# Background benefits?



## Dredly (Feb 19, 2010)

Every player in my current play group has either Auspicious Birth or Born under Bad Sign as their background benefit. Is this benefit just extremely overpowered for a background or are all the rest just worthless? By using these perks my players gain 10+ HP from the start

(You sub your highest ability score for Con when determining your initial HP)

I've tried looking for any other background that actually serves a real purpose and I just can't. The vast majority either give nothing or they give +2 to a skill check which is really nothing when you already have 10+ for any trained skill and it increases every other level

So are backgrounds supposed to be really just a story piece with minimal benefits or are they supposed to be very important development pieces for your chars?


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## Flipguarder (Feb 19, 2010)

guess what? it's somewhere between the two.

That background is widely considered the most powerful and I would be fairly upset if my players all took it. The way I would deal with this is by asking my characters to explain how their background makes sense, talk about it a little bit.
Then later on make that "bad sign" actually do something, make it a harbinger of a difficult life. make it a character that REALLY pisses the party off.


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## Dredly (Feb 19, 2010)

Flipguarder said:


> guess what? it's somewhere between the two.
> 
> That background is widely considered the most powerful and I would be fairly upset if my players all took it. The way I would deal with this is by asking my characters to explain how their background makes sense, talk about it a little bit.
> Then later on make that "bad sign" actually do something, make it a harbinger of a difficult life. make it a character that REALLY pisses the party off.




Yeah I was thinking about that, but its sooo fricken easy to write it into a background since there is one for good chars (Auspicious) and there is one for non-good (Bad Moon). I think the next session I'm just going to not allow them to be used. They really make all the players that much harder to kill and it gives such a huge advantage, a wizard with +10 hp puts them above a warrior!


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## FrozenChrono (Feb 19, 2010)

It is very powerful at level 1 but doesn't scale much relative to the rest of character hp gain. 

Another option is to increase your use of skills in encounters to make them more worth it. Traps, Hazards, terrain that utilizes skills in combat and skill challenges are all great ways to get your characters to see value in their skills.


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## Turtlejay (Feb 19, 2010)

Those benefits were kind of a mistake IMO.  Most backgrounds give you another class skill, a bonus to a skill, or a language.  That is all relatively minor, and can reflect a background accurately.  Things outside of that space almost all seem overpowered.

Jay


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## Destil (Feb 19, 2010)

Dredly said:


> Is this benefit just extremely overpowered for a background




In a word: Yes.

At length: Yyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only backgrounds I actually like, balance wise, is the 'trade a class skill' ones, since they allow a small bit of flexibility with the still very real skill choice cost. I allow the +2 to a skill one, as well, but mostly because I'm lazy as a DM and don't want to dig through every build to such a fine degree of detail.


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## Mengu (Feb 19, 2010)

Yeah, the extra HP backgrounds and Windrise Ports are more powerful than any other background.

The fix? Extra HP backgrounds could have just said, you gain +X HP (2 or 3 would be reasonable). Windrise ports should have said, you may gain the benefits of a multiclass feat from an additional class but do not count as a member of that class for prerequisite qualification.


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## Ryujin (Feb 19, 2010)

If you don't give backgrounds consequences in your campaign, then why wouldn't they take those? Someone with an Auspicious Birth will have more expected of him so when he fails, it's twice as bad. People who want to take advantage of what he portends might try to kidnap him, for their own gain. Someone born under a bad sign will find that life just doesn't seem to go the way that he wants it to; nothing but bad luck, most of the time.

Actually I've found that a +2 to Arcana, or the abiluty to roll twice for it, can be a huge asset even at higher levels. Don't discount a small add in skills. In 4e a +1 can be HUGE.


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## Obryn (Feb 19, 2010)

Personally, I only allow backgrounds that follow the PHB2 guidelines.  That is, an extra class skill, +2 to a skill, or a language.

-O


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## Dredly (Feb 19, 2010)

Ryujin said:


> If you don't give backgrounds consequences in your campaign, then why wouldn't they take those? Someone with an Auspicious Birth will have more expected of him so when he fails, it's twice as bad. People who want to take advantage of what he portends might try to kidnap him, for their own gain. Someone born under a bad sign will find that life just doesn't seem to go the way that he wants it to; nothing but bad luck, most of the time.
> 
> Actually I've found that a +2 to Arcana, or the abiluty to roll twice for it, can be a huge asset even at higher levels. Don't discount a small add in skills. In 4e a +1 can be HUGE.




yeah it can be a benefit, but really most players aren't going to take a benefit they will use fairly rarely (and a minor benefit at that) compared to a real tangiable bonus.

Next game I'm just going to disallow it completely, I'll most likely disallow all the "use a different attrib for melee damage" crap as well. It just encourages players to super-specialize instead of being well rounded


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## Turtlejay (Feb 19, 2010)

Right, that +2 isn't a big deal, but when you leverage your racial bonuses, prime skill, background, training, focus, familiar, etc to make your check almost unfailable.

I am guilty of trying to do this.  I feel dirty.

Jay


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## Amaroq (Feb 19, 2010)

Wow, most of my characters have used their Background to pick up an extra skill as a class skill so that they can train it. Perception is a favorite for melee types, and my paladin decided Nature fit her character background best.


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## fba827 (Feb 19, 2010)

I've found the background benefits that are "prepackaged" (that includes the FRPG ones, the ones in DDI that were made for some adventure, etc) to be out of line with the general established baseline as presented in PHB2.

While we don't use the "titles" presented in PHB2, our campaign has stuck to the baseline a) +2 to any skill b) add a class skill to your list of available class skills c) a bonus language; and this has worked well -- everyone (as far as I know) enjoys their choice.  It's not necessarily 'huge' but it offers that tweak of insight to flesh out where this PC came from before and what he might have done then (i.e used to climb a lot of trees as a child, or raised by a monk, etc) - in my experience it offers more roleplay hooks and background than any statistical flipping of ability score on hp usually has ...


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## DracoSuave (Feb 19, 2010)

The difference is, in realistic terms, around 8 or so hit points.  For most characters it's less.

8 hps will not make or break your game at high levels... and the background can never put your character into a 'I have huge hitpoints compared to everyone else' level.

Is it good?  For some characters, yes.  Is it gonna break the game?  No.  Taking this can never cause you to have so many hitpoints that you're out of the acceptable range for first level characters.

And at high levels, it's a drop in the bucket.


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## fba827 (Feb 20, 2010)

By the way -- if all your players have the same background, try and find a way to tie it in to a plot/story.

How is it that they are all born under a bad sign... perhaps cosmic forces brought them together for a reason, etc.


As DracoSuave said, sure, it won't break the game since we're talking roughly equivalent to slightly more than a toughness feat.  But at the same time, if someone chooses a skill-benefit background, they get _less_ than skill focus would give them (also a feat) so getting a background benefit that is better than toughness (also a feat) is slightly (although not detremintally so) stronger than the other choices.
I personally just find it plain boring though.


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## Flipguarder (Feb 20, 2010)

Or a much simpler way to do things is to add into the background benefit text "Maximum 5"


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## DracoSuave (Feb 20, 2010)

The difference is that toughness can get you over the 37 hps mark, this background can -never- do that.  And toughness is WAY better than it can -ever- be once you hit 11th level.


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## Benlo (Feb 20, 2010)

fba827 said:


> By the way -- if all your players have the same background, try and find a way to tie it in to a plot/story.
> 
> How is it that they are all born under a bad sign... perhaps cosmic forces brought them together for a reason, etc.
> 
> ...



Granted, I don't have the book in front of me, but doesn't Toughness increase to 10 at Paragon, and 15 at Epic? Granted, that won't make any difference at Heroic, but taking that into account, it doesn't seem terribly powerful to me. A good choice, but not THE choice, you know?


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## Dr_Ruminahui (Feb 20, 2010)

Its also worth noting that to get maximum benefit from these, a character may use their con as a dump stat - which, unless they are a strength build, will likely mean that their fort defence is very, very poor.  No reason why as a DM you shouldn't take advantage of that.


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## Destil (Feb 20, 2010)

Backgrounds are, IMHO, a bad example of everything needing to have a rule. I hate the idea of digging through them until I find the skill I want. Sometimes it works (I have an urban detective paladin who wanted streetwise), but a better rule would be:
Choose a skill that fits your background, subject to DM approval.

