book of many things background feats

[Amnestic]

I suspect it’s that while all books with feat-granting backgrounds tell the DM to allow PCs with non-feat backgrounds a free 1st-level feat, in practice those books usually limit said bonus feat for the OG backgrounds to Skilled and Tough, two of the most mediocre feats in the game, so even if the playing field is nominally leveled, in practice the background-granted feats are the superior choice.

Fun Fact: the BoMT’s Ruined background is particularly egregious in that in can grant Alert at 1st level, even the Dragonlance module, which grants bonus feats, limits that particular feat to 4th level at the earliest.

I guess it's pretty stupid to have some backgrounds give better feat options than others.

You'd think they'd just go "this background gives these skills and this feat" with a list of alternative feats elsewhere in the section, encompassing all options - since customising your background is a baseline rule.

"This background gives you two skills of your choice" isn't inherently bad. "This background gives you two skills of your choice plus one feat from this list" isn't inherently bad. But when you have both "this background gives you two skills of your choice" and "this background gives you two skills of your choice plus one feat from this list," the latter is clearly more powerful. Thus, power creep.

Well, yeah, but power creep isn't inherently bad so long as it's equal and healthy. Is a character more fun with a bonus feat at 1st than one that isn't? The prevalence of the houserule existing - and the changes the designers have made - suggests it's a change that the playerbase is generally favourable on.

Power creep is inevitable as more options get added to the game. Outside of scrapping everything post-PHB, it's all power creep, so while I do get the criticism of how this seems to have been implemented precisely, background feats existing? Not inherently bad.

[Blatant Beast]

I guess it's pretty stupid to have some backgrounds give better feat options than others. .

We do not have to guess….we know this from D&D’s own history.
What is happening now with Backgrounds is what happened with 2e’s Kits, the Kits that offered the most or best advantages were the Kits that were selected.

Eventually the fan base assumed the power floor was those favored Kits.

The first massive benefit Kits gave was broadening the availability of Weapon Specializations beyond Single Classed Fighters. Bye Bye Single Classed Fighters…you have been power crept out.

After that, ridiculously powerful Kits are developed, along side comparatively pathetic Kits. To sell more books…TSR keeps adding more power…until we get to the Skills and Power books at the end of 2e.

The Bladesinger, entered D&D as a Kit, of course. It was overpowered in 2e, and some feel the subclass is overpowered today.

Plus ca change….

[Dork_Forge]

Serious question but aside from the 'tradition' of "what we already had from 2014", what's the difference between
"This background gives you two skills of your choice"
and
"This background gives you two skills of your choice plus one feat from this list"

Either way they're tying power to your background.

You seem to be equating feats with two skills as the same, which is baffling to me.

I have two issues with this, maybe technically three:

1) Then changed the design part-way through the edition. So most(?) backgrounds just give you the skills and feature, then you have a chunk that also give feats. Given the cost and relative scarcity of feats in 5e, it makes it hard to justify not taking a background with a feat and is basically punishing those that choose a background that actually fits their character. (Yes, I know often the books those backgrounds come in include 'offer these feats at first!' but they're typically a narrow list of PHB feats that are just lower in power, or at least flashy power.

2) Backgrounds should be who you were before you were an adventurer. Having some skills to represent that fits and is a nice 'explanation' why you have some skills that may be atypical for your class. In contrast, a lot of the time the feats are often more who you are now, shoe-horning into design space it had no place to be in. Playing Dragonlance and you're a member of a knight's order? Well that should be your past, but the intended feat tree associated clearly says otherwise.

3) It will always lopsidedly benefit spellcasters because they threw their hands in the air and not only made pretty much everything spells, but added them to the spell list if you're a caster.

I can understand wanting backgrounds to not have anything save for your chosen feature (even if Outlander is typically better than all the rest of them), but I don't see the argument for "Two skills from background GOOD, two skills and feat from background BAD".

The core of the issue is that they felt the need to attach setting-specific buffs to an existing part of character creation for some moronic reason and so created asymmetrical options.

They should have just had a setting specific rule for whatever feats they wanted, same with the added spells. That way the power creep stays setting specific, like the added systems for the greek setting and the Dark Gifts, and doesn't bleed into general character creation like it has done.

