Hi, I’m Redda, the Tyrant Master, and I’m going to take a deep look into the latest playtest pack
We’re currently testing it in a campaign from level 1. Backgrounds look really cool, even if they sound a bit confusing. Let's check them out deeper!
TO BE NOTED As a personal decision, I removed everything that automatically gives inspiration (musician talent, human feat, inspiration given by rolling a 20 etc.) as I want to use it as a tool to reward deep interpretations or creativity for the roleplaying.
I’ll mark things as K = keep (good stuff) AK = absolutely keep (really good stuff), AM = absolutely modify (really bad stuff), MG = modify would be good (slightly bad stuff)
BACKGROUNDS OVERALL
AK: New backgrounds are the way to go, definitely. They provide new players tools to develop the story of their characters from scratch, while helping expert players with some cool ideas and/or leaving them with pure creativity. Of course, the best option is to build a custom background, combining benefits and stats as prefered, especially as sample backgrounds come up with a couple of issues. It is self understandable tho that statistics coming from one's background and training results in way larger pool of charachter's possibilities rather then class combined to race.
MG: Let's sort the issues out. Let's leave the lvl 1 talents balancement for later, the 3 minor issues of Backgrounds are tool proficiency, basic equipment and duplicated stuffs. Every background comes with a pack of benefits, starting with a tool proficiency.
Most of the tools aren't quite useful, like you won't use a chess set much, the crafting ones need a heavy ruling to put them to work (with the risk of slowing up the game) while thieves tools are always strong as they help with traps and locks. While it is useful to have someone able to lockpick and disabling traps, if there is no rogue, the rest of the tools are unconsistent and very situational.
Basic equipment coming from backgrounds almost everytime doesn't fit the class, so I had to remove most of it, leaving generic items (perfume, lantern and every item suitable in some way to any adventurer) be while assigning weapons and armors based on the class table. The problem resides in a charachter having multiple weapons, sometimes without even proficiency, and/or wrong armors (I usually give the worst possible armor of the correct proficiency to start up).
Abilities and proficiencies from backgrounds often overlap with class ones. One big example can be a rogue with a criminal background, that is one of the standard roleplaying backgrounds of a rogue i'd say. Well, as you can see a rogue wouldn't benefit from anything related to background, so he would opt for something “less conventional”.
At the end of the day, backgrounds may need to stay as a roleplaying support giving hints on how to interpret a character, while bonuses/items etc should all be taken apart to avoid a confusionary creation.
LVL 1 TALENTS OVERALL
Lvl 1 talents are overall balanced beside crafter, that has the issue I already mentioned with crafting tools, lucky, that can be hyper strong in any situation especially saving throws (and especially at higher levels with a higher proficiency bonus, can really turn fights), and tough that has a terribly strong scaling compared to everything else. I mean, would you rather have 40hit points more at level 20 or a lvl 1 spell and 2 cantrips? It's nothing that really needs to be modified, but a slight touch can improve them.
GLOSSARY
Everything clear and agreeable
SPELLS
Will talk about this in the next analysis, as it needs to be discussed with expert classes.
Thanks for reading, see you on the next discussion!
I agree on some points and disagree with others, but what else is new? Haha.
Often the obvious background (thematically) for a class does end up duplicating equipment/skills. That's a weird thing I've seen in playtest. But at least there is a way to purchase equipment instead, and skills can be chosen. The example equipment should be easy-mode for character creation. It could use a little work. But I prefer the freedom the UA provides to mix and match as you see fit. I do like the Inspiration changes, so we differ there.
My biggest question though - Why does this read like a YouTube transcript? :D
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Hi, I’m Redda, the Tyrant Master, and I’m going to take a deep look into the latest playtest pack
We’re currently testing it in a campaign from level 1. Backgrounds look really cool, even if they sound a bit confusing. Let's check them out deeper!
TO BE NOTED As a personal decision, I removed everything that automatically gives inspiration (musician talent, human feat, inspiration given by rolling a 20 etc.) as I want to use it as a tool to reward deep interpretations or creativity for the roleplaying.
I’ll mark things as K = keep (good stuff) AK = absolutely keep (really good stuff), AM = absolutely modify (really bad stuff), MG = modify would be good (slightly bad stuff)
BACKGROUNDS OVERALL
AK: New backgrounds are the way to go, definitely. They provide new players tools to develop the story of their characters from scratch, while helping expert players with some cool ideas and/or leaving them with pure creativity. Of course, the best option is to build a custom background, combining benefits and stats as prefered, especially as sample backgrounds come up with a couple of issues. It is self understandable tho that statistics coming from one's background and training results in way larger pool of charachter's possibilities rather then class combined to race.
MG: Let's sort the issues out. Let's leave the lvl 1 talents balancement for later, the 3 minor issues of Backgrounds are tool proficiency, basic equipment and duplicated stuffs. Every background comes with a pack of benefits, starting with a tool proficiency.
Most of the tools aren't quite useful, like you won't use a chess set much, the crafting ones need a heavy ruling to put them to work (with the risk of slowing up the game) while thieves tools are always strong as they help with traps and locks. While it is useful to have someone able to lockpick and disabling traps, if there is no rogue, the rest of the tools are unconsistent and very situational.
Basic equipment coming from backgrounds almost everytime doesn't fit the class, so I had to remove most of it, leaving generic items (perfume, lantern and every item suitable in some way to any adventurer) be while assigning weapons and armors based on the class table. The problem resides in a charachter having multiple weapons, sometimes without even proficiency, and/or wrong armors (I usually give the worst possible armor of the correct proficiency to start up).
Abilities and proficiencies from backgrounds often overlap with class ones. One big example can be a rogue with a criminal background, that is one of the standard roleplaying backgrounds of a rogue i'd say. Well, as you can see a rogue wouldn't benefit from anything related to background, so he would opt for something “less conventional”.
At the end of the day, backgrounds may need to stay as a roleplaying support giving hints on how to interpret a character, while bonuses/items etc should all be taken apart to avoid a confusionary creation.
LVL 1 TALENTS OVERALL
Lvl 1 talents are overall balanced beside crafter, that has the issue I already mentioned with crafting tools, lucky, that can be hyper strong in any situation especially saving throws (and especially at higher levels with a higher proficiency bonus, can really turn fights), and tough that has a terribly strong scaling compared to everything else. I mean, would you rather have 40hit points more at level 20 or a lvl 1 spell and 2 cantrips? It's nothing that really needs to be modified, but a slight touch can improve them.
GLOSSARY
Everything clear and agreeable
SPELLS
Will talk about this in the next analysis, as it needs to be discussed with expert classes.
Thanks for reading, see you on the next discussion!
I agree on some points and disagree with others, but what else is new? Haha.
Often the obvious background (thematically) for a class does end up duplicating equipment/skills. That's a weird thing I've seen in playtest. But at least there is a way to purchase equipment instead, and skills can be chosen. The example equipment should be easy-mode for character creation. It could use a little work. But I prefer the freedom the UA provides to mix and match as you see fit. I do like the Inspiration changes, so we differ there.
My biggest question though - Why does this read like a YouTube transcript? :D