A Different Sort of Background Bonus

The background bonuses introduced in the PHB2 are one of the best things about what is arguably one of the best D&D4e books. I have always endorsed the idea that players should get some kind of reward, even if only a small one for having a character background. Even if a player doesn’t expand or go any further than the basic description provided in the PHB2 (or Dragon or whatnot), that is much better than showing up to a campaign with a character that is little more than a name and a pile of stats and powers. Having bonuses built into the rules system like that is, to me, a great thing.

Sorting Out The Problems

But the background bonuses don’t always do what I’d like to see from the DM side. First off, they’re player chosen and that means that they can be metagamed and power gamed. In one group I ran for, I showed up to the first session to find that only the brand new player who had not done 4e before had ~not~ chosen a bonus that allowed him to use an attribute other than Constitution to determine his starting HP. When I talked to my players about this, they were quick to point out that I hadn’t forbidden that particular option and they’d not broken any rules, whether they be 4e rules or my house rules. At this point I was left with little other option than to allow it otherwise it was too much like I was punishing the players for optimizing.

Second is that they don’t always reflect what the character is like or how they wrote their character history. In my previous example, four of the five players were either Blessed or Cursed at birth, even though their written backgrounds didn’t really reflect that at all, nor did how they roleplayed their PCs. I decided to actually work their choices into the game, giving one of the Cursed players an invisible spectre following him who was angry with how the PC had violated the spectre’s eternal resting place. This was reflected in mysterious and cryptic whispers to the player which caused a -2 penalty to his attack rolls while they remained in the tomb complex the PCs had entered. Instead of dealing with this problem in-game (by placating or banishing the angry spirit) and accepting that he had chosen to be Cursed, the player instead accused me of being unfair.

The third problem is more of a problem with the condensed 4e skillset. A character that gets a bonus to Religion skill checks from a background bonus is just better at Religion in general, rather than reflecting the particular experience that the background might suggest. A former cloistered priest of Pelor might not know a damned bit more about Correllon than any other person on the street, but their skill check doesn’t really reflect that. The cloistered priest would instead show an increased knowledge of Pelor’s church, prayers, or maybe even increased awareness of the greatest enemies of Pelor. Not necessarily an increased knowledge of all Religion-related things. D&D in general, and 4e specifically, has always had something of a problem in the ability to make a specialist.

My online campaign has been going for a little while now and I wanted to reward my players for how great they’ve been. They deserve to get something for how much they’ve done in the game with roleplaying and making things fun, for doing stuff outside the game like writing a lot on character backgrounds or working on our Obsidian Portal wiki, and generally wanting to encourage them to keep doing what they’ve been doing. So I came back to skill bonuses, only this time it wouldn’t just be about a character’s background. I wanted to take into account all the issues I had and do them differently. It’s been a big hit with my players and, knowing that it might be useful or fun for others, I’m going to share what I’ve done and what I’ve learned.

Where To Get Started

The fact that I was waiting a few weeks to see how things played out instead of just going off what the players wrote was a key first step. Character and player interactions in the game can sometimes do more to suggest what to do or where to focus your efforts than the written words. The choices of the skills would entirely be made by me as I wanted the bonuses to reflect what I saw the PCs doing in game. And what’s more, I was deliberately going to ignore what the player already had chosen in terms of training or existing modifiers. I was going to pick something that fit with their character background or what they’ve done in game so far and I was going to make those bonuses only apply in restricted circumstance to reflect the specialized nature of the bonus. On the other hand, I would make sure that the bonus applied to a wider variety of skills to make up for the limited chances to use them. Mechanically speaking, I intended to keep the rewards in line with established ones, so nobody would get more than a +2. I would also try not to have too much overlap, so as to encourage people with a lower total modifier to try skills that they otherwise might not.

Deciding What Bonuses To Give

To show you how I approached what bonuses to give and help anybody else to do the same, I’m going to present some specific detailed examples. For my examples, I’ll use two of the characters in my current game. Turin is a Human Warlord and Mal is a Changeling Wizard.

Turin’s background portrayed him as a soldier and a leader of men, with familiarity with military tactics and knowledge. It wasn’t just background fluff, because his player actually acted and reacted like a soldier might in different situations. So it seemed natural to me to give Turin a +2 bonus to skill checks related to the military, mercenaries, or guards. This may be History, Religion, Dungeoneering, or any other skill that Turin’s player can make a reasonable connection with.

