Forgotten Realms Race-Classes for Labyrinth Lord

Last weekend, I made up LL-style race-classes for all the major races of the Realms in the 4e era. I'm loving how quick and simple it is to make things for this game - it's a breath of fresh air after years of running d20, where the most basic things drag down into mind-numbing drudge work.

Anyway, here they are for anyone who might find them useful:

DRAGONBORN
Requirements: STR 9, CHA 10
Prime Requisite: STR
HD: d8 (+2 HP per level above 9)
XP: As Magic-User
Maximum Level: 12
Armour and Weapons: Any, but standard armour doesn't fit; custom armour is required costing double or more.
Attacks: As Fighter
Saves: As Dwarf/Halfling, but replace the "Breath Attacks" column with a duplicate of the "Poison or Death" column.
Special Abilities: Dragonborn are trained in techniques to fight dragons and gain a +1 to hit against them, increasing to +2 at level 7 and +3 at level 11. They gain Draconic as a bonus language.
Dragonborn also have a breath weapon of their own, of a single type like a true dragon chosen at character creation (for example, a cone of fire like a red dragon). This does 1d6 damage, usable once per day, with half the area of the true dragon's breath weapon. The damage improves to 2d6 at level 4, and 3d6 at level 8. The dragonborn gets two uses per day at level 2, three at level 6, and four at level 12. The area increases to the true dragon's at level 10. Targets gain a saving throw versus Breath Attack for half damage. Dragonborn are immune to the effects of their own breath attack, as well as the same kind of breath attack from other dragons and dragonborn. They are further immune to ordinary instances of a similar nature to their attack. For instance, a dragonborn with a red dragon type breath weapon is immune to all ordinary fire. However, dragonborn will sustain half damage from magical based attacks that are similar to the nature of their breath attacks. A dragonborn with blue dragon breath, for instance, will not suffer damage from a natural lightning strike, but will suffer half damage from the spell lightning bolt.
At 9th level, a Dragonborn can become a leader among his kind, equivalent to a Fighter of equal level.

DWARF
Adventuring dwarves in the Realms are either Gold Dwarves or Shield Dwarves. Both use the Dwarf class without modifications.

ELF
The choice of subrace modifies the core Elf class:
Drow (Dark) Elf: Drow are limited to chainmail or lighter armour and no shield, but can Move Silently and Hide in Shadows as a Thief of equal level. They do not cast spells like a typical Elf, but can invoke Darkness (reversed Light as the Magic-User spell), Faerie Fire (lights up a target giving all attackers +2 to hit them and negating benefit of invisibility or concealment, 120' range, no save), and/or Levitate (as the Magic-User spell), up to a total number of combined uses equal to the Drow's level per day. Drow also gain a +4 bonus to all saving throws against magic, and resist all effects of a spell on a successful save even if it would normally still do half damage (but Drow still don't get a save against effects that don't allow a saving throw). Drow have infravision to 120'. Instead of the Elf bonus languages, they get Drow and Undercommon.
Moon (Silver) Elf: Moon Elves use the default Elf class.
Sun (Gold) Elf: Sun Elves are limited to chainmail or lighter armour and no shield, but with their deep knowledge of the arcane they can use magical items allowable to any other class (even clerical scrolls), alignment, etc.
Wild (Green) Elf: Wild Elves are limited to leather (or no) armour and no shield, but have the ability to hide like a Halfling. Their spells come from the Clerical spell list (not the Magic User/Elf list) and they know all available spells like a Cleric. When using a bow, they gain one additional attack per round.
Wood (Copper) Elf: Wood Elves are limited to studded leather or lighter armour and can use a shield, but have the ability to hide like a Halfling. Their spells can be prepared and cast from any mixture of both the Magic-User and Cleric spell lists; they know all spells from the Cleric list, but must learn Magic-User spells as normal.

GENASI
Requirements: CON 12
Prime Requisites: STR and CON. Both at 13+ gives +5% XP, STR 13+ and CON 16+ gives +10% XP.
HD: d6
XP: As Elf
Maximum Level: 10
Armour and Weapons: All
Attacks: As Fighter
Saves: As Elf
Special Abilities: Genasi choose a single elemental aspect (air, earth, fire or water) at character creation, and have magical abilities dependent on their choice. Air genasi do not need air to breathe, earth genasi have a -1 AC bonus for hard skin, fire genasi are immune to normal fire and take half damage from magical fire, and water genasi can breathe underwater and move underwater as fast as on land. All genasi have 60' infravision.
Genasi also gain spell-like abilites depending on their element that they can invoke twice per day each, all from the Magic-User spell list, once they reach the required level (in brackets).
Air: Floating Disc (1), Levitate (3), Fly (5), Arcane Eye(7), Cloudkill (9)
Earth: Shield (1), Locate Object (3), Protection from Normal Missiles (5), Polymorph Self (7), Passwall (9)
Fire: Light (1), Continual Light (3), Fireball (5), Wall of Fire (7), Conjure Elemental: fire only (9)
Water: Sleep (1), Mirror Image (3), Water Breathing (5), Wall of Ice (7), Transmute Rock to Mud (9)
At level 10, the genasi gains a secondary elemental aspect, adding all the base abilities of both. The second aspect doesn't add more castings, just options - for example, a Fire/Water Genasi can cast Light or Sleep twice per day, or once each, etc., but these don't need to be prepared.

