Building Races

Races are the folk of the world, and a race entry is a character sheet before the character — a set of traits every member of the folk shares. When you build a new race, you are deciding what it means to be born one of them.

The anatomy of a race entry

Look at any existing race in the Races folder and you will see the same bones. Each carries:

• abilityAdjustments — the boons and prices of the folk, expressed as adjustments to Strength, Dexterity, and the rest. A dwarf's Constitution bonus and charisma penalty; an elf's dexterity and its fragile constitution. Keep these modest — one or two clear edges and one honest cost gives a folk character, while piling on six bonuses makes it a tax.
• movementBase and infravision — how fast they run and whether they see in the dark. Infravision is common among the demi-human folk and is a significant dungeon advantage; grant it deliberately.
• specialAbilities — the traits that are not numbers: resistances to magic, sleep, or charm; a hunter's keen senses; a folk's stone-sense. Point at an existing ability in the Abilities folder when one fits, so the text stays single-sourced.
• languages — the tongues a member begins with; intelligence usually adds more.
• classRestrictions and levelLimits — the heart of racial identity. Which callings the folk may take up, and how high they may rise in each. This is one of the strongest levers in the system: it is what makes a dwarf not just a short human, and it is why demihumans multi-class — to get around the ceiling by building a second ladder.
• dualClassAllowed and multiClassOptions — whether the folk may change or carry multiple callings, and which combinations are open to them. Humans get dual-class; the demi-human folk get multi-class; only humans may be paladins; and so on.

The design intent

A good race makes a promise with a price. The promise is the niche it is born to — the dwarven shield-wall, the elven bow and spellbook, the halfling's shadow. The price is the cost of that niche — the dwarf's slow step and short wizardly reach, the elf's fragile constitution, the halfling's small arms. When you design a race, ask what it is best at, and then ask sympathetically what being that should cost. The most memorable folk in the compendium are the ones whose strength and limit are two sides of the same coin.

Avoiding tax and novelty traps

Two failure modes plague race design.

• The superfolk. A race with a bonus in every relevant ability and no limit anywhere. It is not an interesting choice; it is a strictly better choice, and it quietly deletes every other option. Every edge should come with a corresponding cost in the same breath.
• The special snowflake. A race defined by one gimmick word with no mechanical weight. A folk described only as "mystical and ancient" gives the table nothing to roll. Give it at least one number or trait that changes play — a resistance, an ability adjustment, a movement quirk — or it is not a race, it is a costume.

Balancing within the existing set

Match your new folk's power to the current roster. The core races are roughly balanced against each other; a new race should slot into that band, not tower over it. When you set levelLimits, check the existing pattern — most demi-human folk cap their martial callings in the single-to-late digits and their wizards lower still, and the multi-class options exist to let the folk reach beyond. Follow that logic rather than inventing an arbitrarily high ceiling.

The voice

Write the description in the same register as the neighbouring races: concrete, a little mythic, and grounded in the day-to-day truth of the folk — how they live, what they value, what strangers notice first. The numbers tell you what they are; the description tells you who. Make the one worth reading so the other has someone to describe.

When you finish

Test it the way a player would: can a member of this folk be built honestly? Do the classRestrictions and levelLimits match the major and multi-class callings the description promises? Does the movementBase match its body and the infravision match its habitat? A race that passes that test is a race the table will believe in — and one the players will actually choose for reasons better than an unearned +1.