I'm a DM way more than I'm a player and I'm pretty sure I'll treat these PHB backgrounds as examples of what can be done vice the way it has to be. I'm all for allowing changes if a player can tell me a good narrative reason why their background should have a different attribute or feat. That's how I treat multiclassing now. Cool, you want to dip into wizard for the shield spell... Why does this make sense for your rogue to do this? If the player comes up with a reasonable answer then I'm cool with it. I agree with you that the new DMG will probably allow us to optionally let players color outside the lines so long as they follow the same formula
I mostly agree but I'm more lax on the reason for a player multiclassing. Like there's just some handwaving required to believe characters "level up" suddenly anyway. Furthermore, flavor is free. If my calm af monk wants to dip into barbarian and reflavor it to fit their demeanor as an awakened ki state instead of raging then that's cool with me. I've found DMs of the "justify your multiclass" mentality often forget this basic idea. For example, I've had them asking why a TIEFLING or AASIMAR would dip into sorcerer. The fact that they're already magically affected by an outsider or god ALREADY by their species choice somehow not being a good enough reason...?
@@TheMightyBattleSquid I totally agree that flavor is free. I'm a fan of taking something from a source book and changing it's appearance to fit our campaign. I only want it to make sense so it doesn't feel like we're playing a video game. Same with multiclassing. I just want it to make sense. Your example of an Aasimar dipping into sorcerer to showcase their innate magic is enough for me. I guess I'm just turned off by exploit chasing. I'm pretty sure I'd consider most changes to backgrounds be reflavoring. The point I was trying to make is that any change (like a different attribute or feat) just needs to fit in their backstory. It helps the player flesh out the character and it's a low bar.
I have a player that flavored his rages as extreme focus. He was a soldier, and now he can channel his experience into more damage, and shrug off some of the damage he takes.
Personal take for sure: I don't like abiltiy modifiers attached to other parts of character creation. One of the things I liked a lot about Starfinder 1e was a little blurb in their ability score section. It was an optional rule to take a straight set of ability scores and ignore all ability score modifiers from species and theme (background). It suddenly made any ABC combination viable without worrying about how an arbitrary +/-1 ability score change could scrap my desired build. Hard to go back after that, especially after the +2/+1 and +1 to 3 approach trotted out in Tasha's. I've been building custom backgrounds for years in 5e. I'm interested to learn more about the background changes and what new types of backgrounds I'll be able to customize for my PCs!
The reason why the backgrounds feel limiting is because people are looking at them through the lens of the 2014 rules not the new rules. In the new rules there are no longer any class/race restrictions. Orc Bards, halfling barbarians, dragon born warlocks and Goliath Wizards are possible now. Sub optimal characters are not as weak as they once were because feats now grant ability score improvements. People are seriously over estimating how effective origin feats are. They are not going to be some game breaking combo like variant human was in 2014. Origin feats are only going to amount to a nice little bonus. No one needs tough. Tavern brawler is not so amazing that every monk has to have it. I hear nothing but praise for the musician feat, but lets actually look at its cost. For starters you loose out on any non musical tool proficiencies. Who needs proficiency in four musical instruments? The main part is the granting rerolls to a number of allies equal to your proficiency per short or long rest. That's two at first level. Four at level 10. Thats right you need to wait nine levels for it to effect your average adventuring party of four. Ya a free reroll of any die sounds good, but I have to ask? How many times is that going to wiff? How many times is it going to be wasted or forgotten? How many times is the entertainer going to attract monsters with their music? How many times is it going to make things worse? Musician is great if you want to forego any reliable mechanical benefit to the party for a musical themed gambling problem. Backgrounds are not exclusive. If your character's background is sailor that means that being a sailor was the most impactful part of their life up to that point. Not everyone who is a sailor comes from a background of being a sailor. If you want some one who is a sailor but want intelligence you could use the merchant back ground and say your a sailor that came for a family of merchants. Yes the new system may feel limited at first glance, but once you start thinking about your characters actual background and history it opens up. Did your wizard spend all his time in school or did he have a few Illegal side hustles? Did your bard grow up in a monastery before running away to become an entertainer? What parts of their past did they love? What parts did they hate? How did your character get their skills? How did they survive to get to where they are now? Those are all valid questions that should be asked when creating a character anyways. The game has been rebalanced and from what I have seen you don't need to optimize as hard to make a good character.