I promise I won't not buy books, WotC, if you just had the flavor text for backgrounds and one single, better, rule for them all.


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## Cyronax (Feb 20, 2010)

Destil said:


> Backgrounds are, IMHO, a bad example of everything needing to have a rule. I hate the idea of digging through them until I find the skill I want. Sometimes it works (I have an urban detective paladin who wanted streetwise), but a better rule would be:
> Choose a skill that fits your background, subject to DM approval.
> 
> I promise I won't not buy books, WotC, if you just had the flavor text for backgrounds and one single, better, rule for them all.




But WotC did put a fairly standardized process in place for 'general' backgrounds -- the Phb2 Background Benefits section. 

Nearly every single background benefit found from other sources -- including the Eberron and Forgotten Realms Players Guides and most especially the Scales of War background benefits -- are hands down more powerful. 

Its an easy option to disallow all but the standard Phb2 model, if desired, but its annoying if you didn't identify the problem early on. 

As fba827 said, I think the the 1) +2 to a class skill, 2) add a skill to class skill list, or 3) an extra language are nice extra ways of differentiating PCs.

Moreover, I also have the house rule for multiclassing which will give a character a +2 (instead of a redundant dud feat) if that character is already trained in the (single) class skill granted by the MC feat. 

For instance, an Avenger taking Initiate of the Faith gets +5 from initial Religion skill training, plus +2 from the MC Cleric feat. That's on top of any background benefits or ability or racial modifiers. 

IMC, most people do min-max like that I've noticed, but I don't mind. I require at least a page in narrative background before they begin. 

C.I.D.


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## Garthanos (Feb 20, 2010)

Cyronax said:


> Nearly every single background benefit found from other sources -- including the Eberron and Forgotten Realms Players Guides and most especially the Scales of War background benefits -- are hands down more powerful.




And me I like the backgrounds with bite they are analogous to an extra feat which I have at various times considered granting independently. ;-)... If somebody designed a generic background I would see if their descriptions matched more than one and allow benefits accordingly. Giving is so much nicer than taking away dont you think.


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## The Human Target (Feb 20, 2010)

Obryn said:


> Personally, I only allow backgrounds that follow the PHB2 guidelines.  That is, an extra class skill, +2 to a skill, or a language.
> 
> -O




Yup.

And while powergaming has its place, always taking the same background is as blatant as it gets.

But you kind of have to blame WotC as well.


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## Dredly (Feb 20, 2010)

So if we compare toughness to Birth/Bad Moon: (assuming one stat is maxed each time). I'm using a Dragon Born fighter and max out Str each time for stat increase:

Birth / Bad Moon:

Lvl 1: 33 Hp (18 str total)
Lvl 11: 96 Hp (21 str total)
Lvl 21: 159 Hp (23 Str total)
Lvl 30: 215 Hp (26 Str total)

Toughness

Lvl 1: 30 Hp
Lvl 11: 96 Hp
Lvl 21: 162 Hp
Lvl 30: 216 Hp

I also didn't max out Birth / Bad Moon, I started with 18 Modified str, instead of 20, if I would have maxed it out the end result would have had the benefit on the top... and you can use a feat on something more valuable... or double them up


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## Cyronax (Feb 20, 2010)

Dredly said:


> So if we compare toughness to Birth/Bad Moon: (assuming one stat is maxed each time). I'm using a Dragon Born fighter and max out Str each time for stat increase:
> 
> Birth / Bad Moon:
> 
> ...




I know this flies in the face of 4e 'Say Yes' philosophy, but why do I want something in my games (as a DM or a player) that I'd feel compelled to take or else be the party's weak link?

It strikes me as simply being similar to the Expertise feat tax (of which I know is a load/controversial statement). 

My very few house rules in D&D are simply to ban this sort of cheese. But to each his own. 

I 'Say Yes' in many other ways in my campaigns.


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## Dredly (Feb 20, 2010)

Cyronax said:


> I know this flies in the face of 4e 'Say Yes' philosophy, but why do I want something in my games (as a DM or a player) that I'd feel compelled to take or else be the party's weak link?
> 
> It strikes me as simply being similar to the Expertise feat tax (of which I know is a load/controversial statement).
> 
> ...




Yeah I won't be allowing it in future campaigns, I will also be restricting all the player races to exclude "ebberon" and "Dungeon Magazine" races I think.


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## Garthanos (Feb 20, 2010)

Cyronax said:


> I know this flies in the face of 4e 'Say Yes' philosophy, but why do I want something in my games (as a DM or a player) that I'd feel compelled to take or else be the party's weak link?



yes its about equivalent of the toughness feat and serves the same  purpose...not everybody I play with takes toughness...( I sometimes skin toughness as being very lucky... since hit points being  heroic luck  as much as anything.)

 Healing surges go down if you dump stat the con... so your hitpoints may be up.... but.

And those particular backgrounds have a rather focused purpose (making them stand out)...  but most of these feat class backgrounds are full on as useful as a feat but cast a wider spread... 

An example that is definitely very useful doing something nothing else does.. is  one that allows you to take more than one multiclass feat.(and gives an extra language to boot).

Most are just more diverse in there fire pattern, for instance providing an extra language AND another skill on your list AND a +2 on that skill ... all three.  Or adding two skills to your list with +1 each.

In fact some others feel a much better choice if you already have a reason to have a high con or dont want to sacrefice your healing surges. Does con have too few uses? ... maybe it has gone from uber stat to meh.


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## Dredly (Feb 20, 2010)

Most of the players in my party are pretty customized for damage, none of them have a high con other then one warrior so they all have like 7-8 healing surges. So far none of them have had to use all of their surges.


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## Cyronax (Feb 20, 2010)

Garthanos said:


> yes its about equivalent of the toughness feat and serves the same  purpose...not everybody I play with takes toughness...( I sometimes skin toughness as being very lucky... since hit points being  heroic luck  as much as anything.)
> 
> Healing surges go down if you dump stat the con... so your hitpoints may be up.... but.
> 
> ...




I understand where you're coming from I think. I just see many of the non-Phb2 style background benefits as being taken for the sake of an uber benefit -- and not to enhance or model a key component of a character's background. 

Toughness to me is an expenditure on the player's part to represent that quality in their character. 

If I wanted to bump everyone up or give that option (balanced against something similar for ranged or casters), I'd probably give Toughness away for free instead of tying it to a mechanic that has nothing to do with DM gifting.


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## DracoSuave (Feb 20, 2010)

Dredly said:


> So if we compare toughness to Birth/Bad Moon: (assuming one stat is maxed each time). I'm using a Dragon Born fighter and max out Str each time for stat increase:
> 
> Birth / Bad Moon:
> 
> ...




That's a comparison of a character who is primed to use something vs a character who is not primed to use something.

A fairer comparison would be someone who gets the maximum benefit out of one vs. gets the maximum benefit out of the other.

Charisma Warlock with this, vs. Constitution Warlock.  Both with 20s in their primary attribute.

Charisma with the background:

32 | level 1
85 | level 11
138 | level 21
185 | level 30

Constitution with the feat:

38 | level 1
95 | level 11
153 | level 21
200 | level 30.

The difference is non-trivial.  The background -only- allows you to push to a limit, toughness allows you to -exceed- that limit.

For something to be 'broken' it must actually break some sort of limit.  It only allows you a bit more flexibility in character design (not a bad thing)


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## Jhaelen (Feb 22, 2010)

Obryn said:


> Personally, I only allow backgrounds that follow the PHB2 guidelines.  That is, an extra class skill, +2 to a skill, or a language.



Ditto.
Although I can definitely imagine (home) campaigns using campaign-specific backgrounds that are strictly more powerful (IIRC, War of the Burning Sky is an example for such an approach) But then you won't use any of the standard backgrounds.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 22, 2010)

The obvious solution is to just restrict the available backgrounds to those in PHB 2 and published afterwards. They all follow a standard "formula", are all balanced against each other, and the players can actually pick one that makes a character interesting and different from the rest.


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## eamon (Feb 22, 2010)

I think restricting the backgrounds to PHB2-style backgrounds is a poor idea.

