Top 10 Most Useful Backgrounds in DnD 5E

a background in dd is one of the core features you pick when you're creating your character alongside your race in class it's also the one which provides the least amount of benefits but there are still some pretty useful benefits from a background nonetheless which is what this list will be going over the most useful ones and at number 10 we have the inheritor background this is a background from the sword coast adventures guide and basically has the special feature where your character gets to inherit something and then you get to start off the game with whatever it is you and your dm worked out that your character inherited this background basically allows you to start off the game with a non-standard starting item like if you really wanted your character to start off with a moon blade for example this is the background you pick although starting off with a legendary item is kind of a stretch even with the whole point of that legendary is passing it down more realistically what you'd want to use is to start off with extra cash or a minor magic item or if you just roll from the table they give you you get something like a trinket a signed document a special tattoo a piece of jewelry or some kind of written story song or secret it's a good way to create adventure ideas for your character so there's a lot that can go into having the inherited background but it's also a good way to argue for something special from your dm now i should also mention there is a special section in the rulebook that allows you to customize your background where you can basically just pick any feature from any of the backgrounds you want as well as have any two skill proficiencies and then two tool proficiencies or two languages instead of tools as long as it makes sense for your character but the default ones that the inheritor provides you are proficiencies in survival plus you can pick a proficiency in arcane history or religion and your choice of a gaming or musical instrument proficiency plus one language of your choice that is to say pretty minor increases and none of these are really power stats that you'd want to go out of your way to pick any of these proficiencies so the biggest reason inheritor makes this list is purely because of the potential to start off with a useful item which is actually a lot more useful than a lot of the special features that backgrounds give you like take the hermit background for example discovery it doesn't actually give you anything as a benefit and only gives you a story beat which explains why your character left the wilds or their secluded lifestyle so being able to actually get something from your background special feature is pretty rare that's the kind of minor benefits you can expect from the typical background special features and at number 9 we have the plaintiff from acquisitions incorporated the plaintiff background has a special feature called legalese which basically allows you to spout out nonsense legal jargon in order to confuse people into thinking you know what you're talking about so that you can intimidate people or deceive them in order to get special favors or treatment which basically means the background special feature itself can allow you to talk yourself out of most situations if you're in a city there's going to be a lot of commoners and you can just kind of bluff your way out of anything now this background feature is as useful as you are creative with it but even if not using it creatively it kind of like get us sticky situations that you don't want to be in and seen as the main vehicle of conflict in dnd is getting into sticky situations you don't want to be in this kind of helps you with the core gameplay loop of dungeons and dragons although if you're going to be in a dungeon diving campaign where you're not going to be talking to commoners it's obviously not that useful but then again very few background features are useful in that situation but in more normal games where you interact with people quite frequently it's actually a pretty useful feature with the situation that's much more likely to come up than a lot of the other more niche background features like maybe the library access feature from the scholar background which allows you to access libraries while useful in specific situations where you need to get into a library it's not going to come up as often as trying to talk your way out of situation with a commoner the plaintiff also has proficiency in persuasion which gives it an excellent baseline proficiency as well as a couple of other ones that aren't as useful as persuasion but still having access to an s-tier proficiency is always a bonus in fact most of these backgrounds on this list have access to s-tier provision seats as they are the best backgrounds you can pick for mechanical benefits so they were kind of included into the weighted score i gave all the backgrounds when i was researching this video and at number eight we have knight of the order from the sword coast adventures guide this background has a special feature called nightly regard where if you run into members who are sympathetic to your nightly order no matter what nightly order you have be it philosophical or religious you can ask for help from your order in order to provide yourself with free food shelter and healing so you get some nice monetizable benefits from the background which is always a bonus but a lot of backgrounds have useful features like this what sets this background apart from others whose sole feature is to give you free food and shelter occasionally is that it has an additional feature where you can ask for occasionally risky assistance such as a band of local citizens rallying to aid a sorely pressed night in a fight or to ask them in aiding and helping you smuggle out of a town when you're being hunted unjustly