Because a background is approximately a half-feat, it is mechanically balanced if a player uses a feat gained while leveling to add an additional background, in addition to a +1 score improvement.
Such ongoing work experience, sotospeak, gives a sense of continuing education and personal development. It is a flavorful way to pick up new proficiencies.
I think it is only fair to let you know that I completely disagree with everything you have posted in this thread, however I don't want to derail what you have going so I will not be participating in this particular discussion from this point forward. I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.
Feel free to articulate what you do want with regard to culture. Opposing points of view can inform each other.
I actually liked Yurie's idea of make Culture Feats and everyone gets one for free at first level.
Well. No need for a cultural feat. We can perhaps look at Theros for a solution. While called "Supternatural Gifts" there, it could give an interesting template for cultural benefits, that are more then a simple proficiency. Many of them are on the power level of racial traits (there is literally one that gives you some wareforged traits). And these benefits don't have to be hard coded to fit a specific culture but could be vague enough to fit multiple ones. So instead of Drow Lolthian(the culture) Akolyte Cleric you could pick Drow EvilCult(the culture) Akolyte Cleric. The EvilCult would be your culture reflecting the Lolth cult, but could fit into many evilcult based cultures.
I actually liked Yurie's idea of make Culture Feats and everyone gets one for free at first level.
Well. No need for a cultural feat. We can perhaps look at Theros for a solution. While called "Supternatural Gifts" there, it could give an interesting template for cultural benefits, that are more then a simple proficiency. Many of them are on the power level of racial traits (there is literally one that gives you some wareforged traits). And these benefits don't have to be hard coded to fit a specific culture but could be vague enough to fit multiple ones. So instead of Drow Lolthian(the culture) Akolyte Cleric you could pick Drow EvilCult(the culture) Akolyte Cleric. The EvilCult would be your culture reflecting the Lolth cult, but could fit into many evilcult based cultures.
Some of the supernatural gifts seem underpowered and some seem overpowered. Perhaps on average, a gift is a half-feat. In other words, these gifts are examples of magical backgrounds − precisely what the mundane backgrounds of the Players Handbook are lacking. I approve! I love these magical backgrounds.
In the Theros setting, each player effectively chooses two backgrounds for their character, one magical and one mundane.
All of these different supernatural gift backgrounds are happening within the same culture. Each member of the culture specializes in some aspect that is prominent in the culture. The community more broadly can do many things, but each individual more narrowly does a few things.
Consider too, the same culture can have one town where a certain assemblage of gifts/backgrounds is "modal" (being part of the group that is most frequent and defining) and also have a different town where a different assemblage of gifts/backgrounds is modal. Cultures are a complex tapestry that is ultimately fluid and changing. Compare one culture having all three: a mining town and a fishing village and a college town of a hundred famous universities. The "general knowledge" that everybody knows will differ depending on location and individual exposure. A setting giving a choice of gifts/backgrounds within the same culture better represents such fluidity.
If there is something that "everyone knows", like riding horses in a horseback nomadic culture, it might mean that most members have selected the same background, but then each member tweaked and personalized the background by swapping out features for different features. Perhaps every member has Animal Handling and Survival, but not much else in common. There can be several backgrounds that happen to include Animal Handling but otherwise be quite different from each other.
Fluidity has verisimilitude − allowing the same culture to have multiple options − such as the natural backgrounds and supernatural backgrounds have.
Fluidity also explains how a culture can evolve. Each new background enters the culture, gaining more and more prominence, and modality, while traditional backgrounds wane and eventually become obsolete. Each background is like a bell curve, trickling in as a novelty then becoming more popular over time, then flourishing widespread, then dwindling then trickling out.
A culture is an assemblage of such bell-shaped backgrounds.
Tashas has the most recent evaluation of a feat by the designers.
Both the feats, Fey Touched and Shadow Touched, grant as a half-feat: • slot-2 spell per long rest • slot-1 spell per long rest
Where the half-feat is worth about 4 proficiencies, we have something like: • slot-2 per long rest (about 2.5 proficiencies) • slot-1 per long rest (about 1.5 proficiencies)
Note also, Xanathar Fey Teleportation has: • slot-2 per short rest (about 4 proficiencies)
The Dhampir trait Vampiric Bite is something like a slot-1 spell. Compare a Cure Wounds Spell that only half heals, while wasting the other half on a substandard-damage attack.The healing only works if the attack succeeds, meaning the action spent to heal can fail. Also, the requirement to do a substandard-damage attack during a combat encounter is a serious opportunity cost when focus firing is everything. The Bite can happen a proficiency-bonus number of times per long rest, which along with the chance of failure, is somewhat a wash, about equivalent to once per long rest. Moreover, the Bite is situational because the player is actively trying to avoid a situation where healing becomes useful.
