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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Stew" data-source="post: 9484972" data-attributes="member: 23484">I disagree that this is a problem. Not everything needs to be optimal.As written the 2024 backgrounds give a balance of skills, proficiency, feat, abilities able to be affected by ASI. It's not written as take whatever you want (the way it was in 2014), and this means there is much more to balance in the choice. If you want a given feat it might mean you don't have access to some skill. If you are a rouge who wants Alert, you might choose to take Criminal so that you can also boost your Dex. But that then means you get double proficiency in your tools. That is a consequence of optimizing for other aspects of the background. If you are a STR-based rogue, you can get Alert by having taken Guard, and that gives you Athletics and Perception (both awesome skills on any character) , but you end up with a gaming tool proficiency which might never see play. The choice is yours. The more I think about it, the more I like it: for new players, it gives a clear suite of related abilities that are easy to group together. for advanced players, balancing these different qualities requires a more thoughtful engagement than simply picking the best things that you want.I know the DMG rules will change this. But, I'll say, it makes sense to me that one feat (Magic Initiate: Wizard) is paired with a background that allows you to boost Intelligence. You don't need to, but there exists an internal logic to that pairing that would be absent in a background that gave you, say:MI: Wizard; DEX, CHA, CON; Thieves' tools, Athletics and Perception. That's a background that would work on many characters I might want to play, but I see why it shouldn't necessarily be made available to me all the time.</blockquote>

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