Player Handout
Player Handout
This handout is intended to give you an idea of the world you are entering, the source books and materials available to you, and any special rules or other things in place.
Only the materials listed as permitted here are 100% guaranteed to be allowed in game, other materials may be suggested to the DM for review.
While this handout lays out what's allowed and what's not in terms of character creation, you should look at the character creation guide to get a better sense of what is needed and expected for character creation.
World/Campaign Details
The world of Xalvion is full of mystery and wonder. Home to a plethora of races and civilizations, Xalvion is a world founded and driven by the arcane. This drive was ever expanded upon by the ushering in of the Arcane era, a new age of the world where magic is more common and much more welcome. This new era came about after a group of powerful spellcasters began studying the foundations of magic and finding ways to shape it without the use of runestones and paintings. This event caused many changes throughout the world as these spellcasters decided to share their knowledge with the world in their travels whilst also using it to change the world physically around them, causing the lands themselves to be infused with magic which in turn caused much of the land to grow more exotic and varied. This campaign takes nearly 2000 years after the founding of the Arcane era, it is currently 1732 AE. Your party all met whilst you were all looking for some lodging in a tavern after some adventuring on your own, and after some inital introductions and small talk you decided to help eachother and become an adventuring party in hopes of becoming great adventurers.
Deity List
The deities in this campaign are going to be the ones found in the PHB and DMG along with deities from real life. Players are welcome to have their characters worship one or more of these deities. Clerics are required to worship a deity that represents the divine domain they wish to follow. That being said, the deities that are found in this article here are the main pantheon of the world, any other gods from other pantheons (such as Thor or Zeus, etc) are just ones that have some influence in this realm and might not always be recognized by NPCs if you choose to worship a god from one of those pantheons.
Character Creation:
Races
- Player's Handbook: All Races and Subraces. Variant Human is allowed and encouraged. Drow are allowed as well but are a bit different in my setting, please look here for more information.
- Dungeon Master's Guide: Eladrin (Elven Subrace), Aasimar.
- Elemental Evil's Player's Companion: All Races and Subraces.
- Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: All Races and Subraces.
- Volo's Guide to Monsters: All Races and Subraces.
- Eberron: Rising from the Last War: All Races and Subraces. Races with Dragonmarks are allowed at the moment however that may change in the future depending on if I can fit them into the setting or not. If you are already playing a Dragonmarked character you do not need to worry, this will not affect you.
- Explorer's Guide to Wildemount: Pallid Elves, Lotus Den Halflings, and the DragonBorn variants are not allowed as they do not fit within the setting.
- Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes: Tiefling variants are allowed and encouraged.
- Unearthed Arcana: Please discuss with the DM first.
Classes
- Player's Handbook: All Classes.
- Dungeon Master's Guide: Death Domain Cleric and Oathbreaker Paladin are available under special circumstances.
- Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: All Archetypes are available.
- Matthew Mercer's Gunslinger Fighter Archetype.
- Matthew Mercer's Bloodhunter Class.
- Matthew Mercer's Way of the Cobalt Soul Monastic Tradition: Available however lore around this subclass will be slightly changed and the name will most likely be different in-game as it is setting specific.
- Matthew Mercer's Totem of the Duck option for Totem Warrior Barbarians.
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything: All Subclasses.
- Eberron: Rising from the Last War: Artificer.
- Unearthed Arcana: Please discuss with the DM first. As UA classes and subclasses are often unruly please do not be surprised if some changes need to be made to the chosen class/subclass for balancing reasons.
- My Homebrew: The Elementalist Class.
- Homebrew: Please discuss with the DM first. (Your DM may have a few homebrew options already prepared for you in case you don't have anything specific in mind so please feel free to ask him about them.)
- Pathfinder: Please discuss with your DM first.
- Any other source that I may have missed: If it's from an offical source it is most likely allowed though please let the DM know first so he can look it over.
Backgrounds
- Player's Handbook: All Backgrounds.
- Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: All Backgrounds except for the Uthgardt Tribe Member and Waterdhavian Noble.
- Eberron: Rising from the Last War: House Agent is not allowed as it is setting specific.
- Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica: No backgrounds except the Izzet Engineer are available from this book as they are all setting specific. If you choose this background however it will be a general engineer a part of a guild from my setting.
- Explorer's Guide to Wildemount: Volstrucker Agent and Grinner are not available as they are setting specific.
- Unearthed Arcana: Please discuss with the DM first.
- Homebrew: Please discuss with the DM first. (Your DM may have a few homebrew options already prepared for you in case you don't have anything specific in mind so please feel free to ask him about them.)
- Pathfinder: Please discuss with your DM first.
- Any other source that I may have missed: If it's from an offical source it is most likely allowed though please let the DM know first so he can look it over.
Background details should be discussed with the DM to ensure it fits with the world setting and so he can properly integrate it into the world (names of orders, if your family is a noble, etc.) If you are interested in using a Background from any of the disallowed backgrounds and have thought of a way to make it fit within the world, please do not hesitate to bring your idea to me, I will try my best to make it work. Additionally, Partisian and Qalikan are available as languages you can learn or choose as languages upon character creation along with those found in the PHB and other sourcebooks.
Alignment
Characters can be any alignment, but clerics and paladins are required to be within one alignment of their deity’s alignment (Ex. Cleric of a CN god can be N, NG, NE, or CN). That being said, if you play as an evil character you need to have a reason to be adventuring with the group as the majority are good and when a player or I say stop because you're doing something that's ruining others fun for the sake of roleplaying, you stop or you roll a new neutral or good character.
Spellcasting
All spells from the Player’s Handbook, EE Player's Companion, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and any other official sources are available. If you would like to use a homebrew or unearthed Arcana spell, please discuss with your DM. (Your DM may have a few homebrew options already prepared for you in case you don't have anything specific in mind so please feel free to ask him about them.) If you would like to use a spell from Pathfinder, please discuss with your DM.
Feats
All feats from offical sources are available for ASI or Variant Human with the exception of the Abberant Dragonmark feat from Eberron: Rising from the Last War as it does not fit within the setting. If you would like to use a homebrew or unearthed Arcana feat, please discuss with your DM. (Your DM may have a few homebrew options already prepared for you in case you don't have anything specific in mind so please feel free to ask him about them.) If you would like to use a feat from Pathfinder, please discuss with your DM.
Ability Scores
Player's all roll their scores with the standard 4d6 drop lowest, rules, however I am letting you reroll all stats 4 times just in case your roles are really bad. I am also allowing the reroll of HP upon level up, up to 4 times as well.
Rules:
Adventuring/Downtime Rules
Most of the rules provided in this part of the document are found in the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything, which goes into better detail than the few extra notes I am adding here. I am also using the Massive Professions homebrew variant rules for crafting of items, made by Benjamin Brews on DMsGuild.
- Starting Equipment: Characters will begin this campaign with the Starting Equipment provided by their class at creation. You may also roll or choose a Trinket from the Trinket table in the PHB for your character if you wish. Since I did not give you guys the trinket option when we started, you can roll for one or choose one from the table now if you please however I will ask that you work with me to connect it to your character's backstory.
- Leveling will be tracked via milestones and not EXP as we continue the story.
- Firearms and Explosives are available in game due to the discovery of gunpowder and its many uses by Artificers and random tinkerers alike. Rules for firearms can be found here.
- Carrying Capacity: Armor worn will not count towards carrying capacity so long as you are proficient in the armor. Money will count towards carrying capacity. (50 coins = 1 pound) Besides that I will be fairly lenient on how much/what you can carry. That being said I'm not gonna let you carry a 5000 pound boulder on your back even if your Strength score is 30 but if you can reasonably explain how you're carrying something that's larger than most items (for example: Danni strapping the keg of gunpowder to the back of her chair.)I'll let it slide.