Mal I came at a bit differently than I did Turin. One of the things that Mal’s player had told me was that Mal was kind of awkward or uncomfortable in his natural state and the human appearance he regularly took. On the other hand, while he was pretending to be someone else, Mal would be a lot more charming and socially adept because Mal was so concerned with playing the role that he’d “forget” that he was supposed to be awkward. And that actually played out at the table. While making idle chat with an ally, Mal repetedly put his foot in his mouth, but when it came time to pretend to be a captured orc he was spot on with what he needed to say. So Mal got a bonus which gives him a +2 to Diplomacy, Insight, Streetwise, and Intimidate while he’s pretending to be someone else.

How It Plays Out

First, let’s look at Diplomacy and how it compares with these two characters. Right now at level 2, Turin has a +8 bonus and Mal has a +11. But the circumstance bonuses can change things in who decides to roll, who decides to aid another, and the roleplaying involved. If the situation was, say, negotiating with a band of mercenaries to get them to help guard caravans being attacked by kobold raiders, suddenly Mal is not the automatic best choice to perhaps do the talking because Turin’s military experience puts his check at a +10 in comparison to Mal’s +11. Further, because it’s something particularly relevent to the character, I would actually expect Turin’s player to insist that he be the one up front talking and doing the rolling. Even though Mal could possibly adopt a persona and disguise and still have a better modifier than Turin, I think that in this case the skill bonus will probably actually influence how people and a scene gets roleplayed.

Let’s look at Intimidate. Not because both PCs are good at it and are trying to figure out who is the better choice to be the primary roller in a situation, but because they’re both mediocre at it. Neither is trained in the skill, nor do they have an ability modifier to the skill that can be considered outstanding. Mal has an Intimidate check of +4 and Turin has a +3. In their specific circumstances, they go up to a +6 and +5 respectively. And even though that’s only a +2 bonus, that might mean the difference between not only success and failure, but in even trying in the first place. For example, Turin might look at his +3 bonus and avoid ever trying to make an opponent surrender during combat. After all, he’s exceptionally unlikely to succeed so why bother, right? But at a +5, his player might decide that every once in a while it’s worth a chance if he rolls well. While playing a drunken nobleman, Mal might decide to get a group of thieves to back down or hesitate with his +6 check, whereas with a +4 he mightinstead have skipped talking and gone straight for his spell orb hoping to get a surprise round.

Will every situation play out as I’ve suggested? No. Mal still might want to talk to the mercenaries instead of Turin and Turin might never try to get an enemy to surrender their weapons. But I think that providing the bonuses will, in the end, encourage my players to do different things, to step into the spotlight when their character would do so, and keep up what they’ve done so far.

Step By Step

So what would I suggest you do if you want to do something similar to what I’ve done? I’ll break it down.
1.) Play for a few sessions to let the players get settled and the character dynamic to make an appearance. This rewards players more fully, since it takes into account how they’ve roleplayed and what they’ve said.
2.) Read through the character histories that you’ve gotten from your players and think about how they give the character specialized knowledge or experience that others might not have.
3.) Think about the bonus itself and how it relates to what you’ve seen from the players and the backgrounds. You might not want to give a +2 to a 4-5 skills. You might want to give a +1 to 6-7 skills. Or a +3 to 2 skills. Or a +2 to some skills and a +1 to others. Or you might want to go with something similar, but different. One of my players, instead of getting a direct bonus on his skills, has a +1 bonus whenever he tries to aid an ally and his allies in turn get a +1 when they try to aid him. You could give a blanket +2 to all skills while in a particular environment (caves, forest, urban) or when dealing with a particular group (elves, thieves, nobles). There are a lot of different options and it depends on your game and your playstyle.
4.) Make it fun and make it something that the player would want even if it weren’t a bonus beyond what they get anyway.
5.) Don’t be afraid to branch out beyond skills. In addition to skill bonuses, every one of my players got what amounts to a daily utility power that I designed with their character in mind. Turin, as a soldier and leader, can allow an ally to reroll initative with a bonus. Mal, as an illusion specialist, can change the damage type on an attack from psychic to one of four others.
6.) Don’t do it just once. As the game goes on, handing out more bonuses really makes the players feel accomplished and encourages them to keep doing a good job. I’m personally planning on handing out further bonuses either at Paragon tier, Epic tier, or whenever the players have accomplished a major campaign story milestone. They’ll probably end up with 4-5 bonuses by the end of the game, but you can easily do more or less depending on what you as DM feel comfortable handing out.