D&D General 5E species with further choices and differences

[Horwath]

im already of the opinion that most classes (read: martials) get too few skills anyway. and you want...no class skills, for the most part.

everyone gets same amount of skills as now, just more are tied to background not class.

now, another question is? Do 1st level characters, especially martials get to few skills? I would agree yes, but that is another topic.

 

[Horwath]

agreed, there should be more skills for martials not less

i also think there should be more expertise, jack of all trades and reliable talent handed out to them, i think people are too afraid of letting martials break skill bounded accuracy when like, what's really the worst things they can do with skill checks? nothing that can match what a spellcaster can break with their abilities IMO.

if we increase it then we can have:
cleric/druid/sorcerer/warlock/wizard: get background skills only(4 of them), same as now.
fighter/paladin/bard get extra 1 skill
monk/barbarian/artificer get extra 2 skills
ranger/rogue get extra 3 skills

option for reliable talent:
merge it with default proficiencies:

proficiency: min d20 roll is 5
expertise: min d20 roll is 8
7th level rogue+proficiency: min d20 roll is 10
7th level rogue+expertise: min d20 roll is 12

 

[Yaarel]

it'd be a start

Generally, features that are available at level 1 are less solutions at higher levels. It is true that skills improve with proficiency. But characters already have an abundance of skills from class and backgrounds. The Fighter needs actual noncombat utility. The class is already athletic which is good for exploration, and mainly needs utilities for social challenges.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

@EzekielRaiden @Corinnguard

I dont have the book Heroes of Faerun yet. But based on what others have said, it supplies backgrounds (with unique mechanics) to represent a unique local culture. Example, the initiates of the Dragon Cult have a special feat. This distinctive cultural institution trains secrecy and tracking skills.

This is exactly the kind of local cultural options that I expect an official setting to supply, and apparently Heroes of Faerun does this.

Even when using multicultural backgrounds from core rules, these are opportunities for the DM and player to negotiate ways to make them culturally specific by grounding them within a certain place and group of people. These narrative (non mechanical) rules supply unique culturally specific resources. Even a DM that is less confident about mechanically tweaking a background should be doing things like granting an advantage to History skill checks when referring to a characters own cultural background.

Don't own the book, so I can't say. If they've done that, then cool, that would be a (teeny tiny) improvement.

Finally, a DM can and should be working with the player to decide on specific mechanics that represent the biography of a character.

Which just means WotC is offloading even more design work onto the GM. Wonderful. Just fantastic. Just the absolute best. I love it so much.

Edit:
As for your previous post, asking about what I expect...

I expect actual cultural elements. Things like dietary info, cultural mores, stylistic choices, linguistic differences, etc., and then at least one mechanically significant thing which comes from participating in that culture. Not just "these are the skills you can learn" either. Something with teeth. Doesn't have to be big, backgrounds in 5e are inherently quite shallow so there's only so much they can do, but they can certainly do far more than they have.

The generic backgrounds thus serve as fill-ins for any remainder--if you aren't happy with the commitments required by the culture-specific backgrounds, you can take one of the generic ones, knowing that it means getting less culture, because that's what you want, not because you have to be saddled with it and invent the rest.

 

[Corinnguard]

I dont have the book Heroes of Faerun yet. But based on what others have said, it supplies backgrounds (with unique mechanics) to represent a unique local culture. Example, the initiates of the Dragon Cult have a special feat. This distinctive cultural institution trains secrecy and tracking skills.

I don't have this particular 2024 book, so I can't offer up my two copper pieces just yet on what I think of it. As for the Dragon Cult, I would probably use Level Up's Dragon Cult culture instead of what's being offered in Heroes of Faerun. FR's Cult of the Dragon deals with Chromatic dragons, but what if you're dealing with a cult that venerates metallic or gem dragons?

Finally, a DM can and should be working with the player to decide on specific mechanics that represent the biography of a character.

This sounds like it's going to create balance issues for the DM.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't have this particular 2024 book, so I can't offer up my two copper pieces just yet on what I think of it. As for the Dragon Cult, I would probably use Level Up's Dragon Cult culture instead of what's being offered in Heroes of Faerun. FR's Cult of the Dragon deals with Chromatic dragons, but what if you're dealing with a cult that venerates metallic or gem dragons?

This sounds like it's going to create balance issues for the DM.

I think the solution for "more culture" is to give the background more design space at higher levels, as well as combining it with bastion activities and dwellers.

