D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: Feats/Backgrounds/Species

[Scott Christian]

No, not really. You're just replacing biological essentialism with class essentialism, which is frankly, nearly as bad (and crosses over extremely heavily with biological essentialism, historically), just less offensive to Americans specifically.

It should be noted that you are starting the argument from the base of an adventurer - not the general public. Therefore, everything you are saying is invalid. The commoner, and by that I mean blacksmith, carpenter, merchant, sailor, farmer, etc. has a 10 intelligence. That is the average. So, anyone with a 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 is above average. Spend two points in the point buy, and the urchin is starting out of average intelligence. Spend 3 and they are above average for the population as a whole.
So this is not class essentialism. It might be some adventurer problem where some players will have a problem having a 15 (way above average) instead of a 16 (way above average).

 

[Parmandur]

What gets me about it is that it's completely an unforced error. No one was clamoring for stat boosts to be attached to the backgrounds.

Just leave the Tasha's status quo, have the stat boosts as a purely game mechanical step unattached to any narrative, and no one would be complaining about anything.

I mean, they did test this particular thing 2 years ago (albeit with floating ASI), so I would be skeptical that "no one was clamoring" for Bacgroubds getting ASI. I wouldn't be surprised if respondents both loved ASI on Background, but disliked floating ASI.

 

[mellored]

So this is not class essentialism. It might be some adventurer problem where some players will have a problem having a 15 (way above average) instead of a 16 (way above average).

I'm going to make it about class entitlement in game.

Guy raised on the streets has a rival that was raises as a noble. Both excel in school but the guy from the street always end up half a step behind, dealing 27 damage with his fireball while his rival deals 28.

The guy from the stret doing everything he can to wipe the smugness off the nobles face while the noble's pride of having a commoner right on his heels driving him forward in return.

Eventually, there is a situation where the noble is about to die, but the street gut saves him using his street skills. Making the noble jealous of the commoner for the first time, and having the commoner finally see the noble not as a target, but as a person.

They then quickly go back to trying to one up eachother, but with an undercurrent of respect and friendship this time.

 

[Parmandur]

We need more information.

Oh, another tidbit just fell out of the cobwebs between my ears thwt might indicate something more like best case here: they said in the Origins video that there will be a sidebar explaining how to use Backgrounds from older 5E books. I'm the UA, that solution involved floating ASI...because of course it must, the Backgrounds from Planescape or Bigby's book of Huants don't have ASI.

So, "you can change ASI, no biggie" is going to be in there...

 

[Scott Christian]

Guy raised on the streets has a rival that was raises as a noble. Both excel in school but the guy from the street always end up half a step behind, dealing 27 damage with his fireball while his rival deals 28.

One point out of a possible 28 is not a "half step behind." It is barely 3%. But this is the problem, and I stated it earlier. It will boil down to perception.
But it might roleplay out that way.

 

[mellored]

One point out of a possible 28 is not a "half step behind." It is barely 3%. But this is the problem, and I stated it earlier. It will boil down to perception.
But it might roleplay out that way.

Definitely roleplaying it that the difference is minimal but the perception of the difference is big.

 

[Aldarc]

But I prefer backgrounds to have an impact.

Stat bonuses aren't the only way that backgrounds can or could have an impact, so we are not dealing with an either/or dichotomy.

 

[mellored]

Stat bonuses aren't the only way that backgrounds can or could have an impact, so we are not dealing with an either/or dichotomy.

Sure. But people would just complain about the next thing.

I mean, how many calls are there for half-races so you can mix and match different features.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure. But people would just complain about the next thing.

I mean, how many calls are there for half-races so you can mix and match different features.

I don't think that this is a valid criticism. It's a deflection from the point by presenting a slippery slope.

 

[Stalker0]

Truly stupid decision that will cause absolute havoc with the backgrounds. People have got used to being able to assigning stats as they want, and restricting it this way is going to force people to be ludicrously suboptimal in ways that people really, really, really hate.

I have to agree on this one. The talk about assigning abilities to species was "forcing" people to play certain species with specific classes. So now they tried it with backgrounds....and found the same thing!

Ultimately ability scores are too important for most builds to not pick good ones for your class. And so the answer is simple....just decouple ability scores like you have done with Tasha's for years! Its so simple, just making ability scores its own part of the character creation process.

In the same amount of text it takes to explain to a user "ok you get these 3 stats from your background, and you can choose 1/1/1 or 2/1 etc" you can have just simply said "first, put a +2 in any one stat of your choice, put a +1 in any other stat....or put +1 in 3 different stats". So damn simple, I really don't understand why they pulled away from that.