HALF-ELF
Half-elves choose from human classes, and are handled like humans in the game mechanics except that they gain the Elf abilities of infravision 60', the increased ability to detect secret doors, and immunity to ghoul paralysis. They also get the Elf bonus languages plus Common and their local language; this is Chondathan, Damaran, Thayan, or Untheric, defaulting to the region where the character begins play (Chondathan in the Dalelands). Half-Elves gain a bonus -1 Reaction Adjustment, cumulative with any modifier from Charisma.
They pay for this with a 10% XP penalty, cumulative with any XP modifer from INT (for example a half-elf with 13 INT has a net -5% modifier to earned XP).

HALFLING
There are two subraces of Halfling adventurers:
Lightfoot: limited to studded leather or lighter armour and may use a shield, but can Move Silently and Hide in Shadows as a Thief (may hide as a Thief or as a Halfling, whichever is better at the time).
Strongheart: use the default Halfling class.
Both subraces speak both Common and their local language; this is Chondathan, Damaran, Thayan, or Untheric, defaulting to the region where the character begins play (Chondathan in the Dalelands). Both subraces can use slings for 1d6 damage (i.e. the damage is not reduced for the weapon's size).

HUMAN
Humans in the Realms speak both Common and their local language; this is Chondathan, Damaran, Thayan, or Untheric, defaulting to the region where the character begins play (Chondathan in the Dalelands).

TIEFLING
Requirements: DEX 9, INT 9
Prime Requisites: DEX and INT. Either at 13+ gives +5% XP, both at 13+ gives +10% XP.
HD: d4
XP: As Magic-User
Maximum Level: 10
Armour and Weapons: All weapons, no armour or shield.
Attacks: As Thief
Saves: As Magic-User
Special Abilities: Tieflings have infravision to 60', and have a +4 bonus to saving throws against fire, cold, and electricity. They have Abyssal as a bonus language. They can use all Thief skills (except Pick Pockets, but including Backstab) as a Thief one level lower (minimum level 1). They can learn and cast spells as a Magic-User, and automatically know one spell per character level but cannot learn spells by any means besides gaining levels. The spell known at level 1 must be Protection from Evil.

Not Quite Forgotten

(Cross-posted to my LiveJournal.)

Owing to an extended idea-drought, I've stopped working on my homebrew setting for Labyrinth Lord. I'm going to use the new version of the Forgotten Realms that was released for 4th Edition (though I'm definitely not using the 4e rules – I'm sticking with LL).

I mostly like what they've done with FR. It's a big change: there's not only been a “Realms-Shaking Event” justifying the rules changes, but also a hundred-year gap. That's obviously put off (to say the least) a lot of the long-time fans of FR. I'm a long-time fan myself, but while I liked the setting as it was, I was finished with it. I felt that FR was suffocating under the sheer volume of accumulated lore and metaplot, and that was one of the main things that made me decide several years back to part ways with the FR setting; but FR4e has changed so much that most of that old info is obsolete. I suspect that was a specific goal in FR4e's redesign, a sort of “clearing the decks”. There's not going to be any quick return to the setting-clutter either, since FR4e is only getting a single Campaign Guide and Player's Guide and an adventure trilogy, and no more RPG material (though the novels are going to continue).

Although I like the setting, I'm not as impressed with the Campaign Guide (FRCG) itself. In a lot of ways it's like a return to the original 1e grey box set, filling in the world in broad strokes with atmospheric writing (some of which is really inspiring). Unfortunely, the level of detailing is highly inconsistent, and a lot of the vagueness in the FRCG looks more like bad editing than artistic intent. A prime example is the off-hand mention that the Harpers were disbanded decades ago, with no further explanation. Um, what? The Harpers were a major part of FR since even before the 1e box set, when the setting appeared in series of articles in the pages of Dragon – surely that event merits some kind of description. The book continually describes locations that aren't on the map, and vice versa (i.e. places on the map get no description). To give the benefit of the doubt, some of this might be a deliberate design choice – DM's get a free hand to place the described adventure sites where they wish, or to take the names of places from the map and fill them out themselves – but there's just too much of that in the book. I can't help but think that the designers have tried to cram too much into too few pages, and the required editing to make it fit has cut bits out haphazardly. Oh, and the index? Useless.

Despite the FRCG's shortcomings in presentation, I still like the setting itself. It's got just the right balance of old and new for what I'm looking for. Also, it's luckily a perfect fit for LL in one way: the Spellplague (the “Realms-Shaking Event”) has left behind ruined wastelands and magical mutation, which would make a good reason to use material from Mutant Future, LL's post-apocalyptic (and LL-compatible) sister game.