Character Book: Races

With Nutshell, it is my intention to support the full set of D&D (and Eberron) races, although several of these will exist only in my "personal version" of the game, for IP reasons. In any event, I'm only going to present the "big four" here, for reasons of space. These should be sufficient to show my thinking.

I should note that the races are presented here purely as they relate to the mechanics of the game - I'm not going to waste time telling you what a "dwarf" is!

At character creation, simply select a race for your character. Any race can adopt any class.

You cannot retrain your character's race, and in general you cannot change your character's race during a character rebuild - if the changes required are so drastic as to necessitate this, you should probably replace the character entirely.

Human

The traits of humans are:

• Medium size: Humans gain no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Movement: Base 30 ft (6 squares); Reduced 20 ft (4 squares)
• Free Proficiency: At first level, humans gain any one Proficiency feat of their choice - this can be an Armour, Shield, Skill, Spell, or Weapon Proficiency, as desired. The character must meet the prerequisites of the selected feat, as normal.
• Feat: At second level, humans gain any one additional feat of their choice. They must meet the prerequisites of that feat, as normal.
• Talents: May select talents from the 'Human' talent tree.

Dwarf

The traits of dwarves are:

• Medium size: Dwarves gain no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Short: Dwarves are short, and so have no vertical reach.
• Movement: Base 20 ft (4 squares); Reduced 20 ft (4 squares)
• Low-light vision: Dwarves treat all light conditions as being one better than they actually are. They suffer no penalty in bright light.
• Sturdy: Due to their build, Dwarves may carry an additional 4 major items before becoming encumbered.
• Free Proficiency: Weapon Proficiency (axes)
• Skill Modifiers: Craft +1, Engineering +1, Devices +1; Dwarves suffer a 1 step penalty on Athletics magnitude rolls
• Defence Modifiers: +1 Fort
• Talents: May select talents from the 'Dwarf' talent tree.

Elf

The traits of elves are:

• Medium size: Elves gain no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Movement: Base 35 ft (7 squares); Reduced 20 ft (4 squares)
• Free Proficiency: Weapon Proficiency (bows), Weapon Proficiency (light blades)
• Skill Modifiers: Perception +1
• Defence Modifiers: +1 Will
• Talents: May select talents from the 'Elf' talent tree.

Halfling

The traits of halflings are:

• Small size: Due to their small size, halflings have no vertical reach. Additionally, they cannot use Large weapons such as longbows and greatswords.
• Movement: Base 20 ft (4 squares); Reduced 15 ft (3 squares)
• Skill Modifiers: +1 Perception, +1 Stealth; Halfings suffer a 1 step penalty on Athletics magnitude rolls
• Defence Modifiers: +1 to all
• Talents: May select talents from the 'Halfling' talent tree.

As should be obvious, races in Nutshell Fantasy are mechanically 'light' - the players choice of race provides a feat here or there, and a couple of skill of defense modifiers, but tends not to have a huge impact on gameplay. However, each race opens up one (or two, in the cases of half-elves and half-orcs) talent trees. This will allow those players who wish to do so to emphasise their character's race over other aspects - one Elven Scoundrel could be an Elven scoundrel while another is an elven Scoundrel, simply by selecting different talents.

Probably the most notable thing about races in Nutshell is the lack of ability score adjustments. This is largely in response to something I saw increasingly in 3e (and 4e): players would insist on only ever having the 'right' stats for their class. Consequently, if a race didn't have a bonus to the key stat for the chosen class, it would never be considered. Indeed, in extreme cases, the player would select a specific race not because they had any interest in that race, but rather because they wanted a particular set of ability score adjustments. To say that irritated me was an understatement.

(It's also worth noting that if you want your halfling to be weaker but quicker than a human character, there is an easy way to achieve this - assign a low Strength and a high Dexterity. However, for those players who want to portray an unusually strong halfling, the absence of ability score modifiers makes this a possibility.)

You may well also have noted a lack of "personal details" information in the above - there are no tables for height, weight, and age. Honestly, I have come to view these as a waste of space. The flavour text for the races should probably give approximate races; beyond that, it is for the player to simply decide these things (and whether to go for exact values, or simply say "short and fat"). In particular, I find the codification of age categories and exact ability adjustments to be wasteful - not only do very few campaigns last long enough for characters to age significantly, but in any event age effects everyone differently so specified modifiers are somewhat pointless.