D&D (2024) Background feats and flexibility

[Dumapic]

I've been looking at the changes to the 2024 backgrounds, and I'm probably just going to try them as-is. But my initial impression is that they're a little too restrictive. I'm fine with the idea of restriction leading to creativity. But not necessarily when creativity leads to having skills and feats that you'll never actually use.

For context, I'm coming at this from the standpoint of a story-leaning GM. I'm not overly interested in optimized characters, but also feel that players shouldn't be unduly punished for making story-positive choices.

My main concern is the restriction of a single origin feat per background. I suspect this will lead to players choosing the origin feat they want first, then the background that has that feat, where in 2014 D&D, they tended to lean in more on backgrounds that just made sense story-wise. For example, in an Eberron game I ran, we had a pirate sorcerer. She'd likely be a sailor in this version, which would lead to her getting the tavern brawler origin feat. I'm fairly certain that our sorcerer didn't make a single melee attack all campaign, so that would have been wasted. Or she could have chosen a better origin feat for her character, which would have pushed her story in a different direction. Not necessarily bad, but I'm not a fan of having to modify your character's origin story to avoid "benefits" that don't actually benefit you.

My initial thought is to give players a choice of two origin feats per background. I did a quick pass to see what I could come up with, and here are the first few:

Acolyte: Magic Initiate (cleric) or Healer
Artisan: Crafter or Skilled
Charlatan: Skilled or Magic Initiate (wizard)
Criminal: Alert or Lucky

Now having said this, without thinking of my example above, I assigned a secondary origin feat option of musician to the sailor background. I don't know how much that would have helped my pirate sorcerer player. So it's not perfect, but it adds some flexibility.

Any thoughts?

 

[Tonguez]

Maybe Skilled or Tough for the second Sailor feat? Skilled to represent knowing the ropes, swimming, navigation etc, tough because of the hard sailors life.

Lucky makes sese for a pirate too

 

[maceochaid]

I like this a lot, and am thinking about what I see as some issues with the background system. I am also worried about the attributes being a problem and am thinking of making a couple of "hole" filling backgrounds for my first game. Specifically Acolyte, since it gives Int/Wis/Cha which no Cleric or Paladin player who has an optimization lens will take. In this case I was thinking of adding "Templar" which has the text and feature of Acolyte but with the attributes being Str/Wis/Cha

 

[Kobold Stew]

There's a lot of places where ading just a little choice would have made the backgrounds more palatable. I'm trying to like it RAW, but it's not easy. Adding a third skill (choose two) and adding a second background feat (choose one) would give some flexibility without sacrificing what I think they are trying to do.

Alternately, I think anyone should be able to choose Skilled or Tough, which opens up a number of bkgds, though not all.

 

[Dumapic]

Maybe Skilled or Tough for the second Sailor feat? Skilled to represent knowing the ropes, swimming, navigation etc, tough because of the hard sailors life.

Lucky makes sese for a pirate too

When I did my pass through all the backgrounds, I tried to hit each origin feat at least once, and tried not to duplicate them too many. Having said that, it was really tempting to give Skilled or Tough to just about everyone.

I like this a lot, and am thinking about what I see as some issues with the background system. I am also worried about the attributes being a problem and am thinking of making a couple of "hole" filling backgrounds for my first game. Specifically Acolyte, since it gives Int/Wis/Cha which no Cleric or Paladin player who has an optimization lens will take. In this case I was thinking of adding "Templar" which has the text and feature of Acolyte but with the attributes being Str/Wis/Cha

I took a look at the attribute selections, and decided to leave them alone for now. For any given combination of attributes, there are several possible background options. So at least it was more flexible than the origin feats.

However, I really prefer the way PF2e handled ability scores and backgrounds, which was to give a choice between two ability scores for the first, then let the player choose the second. So, maybe Acolyte would be WIS or INT and choose a different ability. (If you want a +1 to three scores, maybe you're stuck with the two, but still get to choose a third.) If I were to do a full homebrewed background system change, I'd probably make this change as well.