I totally buy the argument that some of these backgrounds are possible to use cheesily, so perhaps you'll want to ban or modify a few.

However, the PHB2 backgrounds are singularly worse: they're terribly boring.  Look, if you just want people to get an extra class skill or two, _just say so_.  Prepackaging them like that just makes for bland characters; what happens is that people actually look through these published backgrounds and take those that exist rather than whatever they've come up with.  The character builder exacerbates that flaw.

Many of the published backgrounds make no sense whatsoever, _particularly_ those that follow the PHB2 guidelines.  Regionally associated skill just don't work - they kind of suggest that every adventurer from that region must somehow be good at these skills - as if the region is full of detectives, cutthroats, athletes, acrobats, or whatever.  In any case, I'd much rather the players read various backgrounds purely for fluff inspiration (incidentally, that was 3.5's PHB2 approach) and let them come up with a an appropriate bonus - or even just choose anything - after all, the bonuses are mechanically limited so you don't need to find any preexisting background.

_I find the "associated skill" mechanic distracts from the actual background._

The backgrounds of the scales of war and the forgotten realms may include one or two "too obviously good" choices, but apart from that, they're at least distinctive.  I'd much rather have that than a "boring and undermines fluff" background.

And almost all of them are going to be pretty reasonable.  Sure, maybe some of them grant +1 to init or +1 to _two_ skills _and_ both of em become class skills.  That's... not exactly a balance problem, IMNSHO.

Even the so-called "problematic" backgrounds aren't really.  If somebody likes making nifty super-powerful combos, these backgrounds are unlikely to stop them, and unlikely to raise the power to the next level.  Windrise Ports may seem like ZOMG game changer, but that perception is skewed by the fact that any power gamer can see that it enables new combinations, which is just asking for looking for the best stuff - so naturally, you'll see some powerful combo's on boards.  But even without it, there'll be a bunch of other combos to execute: I very seriously doubt that banning windrise ports (for instance) is going to actually improve any groups game.

So, I feel the various different ability score as HP score backgrounds are a little too impactful at low level, but other than that, I really don't see an issue - and I'm strongly opposed to the PHB2-outlined boringness and inappropriate bonuses that most backgrounds grant (which people will _still _skim for the skills they want _anyhow_).


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## Herschel (Feb 22, 2010)

I like them a lot for non-Con melee classes (Assault Swordmages, Avengers, Thaneborn Barbarians, Tempest Fighters, etc.). I don't use them for back line guys, I'll choose something "better" for them. They don't give you extra surges and don't really scale, so I see no real issue with them.


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## MrMyth (Feb 22, 2010)

The PHB2 backgrounds are definitely more balanced. I don't think these ones are game-breaking, but I can definitely see how aggravating it is when every player suddenly chooses it. I'd recommend making some in-game impact of the backgrounds. Auspicious Birth characters are always having people coming to them expecting them to freely solve their problems - if they don't, their Auspicious Birth benefits fade. The Bad Sign characters are plagued by ill-luck, or are distrusted, or so forth. Things like that might make characters think twice about choosing the backgrounds based on raw mechanics alone.


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## Flipguarder (Feb 22, 2010)

I love that idea, players who choose the "bad sign" background always just have rotten luck. Players that choose "auspicious birth" always have people begging them for help. All backgrounds can have negative and positive influences on options and RP possibilities, but since they are the best mechanical backgrounds, they have the worst RP outcomes.


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## Herschel (Feb 22, 2010)

But again, they're npot really that "good". They don't boost surges at all, so the HP comparison should be made with total available HP. and "extra" 8 HP at level 1 for an avenger with a 10 Con, for example, goes from 24 to 32 HP. That looks pretty nifty, except you only have 7 surges boosted from 6 to 8 HP per surge. However, if you put a Con at 14 sans background, for example, that gives you 28 HP and two more surges of 7. The former case gives you a potential 88 HP  (8 * 7 + 32) to tap in a day, the latter gives you 91 HP (7 * 9 +28) in a day to tap. 

And that does not even account for leader added dice on spending surges if/when it comes to that. 

If someone wants to boost Con to 14 AND take the background, the difference is slight really in that they'll be short points elsewhere as a non-Con class.

So no, they aren't a big deal to me.


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## mneme (Feb 22, 2010)

In general, I think you should either use "PHB2-compliant only" backgrounds, or you should allow backgrounds from one of the more powerful sources and expect people to take them.

But I wouldn't expect people to take PHB2 background benefits when FR or Eberron backgrounds are available to them; the worldbook benefits are quite deliberately more powerful than the PHB2 backgrounds are; players might very well take other backgrounds on top of the overpowered one (but not the benefit), but "+2 to a skill -or- gain it as a class skill" doesn't really mix well with "+1 to two skills and gain them as class skills" or "use Int/Wis/whatever you want for HPs instead of con" or "+2 to a skill and you can reroll rolls on that skill that you don't like" or "you can take multiclass feats from two different classes" -- whereas those benefits are roughly balanced against one another.


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## MrMyth (Feb 22, 2010)

mneme said:


> In general, I think you should either use "PHB2-compliant only" backgrounds, or you should allow backgrounds from one of the more powerful sources and expect people to take them.
> 
> But I wouldn't expect people to take PHB2 background benefits when FR or Eberron backgrounds are available to them; the worldbook benefits are quite deliberately more powerful than the PHB2 backgrounds are; players might very well take other backgrounds on top of the overpowered one (but not the benefit), but "+2 to a skill -or- gain it as a class skill" doesn't really mix well with "+1 to two skills and gain them as class skills" or "use Int/Wis/whatever you want for HPs instead of con" or "+2 to a skill and you can reroll rolls on that skill that you don't like" or "you can take multiclass feats from two different classes" -- whereas those benefits are roughly balanced against one another.




I believe the Eberron backgrounds follow the PHB2 backgrounds. It is only FR and one or two early Dragon articles that have the more powerful abilities. And yeah, once those are in play, it is hard to turn them down without a really good reason.


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## Jhaelen (Feb 22, 2010)

eamon said:


> Regionally associated skill just don't work - they kind of suggest that every adventurer from that region must somehow be good at these skills - as if the region is full of detectives, cutthroats, athletes, acrobats, or whatever.



Well, most players in my 4e game picked several backgrounds. You only get a mechanical bonus from one of them, but there's no limit to the number of backgrounds you can pick. I.e. of course you can come from a region without being good at the 'typical' skills, just pick a second background for your bonus.

They're first and foremost a tool for inspiration and the Eberron ones work especially well for that. If a player doesn't want to pick any, that's also fine:
They're free to come up with ideas of their own and get whatever skill bonus/class skill/ language they want if it makes some sense.

Imho, the example backgrounds work marvelously: For two of my players it's been the first time they came up with a written personal history for their characters!


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## Dr_Ruminahui (Feb 22, 2010)

I allowed my players in my campaign to use the flames of war background, but I required them to choose one based solely on the "fluff" descritiption, without reading the mechanical effects.  Which worked out well - the noble warlord has a noble background, the scholarly wizard an academic one, the ranger had the monster hunter one, the cleric has the wandering missionary, and the palldin has the criminal background one (he had a troubled youth - he's a very "born again" type character).  In otherwords, I couldn't be happier on how their backgrounds compliment their characters.

This, of course, doesn't work if your players already know the mechanical effects or would ignore your request to limit their reading.


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## Cyronax (Feb 23, 2010)

Dr_Ruminahui said:


> I allowed my players in my campaign to use the flames of war background, but I required them to choose one based solely on the "fluff" descritiption, without reading the mechanical effects.  Which worked out well - the noble warlord has a noble background, the scholarly wizard an academic one, the ranger had the monster hunter one, the cleric has the wandering missionary, and the palldin has the criminal background one (he had a troubled youth - he's a very "born again" type character).  In otherwords, I couldn't be happier on how their backgrounds compliment their characters.
> 
> This, of course, doesn't work if your players already know the mechanical effects or would ignore your request to limit their reading.




I really like that idea. It is a little hard to pull off if most players have DDI accounts, etc. 

That said, it might be a fun way for the DM to reward creativity by asking players to come up with their own backgrounds, and then you could approximate a similar reward. They of course would only hope they get something cool.

It inspires creativity, rewards players, and inhibits powergaming. Good stuff.

