Backgrounds are in the spotlight in the 2024 update to the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, since ability scores are now tied to your character🐟’s life experiences instead of their species. The Player’s Handbook offers a lot of options, but what if none of them are a fit for your character?

Fortunately, homebrewing a background is mu♏ch easier and more forgiving than homebrewing a class or species, and your DM is moꦛre likely to allow it. With a little effort and forethought, you can have a unique background that doesn’t break the game.

What Are Backgrounds?

Backgrounds represent where your character is from and what they’ve done prior to becoming an adventurer. In the 2024 rules update, Wizards of the Coast put greater emphasis on backgrounds, to emphasize that your character’s species isn’t the ൩most formative thing about them.

Not all dwarves grow up in mines and learn to use a warhammer, and not all orcs are musclebound brutes. An orc who was taken into a monastery at a young age could be just as intelligent asꦦ an elf trained in magic, and a halfling apprenticed as a blacksmith could have as fine an eye for detail a♊s the most discerning dwarvish artisan.

Parts Of A Background

Backgrounds include five features: three ability scores, an Origin feat, two skill proficiencies, a tool proficiency, and equipment.

Each background lists three ability scores. From this list you can choose one ability score to raise by two points and one to raise by one point, or you can raise all three by one point each.

The backgrounds also include an Origin feat, representing something unique about your character that sets them apart from others, but which 🦹is a common feature among everyone sharing the same background.

Skill proficiencies represent a skill or area of study that your character would be familiar with from that background. They may not be an expert at🔴 it, but they’re at least p✤assable.

All backg♔rounds get a tool proficiency. This could be anything from being able to make simple😼 potions with a herbalist's kit to just being good at card games.

Finally, all backgrounds come with a set of starting equipment on ♈top of what comes from your class. The value of this starting equipment varies, but is always valued𝔍 at about 50 GP.

Brewing Your Background

The first rule of homebrewing is to scale to the official options. You may be tempted to say that your Knight background comes with full plate armor, a warhorse, multiple weapon proficiencies, and free spells, but that would make everyone using standard backgrounds feel like they were playing second fiddle to you. Instead, focus on staying on the same footing and creating a flavorful background.

The first thing you should do is write a short description of your backgrou🌜nd. About a paragraph describing how your character was raised and what kind of experience they had before beginning the adventure. This will help feed all of the mechanical parts of the background.

In game development, this is called top-down design. You start with the flavor or result (“My character is a runaway.”), then fill in the mechanics (“What ability scores would fit fo🌄r someone running from her past?”).

Next, pick three ability scores that someone of your background would likely develop. Characters who spend a lot of time interacting with others are li𓆉kely to develop high Charisma, while those who do hard labor will probably develop🐎 higher Strength and Constitution.

With the ability scores locked in, it’s time to choose your Origin feat. This feat represents a special talent or trait that you’ve developed through the background. A Gambler background might have the Lucky feat, for example, while someone raised in a t𝕴ribe of Barbarians might have Savage Attacker.

After choosing the feat, it’s time to choose two skill proficiencies. This can be tough, because there might be a lot of skills that make sense for your background, but꧋ you want to stay on an even playing field with the official backgrounds.

Next, choose your tool proficiency, whi🎃ch represents your ability to use a specific type of tool or equipment, whether that’s a blacksmithing hammer or a deck of cards. This proficiency is also going to feed your equipment, in the next step.

Finally, choose your equipment. The tool you selected for proficiency should be on this list, along with items to support that kit and a set of clothes. Start with 50 GP and subtract the cost of the tool kit, then stay within that budget. Simple weapons may be in🎉cluded,🌞 but armor and magic items should not be.

Updating Backgrounds

If the backgrounds provided in the Player’s Handbook don’t work for you, consider the backgrounds provided in older Fifth Edition books. These backgrounds are fairly simple to update.

Since older backgrounds didn’t include ability scores and sometimes didn’t include feats, all you need to do is choose one ability score to add two to and one to add one to, or three to add one point to, then choose an Origin feat. The skill and toolꦇ proficiencies can remain the same, and most languages can be dropped🌳.

Sample Backgrounds

We’ve included two sample backgroun🥀ds, one original and the other💮 updating the Feylost background from The Wild Beyond the Witchlight to fit the updated rules.

Dungeon Delver

Feylost (Adapted From The Wild Beyond The Witchlight)