D&D 5E (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: Feats/Backgrounds/Species

[ECMO3]

Are backgrounds going to give languages still?

 

[mellored]

As if absorbing, processing, and recalling knowledge is somehow unique to one particular lifestyle.

Memory, like muscles, takes training to develop. So yes, it depends on your lifestyle.

Now if you want to be raised as an "Acolyte" but spent time doing cartwheels down the hallway and juggling books instead of studying, then talk to your DM.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

DMG will provide guidance for creating additinal backgrounds. (This is a BIG CHANGE from 2014, where customization was a built-in, player-controlled option; now it is "under DM supervision".)

First thing in the previews that is a change from the playtest AND makes me way angrier than rules in a game that I houserule anyway ever should.

It’s a plainly foolish change.

It's probavly the same sidebar that was in UA 1. Simple stuff, really.

One of vanishingly few possibilities that will make me reluctant to by the new PHB.

Making a character with a mixed heritage should not ever mean that you are only and wholly one of those heritages in any meaningful way, regardless of how wh….elven, you look. It’s literally blood quantum. All they had to do was recreate the species customization rules and the custom lineage that already exist in the game. Easy. I have hair like my dad’s entire Hispanic family, with skin like my mom’s Irish American family.

In D&D, traits are much more significant than color and thickness of hair. So let my character with dwarf and elf heritage either create a (ideally slightly more fleshed out) custom heritage, or take a species options and modify mechanical elements of it until they feel like they’re playing a mixed-race character of those two heritages.

 

[cbwjm]

Kind of weird, I haven't watched the video, just read the summary but it sounds like backgrounds are more limiting compared to what we'd reached with all the various books which allowed for any +2/+1 combo, now it's dictated by background instead of race which feels like we've gone 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

 

[Scott Christian]

Too late. Upthread, I've already broken down one of these backgrounds and used it to highlight something awful and negative to justify changing the way ability bonuses are assigned...

And frankly, I don't regret saying it. I find it absolutely absurd that D&D continues to use mechanics which associate only certain, specific character origins with high Intelligence. As if absorbing, processing, and recalling knowledge is somehow unique to one particular lifestyle.

Even if a game mechanic which ties ability scores to specific backgrounds didn't have any potentially problematic implications at all, it would still interfere with character creation. It would, for example, make it extremely hard to ever implement the classic "diamond in the rough" trope, where a character from an unlikely background just happens to be extremely good at something they have no right being good at when suddenly given the chance, just because they're awesome like that.

I appreciate your take on this. I understand it. But can I ask you to look at intelligence a little differently?

If you view it as greater exposure, which often leads to the ability to apply that learned knowledge. You are viewing it as purely innate, and when it is viewed in that lens, I agree with you. But if you view it like strength, meaning someone can be raised to train daily, be it with a smithy hammer or mining pick, and add muscle. This, as opposed to the someone who worked in the library. By eighteen, those two might have different bodies. And the smithy might be able to apply that accrued muscle mass and hammer knowledge to fighting, whereas the librarian, maybe not so much. They can apply other things - war tactics, reading maps, etc.

Intelligence can be viewed the same way. It is not innate they are discussing with backgrounds, but exposure. In the PHB it states, "Intelligence measures mental sharpness, ability to recall information, and skill at applying logic." If you look at these skills, they are all skills that can be practiced and honed. The ability to recall information is practiced everyday, often hundreds of times, by that librarian. The greater the exposure to logic, thinking in terms of math, using the scientific method, and being involved in deep discussions regarding how to solve complex problems, gets better with practice. Sharpness too, can wane when repeating mundane tasks day in and day out.

Anyway, I hope this helps you see my side of the picture.

 

[mellored]

In D&D, traits are much more significant than color and thickness of hair. So let my character with dwarf and elf heritage either create a (ideally slightly more fleshed out) custom heritage, or take a species options and modify mechanical elements of it until they feel like they’re playing a mixed-race character of those two heritages.

That's difficult to do exactly because they are much more significant.

Take flying for aarakocra and magic resistance from yuan ti, and your overpowered.

Take talons from aarakocra and poison resilience from yuan to, and your underpowered.

Playing something that just look like a featheres serpent isn't going to have an impact on the game.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Making a character with a mixed heritage should not ever mean that you are only and wholly one of those heritages in any meaningful way, regardless of how wh….elven, you look. It’s literally blood quantum.

The new approach to mixed species in 2024 seems objectively worse and honestly more offensive than anything from original 5e.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Kind of weird, I haven't watched the video, just read the summary but it sounds like backgrounds are more limiting compared to what we'd reached with all the various books which allowed for any +2/+1 combo, now it's dictated by background instead of race which feels like we've gone 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

Closer to 3 steps back, since you also cannot customize backgrounds anymore.

 

[Horwath]

To be clear, for any attack that does any positive amount of damage, unless the target difficulty range requires a 1- or a 20+ on the d20, the ratio of damage will always be greater than 5% for an additional +1 to the to-hit roll.

the most basic math is for 4th level character, feat or +2 primary.

1d8+4, 60% hit chance, av 5,1dmg
1d8+3, 55% hit chance, av 4,13dmg

+2 primary adds +23,5% damage

 

[Cadence]

Closer to 3 steps back, since you also cannot customize backgrounds anymore.

Background customization is apparently in the DMG?