Ranger and other archetypes in the future

[MadBear]

So thinking about the identity problem the Ranger has, really convinced me that it's really a problem of it not having a unique enough identity. I think one thing that would really help is in the inevitable (but far in the future) idea of 6e, I can see a way to really help out how to make a ranger feel more appropriate.

You'd still have your classic classes (fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric).

You'd still have your subclasses (Battlemaster, illusionist, assassin, Life)

But what if we made your background had a lot more weight in the abilities you get? What if every character could pick 2 backgrounds.

What if, ranger was a background you could pick.

It could be something as simple as:
1. You get favored enemy which grants bonuses to hit and skill checks to know/find/track said enemy.
2. You get 2 of the following skills and expertise in 1 of the following skills while in non-city terrain (stealth, survival, nature, animal handling, medicine)
3. Ambush ability (a decently powerful combat ability that would work in some cool way, which I haven't figured out yet)

Maybe another ranger focused background could be "Animal friend" that would grant an animal companion in some form.

This would allow any character to be a "Ranger" which would literally just be a woodsman that might be a frontline fighter (Aaragorn) a rogue (Robinhood), or even a wizard (Radagast). The important thing here is that backgrounds would be way more relevant, and grant significant abilities that really help focus the character. This would probably be a way to help make a character that felt more unique so that you could have 3 fighters maybe even with the same subclass, but because of their backgrounds they felt very different.

Anyways, just spitballing an idea that came to my mind.

[KorvinStarmast]

So thinking about the identity problem the Ranger has, really convinced me that it's really a problem of it not having a unique enough identity. It's been in the game for 45 years. I am not seeing the problem. The core problem I have is that unlike the Paladin, a Divine Half Caster, the Ranger doesn't do the 'prepare spells' thing. Makes no sense to me. Also, PHB Rangers do not have the "domain spells" like the Paladin. Also a pointless exclusion. (There have been a variety of thread and posts for adding domain spells like Xanather's did for the three classes there, which I'll leave as an exercise for the reader)

[cutlery]

It's been in the game for 45 years. I am not seeing the problem.

What sorts of things can a ranger do that are part of the ranger identity that a a fighter/rogue with the tracker feat can't do? Or a fighter/druid?

Why take a ranger to 15, or 20? Is their identity archery? or is in two-weapon fighting? Can't anyone else do either of those things? Are you no longer a ranger if you want to use a longsword in two hands? If you want to scout with a rapier, should you simply be a rogue instead? Why spells at all (there was essentially none of this in the source material the ranger is based on). Why are their uses for survival so lacklustre?

[KorvinStarmast]

What sorts of things can a ranger do that are part of the ranger identity that a a fighter/rogue with the tracker feat can't do? Or a fighter/druid?

Why take a ranger to 15, or 20? Is their identity archery? or is in two-weapon fighting? Can't anyone else do either of those things? Are you no longer a ranger if you want to use a longsword in two hands? If you want to scout with a rapier, should you simply be a rogue instead? Why spells at all (there was essentially none of this in the source material the ranger is based on). Why are their uses for survival so lacklustre?
Remember:
1. Multiclassing is an optional rule.
2. Rogue gets one attack per round

Irrelevant.

3. Fighter: that's maybe an interesting parallel, except that the Ranger is a Half Caster while the Fighter is a 'no caster' or a '1/3 caster'. Ranger fits a nice martial niche.

Since Ranger was originally a subclass of Fighter this might be a more productive line of inquiry if asked like this:
Why isn't Ranger a sub class of Fighter who is a half caster?

Given that they opened the PHB in 2014 with six or seven Cleric Domains, and eight Wizard schools, why not merge the Ranger back with Fighter and add two more sub classes - Hunter + Beast Master - and make them half casters.

Probably would have worked.

That question is more interesting to me, but it is also answerable as "unify editions and keep this legacy thing for *reasons*" like the (censored) not switching the Warlock to INT caster ... and can be answered "we listed to fan feedback among the 175,000 play testers."

There is no problem here. I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the OP.

[cutlery]

except that the Ranger is a Half Caster while the Fighter is a 'no caster' or a '1/3 caster'.

The ranger has what is probably the lamest spell list in the game; short of a handful of decent picks like Absorb Elements, Zephyr Strike, and Swift quiver, and the near-requisite hunter's mark which clashes with concentration for swift quiver, many of which are basically required class features that suck up action economy to use.

They could have made the wilderness and tracking stuff more core. They could have made either archery or TWF more core (without relying on a tacked-on spell in later tiers).

Both the ranger and the paladin were ideas that came about similarly, and currently occupy a similar space. The paladin is a much more successful implementation.

A spell-less ranger that could actually do things would have been a nice niche - they could have been the "skill warrior", and a dose of expertise similar to what the bard gets would do fine.

[MoiMagnus]

1) There is a place for a half-caster which is nature-based. Paladin and cleric manage to two different takes on the "holy fighter" archetype, one as a half-caster and one as a full-caster. Similarly, there could be a half-caster approach to the "nature fighter" archetype to complement the druid. What make the paladin work? IMO it is (a) Powerful themes given by the oaths (b) One of a kind abilities that warp how the entire team play, like the level 6 aura. (c) The possibility to burn all your spells into damages if you don't want the complexity of handling spells.

2) There is a place for circumstance-focussed class, that takes advantage on the exact terrain, the exact enemies, is the king of tracking, preparing ambushes and traps, etc. Quite similar to Aragorn or Legolas, in fact.

Strangely enough, it is the Barbarian that get the theme of being a magical fighter that get its power from the spirits of nature even though it is not a spell-caster at all, while it is the ranger that get the exploration theme while being a half spell-caster in an unconvincing way.

I know that's mostly heritage from previous editions, but I'm unconvinced.

[KorvinStarmast]

The ranger has what is probably the lamest spell list in the game; Opinions are like navels: we each have one. :smallcool: I am not likely to be swayed by anything you have to say on this: this Ranger-trashing thing in this edition among a small sub set of the playing community I find to be needlessly negative, having played both a Hunter and a Gloom stalker and having enjoyed them a great deal. Neither campaign went past 12, and quite frankly, most campaigns seem not to get much further than that.

Which tells me that the Ranger is fit for purpose.

[MadBear]

I'm sure there could be other potential fixes to make a ranger feel unique, and I don't doubt what Korvin suggested might be a helpful fix. My bigger point, is that I can see what a "ranger" is tacked on to pretty much any class. Hence the bigger idea of creating different backgrounds that put a unique spin on a character.

In that same vein, fighters by themselves are pretty much directionless. But if you had an "Army" background, "Mercenary" background, "Sailor" background that gave real tangible benefits that would go such a good way to giving a direction to a character. but unlike current backgrounds, it should come with abilities that mesh into any class to give it a unique spin.

In the end, this is nothing more then a pipe dream anyway, but it was one way that I would think to make rangers a bit more interesting. Heck, take an oath of the Ancients Paladin and give him the "Ranger" background and now it feels like a true green knight woodland ranger who kicks but at sword and board. Meanwhile a Battlemaster fighter with the Ranger background could be an expert archer "ranger".

I think the bigger point here would be that for this to feel "right" backgrounds would need to carry some oomph, and not just be window dressing.

[JellyPooga]

Setting aside the whole Ranger argument, I do think there's room to revisit what Backgrounds are and the abilities they give you. Consider;

1) Front loaded Classes. Many, if not most, Classes are heavily front-loaded, presumably to give you the "X experience" (where X = Class name) as soon as possible.

2) Tiered play. There's a lot of ralk about how many or most games don't see higher levels of play. There's many reason for this, of course, but one of those is likely to be the expectation of starting at 1st level and a gamd simply losing steam or player/gms running out of ideas and /or time.

What if Backgrounds became a package of abilities earned before gameplay starts and your Class became solely about the abilities gained during play?

You could literally have Tier packages of Background features (that could scale with level, even), appropriate for different styles of game while maintaining Class feature progressions that would be independent of those tiers, allowing players to experience different styles and power levels of gameplay without bloating the Classes themselves with extraneous "ribbon feature" or "whut?" abilities.

This would also somewhat reduce the need for as many independent classes and backgrounds, as well as "dipping". A mere 5 significant Backgrounds complemented by 5 Classes gives you 25 actual character packages before considering multiclassing or other options (race, feats, etc.). Compare this to the 13 (?) Classes 5e has at the moment.

An intriguing notion.