I hope D&D continues to move away from things like giving every "Chinese" character weapon proficiency with fighting with chopsticks, or giving every "Norse" character resistance to cold damage, or whatever stereotype people might think is a good idea to assign to a "culture".

Focus on the specific institutions. If I were to represent American culture for a D&D setting, I would think about American highschools, which are reasonably standardized, and what kind of skills a character might pick up from there. Even then not all Americans attended an American highschool. So it would only be one of several backgrounds to choose from.

 

[TheFantasyHistorianYT]

I like to pull from history to add flavor to monsters, as a good chunk of them are pulled from there anyway. It does take extra work researching them, but I can take some of the more interesting aspects that a monster has in folklore, myth, legend, etc and translate it over as either a new custom trait or ability or find an existing one in the game that captures the same idea.

 

[CreamCloud0]

if we increase it then we can have:
cleric/druid/sorcerer/warlock/wizard: get background skills only(4 of them), same as now.
fighter/paladin/bard get extra 1 skill
monk/barbarian/artificer get extra 2 skills
ranger/rogue get extra 3 skills

option for reliable talent:
merge it with default proficiencies:

proficiency: min d20 roll is 5
expertise: min d20 roll is 8
7th level rogue+proficiency: min d20 roll is 10
7th level rogue+expertise: min d20 roll is 12

Off the top of my head I think id go with something like:
Background: 3 skills.
Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard: 2 skills, 1 expertise in a class skill, no reliable talent.
Paladin: 4 skills, 1 expertise in a class skill, no reliable talent.
Barbarian/Fighter/Monk: 4 skills, 2 expertise in class skills, reliable talent on class skills.
Bard: 4 skills, 1 expertise on any skill, reliable talent on all proficient skills, jack of all trades.
Artificer/Ranger: 5 skills, 3 expertise in class skills, reliable talent on class skills.
Rogue: 5 skills, 3 expertise on any skills, reliable talent on all proficient skills, jack of all trades.

All classes beside Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard that gets expertise will get the same number they get at 1st again at 7th level to assign freely.

 

[DammitVictor]

Each background is a handful of lego pieces. This is precisely how reallife cultures work: skills gained while participating in the traditions of specific groups in specific places.

That's a great way to describe how it works in real life; it's a terrible model for a fantasy roleplaying game.

Everyone says they want "cultures" and "backgrounds" and (yes, even) "races" to be more flavorful and iconic, but then they backpedal and start talking about individuals and exceptions and special circumstances and then they wonder why everything keeps coming out the same dull, flavorless shade of beige. They're homogeneous because you keep homogenizing them; if you want things to be special and different, you actually have to be willing to let them stay special and different. You have to be willing to say that they're not the same thing, that they're not interchangeable, and that they're not something to be ignored and that they're not 'guidelines' to be reskinned whenever someone says they want to play "a dwarf, but not like all the other dwarves".

It is literally the same people complaining that "fantasy races" are just different rubber forehead aliens that refuse to let them be anything else. When everyone, every single instance of something is 'an exception to the rules', nothing is special-- everything is blandly, identically unique, just like everything else, and it's boring. When you mix everything in the kitchen sink together, the only flavor you're left with is dishwater.

 

[CreamCloud0]

That's a great way to describe how it works in real life; it's a terrible model for a fantasy roleplaying game.

Everyone says they want "cultures" and "backgrounds" and (yes, even) "races" to be more flavorful and iconic, but then they backpedal and start talking about individuals and exceptions and special circumstances and then they wonder why everything keeps coming out the same dull, flavorless shade of beige. They're homogeneous because you keep homogenizing them; if you want things to be special and different, you actually have to be willing to let them stay special and different. You have to be willing to say that they're not the same thing, that they're not interchangeable, and that they're not something to be ignored and that they're not 'guidelines' to be reskinned whenever someone says they want to play "a dwarf, but not like all the other dwarves".

It is literally the same people complaining that "fantasy races" are just different rubber forehead aliens that refuse to let them be anything else. When everyone, every single instance of something is 'an exception to the rules', nothing is special-- everything is blandly, identically unique, just like everything else, and it's boring. When you mix everything in the kitchen sink together, the only flavor you're left with is dishwater.

Uh, didn’t the desire for culture as it’s own category come about because people didn’t like the idea of all members of a species having all their species cultural knowledge seemingly beamed into their head at birth despite potentially growing up never seeing a single other member of their species?

So you coming along and saying dwarves or whatever don’t feel special because they deviate and don’t have the standard dwarven culture feels a bit like a step back in the conversation.