I summed it up in three posts, but there's just so much to discuss in the new Character Creation UA, with its 21 pages of fundamental revision to the way that 5th Edition D&D works. Impressively, as broad and deep as these changes are, they're still fully compatible with other 5E content, swapping out bits while still allowing the fundamentals of 5E to look the same.
One of the biggest things to change is Backgrounds. Character creation in 5E has always had three primary choices - race, class, and background. We've seen race shift over time with the introduction of Tasha's alternate rules, and the new versions of the PHB races reflect shifting philosophies that make it clear it reflects physiological differences rather than cultural ones (I'd happily see the word "race" replaced with Lineage, Ancestry, or Heritage, personally, though admittedly the latter might seem to imply more of a cultural side of things).
Backgrounds have always been the least impactful of the character creation features in 5E - you basically pick one that gives you skill proficiencies you want but can't get through your class and then move on. Background features almost never come up in the games I run.
And so, of the three options (though we haven't seen anything for Classes yet,) the approach to Backgrounds has changed the most.
The most important change is that Custom Backgrounds are now the default choice. They've always been a part of 5th Edition rules, but now the assumption is that you're going to build out your background to reflect your backstory (and, let's be honest, the bonuses you want).
When you build your background, you make the following choices:
Ability Score:
This has been moved from race to the background, and honestly, it makes way more sense here. Not only does it fully divorce the idea of, say, certain races being inherently smarter (which thankfully was mostly eliminated with the Tasha's rules) but it now suggests that the bonuses you have reflect your own life experience, not just who your parents were. Your +1 to charisma is due to the fact that you had to be a fast talker to survive on the streets of Baldur's Gate, or your +2 to strength is that you spent twenty years chained to a mill-wheel (for old-school Barbarian fans).
This change, of course, is totally semantic and doesn't actually change the way the game plays in any way, but the concept behind it makes more sense, and really enshrines the customizable ability score bonuses as we saw in Tasha's. Like there, you can choose a +2 to one stat and a +1 to another, or +1s to three different stats.
Skill Proficiencies:
As with the old backgrounds, you pick two skill proficiencies that make sense for your backstory. Here, the customization is particularly welcome because hey, what if you were a hermit but not for any religious reasons? All old backgrounds had two skills, so this fits fine, and means most characters will have 4 skill proficiencies.
Tool Proficiency:
You gain proficiency with a tool. This includes Artisan's Tools, Gaming Sets, and Musical Instruments, and as we saw in the Rules Glossary, the functionality of Tool Proficiency now has a clearer definition. Many backgrounds included tools of this sort - like Entertainers getting a musical instrument, Nobles getting a gaming set, and Guild Artisans getting an artisan tool.
Language:
You get a total of three languages in most cases - everyone gets Common, then you can pick one language related to your Background and a third simply chosen from the Standard Language list (which includes Common, Common Sign Language, Dwarvish, Elvish, Giant, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, and Orc). Your background, thus becomes the way you can know rare languages, which include Abyssal, Celestial, Deep Speech, Draconic, Druidic, Infernal, Primordial (including its four dialects), Sylvan, Thieves' Cant, and Undercommon. Personally I'd put Draconic on the standard language list - if Giant is on it, and we have Dragonborn, Draconic can't be that rare.
This does, of course, mean that my Eldritch Knight Sage wouldn't get his four languages (Common, Draconic, Celestial, and Giant). Rogues and Druids will automatically get a fourth language as part of their class features, of course, in the form of Druidic and Thieves' Cant.
In most existing 5E backgrounds, there's a bit of a trade-off between tool proficiencies and languages. The Sage, for example, gets an extra language but does not get any tool proficiency. What I'm not sure about is how they want to treat vehicles. The recent Wildspacer background from the Astral Adventurer's Guide includes proficiency in Vehicles (Space), which is in addition to Navigator's Tools.
Feat:
Here's the biggest thing: Each background comes with a feat, but feats now have level requirements. So no, you can't start off with Great Weapon Master. But you can start off with Savage Attacker if you want those useful martial feats.
The feat seems to stand in place of the background features that existed in the old version. For example, my Sage could always find a library to research important information. This was nice to have, but was also completely subject to the DM's discretion, making it more of a flavorful thing than a mechanical one. Building that character now, I'd probably pick up Tough both because of its mechanical use (he was the party's tank) but also to reflect how he had always been thick-skinned and that ingratiated him to the ancient wizard who trained him to be an Eldritch Knight.
Equipment:
Backgrounds always came with a bit of gold and a few odds and ends, which were flavorful but sometimes felt like plot hooks that most players ignored. Now, instead, you get 50 gold to spend on equipment, keeping any change left over.
What I do not know is whether this is in addition to the class starting gear or not. I would have to assume not, given that a set of chain mail is 75 gold, and would thus be outside the price range of any Fighter, Paladin, or Cleric who wants some heavy armor to start with. Thus, this is more of an opportunity for players to be creative and figure out what stuff their background would provide them with.