so basically what this means is this background can give you a mob of commoners to help you in a fight which allows you to call on your mob justice in order to help in combat that might take place in a town now it's very situational how you'd even be able to get the combat assistance but it's the only background feature which has a built-in way of granting you combat assistance while also giving you the benefits of the alkali background basically where you get free place to stay and eat and heal if it's associated to your order so even if you never use the mob justice feature you still basically have an alkali background as well so you're not missing out on anything the proficiencies are pretty good too it gives you proficiency in persuasion and ass tier proficiency in addition to one other minor one a minor tool proficiency and one language of your choice now the only reason this one isn't higher in this list seeing as it's the only background that might give you a combat benefit is because it's pretty situational how you can even get that combat benefit and also commoners aren't that strong anyway but having the option is still pretty nice we know the background gives you combat benefits and at number seven we have the celebrity adventurer scion this is a background from acquisitions incorporated and has a special feature called name dropping which due to the influence of having celebrity parents allows you to have access to a large amount of powerful people across the land some of whom might even remember you which allows you to use your influence to get minor assistance from major figures in your campaign at the dm's discretion of course so it's like the noble's background position a privilege special feature which allows you to get an audience with imported people because you were a noble from birth and even makes it so the common falcon merchants treat you very nicely which the name dropping perk also gives you as well now the thing that makes name dropping a little bit better than position to privilege is that it also has an additional special feature where your heritage gives you access to interesting stories which you can tell to people in order to get a free meal and a place to sleep sometimes so the background has a way for you to get free food and free launching while also having a lot of the benefits of the position of privilege special feature so it's basically the same thing as a noble background just a slightly better and if you're in a campaign where you can't use the celebrity adventure scion background since it's from acquisitions incorporated module the noble background also is a decent alternative as is the guild merchant another background which allows you to meet important people and get your meals paid for by whatever guild you're from although the guild merchant background requires you to pay five gold a month and also has a couple of other benefits so really all three of them are pretty decent it's just the name dropping special feature doesn't require you to pay anything and just has slightly more benefits than the noble's position of privilege in addition the default proficiencies you get from the celebrities adventure scion are pretty decent you get proficiency and perception and performance with perception being one of the best tier proficiencies you can get really cream of the crop when it comes to proficiencies you can get for free while also getting proficiencies in disguise kits in addition to two languages of your choice usually other backgrounds give up a choice of an extra language for a tool proficiency but the celebrity avenger scion gets a free tool proficiency plus two languages so it just has more proficiencies than most of the other backgrounds in the game also having a special feature that's slightly better than two of the default ones so an excellent background to pick up if you're not going to customize any of the proficiencies and just take it as is as i assume most people take their backgrounds that way i don't think i've ever modified a background i've taken for a character even if the rules specifically state that you can do so pretty freely with the dm's approval and at number 6 we have the normal knight background the normal knight from the good old players handbook has a special feature called retainers where basically you get three commoners who act as background help and can be used for basically anything you can think of as long as it's not combat related now some useful benefits of having three servants essentially could be using them as messengers maintaining a house if you have a home base getting information helping you put on your armor or maintain your horse or anything else creative you can think of you literally just get three helpers do whatever you want with as long as you don't mistreat them or use them in combat you also have the option to substitute one of your commenters for a noble who can serve you as a squire which can allow some rp benefits of maybe getting a light version of the noble background position of privilege through your squire the knight also has access to the persuasion proficiency which is a big bonus but really the main better the night is its really good retainer special feature and at number five we have the urchin the urchin has the city's secret special ability which basically allows you to move twice as fast through a city as long as you're not in combat as well as providing its benefits to your allies since it's flavored around you know you knowing the patterns and special alleyways of a city to navigate it quicker having double movement speed in cities is pretty situationally useful as it would be way more useful if you can get this during combat so that you could run away better but out of combat it's still okay one of the main benefits of the urchin is having a pretty decent special feature on top of having