Mini-Rule: Background

[ArmorArmadillo]

When you design your character, choose one of the four backgrounds; Lower Class, Middle Class, Upper Class, and Vagrant. Each grants a unique bonus.
Vagrant: Survival is always a class skill for you, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 4s rolled to determine your starting gold.
Lower: Any one Craft skill is always a class skill, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 3s rolled to determine starting gold.
Middle: Any one Profession skill is always a class skill, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 2s rolled to determine starting gold.
Upper: Any one Knowledge skill is always a class skill, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 1s rolled to determine starting gold.
Furthermore: You gain a +1 to all Charisma based checks made to influence individuals in an area matching your background.

It's small, but gives characters a more authentic link to their backstories. Comments?

[Legoman]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Craft and Profession are always class skills anyway.

[Iituem]

Also, I'd flip around Craft and Profession. The lower classes are the workhorses, so it makes sense that the proleteriat should be slaving away at Professions whilst the bourgious pigs should be enjoying the fat trimmings of Craft checks.

Profession is not a class skill for fighters, but Craft is a class skill for all. The insight bonuses (should these not be competence bonuses?) would still apply, although most NPCs will take Skill Focus anyhow...

[Neek]

Neither the Barbarian, the Fighter, nor our noble Paladin receives Profession as a class skill. Somehow, the Druid can make do with it.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Also, I'd flip around Craft and Profession. The lower classes are the workhorses, so it makes sense that the proleteriat should be slaving away at Professions whilst the bourgious pigs should be enjoying the fat trimmings of Craft checks.
Well, the proletariat are supposed to be the people who actually produce (Craft), whereas the middle class are those with stable salary/oriented jobs (Profession). The thing is, it isn't a perfect set up Craft (Weaponsmithing) and Profession (Farmer) would both fit into Lower Class, but Craft (Jeweling) and Profression (Merchant) would both fit into Middle Class.

And yes, they should be Competence.

The real reason for being set the way they are is that craft is more useful in game terms than profession and it the starting gold is better for middle class, so I saw it as balancing.

(I do know that Knowledge might be the best of all of them, but it reflects upper class much better than any of the other similar skills)

[mikeejimbo]

I think I'd limit what knowledge skills they can get. I would say no Religion, Arcana, or Nature, but those all make sense for upperclasspeople to learn.

[Iituem]

Uh, weaponsmithy, toolsmithy and all forms of metalsmithy are middle class. Your 'village blacksmith' is actually pretty well off. He has to be, all crafts are more expensive to perform than most 'professions' (farming, fishing, sailors). Merchants are an exception to the rule, but only if they have the goods and wherewithal to get rich off it. Most travelling merchants eke out a living on what they make. Fat, gold-smitten merchants are the exception, not the rule.

Any sort of Craft is a secondary industry and virtually all primary industries are Professions. There will always be far less Crafts than Professions, so the proles will get most of the Professions as a result.

[ArmorArmadillo]

Uh, weaponsmithy, toolsmithy and all forms of metalsmithy are middle class. Your 'village blacksmith' is actually pretty well off. He has to be, all crafts are more expensive to perform than most 'professions' (farming, fishing, sailors). Merchants are an exception to the rule, but only if they have the goods and wherewithal to get rich off it. Most travelling merchants eke out a living on what they make. Fat, gold-smitten merchants are the exception, not the rule.

Any sort of Craft is a secondary industry and virtually all primary industries are Professions. There will always be far less Crafts than Professions, so the proles will get most of the Professions as a result.

Hmm...we're running into difficulty here because we're trying to judge a society with no actual middle class (middle-ages/renaissance).

In modern times, the professional (Salesman, Doctor) is middle class and the craftsman (Auto-Mechanic).

I suppose the way D&D is set up though, profession would be low class because it corresponds with wage-serfdom jobs such as Farming and Sailing. Hmm...it's ambiguous enough though that I'll keep it where it is for balance terms.

[Iituem]

It' fairly clear cut. 'Mechanic' is only a low class job today because we live in a service-based economy made possibly by extensive technological development. Prior to the late 1800s, more than 90% of Western population was agrarian and exclusively based in such professions as farming and fishing. An advanced economy where a significant portion of the population can survive on crafting and service can only exist where sufficient mechanisation (or slave labour, if slaves don't count as people) means that one no longer needs to use most of the population to make food.

[cferejohn]

It' fairly clear cut. 'Mechanic' is only a low class job today because we live in a service-based economy made possibly by extensive technological development.

Mechanic is a low-class job? I would put it at solidly middle class. Mechanics, plumbers, electricians, and other skilled repair folks make a pretty good living. For low-class service economy jobs, I would think retail and some food-prep/service jobs (McDonalds, Denny's etc.). I guess those fall under Profession of some sort.


Prior to the late 1800s, more than 90% of Western population was agrarian and exclusively based in such professions as farming and fishing.

Yeah, and the vast majority of people in those jobs were decidedly lower class, if not borderline slaves (serfs/indentured servants). The middle class, of course (merchants and tradesmen) was much much smaller.


