Basic Houserules I'm considering

[Grod_The_Giant]

Pretty much the standard deal; I might be running some 5e soon, and I've been playing with the rules a bit. I have a lot of experience with 3.5 and general homebrewing, so I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to do too much damage, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

1. Assume custom backgrounds. Pick the special ability you like best, whatever starting package you feel like, and two skills and one tool of your choice.
Thus removing the need to pick through backgrounds looking for the exact skills you really want

2. Everyone gets a feat at first level, and must take feats instead of ASIs when a class would normally give you them. The new alternative is to gain +1 use of an ability normally useable 1/long or short rest. Additionally, feats no longer can grant +1 to an ability.
What can I say, I'm a 3.5 guy. I miss the customization and differentiation from feats. There just doesn't look like there's enough in 5e, especially for non-casters. Subclasses are pretty limited, and only go so far. Feats look fun in this edition, and look like they're powerful enough to really help define a character. Plus a bit of extra power at normally-vulnerable low levels. The +1 ability use leaves an option in place for those who want to keep things simpler

3. Levels in classes that provide extra attacks stack for determining when you get them. A Barbarian 3/Fighter 2, for instance, would have one extra attack. Your combined ECL must be equal to the level where all classes would get their extra attack in order to qualify-- a Fighter 2/Valor Bard 3 would not have an extra attack, as his combined level (5) is not high enough for his Bard side to gain the extra attack. The Fighter's additional Extra Attacks are not subject to this rule.
Casters get to multi-class without losing big chunks of power progression; mundanes should get to do the same. And, you know, I like multi-classing, and want to encourage people to dabble.

4. You get an ASI at ECL 4, and every 4 ECLs after that.
Thus keeping RNG on the right path, without making people choose between boring-but-important numbers and fun new options

5. Humans get one bonus proficiency of their choice, and one additional background special ability
Thus making them marginally less weak and boring

The feats+ASI bit would inevitably make players a bit stronger, but as long as it affects everyone about equally - which it should - that's easy to adjust to.

[Belac93]

5. Humans get one bonus proficiency of their choice, and one additional background special ability
Thus making them marginally less weak and boring

Humans? Weak? Boring?!

+1 to all ability scores, I'll admit, is boring, but decent. But you're using feats already. Just give them variant humans! +1 skill, a feat, and +1 to two ability scores of their choice is quite good. From what I've seen, they are widely considered the most powerful race the Players Handbook.

[Mara]

This stuff is unbalancing. But this is 5e so little actual damage has been done. I do expect certain optimal combos to emerge.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This stuff is unbalancing. But this is 5e so little actual damage has been done. I do expect certain optimal combos to emerge.
As long as everyone is boosted about the same amount, and not beyond the bounds of normal enemies/RNG/whatever, it works out alright-- I can just make encounters a bit harder. Are there any specific things I should watch out for?

[Alerad]

1. This is pretty much the official rules, the published backgrounds are just guidelines.

2. We did the same for our game, everyone gets a feat at lvl 1. Variant human was modified, granting +3 point it as two feats would have been strong.

3. and 4. seem to be favoring multiclassing, which is ok if everybody is doing it. Spellcasters do get penalty for multi passing - slots get increased, but they have no access to higher level known spells.

Tell us later how it works out.

[lebefrei]

That is a lot of feats... You'll have to do rebalancing to deal with everyone having wide spread save proficiencies, wearing heavy armor, etc. 5e isn't even entirely balanced towards feats as they are optional, and certainly not for this many.

I understand that you're trying give more options, but just allowing feats and multiclassing in your game already gives players a lot of customization choices.

[Grod_The_Giant]

3. and 4. seem to be favoring multiclassing, which is ok if everybody is doing it. Spellcasters do get penalty for multi passing - slots get increased, but they have no access to higher level known spells.
True. I guess I'm not quite sure where the balance lies... my gut feeling is that delaying the extra attack more than one or two levels is going to really hurt you when it comes to keeping your damage up, more than you gain by mixing lower-level class features, and more base power than a caster loses-- they still get their save-or-suck spells at full power, and their cantrip damage continues to increase (I think?) I could be wrong, though-- has anyone looked at this?


