Customizing Your Character

[Support Team]

CUSTOMIZING
YOUR CHARACTER
The rules for creating your character provide a common ground for
players, but you can tweak the rules to make your character unique.
Any substantive changes, however, must be approved by the DM.
Race: The rules for a character of a given race apply to most but
not all people of that race. For example, you could create a dwarf
descended from dwarven outcasts who have been exiled from
dwarven society. Your dwarf would have grown up among humans.
He would have the inborn qualities of a dwarf (better Constitution,
worse Charisma, darkvision,
and resistance to poison and
spells) but not the cultural
features (stonecunning, attack
bonuses against goblinoids and
orcs, dodge bonus against giants,
bonuses to Appraise and Craft
checks that relate to stone or
metal, fighter as favored class, and
perhaps even knowledge of the
dwarven language). You could
probably talk your DM into giving
your character some special bonuses
to balance the loss of the cultural
features.
Class: Some classes already give you
plenty of room to customize your
character. With your DM’s approval,
however, you could change some of your
class features. For instance, if you want a
fighter who used to work for the thieves
guild as an enforcer but who is now trying
to become a legitimate bodyguard, he could
be proficient only with the weapons and
armor available to rogues, have 4 skill points
per level instead of 2, and access to Bluff and
Sense Motive as class skills. Otherwise, he
would be a regular fighter.
Skills and Feats: You can call your skills,
feats, and class features whatever your character
would call them. Lidda, the halfling rogue, talks
about “footpaddin’ ” rather than about “moving
silently,” so her player writes “Footpaddin’ ”
down on her character sheet to stand for the
Move Silently skill. Ember, the monk, calls her
Move Silently skill “Rice Paper Walk.”
You might also think of other skills that your
character ought to have. Your DM has guidelines
(in the Dungeon Master’s Guide) for creating new
skills.
Equipment: Your equipment can look the way
you want it to look to match your character’s style.
One wizard’s quarterstaff might be a plain, straight
length of wood, while another wizard’s is gnarled, twisted, and
engraved with mystic runes.
Your character might have some items that aren’t on the equipment
lists (see Chapter 7). Agree with your DM on what a new item
would do and how much it would cost, and then your character can
have it.
Sometimes you see a weapon in a movie or read about one in a
book, and you want your character to use that weapon. If it’s not on
the weapon list in Chapter 7, try to find a weapon on the list that
seems equivalent. A katana (samurai sword), for example, is not on
the weapon list, but you could equip your character with a katana
and just treat it like a masterwork bastard sword.