Free character benefits without leveling. What's balanced?

[YCombinator]

I am working on a campaign at the moment where characters will have a chance to better themselves in someway. This could always be done by leveling, naturally, and using the rules of the game. I am wondering what other DMs have done on occasion for giving out benefits that get added to the characters without actually leveling.

For example, my DM once sent us to a place where anyone who entered needed to be able to cast an arcane spell. We all went to learn from a great Wizard and we all then gained the ability to cast any one Wizard cantrip of our choice but only once per day. It was really cool to gain new abilities without spending the opportunity costs associated with leveling up.

Of course one always needs to worry a little bit about balance. If you give out permanent ability score improvements to primary stats this might get problematic.

So what things would DMs consider to be okay to give out as side-quest benefits? Here are my thoughts.

Any feat? This seems way over powered.

Ritual Casting. Maybe. Maybe too powerful. I thought of this because it would be fitting for the campaign I'm in.

Any one proficiency? This seems pretty reasonable to me. Some high-dex folks might want to learn the rapier. Maybe a wizard wants to learn how to use some armor. Weapons or armor could be two much though. That's also a feat. Maybe just tools?

Training in one skill? Maybe just half proficiency bonus to one skill?

Perhaps conditional skill check enhancements. +2 to any athletics checks made to climb. or +2 to any stealth checks made in a swampy area.

An out of game skill like juggling (granted this is performance) might be cool.

Learning lesser spell casting by turning a cantrip into a once-per-day spell could work.

Maybe a very large bonus to knowledge checks regarding the city they are in.

A background feature? Those little extra features your background gives you provided they are something one could train in would make sense.

Totally made up features. This should be easy. If a character spends lots of time sneaking things in and out of a shop I might give them a feature where they can hide things on their person up to 5 lbs totally obscured even when wearing just normal clothes.

Are any of these balanced? I realize balance is guaranteed to not be preserved here. I guess what I mean is are any of these going to be regrettable? You know if I give out a free feat to all players that even is not the end of the world. I just need to adapt difficulty really.

[Coidzor]

Tools and Languages are already covered as non-story rewards. They just take a long time to learn. The amount of time they take to learn or the base monetary price of getting training in them isn't really important to game balance, per se, so much as limiting the ability of PCs to just up and learn every language or tool during a minimal amount of Downtime.

Skill and weapon and armor proficiencies are covered as story/non-treasure/non-XP rewards, IIRC. At the very least, of those, Skill proficiencies definitely are.

So getting half proficiency or even full proficiency on a skill is not going to be massively unbalancing to the game.

As for just inventing things... You and your group should probably be capable of hashing out what y'all think is in line with whatever requirements you're going for.

[Gastronomie]

Giving out weak feats, or items with minor bonuses. I once made this small list of "unique weapons", for instance - check'em out in my siggy.

Also blessings, I reckon there was a rule for that in the DMG.

Apart from that, fluff. A rogue in a party I'm in has stole Drow gear, a dagger which sucks in light and is always pure black like darkness, but will be destroyed if left out in sunlight for too long. It's nothing more, but he really loves it - in fact he loves it so much he prefers it to the shortsword, resulting in the DM giving him a free homebrew feat concerning darkness and knives.

Also, an extra Eldritch Invocation for a warlock, an extra Metamagic option for a sorcerer and stuff. And either lots of spell scrolls OR a homebrew spell that fits the character for a wizard - perhaps even with the character's name in its name!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Really anything works, as long as it affects the whole group roughly equally. It might require you to increase the difficulty of encounters, but that's not exactly hard.

[Democratus]

Social benefits are good. This is much the same as several background benefits (Local Hero, Noble).

This works especially well if your heroes are building a reputation. Perhaps you could even create a reputation point system where their fame spreads out from where they are. They could arrive in a tavern the next city over and suddenly hear people singing songs about them. Free drinks for the whole visit!

[Gastronomie]

Social benefits are good. This is much the same as several background benefits (Local Hero, Noble).

This works especially well if your heroes are building a reputation. Perhaps you could even create a reputation point system where their fame spreads out from where they are. They could arrive in a tavern the next city over and suddenly hear people singing songs about them. Free drinks for the whole visit!Yeah, this sort of thing. Adventurers love it.

[YCombinator]

Tools and Languages are already covered as non-story rewards.

Where are these covered? I can only find "Other Rewards" on page 227 of the Dungeon Master's Guide which states that everything in there is for level 20 characters. Does it make a difference to any DMs out there that my characters are level 2 at the moment? I think perhaps the main thing to keep in mind is I can do whatever I want as long as we're all having fun, but I do like to use the rules reasonably closely. For example, I know full well if I allowed my players to level to 20 over night, that would steal a ton of the leveling up progressing away from them.

[Gtdead]

Something is balanced if it doesn't make the rest of the players obsolete and doesn't force the DM to go out of his way to challenge it.
If I was to give free social abilities to my players, I'd make sure that my social encounters are starting to become very complex.

