D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: Feats/Backgrounds/Species

[Neonchameleon]

I think I saw the Noble background stating Str/Int/Cha as the bonuses

Amusingly this is actually the only truly bad combination. Despite @Ruin Explorer 's claims Wisdom is an ultra strong stat - about 25% of spells that force saving throws are wisdom saves, and Perception and Insight are both skills that can save your life. They are the defensive skills in exploration situations and the only important enough skills to merit a hard coded passive version.

Meanwhile there is a huge gap between the saving throws of Con or Wis (roughly 25% each with Dex around 30%) and Str, Int, or Cha (under 10% each). And Con is of course a purely passive stat with no skills, just a few hp - with its biggest thing being concentration checks.The Con/Wis gap as a secondary stat isn't great unless you are involved in a complete min-maxed combat fest.

What this means is that as long as you have one of Dex, Wis, and Con then any background will be useful to some class. Two points into your primary stat and one into one of the three OP stats.

But Str/Int/Cha? The only class I can think of that works with at all is a Paladin. And not an especially well built one.

 

[Parmandur]

So having listened to all the videos from yesterday and looking through the background art, I’ve figured out 15 of the 16 backgrounds:

Acolyte
Artisan
Charlatan
Criminal
Entertainer
Farmer
Guard
Guide
Hermit
Merchant
Noble
Sage
Sailor
Solider
Wayfarer

Whatever background is missing has to be AFTER Sage in alphabetic order. We saw one page of backgrounds and it shows 4 backgrounds, and those backgrounds are Hermit, Merchant, Noble, and Sage.

Sailor, Solider, and Wayfarer are the only three backgrounds after Sage, so there has to be one more here to match the four backgrounds per page.

You can also see what the art is in the Origins video around 8:50. It’s a large room with a black rock that has glowing writing on it and a bunch of desks. So my guess is the missing background is “Teacher” or “Student.”

Whelp, from those in the 1st UA, the ones missing are:

• Cultist
• Gladiator
• Laborer
• Pilgrim

Merchant and Wayfarer are new, though it seems Wayfarer is modified Urchin.

Could be a renamed Pilgrim?

 

[TwoSix]

Absolutely false dichotomy.

Tasha's. We can't pretend people aren't using it. But 2024 is trying to, for insane reasons.

I mean, adding it to background is actively more restrictive than the already existing Tasha's setup, AND it makes new backgrounds actively less compatible with older material.

I don't get it. I mean, I do get it, but the reasons almost certainly aren't better gameplay.

 

[GarrettKP]

Whelp, from those in the 1st UA, the ones missing are:

• Cultist
• Gladiator
• Laborer
• Pilgrim

Merchant and Wayfarer are new, though it seems Wayfarer is modified Urchin.

Could be a renamed Pilgrim?

The Hermit gets the Healer feat now, so seems they rolled Pilgrim into Hermit.

Merchant is new as far as I can tell.

Laborer, Cultist, and Gladiator all had overlapping feats with other backgrounds so they cut them it seems.

I know Skilled and Alert are on a few backgrounds confirmed, but I suspect they wanted to cut down on too much redundancy.

Idk what feat they would give a “Teacher” background, but that’s the direction I’m leaning based on the art and alphabet clues we have.

 

[Parmandur]

The Hermit gets the Healer feat now, so seems they rolled Pilgrim into Hermit.

Merchant is new as far as I can tell.

Laborer, Cultist, and Gladiator all had overlapping feats with other backgrounds so they cut them it seems.

I know Skilled and Alert are on a few backgrounds confirmed, but I suspect they wanted to cut down on too much redundancy.

Idk what feat they would give a “Teacher” background, but that’s the direction I’m leaning based on the art and alphabet clues we have.

Interesting. Probably Skilled.

Can you find the picture in question?

 

[Bacon Bits]

Truly stupid decision that will cause absolute havoc with the backgrounds. People have got used to being able to assigning stats as they want, and restricting it this way is going to force people to be ludicrously suboptimal in ways that people really, really, really hate.

Ways that generally speaking, even race-based limits placement didn't do. Acolyte is a prime example - absolutely NO-ONE wants to primary CHA, INT or WIS, and then put the +1 into the one of the others on that list. They've created a joke background no-one will take.

If this rule goes in on D&D Beyond, people will be insanely mad. They'll have to put in an override or people will literally be demanding refunds.

I imagine 80-90% of groups will ignore it anyway, because it's putting a restriction in after a restriction has been gone for 5+ years, and the restriction makes absolutely no sense and isn't balanced (c.f. Guide vs Acolyte - Guide offers a hugely more advantageous choice - no Cleric will ever be an Acolyte again - but most will be Guides).

Yeah, this is what I see happening, too. It's going to be the exact same problem that the Custom Lineage rules had: it's just always optimal to ignore the built-in design. I'm reminded of the Soren Johnson/Sid Meier quote: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of the game."

Stats are just too important. Players used to look at race as primarily a bag of stats, and now they've replaced backgrounds with a bag of stats.

I expect that everyone will just use "Custom Background" and they will now treat it as exactly what @Horwath said. Like I entirely agree with the sentiment that backgrounds should narrow your focus and should make sense. But from my experience that just isn't how players think. Backgrounds in 5e14 were absolutely undercooked, but I don't think this design is an improvement. There would need to be dozens of backgrounds that overlap and provide real choice for this design to just not be ignored.

 

[Baumi]

I actually think that the Feat is the biggest limitation for Backgrounds. You can easily get a Feat that is useless for you or you might take a background just because you need a specific Feat.

I also don't like that Feats are mandatory now, but since every group I played with included them, it should not matter that much.

I wonder if the Costum Backgrounds will be allowed in AL..

 

[mellored]

People will see characters they've played for years, or even decades, are flatly illegal under the new rules.

How does having -1 to a roll make a character "flatly illegal".

Oh your backstory for your Wizard is that you were a Urchin? Well, that background doesn't have INT as an option, so you're going to be permanently dumber than another INT character.

Where would an Urchin get a bunch of books from or the time to read them?

I mean, you could always say that you grew up on the streets, but you where friends with a book merchant who would let you sit in the corner and read.

And thus, your background is really that of a Merchant, even if society calls you an Urchin.

It's not really non-inflammatory. You've moved from saying to "All elves are more agile but less tough" or the like, to "All street people are tougher but dumber".

It's moves from nature to nurture.

You where not born stronger than others. You are stronger because you did more manual labor than others.

And again, there might be some combination that are just a bit too strong. Specifically avoiding Int + Armor option for example.

 

[GarrettKP]

Interesting. Probably Skilled.

Can you find the picture in question?

Ya, it’s this picture. This is the mystery background we don’t know.

 

[Parmandur]

Ya, it’s this picture. This is the mystery background we don’t know.

Oh, thst one is actually super weird. What if...along with all the Psionic Subclasses, theybare bringing Telepath in as a Background Feat? Could this be a Telepath Baclground?