That is a lot of feats... You'll have to do rebalancing to deal with everyone having wide spread save proficiencies, wearing heavy armor, etc. 5e isn't even entirely balanced towards feats as they are optional, and certainly not for this many.

I understand that you're trying give more options, but just allowing feats and multiclassing in your game already gives players a lot of customization choices.
People choosing to dump Dex and wear heavy armor is fine; there are other penalties for doing that, including spending 1-3 feats on it. And as for Resilient, like most feats you can only take it once-- hardly the end of the world.

[Cybren]

Pretty much the standard deal; I might be running some 5e soon, and I've been playing with the rules a bit. I have a lot of experience with 3.5 and general homebrewing, so I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to do too much damage, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

1. Assume custom backgrounds. Pick the special ability you like best, whatever starting package you feel like, and two skills and one tool of your choice.
Thus removing the need to pick through backgrounds looking for the exact skills you really want

2. Everyone gets a feat at first level, and must take feats instead of ASIs when a class would normally give you them. The new alternative is to gain +1 use of an ability normally useable 1/long or short rest. Additionally, feats no longer can grant +1 to an ability.
What can I say, I'm a 3.5 guy. I miss the customization and differentiation from feats. There just doesn't look like there's enough in 5e, especially for non-casters. Subclasses are pretty limited, and only go so far. Feats look fun in this edition, and look like they're powerful enough to really help define a character. Plus a bit of extra power at normally-vulnerable low levels. The +1 ability use leaves an option in place for those who want to keep things simpler

3. Levels in classes that provide extra attacks stack for determining when you get them. A Barbarian 3/Fighter 2, for instance, would have one extra attack. Your combined ECL must be equal to the level where all classes would get their extra attack in order to qualify-- a Fighter 2/Valor Bard 3 would not have an extra attack, as his combined level (5) is not high enough for his Bard side to gain the extra attack. The Fighter's additional Extra Attacks are not subject to this rule.
Casters get to multi-class without losing big chunks of power progression; mundanes should get to do the same. And, you know, I like multi-classing, and want to encourage people to dabble.

4. You get an ASI at ECL 4, and every 4 ECLs after that.
Thus keeping RNG on the right path, without making people choose between boring-but-important numbers and fun new options

5. Humans get one bonus proficiency of their choice, and one additional background special ability
Thus making them marginally less weak and boring

The feats+ASI bit would inevitably make players a bit stronger, but as long as it affects everyone about equally - which it should - that's easy to adjust to.

1) the purpose of backgrounds is to show where the character comes from. They have a small mechanical effect, but they're not locking you in to anything, you can already customize them by default. I'd caution against framing them as "here's how you get any two skill proficiencies you want!!" To players though, because generally they're better thought of as "what life did my character used to lead"
2) this is definitely too powerful in the abstract. +1 use of action surge per rest when I run out of feats I want to take? Fighters usually have to wait a lot of levels for that
3) I don't think this changes much, and I don't see the payoff, but admittedly I'm biased against convoluted multiclassing builds that involve lots of different classes in small level amounts.
4) I guess this makes sense if you make feats mandatory
5) why not just use Variant-Humans? And, the special feature of a background is more meant for flavor than mechanical advantage. I haven't seen one ever actually come up in playing from levels 1-5. They're easy to ignore.

True. I guess I'm not quite sure where the balance lies... my gut feeling is that delaying the extra attack more than one or two levels is going to really hurt you when it comes to keeping your damage up, more than you gain by mixing lower-level class features, and more base power than a caster loses-- they still get their save-or-suck spells at full power, and their cantrip damage continues to increase (I think?) I could be wrong, though-- has anyone looked at this?
Losing out on your higher level of spells known IS a pretty big cost, and early features for "martials" are usually pretty powerful, like action surge, cunning action, or fighting styles