C.I.D.


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## DracoSuave (Feb 23, 2010)

Meh.  The thing to concider:  It's just hit points, and it doesn't scale with level that well.  At -most- you'll get 5-9 extra hit points.

I think a lot of people are caught up on 3e design when 'Use X modifier for hitpoints' meant 2-4 hit points PER LEVEL rather than 2-4 hit points in total.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 23, 2010)

The PHB2 style backgrounds work fine. What's really nice about them is that they ARE all mechanically pretty much equivalent. Since a character can pick pretty close to any number of background elements from a whole slew of books they are virtually assured of getting whatever mechanical bonus they want. 

Sure you could just say "you get an extra language, an extra skill added to your skill list, or a +2 bonus to one skill." but attaching them to the backgrounds gives some hints and inspiration. The player says "hmmm, I want to be extra sneaky" and then they poke around and find an appropriate background that lets them do that. If they don't find one they like, then they can darn well just make one up! 

If the backgrounds are bland in your game its not the fault of the backgrounds not having exciting mechanical bonuses. Its just a fault of nobody bothering to think about their background and customize it. They're a tool that players can use as a starting point, not the be-all and end-all on the subject.

What is annoying is when you have these FR/Dragon style backgrounds that 9 out of 10 players are convinced are the best things since sliced bread and as happened with the OP they all take the same one or two of them. It really doesn't matter if they actually are better or not. When they all give basically the same bonus though, then everyone gets that they are the same and it just becomes a little hook for the player during character creation to get them thinking.


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## DracoSuave (Feb 23, 2010)

I just want to see if I have this clear.


Your answer to 'everyone takes this player option' is to make everything the same to another player option 'everyone' does not take.

Therefore, guaranteeing that everyone (as opposed to 'everyone') takes the same option.


If the problem is that 'everyone' is taking the same option, how does making everything the same solve that problem?

Is it a problem?

Or is this a matter of people -perceiving- something to be broken when, in fact, it's merely just good?


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 23, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> I just want to see if I have this clear.
> 
> 
> Your answer to 'everyone takes this player option' is to make everything the same to another player option 'everyone' does not take.
> ...




My point is that backgrounds exist for the purpose of fleshing out a character's background, not for purposes of min/maxing. So what is the point of making different backgrounds not equivalent? 

The point of the background bonus is not to send the players shopping for the mechanically best one. Its to reward the players for bothering to pick one at all and then to give them some hints about which background might be cool and appropriate for their character, or even maybe they'll see something totally different from what they thought they wanted to do and make a more interesting character out of it. If they are going to min/max anyway, then at least divorce that from the story aspect of the background.

I don't really disagree with you that most of the backgrounds are pretty close to the same in terms of utility. Your argument about Born Under a Bad Sign is perfectly good. Its just why even create the situation where this whole question arises in the first place? Its not necessary. Sticking to PHB2 style background bonuses solves the problem and in no way negatively affects the utility of the background system, IMHO.


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## Garthanos (Feb 23, 2010)

Recently I built Zorro.  The "political rebel" background from SoWAP just plain worked. 

I considered mechanically using a sword and main gauche or whip in offhand 
 wielding ranger, with dos pistolles(sp) for ranged fighting.... 
his nature skills being for horsemanship and desert survival of course.

Getting access to both diplomacy and streetwise with a touch of boost because his charisma might not have been so awesome with the above build might have been .... vital.

I did end up building him as a rogue so mechanically I "needed" only access to Diplomacy and a general background gaining him access might have worked fine..  and some of the new duelist powers and feats worked awesome (anyone feel like DMing mythic early America?).

Did I mention I like the backgrounds with bite? I like in general ones that open up my design options.... like Windrise Ports or ones that provide something that feels "unusual" like resistances from Akanul.

And usually like most things 4e - I take the mechanics and reflavor (no re-fluffing here) 
The resistances from Akanul might be because the character was born in a magical storm of many elements which he absorbed ... I might pick the language primordial and say he knows it not because of any sort of normal training but rather it was imprinted on his mind during that storm and only later did anyone know what he was speaking and yeah multiclass sorceror or warlock maybe

shrug, in the FR/SoWAP backgrounds have a lot of things which spark me depending on the character I am building. 

I am considering a house rule letting anyone pick any skill independent of class / the skills you pick are one of the ways you define your characters story... not sure a resource need be expended to allow somebody the freedom to choose that.(and yeah even the choice of a background is a design resource)


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## eamon (Feb 23, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Its to reward the players for bothering to pick one at all and then to give them some hints about which background might be cool and appropriate for their character, or even maybe they'll see something totally different from what they thought they wanted to do and make a more interesting character out of it.



  See, this is a _bad_ idea, I think.

Most people have a reasonable idea of what they're building by the time they pick a background.  They'll have chosen a race and a class, possibly chosen a name and even mostly settled on what the character can do - the weapons he wields, etc.  When you're chosing a background people may already have a rough idea of what they want.  If all the backgrounds merely grant a class skill or a +2 bonus, then this step devolves into "hey, this character wants bluff - but he's a wizard, hmm, let's see" and picking whatever possibly inappropriate background.  

The backgrounds as the PHB2 presents them _don't_ inspire any ideas, they're just a way to distribute skills a little more flexibly.  Their monotony rejects the notion of actually browsing through these things for anything _but_ mechanical benefit.  And, suddenly, if you _think_ you've found a background that seems fitting _roleplaying wise_ but whose associated skills just don't mesh, you're kinda pushed into "selecting" another background.  And it's quite clear _many_ of these backgrounds are quite amusing, but the one or two associated skills only vaguely cover the flavor.

I think the associated language benefit works for regional backgrounds.  Predefined associated skills are almost certainly nonsense.  _Fortunately_ it's usually not a big issue since your class probably covers most of them - but that doesn't mean I like the mechanic at all.

Backgrounds should either be at least interesting enough to _browse_ - or they shouldn't limit selection of associated skills.  Don't impose non-sensical roleplaying backgrounds on skill choices, which is what PHB2 backgrounds effectively do: instead, let people pick a background and choose an associated skill themselves - or make sure the backgrounds' benefits are varied enough to be interesting.


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## Jhaelen (Feb 23, 2010)

eamon said:


> The backgrounds as the PHB2 presents them _don't_ inspire any ideas, they're just a way to distribute skills a little more flexibly.



And this has not been my experience. They DID inspire my players. Supportive fact: Some of them forgot to pick any benefit for the backgrounds they selected.

I.e. they're a good idea even if they didn't provide any mechanical bonus at all.


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## Garthanos (Feb 23, 2010)

eamon said:


> Most people have a reasonable idea of what they're building by the time they pick a background. .




Character design is not nailed down to any particular order... I like to start with a concept then try to find the mechanics which best fit that. 

but not always... 

Sometimes I dabble with a bit of hardware like I described above with the FR background which granted resistances and let that inspire some concept idea. 

If the hardware is both bland and weak I find it a whole lot less useful. 

It may still be all I need to get where I am going but it will be uninspiring.... which is probably the worse thing that can be said about my idea for a house rule allowing folk to pick any skills they want.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 23, 2010)

eamon said:


> See, this is a _bad_ idea, I think.
> 
> Most people have a reasonable idea of what they're building by the time they pick a background.  They'll have chosen a race and a class, possibly chosen a name and even mostly settled on what the character can do - the weapons he wields, etc.  When you're chosing a background people may already have a rough idea of what they want.  If all the backgrounds merely grant a class skill or a +2 bonus, then this step devolves into "hey, this character wants bluff - but he's a wizard, hmm, let's see" and picking whatever possibly inappropriate background.
> 
> ...





I think you're mischaracterizing backgrounds. Lets look at the mechanics of it. A PC gets to choose at least the following elements: Geography, Society, Birth, Occupation, and Racial (some books may have other elements and each campaign will likely also have Regional). That is either 5 or 6 elements of which they can choose one or more. Every one of these has at least one associated skill and possibly a language. The player thus has 5-6 skills to choose from for his character. If he doesn't find something appropriate he can simply make something up that works for him. That means no 'shopping' necessary. The skills just give little hints to say this or that might be cool and appropriate for his character concept. Once you've worked through that list you WILL have whatever you wanted. Its not going to work out that the player picks something FOR the skill. He picks something interesting, it gives him a skill he can use and probably the one he would most like to focus on for that matter. 

