Scales of War background unbalanced?

[0-hr]

I've been making characters with the character builder and it seems to me that the background option from the Scales of War options are way better than the PHB2 options. As an example, for most characters the Auspicious Birth option (which lets you use your best stat for initial hit points) is just a no-brainer. It seems to be a min-maxer's dream come true and makes the most powerful classes (single-stat strikers) even more powerful.

Is there a general consensus about these options? Since we're not actually playing Scales of War, I think we probably shouldn't be using them at all - but the PHB2 didn't exist when we started and so the background were allowed. Now I feel like characters built using those options are better off than any who don't (and I think the Scales of War options were poorly balanced to begin with).

 

[tiornys]

You're absolutely correct. The Scales of War backgrounds are unbalanced, even more so than the FR backgrounds. The PHB2 options obviously increase the power level of a character, but to a much more consistent degree. The PHB2 options are on about the same power level as the weaker SoW and FR options.

t~

 

[CapnZapp]

Areyou talking about the "Characters of War" article from Dragon 366?

Funny, I forgot all about that. If I have even read it... Hmmm... "Power gamers beware" indeed.

Nevertheless, have any SoW adventure author actually used/referenced these background options?

 

[tiornys]

Areyou talking about the "Characters of War" article from Dragon 366?

Funny, I forgot all about that. If I have even read it... Hmmm... "Power gamers beware" indeed.

Heh, CharOp on the WotC boards had a field day with that article.

t~

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'll bet they did.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I am using the Scales of War backgrounds in my game, but I made my players choose based on the flavour text without knowing what game benefits they gave.

Worked out pretty well - basically everyone got one that made skills in class and gave skill bonuses.

 

[Miphon]

I've been making characters with the character builder and it seems to me that the background option from the Scales of War options are way better than the PHB2 options. As an example, for most characters the Auspicious Birth option (which lets you use your best stat for initial hit points) is just a no-brainer. It seems to be a min-maxer's dream come true and makes the most powerful classes (single-stat strikers) even more powerful.

The game I'm running started before PHB2 came out, so I made the SoW backgrounds available to my players. In future, I would probably just use the PHB2 options with maybe a few campaign specific regional backgrounds.

Oddly enough, during the character creation process, it was the single stat striker in my group who wanted to take the Auspicious Birth background for roleplaying reasons and he was concerned that the game effects were too overpowered and thought it needed to be "nerfed". I decided to leave it as-is because while it was a very nice one-off HP boost for him, it didn't alter the fact that his low Con limits the number of healing surges he has and his awful Fort defence was unchanged.