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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 4455856" data-attributes="member: 5890">So what we're really looking at here is a list of freebie bonuses and nothing more? The entire article is about rewarding fluff with mechanical benefits: the two are intricately tied here in a way that they aren't elsewhere in the game, and that's pretty much the entire problem.Sorry, I meant prescribed.And they don't feel like they should, or that they need to. This article means that someone who describes their character as a former blacksmith turned adventurer is encouraged to choose the incredibly weak background.Unless he wants it to be a straightforward progression from background to career. The player writes up a warlord who graduated from being a gritty sergeant, and as his reward, he gets screwed.A feat is a significant advantage, and some of these backgrounds are better than feats.He gets a benefit that can later be combined with a feat, which may or may not be skill focus intimidate. Someone with skill focus intimidate cannot later gain a background, and can never benefit from another feat that provides a feat bonus.Which doesn't matter, because there is no suggestion that a character should take such a feat. This article suggests that players who write a certain background should choose a certain background bonus.I don't particularly like the forgotten realms benefits, but it seems that the author of those has a far better grasp of mechanics: outright bonuses are limited to +1 if they're combat applicable, +2 if not. Skills which warrant a higher bonus get rerolls instead (which has the same effect on average as +5 to a skill, but doesn't raise the maximum roll one can get, or eliminate the possibility of low rolls).Since this is an article whose sole purpose is to tie fluff to mechanics, I don't think that arguments based off ignoring the fluff are valid.Guy A walks to a smithy and buys a sword for 30gp.Guy B walks to a smithy and forges a sword for 30gp.Where precisely is the mechanical advantage that B is gaining?You said that your players would attempt to do things that ran counter to their own supplied backgrounds, and implied that this was a problem with my system. That would seem to be a problem with you and your players rather than anything else.He wants to be able to make magic items without using magic: this is kind of a fundamental mismatch between the players expectations and the default world of D&D. See below for what to do if your world differs significantly from this assumption.TBH, if he really was fixed on producing them himself, and was not interested in any other ritual, and the flavour of my game said that such things made sense (ie - it's possible to craft magical items without the use of magic), then I'd just let him do it with no feats and no rituals, with the requirement that he must have a specially prepared smithy (which incidentally costs the same as buying the ritual). Buying magical items of your level is no big deal, so I see no problem with allowing people to describe how they do it in different ways.Read it again: the crafting backgrounds specifically allow their possessors the ability to craft non magical items.</blockquote>

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