D&D (2024) Learning to Love the Background System

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have no issues with the new backgrounds on paper, because technically I can let players customize them.

The issue for me is how they will be implemented in DDB. Will everything be hard-coded in, or will you be able to customize them, swapping one origin feat for another (for instance)?

I would guess customizable backgrounds will go live when the 2024 DMG does in DDB.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I have very little interest in seeing the "optimization game" for backgrounds, so my current inclination is to go all-in with custom backgrounds.

Whereas I believe all-in on custom backgrounds is the highway to optimization.

 

[Parmandur]

Prompted by this video from Treantmonk, I’m starting this thread about the background system. I’ve seen a lot of complaints, but I think it might be pretty great: with the limited selection of backgrounds, players have to make much more constrained choices than they did before, balancing skills, a feat, a tool, and adjustable abilities (and this in turn rolls into the choice for species, since if a background doesn’t have the feat you want, you can get it by being human).

My takeaway, based on what we’ve seen, is this: making the PHB background system work will add challenges to players who want to optimize, and require greater understanding of the rules and how they interact, than a custom background that lets you take anything you want.

There’s a lot more to think about in terms of pros and cons now, balancing four features, which I like. Examples:

Criminal. Chris suggests the Criminal is his top pick background for rogues. Fair enough: they get the Alert feat (which he ranks highly) and Dex and Con. So rogue scores high two of the features. The skills you get are on-point for rogue, which in my view makes it a wash – you’re not getting anything interesting outside of what is already possible for a rogue. And he doesn’t mention the tool (Thieves’ tools), which rogues get anyways.

[[Aside: I haven’t heard anyone talk about being able to trade redundant features, and so I’m assuming that’s the cost of doing business; sometimes being on-point will lead to redundancies, and that’s part of the calculation you’re making.]]

So a Criminal Rogue makes sense, and the background is great for ability scores and feat, adequate for skills, and bad for tool.

Entertainer. Similarly, he thinks the Entertainer is good for a Bard or Paladin. Let’s start with the bard. Musician is Chris’s favorite origin feat, and Cha and Dex work for a bard. Acrobatics and Performance are skills a bard would get anyway, and who needs three more instruments? It’s the same prioritization as before: the background is great for ability scores and feat, adequate for skills, and bad for tool.

Paladin comes off better: Abilities can be Cha and Str (or Dex); Musician is effective. The Paladin would not normally have access to Acrobatics and Performance, and one of those (Acrobatics) is always useful, even for a low-dex character. And the Paladin can now play instruments as an added ability. For me, then, the Paladin does better here: the background is great for ability scores and feat, good for skills, and good for tool.

What do you prioritize? So when thinking of backgrounds, we might start with any of these four variables. It’s reasonable to start looking at the ability scores – does the background let you get a 16 or 17 in your main ability, whatever it’s going to be? Many will want Con or Dex as well, so backgrounds without either of those might get chosen less (Acolyte, Guard and Noble).

After that, though, it’s not obvious the feat will always be the next choice. If you want Magic Initiate (Wizard) to get Shield or Find Familiar, you need to end up with proficiency in Arcana and History and Calligrapher’s tools, and no bonus to Dex or Str. That might mean that you choose to be human, so you can prioritize skills and ability scores and still get the wizard spell. Even a tool might be determinative: A trickster cleric might want proficiency in thieves’ tools, which means choosing Wayfarer (which has a Wis bonus) or Criminal (which doesn’t).

Thinking about the background system and making it work for individual character concepts is adding real constraints, which will make for some fun and interesting choices if we want it to. It also points, in my view, to the greatest strength of Humans in the 2024 game: the ability to choose a second origin feat (the one you want), and prioritize other features when choosing backgrounds.

Some good thoughts, and I think Chris has a good breakdown in that video.

One aspect I think that he misses is the chart for asigning attributes by Class: following that chart for "basic" optimization, each Class has two or more perfect choices, which is what it seems to me the point of these limitations are: offer a few excellent choices for new players that make some narrative sense, and making it clear how aome leas obvious choices can be fun. A nice optimization know for players.

I think he has 100% guessed what the DMG customization options will be, and I wager new Backgrounds and Origin Feats will be a hallmark of future supplements.

 

[ECMO3]

with the limited selection of backgrounds, players have to make much more constrained choices

This is my biggest problem with it. Mechanics should not override story and story choices constrained by mechanics is not a good thing. This is particularly true when some of them are objectively better than others.

If you don;t scrap it you are going to end up in a situation where every Wizard is a Criminal, every Cleric is a Sage, every Rogue is an entertainer, every Paladin is a Farmer etc ....

It is like they completely undid the good things they did by liberating ability scores from species/race choice. This is the only thing from the new rules I think we are going to scrap at most of my tables.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is my biggest problem with it. Mechanics should not override story and story choices constrained by mechanics is not a good thing. This is particularly true when some of them are objectively better than others.

