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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6193219" data-attributes="member: 1465">That's certainly up for discussion! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I am not sure really... the feeling I got, was that backgrounds were simply a way to put together a delivery mechanic for skills and a narrative concept. That is, instead of just letting you to pick skills, the game provided a package of skills with added narrative, so that it looks coherent, story-based, and easier for casual players.But they were also specifically separate/indipendent from class, so as to achieve a couple of added benefits: (1) allowing more character diversification (at least in comparison with 3e approach of "class skills") and (2) in some specific cases allowing to pick someone else's expertise in something that all the party benefits from, such as lockpicking/trapfinding, so that the proverbial "party without a Rogue" could still have that covered. It was not the only way to do so however, in fact there wasn't e.g. ever a background granting healing, but instead there was a feat for that, and that specific lockpicking/trapfinding also became a feat at some point.The reason for that is only that Paladin as a complex archetype (i.e. class) has a long history in the game, too much to demote it.But that doesn't mean that we couldn't also have a background, a feat chain, or another class' subclass later on that would allow a "light Paladin" template to apply to another class. I think for instance the Knight background of a few packets ago was very close: it was obviously missing all the Paladin's tropes which are just too big to fit into the current implementation of backgrounds, but otherwise it only needed a more "holy" connotation, maybe a slight mix with the Priest background, and it would work. But in order to have also divine powers, the current backgrounds aren't suitable... OTOH feats are definitely suitable so you might be able to re-create someone Paladin-enough with a combination of backgrounds and feats.Overall, I wouldn't be against expanding the backgrounds framework so that it would deliver more than the current mix of traits, skills and proficiencies. IMHO the key design issue here, would be to decide if a background should be a fixed package like currently (i.e. you get all the stuff at once, even tho the bonuses increase by level) or if it would be extended over a range of levels. The latter IMHO is quite necessary if you wanted one background to deliver several advanced features such as paladin spells, lay on hands, turn undead etc.</blockquote>

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