You are correct that you can totally flavor your background however you want. It will have no effect on the game. My concern is that having specific attributes tied to specific feats will cause an issue. Yes, all the feats come with attribute bonuses after the initial origin feats, and that can help you to catch up, but not having your prime attribute in and the feat you want might be limiting. We will have to wait and see how it all shakes out in actual play, this is all theory crafting at this point. At least in 2014 (I know it is the old version but it is all we have to go on) it was almost always mechanically better to take you prime stat up as opposed to getting a feat. If you select a background because you like the feat but it doesn't have the stat bonus, then it will take 5 feats in the future to catch up. That would be every feat for levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 to max it out. Is that the optimal choice, maybe not. Is that what most people will want to do, probably. Is there an easy fix, well a good start would be to simply let players select the stat bonuses they want. Whether that is by decoupling it from background, or allowing backgrounds to be easily modified, either solution would open up all the options that players want. Decoupling it from backgrounds isn't going to happen, so I guess we hope it can be handled by the rules in the DMG. While dndbeyond isn't the end all authority of anything, a lot of people build their characters on there to be used in games. If they can't build their characters in the way they desire it will be a hindrance on the community. As to the musician feat, I do think it is better than most of the other feats, but that depends on a lot of factors, as do all the feats. How often are people using their heroic inspiration? I know my players often end a session still having the inspiriation. How often is the party taking a short rest? If the adventuring day is only a couple of encounters, as is often the case from what I see, then they likely wouldn't get much use.
I really liked the 2014 way of getting stats and abilities from race, it made each race unique. Now that you can be any race and it wouldn't matter, it just makes everything bland and meh...
This is an issue I struggle with for sure. I think it is pretty obvious that a goliath would be stronger than halfling almost all the time. But I don't like that some races are smarter than others on average, or wiser, or more charismatic. The old way made some sense, but also limited race/class combos if you don't want to put your character at a disadvantage. The new species rules open up more species/class options without setting the character behind the rest of the players as far as stats go. I get both sides, not sure which I think is best.
""When everyone is super, no one is" Sorry there are limitations or it means nothing. Part of the story that makes it great is the failure of the Hero, how can that be if everyone can do everything? It's the other chracters that make the story complete, a team effort, for good or bad , its your job as a DM to interweave the story and challenge the players in choices as well as roles.
I agree, the DM should be able to make sure all players are interwoven into the story and that they have a big role to play. I don't think some players need to be weak for that to happen, though. A player that is "super" at physical challenges might not be very good at exploration or social challenges. I think all players should be pretty powerful at something, else they wouldn't be heroes, just blacksmiths or merchants. Besides, how did that mindset work out for Syndrome?
It's funny to me wotc was like "it's bad to assume all the people of a group are the same, they are NOT" but then insisted all people of a background ARE. As a random example you can't have a sailor who gained intelligence from their sailor work like some kind of... captain, quartermaster, first mate, cooper, doctor, etc. 😅
My biggest complaint about backgrounds is that you are either forced into a feat you might not want in order to get the stats you want, or you are forced into stat bonuses you don't want in order to get the feat you want.
I'm a DM way more than I'm a player and I'm pretty sure I'll treat these PHB backgrounds as examples of what can be done vice the way it has to be. I'm all for allowing changes if a player can tell me a good narrative reason why their background should have a different attribute or feat.
That's how I treat multiclassing now. Cool, you want to dip into wizard for the shield spell... Why does this make sense for your rogue to do this? If the player comes up with a reasonable answer then I'm cool with it.
I agree with you that the new DMG will probably allow us to optionally let players color outside the lines so long as they follow the same formula
I mostly agree but I'm more lax on the reason for a player multiclassing. Like there's just some handwaving required to believe characters "level up" suddenly anyway. Furthermore, flavor is free. If my calm af monk wants to dip into barbarian and reflavor it to fit their demeanor as an awakened ki state instead of raging then that's cool with me. I've found DMs of the "justify your multiclass" mentality often forget this basic idea. For example, I've had them asking why a TIEFLING or AASIMAR would dip into sorcerer. The fact that they're already magically affected by an outsider or god ALREADY by their species choice somehow not being a good enough reason...?
@@TheMightyBattleSquid I totally agree that flavor is free. I'm a fan of taking something from a source book and changing it's appearance to fit our campaign. I only want it to make sense so it doesn't feel like we're playing a video game. Same with multiclassing. I just want it to make sense. Your example of an Aasimar dipping into sorcerer to showcase their innate magic is enough for me.
I guess I'm just turned off by exploit chasing. I'm pretty sure I'd consider most changes to backgrounds be reflavoring. The point I was trying to make is that any change (like a different attribute or feat) just needs to fit in their backstory. It helps the player flesh out the character and it's a low bar.
I have a player that flavored his rages as extreme focus. He was a soldier, and now he can channel his experience into more damage, and shrug off some of the damage he takes.
Personal take for sure: I don't like abiltiy modifiers attached to other parts of character creation. One of the things I liked a lot about Starfinder 1e was a little blurb in their ability score section. It was an optional rule to take a straight set of ability scores and ignore all ability score modifiers from species and theme (background). It suddenly made any ABC combination viable without worrying about how an arbitrary +/-1 ability score change could scrap my desired build.
Hard to go back after that, especially after the +2/+1 and +1 to 3 approach trotted out in Tasha's. I've been building custom backgrounds for years in 5e. I'm interested to learn more about the background changes and what new types of backgrounds I'll be able to customize for my PCs!
Yeah, I already created a custom background for my wife. Doing so means ability scores are not really tied to anything.
