Background benefits?

[Ryujin]

Merely a technicality and it doesn't really impact the Windrise Ports thing, but you aren't limited to one MC feat. You're limited to MCing into one other CLASS. You could for example take both of the Bard MC feats, or both of the Warlock MC feats, and still be perfectly within the rules. Windrise ports allows you to take MC feats for two different classes.

And yes, from where I sit that's 6 month old moldy cheese.

 

[Herschel]

Main issue is that backgrounds shouldn't be close to feats in utility sense.
PHB II is pretty much spot on there. +2 skill is about perfect:
Between 40% and 67% of a feat utility, depending on are you trained on that skill or not.

Adding skill to class skills is bit on the weak side, I think it would work better if it added +1 to the skill also.


This is the problem. It should not be comparable to Toughness even at heroic, even in optimised situation.
2-3 extra hp would be fine ( +2 per tier).

IMO Windrise Ports was bad idea from start. If multiclassing is balanced on one only being able to take one MC feat, allowing second one for marginal cost doesn't sound like a smart thing to do.

I'd argue adding the Perception, Insight or Intimidate skill can be pretty darned powerful in many combat situation if you don't already have it and the +2 in any of those skills is great for a variety of reasons.

Background feats are just a bit lighter version of feats to give you a minor benefit and help flesh out a character. There really is no mechanical issue with them being close to Toughness at Heroic as that's not a feat most characters need either. You can easily argue Durable is a better feat. Heck, the Akanul background can be more powerful, depending on campaign.

 

[eamon]

IMO Windrise Ports was bad idea from start. If multiclassing is balanced on one only being able to take one MC feat, allowing second one for marginal cost doesn't sound like a smart thing to do.

As bards show, this isn't generally true. Yes, there are exceptions, and you'll find builds that abuse various loopholes. Frankly, I suspect you'll always find those (and manage to get that combo you want via some other path) - the vast majority of characters won't be problematic, and so far it doesn't look to me like this background is likely to cause issues. For most characters, they'll just be able to learn two signature tricks - at a cost of a feat each - and that'll make em a little more unique but not exactly problematic.

 

[Garthanos]

A: Scales is in the character builder, yes. I play in a Scales campagn and we use them. Highest attribute doesn't rise as quickly as toughness does. Post-heroic, if not sooner, toughness comes out ahead.

B: You don't need a leader to spend surges but yeah, if you have a lame party without a decent leader it makes things a bit more interesting. But, spending a second wind and 3ish surges following encounters for frontliners in a three+ combat day still requires more than the basic surge allotment.

The common life of something ike this is a bunch of yahoos screaming "It's broken!/It's the suxx0rs!" when looking at it on paper. Then actual, thoughful analysis and playtesting is done and it turns out it works just fine without being the abomination a bunch of people tried to claim it was.

Yup .... the analysis was a little too simplistic. And as DracoSuave pointed out doesnt even break anything. The other feats that nobody is directly commenting on are basically 3 of simpler backgrounds wrapped in one... anybody house rule getting three of those benefits as a mixed background?

 

[Doctor Proctor]

A: Those are Scales of War backgrounds, not Forgotten Realms. The Realms have Impiltur and Thay for Wisdom and Intelligence, respectively.

B: It's NOT as good as toughness for at least 2/3 of a character's "life". Toughness scales, backgrounds don't.

C: Also, base HP is a bad measurement because of SURGES. As I showed above, a 14 Con with no background is better than a 10 Con with the background because of the number of surges available makes up for the difference in base HP.

They aren't that powerful if you actually look at them objectively, which too many interweb weenies don't.

First off, I don't take kindly to 3rd grade level insult slinging, so how about you knock that off. We're adults here, and shouldn't have to resort to calling people "interweb weenies" when you didn't even pay attention to what my post said.

A) Yeah, sorry, I said Forgotten Realms instead of Scales of War. I didn't have Character Builder in front of me at the time, so thanks for the correction.

B) In my original post I was going with the assumption that the player was using CON as a dump stat (meaning an 8 or 10) and then attaching their HP increase to their primary stat (we can assume about an 18 starting stat on average, since 16 and 20 seem to be rarer). Assuming that their build had CON at 10 and their primary stat at 18 the background benefit increases their HP total at level 1 by 8, which is higher than the 5 HP that Toughness gives in Heroic.

