The Witch-King
2009-09-01, 07:22 PM
I'm creating some new races for an upcoming 3.5 campaign--some NPC races and some player races. What my question comes down to is: should I give them racial hit dice? If so, why? And is there any official guide as to how many to give?
See what I don't get is that there's such a wide spread in racial hit dice for the same size of creature. Humans and Elves and Orcs get 1 HD. Gnolls get 2. Illithids get 8. One of the player races I'm creating is a gnoll offshoot. So, should I give them 2 HD when I could just skip that and they could get 2 levels of their choice as characters instead in a 3rd level game? Would doing so make them less "gnolly"?
And more importantly, for the NPC races I'm making up out of whole cloth: what standard do I use to give them racial hit dice and isn't each one a penalty instead of a bonus compared to what they could be getting? Is it just not cool enough for the powerful villain to have a racial package that only gave him 1 HD? Are Illithids cooler for having 8? If so, should I give my evil quarterling 14 HD and only 1 level of Rogue? (Although it would be funny to meet a guy with a 14 HD racial package who's only two feet tall.)
See what I don't get is that there's such a wide spread in racial hit dice for the same size of creature. Humans and Elves and Orcs get 1 HD. Gnolls get 2. Illithids get 8. One of the player races I'm creating is a gnoll offshoot. So, should I give them 2 HD when I could just skip that and they could get 2 levels of their choice as characters instead in a 3rd level game? Would doing so make them less "gnolly"?
And more importantly, for the NPC races I'm making up out of whole cloth: what standard do I use to give them racial hit dice and isn't each one a penalty instead of a bonus compared to what they could be getting? Is it just not cool enough for the powerful villain to have a racial package that only gave him 1 HD? Are Illithids cooler for having 8? If so, should I give my evil quarterling 14 HD and only 1 level of Rogue? (Although it would be funny to meet a guy with a 14 HD racial package who's only two feet tall.)