Personally I've found that it works out quite well. I've gotten FAR more detailed and interesting backgrounds from the players using this than I had in the past. Honestly most of the people I play with would do some level of background anyway, but the PHB2 system does kick them in the brain cells some and give them stuff to think about. I tell them to write a paragraph about their character and point them at PHB2 and they generally don't even write down the 'choices' they made, they just say what the character did before, etc and that they get +2 on whatever skill for whatever reason. I don't question this or try to get them to nail down that it is from "Geography" or "Region". I don't really care. It just works.


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## eamon (Feb 23, 2010)

Perhaps backgrounds are organized like that in principle - but the books and character builder don't expose that very naturally.  And if you really encourage taking enough backgrounds and otherwise picking a different skill, well, then we're kind of arriving at the same spot via differing routes.  Anyway, I much prefer backgrounds along these lines - though admittedly those are a bit more work.  In any case, my dislike of the associated skill principle is clearly a minority view...

Cheers!


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## Ryujin (Feb 23, 2010)

Our usual DM places a pretty high premium on role play. If you have a rather extensive background, which he can use for adventure hooks etc., then he generally gives some sort of extra bonus for it. You might start with a Masterwork item, more money, or even a very minor magic item. Sure, you can take a mechanically advantageous background with him but unless you take some time to explain WHY it applies to your character, it's all that you're going to get.


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## Dr_Ruminahui (Feb 23, 2010)

eamon said:


> ... And if you really encourage taking enough backgrounds and otherwise picking a different skill, well, then we're kind of arriving at the same spot via differing routes ...  In any case, my dislike of the associated skill principle is clearly a minority view...




(Above quote editted for clarity)

And I think that you've basically focused in on the issue here - that you have a tool that works equally well as a role playing "benefit" and as a mechanical "benefit".

Take for example the shaman I made.  He's an adult trapped in a 8 year old's body (he's human, but I'm using the gnome race to represent this).  As such, I thought bluff would be an appropriate skill - he would have gotten very good at pretending to be a kid.  However, bluff isn't on the Shaman's skill list.  Now, I could have just blown my first level feat on it, but looking through the backgrounds, the "Cursed" Birth background let me take it, and  fit well into my character concept.  I did, however, choose that background specifically because it gave "bluff", and I could easily have worked the idea of the background into my character without the mechanical benefit of getting a relevant skill without having to spend a feat for it.

Now, is the fact that the rules let me do this a good thing?  I can easily see how opinions could vary, even on the exact facts I gave.  I'm not even sure - I mean, I certainly was glad not to "waste" my only feat at first level on what is essentially a role playing buff, but I can see the danger of essentially allowing characters to choose whatever background they want simply for the mechanical benefit.

Or to sum up, I think this is definite YMMV territory.


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## Voadam (Feb 23, 2010)

We played the first game of our new group on Friday. I'd read through the PH I and recreated an old 2e/3e character as a level 11 ranger multied into wizard for this campaign, using a skill training feat to pick up diplomacy to show his politics and merchant background for his time as a merchant prince and political adviser. When the DM walked me through inputting the character into his DDI account he said he'd save me a feat by giving me a non-PH alt wizard multiclass feat that gave two skills (including nature which I had previously taken as a class pick) and a background to make diplomacy a class skill (which then used the freed up nature slot pick). He kept the DDI sheet after the game so I have no idea what the background was. I know he just skimmed the list to give me one that gave me diplomacy as a class skill.


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## Doctor Proctor (Feb 24, 2010)

Backgrounds can be good or bad, but it largely depends on the player and what material they have access to.  

Some of those Forgotten Realms backgrounds are WAY too powerful, such as the aforementioned Auspicious Birth/Bad Moon backgrounds.  And yes, I realize that the benefit they give is about the same as Toughness, but that's exactly the problem.  It's as good as Toughness, which is a feat, and Toughness will _still_ stack with it! (Someone else did the math earlier, but basically, if CON is a dump stat then this background will increase your HP almost the same as Toughness)

With the other backgrounds though, the benefits are more minor.  +2 to a skill is less than Skill Focus or Skill Training (+3 and +5 respectively).  Similarly, picking an additional skill to add to your class list is less powerful than Skill Training because it only adds it to your class list, and does not increase your overall number of skills.  And the final benefit, learning a new language, is only a third as strong as the Language feat.

So in all the PHB2-style backgrounds, the mechanical benefit is minor...although I would probably say that +2 to a skill is the strongest.  How your players use these though is up to them.  If they just pore through looking for the best mechanical benefit, then you can call that "bad" if you want, but I would say to challenge them to come up with a reason for it.  For a Dragonborn Fighter in one campaign I picked the Geography: Mountains background due in large part to the +2 to Athletics it gave.  However, I then incorporated this into my character's background and said that his clan used to serve a White Dragon back in the days of Arkhosia.  After the fall this clan went back to living up in the cold mountains where their dragon lord came from.  So even though it started as a mechnical choice, I crafted it to fit my character (also, there are other backgrounds that could've given me a +2 to Athletics, but I specifically chose this one because the others didn't fit my character concept).

In another campaign I'm playing a Dragonborn Sorcerer, and I took the exact opposite approach.  I saw the Dragon Bound Arcanist background in the PHB Races: Dragonborn book and just thought there was a lot of RP potential there.  It also happens to work well mechanically for my character, since I'm not putting points into INT, but would still like to have a high Arcana (the background gives a +2 to Arcana, plus I have Sorcerous Vision, which is why I want a high Arcana score...I might even get skill focus later).

The point is, whatever criteria you use to choose your backgrouns, what you get out of them is up to you and your group.  Holding players accountable to come up with a reason for that background choice, as well as not assuming that just because they bump a main skill (like my Sorcerer and Arcana) it means they took it for purely mechanical reasons, are both important.


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## Herschel (Feb 24, 2010)

Doctor Proctor said:


> Some of those Forgotten Realms backgrounds are WAY too powerful, such as the aforementioned Auspicious Birth/Bad Moon backgrounds. And yes, I realize that the benefit they give is about the same as Toughness, but that's exactly the problem. It's as good as Toughness,




A: Those are Scales of War backgrounds, not Forgotten Realms. The Realms have Impiltur and Thay for Wisdom and Intelligence, respectively.

B: It's NOT as good as toughness for at least 2/3 of a character's "life". Toughness scales, backgrounds don't.

C: Also, base HP is a bad measurement because of SURGES. As I showed above, a 14 Con with no background is better than a 10 Con with the background because of the number of surges available makes up for the difference in base HP.

They aren't that powerful if you actually look at them objectively, which too many interweb weenies don't.


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## Dredly (Feb 24, 2010)

Herschel said:


> A: Those are Scales of War backgrounds, not Forgotten Realms. The Realms have Impiltur and Thay for Wisdom and Intelligence, respectively.
> 
> B: It's NOT as good as toughness for at least 2/3 of a character's "life". Toughness scales, backgrounds don't.
> 
> ...




B - it scales in the Char Builder, as your highest stat goes up so does your HP. Toughness "scales" 5 points / tier, its not hard to get the same results out of the background

C. Surges aren't that useful if you don't have someone that can let you spend them standing nearby.


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## Herschel (Feb 24, 2010)

A: Scales is in the character builder, yes. I play in a Scales campagn and we use them. Highest attribute doesn't rise as quickly as toughness does. Post-heroic, if not sooner, toughness comes out ahead.

B: You don't need a leader to spend surges but yeah, if you have a lame party without a decent leader it makes things a bit more interesting. But, spending a second wind and 3ish surges following encounters for frontliners in a three+ combat day still requires more than the basic surge allotment.

The common life of something ike this is a bunch of yahoos screaming "It's broken!/It's the suxx0rs!" when looking at it on paper. Then actual, thoughful analysis and playtesting is done and it turns out it works just fine without being the abomination a bunch of people tried to claim it was.


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## luide (Feb 24, 2010)

Main issue is that backgrounds shouldn't be close to feats in utility sense.
PHB II is pretty much spot on there. +2 skill is about perfect: 
Between 40% and 67% of a feat utility, depending on are you trained on that skill or not.

