D&D (2024) D&D Background and Origin Feat Article

I do agree that it's a bit weird for a "Crafter" to get a discount when buying. Seems more like a Merchant backgound should get that.

In my experience, most people who are playing a "merchant" character, often are crafters who want to sell their own goods. Of course, I'm not currently paying much attention to the discussion of which backgrounds seem to have which feats by default.
 

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Seriously…would anyone in this conversation ever take or recommend this feat? Tool proficiencies: you already have any you need as a function of your class. Which is probably rogue or artificer. More are basically ribbons. Would 20% more crafting speed make a difference in any actual game situation you are likely to encounter? And you might save a little money here and there. Which might make a slight difference in some campaigns.

Seriously, this feat is awful. It’s likely to have basically zero benefit to a character. Just do your players a favour and house rule it out.

Have you missed where they announced they have reworked tools, giving them all unique actions that players can take using those tools?

Cause, that can mean that 3 more tools and a fast craft could be REALLY tactically interesting for a utility character.
 

In my experience, most people who are playing a "merchant" character, often are crafters who want to sell their own goods. Of course, I'm not currently paying much attention to the discussion of which backgrounds seem to have which feats by default.
Yea. Merchant is Crafter adjacent.

Just IMO, I would split it into 2 different backgrounds. One about making stuff, and the other about trade.
 

And what if the DM says “no, you’ve never shopped here before, the shopkeepers don’t know you and have no reason to give you a discount”? Or even, “make a Charisma check to try to negotiate for the discounted price?” I think the player would be entirely justified in protesting. They have a feature that says they get a discount. Not that they get a discount if the DM feels like it, not that they get a discount in settlements where they’ve established themselves, not that they can make a Charisma check to get a discount. It just says they get it, full stop. And therein lies the problem. There’s no accounting for the circumstances of the purchase. The feature says you get a discount, players should be able to count on their features to do what they say they do, and DMs should be able to account for various in-world circumstances. With this rule, all three of those things can’t be preserved, one of them must be compromised.

My problem is that a player-facing ability shouldn’t be putting the DM in a position to have to do that. The player’s role is to describe what their character does and the DM’s role is to describe how the world responds to that. This feature encroaches on the DM’s ability to perform their role by saying whatever they describe must result in a 20% discount for the character of player who takes this feature.

I get this, but I am also reminded of the old Survivor background ability, where you automatically would find enough food and water for up to six people at the end of every day spent traveling, as long as such things were possible to get.

It just works, no need for additional actions, just like this. But, the automatic success is part of the action. If you truly have a deep problem with the lack of declared action... just tell your player that the discount is considered an automatic success on haggling. Yes, the feat doesn't STATE this, but neither does Magic Initate (Cleric) state you were blessed by a god or Musician state that your handing out of inspiration to your allies is because they enjoy your music. I could ask similar questions of "what if my dwarf character hates that gnomes avant-garde punk pop music, why do I get inspiration from it?" but that doesn't seem to me to be something the feat needs to handle. Different people will interpret it differently, and discuss it with their players differently.
 

Regarding backgrounds, I like how they split the Guild Artisan/Guild Merchant into Artisan and Merchant. I also liked the inclusions of Farmer, Guard and Guide.
I do wish they had kept Urchin separate from Wayfarer.
Since they have Acolyte, I do wish they had included both Wizard Apprentice and Monsastic (or Disciple).
 


Yea. Merchant is Crafter adjacent.

Just IMO, I would split it into 2 different backgrounds. One about making stuff, and the other about trade.

Flipping back to the first page, it looks like they are. Artisan and Merchant are different backgrounds. I could see Crafter working for both.

I actually wonder if more people would want to have something like Lucky for Artisan, to represent dedication to a single craft, while merchant would want crafter to focus on a wide-breadth of saleable skills.
 

Regarding backgrounds, I like how they split the Guild Artisan/Guild Merchant into Artisan and Merchant. I also liked the inclusions of Farmer, Guard and Guide.
I do wish they had kept Urchin separate from Wayfarer.
Since they have Acolyte, I do wish they had included both Wizard Apprentice and Monsastic (or Disciple).

I didn't copy the text of each of these originally, but they did mention this in the article. "Wayfarer: An urchin or societal castoff, you learned to survive. Forging your own path on the streets and possibly turning to crime when needed, you’ve managed to keep your pride and hope that destiny has more for you yet."

They took the wandering the wilderness, and put that to Guide: "Your life was mostly spent outdoors, exploring the natural wonders around you. In your travels, you learned the basics of how to channel the magic of the wild world around you."

So, I think the conception was to move away from the idea of children. Urchin was always speaking about your youth, and it is also now representing things like having a home, but living in the bad end of town, or having sick parents, or being desperately poor. Less "abandoned child" and more "societal outcast"
 

I get this, but I am also reminded of the old Survivor background ability, where you automatically would find enough food and water for up to six people at the end of every day spent traveling, as long as such things were possible to get.
As long as they were possible to get is doing a lot of lifting there though. That leaves the DM room to say “no, in this circumstance there is not enough fresh water and small game available for you to find.” This feat doesn’t leave the DM that room.
It just works, no need for additional actions, just like this. But, the automatic success is part of the action. If you truly have a deep problem with the lack of declared action... just tell your player that the discount is considered an automatic success on haggling. Yes, the feat doesn't STATE this, but neither does Magic Initate (Cleric) state you were blessed by a god or Musician state that your handing out of inspiration to your allies is because they enjoy your music.
But even if you assume there’s an unstated attempt to haggle being made, the feature just grants automatic success on that attempt in literally all circumstances. There’s no room for a struggling vendor who just can’t afford to lower his prices any further, or a merchant who thinks the party are a bunch of jerks and isn’t interested in giving them a deal. You can always ask for a discount and you always get it.
 

Just like the DM "just has to go with" every feat. It is only annoying if you don't come up with an explanation, which is easy enough to do. It isn't like you won't know it is coming when they pick the feat.
Yeah, I'm over it. Some people care about this stuff and some people don't. You do you.
 

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