all xp used toward his or her Favored Class. If they use the xp for a non-favored class, they will not gain the 5% bonus for that class.

This rules assumes, of course, a player clearly states their intentions as to what class they are currently working on. So, for example, it is wrong to accumulate xp for months and months and after gaining sufficient xp to go up a level, then and only then deciding what class to spend it on. This would be like going to college for 4 years and on graduation day, finally deciding what your 'major' field of study would be. It's a problem of 'sudden development' that most roleplayers would like to avoid. Thus, you must tell your DM what class you are working on after going up EACH level. The N level rule, however, helps here insofar as you initially learn each new class in blocks of N levels each so you don't have to inform the DM as often.

Finally, if your PC has both racial and cultural advantages toward a favored class, your PC will get both the +500 xp to start (if that is their first class), and +5% to all subsequent awarded xp toward that favored class.

RACE AND LANGUAGE, LITERACY
AND CLASS-RELATED LANGUAGES

Actual language is a cultural thing (not racial). All PCs (though not necessarily all NPCs) automatically will know the Common language. Growing up in some non-human cultures, your PC will learn that culture's primary language for free. For each INT bonus point, your PC may learn an additional language for free from that culture's list of languages and/or their first chosen class's class-related list of languages. If they choose these languages during character generation, these bonus languages are free. If they do not choose them at that time, it will be assumed they need to pay for them later with skill points since it is harder to learn languages later in life.

NOTE: The only reason why one would not take all languages possible are roleplaying ones. For example, you may wish to play a character who only knows one language for some reason, or wouldn't have bothered to learn more, or just wasn't given that opportunity. Roleplaying is not all about getting maximum bonuses since playing some disadvantages can be fun, too.

NOTE: If your DM feels nothing is free, each language beyond Common and one native language may still cost you 2 skill points, or 1 skill point, or whatever your DM says it will cost. Some DMs do like a different, less educated, less advanced feel for their campaigns, and illiteracy may be quite high, and differences in language and problems with communications may be important aspects of their gaming style. Thus, nothing is free.

The DM may agree another language selection other than these standard cultural ones would somehow have been available for your PC to learn, so you may have that as a choice as well. You will need to ask for your DM's approval first before taking such a language.

After character generation, your PC may still learn additional languages, but this is considered a rather difficult subject and is therefore a cross-class skill (except for bardic study where they have a gift with languages or have special instruction). It will therefore take 2 skill points to learn each new language for non-bard levels.

It will be assumed all PCs are Literate if they wish to be. One may read and write in EACH language they can speak.

SPECIAL RULES ON BARBARIANS AND LITERACY

NOTE: 'Barbarian' is not a race and may not even be a class so much as a possible subculture within each culture. As such, they have special rules. Barbarians, for example, will be limited to two spoken languages, Common and one more, as a sort of penalty for the subculture that likely spawned the barbarian, or just their limited opportunities to learn such things, so barbarians never start with more than two languages, no matter how intelligent they may be. Barbarians will be assumed to know how to read and write in Common. Even then, barbarians only know how to speak their second language and not read or write in it. They may NOT learn additional languages unless they forever give up further advancement in this class.

Though barbarians know how to read and write in the Common language, even then they only know how in a rather simplistic manner (like a third grade reading level). Yes, this is a rule change. It becomes necessary in case barbarians wish to multiclass since no class can be illiterate except barbarian, so this handles this problem.

It will also be assumed that a barbarian may never take the following classes: Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard. Furthermore, if they do take cleric, they are limited to 7th level unless they learn how to read other languages besides Common. If they do eventually wish to forgo being a barbarian, they may take these classes but may never again rise further in level as a barbarian, leaving that brutish life behind for a more scholarly and civilized approach to life. They will still retain their old barbarian skills, but will not gain new ones. To do this, they may spend 1 more skill point to become literate in all languages they know (and read at a higher level than third grade) and may learn languages at the normal rate, just as other classes do. They may then take Bard, Sorcerer, or Wizard, and even Cleric with no level limits, once they learn how to read well and give up ever returning to their barbarous ways.

CROSS CLASS SKILLS

Remember, skills are considered cross-class skills unless they belong to the class in which you are currently rising. For example, if your PC is part bard but goes up a level as a wizard, the skill points your PC receives for THAT level are wizard skill points, and if your PC takes another language at that time with those points, despite being part bard, this language will be a cross-class skill and cost 2 points.

NOTE: If the DM wishes a less sophisticated culture or world, then NO class will automatically assumed to be able to read and write for free and ALL PCs must pay 1 skill point for literacy if they wish to read and write. Furthermore, certain classes - Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard - must have this skill and must then pay for it on such a world, even if other classes may get by without it. And Clerics who do not read are limited to 7th level. If Clerics learn to read before 8th level, this limit is removed.

NOTE: Another house rule you may wish to explore doesn't use cross class skills, but considers all skills equally. Only your PC's aptitude (stats and key abilities) will determine how many skill points acquiring a new skill will cost. Follow the link below to read that house rule:

The Problem Of Cross Class Skills (A Better Method For Determining Costs Of Class and Cross-Class Skills)

RACES AND CULTURES

Below, each link will take one to a particular race's section where you will find the pertinent details on a race's truly RACIAL adjustments, and these are immediately followed by that same race's normal CULTURAL adjustments. If your PC's race and culture match, just write down both sets of adjustments. Remember that all stats to begin with will be limited to a maximum of 18 and a minimum of 3 no matter how many adjustments they may have.

MIXING RACE AND CULTURE

If both you and your DM agree you can play a character whose race and culture does not match, then your job is to first choose your PC's race and adjust your PC's stats and abilities due to their race. Next, you subtract 2 from your PC's CHA statistic (min. of 3 still applies), and then go to the appropriate race's cultural section. Find the cultural section (not the racial section of that race) and write down your PC's adjustments due to their adopted culture.

In this way, each character has one set of racial adjustments (due to their race) and one set of cultural adjustments (due to the culture in which they were raised).

A good back-story is usually appreciated for how your PC came to be raised in an alien culture, so I suggest you write one for your PC. Actually, I suggest ALL PCs have a good back-story, but for a PC with a cross between their race and culture, it is even more important than most. Though DMs will likely give you time to invent this story - and not demand you have it before you can start playing - you should eventually have time to make something unique and interesting.

AGE

Keep in mind the fact there are sometimes huge differences in preadolescent aging rates. One of the best examples is an elf growing up in a human culture. Since the elven child may take well over 100 years to mature, they are likely to be in the human culture for 3 to 6 generations, perhaps being handed down from human step parent to human child, to their child, to their child, etc., until 100 years or more have passed.

I have adjusted the starting ages for some races for various reasons, so pay attention since there will be some minor differences.

Finally, be mindful of the rule changes in regards to humans, skill and feat acquisition, and stat adjustments as one goes up in levels. Even if you choose not to play a human, or a PC who grows up in a human culture, I highly recommend you read the section on humans.

The List Of Possible Player Character Races