[MadBear]

This would also somewhat reduce the need for as many independent classes and backgrounds, as well as "dipping". A mere 5 significant Backgrounds complemented by 5 Classes gives you 25 actual character packages before considering multiclassing or other options (race, feats, etc.). Compare this to the 13 (?) Classes 5e has at the moment.

An intriguing notion.

I'm notorious for burying the good ideas in the weeds, building a house on top of it, and an iron clan fence around that house, as to really obfuscate the idea behind it all :) . But you're basically completely right, in that it would help open up the potential types of characters you could play. Something as simple as a Military background with a wizard class, would open up the idea of an melee wizard concept, where they're background describes why their good at melee, while the class describes how their focus shifts away from that over time in pursuit of their studies. On the other hand, that same background on a fighter, would let the character feel like a fighter from the start, and would develop from there.

If in the future this was also meshed with races relying less on a boring stat bonus, and instead more about interesting mechanics unique to their race, you have a recipe for being able to create both classic DND archetypes, while also creating room for unique crazy characters.

[Gtdead]

On the matter of ranger "not being good enough", to be perfectly honest, if someone is ok with playing a rogue, then he should be ok with playing a ranged ranger. Right now these classes go hand to hand in damage output, and their only difference has to do with how the classes perform out of combat. Each has his own niche but when it comes to numbers, the classes are about equal. Both classes suffer from the same problems in combat, namely being too restricted in their roles and getting the short end of the stick due to TWF being crap and conflicting with so many feats, spells and class features. Also both classes compete with the worse fighter subclasses in output (champion for example) while being better in everything else.

So ranger isn't "bad". He however has several design problems that limit what you can do with him. If you like the ranger, it's a perfectly valid (and fun) class to play. He isn't a prime pick if your DM likes to create difficult combat encounters, but it isn't the worst either.

On the thread topic:

I'm not big on reducing the basic classes. I'd rather they added so many classes that we wouldn't care at all if some of them underperformed. But as far as backgrounds are concerned:

The whole point of them is to create a character fast and communicate to others some basic info about what this character does. So you say I'm a rogue and my background is street urchin rather than saying "My name is Awesome McStrong, my parents died in a horse accident, I was forced to steal in order to survive blabla".

I personally think backgrounds are obnoxious enough as it is now due to the mechanical advantage they provide in social situations. They should be absolutely optional, but due to the mechanical advantage, everyone went from special snowflake to sailor overnight. If we add class features, then everyone will stop being Street Urchin Rogue and will become Fighter with a background in Wizard.

I don't wholly disagree with the idea of erasing some classes and reworking their abilities into subclasses or feats. I mean I hate monks as much as any other monk hater and I still can't make the connection between rangers and Aragorn. Turning class features into feats is already being done, so it's nothing new, but having to choose a background, which is a character defining roleplaying thing, based on abilities of failed classes of previous editions would be both ironic and completely counter to the point.

No matter how many combinations you can create with a class with 5 subclasses and 25 backgrounds, it's still shoehorned and it's better to just give us a blank character and let us pick class feats from a list with a pointbuy.

[cutlery]

I am not likely to be swayed by anything you have to say on this

Likewise. The amount of stuff WotC has released (both official and UA) to try to fix the class speaks for itself.

And, I think OP's point is right - classes were more rigid in previous editions, and the classes as "identities" are something that came largely from the game itself. Opening things up worked out great for the paladin, but not so great for the ranger in this edition.

Some of the core-ish ranger abilities in the PHB do feel roughly like background abilities. Natural Explorer is a souped up wilderness version of Urchin.

Bigger background packages sounds interesting - moving thieves' cant to criminal (or letting it also pick that up), for example.

They seem to be moving partly in this direction with feats, but that isn't the same thing as a background. Most (all?) backgrounds only grant ribbons, and having backgrounds that grant feat-level features alongside them would get weird.

[KorvinStarmast]

Setting aside the whole Ranger argument, I do think there's room to revisit what Backgrounds are and the abilities they give you.

{snip} An intriguing notion. They'd have to start from the ground up to do that, and it is an intriguing notion.
They should be absolutely optional, but due to the mechanical advantage, everyone went from special snowflake to sailor overnight. Not necessarily. I picked Sailor for my first Cleric because I spent a long time IRL in the Navy, and because my back story had to do with being marooned by pirates. I had no idea about which abilities and skills were "optimal" but I liked the idea of being able to drive a boat/ship if later adventures took us to sea. Also, I like pirate things. My current Warlock's Sailor background is built on her being from a merchant family, but exiled due to being a public embarassment. My first Ranger(Hunter) was a bounty hunter (Outlander IIRC) and the second one (Gloom Stalker) was a Criminal/Spy.

I like what backgrounds do, and while I suspect they could be even better, they are also very newbie friendly - which was a high priority design goal. The point of catering to the optimizers, min maxers and power gamers wasn't what backgrounds is about. FWIW, I think most of us who engage here at GitP have at least a little of each of those characteristics.
No matter how many combinations you can create with a class with 5 subclasses and 25 backgrounds, it's still shoehorned and it's better to just give us a blank character and let us pick class feats from a list with a pointbuy. But is that Newbie friendly? (I don't disagree that this isn't a bad way to build characters). Someone further up mentioned a different way for how backgrounds influence play. 13th age has a neat idea, but since our campaign has still not gotten off the ground, I've yet to see how that works in play.

Likewise. The amount of stuff WotC has released (both official and UA) to try to fix the class speaks for itself. Mostly because they made a mess of Beast Master. Hunter is OK out of the box.

[Morty]

What if I told you that you can play a ranger without any classes at all, in any number of systems, just by picking skills, abilities and aptitudes that fit your idea of a ranger?

Kidding aside, yes, it could work. Quite a few things would work better than the ranger class as it has existed in D&D for years - that's a low bar to clear, admittedly. In general, quite a few concepts would work much better as entirely class-agnostic instead of furiously hammering them into either a class or a subclass; ranger is just one example. That it hasn't been done yet is because D&D is unwilling to make classes less of a be-all end-all determinant of your character and/or alter the class list in any substantial way.

[cutlery]

Mostly because they made a mess of Beast Master. Hunter is OK out of the box.

Hunter feels good at level 5. Hunter feels about the same at level 11.

IMHO they ought to have both volley and whirlwind. But - I actually liked the 2015 spell-less ranger (if Aragon is inspiration, he could fight). Well some of it. I also am intrigued by the class feature options - I don't know if a concentration-free hunter's mark breaks anything, but it seems neat.


On backgrounds - you can pick any two skills for a custom background; so it is the background features that matter. More powerful background features would always be taken if available, unless there was some sort of an ECL cost (I don't think we need that again, although with how proficiency works maybe it wouldn't be so bad this time around).

At that point, though, your "criminal background" might just be 2-3 levels of rogue, right?

[KorvinStarmast]

At that point, though, your "criminal background" might just be 2-3 levels of rogue, right? No. It was explicitly tied to the campaign. My Ranger was the agent of an NPC up in Baldur's Gate; a spy. Deception, Stealth, and Thieve's tools are a nice bit of skill proficiency (though the Deception was somewhat hampered by my 8 Charisma. That bonus spell for Gloom Stalker mitigated that weakness in out of combat situations. :smallwink: (Disguise Self).

IMHO they ought to have both volley and whirlwind. B I agree.

[MadBear]

On a completely separate note, I was a big fan of letting a person with whirlwind move between the attacks before it was clarified you couldn't do that. Because you'd either have to spend a feat to pick up Mobile, or take a lot of opportunity attacks. Either way, it'd let the melee character approach the damage that the character using volley was doing. Because right now, volley has a nice 10ft radius letting them hit up to 16 targets (granted it'll almost never be that many), and when you add in lightning arrow, it becomes a really great AOE move by the ranger, that's also from a distance, while whirlwind can hit at most 8, and you have to be up close.

[cutlery]

No. It was explicitly tied to the campaign. My Ranger was the agent of an NPC up in Baldur's Gate; a spy. Deception, Stealth, and Thieve's tools are a nice bit of skill proficiency (though the Deception was somewhat hampered by my 8 Charisma. That bonus spell for Gloom Stalker mitigated that weakness in out of combat situations. :smallwink: (Disguise Self).


I was referring to OP's and JellyPooga's idea of "greater" backgrounds; they'd need to have an effective character level cost, but if you're starting a game at higher levels you could just take a few levels in another class to serve as the "greater" background.

In the case of the rogue example, criminal or spy background is one thing, but a few levels for 1-2d6 sneak attack, thieves' cant, and expertise in theives' tools is another.

