D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[FitzTheRuke]

We're even more into the weeds now... but at least I've come to understanding the perspective of others.

 

[tetrasodium]

Like attack rolls and skill checks!

Not at all. the background feature uses the same kind of attack roll or skill checks that magic missile uses when it automatically works. You as the gm can call for a skill check on magic missile or require the player to engage in roleplay using the same unrevealed justification as you are trying to apply to background features but the end result is still guaranteed success on the roll or check.

The big difference is that magic missile costs an action consumes a resource and is explicitly a spell. The background feature omits those and just works because admitting those things would have revealed the shameless excess of unreasonable abilities to even the most cursory of sanity checking

 

[Maxperson]

Since "we" seem to be using attack rolls and skill checks as the metric for these background abilities, I'd like to point out that even attack rolls are dependent on in-fiction circumstances to determine whether you even get an attack roll. If the in-fiction circumstances render your PC unconscious, you don't get to roll to attack. If they render you incapacitated, you don't get to roll to attack. If they involve an NPC with sanctuary and you fail your save, you don't get to roll to attack.

If even attack rolls and skill checks are dependent on in-fiction circumstances to determine if they are allowed or denied, why would background abilities be any different?

 

[Not a Decepticon]

It's early in the morning and I've only had about a third of my morning tea, but I have no idea what you're asking.

I am asking why you're complaining about features that are well-known for the fact players forget they have them and almost never use them.

 

[mamba]

I am asking why you're complaining about features that are well-known for the fact players forget they have them and almost never use them.

if they were never used, no one would talk about them… as to what the complaint is, we have 50 pages of that now, not sure what you expect to learn that wasn’t mentioned several times already

 

[Not a Decepticon]

if they were never used, no one would talk about them… as to what the complaint is, we have 50 pages of that now, not sure what you expect to learn that wasn’t mentioned several times already

People mostly talk about them because they were never used. Most of the discussion I ever seen about them was advice for DMs to make players utilize them (and backgrounds in general) more.

 

[Lanefan]

You keep insisting this, we keep pointing out the clear text. It clearly states for the noble background feat that " You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

To be fair, some might be reading "can" there as being permissive (as in, equating to "may" or "might") rather than absolute.

I personally read it as an absolute, i.e. if the PC seeks an audience then by RAW the DM cannot refuse it even if the NPC noble in-character normally would.

Less open to interpretation are those features that say NPCs "will" do something, as "will" is unambiguously absolute.

 

[Oofta]

I am asking why you're complaining about features that are well-known for the fact players forget they have them and almost never use them.

A rule can be a bad rule even if it's not often used. Those people that do bring them up, and what I can tell from other posters on this thread who also support the features, seem to think that a line of text overrides any and all real world logic.

I simply think there are better approaches.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

To be fair, some might be reading "can" there as being permissive (as in, equating to "may" or "might") rather than absolute.

I personally read it as an absolute, i.e. if the PC seeks an audience then by RAW the DM cannot refuse it even if the NPC noble in-character normally would.

Less open to interpretation are those features that say NPCs "will" do something, as "will" is unambiguously absolute.

I absolutely read it as non-absolute, but then, if it said "You absolutely can do X whenever you want!" I'd answer, "Sure, unless I, as DM, decide that you can't."

But I'm happy to report that I've never had a player who cares about their background feature even WHEN it would be useful and logical, far or less when it would NOT be. (Though I would almost certainly find a way to make it work logically if they did care). I just haven't had to do it.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

A rule can be a bad rule even if it's not often used. Those people that do bring them up, and what I can tell from other posters on this thread who also support the features, seem to think that a line of text overrides any and all real world logic.

I simply think there are better approaches.

And I think that something like this is too irrelevant to really be worth discussing. There are few places where 5e's intended design completely missed how it is played. This is one of them. They intended these abilities to matter, but if no one uses them, it doesn't matter how strong they are. And it seems they're stepping away form this design not because these abilities were overpowered but because nobody used them. It's a problem that fixed itself.

not the fact nobody short rests is a bigger problem.