D&D (2024) D&D species article

[Scribe]

Do Tieflings cover this niche now? Formerly despised child of two worlds forging their own path...

No, its different tropes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Further, what you're not getting is, they may have to essentially WASTE the +2/+1. For example. You want to play a Wizard, you want them to have backstory X. Backstory X dictates Background Y.

"I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king". And your characters must have lead some pretty boring lives before adventuring if they fit 100% into any one background based on the sixteen.

• Acolyte
• Artisan
• Charlatan
• Criminal
• Entertainer
• Farmer
• Guard
• Guide
• Hermit
• Merchant
• Noble
• Sage
• Sailor
• Solider
• Wayfarer

For example the second son of a noble family (the first is the heir, the second goes to the military, the third the church), had their army defeated, and is now trying to put their life back together as their family was executed has been a noble (clearly), a soldier (went off to war), and is now probably a wayfarer - and that assuming that they went off to war using sword not spell. Which do they use as their background? Whichever they consider most relevant. Or let's take a monk whose monastery has been dissolved and is now looking for their place in the world. Are they an acolyte? Possibly - but they may have been the entertainer within the monastery, possibly someone without a vocation and thus a charlatan, an artisan (you don't think that they spend all day on their knees?), and more. I'm not particularly trying here.

And this is, to me, working as intended. It's encouraging people to think about their backgrounds rather than just have half a line, and that gives them narrative hooks about their character.

My main worry is how imbalanced the first level feats are. Given that literally 50% of backgrounds will match your primary stat there will be a lot of options.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And thus remove any need for the player to role-play this particular moment within an adventure with their character. Kind of takes all of the fun out of it for me. I would rather deal with the challenge of having my character find an armor smith who could make the adjustments to my newly acquired suit of armor.

Well, I'm sure it utterly impossible to... oh wait, you mean it is trivially easy to make that change if you want it? Okay. Knock yourself out.

But, see, Wizards of the Coast has to write the rules for people who are only going to get to play that 5th level Dragonborn on a two-shot adventure where they are never going to get the opportunity to find an armorsmith. And since they don't want "wearing armor or clothes" to be a hindrance on this ability as part of the mechanical power of it.... then they went with the option that is easy to skip this issue.

You want to bring it back? Knock yourself out. But don't act like they didn't have a coherent reason for doing it outside of "everything is energy"

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I'm sure it utterly impossible to... oh wait, you mean it is trivially easy to make that change if you want it? Okay. Knock yourself out.

But, see, Wizards of the Coast has to write the rules for people who are only going to get to play that 5th level Dragonborn on a two-shot adventure where they are never going to get the opportunity to find an armorsmith. And since they don't want "wearing armor or clothes" to be a hindrance on this ability as part of the mechanical power of it.... then they went with the option that is easy to skip this issue.

You want to bring it back? Knock yourself out. But don't act like they didn't have a coherent reason for doing it outside of "everything is energy"

Does the assumption really have to be that design is for short time PCs? I don't recall hearing that anywhere.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not particularly trying here.

To me it looks like you're trying extremely hard, actually, given the bizarre example.

Also, incredibly unrealistic - most players would choose the background that most-fit the character, i.e. - if they grew up on the streets, Urchin. Rather than say, picking Noble and saying "No no, I just hung out with nobles and learned their ways, I was really living on the streets!" or something. Likewise with your Monk example. 90% of players will want to pick Acolyte, and just be very annoyed if it has the wrong stats, and then have to think "How can I make up a background I didn't want to have to excuse taking the right background mechanically?".

Further, most characters are like 18-20. They don't remotely have the depth of background you're "not particularly trying" about (we're not all the sons of nobles!). The "Oh they're just trying to make people think" is an incredible bit of spin. That is 100% not what is going on here. They literally just changed some rules in a dumb way, after lying and saying they'd do it a different way, and now you have to spin it pretty hard and come up with a rationale.

Further you're not really addressing the classism as a center of oppression issue at all. I mean, sure, in America it's not considered to be such, but outside of the US it often is.