If you don;t scrap it you are going to end up in a situation where every Wizard is a Criminal, every Cleric is a Sage, every Rogue is an entertainer, every Paladin is a Farmer etc ....

It is like they completely undid the good things they did by liberating ability scores from species/race choice. This is the only thing from the new rules I think we are going to scrap at most of my tables.

I just listened to @SlyFlourish's podcast episode where he used the new PHB to make a character and yeah, it's hard to imagine most players* not optimizing by picking from maybe one or two possible backgrounds for any given class.

A world where almost every fighter is a farmer for the feat is pretty boring.

That said, the rules for customizable backgrounds will almost certainly be spelled out in the DMG, so help will be on the way pretty soon.

* Yes, your players are special unicorns who would never. I'm not talking about them.

 

[ECMO3]

5e is not balanced enough for custom backgrounds without heavy DM involvement or player agreed limitations.

Skills and Abilities of 5e are not balanced enough for that. Maybe in 6e.

If you divorce mechanics from background it is.

The real problem here is your background has a specific feat and specific ability increases attached to it. If they eliminated even one of those things a custom background would be fine.

TBH not having custom backgrounds is what imbalances the game. Some backgrounds are substantially weaker than others. If you go to custom backgrounds where players pick any 2 or 3 abilities and an origin feat it evens it out more than it is now.

 

[Minigiant]

If you divorce mechanics from background it is.

The real problem here is your background has a specific feat and specific ability increases attached to it. If they eliminated even one of those things a custom background would be fine.

TBH not having custom backgrounds is what imbalances the game. Some backgrounds are substantially weaker than others. If you go to custom backgrounds where players pick any 2 or 3 abilities and an origin feat it evens it out more than it is now.

No what I'm saying is medicine is a terrible skill.

Intelligence is a terrible ability score.

5E was not designed to be balanced around every ability score and every skill and every tool to be equal within its subgroup.

Because of this it is very easy to optimize out of certain things and certain skills ability scores and tools will be underused and others would be overpicked.

A balanced custom background system would require you to redesign the entire game

There is only one edition where the ability scores and skills came close to even being balanced with each other.

It's sort of like saving throws. Every PC should be able to choose to saving throws of their choice to match what they are good at defending against. However there are three good saving throws and three bad saving throws. So every class gets one good saving throw and one bad saving throw even if thematically they should have different ones.

For example in most editions the Ranger was good at resisting natural poisons and dodging
But because those two are both of the strong saving throws the Ranger is not allowed to get both of those saving thows.

 

[ECMO3]

No what I'm saying is medicine is a terrible skill.

Intelligence is a terrible ability score.

5E was not designed to be balanced around every ability score and every skill and every tool to be equal within its subgroup.

Because of this it is very easy to optimize out of certain things and certain skills ability scores and tools will be underused and others would be overpicked.

A balanced custom background system would require you to redesign the entire game

I agree with most of what you read above but not the last sentence and actually think the opposite. I think the imbalance in the abilities and skills is what would make a custom background system better.

Intelligence is a terrible ability score. Medicine is not the worst skill IMO, but it is not one of the best either, for the sake of this discussion though let's say Medicine is nearly worthless.

These things are what actually what makes a custom background BETTER.

If you make a custom background system no one would put Intelligence or Medicine into their background, so the table would be more balanced as opposed to now where there are backgrounds like Noble and Hermit that are weak.

When you give all players the option to pick the best choices balance at the table is improved.

 

[Minigiant]

I agree with most of what you read above but not the last sentence and actually think the opposite. I think the imbalance in the abilities and skills is what would make a custom background system better.

Intelligence is a terrible ability score. Medicine is not the worst skill IMO, but it is not one of the best either, for the sake of this discussion though let's say Medicine is nearly worthless.

These things are what actually what makes a custom background BETTER.

If you make a custom background system no one would put Intelligence or Medicine into their background, so the table would be more balanced as opposed to now where there are backgrounds like Noble and Hermit that are weak.

When you give all players the option to pick the best choices balance at the table is improved.

That would be okay if the entire game was designed about being fully optimized and not playing characters that have some flavorful flare.

But it's not and that's the core problem.

WOTC is Is catering D&D So that it allows new players and flavor first players to run with optimizes players

So if you have an unbalanced space you have to put restrictions on it to make sure that everybody from the low optimizations tier to the high optimization tier are in a close range.

 

[WanderingMystic]

So first I am fine with the ability scores the way they are. To me a 15 in my primary score is something I am fine with since all of the non origin feats give you a +1 abi. (Or 2 +1 ABI from your background and a +1 ABI from your class if people really need to start with that 16)
Skills: I would have preferred a choice of 2 from a list of 3.
Feats: Yeah if each background gave you a choice between 2 different feats so you could have some variance that would have been great.

I know that my group will be using some form of custom backgrounds, but it will probably be the DM customizing them to fit your specific culture more than just letting the pc pick whatever they want. She usually runs in Eberron so I know that if you worked with a house that will change some things, what kingdom you are from will change some things, the fact that magic is so commonplace will change some things.