D&D 5E Companion thread to Survivor:Backgrounds

[Tonguez]

Companion to: D&D 5E - 5E Survivor - Backgrounds

so firstly a big thank you to @RealAlHazred for organising this round for us all, its another big list with some good, some bad, some dumb and a lot thats just whelming .
I like Backgrounds they are suppose to suggest where you came from before Adventuring and tie you back to the setting thus helping define your bonds- some give faction recognition, free lodgings and support, some give free spells and some just give flavour and GM hooks.
There has definitely been power creep so later backgrounds like those from Strixhaven and Spelljammer are much better than the baseline (The Dragonlance stuff introduced scaling backgrounds that were virtually mini-classes).
Theres also some hamstringing like Gladiator which is a worse version of Entertainer and the Baldurs Gate stuff which just copies the original but makes them more restricred, and the Acquisition Inc corporate backgrounds that l assume are a joke

Anyway we’ve already gone 4 pages and lost
1 Criminal - Baldur's Gate (BG: DiA)
2 Witherbloom Student (S:CoC)
3 Uthgardt Tribe Member

So whats next, what are you hating on, what are you supporting, whats even the purpose of Backgrounds?

 

[JoeyD473]

I don't know all the backgrounds perfectly and keep having to look up some of them but PHB Crimianl and PHB Urchin are my favorite. The GGtR and Strixhaven backgrounds are good for those setting but outside of them not so good so those should all go

 

[Tonguez]

Decided to sought by source To get a bettle handle on things and see if theres any patterns

PHB/Baldur's Gate​

Acolyte
Charlatan
Criminal
Entertainer
Folk Hero
Gladiator
Guild Artisan / Guild Merchant
Hermit
Knight
Noble
Outlander
Pirate
Sage
Sailor
Soldier
Urchin

Baldur's Gate ​

Faceless

Wildemount​

Acolyte (Luxonborn)
Criminal (Myriad Operative)
Grinner
Spy (Augen Trust)
Volstrucker Agent

Tomb of Annihilation ​

Anthropologist
Archaeologist

Mythic Odyssey of Theros ​

Athlete

Sword Coast Adventurers Guide ​

City Watch / Investigator
Clan Crafter
Cloistered Scholar
Courtier
Faction Agent
Far Traveler
Inheritor
Knight of the Order
Mercenary Veteran
Urban Bounty Hunter
Uthgardt Tribe Member
Waterdhavian Noble

Witchlight[​

Feylost
Witchlight Hand

Saltmarsh ​

Fisher
Marine
Shipwright
Smuggler

Ravenloft ​

Haunted One
Investigator

Eberron ​

House Agent

​

Dragonlance ​

Knight of Solamnia
Mage of High Sorcery

Acquisitions inc.​

Celebrity Adventurer's Scion
Failed Merchant
Gambler
Plaintiff
Rival Intern

Ravnica​

Azorius Functionary
Boros Legionnaire
Dimir Operative
Golgari Agent
Gruul Anarch
Izzet Engineer
Orzhov Representative
Rakdos Cultist
Selesnya Initiate
Simic Scientist

Strixhaven​

Loreholt Student
Prismari Student
Quandrix Student
Silverquill Student
Witherbloom Student

Spelljammer​

Astral Drifter
Wildspacer

 

[RealAlHazred]

The GGtR and Strixhaven backgrounds are good for those setting but outside of them not so good so those should all go

I don't know, for me it depends on how well the background works for the setting. For instance, I don't know that we needed five student backgrounds, even if they are appropriate for Strixhaven; making one Student background and coming up with five variations would have been a more elegant solution IMO. On the other hand, Haunted One is a superb background for Curse of Strahd, absolutely great stuff. Here it is on WotC's website.

 

[JoeyD473]

I don't know, for me it depends on how well the background works for the setting. For instance, I don't know that we needed five student backgrounds, even if they are appropriate for Strixhaven; making one Student background and coming up with five variations would have been a more elegant solution IMO. On the other hand, Haunted One is a superb background for Curse of Strahd, absolutely great stuff. Here it is on WotC's website.

Haunted One is awesome. But int eh case of GGtR and Stryxhaven I emant they are only good in there games not really outside of it. A generic student one for outside of Stryxhaven kind of exists. Its called the Scholar

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Lacking the identifying oomph of races, I just can't be arsed to participate when there's on the order of 100 different options and 60 posts have only eliminated three.

So I'm just gonna wait until we hit like...page 10+ and then see if there are any options remaining that actually interest me.

 

[Smythe the Bard]

so will it get down to a dozen backgrounds before or after April?

 

[J-H]

There's a ridiculous number of duplications. I've never even heard of a lot of the MTG ones outside of a few optimization discussions, so I'm just voting them down.

 

[Tonguez]

There's a ridiculous number of duplications. I've never even heard of a lot of the MTG ones outside of a few optimization discussions, so I'm just voting them down.

Yeah including the Baldurs Gate duplicates was a big mistake- I think they should all be deleted as being superfluous, some of the other stuff is interesting but a lot is just meh

 

[RealAlHazred]

Hey, it was my first thread! I have regerts.

I was thinking of halving all of the values (rounding up) when we hit 50 entries.