Backgrounds in Dungeons & Dragons ensure that your backstory not only tells an exciting story of your character, but that you can also use your past to your advantage. We present the top 5 in this list on MeinMMO.
Backgrounds are a relevant part of character creation before sending your hero on adventures with others. Most of these heroes
do not start directly as heroic superstars, as everyone starts small. Therefore, your characters need a background and backstory that give them personality, a reason to travel, and also certain advantages.
The background also provides information about the most formative place of life, profession, and general life before their adventure.
In this list, we want to mention 5 particularly useful backgrounds, which, alongside providing a base for your characters’ origins, offer particularly good bonuses through strong ability score increases, skills, and talents. We are using the latest Player’s Handbook from 2024 for this.
With the new background system from 2024, you will receive:
- 3 options for ability score increases
- 1 heritage talent
- 2 skills in which you are proficient
- 1 tool with which you are proficient
- Starting equipment worth 50 gold
This is an important note, as backgrounds were handled differently along with the choice of race/species in older D&D books. The Player’s Handbook explains it as follows:
Backgrounds and species from older books
Backgrounds in older D&D books do not contain ability score adjustments. If you use a background from an older book, adjust your ability scores by increasing one score by 2 and another by 1, or alternatively three scores by 1.
[…]
If the background of your choice does not grant you a talent, you gain a heritage talent of your choice.
With this explanation, older backgrounds can also be used with the rules from 2024. However, the list refers only to those from the new Player’s Handbook. Thus, you can use the mentioned placements with the new standard equipment
.
Rank 5 – Entertainer
- Ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Charisma
- Talent: Musician
- Skills in which you are proficient: Acrobatics and Performance
- Tool with which you are proficient: Musical instrument
- Equipment: Either A) Musical instrument (as above), two costumes, mirror, perfume, travel clothes, and 11 gold, or B) 50 gold
Entertainers in Dungeons & Dragons are described very similarly to a typical bard: they have spent most of their youth performing occasionally as a musician or acrobat at fairs or in the circus. They may be talented at playing an instrument, putting on acrobatic shows, or reciting stories and poems. They love applause and enjoy being on stage, which makes the background perfect for a bard.
However, this background is so exciting because, by making this choice, you can give any character the flair of having taken bardic influence, even if they play a completely different class.
With strength and dexterity, you don’t have to sacrifice ability points if they are particularly important for your build and can still be capable of playing an instrument to entertain (or distract) people.
With the heritage talent Musician, an entertainer can play a song on their instrument after each short or long rest, granting several team members (depending on the number of proficiency bonuses) Heroic Inspiration. This can be used by a character to reroll a die immediately after the first attempt. This can be extremely useful in critical situations, even life-saving.
Every group can therefore be happy to have an entertainer in the team they can benefit from – they just have to listen attentively to their songs.
