Please Help Refine this Custom Background (PEACH) - Scout

[KorvinStarmast]

I am not that happy with Outlander, and want to have a Scout Background.
Here's where I am going with this.

Scout (if there's a better term for this (since there's a Scout Rogue archetype) please suggest one. (Explorer)


You grew up in the out of doors hunting, fishing, trapping and living off the land. As you got older you found your skills in need whenever the local militia or the levy was raised: any military force needs a scout and your famialarity with the local terrain was a perfect fit.

Skill Proficiencies: Stealth, Survival
Toll Proficiencies: herbalism kit, one musical instrument (choose from flute, horn, pan flute, drum, viol)
Equipment: a hunting trap, a set of common clothes, your instrument, a signal whistle, and a pouch containing 10 GP.

Geographical Expertise (choose or roll 1d8)
1. Arctic
2. Coast
3. Desert
4. Forest
5. Grassland
6. Mountain
7. Swamp
8. Underdark (opiton to roll again if not from an underdark race like Sverfneiblein or Drow ... )

Feature: At Home in the Outdoors
As a scout, your mastery of location and terrain made you an invaluable set of eyes and ears to the troops of your home area. You move easily in wilderness and have a knack for finding the best camping sites. You were trained to use a musical sounds, bird calls and trail markings to provide clear signals that are useful to soldiers and hunters.

The Traits, Ideals, Bonds, Flaws will be a medley of Outlander and Folk Hero. I'll cobble them together later.

[Corran]

Looks good.

The trait (at least the part regarding finding good spots to camp) could favorably affect things like resting and random encounters (at least when travelling in the chosen terrain), which is the kind of benefit I would expect from a background feature in general, though it is one of these things you kind of have to discuss with the GM so that you know beforehand if and how much useful it's going to be. Also, for giving them time to quantify your trait somehow.

I'd like to see the fluff text expanded slightly, in a way to tie your character closer to the adventuring life through your background (even if it's only a hint). A character with that background could be just guiding adventurers to their destination. Because the adventurers pass from the village of that character with the intention of crossing the marsh that leads to the caves of doom, and they want a guide so that they can safely/quickly cross the marsh. One day the character decided that they were bored waiting outside the caves for the adventurers to come out with their loot, and joined in. In short, you were the one who did the boring job (figure out the path/target and point it to the heroes), but never saw any action or earned any recognition, so you stepped up your game by becoming an adventurer yourself (ie class level).

I particularly like the part about communicating through animal sounds (that's how I always thought of druidic) and musical notes, and I like how you limited the selection of musical instruments to the ones that make sense to use for the intended communication purposes. Not 100% sold on the viol though. I'd be very tempted to add a sousaphone on that list, just for the hilarity of imagine a scout on the run carrying it (that's one reason to bump your strength).

The only potential issue I see, is if this background steps too much on the ranger's toes. But as I am not familiar enough with the ranger class, I have no real opinion here. Still, something you might want to think about.

[KorvinStarmast]

The only potential issue I see, is if this background steps too much on the ranger's toes. But as I am not familiar enough with the ranger class, I have no real opinion here. Still, something you might want to think about. No more than the Outlander does. I was thinking "viol" = "fiddle" and but that was maybe a step to far. I'll drop that. It's a good Background for a Ranger Character, though.

As to your other comments. Thanks! I need to scrub it again.