So, last night, we had a fun encounter with numerous goblin minions backed up by a Tiefling Commander and a Goblin Skullcleaver. It was a large fight, with the goblins desperately trying to defend the inn they had been holed up in.

A very cool fight, with three different floors of combat, and each character involved in his own little challenge. The Eladrin Warlord and the Drow Rogue were trying to take down the Skull Cleaver on the upper floor. The Elven Ranger and an NPC ally named Arielle (A Human Warmage) were focused on a fight with the Tiefling on the roof, with the ranger occasionally firing down through the skylight onto the first floor (the first floor having a railing that overlooked the dining area). And the minotaur fighter trying to stop the little goblins from swarming him.

The problem? Minions don't deal any extra damage on a critical. And I rolled quite a few.

I personally think minions should deal double damage on a critical hit. And my players agreed with me on the spot, even though it meant quite a bit more damage to themselves.

Here's my logic: on a critical hit, the monster or PC does full damage. This can be a huge effect, especially when you factor in bonus magic item damage from a critical hit. In the first round, our ranger inflicted something like 40 damage on critical!

A minion's damage is a flat number. This number represents the average damage that minion would do, if he had been rolling dice. that 4 points of damage the minion does is really the average of 1d6+1, rounded down.

Now, if that minion got a critical, wouldn't it stand to reason that the damage he would inflcit would be a maximum, instead of an average?

So, double minion critical hits. Makes sense to me, and it's a new house rule.

Wik

So, here's a basic set of rules for background skills. Note that I took this idea from the Earthdawn RPG - which handles the rules perfectly.

It's a little messy right now, but I plan on cleaning it up later - maybe when I get back from work.

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Background Skills

All player characters have more than those skills that they get through their character class. They have probably learned some trade or another that would be useful outside of adventuring; the paladin probably knows a bit about the military organization of churches, while you don't get to be a wizard without knowing something about bookbinding.

Players in this system get to choose "background skills", which represent where the character comes from.

PCs are trained in two background skills of their choice. Each background skill represents a skillset and area of training that is fairly broad. PCs do not get background skills in weaponsmithing, for example - they are skilled in metalworking.

Unlike regular skills, being trained in a background skill offers a +3 bonus instead of +5. After all, the PCs haven't trained in their background skills to the same extent as their regular skills - they are heroes, after all, not blacksmiths.

Background skills have no key ability, instead drawing on whichever ability score seems most appropriate for the task. Thus, a character with the metalworking background skill might use intelligence as a key ability when trying to create a thin blade, while he may use wisdom when trying to spot the weaknesses in a forged suit of armour.

Note that these background skills suggest where the character hails from, and so should be tied into the PCs background tightly. Players use their background skills in play as they see fit.

Note that in some cases, a background skill could overlap with a regular skill. For example, if a character had brewing as a background skill, and he tried to use a ritual that allowed potions to be made, he could conceivably use his background skill. In this case, the character must make a skill check with his background skill (against a DC of 15 for heroic tier, 20 for paragon, and 25 for epic). If he succeeds on that skill check, he gains a +2 bonus on the skill check using the normal skill (Nature, in this case). Background skills can never overrule existing skills, but if used wisely, they can provide useful bonuses.

Whether or not background skills can be used in skill challenges is up to the individual GM.

Example Background Skills
Metalworking
Storytelling
Carpentry
Entertainer (Music, Juggling, etc)
Farming
Sailing (also would include rope-tying, and weather sense)
Soldiering (the ins and outs of being a soldier)
Church Life (Church Hierarchy, could often be used to supplement religion checks)
Begging (Life of a street person, could be used to supplement urban-based checks)

Feat Ideas
Trained in Background: All trained background skills offer a +5 bonus, instead of a +3.
Checkered Past: The character can choose two additional background skills. If taken after first level, these either represent aspects of the character that haven't been seen until now... or fields that the character has recently acquired through play.

Wik