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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MyISPHatesENWorld" data-source="post: 4453407" data-attributes="member: 65684">The only rule text is the benefit itself, nothing prevents you from changing fluff. If the backgrounds are available to you, the only rules requirement to select any is to select that background in lieu of another background.The cleric of any other deity is proscribed from taking Sehanine's Reversal if he isn't a cleric of Sehanine. Backgrounds aren't proscribed from any character. There is only one rule a a background, the mechanical benefit. Everything else is fluff, and fluff can be changed. Feats aren't all well balanced, by the same standard to which you are holding backgrounds to each other. You state this later in your post saying that some feats are so bad that people don't take them. Well, since you get that benefit from Gritty Sergeant, and a Rogue or Cleric could just as well have previously served in the military as a fighter, even with the default fluff, that doesn't go against type. Maybe the issue isn't that they go against type as much as some people's view of an appropriate "type" being more much more limited than others. A character's type should be what the player wants that character's type to be. I don't expect a certain type from any particular race or class combination. Backgrounds are a tool to allow a player to make a particular class and race combination into the type he or she wants it to be. He said there wasn't significant advantage to be gained from the abilities. If you think getting any mechanical benefit to be overpowered, then you would consider all of these significant advantages. But that is your opinion. If you took his written article as a challenge or personal affront, I just don't get that.Wrong. The fighter is gaining the same mechanical benefit when +3 to Intimidate is gained from a background as when +3 to Intimidate is gained from a feat because since you can only have one background, it doesn't need a 'type' to prevent it from stacking with another background benefit. Because you can have more than one feat, you need to have a 'feat' limitation on the bonus to keep it from stacking with the benefits of other feats. No background in here is significantly weaker than all feats. You admit as much as this below in regard to the balance of Skill Focus:History. It is no more unbalanced than anything else in the game.You equate mechanics you don't like to poor mechanics, regardless of their mechanical merit, so you're still just disliking him because you don't like what he wrote. People have complained about pretty much everything, that doesn't make your opinion any more or less valid.Out of curiosity, are you complaining about the Forgotten Realms regional benefits? It's almost the same mechanic but actually does force a specific benefit on you based upon your backstory. Do you blame David Noonan for those too? Did he somehow get complete editorial control over everything WotC publishes? Or does he write stuff and everyone at Wizards looks at it and says, "Boy this sucks but Dave is a nice guy so let's publish it..."No. You're isolating my example from the proper context of all players in a group being able to select one background, and backgrounds thus being a limited and finite resource. To get a background benefit, he has to be able to select a background. Since there are no mechanical requirements for selecting a background, he has the opportunity to take any background. If he chooses to expend that resource to gain +3 to Intimidate, he can't spend that resource in another way. He has other viable options and by gaining this benefit, he is foregoing other potential benefits, so he will be paying a fair cost for the benefit he receives from his choice.  Gaining access to resources the environment doesn't normally provide is a mechanical benefit. You're granting it via roleplay/backstory rather than the mechanics of travel and social interaction (or acquisition via combat). So your personal resolution system for acquiring raw materials or crafting a weapon is in fact tying roleplay/backstory to mechanical benefit.We aren't talking about my players, we're talking about what you said - that players should be allowed to make anything they want rather than buying it, and the implication that you would allow them to do so, which is inconsistent with the attitudes toward "type" you've displayed throughout this thread. By your question, you've proven my point. And if the player wants to roleplay being a contributer to someone who does have ritual casting, that works. If he actually wants to be able to make magic weapons and armor, he's S.O.L. For a player that wants to play a dwarf fighter that can craft weapons and armor, including magical weapons and armor, but doesn't care about using any other rituals, being able to select a background that gives him that ability is worthwhile. It lets him do what he wants to do without spending two feats (Ritual Caster and Skill Training:Arcana or Religion) to do so. In your campaign, where you would allow the player to make weapons and armor, but not magical weapons and armor, he would have to pay two feats to make magical weapons and armor even though you say that the benefit he is getting is worth about a quarter of a feat. So, if he really wants to be able to make weapons and armor, he takes the background rather than two feats. For that player, it is like getting 2 feats. Is it an optimal choice? No, but it is more optimal than spending 2 feats.People take sub-optimal feats. But people are just as free to not take these.No, that's what these backgrounds would do if your DM used them to screw you. Nothing in the article suggests that and there is no mention of anyone being forced to select any particular one.Now, in the Forgotten Realms, if you say you're from X region, you get X regional benefit, but that's the Forgotten Realms and regional benefits. Look at this stuff honestly. Wizards has a background mechanic. It provides one of a number of set formulaic benefits. It takes a couple paragraphs of material, if that, and a chart to sum it up. They can sell us one article called "Backgrounds" describing the possible benefits with a couple examples, or they can churn out a bunch of backgrounds with the fluff changed for every adventure path, campaign setting, megamodule, or whatever, plus throw together quick filler articles whenever they're short an article for Dragon. So far, they're it looks like their choosing the latter, though, I wouldn't discount the raw background mechanic itself coming in PHB II or something (and them still churning out a load of backgrounds because they are so easy to throw together)...just change the name and add a couple paragraphs of fluff...Grumpy Old Man[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +1 to Intimidate, +1 to History, add both skills to class list.Nosy Old Woman[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +1 to History, +1 to Perception, add both skills to class list.Sewer Cleaner[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +1 to Dungeoneering, +1 to Endurance, add both skills to class list.Peeping Tom[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +1 to Stealth, +1 to Perception, add both skills to class list.Drill Sergeant[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +3 to Intimidate, add skill to class list.Lawyer[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: +2 to Bluff, Speak Language (Abyssal)Jeweler[Insert 2 paragraphs of fluff]Benefit: You can craft rings and neckslot items, provided raw materials are available. It still costs as much as it would if you had purchased what you made. You can also use creation rituals.</blockquote>

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