A background that gave those features would be too much, even though it neatly fits the character design concept of a person who worked in that sort of criminal underworld for the last five years (thieves' cant particularly).

[Gtdead]

Not necessarily. I picked Sailor for my first Cleric because I spent a long time IRL in the Navy, and because my back story had to do with being marooned by pirates. I had no idea about which abilities and skills were "optimal" but I liked the idea of being able to drive a boat/ship if later adventures took us to sea. Also, I like pirate things. My current Warlock's Sailor background is built on her being from a merchant family, but exiled due to being a public embarassment. My first Ranger(Hunter) was a bounty hunter (Outlander IIRC) and the second one (Gloom Stalker) was a Criminal/Spy.

Oh I agree, I like backgrounds too and I have found a lot of them that really resonate with my character. Faction Agent is my favorite by far, it's so formal. I just dislike the fact that there are "better" backgrounds mechanically. You lose much by not picking a perception background if you can't get it from your class. Adding more mechanical bonuses to them will increase the pressure. The very dedicated (and experienced) roleplayers wouldn't mind that much, but when a newbie asks for help, I always find it disappointing that backgrounds are part of the proposed build.



I like what backgrounds do, and while I suspect they could be even better, they are also very newbie friendly - which was a high priority design goal. The point of catering to the optimizers, min maxers and power gamers wasn't what backgrounds is about. FWIW, I think most of us who engage here at GitP have at least a little of each of those characteristics.

I too like them for what they do and it's the main reason I don't want to be reduced to min/max options. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy optimization so much that for me it's the main aspect of DnD. I enjoy optimization and theorycrafting more than actual play. But I feel that if backgrounds get more mechanical, they will just be reduced to another min/max option and I don't like it because background determines the character concept. If a background resonates with my character conceptually but I don't like the abilities it provides either because they don't match the concept as I envision it, or because it's a botched attempt, I will be hard pressed to ignore it. And then I will be inclined to give the same advice to someone that asks for help with his build.

I have seen what happens when the player doesn't like the character he has created because it doesn't do what he envisioned. It has also happened to me in 3.5e where I loved the concept of pure caster clerics, but the spell lists were pushing me to melee. Good thing I fell in love with Bone Knight so eventually I was happy with my choice (though I had to argue a bit with the DM cause he didn't want to have an Eberron character in his campaign).



But is that Newbie friendly? (I don't disagree that this isn't a bad way to build characters). Someone further up mentioned a different way for how backgrounds influence play. 13th age has a neat idea, but since our campaign has still not gotten off the ground, I've yet to see how that works in play.

I will speak a bit about my experience, but I think I have a good argument.

I'd say in a sense, picking from a feat list can be newbie friendly, since the greatest advertisement for the game is "be whoever you want to be". I was always savvy in DnD due to video games. Even when I hadn't yet experienced the PnP, I partially understood what to expect from the setting, how the whole system of classes, attributes and skills worked so when I created my first character, I was already thinking in these terms. However I'm a complete scrub in World of Darkness. Even after playing it for a couple of sessions, I still don't understand how the dice rolling works. I guess that's partly the DM's fault because he told us he would take care of everything and the only thing we had to do was to create a background. Which I enthusiastically did, and the DM was very happy about it.

If memory serves, in WoD you start as a basic human, and pick some feats from a list. My concept was a guy that as a child witnessed something creepy killing his parents but no one believed him, so he grew up and became a paranoid private eye that spent a lot of his days in the gun range.

I started browsing the list of feats for whatever would fit my character the best. I picked something that improved pistols. I can't remember exactly. I don't know if it was a good choice since I never got a chance to use it, but I was super happy with my choice.

In DnD, with the class system, this is a problem. Because for example, if I wanted to play something similar (a paranoid sleuth that specializes in crossbows), I would have to pick a class. I'd also want a lot of INT. However the only class that would ever fit this concept is ranger, which doesn't use INT, and I'd still have to put up with the whole nature theme that is completely opposite to my character. I mean.. unless I wanted my detective to be Ace Ventura... :p

Now of course, this just isn't how DnD works and I only mention this whole thing since we are talking about a possible next edition. It's hard to pick a profession and make the class fit the concept. You mostly choose how to fight, and then build the character and hope it will work that way. But while there is an inherent complexity in picking from a list, if you don't care about viability (and as a newbie you seriously shouldn't), it's quite easy to single out feats after a quick reading.

[Silly Name]

Ranger's main issue in 5e is similar to the Rogue's: both classes are predicated on the idea of being skillful, but the Skill system is anemic. The Ranger is also supposed to be a master of the wild, but the Exploration side of 5e is likewise so simplified that it doesn't really work.

The Ranger also suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, I think. Along the editions, it has changed a lot, from a Fighter subclass focused on killing specific creatures (you didn't even get to pick them), to a divine, druidic half-caster, to needing to replicate Drizzt (two-weapon fighting was a drow thing, and the only reason it got included in the 3rd edition Ranger class was because Drizzt did it), to trying to mesh all those ideas in one class.

The Ranger needs a strong exploration minigame to thrive, where its skillset can shine and flourish. It needs to be able to not suck outside of those situations too, and its skillset shouldn't be easily replicated by multiclassing Fighter and Rogue. And it probably needs to see Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain to be fixed to become less campaign-dependent.

[MadBear]

I was referring to OP's and JellyPooga's idea of "greater" backgrounds; they'd need to have an effective character level cost, but if you're starting a game at higher levels you could just take a few levels in another class to serve as the "greater" background.

In the case of the rogue example, criminal or spy background is one thing, but a few levels for 1-2d6 sneak attack, thieves' cant, and expertise in theives' tools is another.

A background that gave those features would be too much, even though it neatly fits the character design concept of a person who worked in that sort of criminal underworld for the last five years (thieves' cant particularly).

I think you're missing what I'm saying. I'm saying that in a future edition, I'd like to see backgrounds redesigned to have a greater impact on the game. Yes, if you blindly transported this idea into the game as is, it wouldn't work.

But a new edition that takes into consideration that your background has a tremendous impact on who your character is, would be a way to increase character diversity, and would probably be a way to fix the way the current ranger seems "stuck".

Right now, backgrounds are trivial and mean almost nothing to what your character can do. So instead, it's mostly 1. Class (by a long shot) 2. Race (to a lesser degree)

It'd be nice if instead at level 1 Class, Race, and Background had a more equal weight in your capability, and then as you leveled class would begin to take a more prominent role.

[cutlery]

I think you're missing what I'm saying. I'm saying that in a future edition, I'd like to see backgrounds redesigned to have a greater impact on the game. Yes, if you blindly transported this idea into the game as is, it wouldn't work.

But a new edition that takes into consideration that your background has a tremendous impact on who your character is, would be a way to increase character diversity, and would probably be a way to fix the way the current ranger seems "stuck".

Right now, backgrounds are trivial and mean almost nothing to what your character can do. So instead, it's mostly 1. Class (by a long shot) 2. Race (to a lesser degree)

It'd be nice if instead at level 1 Class, Race, and Background had a more equal weight in your capability, and then as you leveled class would begin to take a more prominent role.

If all the backgrounds have this much weight there would probably be fewer of them.

I don't think the background system needs fixing this drastic - it already does what it needs to do for most characters; and making other similarly feature-rich backgrounds might get weird. Rogue is easy enough, but what about soldier or sage? At what point are you getting proficiencies from backgrounds? Under the current system if there is no background that is fitting, you can simply do without the ribbon feature it would have granted.

If it is just the ranger that needs this, splitting it into archetypes for other classes and additions like the tracker feat work fine.

What would happen to the survival skill in this scenario, and what use would it be for characters without the ranger background and/or feat?

TBF, I don't have an answer for this in the current system, either - either survival does what you need it to and ranger features are superfluous or you need the ranger features and the skill is a waste on anyone not a ranger.

[Sorinth]

The problem with powerful backgrounds is that not everyone is supposed to be powerful.

For example, it makes sense to give some decent abilities to the Soldier, whose is a veteran of many wars and after getting discharged starts adventuring. So yeah giving proficiencies in armor, weapons, maybe even extra HP are all thematic. But then there's the 16 year old farm boy who leaves the family farm seeking riches and glory, this character shouldn't really have a bunch of strong abilities.

[MadBear]

The problem with powerful backgrounds is that not everyone is supposed to be powerful.