Before we get into the sample backgrounds (I'm not going to go through all of them, just a few to demonstrate the concept,) I think that these are going to be way more impactful on a character's build than they were previously. At the same time, I think you need to have a conversation with players about how much they want these to be min-max-y versus flavorful.
This is especially the case with the ability score bonuses and feats. The way I'd prefer to work with players on this is to make sure that the choices taken reflect the backstory created. That said, I also would encourage the player to craft a backstory that reflects choices they might make - if you want to have Savage Attacker and are playing a Monk who has never been in a real fight before, maybe think about where that feat is coming from. Obviously, it's a good feat to take as a martial class, but encourage such a player to find a way to justify it. For example, maybe the Monk has dreams of their dead master warning them that they possessed within them a legendary demonic power that had been kept in check at the monastery until it slipped into the Monk's soul. Or perhaps, this mild-mannered disciple is actually descended from some legendary warrior called Bloody Fist Zho, and carries that violent capability passed down through generations.
Going backstory to mechanics is fine, but for those who want to play powerful characters, building a backstory to fit the mechanics is also a valid and often rewarding way to go.
So, let's take a look at a few of the samples. As a reminder these are not the "defaults," but are instead just examples of how you could build your background. Much as ability score bonuses on race became customizable with Tasha's, and now most people (I'd think) customize them, I think most people will simply build their background on their own.
Acolyte:
This one's a classic from the 2014 PHB. Here, the build works this way:
Ability Scores: +2 to Wisdom, +1 to Intelligence (a good option for a Cleric who might want to also know more about the workings of the divine).
Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion (both make sense, and match the ability scores)
Tools: Caligrapher's Supplies (good for someone devoted to copying religious texts)
Language: Celestial (naturally)
Feat: Magic Initiate (Divine) (even if you're not a spellcaster, your devotion now might give you a hint of divine power, and if you're a Cleric or Paladin, you're boosting your spell selection this way).
Equipment: Book (of prayers), 10 sheets of parchment, Caligrapher's supplies, Robe, a Holy Symbol, and 3g left over.
Laborer:
By contrast, this doesn't really have any equivalent in the 2014 PHB, except maybe Guild Artisan. But while that reflects an independent businessperson, here you can be a true salt of the earth working person, rather than a salesperson for your own goods.
Ability scores: Constitution +2, Strength +1 (you've spent long days working hard, and you've got the resilience and strength to show for it).
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Survival (Survival here I like to think is that you know how to keep a work site safe, and Athletics naturally reflects your history of physical labor).
Tool Proficiency: Mason's Tools (Naturally, any artisan's tools make sense here. Here we've probably got a Stonemason working on construction sites.)
Language: Dwarvish (Dwarves' history of legendary stone masons means that probably most of the traditions and techniques are based in dwarvish tradition).
Feat: Tough (I mean, obvious, right? From all these factors, I'm getting a really strong image of some tough-as-nails worker with callused fingers, a sunburn, and muscles like corded rope.)
Equipment: Bullseye Lantern, Mess Kit, Common Clothes, Oil (1 flask), Handaxe, Shovel, Light Hammer, Waterskin, Mason's Tools, and 15g left over. (And yeah, these are all things that would be handy on a worksite).
I'm going to hold off on any more of these backgrounds - these are just examples, after all, and you could easily mix and match them. Maybe you've spent your pre-adventuring life building temples as part of a holy mission. You might have the Strength from Laborer and the Wisdom from Acolyte, and some mix of their other traits.
The sample backgrounds I think are primarily to help players who might feel overwhelmed (especially when picking equipment, which is like several different tables) and just want something quick and easy to choose.
But for players who are more familiar with the game (and have spent the last seven years blogging obsessively about it?) the flexibility here is very nice to see, and doesn't break the game in any serious way.
This is one of those changes that I'll likely start implementing in any future games I run. I think books can still present new backgrounds, but they'll probably serve a bit more like the Battlemaster Builds in Tasha's - not anything mechanically new, but suggestions on how to build something like this. (I would expect us to get new feats, both level 1 and higher, such as the ones introduced with the Planar Philosopher background).
In fact, to cite the previous hypothetical: I think the one area where this change can potentially take something from the game is the way that WotC has played with backgrounds in the past. For instance, I am running a Ravnica game, and in it, every player character has one of the Guild backgrounds. These backgrounds grant the usual bonuses, but they also create an expanded spell list, giving any spellcasters of those guilds additional options for cantrips through 5th level spells. (Granted, most players have generally played into the "type" of the guild, like our Rakdos Bard, Izzet Artificer, and Golgari Spore Druid, so they have most of those spells anyway).
Should that extra bonus of expanded spells count as those backgrounds' level 1 feat? Or is that not enough?
One D&D is meant to be backwards compatible, and so far what I've seen of it looks very much like it will be, but it seems that there might be a few edge cases where the compatibility glitches out, like this.
Still, in the long run, I think this change is likely to be very good for the game.
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