Backgrounds

[Flipguarder]

Just wondering, all you DMs out there, how many backgrounds do you allow for your players. In the PHB 2 it seems they think anything under 4 to be just fine.

Now in this particular instance I am the dm and I want to introduce a character, who is much more workable if he can take two backgrounds. Id allow my players to retroactively take 2 backgrounds to even things out.

Any advice?

 

[Elric]

Just wondering, all you DMs out there, how many backgrounds do you allow for your players. In the PHB 2 it seems they think anything under 4 to be just fine.

Now in this particular instance I am the dm and I want to introduce a character, who is much more workable if he can take two backgrounds. Id allow my players to retroactively take 2 backgrounds to even things out.

Any advice?

You can take as many background as you want in PHB II, but you only gain one background benefit (like adding a skill to your trained skills list). I assume you mean "is more workable if he can take two background benefits" and you're asking about doing that.

Background benefits in PH-II are relatively minor benefits. However, adding 2 skills of choice to your class list will reduce the differentiation between different class's skill lists. Your highest Perception character in the party will likely take +2 to Perception as one of the background benefits. The Rogue will have +2 to Stealth. And so on.

As DM you're not constrained to make NPCs follow the same rules as the characters. If it's someone who is adventuring with them long-term, it would be unseemly to give that character a benefit the PCs can't get, but if you just want to introduce a Dwarf Rogue with Arcana and History for an adventure, I wouldn't worry about the details.

 

[Piratecat]

Elric's got it right. You only get one mechanical benefit no matter how many backgrounds you select, so it's not as important how many background elements you take. I don't encourage more than 2 or so.

 

[Hereticus]

Any character that is richly role played, probably has a well-described background.

I haven't added a PHB2 background to my character yet, but will ask about it during our game tomorrow.

Woohooo... another +2 for my Arcana!

 

[Piratecat]

Any character that is richly role played, probably has a well-described background.

I haven't added a PHB2 background to my character yet, but will ask about it during our game tomorrow.

After I suggested backgrounds, my players looked at me funny. "We already have backgrounds more detailed than this," one reminded me. "Do we get the +2 to a skill anyways?"

 

[msherman]

After I suggested backgrounds, my players looked at me funny. "We already have backgrounds more detailed than this," one reminded me. "Do we get the +2 to a skill anyways?"

When PHB2 came out, I went through the wiki pages my player's wrote up about their players, picked four skills appropriate to their written backgrounds, and told the players what their Background Skills were. They then chose one of those skills to add to their trainable list or take a +2 in. In a couple cases, they got skills that were previously untrainable (for example, the ranger bounty hunter and the big-city cleric both got Streetwise).

 

[keterys]

Yeah, the way I interpret the PHB2 rules, you should just go 'This is my background, and I think <this skill / language / whatever> makes sense. Done'

Their examples are just examples, who cares.

 

[Flipguarder]

Honestly backgrounds showed me as a new dm just how in control I am. I suppose I was asking if its horribly broken to give my players (or my character) 2 extra options for their class skills.

For instance, 2 of the characters are paladins that come from a faction dedicated to killing all things arcane, so I would think them knowing a whole heck of a lot about arcane makes sense.

Also one of these 2 paladins has spent the past 25 years running from a group of assassins, so perception would probably be trained by now as well.

Do you think that adding to a class skill list (not giving them more selections just adding to the possible selections) is broken?

 

[keterys]

Nah, I was thinking about giving out two background benefits for a game myself.

It would certainly put it more on par with the FR stuff.

 

[evilbob]

Actually none of the games I've seen have touched backgrounds. They just seem to be too much of a powergamer boon to balance out the "carrot" for RP that they are supposed to represent. Plus, I think most players in these games would rather just make up their own stories.