With this homebrew, your background will determine what kind of lifestyle your character expects to have.
A Noble, for example, will be accustomed to and expect a Wealthy or Aristocratic Lifestyle, whereas a Criminal will be used to living in Poor or even Squalid conditions.
If your character finds themselves in conditions that do not match their expected lifestyle, they will be unable to use their Background Feature.
For example, if the above mentioned Noble finds themselves too poor to afford their lifestyle expenses, they will be castigated by high society, shunned by their peers and blocked from attending those fancy, fancy dinners. They will no longer be able to make use of their Position of Privilege Feature.
Likewise, if a Criminal has an unexpected stroke of fortune and is enjoying the fruits of an Aristocratic lifestyle, that Criminal will find themselves cut off from their former life, the criminal contacts they used to rely upon will shun them or else be out of reach. They will not be able to use their Criminal Contact Feature.
I was going to make an exhaustive list of all of the Backgrounds and their associated Lifestyles, but I'll leave that open to interpretation.
A Criminal would not lose their contacts just because got rich - if anything their contacts will be happier than ever to work with them - the richer the criminal, the more money the contacts may request for their services.
A noble that is having a downfall can still get an audience with the courts - nobility is more about the Family name not so much its wealth, although yes that is important but even in our real world history the richest people that weren't kings/emperor were merchants who did very well, rather than nobility. A noble's name alone, even when destitute, can still get them audiences with important people.
For most backgrounds your current living style makes no difference to the function of the feature. Also, the background represents mostly what your character was, not necessarily what they currently are. It's what your character did before they decided to become an Adventurer.
To each their own of course. But in my opinion your approach is not realistic and less fun. You're basically punishing them for something unimportant and small. The Criminal finally working hard, nearly dying, getting the gold - but not allowed to spend it or lose their background benefits? The Noble staying with the group in the poor part of town they've never been to before for safety and ease suddenly losing their family's tradition and status because of that - ouch. Baffling and harsh.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Fair comments, Cyb3rM1nd and wow your name is hard to spell. It's designed more with lifestyle costs in mind, otherwise, why wouldn't everyone just live a squalid lifestyle and save their money for items?
My rationale is that if you have different characters from different backgrounds forced together into a party, they would each find that they have a preferred kind of environment. A Noble who takes his low born friends to court would still benefit from his Position of Privilege background, whilst the Criminal he's brought to the court with him wouldn't necessarily be able to contact their criminal friends there. By the same token, when the tides of fortune turn and the Criminal takes his privileged Noble friend to meet his criminal contacts, it seems unrealistic for the Noble to be able to use their Position of Privilege feature on the roughs.
I assume that for the purposes of narrative and advancing the plot, the party will only ever really need to use one of these background features at any given time. Once you've made your contact, that's all you need - you're off on your quest. It's weird if the Noble leverages their Position of Privilege to track down a rare artifact to complete a quest and then the Criminal uses their criminal network to... also track down a rare artifact and complete the same quest, but by a different route.
But like you say, to each their own. Thanks for the reply ^-^
People generally don't live a squalid lifestyle for one of a few main reasons. First, it's a role playing game, if you're playing to your character, it's rare that you'll have a character that would be happy in squalid conditions. The second would be for people that are trying to play to win, if you're living in squalid conditions, it's hard to say that you're winning. Third is the actual effects of squalid conditions, if you save all your money for items while living in an area where people will take those items as soon as you fall asleep, you'll find yourself poorer for it. Lastly, or at least the last one that I can think of, it's hard to make social connections with wealthy people if you're beneath their notice.
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With this homebrew, your background will determine what kind of lifestyle your character expects to have.
A Noble, for example, will be accustomed to and expect a Wealthy or Aristocratic Lifestyle, whereas a Criminal will be used to living in Poor or even Squalid conditions.
If your character finds themselves in conditions that do not match their expected lifestyle, they will be unable to use their Background Feature.
For example, if the above mentioned Noble finds themselves too poor to afford their lifestyle expenses, they will be castigated by high society, shunned by their peers and blocked from attending those fancy, fancy dinners. They will no longer be able to make use of their Position of Privilege Feature.
Likewise, if a Criminal has an unexpected stroke of fortune and is enjoying the fruits of an Aristocratic lifestyle, that Criminal will find themselves cut off from their former life, the criminal contacts they used to rely upon will shun them or else be out of reach. They will not be able to use their Criminal Contact Feature.
I was going to make an exhaustive list of all of the Backgrounds and their associated Lifestyles, but I'll leave that open to interpretation.
Thoughts?
I find this reasoning to be too restrictive.
A Criminal would not lose their contacts just because got rich - if anything their contacts will be happier than ever to work with them - the richer the criminal, the more money the contacts may request for their services.
A noble that is having a downfall can still get an audience with the courts - nobility is more about the Family name not so much its wealth, although yes that is important but even in our real world history the richest people that weren't kings/emperor were merchants who did very well, rather than nobility. A noble's name alone, even when destitute, can still get them audiences with important people.
For most backgrounds your current living style makes no difference to the function of the feature. Also, the background represents mostly what your character was, not necessarily what they currently are. It's what your character did before they decided to become an Adventurer.
To each their own of course. But in my opinion your approach is not realistic and less fun. You're basically punishing them for something unimportant and small. The Criminal finally working hard, nearly dying, getting the gold - but not allowed to spend it or lose their background benefits? The Noble staying with the group in the poor part of town they've never been to before for safety and ease suddenly losing their family's tradition and status because of that - ouch. Baffling and harsh.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Fair comments, Cyb3rM1nd and wow your name is hard to spell. It's designed more with lifestyle costs in mind, otherwise, why wouldn't everyone just live a squalid lifestyle and save their money for items?
My rationale is that if you have different characters from different backgrounds forced together into a party, they would each find that they have a preferred kind of environment. A Noble who takes his low born friends to court would still benefit from his Position of Privilege background, whilst the Criminal he's brought to the court with him wouldn't necessarily be able to contact their criminal friends there. By the same token, when the tides of fortune turn and the Criminal takes his privileged Noble friend to meet his criminal contacts, it seems unrealistic for the Noble to be able to use their Position of Privilege feature on the roughs.
I assume that for the purposes of narrative and advancing the plot, the party will only ever really need to use one of these background features at any given time. Once you've made your contact, that's all you need - you're off on your quest. It's weird if the Noble leverages their Position of Privilege to track down a rare artifact to complete a quest and then the Criminal uses their criminal network to... also track down a rare artifact and complete the same quest, but by a different route.
But like you say, to each their own. Thanks for the reply ^-^
People generally don't live a squalid lifestyle for one of a few main reasons. First, it's a role playing game, if you're playing to your character, it's rare that you'll have a character that would be happy in squalid conditions. The second would be for people that are trying to play to win, if you're living in squalid conditions, it's hard to say that you're winning. Third is the actual effects of squalid conditions, if you save all your money for items while living in an area where people will take those items as soon as you fall asleep, you'll find yourself poorer for it. Lastly, or at least the last one that I can think of, it's hard to make social connections with wealthy people if you're beneath their notice.