There's a lot of places where ading just a little choice would have made the backgrounds more palatable. I'm trying to like it RAW, but it's not easy. Adding a third skill (choose two) and adding a second background feat (choose one) would give some flexibility without sacrificing what I think they are trying to do.

Alternately, I think anyone should be able to choose Skilled or Tough, which opens up a number of bkgds, though not all.

I'm definitely going to try the 2024 backgrounds out as-is in my first playthrough. Maybe they'll work great and this whole thread will be for naught. But I also really like the idea of choose two of three skills as well.


One other option I had is to make setting-specific or campaign-specific backgrounds and making them more flexible to encourage players to choose them. So you could choose the RAW options or you could pick Thunder Sea Corsair which would have multiple origin feat options.

 

[Xeviat]

Skilled and Tough should be options for all backgrounds. Or all backgrounds should have 2 options. We'll probably be very flexible with backgrounds in my games.

 

[Horwath]

Skilled and Tough should be options for all backgrounds. Or all backgrounds should have 2 options. We'll probably be very flexible with backgrounds in my games.

I'm going to outcustom the future custom background from DMG.

Background:

1. Gain any origin feat or 4th level feat without ASI.
2. Gain 4 skills, reduce number of skills granted by class at 1st level by 2.
3. Gain combination of 2 tools, languages or weapons.

 

[Dumapic]

Acolyte: Magic Initiate (cleric) or Healer
Artisan: Crafter or Skilled
Charlatan: Skilled or Magic Initiate (wizard)
Criminal: Alert or Lucky

Figured I'd go ahead and fill out the rest of this list, in case anyone's interested. My goal was to cover every origin feat at least once more, and tried not to duplicate any too often. (I want to not only give more flexibility to each background, but also to characters that want a particular origin feat).

Acolyte: Magic Initiate (cleric) or Healer
Artisan: Crafter or Skilled
Charlatan: Skilled or Magic Initiate (wizard)
Criminal: Alert or Lucky
Entertainer: Musician or Tavern Brawler
Farmer: Tough or Healer
Guard: Alert or Savage Attacker
Guide: Magic Initiate (Druid) or Alert
Hermit: Healer or Magic Initiate (Druid)
Merchant: Lucky or Crafter
Noble: Skilled or Musician
Sage: Magic Initiate (Wizard) or Skilled
Sailor: Tavern Brawler or Musician
Scribe: Skilled or Magic Initiate (Cleric)
Soldier: Savage Attacker or Tough
Wayfarer: Lucky or Tough

It's not perfect. And after seeing some of the comments here, it might just be preferable to add or Skilled or Tough to every entry instead. But I think it's a lot more flexible than RAW.

 

[maceochaid]

I always appreciate Treantmonk's take on things and his background run down is definitely going to be my springboard for how I set up some extra backgrounds for my first games.


Some of my takeaways for what could happen if I don't provide options will be a optimizing focused player making a Monk feeling pressured into taking Sailor.

Similarly if I just open it up entirely and say "free choose your background" the Magic Initiate (Wizard) will be taken by all my players.

Essentially I want to add clone backgrounds that suffer from feats Treantmonk lists as mechanically week or with a poor attribute match (Adding Templar so Paladins or Clerics feel they can take something Acolyte-ish), and use the attribute scores to dampen the power level of feats that seem to powerful (Sage with a bonus to intellect scores is the only way to get Magic Initiate (Wizard) so not every fighter takes the same feat).

I will have some players that are very flavor focused and will choose based on flavor, and I don't want them to feel outshadowed by optimizers. I will also always have players who love the "Gaminess" of DnD and I want to pull them into role playing by having optimization options that can support a story.

 

[Vael]

I'll admit, I'm a little conflicted on this. My assumption, if I'm DMing, is any player is free to customize a background as they wish. Swap out the feat, skills, ability scores? All fine. But messing around with character generation right now, I've been theory building as if they're locked down.

I think for backgrounds I'd build for a campaign, I'd include a choice at each tier. So, there'd be 2 feats, pick one; 3 or 4 skills, pick two; 2 tools, pick one.