As much as I love Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, I admit I sometimes stare longingly at my 3.5e materials and reminisce on the zany character concepts I built using the plethora of skill choices and feats available in that system. Then I recall how absolutely insane it was to keep track of the 20 different feats I acquired (looking at you, Fighter) along the way and how some of them were absolutely useless or intentional stepping-stones to the concept I wanted to actually make.
Fifth Edition does a remarkable job of balancing the customization options available in Third Edition while keeping some of the simplicity provided by Fourth Edition. That simplicity, unfortunately, comes at a cost; by the time you’ve experienced a class (played, watched via stream, or both) more than twice, you have a pretty good idea how that character is going to play out in any adventure moving forward. From this experience comes the unfortunately all-too-common complaint, “Every [Insert Class Name] feels the same in 5e.” While I respect this opinion, it’s wrong. Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, mistaken. But, it’s easy to see from where the mistake stems. You see, Fifth Edition has three incredibly simple tricks you can use to infuse your PCs with fresh mechanics and play styles every time, but they’re hiding in plain sight and thus never get discussed. If you’re someone who loves playing a particular class over and over again (like me with the Sorcerer), but is worried about eventual class burnout, I implore you to heed these tips, try them, and see you had nothing to fear.
With that in mind…
1) Create Custom Backgrounds
When someone says Backgrounds, our first thoughts trail to the Acolyte, Criminal, Folk Hero, and others listed in Chapter 4 of the Players Handbook. Or, perhaps you’re a bit more adventurous and use additional options provided in materials like Curse of Strahd or Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. The one thing most of us, myself included, often forget is these Background options are just examples. We rush so quickly to the list of Background options that we miss the fact the rules for creating your own Background are listed before we even get to the Acolyte. This document layout choice, according to Jeremy Crawford, is quite intentional.
If that’s the case, if the game is built with the intent of creating our own Backgrounds, then why do so few players and DM’s make them? I believe there are two primary reasons for this:
- It’s easier to say, “Want to play a Rogue? Pick the Criminal Background,” for Players during character creation than it is to build a Background from the ground-up.
- To the development team’s credit, most of the example Backgrounds capture the essence of many fantasy character archetypes and suit the needs of many characters.
One major downsides to these example Backgrounds, however, is their lack of personal connection to your characters. When you slap these onto a PC, often towards the end of your character creation process, the Background gets treated solely as a means to squeeze in two extra skill proficiencies and an odd language or tool you’ll use once or twice for the novelty. When you build a Background to suit your character’s needs, however, you come out the other end with a set of skills and other features that reinforce your desired play style regardless of class mechanics.
To demonstrates how easy and effective this is, let’s build a custom Background right here! As a way to foreshadow my Rogue’s eventual progression into Arcane Trickster prior to 3rd Level, I’m going to create a Library Rat background that selects the Arcana and Sleight of Hand proficiencies. Next, I decide as someone who skulked around in places of learning all his life, this Background grants me access to two additional Languages of my choice. Being an Aladdin-esque vagabond, I choose an equipment list similar to the one provided by the Urchin example background, but replace the town map and family token with a book on the fundamentals of magic. I then pick the Researcher feature to stay true to the library motif, and wrap things up by selecting my own characteristics or using samples from the Sage/Urchin as needed. Just like that, a new Background is born!
See how easy that was, and how more likely your character is to use the benefits granted by a Background when they sync perfectly to your concept? Simple tricks like this can help define your character far beyond race and class mechanics.
Before we move on, a word of caution regarding Backgrounds: be extra mindful of which primary feature you select. Some features, like the Folk Hero’s Rustic Hospitality or the Sage’s Researcher, are amazing choices for their flexibility and utility in most adventures.
Other features, like the Hermit’s Discovery and Sailor’s Ship Passage, are so situational you’ll rarely have a chance to bust them out. While Ship Passage is the more viable of the two, ensure the campaign has a fair amount of boat travel before selecting this option. Discovery is just…I’ll be honest, I hate this feature. As a Player, expect your discovery to be either the kick-off to an adventure or the missing clue that pulls together some major revelation in the story. Regardless, you’re only going to use it once, if ever. As a DM, you have to ensure the discovery is “unique and powerful” enough to justify serving as a primary component of the PC’s Background, and even then its relevance will be short lived for the use cases stated above. Worst-case scenario, you’re going to feed the PC some esoteric piece of world lore that, while interesting to you, will have little-to-no bearing on the overall story and leave the PC sitting on it for the entire campaign. I’m sure there are success stories of Discovery being used for great effect, but compared to other features with practical applications, the “grand revelation” bestowed by this feature is best left to a plot-critical NPC.
2) Remove Class-Based Skill Restrictions at 1st Level
During character creation, each class notes how many starting skill proficiencies you get and tells you to pick from a selection of about six or seven options. The Wizard, for example, tells you to choose two skills from Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, and Religion. The skills you select then add your proficiency score to any check made with that skill. The scope of these options are broad, and the additional choices provided by custom Backgrounds should be enough to sate most concept choices.