There is a difference between rolling a 12 to beat the persuasion DC once, and political intrigue. After a certain point I find it more desirable to challenge the player and not the character, so I will assist him in beating DCs in favor of having to think more.

[Coidzor]

Giving out weak feats, or items with minor bonuses. I once made this small list of "unique weapons", for instance - check'em out in my siggy.

Also blessings, I reckon there was a rule for that in the DMG.

Err, what signature?

Yeah, I think there's boons and then blessings are like temporary boons that last for some period of time or until used.


Where are these covered? I can only find "Other Rewards" on page 227 of the Dungeon Master's Guide which states that everything in there is for level 20 characters. Does it make a difference to any DMs out there that my characters are level 2 at the moment? I think perhaps the main thing to keep in mind is I can do whatever I want as long as we're all having fun, but I do like to use the rules reasonably closely. For example, I know full well if I allowed my players to level to 20 over night, that would steal a ton of the leveling up progressing away from them.

I can't remember where it is in the books, but in the Player's Basic Rules they're in the section on Downtime Activities.

page 68 of 114 in the version 3.4 pdf I'm going off of.


Training
You can spend time between adventures learning a new
language or training with a set of tools. Your DM might
allow additional training options.

First, you must find an instructor willing to teach you.
The DM determines how long it takes, and whether one
or more ability checks are required.

The training lasts for 250 days and costs 1 gp per day.
After you spend the requisite amount of time and money,
you learn the new language or gain proficiency with
the new tool.

[Knaight]

The game balance of 5e really isn't that fragile, what imbalances there currently are tend to be caused by pretty drastic features. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it. With that said, the list, modified for numbers:



1)Any feat? This seems way over powered.

2)Ritual Casting. Maybe. Maybe too powerful. I thought of this because it would be fitting for the campaign I'm in.

3)Any one proficiency? This seems pretty reasonable to me. Some high-dex folks might want to learn the rapier. Maybe a wizard wants to learn how to use some armor. Weapons or armor could be two much though. That's also a feat. Maybe just tools?

4)Training in one skill? Maybe just half proficiency bonus to one skill?

5)Perhaps conditional skill check enhancements. +2 to any athletics checks made to climb. or +2 to any stealth checks made in a swampy area.

6)An out of game skill like juggling (granted this is performance) might be cool.

7)Learning lesser spell casting by turning a cantrip into a once-per-day spell could work.

8)Maybe a very large bonus to knowledge checks regarding the city they are in.

9)A background feature? Those little extra features your background gives you provided they are something one could train in would make sense.

10)Totally made up features. This should be easy. If a character spends lots of time sneaking things in and out of a shop I might give them a feature where they can hide things on their person up to 5 lbs totally obscured even when wearing just normal clothes.

1) Probably fine.
2) Probably fine.
3) This is likely fine, though going from medium to heavy armor might be iffy, particularly if this is granted multiple times.
4) Full proficiency bonus should be fine, no need to halve it.
5) I'd recommend advantage for this. It doesn't increase the high end of the scale, and fits better with existing mechanics.
6) This could work, but you could run into skill bloat issues regarding people who don't have the skill. If it's an out of game skill, make sure it is something that absolutely isn't covered already.
7) You could probably give out stronger spells than that even. Spells several levels behind the curve are likely to be less powerful than the non-spellcasters existing options, and as such they become a niche boost. That's fine.
8) If the game has been entirely in one city, modifying DCs downwards would handle this. The baseline is denizens of that city here.
9) Probably fine.
10) Be careful with this one. It's where rules bloat can crop up most easily, along with being the easiest place for this to just break. If it's well thought through though, no biggie.

[Blue Lantern]

I am working on a campaign at the moment where characters will have a chance to better themselves in someway. This could always be done by leveling, naturally, and using the rules of the game. I am wondering what other DMs have done on occasion for giving out benefits that get added to the characters without actually leveling.

For example, my DM once sent us to a place where anyone who entered needed to be able to cast an arcane spell. We all went to learn from a great Wizard and we all then gained the ability to cast any one Wizard cantrip of our choice but only once per day. It was really cool to gain new abilities without spending the opportunity costs associated with leveling up.

Of course one always needs to worry a little bit about balance. If you give out permanent ability score improvements to primary stats this might get problematic.

So what things would DMs consider to be okay to give out as side-quest benefits? Here are my thoughts.

Any feat? This seems way over powered.

Ritual Casting. Maybe. Maybe too powerful. I thought of this because it would be fitting for the campaign I'm in.

Any one proficiency? This seems pretty reasonable to me. Some high-dex folks might want to learn the rapier. Maybe a wizard wants to learn how to use some armor. Weapons or armor could be two much though. That's also a feat. Maybe just tools?

Training in one skill? Maybe just half proficiency bonus to one skill?

