D&D General Mike Mearls sits down with Ben from Questing Beast

[MerricB]

At a minimum, this is a strong argument in favor of custom backgrounds which I remain baffled aren't in the 2024 DMG.

Custom backgrounds are in the 2024 DMG. In that blink-and-you'll-miss-it way, that the 2024 DMG takes to a lot of its "help the DM come up with their own material".

Chapter 3 - direct link if you have the D&D Beyond rules:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/dms-toolbox#CreatingaBackground

 

[Gradine]

Mearls' example was wanting to play a dwarven smith wielding a warhammer.

And that there are several mechanics that 2024/5E inserts that get in the way of that fantasy.

• Want to play a smith? Well, you should play a farmer instead, because they get a better origin feat
• Hit someone with a warhammer, well you're pushing them away! But what if I want to hit them in the leg and stop them getting away... well you should have used a different weapon.

That warhammers get push is arbitrary. There are several weapon mastery properties that you could make a case to give to hammers. But, because Wizards wants to distinguish weapons and make martial classes more complex, they settled on the warhammer getting push.

And while that works for the mindset of "choose the best mechanics to build your character", it's a distinct difference to "choose a concept and see it realised in the game".

Not that 5E is flawless in that regard, either, but 2024 takes it further towards a mechanics-first game.

This doesn't make any sense at all. The example given here is especially nonsensical. You absolutely can choose a concept (in this case a dwarven smith wielding a warhammer) and absolutely see it realized in the new game. Even better, with the 2024 changes, because with the Guild Artisan background you get the whole Crafter feat for free, which is designed to realize a smith in the game. Farmer has a better feat? Dwarf already gets extra hit points! You really don't need more! As for the weapon mastery property, well, not every class even gets those, and a "Dwarven Smith" could really be anything. But even if they do get those, they get multiple, so grab a Maul (BIG hammer) and get to Toppling. And if they want to specifically "Slow" people with specifically a Warhammer, well, level 9 Fighters get to do that too!

Anyone who tells you not to take the Guild Artisan background for your Dwarven Smith character because it's a "trap option" is not someone to be taken seriously. None of the origin feats are especially game-breaking in any case, except for maybe Lucky. In neither iteration is 5e a game that demands or even really rewards system mastery to any serious kind of degree.

Like, I'm not sure who this is actually going to be an issue for, except for the rare case of the min-maxer who also deeply cares about character concept.

 

[bedir than]

Want to play a smith? Well, you should play a farmer instead, because they get a better origin feat

It seems that the only way to call Tough 'better' than Crafter is if the only measure of Feat quality is usefulness in combat.
Crafter tells the story of the character so much better than Tough would.

 

[Zardnaar]

It seems that the only way to call Tough 'better' than Crafter is if the only measure of Feat quality is usefulness in combat.
Crafter tells the story of the character so much better than Tough would.

Crafter still fairly bad. It's more or less the worst origin feat.

Rather than do backflips with 2014 backgrounds I'm ignoring the ability score boosts. Smart farmer go for it.

They're now being classist. Typical for WotC.

 

[overgeeked]

At a minimum, this is a strong argument in favor of custom backgrounds which I remain baffled aren't in the 2024 DMG.

They’re on page 55.

 

[Maxperson]

My homebrew tends to end up to complicated.

Gritty 5E, no sub classes and 3.0 or 3.5 HP levels?

Why no subclasses?

 

[Yaarel]

That’s fine but feats or slots are not typically a DM facing mechanic, they’re a player mechanic. I don’t really think there needs to be feats and slots. There was already a system for limiting the number of magic items one could use in 2e, and it was fine for that system.

Yeah. And you are right there needs to be player buy-in for how classes would work in the setting.

Strictly speaking, 5e lets the DM decide how powerful the magic items will be.

I mention magic item "levels" and "feat slots" for magic items, only in the context of keeping pace with the 5e monster math.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel like I’ve said “I would like a steak” and you keep telling me about all the different toppings I can put on a pizza.

Heh. I just hope it is clear how versatile this pizza is.

 

[Yaarel]

Without clickbait, how would the internet even function?

I wish the internet would function by search engines that would be accurate and unweighted, and returned results for precisely what one entered, with the option of continuing to new searches if current indexes didnt already locate the results.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wish the internet would function by search engines that would be accurate and unweighted, and returned results for precisely what one entered, with the option of continuing to new searches if current indexes didnt already locate the results.

There's certainly a market for "old" Google or Alta Vista. I suspect running that kind of comprehensive spidering and the resulting database is pretty expensive, though.