For example, it makes sense to give some decent abilities to the Soldier, whose is a veteran of many wars and after getting discharged starts adventuring. So yeah giving proficiencies in armor, weapons, maybe even extra HP are all thematic. But then there's the 16 year old farm boy who leaves the family farm seeking riches and glory, this character shouldn't really have a bunch of strong abilities.

and yet in the current system if that farm boy took 1 level of fighter, he all of a sudden knows how to use every single weapon, use every single piece of armor, can use shields, etc.

Or even more baffling, if he took 1 level of wizard, he's not literate, has a spell book, knows how to cast spells etc.

We already completely do this with or without backgrounds. I'm just arguing in favor of having backgrounds be more impactful and interesting. Right now they're basically meaningless.

[cutlery]

and yet in the current system if that farm boy took 1 level of fighter, he all of a sudden knows how to use every single weapon, use every single piece of armor, can use shields, etc.

Or even more baffling, if he took 1 level of wizard, he's not literate, has a spell book, knows how to cast spells etc.

We already completely do this with or without backgrounds. I'm just arguing in favor of having backgrounds be more impactful and interesting. Right now they're basically meaningless.

In this case, storytelling takes a back seat to balance.

3e had commoner classes that fit this better, but I don't know if I'd want to take levels in that and then other levels on top.

Based on the statblock for "commoner (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/commoner)", that farmboy is already something special regardless of what class they will ultimately take by virtue of their attributes and hit points.

[JellyPooga]

The problem with powerful backgrounds is that not everyone is supposed to be powerful.

For example, it makes sense to give some decent abilities to the Soldier, whose is a veteran of many wars and after getting discharged starts adventuring. So yeah giving proficiencies in armor, weapons, maybe even extra HP are all thematic. But then there's the 16 year old farm boy who leaves the family farm seeking riches and glory, this character shouldn't really have a bunch of strong abilities.

To reiterate MadBears point, imagine three different Tiers of the Soldier background; let's call them "Recruit", "Soldier" and "Veteran", each of which gives increasing or simply different packages of abilties. Where balance points sit on these would be a whole homebrew/edition discussion, but you can see how they could be used as a wider variety of starting points for characters in the "Soldier" profession; a Recruit, for example, might only be proficient in a single martial weapon, while the Veteran is proficient (perhaps more than proficient) in all, bit both can claim to have been in some kind of military. That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but this isn't the place to hash out specifics (if I even had them for you!).

The diversity offered by a more robust Background system is much greater. Where does your green farm boy fit into the current background/class system? Urchin Rogue? Folk Hero Ranger? Hermit Paladin? Any and none of these might fit a Farm Boy character, depending on the specific character desired. By giving backgrounds greater impact, the multiplicative nature of them gives you more options than the current system, which actually offers zero diversity; all characters are given the same free option of skills/tools/etc. The actual Background chosen is largely irrelevant and has little to no tangible effect on who your character is or what they can do; merely some roleplaying guidelines.

[Sorinth]

and yet in the current system if that farm boy took 1 level of fighter, he all of a sudden knows how to use every single weapon, use every single piece of armor, can use shields, etc.

Or even more baffling, if he took 1 level of wizard, he's not literate, has a spell book, knows how to cast spells etc.

We already completely do this with or without backgrounds. I'm just arguing in favor of having backgrounds be more impactful and interesting. Right now they're basically meaningless.

Well that all depends on what proficiency really means, it doesn't necessarily have to mean training it can equally be natural talent. So the farm boy Fighter 1 is just a guy who was naturally gifted and can pick up any weapon and be effective much like some musicians can pick up an instrument they've never played and play it at a decent level.

As for farm boy wizard, presumably your background story explains why/how you picked your class.

The problem with backgrounds being impactful is that level 1 characters shouldn't be getting lots of impactful features. They are level 1, they are barely above being a peasant.

I wouldn't call backgrounds meaningless because skill proficiency do matter, but yes I'd say currently backgrounds are more about RP aspects. So they are as interesting as you want them to be.

[Sorinth]

To reiterate MadBears point, imagine three different Tiers of the Soldier background; let's call them "Recruit", "Soldier" and "Veteran", each of which gives increasing or simply different packages of abilties. Where balance points sit on these would be a whole homebrew/edition discussion, but you can see how they could be used as a wider variety of starting points for characters in the "Soldier" profession; a Recruit, for example, might only be proficient in a single martial weapon, while the Veteran is proficient (perhaps more than proficient) in all, bit both can claim to have been in some kind of military. That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but this isn't the place to hash out specifics (if I even had them for you!).

The diversity offered by a more robust Background system is much greater. Where does your green farm boy fit into the current background/class system? Urchin Rogue? Folk Hero Ranger? Hermit Paladin? Any and none of these might fit a Farm Boy character, depending on the specific character desired. By giving backgrounds greater impact, the multiplicative nature of them gives you more options than the current system, which actually offers zero diversity; all characters are given the same free option of skills/tools/etc. The actual Background chosen is largely irrelevant and has little to no tangible effect on who your character is or what they can do; merely some roleplaying guidelines.

But if you want a more or less balanced party, then everyone has to choose from the same background tier.

I fail to see why backgrounds being mostly about roleplay is a problem?

[Lord Raziere]

But if you want a more or less balanced party, then everyone has to choose from the same background tier.

I fail to see why backgrounds being mostly about roleplay is a problem?

Yeah I agree, determining stuff like how many weapons you wield when your class already determines that is redundant, honestly. varying up the background into tiers is needless complexity. the game is specifically about people who are above and beyond normal capabilities: adventurers and heroes. this is stated explicitly. deviating from that wishing to be weaker while not bad, is not what this game is about. as for green farmboy? well I don't see where Jelly is getting Urchin or Hermit background from for that, those are quite specific in what they do and honestly I wouldn't use anything but Folk Hero for farmboy.

as for barely being above a peasant.....eeeeh. I honestly don't believe that? one of the backgrounds is Noble, thats as far from peasant as you can possibly get. the idea that starting on things like the MMO kill rat quest for beginning adventurers is somehow a requirement for DnD is honestly not a good one? its not something people take seriously anymore, it maybe shows up in parodies and comedy campaigns to poke fun at the kind of jobs an adventurer is willing to accept, but I see levels as more of a narrative mechanic to show progression. sure its the beginning of the campaign, but its not necessarily informative of much else. not all of us want to play the most memetic comedic take on adventurers where Level 1 means your some loser with a rusty sword and an impulse to kill anything nearby that your willing to start with rodents of unusual size. that might be DnD's origins, maybe, but we are allowed to do other things with it.

[Silly Name]

TBF, I don't have an answer for this in the current system, either - either survival does what you need it to and ranger features are superfluous or you need the ranger features and the skill is a waste on anyone not a ranger.

I think this is a false dichotomy - you can have a survival/exploration system that neither makes the survivalist obsolete nor the only one able to act in its niche.

Ideally, every class has its niche or area of expertise in which they excel at - Barbarians are the top of melee burst damage, Wizards are masters of arcane lore and power, bards are for music and charm, etcetera. But that doesn't mean the various classes have to be rigidly separated: the wizard can pick up a few bard spells and viceversa, the rogue and barbarian can compete on damage-dealing (albeit through different tactics) and so on.

So, having a class that is based around the concepts of "best at survival" and "great hunter" doesn't mean everyone else sucks at survival. They just aren't on par with the ranger, at least not without serious investment.

The real problem here is that 5e relegates Survival to a skill roll, making it extremely unsatisfying to play through and hard to design around. High Wisdom and/or proficiency in the Survival skill is all you need to be good at it, and the Ranger only gets some ribbons which are quickly outstripped by Cleric and Druid spells.

Any archetype needs to be supported by the wider system in order to function. If combat in 5e was resolved the same way Survival is, then classes like Fighter, Barbarian and Paladin would also be considered subpar, because their area of the game wouldn't be in any way supported by the wider system.

So, really, we don't need to reinvent backgrounds or remodel the Ranger from the ground up: all that's needed is actually delivering on the "Three Pillars" idea and flesh out the Skill and survival systems, give them the same attention that is given to combat. That way rangers won't be sucky.

[cutlery]

I think this is a false dichotomy - you can have a survival/exploration system that neither makes the survivalist obsolete nor the only one able to act in its niche.

[snip]

So, really, we don't need to reinvent backgrounds or remodel the Ranger from the ground up: all that's needed is actually delivering on the "Three Pillars" idea and flesh out the Skill and survival systems, give them the same attention that is given to combat. That way rangers won't be sucky.

That is a fair point, and I’d much rather there be an exploration system implemented than tiered backgrounds.

