Character creation idea

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An idea just struck me! And I think it sounds pretty good, but that may just be me.

The idea is like this: We have racial mods to stats right? What about trying to implement a background mod to stats akin to what they have in Arcanum and Morrowind? For instance the nobleman background, due to good schooling and tutors you get +2 on int but -2 on wis due to your lack of contact with the real world? Or the farmers background, +2 to con for worknig all days since you were a kid but at the expense of schooling and thus you get a -2 on int? Merchant background, since you were a babe have you learnt how to charm and grease people and thus gets a +2 charisma but due to the not overly active life you get a -2 on strenght? Fishermans son, you have spent a large part of your childhood and youth on scraggly boats giving you great balance and reflexes, +2 on dex but being raised among rowdy fishermen, salty water and wind on your skin and the lingering fish smell you get -2 on charisma? Clerical background, being raised by parents that are clerics and priests or in a monastery orphanage has given you a great sense of the world and insight, +2 on wis but the tranquil life of the priests and the constant exposure to disease as you have aided in medical care has led to a -2 in con.

What do you guys think of this idea? THe special backgroudns can easily be modified to fit into whatever you want or toned down or up to preferences. It is the general idea that I think is very interesting. However I only think that a system such as this should be implemented with either a low pointbuy or a low generating rolling method.

This could also be especially good for new players as a help in roleplaying. They get a bunch of backgronuds to choose between and can then more easily flesh them out.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

 

Not a bad idea, but you don't need to apply the modifications to acheive this effect, depending on the method of creation you use. If you use any system that alows the player to assign the rolls or buy stats, you can simply assume the lower scores in the abilities are due to this. The background ideas can still be used.

 

Yes, of course it can. I just liked the idea of the backgrounds and modifier to add further variation and differentiation in stats. If you roll you can quite often get quite vanilla stats, not bad at all but all in the average with small variations. This could be used to spice things up. Make the fighter strong, or the cleric wise.

You do have a big point though.

 

Like the idea, sounds good.

 

Hmm, about the farmer one, you can still easilly have an intelligent farmer. It isn't so much as what you know but what you can know that determines intelligence IMO. Lack of schooling doesn't affect how much you could learn if you did have schooling.

 

In my opinion INT in D&D is a mix of talent and study. Schooling is mostly about skills and thus I'd rather give literacy-related proficiencies for free or at reduced cost than a straightforward INT increase.

Not a bad idea for moderately unimportant NPC nobles, but not necessarily for adventuring ones defined in a detailed fashion. Nobles in quasi-mediaeval settings have plenty of opportunities to acquire wisdom through eventful life and unceasing streams of important choices to make (and pay for).

Sounds reasonable. More muscle, greater stamina etc - but remember that farmers have worse access to healthcare, can't always afford proper nourishment and live in far worse conditions than wealthier folk.

While they aren't supposed to be literate, farmers can be no less smart. Actually there's no reason for a farmer to have less INT than a nobleman fighter (physical fighting training focus).

Charisma is more about appearance and leadership. What you speak of is more like trade skill contained in merchant non-weapon proficiencies. Nobles are supposed to be more charismatic than merchants.

Non-warrior nobles, priests and thieves don't often work physically or fight either.

But it might as well have made you practically immune to most of mild diseases and used to harsh conditions effectively raising your CON to the levels normally associated with frontline fighters.


Well, but the idea itself seems nice. Perhaps you could convert it into a set of optional templates, more like character making advice, for additional fun, deeper customisation and increased realism? Penalties of -2 reduce your max starting stat to 16, which bars you from the most potent spells or even class-related abilities. I would rather make the character and write a nice BIO for him that would justify significantly high or low scores in light of the character's background, the history of his life, some other conditions of that kind - much more fun, I guess.

 

I advise against it in general. You can say that Joe the fisherboy never really learned how to talk to people (down on Cha), but was good at catching those slippery fish (up on Dex), but I don't think that alone constitutes a +2/-2 with ability scores.

My opinion is that Joe just started out doing Dexterity-demanding tasks, but little Charisma-demanding tasks, and thus he just honed Dex, but not Cha in his early youth. Result? If he's an average commoner, then 12 Dex and 8 Cha. Or more extreme, if you prefer.

Besides, that would mean that we can have 22 Dex halflign rogues with 6 Cha, all because he was a fisherman. Really interesting.

One last note - dabbliing with mental stat bonuses for ECL +0 is a funny thing. I think the only official ECL +0 race is one kind of elf, which has +2 to INT.

 

an ECL+0 races sounds odd? Though I dont recall any elf that gets a net +2int. Which one is it?

 

Sun Elf. No bonus to dex though.

If you want to tone your idea down, just use my house rule for ability score advancement. In the beginning of the second chapter of the DM's guide, there is a chart for choosing ability scores based on point values. What I do is instead of an ability increase every 4 levels, 1 point to put into an ability every level. Therefore, one would have to gain several levels, saving points, to get an increase in a high stat, while raising a low one would not take so long. Just say that a fisherman has +2 points added to dex so that he will have higher dex, but not rediculously so. Practice with fish will mean less if he's 20 dex anyhow, since it'd be pretty damn easy for him, right?

Did any of that make sense? I might have skipped over something important, since this has become a standard to me over the years.