To liberate any Players who feel pigeonholed by these restrictions, simply allow them to pick the number of proficiencies provided by their class from all the skills in the game. If they want a Wizard who specializes in Athletics and Stealth, let them if they can provide an adequate reason! Before setting them loose, always mention the skill options listed in the class are there by design: they’re often the most beneficial options for the scenarios PCs of that class will likely find themselves in (i.e. the Wizard often being asked to deduce the nature of magical effects via Arcana). If they still wish to pick other options, let them do so!
I find this solution is most viable in cases where the PCs are all the same class (e.g. a Hogwarts-style Wizard School campaign), and everyone wants to focus on different interactive skills. Or, maybe a Player enjoys playing a specific Class but isn’t interested in the provided Skills this time around. As long as it makes sense for the character and doesn’t impede the party dynamics (though I don’t see how this would be an issue), Players will greatly appreciate this additional level of customization.
3) Incorporate Blessings and Charms
For our last tip, we’re going to explore content that allows you to stretch your homebrewing muscles while using some Rules as Written material if you’d rather play it straight and narrow. Better yet, the suggestions offered below will guarantee your PCs are not “just another School of Illusion Wizard.” We’re pulling out the Dungeon Master’s Guide for this one as we discuss Blessings and Charms.
First up is Blessings, qualified as a game-enhancing “supernatural gift […] usually bestowed by a god or godlike being” (DMG p. 227). The book recommends offering these to PCs either as a reward for accomplishing a heroic task, like restoring a favored shrine of the benefactor deity, or as a kind of “cash advance” for a task they’re about to accomplish. These bonuses are permanent unless the blessed PC does something to anger their benefactor, like failing to complete the chosen quest. The DMG provides seven different examples for Blessings; some provide Ability Score increases, one converts weapons into their +1 variants, and others still that enhance your defensive capabilities by boosting AC or granting the Magic Resistance effect. Just like Backgrounds, these examples are meant to serve as a starting point for you to create your own divine wonders.
When you connect these gifts to a godly being whose presence is felt constantly throughout the campaign, like the Morninglord from Curse of Strahd, it connects the PCs to the story beyond their Backgrounds or original call to adventure. While you can present these Blessings to PCs on an individual basis, I’ve always introduced mine as a group choice; the benefactor provides a list of options, but the PCs can only pick one to apply to the everyone. It’s an important choice they weigh together with no downside. It allows the min-maxing and thematic choices to be discussed in an organic way that has a lasting effect on the entire party. It’s amazing to behold, but something you should only grant once (or maybe twice if you’re generous) during the course of a long-running adventure.
Also, make sure you’ve carefully weighed how the Blessing(s) will impact your game moving forward. Unlike magic items, which we often believe can be handed out recklessly because they sound fun and then stripped away if they’re deemed overpowered, Blessings have an inherent gravity to them. They are explicitly granted to your PCs by someone critical to your setting, and the loss of such an important gift will certainly feel personal to PCs and the Players who control them.
Charms, the fickle cousins to Blessings, are geared towards granting the effects of magical items, potions, or spells until the bearer has expending a predetermined number of uses. When exhausted, the Charm vanishes and the PC must obtain a new Charm of the same type to regain the abilities granted. Unlike Blessings, Charms come from more mundane sources and, as such, are expected to be used with greater abandon. Perhaps capturing a unicorn yields an unexpected reward as the mythical being offers unique Charms in exchange for its freedom, or standing in the realm of a long-forgotten progenitor race infuses the adventurers with some latent magics. Granting Charms is an eloquent way for both you and the Player to test out certain effects, like allowing the Fighter to cast a 3rd-level version of Conjure Animals, before turning them into full-blown magic items or Blessings. Some Charms will come and go without second thought while others will spark an entire adventure as the PCs attempt to retain that ability permanently.
Conclusion
Originally, I was going to include how to create custom Feats based on the actions performed in your campaign, similar to how Neverwinter Nights provided these specialized buffs at certain points in the game. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized there is just so much to unpack with Feats (and this post is getting long enough) that it’s a conversation best saved for a post all of its own.
With that, here are three easy ways you can use (or gently side-step) D&D 5e‘s rules to break out of the “Every Fighter feels the same” argument. Even if you entirely disagree with Tip 2, which I respect, the other two suggestions are mechanics built into the game yet garner such little attention. If you’re a Player who feels this way about your PCs, I strongly encourage you to talk with your DM about customized Backgrounds or, if you’re already in the middle of an adventure, exciting Charms or Blessings that might infuse some extra life into your character.
If you’re a DM, don’t sleep on these options; they’re such easy ways to enhance your Players’ experiences and create characters that will be remembered and retold time and time again. Also, with Mystic Odysseys of Theros coming out in July, what better way to connect your Players to the Gods and Goddesses of this setting (or your own setting which liberally applies concepts from Theros…like mine) than by having the PCs chase after the mythical Blessings of their patron deity?
Until next time,
Matthew Wulf
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