It could even key off the skill system to an extent; make it so only rangers can have expertise in survival (sort of how only rogues have expertise in thieves’ tools, well, until artificer subclasses showed up), or enable it through class features on top of the skill system, sort of like how evasion works on top of the save system.

[JellyPooga]

But if you want a more or less balanced party, then everyone has to choose from the same background tier.

I fail to see why backgrounds being mostly about roleplay is a problem?

For a more or less balanced party, everyone has to be roughly the same level currently. A system that uses Background Tiers could or would be no different. Alternatively, the Tiers could be balanced with one another in a different way; perhaps lower Tiers offer something along the lines of additional Inspiration in exchange for lower or less abilities. I'd offer up the example of The Lord of the Rings as a classic example where PCs (if we indulge the conceit fhat the Fellowship are all Players) have characters of different Tiers; D&D has traditionally not been too permissive of this style of play and a more diverse background system of the type I'm talking about could be a step towards rectifying that, perhaps. Again, I don't really want to discuss specific balancing or features; this isn't the place and time for it.

A club is a functional weapon; it will crush an enemies skull just fine, but a sword is better; it's more refined, more versatile and can kill and wound your enemy and be of use in ways the club simply is not capable of. The current Background system isn't bad and it mostly being a roleplaying aide is fine. It's not a problem. MadBear and I just believe it could be better.

@Lord Razier. Why could a farm boy not be an urchin or hermit? The folk hero explicitly performed some deed or accomplishment that gives them reknown amongst their own people at least and they have a magnetism that resonates with all common folk that goes beyond mere Charisma. Are you saying all folk of common stock are required to have such a trait? I would say such a claim is as ludicrous.

I agree that adventurers are supposed to be a cut above the rest, but there are degrees of how far that cut is made. Yes, you can merely begin play at higher levels to represent that, but what if there were a system in place fo really emphasise it? That's part of what I'm talking about. Instead of being forced to begin with lowly origins, what if Backgrounds allowed for more heroic or lofty levels lf power beyond mere Class level? What if Backgrounds allowed the GM to set the tone by saying "X and Y categories of Backgrounds are appropriate for my campaign, but Z is not", where X and Y are appropriate to gritty sword & sorcery and Z is literally a Wire-Fu Tier which grants everyone the sort of abilities you see in that famous genre of film?

[cutlery]

Instead of being forced to begin with lowly origins, what if Backgrounds allowed for more heroic or lofty levels lf power beyond mere Class level?

What does that get a DM that starting a campaign at level 3 or level 6 does not?

[JellyPooga]

What does that get a DM that starting a campaign at level 3 or level 6 does not?

It offers a degree of versatility. Compare Conan the Barbarian to Dragonball Z. They're not even in the same ballpark of genre and the difference goes beyond merely saying that a character in the latter is simply higher level than the former. A more robust Background system could allow Classes to remain comfortably familiar, while changing basic setting or character assumptions.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Setting aside the whole Ranger argument, I do think there's room to revisit what Backgrounds are and the abilities they give you. Consider;

1) Front loaded Classes. Many, if not most, Classes are heavily front-loaded, presumably to give you the "X experience" (where X = Class name) as soon as possible.

2) Tiered play. There's a lot of ralk about how many or most games don't see higher levels of play. There's many reason for this, of course, but one of those is likely to be the expectation of starting at 1st level and a gamd simply losing steam or player/gms running out of ideas and /or time.

What if Backgrounds became a package of abilities earned before gameplay starts and your Class became solely about the abilities gained during play?

You could literally have Tier packages of Background features (that could scale with level, even), appropriate for different styles of game while maintaining Class feature progressions that would be independent of those tiers, allowing players to experience different styles and power levels of gameplay without bloating the Classes themselves with extraneous "ribbon feature" or "whut?" abilities.

This would also somewhat reduce the need for as many independent classes and backgrounds, as well as "dipping". A mere 5 significant Backgrounds complemented by 5 Classes gives you 25 actual character packages before considering multiclassing or other options (race, feats, etc.). Compare this to the 13 (?) Classes 5e has at the moment.

An intriguing notion.

For me, I strongly dislike the idea of mechanized backgrounds. In every game I've run (which is a lot since most of them tended to be pretty short due the nature of the place I was playing), background has been more influential on the character-world interactions outside of combat than class. Background is what makes a character real, instead of a board-game playing piece.

Backgrounds are already incredibly important and they're free variation, as opposed to the much more locked down classes. I don't want people thinking "oh, I want X ability, so I have to take Y background". Then it becomes just another optimization parameter and the whole power (hooking characters into a living world) gets lost entirely. And you end up with "sure thing" synergies inevitably (or the abilities are totally forgettable). If you have to balance around backgrounds and background x class x level...you make an already iffy balance go completely out the window.

The real solution is just to have DMs and players lose the (misguided) notion that the sum of what a character is and can do is expressed in the mechanical elements of the games. The idea that you can't do anything unless you have a relevant button written down on your character sheet. DMs should have NPCs treat PCs based on their background much more than on their class, abilities, proficiencies, or other mechanical features. Classes and proficiencies and abilities are abstractions that don't live at the fiction level. Background is part of the fiction level. Yes, that means that the urchin Bard with expertise in Persuasion just isn't going to be as useful when talking to nobles as that noble fighter. He doesn't know their customs, he isn't one of them. The noble is. Or a soldier when talking to/dealing with military folks. Etc.


That is a fair point, and I’d much rather there be an exploration system implemented than tiered backgrounds.

It could even key off the skill system to an extent; make it so only rangers can have expertise in survival (sort of how only rogues have expertise in thieves’ tools, well, until artificer subclasses showed up), or enable it through class features on top of the skill system, sort of like how evasion works on top of the save system.

Here's a trick to exploration that requires exactly zero mechanical changes. Don't do single-check challenges. Make finding food (or not getting lost) one small part of the greater "exploring" scene, where you need the entire party helping out to progress. Especially if you need more people than you have (so you have to make choices and compromises). That way, having a ranger along means that you've freed up one element entirely (so the ranger can go do something else) and you have to make fewer compromises without completely removing the challenge.

The normal way of thinking about this is like having a combat be decided by the first person to hit the target. We all know that's not useful, so why do we set up exploration or social challenges that can be knocked over by a single success or ability?

[Lord Raziere]

I mean I'd think its pretty obvious why a farmboy couldn't be either of those things:
-urchin is too urban, its playing into a different kind of low class story, with different tropes. Urchin is more appropriate for city stuff
-hermit on the other hand sounds very monastic and has some weird secret that some random farmboy shouldn't know. its too isolated, because farmboy is often in a village with no time for the hermits aescetic/secret stuff going on.

folk hero at least makes sense: most farm character aren't all that interesting to begin with, they live on the same plot of land and raise crops and livestock their entire lives forever and get bored out of their minds doing so. not much time to do warrior training or anything which takes time away from the farm, which is a lot of hard work. so anyone who comes from that origin has to have had some circumstance to push them into being heroic, or they would just keep farming forever. thats why they have to have a deed to make them stand out because if they didn't....then what do you have? even if you make them some runaway farm boy they have to something to make them being pushed into being an adventurer specifically and to prove that they aren't just some idiot going to die, that heroic deed is to prove that they can do this even if they are just starting out. this is an emulation of the folk tale that has been told for longer than any superhero or whatever. there is no real degree of level or high/low power you can put on it, because folk tales are wild, strange and without regard for scale or sense anyways, thats why they are folk tales. there is no such thing as a high or low powered folk tale, they just are. you don't assign a number to Robin Hood and say they're high or low powered, thats missing the point of Robin Hood.

while the magnetism thing is just a representation of the fact that they're someone who can relate to most people in this world over a noble or merchant who are busy being rich, a soldier or knight who are busy fighting, or magical people who are busy with their divine or arcane secrets. because they lived among them that gives them an advantage of understanding the common person's viewpoint. it makes perfect sense why they would have that, like maybe the urchin would have that to some degree but it'd be more focused on beggars.

the backgrounds are thematic, not something to be calculated, and work perfectly fine at any power level, behold:
Folk Hero for level 20:
once there was a great evil that threatened the galaxy, there was a sword that vanquished it and was put in a stone. For many years, it could not be pulled from the stone even by the mightest men. eons later, a great evil threatened a small green planet, a young farm boy saw it coming and want to vanquish it, ran to the stone where the sword was kept and drew the sword effortlessly because he had true courage in his heart, with its power slew the great evil that was threatening his planet! He is a hero! (backstory for how a farmboy got 20 levels of paladin in a single day for an epic game)

