House rule idea background and dice

[Paraxis]

This is basically two house rules in one. The first I have seen before mentioned by others and the second is something new I think.

Background points and dice, you still get 8 points to distribute with a max of 5 in any one background. The difference is for each point you get a die step increase to add to those rolls not a +1.
1pt = +1d4
2pt = +1d6
3pt = +1d8
4pt = +1d10
5pt = +1d12

The other part is the higher the dice the more specialized it would be. So right now a background could be "Temple Guard for the Priestess" and it would apply to anything the player and DM can agree on.
Same goes with this system but at a d8 rating each background would have 3 focuses listed next to it that the player/dm agree on that the background would apply to most of the time. For each die step down the number of focuses goes up by 1 and each die step up down by 1, so a d12 has only one focus.

Example backgrounds for a paladin character.
"Temple guard for the Priestess" d10 [sense motive, religion] = same as +4 normaly
"Orphan taken in by Mama Ging" d6 [cooking, streetwise, stealth, slight of hand] = same as +2
"Pilgrim of the sun" d6 [endurance, survival, history, diplomacy] = same as +2

So just to be clear the player could still justify using his temple guard background for other things besides sense motive and religion checks it is just that those are assumed to be apart of it.

Is this a horrible idea, I have insomnia and didn't get any sleep last night so there is that.

 

[Harlander]

What's the intended purpose of the step dice? Adding dice together like that could give you a pretty weird probability change with each point in the background..

As for the background focusses, I'm not sold on them at first glance. The point of using the background rather than a skill list is to make them as open to interpretation as possible, and it feels like nailing them down like that is an attempt to give the GM an excuse to say no - which doesn't mesh with the overall style of 13A as I read it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Like you say, it's two rules.

The first rule, dice instead of a flat bonus, is not bad in and of itself, but it does seem to me that it would screw up the math of the system, since the average result of the dice is higher than the bonus being replaced. You could just adjust up all the DCs by 2, or adjust the dice downward. As it is, you're making things easier, which may or may not be what you intended. In principle, I don't mind the idea at all. It's easy to narrate how your particular background did or did not prove particularly useful, depending on the die roll, and the probabilities are more interesting.

As to the increasing specificity of backgrounds, I think you'd need to make it so that characters get the lower bonus for the broader scope.

For example, let's say you take ""Orphan taken in by Mama Ging" d6 [cooking, streetwise, stealth, slight of hand]", and advance the character to "Slumlord replacing Mama Ging d12 [streetwise]". The player should still get his d6 for cooking, and let's say a d8 for sleight of hand and a d10 for stealth. That is to say, the background develops into a tree of backgrounds of various strengths. His expertise becomes more specific, but he does not lose his existing general skill when advancing.

At this point, you basically have the Cortex skill system, which I rather like. If implemented sensibly, the increasing specialization is a nice step towards simulation, character customization, and balance all in one stroke.

 

[Balesir]

As [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] says, it's two rules and the bonuses are inflated. I actually quite like the idea of starting the bonuses at 2 and reducing the points to invest, like this:

1 point => +2
2 points => +3
3 points => +4
4 points => +5

4 point investment is max. and you have 5 points to spend. If you then want to call +2 "+d4", +3 "+d6" and so on, that would work, too. Nice houserules.

For the "narrowing" thing, I agree with [MENTION=66101]Harlander[/MENTION] - giving added reasons for the DM to "say no" doesn't really fit 13th Age. I would instead go for a "you can use a background bonus in only X tasks per battle/per scene/per session/between recharges" or whatever. Lay out the limitation and let the player decide when it's important enough to the character for it to be used.

 

[Mallus]

Both house rules are kinda neat, but I wouldn't use either.

The flat background bonus works as is, and tying an increased bonus to decreased breadth --which mean decreased utility-- runs contrary to the design goal of the Background mechanics. It un-fixes 13th Age's solution to the long-running d20 skill problem, ie skills ends up being a big (implied) list of what a PC can't do.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The flat background bonus works as is, and tying an increased bonus to decreased breadth --which mean decreased utility-- runs contrary to the design goal of the Background mechanics. It un-fixes 13th Age's solution to the long-running d20 skill problem, ie skills ends up being a big (implied) list of what a PC can't do.

FWIW I concur that the idea runs counter to what 13th Age is doing, but some houserules do. I don't know whether the OP wants this or not.

It seems to me that an implied list of things PCs can't do is very useful for those that want it.

 

[Harlander]

Does the problem the background specialisation stuff seems aimed at fixing (people spamming their one super-broad background for everything) actually come up in play? It's plausible that it could, but I haven't had a chance to actually play the game yet..

 

[Balesir]

I don't think it needs to be actually used in play to be a problem. The fact that it's sat there "inviting" you to use it is a problem in itself for quite a few folks. It's distracting and frustrating at the same time. Just removing the "temptation" is a good reason for a rule, I think.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 4

 

[Paraxis]

The idea is I like descriptive backgrounds that help make the character seem like a real person and give cool plot hooks, but at the same time I don't like characters feeling they should make very broad +5 backgrounds and always try and justify why it should apply to a given roll.

This way if they specialize or focus they get the bigger bonus and if they stay with a lower bonus it gets broader range. But I want to be able to expand on the background and still give wiggle room for creativity.

The dice I just like the idea from the D&D Next playtest packet awhile back.

 

[Manabarbs]

What's produced the best results in my games is backgrounds that are highly specific, not in the "narrow" sense, but in the "actually describing my background" sense. On their face, "Arcane Lore +4" and "Reference Librarian, Arcane Academy (Concord Campus) +4" have the same primary thrust - the character knows about arcane lore - but the latter tends to produce better stories about why your background is relevant, and expands the background to cover some small-to-medium-sized other cases. It's definitely okay for a character to try to figure out ways that otherwise borderline backgrounds would be relevant if it means that they're telling interesting stories about themselves. It does require the GM to draw the line somewhere, so that every background isn't applicable to everything - I would veto attempts to use the librarian background for cooking, for example, since even if the character had to learn to cook their own lunches while working as a librarian, that's both incredibly tangential and not something the experience would really make them good at - but I'd allow it for general knowledge of what Concord (a city) is like, or even something a little silly but tightly thematically related, like social checks to cow somebody into silence.