Adding skill to class skills is bit on the weak side, I think it would work better if it added +1 to the skill also.



			
				Herschel said:
			
		

> A: Scales is in the character builder, yes. I play in a Scales campagn  and we use them. Highest attribute doesn't rise as quickly as toughness  does. Post-heroic, if not sooner, toughness comes out ahead.



This is the problem. It should not be comparable to Toughness even at heroic, even in optimised situation. 
2-3 extra hp would be fine ( +2 per tier).

IMO Windrise Ports was bad idea from start. If multiclassing is balanced on one only being able to take one MC feat, allowing second one for marginal cost doesn't sound like a smart thing to do.


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## Ryujin (Feb 24, 2010)

Merely a technicality and it doesn't really impact the Windrise Ports thing, but you aren't limited to one MC feat. You're limited to MCing into one other CLASS. You could for example take both of the Bard MC feats, or both of the Warlock MC feats, and still be perfectly within the rules. Windrise ports allows you to take MC feats for two different classes.

And yes, from where I sit that's 6 month old moldy cheese.


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## Herschel (Feb 24, 2010)

luide said:


> Main issue is that backgrounds shouldn't be close to feats in utility sense.
> PHB II is pretty much spot on there. +2 skill is about perfect:
> Between 40% and 67% of a feat utility, depending on are you trained on that skill or not.
> 
> ...





I'd argue adding the Perception, Insight or Intimidate skill can be pretty darned powerful in many combat situation if you don't already have it and the +2 in any of those skills is great for a variety of reasons. 

Background feats are just a bit lighter version of feats to give you a minor benefit and help flesh out a character. There really is no mechanical issue with them being close to Toughness at Heroic as that's not a feat most characters need either. You can easily argue Durable is a better feat. Heck, the Akanul background can be more powerful, depending on campaign.


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## eamon (Feb 24, 2010)

luide said:


> IMO Windrise Ports was bad idea from start. If multiclassing is balanced on one only being able to take one MC feat, allowing second one for marginal cost doesn't sound like a smart thing to do.



As bards show, this isn't generally true.  Yes, there are exceptions, and you'll find builds that abuse various loopholes.  Frankly, I suspect you'll always find those (and manage to get that combo you want via some other path) - the vast majority of characters won't be problematic, and so far it doesn't look to me like this background is _likely_ to cause issues.  For most characters, they'll just be able to learn two signature tricks - at a cost of a feat each - and that'll make em a little more unique but not exactly problematic.


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## Garthanos (Feb 24, 2010)

Herschel said:


> A: Scales is in the character builder, yes. I play in a Scales campagn and we use them. Highest attribute doesn't rise as quickly as toughness does. Post-heroic, if not sooner, toughness comes out ahead.
> 
> B: You don't need a leader to spend surges but yeah, if you have a lame party without a decent leader it makes things a bit more interesting. But, spending a second wind and 3ish surges following encounters for frontliners in a three+ combat day still requires more than the basic surge allotment.
> 
> The common life of something ike this is a bunch of yahoos screaming "It's broken!/It's the suxx0rs!" when looking at it on paper. Then actual, thoughful analysis and playtesting is done and it turns out it works just fine without being the abomination a bunch of people tried to claim it was.




Yup .... the analysis was a little too simplistic. And as DracoSuave pointed out doesnt even break anything. The other feats that nobody is directly commenting on are basically 3 of simpler backgrounds wrapped in one... anybody house rule getting three of those benefits as a mixed background?


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## Doctor Proctor (Feb 25, 2010)

Herschel said:


> A: Those are Scales of War backgrounds, not Forgotten Realms. The Realms have Impiltur and Thay for Wisdom and Intelligence, respectively.
> 
> B: It's NOT as good as toughness for at least 2/3 of a character's "life". Toughness scales, backgrounds don't.
> 
> ...




First off, I don't take kindly to 3rd grade level insult slinging, so how about you knock that off.  We're adults here, and shouldn't have to resort to calling people "interweb weenies" when you didn't even pay attention to what my post said.

A) Yeah, sorry, I said Forgotten Realms instead of Scales of War.  I didn't have Character Builder in front of me at the time, so thanks for the correction.

B) In my original post I was going with the assumption that the player was using CON as a dump stat (meaning an 8 or 10) and then attaching their HP increase to their primary stat (we can assume about an 18 starting stat on average, since 16 and 20 seem to be rarer).  Assuming that their build had CON at 10 and their primary stat at 18 the background benefit increases their HP total at level 1 by 8, which is higher than the 5 HP that Toughness gives in Heroic.

Now, you mentioned that the background doesn't scale with level, while Toughness does, but this is flat out wrong.  When you increase your HP determining stat your HP goes up, which means that it scales according to stat increases.  In the case of your primary stat, which you should be upping at every opportunity, it will be a 21 by the time you hit 11th level (assuming you started with 18).  This gives a net increase of 10 HP compared to using CON (it's net of +10 because CON will raise at 11th level to 11, which is 10 points lower than 21).  Here, the background is equivalent to Toughness at level 11, but scales up to +12 by the end of Paragon due to the increases at 14th and 18th level.

At Epic your primary stat will be at 24 whereas CON will be at a 12, which is a net increase of +12 HP.  This is lower than the +15 that Toughness gives at Epic, but this is the only time it doesn't meet or exceed the bonus that Toughness gives.  Additionally, you get another 2 stat increases at 24th and 28th level, as well as a possible +2 due to an Epic Destiny.  This means that your final bonus could be as high as +14 or +16, the latter of which actually _exceeds_ Toughness.

So, as demonstrated, this background has about equal parity with the Toughness feat, which basically means it can be used to replace it in a way that the standard PHB2 style backgrounds do not.

(Note: the above math was the exact reason that my party's Rogue didn't take Toughness, and instead got the DM to let him the Auspicious Birth background, so it's not as if this is a crazy theoretical scenario)

C) Surges have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, so I have no idea why you're bringing it in.  I was only comparing the efficacy of the Toughness feat to the backgrounds that allow you to change your HP stat for characters that aren't raising CON a lot.  Since they're not raising CON _regardless_ of what background or feats they take, surges have no place in this discussion.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 25, 2010)

I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign. DB fighter #2 has 3 more hit points than fighter #1, a +1 STR bonus (huge) and some other off stat which is 2 points higher. That is a heck of a lot better than any feat will give you. Fighter #1 has in his favor a +2 to some skill bonus and a lot better Endurance check, but considering fighter #2 has 2 points better on STR based checks and +1 better on some other sort of checks I'm thinking I'd much rather be fighter #2...

Throwing Toughness into this particular analysis is meaningless since either of the above characters could take that feat and would gain equally from it. Even giving fighter #1 Toughness for free doesn't really make him equal overall to #2 without a feat, so its kinda hard to say Toughness is better in any respect anyway.

Now, this is of course the very most optimum situation, but that's exactly when someone will take something for min/maxing purposes, so its a perfectly valid sort of analysis. I'd not go so far as to say that the background is 'broken' but it is certainly FAR superior mechanically for some characters than the standard baseline PHB2 backgrounds. For many other characters its at best marginal and maybe almost as good as a feat, which is not far off from other backgrounds and might well not be so appealing to them. I'm still a bit leery of this overall and would prefer not to be saddled with the OP's situation.


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## Herschel (Feb 25, 2010)

Doctor Proctor said:


> C) Surges have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion, so I have no idea why you're bringing it in. I was only comparing the efficacy of the Toughness feat to the backgrounds that allow you to change your HP stat for characters that aren't raising CON a lot. Since they're not raising CON _regardless_ of what background or feats they take, surges have no place in this discussion.




Yes, they do. The "Max HP" on the character sheet is not your real HP allotment, nor even the maximum with temporary HP sources. You have access to a lot more HP, depending on the number of surges you have, you just need to tap them. A character with 32 "regular" HP and seven surges has access to roughly 103 actual HP in a day. (32 base + 7*8 surge + 15 (1 short of negative bloodied). This can go up based on healing from negative, temporary HP and riders from leader healing.

These are the actual HP a character has to use. Your view is oversimplified and simply inaccurate. The background feat, toughnes and durability can all help mitigate a lower constitution, but it's at a steep cost. It's not bad, overpowered or "broken", it's a build choice.