Folk hero for Level 1:
once upon a time there gluttonous ogre who wanted more and more food. He sought out food until he came across a small peaceful village and with his strength, threatened to kill them all if he didn't get fed by them. The villagefolk, not wanting any trouble fed him, hoping he'd go away but the ogre stayed in the village, becoming a petty little tyrant. so a young farmboy laced the food with herbs so that the ogre would be sleepy and tired then challenged the brute to a duel, grabbing a knife to fight with him for his village lacked any swords. him and the ogre fought, but the farmboy was faster and managed to get behind him and slit his throat to save the town from his ravenous appetite. the village folk in awe of this began telling the story, but made it sound like he was a far better than he actually was, the story becoming more and more embellished as it was told until he was seemingly a heroic knight with a blade facing him in fair combat or somehow ten feet tall and shooting lightning out of his eyes. He didn't bother to tell them otherwise. (folk hero rogue, level 1)

[JellyPooga]

I mean I'd think its pretty obvious why a farmboy couldn't be either of those things:
-urchin is too urban, its playing into a different kind of low class story, with different tropes. Urchin is more appropriate for city stuff
-hermit on the other hand sounds very monastic and has some weird secret that some random farmboy shouldn't know. its too isolated, because farmboy is often in a village with no time for the hermits aescetic/secret stuff going on.

Counterpoint;

- Young Billy was always slipping away from his fathers homestead. He hated it there and the smell of the sheep. He always made an excuse to go to town and when he was there he indulged himself stealing from the market vendors and running with the street kids. At home on the farm, it was all chores and dull drudgery. He couldn't wait for an opportunity to slip away for good...

- Clem was a good kid. He did as his father told him and learned his prayers and good practical herbalism from his mother. Theirs was an isolated orchard and they rarely went to the local village. When his family passed away in an accident during a storm, Clem was left alone. He tried to make things work, but one boy alone could not manage the affairs of the farm. So he buried his parents, gathered his meagre belongings and set out into the wider world, little knowing that his family secrets would one day change it in ways none could have predicted.

Does Folk Hero fit either of these?

[Lord Raziere]

Counterpoint;

- Young Billy was always slipping away from his fathers homestead. He hated it there and the smell of the sheep. He always made an excuse to go to town and when he was there he indulged himself stealing from the market vendors and running with the street kids. At home on the farm, it was all chores and dull drudgery. He couldn't wait for an opportunity to slip away for good...

- Clem was a good kid. He did as his father told him and learned his prayers and good practical herbalism from his mother. Theirs was an isolated orchard and they rarely went to the local village. When his family passed away in an accident during a storm, Clem was left alone. He tried to make things work, but one boy alone could not manage the affairs of the farm. So he buried his parents, gathered his meagre belongings and set out into the wider world, little knowing that his family secrets would one day change it in ways none could have predicted.

Does Folk Hero fit either of these?

Yes. folk hero gives you animal handling and survival skills, which working on a farm logically gives you, and any other skills can be explained by his class. the first is a rogue, the second is a knowledge cleric. then one just has to add actual endings with the guy doing something heroic and it works.

[JellyPooga]

Yes. folk hero gives you animal handling and survival skills, which working on a farm logically gives you, and any other skills can be explained by his class. the first is a rogue, the second is a knowledge cleric. then one just has to add actual endings with the guy doing something heroic and it works.

Neither Billy or Clem have any great skill with animals or surviving a wilderness. One spent his youth picking apples, the other spent his time escaping such chores as would teach him that. No logic says you have to learn animal handling & survival growing up on a farm. Survival is a skill you learn when you don't have access to a roof over your head and a steady supply of food; both things a farm is designed to do.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Neither Billy or Clem have any great skill with animals or surviving a wilderness. One spent his youth picking apples, the other spent his time escaping such chores as would teach him that. No logic says you have to learn animal handling & survival growing up on a farm. Survival is a skill you learn when you don't have access to a roof over your head and a steady supply of food; both things a farm is designed to do.

I think you're both missing the key here--the backgrounds in the books are not designed to be anything but examples. You're expected and encouraged to make your own that actually fit your character.

Which is one reason among many that mechanized (in the sense of actual abilities that matter) backgrounds aren't a thing.

[Lord Raziere]

I think you're both missing the key here--the backgrounds in the books are not designed to be anything but examples. You're expected and encouraged to make your own that actually fit your character.

Which is one reason among many that mechanized (in the sense of actual abilities that matter) backgrounds aren't a thing.

Yeah.

you want a farmer without the folk hero part, you take the folk hero background, cut out the feature part then add in a new feature that fits whatever you think is non-heroic farmer feature to have.

as for those two backgrounds, no. they spent time on a farm and had to be useful, or they wouldn't be on a farm. being on a farm is hard work and their family would not want them to be useless idiots who don't know how to handle the animals (animal handling) or cook and find food for themselves (survival). a farm boy is called farm boy for a reason: the entire family does the work, that kind of family doesn't delegate all responsibility to mom and dad, they teach their children to start pulling their weight as soon as they can.

now if the rogue was kicked off the farm early for not doing work and had to steal to survive without the farm protecting him, I'd see it. the cleric has no excuse for not knowing how to cook or handle animals if they were good though.

[Silly Name]

Here's a trick to exploration that requires exactly zero mechanical changes. Don't do single-check challenges. Make finding food (or not getting lost) one small part of the greater "exploring" scene, where you need the entire party helping out to progress. Especially if you need more people than you have (so you have to make choices and compromises). That way, having a ranger along means that you've freed up one element entirely (so the ranger can go do something else) and you have to make fewer compromises without completely removing the challenge.

The normal way of thinking about this is like having a combat be decided by the first person to hit the target. We all know that's not useful, so why do we set up exploration or social challenges that can be knocked over by a single success or ability?

IMHO, that is at the very least a seedling of mechanical change. It extends the functionality and importance of the Survival skill and various class abilities by pushing the foraging/camping/wilderness exploration aspect to the front. Which is very good.

The books need to present that area of the game (ideally in the DMG, but some details should exist in the PHB too) this way, not just "roll for Survival whenever it is appropriate to deal with starvation/dehydration/making camp/following tracks/whatever". And it still needs to be more involved and in-depth than a series of skill checks, it must have actual decisions, obstacles to overcome and consequences for failure and success that feel important. Most DMs and players need a bit of help and guidance in this area, because most people aren't wilderness experts and thus it gets hard for them to create interesting wilderness-based scenarios and make decisions within them.

(And of course, the same goes for the social aspect, although that is another discussion entirely based on how much the social side of the game should emphasise roleplay and how many mechanical tools we need to make it interesting while avoiding turning it into a series of rolls with little to no roleplaying).

[JellyPooga]

I think you're both missing the key here--the backgrounds in the books are not designed to be anything but examples. You're expected and encouraged to make your own that actually fit your character.
That's rather my point. Raziere seems intent on ascribing anyone that grew up on any farm the Folk Hero background, when other Backgrounds might suit better, depending on the character in question, which could also include custom ones.


Which is one reason among many that mechanized (in the sense of actual abilities that matter) backgrounds aren't a thing.

Here I disagree. You can still have Backgrounds be customisable in a roleplaying sense while offering mechanical benefits. Consider Classes. Are all Rogues sneaky criminals? Are all Fighters butch soldiers? Are all Bards minstrels playing a lute in a dungeon like tOotS' Elan? No. The Bard class covers a wide variety of different tropes, from a "Fantasy Indiana Jones" style all-round adventurer, to a sly con artist using illusions and enchantments to beguile folk from their money, to a scholar, to a swashbuckling pirate blending magic and swordplay, to a tribal war-drummer, to a...you get the idea. The mechanics of the Class define the "what", but the "how" and "why" is still very much open to interpretation. Why could the same not be said of Backgrounds?


as for those two backgrounds, no. they spent time on a farm and had to be useful, or they wouldn't be on a farm. being on a farm is hard work and their family would not want them to be useless idiots who don't know how to handle the animals (animal handling) or cook and find food for themselves (survival).

1) Not all farms have animals.
1a) Those that do, don't neccesarily have working animals or animals that require much "handling". Growing up with a goat and some chickens probably isn't going to give you sufficient experience with animals to call yourself "proficient" at handling them, even if among your daily chores were to milk said goat and collect the eggs.
2) Why would a farmer need survival skills? They grow or raise their own food and what they can't, they can trade for or buy. Foraging is a useful skill for someone living in a wilderness area, sure, but it's far from a required skill for someone living on a farm that provides for itself. In settled lands (in this case, I'm talking specifically about rural farmland), foraging outside your own land is often called "stealing".