The reason why the backgrounds feel limiting is because people are looking at them through the lens of the 2014 rules not the new rules. In the new rules there are no longer any class/race restrictions. Orc Bards, halfling barbarians, dragon born warlocks and Goliath Wizards are possible now. Sub optimal characters are not as weak as they once were because feats now grant ability score improvements. People are seriously over estimating how effective origin feats are. They are not going to be some game breaking combo like variant human was in 2014. Origin feats are only going to amount to a nice little bonus. No one needs tough. Tavern brawler is not so amazing that every monk has to have it.
I hear nothing but praise for the musician feat, but lets actually look at its cost. For starters you loose out on any non musical tool proficiencies. Who needs proficiency in four musical instruments? The main part is the granting rerolls to a number of allies equal to your proficiency per short or long rest. That's two at first level. Four at level 10. Thats right you need to wait nine levels for it to effect your average adventuring party of four. Ya a free reroll of any die sounds good, but I have to ask? How many times is that going to wiff? How many times is it going to be wasted or forgotten? How many times is the entertainer going to attract monsters with their music? How many times is it going to make things worse? Musician is great if you want to forego any reliable mechanical benefit to the party for a musical themed gambling problem.
Backgrounds are not exclusive. If your character's background is sailor that means that being a sailor was the most impactful part of their life up to that point. Not everyone who is a sailor comes from a background of being a sailor. If you want some one who is a sailor but want intelligence you could use the merchant back ground and say your a sailor that came for a family of merchants. Yes the new system may feel limited at first glance, but once you start thinking about your characters actual background and history it opens up. Did your wizard spend all his time in school or did he have a few Illegal side hustles? Did your bard grow up in a monastery before running away to become an entertainer? What parts of their past did they love? What parts did they hate? How did your character get their skills? How did they survive to get to where they are now? Those are all valid questions that should be asked when creating a character anyways. The game has been rebalanced and from what I have seen you don't need to optimize as hard to make a good character.
You are correct that you can totally flavor your background however you want. It will have no effect on the game. My concern is that having specific attributes tied to specific feats will cause an issue. Yes, all the feats come with attribute bonuses after the initial origin feats, and that can help you to catch up, but not having your prime attribute in and the feat you want might be limiting. We will have to wait and see how it all shakes out in actual play, this is all theory crafting at this point.
At least in 2014 (I know it is the old version but it is all we have to go on) it was almost always mechanically better to take you prime stat up as opposed to getting a feat. If you select a background because you like the feat but it doesn't have the stat bonus, then it will take 5 feats in the future to catch up. That would be every feat for levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 to max it out. Is that the optimal choice, maybe not. Is that what most people will want to do, probably.
Is there an easy fix, well a good start would be to simply let players select the stat bonuses they want. Whether that is by decoupling it from background, or allowing backgrounds to be easily modified, either solution would open up all the options that players want. Decoupling it from backgrounds isn't going to happen, so I guess we hope it can be handled by the rules in the DMG.
While dndbeyond isn't the end all authority of anything, a lot of people build their characters on there to be used in games. If they can't build their characters in the way they desire it will be a hindrance on the community.
As to the musician feat, I do think it is better than most of the other feats, but that depends on a lot of factors, as do all the feats. How often are people using their heroic inspiration? I know my players often end a session still having the inspiriation. How often is the party taking a short rest? If the adventuring day is only a couple of encounters, as is often the case from what I see, then they likely wouldn't get much use.
I really liked the 2014 way of getting stats and abilities from race, it made each race unique. Now that you can be any race and it wouldn't matter, it just makes everything bland and meh...
This is an issue I struggle with for sure. I think it is pretty obvious that a goliath would be stronger than halfling almost all the time. But I don't like that some races are smarter than others on average, or wiser, or more charismatic. The old way made some sense, but also limited race/class combos if you don't want to put your character at a disadvantage. The new species rules open up more species/class options without setting the character behind the rest of the players as far as stats go. I get both sides, not sure which I think is best.
""When everyone is super, no one is" Sorry there are limitations or it means nothing. Part of the story that makes it great is the failure of the Hero, how can that be if everyone can do everything? It's the other chracters that make the story complete, a team effort, for good or bad , its your job as a DM to interweave the story and challenge the players in choices as well as roles.
I agree, the DM should be able to make sure all players are interwoven into the story and that they have a big role to play. I don't think some players need to be weak for that to happen, though. A player that is "super" at physical challenges might not be very good at exploration or social challenges. I think all players should be pretty powerful at something, else they wouldn't be heroes, just blacksmiths or merchants. Besides, how did that mindset work out for Syndrome?
It's funny to me wotc was like "it's bad to assume all the people of a group are the same, they are NOT" but then insisted all people of a background ARE. As a random example you can't have a sailor who gained intelligence from their sailor work like some kind of... captain, quartermaster, first mate, cooper, doctor, etc. 😅
My biggest complaint about backgrounds is that you are either forced into a feat you might not want in order to get the stats you want, or you are forced into stat bonuses you don't want in order to get the feat you want.