Background benefits?

[Dredly]

Every player in my current play group has either Auspicious Birth or Born under Bad Sign as their background benefit. Is this benefit just extremely overpowered for a background or are all the rest just worthless? By using these perks my players gain 10+ HP from the start

(You sub your highest ability score for Con when determining your initial HP)

I've tried looking for any other background that actually serves a real purpose and I just can't. The vast majority either give nothing or they give +2 to a skill check which is really nothing when you already have 10+ for any trained skill and it increases every other level

So are backgrounds supposed to be really just a story piece with minimal benefits or are they supposed to be very important development pieces for your chars?

 

[Flipguarder]

guess what? it's somewhere between the two.

That background is widely considered the most powerful and I would be fairly upset if my players all took it. The way I would deal with this is by asking my characters to explain how their background makes sense, talk about it a little bit.
Then later on make that "bad sign" actually do something, make it a harbinger of a difficult life. make it a character that REALLY pisses the party off.

 

[Dredly]

guess what? it's somewhere between the two.

That background is widely considered the most powerful and I would be fairly upset if my players all took it. The way I would deal with this is by asking my characters to explain how their background makes sense, talk about it a little bit.
Then later on make that "bad sign" actually do something, make it a harbinger of a difficult life. make it a character that REALLY pisses the party off.

Yeah I was thinking about that, but its sooo fricken easy to write it into a background since there is one for good chars (Auspicious) and there is one for non-good (Bad Moon). I think the next session I'm just going to not allow them to be used. They really make all the players that much harder to kill and it gives such a huge advantage, a wizard with +10 hp puts them above a warrior!

 

[FrozenChrono]

It is very powerful at level 1 but doesn't scale much relative to the rest of character hp gain.

Another option is to increase your use of skills in encounters to make them more worth it. Traps, Hazards, terrain that utilizes skills in combat and skill challenges are all great ways to get your characters to see value in their skills.

 

[Turtlejay]

Those benefits were kind of a mistake IMO. Most backgrounds give you another class skill, a bonus to a skill, or a language. That is all relatively minor, and can reflect a background accurately. Things outside of that space almost all seem overpowered.

Jay

 

[Destil]

Is this benefit just extremely overpowered for a background

In a word: Yes.

At length: Yyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only backgrounds I actually like, balance wise, is the 'trade a class skill' ones, since they allow a small bit of flexibility with the still very real skill choice cost. I allow the +2 to a skill one, as well, but mostly because I'm lazy as a DM and don't want to dig through every build to such a fine degree of detail.

 

[Mengu]

Yeah, the extra HP backgrounds and Windrise Ports are more powerful than any other background.

The fix? Extra HP backgrounds could have just said, you gain +X HP (2 or 3 would be reasonable). Windrise ports should have said, you may gain the benefits of a multiclass feat from an additional class but do not count as a member of that class for prerequisite qualification.

 

[Ryujin]

If you don't give backgrounds consequences in your campaign, then why wouldn't they take those? Someone with an Auspicious Birth will have more expected of him so when he fails, it's twice as bad. People who want to take advantage of what he portends might try to kidnap him, for their own gain. Someone born under a bad sign will find that life just doesn't seem to go the way that he wants it to; nothing but bad luck, most of the time.

Actually I've found that a +2 to Arcana, or the abiluty to roll twice for it, can be a huge asset even at higher levels. Don't discount a small add in skills. In 4e a +1 can be HUGE.

 

[Obryn]

Personally, I only allow backgrounds that follow the PHB2 guidelines. That is, an extra class skill, +2 to a skill, or a language.

-O

 

[Dredly]

If you don't give backgrounds consequences in your campaign, then why wouldn't they take those? Someone with an Auspicious Birth will have more expected of him so when he fails, it's twice as bad. People who want to take advantage of what he portends might try to kidnap him, for their own gain. Someone born under a bad sign will find that life just doesn't seem to go the way that he wants it to; nothing but bad luck, most of the time.

Actually I've found that a +2 to Arcana, or the abiluty to roll twice for it, can be a huge asset even at higher levels. Don't discount a small add in skills. In 4e a +1 can be HUGE.

yeah it can be a benefit, but really most players aren't going to take a benefit they will use fairly rarely (and a minor benefit at that) compared to a real tangiable bonus.

Next game I'm just going to disallow it completely, I'll most likely disallow all the "use a different attrib for melee damage" crap as well. It just encourages players to super-specialize instead of being well rounded