My main worry is how imbalanced the first level feats are. Given that literally 50% of backgrounds will match your primary stat there will be a lot of options.

Aren't there 17 possible stat combos? I'm maybe doing the math wrong?

But I don't entirely disagree. I think the combination of Primary stat being essentially hard-required even by most casual players, people looking for secondary stats that aren't a total waste, and the fact that some Backgrounds will have much better Feats and Skills than others will mean we actually see like, 4-6 "good" backgrounds completely dominating. Once we see the full list, I bet we can work out which those will likely be extremely fast and probably we'd both have similar results.

For example, if DEX/WIS/CON has a good Feat and/or Skill (god help us if it's Perception), then I think quite a lot of people will want that - like pretty much all Monks, Rangers, Rogues, and most Clerics and Druids can use that. That's 50% of the classes in the game right there. DEX Fighters too.

 

[Remathilis]

Do Tieflings cover this niche now? Formerly despised child of two worlds forging their own path...

Aasimar, the children of a mortal and an eternal, ethereal being that is distrusted by their mortal side and can never live up to the standards of their immortal parents seem to over the trope well.

 

[Parmandur]

Aren't there 17 possible stat combos? I'm maybe doing the math wrong?

There are 6 Abilities. Esch Background gets 3 Avilities assigned that the ASIs can float between when the player choose where to pit their bonuses. Ergo, each background has a 50-50 shot of letting the PC choose a +2 in their Classes primary attribute.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There are 6 Abilities. Esch Background gets 3 Avilities assigned that the ASIs can float between when the player choose where to pit their bonuses. Ergo, each background has a 50-50 shot of letting the PC choose a +2 in their Classes primary attribute.

Yeah but there are 16 Backgrounds and 17 combinations of stats. Therefore one combo (hopefully INT WIS CHA or at least something containing INT, the worst stat) has to be excluded. So it's not going to be exactly 50%, is it? Have I gone crazy? Lost my damn mind?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've never heard this argument raised about Aarakocra though, so if they can be winged why not Dragonfolk

"Flight.
Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You can't use this flying speed if you're wearing medium or heavy armor."

That line isn't because of weight. It is because there is no room for the wings if you are wearing those armors. Since Aarakocra have their flight from level 1, they can build with this in mind. Getting their flight later means that Dragonborn might not be built with the idea that they aren't going to be wearing heavy armor from level 1 to level 20

 

[Remathilis]

"I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king". And your characters must have lead some pretty boring lives before adventuring if they fit 100% into any one background based on the sixteen.

• Acolyte
• Artisan
• Charlatan
• Criminal
• Entertainer
• Farmer
• Guard
• Guide
• Hermit
• Merchant
• Noble
• Sage
• Sailor
• Solider
• Wayfarer

For example the second son of a noble family (the first is the heir, the second goes to the military, the third the church), had their army defeated, and is now trying to put their life back together as their family was executed has been a noble (clearly), a soldier (went off to war), and is now probably a wayfarer - and that assuming that they went off to war using sword not spell. Which do they use as their background? Whichever they consider most relevant. Or let's take a monk whose monastery has been dissolved and is now looking for their place in the world. Are they an acolyte? Possibly - but they may have been the entertainer within the monastery, possibly someone without a vocation and thus a charlatan, an artisan (you don't think that they spend all day on their knees?), and more. I'm not particularly trying here.

And this is, to me, working as intended. It's encouraging people to think about their backgrounds rather than just have half a line, and that gives them narrative hooks about their character.

My main worry is how imbalanced the first level feats are. Given that literally 50% of backgrounds will match your primary stat there will be a lot of options.

I wager that within a relatively short amount of time, the amount of backgrounds is going to explode. Between old backgrounds being converted (unofficially and then officially), new backgrounds in future products, 3pp products and rules in the DMG for creating them, I suspect there will be no lack for appropriate backgrounds that mix just the right collection on ASI, skills and feats. Maybe you don't like the noble background, but perhaps the courier or Waterdhavian noble will be more to your liking.