THE DROW
A colony of dark elves transplanted from across the world now make their home in the warmer forests of New Cyre. While the leaders of their race publicly credit the goddess Numilvara with their survival of the Separation, many of them still pay private homage and reverence to their ancestral scorpion-god.
Female drow are strongly encouraged to pursue divine magic, while male drow are driven to arcane pursuits. As such, spellcasting classes among the drow are sometimes restricted to characters of the appropriate gender.
Requirements
All drow classes must have minimum Dexterity score of 9, in addition to any other requirements.
Class Category Values
Fighting: Drow classes with narrow or broad weapon selections must select both the crossbow and short sword among their selections.
Divine: For classes restricted to drow females, any build points allocated to the Divine value stack with build points allocated to the Drow value (to a maximum of 4) for purposes of determining the class’s divine spellcasting ability. For such classes, reduce the XP cost for the Divine value by 125 XP
Arcane: For classes not restricted to a particular gender, any build points allocated to the Drow value stack with those allocated to the Arcane value for purposes of determining the class’s spellcasting ability. For these classes, reduce the XP cost for the Arcane value by 125 XP.
Drow Value
Value |
Drow |
XP Cost |
4 |
Drow + Arcane or Divine 4 |
2625 or 2125 |
3 |
Drow + Arcane or Divine 3 |
2125 or 1250 |
2 |
Drow + Arcane or Divine 2 |
1500 or 750 |
1 |
Drow + Arcane or Divine 1 |
875 or 500 |
0 |
Drow |
250 |
When building a Drow custom class, assign between 0 and 4 build points to the class’s Drow Value. At Drow 0, all Drow gain the following Drow custom powers:
- Infravision: Drow are endowed with infravision to a range of 30’.
- Drow Resistances: Drow resist magical effects better than most, and their experience taming giant spiders and scorpions has inured them to the effects of poison. All drow receive a +2 bonus to saving throws versus spells, poisons, and death magic.
- Bonus Languages: Drow are conversant the Drow, Goblin, Orc, and their own sign language, in addition to common and any languages selected at character creation.
- Keen Senses: All elves detect hidden and secret doors with a proficiency throw of 8+ on 1d20 when actively searching, or 14+ on casual inspection.
- Light Sensitivity: Drow are sensitive to bright light, suffering a -2 penalty on attack and saving throws while in the area of a light or continual light spell or in full daylight. They also suffer a -2 penalty to saving throws against attempts to blind them with such spells. Smoked goggles may be employed to counter this weakness, but they also interfere with the keen senses and infravision of the drow.
- Spell-like Abilities: Drow are able to cast faerie fire and darkness each once per hour.
Additional points allocated to the Drow Value stack with points assigned to the Divine category (for classes restricted to female characters) or the Arcane category (for all other drow classes).
Experience Point Progression after 8th Level
Drow classes restricted to female characters increase the amount of experience required to advance each level after 8th by 40,000 XP. Other drow classes increase this amount by 50,000 XP.