[Morty]

There is no class feature that has as much overlap with a skill proficiency as the ranger's exploration features do with survival/nature. Bards don't have a class feature that makes them just better at bluff or diplomacy. Rogues don't have one that makes them just better at stealth. One could try to create a more robust exploration system and then try to fit rangers in it without obsoleting other classes with survival/nature proficiency, but what's the actual point? Is it so vital that we have a class whose main feature is two skill proficiencies only better?

[cutlery]

It offers a degree of versatility. Compare Conan the Barbarian to Dragonball Z. They're not even in the same ballpark of genre and the difference goes beyond merely saying that a character in the latter is simply higher level than the former. A more robust Background system could allow Classes to remain comfortably familiar, while changing basic setting or character assumptions.

Neither is a good fit for 5e rules. You can't do ultra-low magic swords and sorcery in 5e.

That said; that just sounds like different tiers of play. The backgrounds are completely customizable RAW.






Does Folk Hero fit either of these?

The PHB page 125 details custom backgrounds. Custom backgrounds are not an optional rule; and the section ends (on page 127) with:

"lf you can't find a feature that matches your desired background, work with your DM to create one."


Backgrounds are a way to get a skill or two (or a tool) proficiency, or a language, and a ribbon feature that aren't tied to class or race.

And they do that just fine.

[JellyPooga]

Neither is a good fit for 5e rules. You can't do ultra-low magic swords and sorcery in 5e.
I didn't respond to it specifically at the time but, responding to my original comment in this thread, KorvinStarmast said...

They'd have to start from the ground up to do that, and it is an intriguing notion.
...and I agree totally. My suggestion is not appropriate for 5e. It would require a significant, nay, radical breakdown and rebuild of what Class, Background and I'd dare to include Race and other aspects like Multiclassing and Feats actually mean and offer to a character, both mechanically and from a roleplaying perspective.

5e might not do Sword&Sorcery or Dragonball all that well (though that statement is another argument in itself), but a system that includes a tiered and mechanically significant Background might be able to handle such differences in tone, setting and power level better, due to thr greater degree of versatility from the multiplicative nature of the sort of system I've described. With a reduced number Classes that have a more discreet package of features being multiplied by a number of Backgrounds that offer greater abilities than 5e offers, you are able to have a Core system of Classes that is significantly modified by setting or style books that can offer additional or variant Backgrounds. For example (to hypothesise); a Core Rule Book could have 5 Classes and 10 Backgrounds (2 "Tiers" of 5 Backgrounds each). That gives you a potential 25 "builds" per Tier, or 50 potential characters Classes total (by 5e standards, assuming the Class+Background combination of this hypothetical system offers something akin to what 5e Class+Background currently offers). Now add a Planescape or Eberron setting book with its own Tier of 5 Backgrounds. Or Pokemon. Or Dragonball. Or Mecha vs. Kaiju. By introducing a Core Class Sytem that is modified more significantly by Backgrounds, familiarity of the Core system can be maintained whilst wildly changing the specifics of actual play.

One of the core complaints I hear about 5e is precisely about how it doesn't handle certain styles of play that well; gritty or dark fantasy, low-magic fantasy, horror roleplay, wuxia, mythic sword&sandal...and so on and so forth. D&D is and has traditionally always been remarkably tied to what it is for a game that has always been an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fantasy. It's hard to remove or steer yourself away from "kitchen-sink fantasy" when there's little incentive, let alone ability, to do so. All I'm saying is "why not try to bake modularity into the system?" and "here's one way to approach it".


Backgrounds are a way to get a skill or two (or a tool) proficiency, or a language, and a ribbon feature that aren't tied to class or race.

And they do that just fine.

I also agree. I also think that Backgrounds could be better than they are.

A club is a functional weapon; it will crush an enemies skull just fine, but a sword is better; it's more refined, more versatile and can kill and wound your enemy and be of use in ways the club simply is not capable of. The current Background system isn't bad and it mostly being a roleplaying aide is fine. It's not a problem. MadBear and I just believe it could be better.

[KorvinStarmast]

One of the core complaints I hear about 5e is precisely about how it doesn't handle certain styles of play that well; gritty or dark fantasy, low-magic fantasy, horror roleplay, wuxia, mythic sword&sandal...and so on and so forth. D&D is and has traditionally always been remarkably tied to what it is for a game that has always been an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fantasy. It's hard to remove or steer yourself away from "kitchen-sink fantasy" when there's little incentive, let alone ability, to do so. All I'm saying is "why not try to bake modularity into the system?" and "here's one way to approach it". Going back to four classes (Warrior, Priest, Rogue, Mage) and a bunch of subclasses like in 2e AD&D is something like what you propose. Four classes, but make the backgrounds where the modularity comes in. I think that will take a lot of work, and I need to think through the RPGs I am familiar with and see who has done this before, I am sure someone has, but I can't find my old Chivalry and Sorcery book so I won't be able to comment on that system's different way to build a character.

FWIW, the original Traveller was all about building your character through backgrounds. :smallsmile:

The other way to go is very non D&D and do away with classes altogether ... which I don't think is going to happen in any edition.

[Sorinth]

So for the pro powererful background crowd, what are your thoughts on the Ravnica backgrounds? I could be wrong, but I think a lot of tables ban those backgrounds in large part because they are powerful especially compared to regular backgrounds.


My second question is do you/your DM often grant advantage for background relevant stuff? For example, if you were an Outlander and grabbed/rolled the literally raised by wolves personality, when you make an animal handling check with wolves/dogs does the DM hand out advantage?

[Tvtyrant]

Okay but if you are going that far why not just split the game into distinct double classes?

Caster
Fighter
Fighter/caster

And then the other side:
Wilderness
Urban
Religious
Scholarly

Now you can make the majority of classes by just pairing them. Scholarly fighter is basically a Monk, Wilderness Fighter is a Barbarian, Wilderness Fighter/Caster is a Ranger, etc. Have a couple subclasses for each side to pick from, build a class workshop.

So Wilderness could be:
Totems/Spirits
Pet
Wildshape

Fighter could have:
Rage
Battlemaster
Champion

As a brief outline of how it would work. So a Cleric is a Caster/Priest, a Paladin is a Half Caster Priest, and there would be a Templar combination of Fighter Priest.

[KorvinStarmast]

So for the pro powererful background crowd, what are your thoughts on the Ravnica backgrounds? I could be wrong, but I think a lot of tables ban those backgrounds in large part because they are powerful especially compared to regular backgrounds. Because it was duck taped onto the original background system, and is (IMO) a bad design. :smallyuk:

As to your second question: I often offer advantage on a particular check based on background if it makes narrative sense. (Our Drunken Master monk, who is a noble background, had advantage on assessing the value of a few bottles of wine the party found ....).

Okay but if you are going that far why not just split the game into distinct double classes?

Caster
Fighter
Fighter/caster

And then the other side:
Wilderness
Urban
Religious
Scholarly

Now you can make the majority of classes by just pairing them. Scholarly fighter is basically a Monk, Wilderness Fighter is a Barbarian, Wilderness Fighter/Caster is a Ranger, etc. Have a couple subclasses for each side to pick from, build a class workshop.

So Wilderness could be:
Totems/Spirits
Pet
Wildshape

Fighter could have:
Rage
Battlemaster
Champion

As a brief outline of how it would work. So a Cleric is a Caster/Priest, a Paladin is a Half Caster Priest, and there would be a Templar combination of Fighter Priest. There's the germ of a fine idea. :smallcool:

[Sorinth]

What sorts of things can a ranger do that are part of the ranger identity that a a fighter/rogue with the tracker feat can't do? Or a fighter/druid?

Why take a ranger to 15, or 20? Is their identity archery? or is in two-weapon fighting? Can't anyone else do either of those things? Are you no longer a ranger if you want to use a longsword in two hands? If you want to scout with a rapier, should you simply be a rogue instead? Why spells at all (there was essentially none of this in the source material the ranger is based on). Why are their uses for survival so lacklustre?

5e very much intended for you to able to build a character concept in many different ways. So yeah you can build a "Ranger" like character without taking the Ranger class. But this isn't specific to Ranger, there are plenty of ways to make the Holy Warrior as well. You could go Paladin, but you could also go Celestial Bladelock, you could go War Cleric or Fighter/Cleric, even straight Fighter with the Acolyte background fits the concept.


