D&D (2024) Just drop the backgrounds.

[CreamCloud0]

Sure, it's meaningful: RCe abilities are often flavorful and come up frequently. Still way less of an impact on play than Class, but not without some meaning.

You misunderstand i think, I meant are floating ASI meaningful, not species themselves, personally I’d love if species had more significance than what they currently do.

 

[overgeeked]

I have never met anyone that dislikes backgrounds. I see no reason to remove them.

Hello. I dislike backgrounds. At least as presented in 5E. It bugs me that ribbon abilities range from multiverse-wide peasant mind control to a free meal. It bugs me that most players use backgrounds as an excuse to pick up a skill they think is vital or a bit of kit they'll just sell later. I'm glad the ribbon abilities have been nuked from orbit. I like the build-your-own as default approach. It prevents all the needless arguments and justifications for swapping skills that make zero sense for a background.

 

[Parmandur]

You misunderstand i think, I meant are floating ASI meaningful, not species themselves, personally I’d love if species had more significance than what they currently do.

In 5E, the floating ASI and Race abilities have equal significance: the Racial abilities are usually worth an ASI and a half, except for Half-Elf and Dwarf being worth an ASI and standard Human just being 3 ASIs.

 

[CreamCloud0]

In 5E, the floating ASI and Race abilities have equal significance: the Racial abilities are usually worth an ASI and a half, except for Half-Elf and Dwarf being worth an ASI and standard Human just being 3 ASIs.

While I don’t deny floating is good for getting that +3 where you want it but I’m more of the opinion that ASI should be saying something about the species they’re on, halflings are nimble, halflings are wise, halflings are personable, +DEX, +WIS, +CHA, even just letting players assign their +3 between those any way they like, if you want to be ‘the strongest halfling this side of the horizon’ then that’s what you determine with your assigning of stat rolls/array/point buy.

 

[Parmandur]

While I don’t deny floating is good for getting that +3 where you want it but I’m more of the opinion that ASI should be saying something about the species they’re on, halflings are nimble, halflings are wise, halflings are personable, +DEX, +WIS, +CHA, even just letting players assign their +3 between those any way they like, if you want to be ‘the strongest halfling this side of the horizon’ then that’s what you determine with your assigning of stat rolls/array/point buy.

That's flavor, I'm just talking the game mechanics math: a ability bonus is just an ability bonus as far as the game is concerned, which one gets boosted doesn't matter.

 

[Corinnguard]

You misunderstand i think, I meant are floating ASI meaningful, not species themselves, personally I’d love if species had more significance than what they currently do.

Both 2e and 3e D&D had books that covered the races in greater detail. For instance, 2e had books such as the Complete Book of Elves which talked about the history and culture of elves while also providing elf-specific kits for the various D&D classes. 3e had Races of the Wild , which did the same as the Complete Books of Elves in addition providing racial substitution levels, elven feats, elven weapons, and elven magic.

The other Player Character races in 2e and 3e received the same amount of love. Pathfinder 1st edition continued on with this practice by coming out with their Player Companion books such as Elves of Golarion and their Inner Sea Races book.

Race was significant back then, but not now because WoTC sadly has accumulated too much baggage that it is now seeking to shed. If you want to find anything on races in 5e, you have to seek it out in 3rd party material or someone's homebrew.

Hehe. I am afraid that the topic for this particular thread has been dropped.

 

[Charlaquin]

I wonder about that actually. How many posters here actually think they can change other people's minds about this stuff?

I don’t think I can change the minds of the peopole I’m arguing with. I do think the conversion may be of value to third parties who may be reading it, and if I represent my position well, it might influence such readers more towards my position.

 

[Hriston]

With backgrounds being fully customizable, there is no need for them at all mechanically.
Keep them in description chapter of character creation as fluff.

Add 2 skills to you 1st level class proficiencies. Drop the class skills limit.
add choice of 2 languages/tool/weapons total to your 1st level class proficiencies.
Take one feat.

If backgrounds are removed from character creation in the 2024 PHB, as you suggest, how will a player establish any "non-professional" or "secondary" knowledge of mundane matters outside of a PC's class, picked up through incidental learning or training in early life? Both editions of (Advanced) D&D with which I'm familiar, 1E and 5E, have a method for doing so.

 

[Horwath]

If backgrounds are removed from character creation in the 2024 PHB, as you suggest, how will a player establish any "non-professional" or "secondary" knowledge of mundane matters outside of a PC's class, picked up through incidental learning or training in early life? Both editions of (Advanced) D&D with which I'm familiar, 1E and 5E, have a method for doing so.

no class skills, no limit what tools/languages can be taken. no limit on 1st level feat that can be taken.

So if you want to be academic rogue, you can take History, Religion and Nature as 3 out of your 6 starting skills(4 normal + 2 as "background")

also every class can have a sample of 2 or 3 characters with skills and feats taken.

 

[Hriston]

no class skills, no limit what tools/languages can be taken. no limit on 1st level feat that can be taken.

So if you want to be academic rogue, you can take History, Religion and Nature as 3 out of your 6 starting skills(4 normal + 2 as "background")

also every class can have a sample of 2 or 3 characters with skills and feats taken.

I feel like, without the unifying theme of a background, this assortment of free choices will tend towards oatmeal, especially the choice of feat. The published feats aren't very flavorful as representations of a character's life experience and are a poor substitute for background features, IMO.