Tessarael
Adventurer
The game should be designed such that thematically appropriate choices are not mechanically poor choices. This is an entirely reasonable criticism of the system.
Tying ability score increases to backgrounds in D&D 2024 means that you need to be somewhat careful selecting a background to match your intended build. It's the equivalent problem of needing to select a race based on ability score modifiers in 5E. There are quite a few backgrounds with different ability score increase options, so this is not overly restrictive.
However, having your background also determine your origin feat is a major problem in the design of D&D 2024, because there's often zero choice if you want that origin feat. It would have been easy to fix this mechanically, if they had made this "suggested origin feat" rather than the only origin feat that a given background gets. I presume that this issue is sufficiently obvious that it was caught in play testing for D&D 2024. I assume that the designers either felt that it was unimportant, or that flexible and experienced DMs would allow alternative origin feats to be selected for characters that found their desired background wasn't a good match in that regard. (As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is already covered by how backgrounds from older source books are handled per the bottom left sidebar on page 38 of the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook.)
The main argument for limiting origin feat by background is to simplify building a character for new players, or for those who don't want to delve into the mechanical trade-offs of alternative selections. That's fine, and makes sense, I am just surprised that they didn't at least make it an option in a sidebar to select different origin feats.
Origin feat being tied to background is a real issue for me with D&D 2024. When making a character, I would select background based on a match of desired ability scores to add the bonus in + origin feat, and as origin feat is highly restrictive of background, that's going to greatly limit what backgrounds I consider for a character build. As an example, let's say you want to have the Tough origin feat for +2 HP/level, well that means you have to be a Farmer, though you might thematically prefer say Soldier (e.g., for a Fighter) or Acolyte (e.g., for a war Cleric). Now if I don't want to be Farmer but still have the Tough origin feat, I either need to ask the DM for permission, or if the DM permits older backgrounds, I just take a non-D&D 2024 background so that I can select whatever origin feat I want ... That seems really bad game design from a marketing perspective, as now you've got players looking at older materials, instead of buying the latest and greatest D&D 2024 book with awesome new backgrounds.
Tying ability score increases to backgrounds in D&D 2024 means that you need to be somewhat careful selecting a background to match your intended build. It's the equivalent problem of needing to select a race based on ability score modifiers in 5E. There are quite a few backgrounds with different ability score increase options, so this is not overly restrictive.
However, having your background also determine your origin feat is a major problem in the design of D&D 2024, because there's often zero choice if you want that origin feat. It would have been easy to fix this mechanically, if they had made this "suggested origin feat" rather than the only origin feat that a given background gets. I presume that this issue is sufficiently obvious that it was caught in play testing for D&D 2024. I assume that the designers either felt that it was unimportant, or that flexible and experienced DMs would allow alternative origin feats to be selected for characters that found their desired background wasn't a good match in that regard. (As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is already covered by how backgrounds from older source books are handled per the bottom left sidebar on page 38 of the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook.)
The main argument for limiting origin feat by background is to simplify building a character for new players, or for those who don't want to delve into the mechanical trade-offs of alternative selections. That's fine, and makes sense, I am just surprised that they didn't at least make it an option in a sidebar to select different origin feats.
Origin feat being tied to background is a real issue for me with D&D 2024. When making a character, I would select background based on a match of desired ability scores to add the bonus in + origin feat, and as origin feat is highly restrictive of background, that's going to greatly limit what backgrounds I consider for a character build. As an example, let's say you want to have the Tough origin feat for +2 HP/level, well that means you have to be a Farmer, though you might thematically prefer say Soldier (e.g., for a Fighter) or Acolyte (e.g., for a war Cleric). Now if I don't want to be Farmer but still have the Tough origin feat, I either need to ask the DM for permission, or if the DM permits older backgrounds, I just take a non-D&D 2024 background so that I can select whatever origin feat I want ... That seems really bad game design from a marketing perspective, as now you've got players looking at older materials, instead of buying the latest and greatest D&D 2024 book with awesome new backgrounds.
