Player's Handbook Chapter 6

Okay, so this chapter rounds out the character details; equipment comes next, so this is the character's alignment, religion, vital statistics, looks, personality and background. Then you get to go shopping for stuff to beat monsters up with.

So, we start with the alignment. This is unchanged from prior editions; it's the nine-point alignment system with law-neutral-chaos and good-neutral-evil axes. There is a chart that shows the alignment tendencies of the classes and different creatures that will be appearing in the Monster Manual in a couple of months. Some of them are marked in italics, which means that they are always of that alignment; there's no option to change it. For example, demons are always chaotic evil no matter what. unicorns are always chaotic good, and animals of any sort are always neutral. Interestingly, half-elves and half-orcs both have a tendency to being chaotic neutral. I'm not sure why they put humans at 'neutral', since humans have the widest alignment range possible (they can be anything).

The alignment descriptions include a 'this alignment is best because' paragraph which details the most pertinent points that might be attractive to a player's idea of their character. It's a nice touch.

Next is the religion section, including the list of deities. These are deities from the World of Greyhawk, most of them dating back to either Deities & Demigods in the case of the nonhuman deities, or Dragon magazine articles and the World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983) for the rest. Pelor is the only one that wasn't part of the original writeups. There's a wide selection to choose from, and most classes have a couple of deities that are suitable for their practitioners to worship. Druids are pretty much stuck with Obad-Hai, paladins with Hieroneous, and illusionists with Boccob for some reason. Other wizards can choose from a few, but not illusionists. Weird. From the list of deities for the different races, it looks like Ehlonna is the big winner, being recommended for every race except dwarves and half-orcs. Gnomes, elves and halflings all have some Ehlonna worshipers among their number, apparently. Good for her.

Knowing the original Greyhawk setting and the deities to a degree, I found some notable things in this list. First, some of these deities are originally from the Suel pantheon, specifically Kord and Wee Jas. Here, they're just part of the deity grouping. I suppose that makes sense, since 3rd edition isn't explicitly set in Greyhawk anyway. So the core books just give a nice selection to give players a starting point. I'm sure they'll do a more detailed discussion of the deities in the Greyhawk material that does come out later on.

The deity descriptions do include favored weapons for their clerics, and some of them can give their clerics the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat so they can be used. Oh, and Hieroneous used to be a paladin with an axe instead of a sword; now he's just using a boring old sword. How disappointing that they changed that; it made Hieroneous a bit more interesting to have him prefer an axe to a sword.

Alright, now it's vital statistics. Name, gender, age, height and weight are the categories. As mentioned in the chapter on races, there are some sample names given for each race in their descriptions. Gender is about as basic as it gets. Age can be chosen or randomly generated. Interestingly enough, elves have been de-aged a bit from earlier editions. In 1st edition, an elf could outlive a dragon by several centuries (1600+ years). Here, they are restricted to a maximum of 750 years with the best possible rolls for maximum age. Half-orcs once again get the shaft, living to the ripe old age of 80 with incredible luck on the dice rolls. Otherwise, though, the character's age can be determined by random roll based on their race and class; clerics and wizards start out significantly older than barbarians and sorcerers. All characters start at 'adulthood' plus a die roll, although for humans that's only 15 years (so the youngest a human character can be is 16).

Height and weight are linked; your weight will be determined by your height to a certain degree. It's possible to be a tall, skinny guy, or a short, fat stump of a character, but in general the taller you are, the heavier you'll be. Height is calculated from a base number based on the character's race and gender, plus a dice roll (2dX depending on the race). The height modifier is rolled and added to the base height. The height modifier comes into effect when calculating the weight as well, since you multiply the height modifier by a random weight modifier to get the final additional modifier to the base weight. So, you could have a halfling female who is 2'8" tall and weights 27 pounds, or you might end up with a half-orc man standing 6'6" and weighing 290 lbs. Those are about as extreme as it gets.

Finally, we have looks, personality and background. None of these include random generation; pick it yourself. Easy enough. Once all of that is completed, you then have the opportunity to customize your character. Not the stats or abilities, but the flavor of the character. So you might call a feat or skill something else; the example given is Lidda the halfling rogue, who instead of 'moving silently' uses the term 'footpaddin'. Meanwhile, Ember the monk has the same skill, but calls it Rice Paper Walk. But she's not Asian, remember.

