D&D 5E Who I was before: a background miniguide

[Gavin O.]

Backgrounds offer any character a choice of two extra skills, a background feature, tool and language proficiencies, and starting gold. Very often, your character wants to pick a background that offers them two useful skills that aren't normally available to their class. For the sake of convenience, I've compiled a list of every skill in the game and listed which backgrounds give you proficiency in that skill. That way, if you're looking to get proficiency two specific skills, you can find a background that gives it to you.

Some notes before we get started:

1. If your background gives you a skill you already have from your class, you can swap it for any other skill, even one which your class can’t normally access. This means background that give you two class skills you already have might be the most helpful, since you can choose any two skills to replace them.
2. This guide will not contain ratings. I'm not going to rank the skills, even though some skills might be more useful than others (perception, for example). I'm also not going to evaluate the quality of the background features, since they're so campaign-dependent.
3. RAW, you can create a custom background with any two skills you want. Some DMs may disallow this, though.
4. Backgrounds not from the PHB will have their source written beside them: Sword Coast Adventurer's guide (SCAG), Plane Shift Innistrad(PSI), Plane Shift Amonkhet (PSA)
5. Backgrounds with a number indicate a choice of skill. For example, a character with the City Watch background can choose between Athletics (City Watch 1) and Investigation (City Watch 2), but it always gets Insight

Acrobatics: Entertainer

Animal Handling: Folk Hero

Athletics: Outlander, Sailor, Soldier, City Watch 1(SCAG), Mercenary Veteran (SCAG), Uthgardt Tribe member(SCAG), Initiate (PSA)

Arcana: Sage, Cloistered Scholar 1 (SCAG), Inheritor 1(SCAG), Knight of the order 1(SCAG)

Deception: Charlatan, Criminal, Urban Bounty Hunter** (SCAG)

History: Noble, Sage, Clan Crafter (SCAG), Cloistered Scholar (SCAG), Inheritor 2 (SCAG), Knight of the order 2(SCAG), Waterhavian Noble(SCAG), Vizier (PSA)

Insight: Acolyte, Guild Artisan, City Watch (SCAG), Clan Crafter (SCAG), Courtier (SCAG), Faction Agent* (SCAG), Far Traveler(SCAG), Urban Bounty Hunter** (SCAG)

Intimidation: Soldier, Initiate (PSA)

Investigation: City Watch 2 (SCAG), Inquisitor (PSI)

Medicine: Hermit

Nature: Cloistered Scholar 2 (SCAG), Knight of the order 3(SCAG)

Perception: Sailor, Far Traveler

Performance: Entertainer

Persuasion: Guild Artisan, Noble, Courtier (SCAG), Knight of the order (SCAG), Mercenary Veteran(SCAG), Urban Bounty Hunter** (SCAG), Waterhavian Noble(SCAG)

Religion: Acolyte, Hermit, Cloistered Scholar 3 (SCAG), Inheritor 3 (SCAG), Knight of the order 4 (SCAG), Inquisitor (PSI), Vizier (PSA)

Sleight of hand: Charlatan, Urchin

Stealth: Criminal, Urchin, Urban Bounty Hunter** (SCAG)

Survival: Folk Hero, Outlander, Inheritor(SCAG), Uthgardt Tribe member(SCAG)


*: In addition to Insight, the Faction Agent background offers your choice of ANY Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma skill.

**The Urban Bounty Hunter background offers you the choice of two skills from four: Deception, Insight, Persuasion, and Stealth.


If you’re starting at level one and expected to buy your own equipment, the amount of starting gold granted by your background might be important. Here is a list of backgrounds by starting gold.

Background that start with 25 gold: Noble, Vizier (PSA)

Backgrounds that start with 20 gold: Urban Bounty Hunter(SCAG), Waterhavian Noble(SCAG)

Background that start with 15 gold: Acolyte, Charlatan, Criminal, Entertainer, Guild Artisan, Faction Agent (SCAG), Inheritor(SCAG), Inquisitor (PSI), Initiate (PSA)

Backgrounds that start with 10 gold: Folk Hero, Outlander, Sage, Sailor, Soldier, Urchin, City Watch (SCAG), Cloistered Scholar (SCAG), Knight of the Order (SCAG), Mercenary Veteran (SCAG),
Uthgardt Tribe member(SCAG)

Background that start with 5 gold: Hermit, Clan Crafter (SCAG), Courtier (SCAG), Far Traveler (SCAG)


Tool proficiencies and languages: Coming soon.

 

[bid]

You forgot one very important thing: all backgrounds are samples, you can assemble whatever custom background you want.

Background features are the only thing you cannot customize.
You should evaluate the use of False Identity vs Guild Membership.

 

[ccs]

You forgot one very important thing: all backgrounds are samples, you can assemble whatever custom background you want.

Background features are the only thing you cannot customize.

You didn't read #3, did you?