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## Herschel (Feb 25, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign. DB fighter #2 has 3 more hit points than fighter #1, a +1 STR bonus (huge) and some other off stat which is 2 points higher. That is a heck of a lot better than any feat will give you.




Except Fighter #2 is THREE surges short at minimum, four at others even if not boosted outside the blanket stat bumps. 

That hurts. 

A lot.


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## keterys (Feb 25, 2010)

DB Fighter #1 also heals 2 more every surge from his con bonus, deals 3 more damage with every breath weapon, has access to plate armor if he wants it, etc...


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## Benimoto (Feb 25, 2010)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm not so sure. This background's benefits REALLY depend on how you analyze it. For certain characters it can be a huge bonus. Consider a dragonborn fighter. He could have an 18 STR and a 15 CON, OR he can have a 20 STR and an 8 CON and some other stat that is a 10 instead of an 8 if he takes Born Under a Bad Sign.




I do really have to side with the people saying that you also have to consider how having a bad con score affects your number of surges when you're considering overall hit points.  I don't do this every adventure, of course, but once every 3-5 levels, I DM my characters through an endurance situation where they might fight 6 or so fairly tough combat encounters over the course of the adventure without the opportunity to take an extended rest and regain surges.

In these types of situations, it is not infrequent for the strikers to be completely out of surges by the last 1-2 encounters, and the defender types to be running very low.  It seems to me that taking that kind of background, and lowering your Con score to min/max would not be without drawbacks.


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## keterys (Feb 25, 2010)

A lot of it depends on the campaign - in one campaign I played a paladin with a 10 Con so I could focus on Cha, Wis, and have enough Dex to meet feat prereqs. But it's LFR so I _never_ expect to need more than 10 surges.

In the campaign I'm running, though, I often run them down to just a few surges left _in the party_ and I've had their defender go into the final battle of an adventure while still bloodied with no surges. In that campaign, Con matters.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Feb 25, 2010)

keterys said:


> A lot of it depends on the campaign - in one campaign I played a paladin with a 10 Con so I could focus on Cha, Wis, and have enough Dex to meet feat prereqs. But it's LFR so I _never_ expect to need more than 10 surges.
> 
> In the campaign I'm running, though, I often run them down to just a few surges left _in the party_ and I've had their defender go into the final battle of an adventure while still bloodied with no surges. In that campaign, Con matters.




Its true. You could look at it this way though, DB Fighter #1 is going to want Weapon Expertise to equal the base to-hit of DB Fighter #2, who can take Toughness for his feat choice, or Durable might even be better in his case, and mitigate many of the lingering issues. He may still be limited in some ways with his lower CON of course, but 2 points better STR has a lot of benefits too. Kind of depends on the build you want, etc. Everything is of course debatable to a certain extent. I think its still one of those background benefits that can be a bit more mechanically tempting than I really like, but I've never considered telling someone they couldn't take it (not really come up to tell the truth).


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## Doctor Proctor (Feb 26, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Yes, they do. The "Max HP" on the character sheet is not your real HP allotment, nor even the maximum with temporary HP sources. You have access to a lot more HP, depending on the number of surges you have, you just need to tap them. A character with 32 "regular" HP and seven surges has access to roughly 103 actual HP in a day. (32 base + 7*8 surge + 15 (1 short of negative bloodied). This can go up based on healing from negative, temporary HP and riders from leader healing.
> 
> These are the actual HP a character has to use. Your view is oversimplified and simply inaccurate. The background feat, toughnes and durability can all help mitigate a lower constitution, but it's at a steep cost. It's not bad, overpowered or "broken", it's a build choice.




One last time: *Read what I actually wrote*.  Arguing a point I'm not even making is foolish.

I never contended that dumping CON and taking the background was good.  The *ONLY* (and I don't know how many more time I have to say it) contention I was making was that if you're _already_ dumping CON, then this background can effectively replace Toughness.  Therefore, for certain characters, it's effective is equal (if not superior) to a feat.  This is too strong when compared to the other backgrounds which, as I already explained, give benefits _less than_ the feats that most closely mirror their benefits (ie- +2 to skill compared to skill focus, add skill to class list compared to skill training, add a single language compared to the language feat that grants 3 languages).

So, if you're going to continue to be dismiss and tell me that my view is "oversimplified and simply inaccurate", then why don't you try actually discussing the point we're talking about.  Obviously raising CON will beat out Toughness, Durability, this background, and just about anything else that raises HP *every time*.  However, not every class can afford it.  A Wizard multiclassing Warlock, for example, wouldn't be able to pump CON because they're already pumping two attack stats.  Neither would a TWF Ranger that's concentrating on STR and DEX for attack and AC separately.  I could go on listing all the potential class builds that dump CON, but I trust you understand the point now.  FOR THOSE CLASSES this background is strictly superior to Toughness because it grants almost the same bonuses while at the same time saving them a feat slot.


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## Herschel (Feb 26, 2010)

And for Dragonborn intimidating fighters +2 to Intimidate is simply a superior background. If you're campaign features a lot of elemental attacks, fire being the most common, Akanul is a superior background feat. Yada, yada, yada.

There will always be cases where certain backgrounds/feats/weapon/stat allocation/etc. will be markedly better. There are also ones where the base HP boost will be better. For back-line guys I've found other backgrounds far more useful when there are sticky "defenders". Non-Con melee guys are where it usually becomes best and gives you build options that can actually work without falling in to MAD territory (or backline guys with an Assault Swordmage built for damage).

They're not broken, they're not bad, they're just an option for making characters playable.


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## Dredly (Feb 26, 2010)

I'm not sure how this conversation ended up being about healing surges vs max HP but I'm pretty sure that can be a new topic instead of trolling in this one.


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## Dredly (Feb 26, 2010)

Herschel said:


> And for Dragonborn intimidating fighters +2 to Intimidate is simply a superior background. If you're campaign features a lot of elemental attacks, fire being the most common, Akanul is a superior background feat. Yada, yada, yada.
> 
> There will always be cases where certain backgrounds/feats/weapon/stat allocation/etc. will be markedly better. There are also ones where the base HP boost will be better. For back-line guys I've found other backgrounds far more useful when there are sticky "defenders". Non-Con melee guys are where it usually becomes best and gives you build options that can actually work without falling in to MAD territory (or backline guys with an Assault Swordmage built for damage).
> 
> They're not broken, they're not bad, they're just an option for making characters playable.




I honestly can't see how a +2 to a skill would ever be better then getting more HP. I can see how getting trained in a skill would be a big advantage, but a +2? not really.


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## Nichwee (Feb 26, 2010)

I think I'll house-rule this, slightly, if I DM.
1) If a PC wants to gain a Background Benefit he/she must complete a small page of text on your background and list at least two backgrounds it uses/plays into (choose two backgrounds).
2) I will then choose what Background Benefit the PC gets out of the options. 
3) PCs are allowed to request a change in benefit and I will be open to the idea if good reasons are given ("I want it" isn't a good reason. "I know I'm a fighter but I wanted him to be a street theif growing up so wanted Thievery - look I gave him good Dex+Int rather than just pump Con some more for the HP, to represent how he was more quick-wits and fast hands when he was younger" is a good reason - with proof the idea mattered to you).
4) Benefits may be removed/XP may be docked/random penalties may occur if a Background is produced and then seems not to effect the way the character does anything outside the direct mechanical effect given (Appeal to the DM to get a specific benefit for RP reasons and then don't RP it = face my wrath).

Basically, if the Background Benefit really matters to the way the PC is formed none of them should break things, as they should just make sense in a well rounded character. Tho "Use BestStat for HP, not Con" only thematically fits a character that is directly tapped for greatness by the Gods, so I would want a real good background to explain that, and would probably make a point of throwing it in the players face regularly. Basically, being Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Hercules comes with aggro that can quickly get annoying (random monsters want YOU dead - focus fire - or townsfolk are awed by you - you never go unnoticed - or want to manipulate you.)


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## Herschel (Feb 26, 2010)

Dredly said:


> I honestly can't see how a +2 to a skill would ever be better then getting more HP. I can see how getting trained in a skill would be a big advantage, but a +2? not really.




Play a Dragonborn Intimidating Fighter or Barbarian. It's a HUGE boost.