So, with all that said, let's customize and finish detailing my half-orc ranger. Let's start with his alignment. I don't like playing evil characters, and I've always thought of rangers as being the good guys. So, even though there are no alignment restrictions for 3e rangers, I'm going to keep him as Good. But since he's a half-orc, I'll stick with Chaotic Good. He's a free-spirited ranger who does what he thinks is right regardless of what society thinks. Yeah, that works.

Now for his religious affiliation. The suggested half-orc deity is Gruumsh. If he was neutral, I'd consider it, but Gruumsh is not a nice deity by any stretch of the imagination. So, let's look at rangers. The choices here are Ehlonna (she is quite popular, isn't she?) and Obad-Hai. Ehlonna is neutral good, and she's described as being close to elves and forest races. I'm not quite sure about this one; she doesn't seem to fit with the half-orc mentality. Obad-Hai is neutral, and sticks to that...well, religiously. I think he's a slightly better fit for a half-orc ranger, so we'll go with that.

Next, his vital statistics, starting with his name. I'm going to call him Relgar Bloodhawk, just because it sounds cool for a ranger. Bloodhawks were a creature in the 1st edition Fiend Folio, so...yeah. Relgar it is. Obviously, he's male. I'll randomly roll his age, and I get to roll 1d6 and add it to his base age of 14. A 4 means he's 18 years old.

Height and weight are next. His height modifier is +2d10, which turns out to be a 15, so he's taller than the average. Adding that to his 4'10" base, he ends up being 6'1" in height. His weight modifier is 2d4, which ends up being a 4. Multiplying that by his height modifier of 15, that adds another 60 pounds to his base of 130, so he's 190 lbs. That sounds about right for a burly half-orc.

Looks...well, he's a half-orc with a Charisma of 7, so he's not winning any beauty contests. Half-orcs are described as having 'grey pigmentation, sloping forehead, jutting jaw, prominent teeth, and coarse body hair', and I see no reason to deviate from that. There's also a note that orcs love scars, and half-orcs can have different opinions on them based on how they were raised. Hmmm...I'll think about it some more.

His personality? Well, he's a bit abrasive, to say the least. I think I'll do his background first, which will give me a better feel for him.

So, Relgar Bloodhawk was born in the forest. Not to a human and an orc through some violent encounter like so many are conceived, but rather to a pair of half-orc parents who loved each other and married. That's a bit different, isn't it? So Relgar grew up an only child and learned how to fight from his barbarian father, but also learned the ways of nature from his druid mother. He had little contact with others; his parents had been adventurers, but had retired once they had met and married. Unable to fit into either orc or human society, they went off on their own to raise their son. They still had occasional contact with their former adventuring friends, although it was sporadic. Life was hard, but not brutal; his parents were not evil, after all, and they loved their son. Relgar grew up strong and wise, and mastered the arts of woodcraft and survival.

When he was 14, his world came crashing down around him as his parents were killed in a raid by an ogre tribe that was rampaging in the forest. Relgar escaped his parents' fate by pretending to fall to his death into a river. In fact, he was able to reach a safe place and escape the ogres. When he returned home, it had been destroyed and his parents' treasures looted. Vowing revenge on the ogres that had killed his parents, he sought out one of his mother's adventuring companions, a ranger who agreed to train Relgar to master the ways of the forest to a greater degree. After a few years, he is ready to seek out the ogres that killed his parents and gain his vengeance.

That's a good start. I don't see the point of writing a multi-page background for a 1st-level character; there are enough adventuring hooks and ideas in those two paragraphs to make Relgar's life interesting going forward. Besides, it's what comes next that is important, not what happened before.

Okay, so now we can look at his personality a bit more closely. Relgar is, as mentioned, abrasive, but his parents taught him not to judge people based on their looks. He has some trust issues, and is uncomfortable dealing with people thanks to his near-isolation growing up. He absolutely hates ogres, of course, and will go to great lengths to kill any he encounters. Having been raised by a druid and a barbarian, he has a fondness for the wilderness, and knows quite a bit about forest life, both plant and animal. He is uncomfortable in more civilized settings, especially cities, and he has the social graces of a pregnant water buffalo. But he will be a loyal companion and will not hesitate to do whatever he thinks is right, including protecting the innocent from harm.

For customization, I'm not going to do too much of that, at least not with the game mechanics stuff. I'll consider doing so for his equipment, though, which we'll get to in the next chapter. Until then...game on.