two s-tier proficiencies those being proficiencies in stealth and thieves tools stealth is an incredibly useful skill to provision cnn and thieves tools is such a useful item proficiency that it could be worth picking up the urchin background just to get the proficiency in thieves tools in fact it's super valuable to have at least one person your party who has a proficiency in thieves tools because of how often you come into locked doors that can only be open with these tools however if you're only picking a background for proficiencies and you don't want to modify them by just asking the dm and are trying to go with ones that are listed in the book only then technically the spy and criminal backgrounds have slightly better proficiencies in the urchin as the spy and criminal also have access to stealth and thieves tools proficiencies but also get a proficiency in deception which is a slightly better than the slight of hand proficiency of the urchin or the disguise kit but only slightly that's why we still have urchin on this list and not spy or criminal the spy and criminal special features aren't really as useful as city secrets either as they both have criminal contact as they're special which basically just gives you a contact in the criminal world that you can talk to who can give you info maybe which could be more useful than city secrets depending on your campaign but always having the benefit to moving two time speed in towns is just slightly better mechanically speaking than being able it'll pass on a message to a single contact in the underworld but whatever the case all three of these backgrounds give you proficiencies and thieves tools and stealth which are the important parts of them if you don't just pick those up by modifying whatever background you want to have them instead i can guarantee you most people who pick these backgrounds do so just for their proficiencies alone you don't get as many proficiencies as a celebrity adventurer scion but no background does i think that one might just be an exception of having one more proficiency than all the others and at number four we have the courtier the courtier has a special feature called court functionary which means you understand how the inner workings of any noble court or government you encounter might run due to your vast knowledge of bureaucracies which means you know exactly who to talk to in order to get your favors from whatever noble court or government you encounter and can find out the intricacies of the system of the government which basically means no matter what setting you're in this background allows you to know exactly who to talk to if you need information about anything that might be possibly obtained through asking a government official which is incredibly useful usually if you need information you just ask around town until you eventually find someone who might have that information this background allows you to just go straight to the government and just ask there and then get a much more informed response about whatever information you might want when it comes to backgrounds which allow you to get information i think the court functionary is probably the most useful one out of all of them and is as useful as what kind of information you need i don't think i've ever ran a game or been in a game where we didn't need to get information on something by asking people and this basically gives you a direct line of reference to some prime information the good stuff the stuff you usually need to run a quest in order to earn the trust of people in order to get this kind of information based on the kind of campaign this could be just write up one of the best special features you can get in a background or incredibly useless if you're just doing like a dungeon crawl but then again most backgrounds are useless in that setting not all of them just 95 of them the courtier has also two great proficiencies insight and persuasion and allows you to learn two languages of your choice so the default proficiencies are excellent they don't really lose out on anything with this background an excellent special as well as excellent proficiencies a definite 8 out of 10 when it comes to background ratings and at number 3 we have the marine from ghosts of salt marsh this background gives you this special feature called steady and what steady does is allow you to move up to twice the normal amount of time per day before being subject to the force march rules additionally you can automatically find safe routes if you're on a boat in order to find seashore assuming a route exists now what's really good about the steady feature is the fact that it literally doubles the amount of time you can move per day by default you can only travel for eight hours a day and attempting to travel for an hour past that point requires you to roll a constitution saving throw starting at 10 and then increasing by one for every hour you keep going past eight and if you fail any of these constitution saving throws then you get a point of exhaustion and if you have six points of exhaustion you die although you stopped being able to move at five points of exhaustion so it's really hard to kill yourself on a forced march but it's real easy to put some real nasty debuffs on yourselves with all those levels of exhaustion and there are some campaigns where you really need more than 8 hours of travel time per day because travel time itself can be a main part of the campaign like it is in the iceland dell adventure module where traveling between the 10 towns is a main feature of the game that becomes very important on how much travel time you can do per day during certain points of the adventure so being able to have double the amount of movement speed per day is kind of bonkers this is a super good special feature to get from a background unless you're in a campaign where that