Now, you mentioned that the background doesn't scale with level, while Toughness does, but this is flat out wrong. When you increase your HP determining stat your HP goes up, which means that it scales according to stat increases. In the case of your primary stat, which you should be upping at every opportunity, it will be a 21 by the time you hit 11th level (assuming you started with 18). This gives a net increase of 10 HP compared to using CON (it's net of +10 because CON will raise at 11th level to 11, which is 10 points lower than 21). Here, the background is equivalent to Toughness at level 11, but scales up to +12 by the end of Paragon due to the increases at 14th and 18th level.

At Epic your primary stat will be at 24 whereas CON will be at a 12, which is a net increase of +12 HP. This is lower than the +15 that Toughness gives at Epic, but this is the only time it doesn't meet or exceed the bonus that Toughness gives. Additionally, you get another 2 stat increases at 24th and 28th level, as well as a possible +2 due to an Epic Destiny. This means that your final bonus could be as high as +14 or +16, the latter of which actually exceeds Toughness.

So, as demonstrated, this background has about equal parity with the Toughness feat, which basically means it can be used to replace it in a way that the standard PHB2 style backgrounds do not.

(Note: the above math was the exact reason that my party's Rogue didn't take Toughness, and instead got the DM to let him the Auspicious Birth background, so it's not as if this is a crazy theoretical scenario)

C) Surges have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, so I have no idea why you're bringing it in. I was only comparing the efficacy of the Toughness feat to the backgrounds that allow you to change your HP stat for characters that aren't raising CON a lot. Since they're not raising CON regardless of what background or feats they take, surges have no place in this discussion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign. DB fighter #2 has 3 more hit points than fighter #1, a +1 STR bonus (huge) and some other off stat which is 2 points higher. That is a heck of a lot better than any feat will give you. Fighter #1 has in his favor a +2 to some skill bonus and a lot better Endurance check, but considering fighter #2 has 2 points better on STR based checks and +1 better on some other sort of checks I'm thinking I'd much rather be fighter #2...

Throwing Toughness into this particular analysis is meaningless since either of the above characters could take that feat and would gain equally from it. Even giving fighter #1 Toughness for free doesn't really make him equal overall to #2 without a feat, so its kinda hard to say Toughness is better in any respect anyway.

Now, this is of course the very most optimum situation, but that's exactly when someone will take something for min/maxing purposes, so its a perfectly valid sort of analysis. I'd not go so far as to say that the background is 'broken' but it is certainly FAR superior mechanically for some characters than the standard baseline PHB2 backgrounds. For many other characters its at best marginal and maybe almost as good as a feat, which is not far off from other backgrounds and might well not be so appealing to them. I'm still a bit leery of this overall and would prefer not to be saddled with the OP's situation.

 

[Herschel]

C) Surges have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, so I have no idea why you're bringing it in. I was only comparing the efficacy of the Toughness feat to the backgrounds that allow you to change your HP stat for characters that aren't raising CON a lot. Since they're not raising CON regardless of what background or feats they take, surges have no place in this discussion.

Yes, they do. The "Max HP" on the character sheet is not your real HP allotment, nor even the maximum with temporary HP sources. You have access to a lot more HP, depending on the number of surges you have, you just need to tap them. A character with 32 "regular" HP and seven surges has access to roughly 103 actual HP in a day. (32 base + 7*8 surge + 15 (1 short of negative bloodied). This can go up based on healing from negative, temporary HP and riders from leader healing.

These are the actual HP a character has to use. Your view is oversimplified and simply inaccurate. The background feat, toughnes and durability can all help mitigate a lower constitution, but it's at a steep cost. It's not bad, overpowered or "broken", it's a build choice.

 

[Herschel]

I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign. DB fighter #2 has 3 more hit points than fighter #1, a +1 STR bonus (huge) and some other off stat which is 2 points higher. That is a heck of a lot better than any feat will give you.

Except Fighter #2 is THREE surges short at minimum, four at others even if not boosted outside the blanket stat bumps.

That hurts.

A lot.

 

[keterys]

DB Fighter #1 also heals 2 more every surge from his con bonus, deals 3 more damage with every breath weapon, has access to plate armor if he wants it, etc...

 

[Benimoto]

I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign.

I do really have to side with the people saying that you also have to consider how having a bad con score affects your number of surges when you're considering overall hit points. I don't do this every adventure, of course, but once every 3-5 levels, I DM my characters through an endurance situation where they might fight 6 or so fairly tough combat encounters over the course of the adventure without the opportunity to take an extended rest and regain surges.

In these types of situations, it is not infrequent for the strikers to be completely out of surges by the last 1-2 encounters, and the defender types to be running very low. It seems to me that taking that kind of background, and lowering your Con score to min/max would not be without drawbacks.