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## keterys (Feb 26, 2010)

Though, really, you're actually getting the +3 from Wandering Duelist. But yeah, it's necessary to put Intimidate into the range where you can actually defeat enemies as soon as they're bloodied. If the DM allows it, anyways.


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## Rathyr (Feb 26, 2010)

I'm of the opinion that the +hp backgrounds are too powerful, moreso because they are active at *level 1*.

Worst case scenario: A rogue/ranger gaining +10 hp at the first level (starting with 20 Dex is not that uncommon for these classes) is not balanced. Any class that keys off Int or Dex as their primary attack stat not only gains significant AC bonuses, but also hitpoints. Granted, not every class can do this, but getting +hp off your primary stat that is already increasing:
1.) Your chance to hit
2.) Your damage
3.) Your AC
is a joke.

Fact of the matter is the "normal" backgrounds do not scale, and typically don't even match a feat of equivelent power. I would not allow any but the PHB2 backgrounds in my game. Backgrounds are supposed to be minor increases in power, and unless the HPs gained from the background was <=5, I would rule that it was too strong. Whats more, I wouldnt let it wouldn't scale.

HPs have a concrete effect in every combat encounter. They also increase the value of your surges. I dont think gaining 5-10 HPs as a background at level one is balanced game design. As a DM, I would feel the need to increase damage to compensate for this, and thats a bad sign at level 1.

If you let initiative, AC, or surges suddenly key off a different stat and available to every class, the balance of the game becomes fairly shakey, and players are gaining benefits for things they havent paid for. If you don't invest in Con, you should be more squishy, OR HAVE TO SPEND FEATS TO MAKE UP FOR IT.

Also, Windrise Ports is beyond silly. MCing is already opening up a can of worms. Hybrids shouldnt be able to MC, and no class should be able to MC more than once (bards twice). MCing more than once to me screams powergamer. Gaining access to feats from 4 classes is just... urg. Exceptions to the rules need to be limited in nature. You would need a mighty interesting background for be able to justify that.


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## Herschel (Feb 26, 2010)

Rathyr said:


> I'm of the opinion that the +hp backgrounds are too powerful, moreso because they are active at *level 1*.
> 
> Worst case scenario: A rogue/ranger gaining +10 hp at the first level (starting with 20 Dex is not that uncommon for these classes) is not balanced. Any class that keys off Int or Dex as their primary attack stat not only gains significant AC bonuses, but also hitpoints. Granted, not every class can do this, but getting +hp off your primary stat that is already increasing:
> 1.) Your chance to hit
> ...




Conversely, not allowing them gimps Assault Swordmages, Tempest Fighters (and many fighters in general), Thaneborn Barbarians, Paladins and Avengers (and often Warlords) in to less flexible and potentially much poorer choices than others of their role. 

And the Con-based classes can get all of it out of Con.


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## Rathyr (Feb 26, 2010)

All of those classes gain benefits by not having Con as their secondary stat (not doubling stacking a NAD and a init bonus for Fighters, plus less armour check penalties and faster if you are going the Light Armour route. I could go on with the others, but you get the idea). Its not like they become worthless because of a different strength.

Having less Con means you have gained something in a different area. Con isn't exactly applied to a lot of skills either, so by opting for this background, you gain bonuses to skills you wouldn't have if you had taken Con. Essentially, you are getting the best of both worlds.

You make a choice about healing surges and life when you select any stat besides Con as your secondary or primary. This is the same for any stat. You shouldn't be able to bypass a major component of your race/class/build choices with a *background*. Not having an unfair advantage at level 1 at doesn't make you gimp, just balanced.

Opportunity costs exists.


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## Herschel (Feb 26, 2010)

And backgrounds are a cost. They are an option given and can do many things. You choose the HP benefit at first level over other benefits, some tremendous, some not as good. It depends on the character and the role and the campaign. As a Wizard, I would probably never take the background, for example, even though I may dump Con. In most party setups, I would get better benefit from another background.


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## MrMyth (Feb 26, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Conversely, not allowing them gimps Assault Swordmages, Tempest Fighters (and many fighters in general), Thaneborn Barbarians, Paladins and Avengers (and often Warlords) in to less flexible and potentially much poorer choices than others of their role.




I disagree. No one is 'gimped' by starting with the hitpoints that the game intends them to start with.

I don't think it is a gamebreaker, but it is clearly several levels of power above most other backgrounds, and problematic in being such a 'default' choice for any class that isn't con-based.


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## Rathyr (Feb 26, 2010)

I guess choosing between one broken background and another would present a hard choice for some players... 

I guess we simply have FAR different benchmarks for what the appropriate power level is for a background. As stated by many others in the thread, I view the PHB2 backgrounds as the "balanced" ones. Windrise Ports, +hp, resistances, rerolling checks etc. fall under the "Thanks for the free feat" category in my books. Never mind the fact that many of these "backgrounds" come from different worlds and campaigns (reflavouring isn't too hard, but still).

Anyways, I dont think players don't need a free feat at level one (moreso if you are toss them expertise/defences at appropriate levels). If they want more hitpoints, they should have to pay for it, and the background slot isn't the place to do it. If they want a extra feat, play as a human.

This background is an example of players wanting to do everything on their characters. "I want to be good at skills, high AC, accurate, good damage and have high life!". You shouldn't get the option to pick everything as your strengths.

No one thinks a Rageborn Barb with HAE is balanced for exactly that reason. Too much stuff keying off one stat, and then you add Barb agility for completely over the top AC. Pretty much the only saving grace of that is the two crappy NADS, but thats a conversation for another day...


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## Herschel (Feb 27, 2010)

Yes, we do. I abhor whining about "broken" or "terrible" powers when they simply aren't even though they may be a better choice than others in certain cases. The game is balanced with those background feats. If you don't want to allow them, then that's at your table, but declaring them "broken" is simply ignorant.


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## Miphon (Feb 27, 2010)

Oddly enough, the one player in my game who chose the Auspicious Birth background wanted it for the flavour and suggested that I should probably downgrade the mechanical benefit given his rogue had a Dex of 20 & a Con of 10 and it felt a bit cheesy to him.

So I found myself in the weird position as a DM of trying to convince an otherwise min-maxing player that the benefits of this background weren't too over the top. Yes it's a nice benefit, but he's definitely noticed the lack of healing surges and poor fort defence as a result of his low Con score.


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## Rathyr (Feb 27, 2010)

Herschel said:


> Yes, we do. I abhor whining about "broken" or "terrible" powers when they simply aren't even though they may be a better choice than others in certain cases. The game is balanced with those background feats. If you don't want to allow them, then that's at your table, but declaring them "broken" is simply ignorant.





And I abhor desperate rationalizations about shaky game mechanics. Backgrounds are an *optional* game mechanic, the game is not balanced around them. If the game needed each class to multiclass 3 times in order to be balanced, I wouldn't be playing it.

Declaring something "balanced" is no more ignorant than declaring it "broken". We are comparing opinions here, not stating universal laws. I'm sure there are people out there that think applying Wisdom mod to all damage, all the time is a balanced paragon feature. If I call that broken, I'm ignorant?

Sign me up.

Just because its in the rules and someone thinks its "balanced" does not exclude them from being ignorant (or that they are right).


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## Umbran (Feb 27, 2010)

Ladies and gents,

Do you remember The Rules?  

Rule #1: "*Keep it civil*: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions. "

If you wish to continue this discussion, show respect for the other people, even if you disagree with them.

Thanks much.


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## Flipguarder (Feb 27, 2010)

Anyone considered the idea that auspicious birth and the like aren't necessarily balanced OR broken?

1. They don't break the game in that the game is inherently less fun because they exist.

2. They are not balanced in that they are clearly more powerful then the some other backgrounds. 

I don't think that anyone in this thread will disagree with either of these points. The question at hand is, is it "right" to allow them, given point 2.

My pov is that as a DM you can bring backgrounds in to bring unintended effects (both good and bad) based on their backgrounds.

Auspicious birth: People always trying to get the PC to do things for them.

Born under a bad sign: They have unrealistically unilaterally bad luck.

Wandering duelist: They end up finding people who want to fight them one-on-one.

Vengeful Rival: *GASP* its the vengeful rival.


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