kind of movement speed doesn't matter at all and all travel time is done between adventures then it's a pretty minor benefit which is very standard for background features and outside of its special feature it is pretty so-so with skills and tool proficiencies and doesn't give you any extra languages and is purely this high on the list for having a potentially ridiculously overpowered special feature in the form of steady allowed you to move double the amount of movement speed per day while traveling and at number 2 we have the gruel anarch this is the background feature in the guildmaster's guide to ravnica expansions so it might not be usable in all home campaigns but it arguably has one of the most overpowered background specials out of all of them that being the rubble belt refuge this special feature makes you very familiar with the city you're from allowing you to easily find a suitable place for you and your allies to hide or rest which means it gives you a way to hide from your pursuers and a place to rest without having to pay for it additionally you can find food in fresh water for up to five people every day and what's really good about this last part is that there's no check for this you just automatically find food and water for basically your entire party every day in addition to the feature of being able to find a free place to sleep and being able to run away from danger if you're in a city all of these are good features but it's definitely that last part which is the best the only thing that probably knocks off some points for this special feature is the fact that it only takes place in a city where being able to find free food and water isn't as important as out in the wilds but being able to do that on top of getting a free place to stay or hide is what really propels it to the top of this list as everything about that is incredibly useful and at number one we have the outlander a background from the good old normal players handbook so no having to worry about being from an expansion book like the previous couple spots and the outlander has a special trait called wanderer which allows you to have an excellent memory of maps and geography and allows you to recall the general layout of terrain and special features around you which is situationally useful but the important part of wanderer is the fact that in addition to this you can automatically find fresh food and water for yourself and up to five other people each day assuming you're on a land which has food and water so if you're stuck in the middle of a volcano you won't be able to use wanderer to get your party food but pretty much everywhere else is fair game normally if you wanted to find food on the land you're in you'd have to do a foraging check which is a survival role that has a dc set by the dm appropriate for how hard it is to find food in whatever land you're in so if you're in the far north in a frigid blizzard it might be incredibly difficult to find food from the land and you could just have a forging shack as high as a 15 or 20. but with the outlander background you just kind of ignore that and automatically find food as long as it's available and just because the food is scarce doesn't mean it's not available so even in a campaign setting like ice windale which takes place in a frigid winter you'd be able to automatically find food so the outlander background kind of allows you to completely counter any kind of survival game or part of the game might be trying to find food in order to stay alive with the outlander background that's no longer a thing you need to worry about unless there's literally nothing for you to find in which case you'd have other problems to worry about in fact the outlander background is so good in those situations that it's often banned in any kind of survival game because it makes it too easy to find food with its auto success foraging now the reason outlander is above the gruel anarch which basically has the same feature but inside cities is because it's more useful to find food out in the wilderness than it is in cities the grueling arc is also really good for its background features especially since you get more benefits than just being able to find free food that are also pretty useful but because the outlander background is so strong that it breaks survival games it kind of is the best background feature in the game now the proficiencies you get with the outlander background are appropriate to survival as you get proficiencies and survival and athletics but the other stuff is pretty standard minor stuff you're not getting any s tier proficiencies like with the urchin or the courtier but you are getting an s to your special ability and with the default rules allowing you to just kind of pick whichever proficiencies you want as long as you think they're appropriate which also includes picking whatever special feature you want from any of the other backgrounds so if you wanted to build a bear your best background picking up the wanderer special feature is one of the best ones you could pick and then just pick all of the best proficiencies like persuasion perception stealth or thieves tools and for the outlanders ability to just completely break survival games whereas none of the other special abilities really break anything with their usefulness i think it has to take number one spot alright and that's the list this list was heavily determined by the special features of the backgrounds and not really the proficiencies but the proficiencies did factor a little bit when appropriate and if you have any ideas for future videos just like this one i'd love to hear about them down in the comments also make sure to subscribe for future videos just like this one [Music] you

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Id: Xe0imTXYlb0

Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021