Background
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The final major piece aside from spells for making a character is background. This is essentially a sub-class for your character that gives
it skills that naturally come of a profession regardless of race or class that your character may be. It adds flavour and style to your character
and may help explain why you are on the road adventuring instead of at home sitting by a warm fire. Though who says the campaign won't
start there, eh? On this page I will cover backgrounds and starting equipment, some things may or may not affect stats as covered in the last
page. Essentially a background will give your character the skills to prove that they were in fact part of that area of society. You can find
the different backgrounds on page 127 to 141 of the Players Handbook. Starting equipment is as you can probably guess is the equipment
your character starts with at the beginning of the campaign. Such gear has one of two major options. 1 you gain weapons, food, backpack,
and some other utility stuff. Or 2 you gain clothes and an amount of gold based on your class. Refer to page 143 of the Players Handbook
for determining how much currency you gain based on class. The background you choose also provides your character with starter gear
regardless of either choice, so it ultimately comes down to what you want to do. A lot of adventurers choose starting equipment for ease
instead of having to find a smithy and general store to gain gear that is a necessity for travelling in most cases. You can find the list of
each type of starter equipment listed as Equipment Packs on page 151 of the Players Handbook. As a Dungeon Master I can tell you that
a starting equipment pack that fits your character will be more useful to you than not. The background piece of your character wraps up
the final loose ends and is the time where you consider things like appearance, age, faith, alignment, flaws, bonds, personality. Once all of
these things are decided, it is time to write your backstory to wrap everything together.
Ok lets continue with our build. High Elf Paladin with the background of... Acolyte. Acolytes are the priests of an organization that worship an entity of some sort. Whether that be a god, demon, or some other celestial. Full details on page 127 of the Players Handbook. We gain proficiency with the Insight and Religion skills. 2 languages of our choice. For equipment we gain, a holy symbol, prayer book or wheel, 5 sticks of incense, vestments (religious clothes), common clothes, and a pouch of 15 gold coins. As an acolyte we gain the feature Shelter of the Faithful. Essentially we gain respect of fellow acolytes of the same faith, and may recieve healing and supplies in exchange for holding a ceremony or providing material components to spells. Looking at the background for acolytes there are suggested characteristics and are really helpful for making decisions or providing input if you are not familiar with the lore. Once finished adjusting stats and adding up all the details and choices lets select our starter equipment. Taking into account the 3 big pillars; Race, Class, Background. We have the choices of Priest's Pack, Explorer's Pack, or possibly the Scholar's Pack. Either choice works, for a gear perspective the Explorer Pack has the most to offer but for something more fitting and a little more roleplay based the Priest Pack works perfectly. I chose the Priest Pack which has a backpack, blanket, 10 candles, tinderbox, 2 days of rations, and a waterskin. One of my first priorities obviously will be to get my hands on some more food once the campaign starts. Otherwise finalize a backstory which is roughly 200 to 3000 words as needed to convey your description and personality of your character. |