Yes the Ranger class lacks a defining feature, and that's probably why the class has overall fell flat in 5e. Though I think it's partly because they tried to push those defining features into the sub-classes and not the base class.


Finally the source material the 5e Ranger is based on is the 4 previous editions much more then other fictional ranger characters.

[Morty]

Okay but if you are going that far why not just split the game into distinct double classes?

Caster
Fighter
Fighter/caster

And then the other side:
Wilderness
Urban
Religious
Scholarly

Now you can make the majority of classes by just pairing them. Scholarly fighter is basically a Monk, Wilderness Fighter is a Barbarian, Wilderness Fighter/Caster is a Ranger, etc. Have a couple subclasses for each side to pick from, build a class workshop.

So Wilderness could be:
Totems/Spirits
Pet
Wildshape

Fighter could have:
Rage
Battlemaster
Champion

As a brief outline of how it would work. So a Cleric is a Caster/Priest, a Paladin is a Half Caster Priest, and there would be a Templar combination of Fighter Priest.

Seems like the first three are pretty superfluous and restrictive. Even in the current batch of classes there's more grain than "caster, non-caster and half-caster".

Also, as many ideas on how to change D&D classes tend to do, you've sort of arrived on point-buy with extra steps.

[Tvtyrant]

Seems like the first three are pretty superfluous and restrictive. Even in the current batch of classes there's more grain than "caster, non-caster and half-caster".

Also, as many ideas on how to change D&D classes tend to do, you've sort of arrived on point-buy with extra steps.

Yes. There are 1/3 casters and Warlocks as well. This is a boost to 1/3 casters, only Warlocks get taken out.

All classes are effectively point-buy done by the design team for you. Point buy is unbalanced innately, and requires a tremendous system mastery to function. The question is if you can make an easier system than point buy with more options than straight classes. D&D has a lot of little packets like Race, Background, Subclass, Feats and Multiclassing which do this. This is just one step further.

[cutlery]

I also agree. I also think that Backgrounds could be better than they are.

If tiered backgrounds are meant to allow for characters with a greater wealth of experience before the start of play... why won’t starting at level 5 achieve the same thing?

[MadBear]

So for the pro powererful background crowd, what are your thoughts on the Ravnica backgrounds? I could be wrong, but I think a lot of tables ban those backgrounds in large part because they are powerful especially compared to regular backgrounds.


My second question is do you/your DM often grant advantage for background relevant stuff? For example, if you were an Outlander and grabbed/rolled the literally raised by wolves personality, when you make an animal handling check with wolves/dogs does the DM hand out advantage?

It's kinda not comparible imho. My idea revolved around a new edition with rules that would fit and accommodate the new backgrounds into the way a character was built. Ravnica, just added on to a pre-existing system.

[Silly Name]

Okay but if you are going that far why not just split the game into distinct double classes?

Caster
Fighter
Fighter/caster

And then the other side:
Wilderness
Urban
Religious
Scholarly

Now you can make the majority of classes by just pairing them. Scholarly fighter is basically a Monk, Wilderness Fighter is a Barbarian, Wilderness Fighter/Caster is a Ranger, etc. Have a couple subclasses for each side to pick from, build a class workshop.

So Wilderness could be:
Totems/Spirits
Pet
Wildshape

Fighter could have:
Rage
Battlemaster
Champion

As a brief outline of how it would work. So a Cleric is a Caster/Priest, a Paladin is a Half Caster Priest, and there would be a Templar combination of Fighter Priest.

Well, the question becomes "are you making D&D 6e, or a new fantasy roleplaying game?" This isn't necessarily a bad system, but if I flipped through a book presenting character building in this way, I would see it at best as inspired by D&D, but not recognisably D&D.

Brand identity is important and powerful just as innovation is, and WotC learned this lesson the hard way.

[cutlery]

It's kinda not comparible imho. My idea revolved around a new edition with rules that would fit and accommodate the new backgrounds into the way a character was built. Ravnica, just added on to a pre-existing system.

That sounds like backgrounds with effective character level (ECL) from 3.x.

Only, because backgrounds relate to experience rather than an inherent racial bonus, why not just add class levels?

[Lord Raziere]

All classes are effectively point-buy done by the design team for you. Point buy is unbalanced innately, and requires a tremendous system mastery to function. The question is if you can make an easier system than point buy with more options than straight classes. D&D has a lot of little packets like Race, Background, Subclass, Feats and Multiclassing which do this. This is just one step further.

with a point buy system I could make a bunch of characters/options that you don't list without any of it being homebrew that people will dismiss out of hand.

like sure, DnD could use more consistent splitting of thematic power sources from certain classes (like why hasn't the Sorcerer gotten a fey bloodline and why doesn't the Warlock have a dragon patron? why does the warlock have, counting UAs, arguably 2-4 patrons for being necromantic: undead, undying, raven queen, hexblade yet most classes don't even get any and those who do only get one and so on...) but its pretty clear that 5e's priority is simplicity and accessibility, and therefore recognizability. the archetypes that DnD presents are recognizable, familiar and explainable as certain tropes with very surface level details: paladin is knight in shining armor, barbarian is hulk smash, rogue is sneaky-thief, wizard is self explanatory, warlock is edgy, bard is spoony, monk is kung-fu guy, things like that. you break them down, you risk people unable to recognize the archetypes they can easily latch onto.

(though its to be noted that if DnD were to be made a generic fantasy rpg of today without regard for its history, there'd be a lot of differences. you'd have a white mage lookalike instead of a cleric, wizards would probably be limited to blaster casting and using a mana system and the white mage would be limited to mostly healing and buffs, rogues, rangers and fighters would exist mostly as they are, but be buffed to perform better alongside casters until they are equal enough, barbarians would be seen as no different from fighters and they'd be merged into one class, paladins outside of DnD I've only ever seen in WoW? they might not exist as a distinct class but just be an option for fighters if that, sorcerers probably wouldn't exist or merge into wizard, warlocks wouldn't exist or merge into wizard, bards wouldn't exist or merge into rogue, monks wouldn't exist, druids might still be there though, they'd probably make it. artificer definitely wouldn't exist. half casters might or might not be a thing in general, and a lot of the legacy spells we know of wouldn't exist or even be thought up. half elves and half orcs wouldn't be things either, people would just get rid of the half elf then put in orcs as playable, gnomes would be seen as redundant halflings, you might still get dragonborn and tiefling though. and elves having a bunch of subraces would not change in the slightest.

basically to anyone who has played fantasy videogames, a lot of the options DnD presents even they are familiar, look oddly redundant or unfitting for the fantasy trying to be achieved and many rpgs have gotten by only having three classes: warrior, rogue and mage and said mage only being some elemental blaster most of the time. since videogames are the most probably equivalent they'd have any experience with, these are what people would probably think of first in terms of recognizable archetypes with anything else being variations on those three)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Here's a problem with any kind of multiplicative "class system" (ie you make your character out of class x background and both of those are on the same order of complexity or power):

Under the current system, where class is the only meaningful factor for balance (race and background are much smaller) and there are n classes and a party size of m, you have n!/(m!(n-m)!) combinations to balance against. For 12 classes and 4 people in a party, that's 495 combinations.

Now if you throw in p backgrounds of similar power to a class, then the total changes to (np)!/(m!(np-m)!). For even 3 background choices, that blows the total up to 58905 combinations. This is called combinatorial explosion.

This makes balance in such scenarios basically impossible at a system-design level. You have to push it down to the DM level, and the opportunities for shenanigans are tremendous. Or you have to cull a lot of classes.

I mean you could do something like

Class : Weapon | Skilled | Magic
Power : Martial | Arcane | Divine | Primal/Natural

So a fighter would be Weapon/Martial, a gish would be Weapon/Arcane, etc. But you do lose a lot of granularity that way and still don't include backgrounds at all.

[Sorinth]

If tiered backgrounds are meant to allow for characters with a greater wealth of experience before the start of play... why won’t starting at level 5 achieve the same thing?

Or the always popular everyone gets a feat at level 1.

This whole discussion seems like a solution in search of a problem. And it's also worth noting that having backgrounds be almost entirely RP based is one way to help players focus on the RP side of the game and that RP focus is likely one of the forces behind 5e's popularity.

Personally I would dislike a system that for example had a Poacher background that gives a small but useful bonus to archery, because then every archer would be a Poacher. It would quickly become stale.