- Training: Training can include learning a new weapon, tool, spell, or skill proficiency. Days or gold required to train may be adjusted depending on what you are training in. More gold can possibly be used to learn faster if being taught by a master in that proficiency.
- Crafting: certain tools allow the person to craft items in their spare time, such as the Tinker’s Tools. This may be done instead of training during down time.
Additional Combat Rules
Several combat rules and actions are being used in this campaign, including: Additional Actions: Climbing onto a Bigger Creature, Disarm, Overrun, Shove Aside, Sprint, and Tumble. Cover and Hitting Cover are being used. Flanking is being used.
Special Rules
This section goes over any additional rules not covered in the above sections, mostly game mechanic changes.
- Potions are taken as a bonus action in combat, however if you wish to feed a potion ro another creature, it is an action as you are not only puting it in their mouth and tilting the bottle but you're also making sure that the creature doesn't choke and that the potion doesn't spill.
- The Combat Wheelchair by Sara Thompson, is an available item that can be purchased or crafted if required or be an item that your character has upon creation. I will not let you purchase or craft one for no reason.
- Sprint is an additional action that you can use on your turn in initiative or outside of combat, the way it works is, you can forgo your actions and your bonus action and move 5x your speed in a straight line. If you pass any enemies along the way, they get attacks of opprotunity against you with advantage. If you try to stop in the middle of a sprint, you will have to make appropriate saving throws/skill checks to make sure you do not hurt yourself or others.
- Breath Weapon is an ability used by Dragonborn to spew out elemental energy from their mouths related to their draconic ancestry. Usually you can only use this once per day however in my game they can use it a number of times equal to their Constitution Modifier (minimum of once). This may be tweaked in the future if need be.
- Radiant Soul is an ability used by Protector Aasimar that lets them grow wings that let them fly and also do Radiant damage equal to their level for one minute per day. In my game the damage part of this ability can be used whenever and does not have the time limitation as the wings do.
- Scrolls can be copied by Wizards into their spellbook without expending the scroll itself.
- Confirmed Criticals are a new way to do additional damage in combat. When a player rolls a 20, they double the damage of all dice rolled (except for the dice added by the Barbarian's Brutal Critical or Half-Orc's Savage Attacks abilities). Before rolling damage the player rolls an additional d20. Treated as another attack roll against the target, if the number after modifiers would also hit the target's AC, it is a confirmed critical. On a confirmed critical, the player rolls an additional d20 and the DM consults the Confirmed Critical Table.
- Confirmed Misses are in the same vein as confirmed criticals, with an equal and opposite result. When a player rolls a critical miss, they then roll an additional d20. Treated as another attack roll against the target, if the number after modifiers would also miss the target's AC, it is a confirmed miss. On a confirmed miss, the player rolls an additional d20 and the Dm consults the Confirmed Miss Table.
- Downtime Activities Anytime a session ends, the DM will let the players know if there will be downtime, meaning activities such as crafting, gambling, practicing a profession, researching, or training. When this occurs you are to let the DM know, in a written statement (text is fine), at some point BEFORE the next session what you plan to do during the downtime or it will be assumed you did nothing.
- Shopping When shopping for specific items that might take time for the DM to look up the price or if you plan to have something created/enchanted by an aristian/wizard, please submit a written statement (text is fine) to the DM BEFORE the day of the next session. This gives the DM plenty of time to discuss with you exactly what you want and that the price is exactly what it is supposed to be.
- Character Revivals For the resurrection of a character, whether they be a PC or an NPC, Matthew Mercer's Fading Spirit Rules will be used.
Ending Notes
With all that said and done, I just have a few more things to say to end off this handout. As a DM it's my job to tell a story while making sure all of you are having fun, that is my top priority, if at any point you feel concerned about anything or wish to message me about anything regarding the campaign or the content found in this handout, please do not hesitate to do so I will get back to you ASAP. I'm willing to work with you to make sure that you're actually enjoying what you are playing both as individuals and as a group. I have nothing else to say so I guess this is bye and I hope you enjoy the campaign and what's in store!
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