More Powerful Shadowkind

LEVEL ADJUSTMENT AND CHALLENGE RATING

Particularly powerful Shadowkind species have a Level Adjustment, which reflects how much more powerful these species are compared to “baseline” species (such as elves, dwarves, and humans). When you add this Level Adjustment to a character’s total class levels (or character level), the result is a character’s Challenge Rating (CR). The formula for determining a character’s Challenge Rating (CR) is as follows: CR = Character Level + Level Adjustment

CR is used to determine a character’s relative power compared to other characters.

A character’s CR is never used to determine how or when a character gains new skills and feats, nor does it have any effect on talents, spells, and abilities that use character levels. However, a character’s CR isused to determine how many experience points the character needs to advance in level (see Experience, below).

EXPERIENCE

Characters with a Level Adjustment of +1 or higher do not begin play with 0 XP, as humans and other “baseline” characters do. As representatives of more powerful Shadowkind species, they are assumed to have amassed XP before taking their first class level. Powerful Shadowkind use their CR instead of level when determining the experience they start with and the amount needed to gain a level.