D&D’s Animal Companions and Familiars-Choosing the Right Pet For Your Character

Even in the Forgotten Realms, a party that includes a deep gnome, a tortle, a triton, a shadar-kai, and a guy with flaming hair would alarm ordinary folks, but to keep the adventure on track everyone treats such groups as unremarkable. That urge never succeeds as well as players hope. The culture is about players assembling races and classes because the mechanical bits sound cool.” I see many players drawn to exotic characters for their story, flavor, and for the chance to play someone who seems extraordinary even in a D&D world. “ When an AL player sits down with a shadar-kai shadow sorcerer, there’s no point in even asking them what they’re doing in a large human city the players haven’t considered it. In an apt post, John Arendt compares the typical Adventurers League party to the Munsters, a collection of exotic, monstrous types with perhaps one human for contrast. Nowadays, many players feel drawn to the exotic character races. Talking about even fictional half-humans like this raises uncomfortable echoes. In our history, people have justified inflicting countless horrors on other humans by claiming that God disapproved of some group. But now the comment reads in a way Gary surely didn’t consider.

Gary wrote, “ Why are humans more able to rise to higher levels than demi-humans? Because the gods say so, and don’t like pointy eared types with curly-toed shoes, squat miners with big beards, hairy-footed midgets, etc.” Gary intended the comment as harmless fun at the expense of make-believe creatures, and in 2005 most readers read it that way. Of course, some groups simply ignored the rule. I doubt the rare humans who become capable enough to overshadow non-humans really explain human prevalence in a D&D world, but the level limits encouraged playing human characters and tended to fill adventuring parties with humans. So a demi-human is unlimited in thief level only, as that this a class not destined to control the fate of major groups or states.” Gary wrote, “ If demi-humans, already given some advantages, were as able as humans, the world would be dominated by them, and there goes the whole of having a relatively familiar world setting in regards to what cultures and societies one will find in control.

To Gary, demi-human level limits explained why humans dominated D&D worlds despite the extraordinary talents and longevity of elves and dwarves. D&D co-creator Gary Gygax favored the sort of human-dominated fantasy that appeared in the fiction that inspired him. Until third edition, Dungeons & Dragons limited non-human characters to maximum levels in most classes. Time for another visit to the comment section, starting with a request.ĭM Bill writes, “ Could you do an article about humans versus non-humans, and the importance of the First Edition level cap, please!”

D&d 5e human races