Perhaps conditional skill check enhancements. +2 to any athletics checks made to climb. or +2 to any stealth checks made in a swampy area.

An out of game skill like juggling (granted this is performance) might be cool.

Learning lesser spell casting by turning a cantrip into a once-per-day spell could work.

Maybe a very large bonus to knowledge checks regarding the city they are in.

A background feature? Those little extra features your background gives you provided they are something one could train in would make sense.

Totally made up features. This should be easy. If a character spends lots of time sneaking things in and out of a shop I might give them a feature where they can hide things on their person up to 5 lbs totally obscured even when wearing just normal clothes.

Are any of these balanced? I realize balance is guaranteed to not be preserved here. I guess what I mean is are any of these going to be regrettable? You know if I give out a free feat to all players that even is not the end of the world. I just need to adapt difficulty really.

Putting my two copper here


1) Acceptable as once in a lifetime boon, making feats "easily" trainable would not be a good idea in the long run.

2) See above :)

3) Tools are already trainable by the rules, single weapons are reasonable but should be checked on a case by case basis, armours are a bit more problematic, one one hand it makes sense to be able to learn how to use them, on the other the way AC works on 5e giving almost free armour proficiency for everyone would be unbalancing so is something to be either avoided or carefully monitored.

4) Similar as the above, giving too many proficiency to everyone would not be too good, giving limited half proficiency here and there should be fine.

5) I think this is fine s long is not too frequent and as long you can not increase a single skill more than one.

6) Most activities are included, or can be easily included, already in the skill list, I think adding more would be adding more bookkeeping for nothing.

7) That should be fine, non combat low utility cantrips could be used at will as well.

8) I think conditional bonuses on the player side are an useless hassle, I think that as a DM is better for you to adjust the various DC taking possible benefits into account

9) That should be fine

10) If you are feeling up to the challenge of making them, go for it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

on the other the way AC works on 5e giving almost free armour proficiency for everyone would be unbalancing so is something to be either avoided or carefully monitored.
You think? It seems to me that every type of armor will cap out at about the same score. Heavier armors demand less Dex and more Strength. Getting a shield is probably the biggest raw boost, but again, that's not really breaking the game's math at all.

[Blue Lantern]

You think? It seems to me that every type of armor will cap out at about the same score. Heavier armors demand less Dex and more Strength. Getting a shield is probably the biggest raw boost, but again, that's not really breaking the game's math at all.

I may be wrong, I am the first to admit that I am not the most experienced with 5e and I didn't really number crunch that much.
My doubt is mostly for spellcaster, that without magical items, would have a noticeable boost by free armour proficiency.

[Saeviomage]

I may be wrong, I am the first to admit that I am not the most experienced with 5e and I didn't really number crunch that much.
My doubt is mostly for spellcaster, that without magical items, would have a noticeable boost by free armour proficiency.

The biggest difference would be about 2 ac (4 with a shield) and a first level spell slot. I'm not sure that a spellcaster going from a poor ac to a good ac would matter too much, especially since he can do it by multiclassing or taking feats anyway.

[Blue Lantern]

The biggest difference would be about 2 ac (4 with a shield) and a first level spell slot. I'm not sure that a spellcaster going from a poor ac to a good ac would matter too much, especially since he can do it by multiclassing or taking feats anyway.

So, by expending a rare resource by not taking other possibly better option, by delaying his spell progressions, or by expending one or more of his spell slot for the day (important before lvl 18 for wizards). All those are a trade off, what I argue is that it should not be given for free.

Also a 2 difference in the AC that normally ranges between 17 and 21, barring magic items, a +2/+4 is noticeable.

Is it going to break the game in half, probably not, but is still a noticeable increase in power in a class that already is among the strongest thanks to his versatility, by making them use less resources on defence.

[YCombinator]

Something is balanced if it doesn't make the rest of the players obsolete and doesn't force the DM to go out of his way to challenge it.
If I was to give free social abilities to my players, I'd make sure that my social encounters are starting to become very complex.

There is a difference between rolling a 12 to beat the persuasion DC once, and political intrigue. After a certain point I find it more desirable to challenge the player and not the character, so I will assist him in beating DCs in favor of having to think more.

I definitely do this. I'm currently running a political intrigue campaign so it makes a big difference. But regardless of what campaign I run, I'm always clear with the players up front on this one point. What you say in character dramatically effects the DC of charisma checks. How you describe your performance and if you get up and mimic the basic movements (I know, I know, you personally can't do a back flip but illustrate quickly) can make the DC much much lower.

This works, in general, for all skill checks. If you describe how you're taking exercising caution when climbing or what measures you're taking that helps. Even the game mentions that if you use climbers kit it's a benefit of course but if you tell me "I lock my arm like this around the rope as I hammer each piton so as to not fall" then that gives a bonus. I realize this favors smart players or engaged players a little more than player who rolled up a 20 strength but that's okay for us. We prefer that and the difference is not so big that a large strength isn't a big plus.