The Vampire Bite could be worth as few as 1.5 proficiencies, but it feels on the stronger side of this, as worth at least 2 proficiencies. I am comfortable assessing Vampiric Bite as worth about 3 proficiencies.
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he / him
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Feel free to articulate what you do want with regard to culture. Opposing points of view can inform each other.
he / him
Well. No need for a cultural feat. We can perhaps look at Theros for a solution. While called "Supternatural Gifts" there, it could give an interesting template for cultural benefits, that are more then a simple proficiency. Many of them are on the power level of racial traits (there is literally one that gives you some wareforged traits). And these benefits don't have to be hard coded to fit a specific culture but could be vague enough to fit multiple ones. So instead of Drow Lolthian(the culture) Akolyte Cleric you could pick Drow EvilCult(the culture) Akolyte Cleric. The EvilCult would be your culture reflecting the Lolth cult, but could fit into many evilcult based cultures.
Some of the supernatural gifts seem underpowered and some seem overpowered. Perhaps on average, a gift is a half-feat. In other words, these gifts are examples of magical backgrounds − precisely what the mundane backgrounds of the Players Handbook are lacking. I approve! I love these magical backgrounds.
In the Theros setting, each player effectively chooses two backgrounds for their character, one magical and one mundane.
All of these different supernatural gift backgrounds are happening within the same culture. Each member of the culture specializes in some aspect that is prominent in the culture. The community more broadly can do many things, but each individual more narrowly does a few things.
Consider too, the same culture can have one town where a certain assemblage of gifts/backgrounds is "modal" (being part of the group that is most frequent and defining) and also have a different town where a different assemblage of gifts/backgrounds is modal. Cultures are a complex tapestry that is ultimately fluid and changing. Compare one culture having all three: a mining town and a fishing village and a college town of a hundred famous universities. The "general knowledge" that everybody knows will differ depending on location and individual exposure. A setting giving a choice of gifts/backgrounds within the same culture better represents such fluidity.
If there is something that "everyone knows", like riding horses in a horseback nomadic culture, it might mean that most members have selected the same background, but then each member tweaked and personalized the background by swapping out features for different features. Perhaps every member has Animal Handling and Survival, but not much else in common. There can be several backgrounds that happen to include Animal Handling but otherwise be quite different from each other.
Fluidity has verisimilitude − allowing the same culture to have multiple options − such as the natural backgrounds and supernatural backgrounds have.
Fluidity also explains how a culture can evolve. Each new background enters the culture, gaining more and more prominence, and modality, while traditional backgrounds wane and eventually become obsolete. Each background is like a bell curve, trickling in as a novelty then becoming more popular over time, then flourishing widespread, then dwindling then trickling out.
A culture is an assemblage of such bell-shaped backgrounds.
he / him
Tashas has the most recent evaluation of a feat by the designers.
Both the feats, Fey Touched and Shadow Touched, grant as a half-feat:
• slot-2 spell per long rest
• slot-1 spell per long rest
Where the half-feat is worth about 4 proficiencies, we have something like:
• slot-2 per long rest (about 2.5 proficiencies)
• slot-1 per long rest (about 1.5 proficiencies)
Note also, Xanathar Fey Teleportation has:
• slot-2 per short rest (about 4 proficiencies)
The Dhampir trait Vampiric Bite is something like a slot-1 spell. Compare a Cure Wounds Spell that only half heals, while wasting the other half on a substandard-damage attack.The healing only works if the attack succeeds, meaning the action spent to heal can fail. Also, the requirement to do a substandard-damage attack during a combat encounter is a serious opportunity cost when focus firing is everything. The Bite can happen a proficiency-bonus number of times per long rest, which along with the chance of failure, is somewhat a wash, about equivalent to once per long rest. Moreover, the Bite is situational because the player is actively trying to avoid a situation where healing becomes useful.
The Vampire Bite could be worth as few as 1.5 proficiencies, but it feels on the stronger side of this, as worth at least 2 proficiencies. I am comfortable assessing Vampiric Bite as worth about 3 proficiencies.
he / him