An advanced economy where a significant portion of the population can survive on crafting and service can only exist where sufficient mechanisation (or slave labour, if slaves don't count as people) means that one no longer needs to use most of the population to make food.

Umm, except we are in a world where magic is prevalent, and magic could certainly take the place of mechanization pretty easily. Indeed with the level of magical power implied by the spells that are available (and the implicit assumption that many seem to make that there are lots of farming/manufacturing related spells that WotC hasn't included because they aren't important to adventurers), I would tend to assume that stable societies would undergo something akin to an industrial revolution, thus creating a larger middle class. Or at least, you could certainly justify it without needing "technology" per se. Think of it as the correlary to Clarke's law (one of them, anyway): "Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology).

Man, have I wandered far afield. Sorry...

[Iituem]

Heh. Believe me, I've considered that when designing worlds. The best advantage magic seems able to give is increasing crop yields. Based on the mechanic available in D&D, magic is too complicated and too expensive to get any sort of mass agricultural application. Yes, you -could- create machines that do your farmwork for you (It'd be a level 0 spell item, with an associated cost of 500gp), but unless you planned to keep it around for the several years it would take to recoup the costs, it would be rather cheaper to just have farmhands do it.

In addition, there are usually not enough wizards around to take care of these things all the time, even NPC wizards.

[cferejohn]

Well, that just depends on how many wizards are around in your world, I suppose. And I would assume that any magic device to help with agriculture would not be provided by individual families, but by some kind of corporate (mercentile) interests. Depending on how powerful these devices are (i.e. can they allow 1 farmer to do the work of 3? 10? 20?), they would recoup their losses fairly quickly as mercentile interests bought out farmers and most farming was performed in a more automated way. I mean, a small family farm probably couldn't afford a huge combine, but they don't have enough land to take advantage of one anyway.

But that's just the agricultural revolution. We haven't even talked about the industrial revolution. Magic could pretty easily be used to create a factory conveyor belt allowing for mass production of, well, lots of things. Expensive? Sure. More so, relatively speaking, than a modern (or even late-19th century) industrial factory? Not really.

[mikeejimbo]

Yeah, that's true. It might be expensive, but they make it back up in volume. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/../comics/oots0135.html)

Volume, my friend, volume.

[Zeta Kai]

I would make the skill bonuses much more specific, so as to obviate the interpretive conflicts that have been brought up above. Perhaps something along the lines of:

Vagrant
Survival is always a class skill for you, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 4's rolled to determine your starting gold.

Lower
Craft (armorsmithing), Craft (weaponsmithing), Craft (blacksmithing), Craft (leatherwork), Craft (weaving), Profession (lumberjack), Profession (farmer/rancher), Profession (tanner), Profession (stablehand), Profession (fisher), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (geography) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them.. Reroll all 3's rolled to determine starting gold.

Middle
Craft (painting), Craft (gemcutting), Craft (locksmithing), Craft (calligraphy), Craft (bookbinding), Profession (innkeeper), Profession (bookkeeper), Profession (apothecary), Profession (scribe), Knowledge (architecture/engineering), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (geography) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them. Reroll all 2's rolled to determine starting gold.

Upper
Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nobility/royalty), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (history) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them. Reroll all 1's rolled to determine starting gold.


the lists could be expanded or restricted as the individual DM sees fit. For my two gp though, I found that while compiling these lists that it felt like more trouble than it was worth, mechanics-wise. Nice idea, though. It would make the average PC more fleshed out & "real," instead of just a collection of killing stats.

[ArmorArmadillo]

I would make the skill bonuses much more specific, so as to obviate the interpretive conflicts that have been brought up above. Perhaps something along the lines of:

Vagrant
Survival is always a class skill for you, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on it. Reroll all 4's rolled to determine your starting gold.

Lower
Craft (armorsmithing), Craft (weaponsmithing), Craft (blacksmithing), Craft (leatherwork), Craft (weaving), Profession (lumberjack), Profession (farmer/rancher), Profession (tanner), Profession (stablehand), Profession (fisher), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (geography) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them.. Reroll all 3's rolled to determine starting gold.

Middle
Craft (painting), Craft (gemcutting), Craft (locksmithing), Craft (calligraphy), Craft (bookbinding), Profession (innkeeper), Profession (bookkeeper), Profession (apothecary), Profession (scribe), Knowledge (architecture/engineering), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (geography) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them. Reroll all 2's rolled to determine starting gold.

Upper
Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nobility/royalty), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (local), OR Knowledge (history) are always class skills, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on ONE of them. Reroll all 1's rolled to determine starting gold.


the lists could be expanded or restricted as the individual DM sees fit. For my two gp though, I found that while compiling these lists that it felt like more trouble than it was worth, mechanics-wise. Nice idea, though. It would make the average PC more fleshed out & "real," instead of just a collection of killing stats.
Hmm...It reflects the realities of a society better, my only issue is that the lists are now a lot longer. This is a small rule, so I feel like it should have a small little box of rules text.

I feel like it should be restricted to a small number of modular skills.

[cferejohn]

Have you looked at the profession rules in D20 Modern? That looks alot like where Zeta Kai's system is heading...