Because there will always be tables that just allow all player options, either not caring or not prepared for the result, but ime rarely do they just allow DM-facing rewards from the settings to just be player chosen outside of those settings.

Ravnica's background spell lists were bad because they benefited spellcasters but not non-spellcasters, causing an inherent imbalance in it, unless everyone in the game was a caster (which, granted, probably not hard to do in 5e). The feats? Eh.

The issue wasn't just asymmetrical benefit, it also eroded what class identity and balance there was within spell lists too. Shield obviously wasn't designed to be taken easily by characters with good AC, in the PHB only the Eldritch Knight can really do that unless a Sorc/Wizard spends a lot of investment into armor feats. Class/subclass features obviously aren't designed to interact with spells they shouldn't even have access to, it's the whole point of needing to know something as a spell for that feature's class, but they undermined that with Ravnica backgrounds.

Oh and new options does not need to mean power creep, defaulting to that thinking is just giving designers a free pass to not care about their own balance.

[Psyren]

Look, if you want to ban feats in backgrounds do so, and if you want to allow them do so. Just be consistent about it - don't let some players get free Magic Initiate or Lucky while others are stuck with jank like Rustic Hospitality or extremely vague things like Discovery. (You got... something. Work with your DM to figure out what.)

For me, the modern design of not only allowing feats in backgrounds but actual rebalancing background feats so they're reasonably aligned in power at 1st-level, is the way to go.

[Dork_Forge]

Look, if you want to ban feats in backgrounds do so, and if you want to allow them do so. Just be consistent about it - don't let some players get free Magic Initiate or Lucky while others are stuck with jank like Rustic Hospitality or extremely vague things like Discovery. (You got... something. Work with your DM to figure out what.)

For me, the modern design of not only allowing feats in backgrounds but actual rebalancing background feats so they're reasonably aligned in power at 1st-level, is the way to go.

I think a feat at first is great, I just don't see why WotC has to attach it to backgrounds instead of just adding a build rule, that's all.

Though, personally, I think feats should be divided into two categories. Major and minor. Major are the power feats, minor are stuff like Linguist and the non stat part of Keen Mind, whenever you get an ASI, you also get a minor feat. This would mean people would actually get to build out their character mechanically more in the not as crunchy ways, whilst still getting to take stat bumps and power feats.

[Rukelnikov]

I think a feat at first is great, I just don't see why WotC has to attach it to backgrounds instead of just adding a build rule, that's all.

I agree.

Though, personally, I think feats should be divided into two categories. Major and minor. Major are the power feats, minor are stuff like Linguist and the non stat part of Keen Mind, whenever you get an ASI, you also get a minor feat. This would mean people would actually get to build out their character mechanically more in the not as crunchy ways, whilst still getting to take stat bumps and power feats.

Then call that something else, like in 2e, there were weapon proficiencies and non-weapon proficiencies, with the idea originally being the former help you in combat, the latter help you outside of combat, as the edition evolved they all ended up helping in combat though... But originally at least, there was a clear division of intent.

[Psyren]

I think a feat at first is great, I just don't see why WotC has to attach it to backgrounds instead of just adding a build rule, that's all.

Strictly speaking they didn't - but if doing so makes more people think about the narrative/backstory implications of their starting feat than simply giving a naked starting feat would have, I personally consider it a worthwhile approach.

[Amechra]

Oh and new options does not need to mean power creep, defaulting to that thinking is just giving designers a free pass to not care about their own balance.

The thing is that power creep is inevitable because of a fun little quirk, where the average power level of all the options in the game is lower than the average power level of the options people actually take. As a result, if you're a designer who wants people to play with the cool new stuff you made (or, more cynically, your livelihood depends on people buying whatever new book you made), you're going to start designing new stuff that targets that higher power average... which inevitably pushes that average up, because you're not perfect and you're always going to overshoot or undershoot the mark.

Now, there are tools that fight this process... but none of them are really available to the design team because of how RPGs work. They can't do balance patches (because any nerfs are strictly opt-in on the part of the player base) and they can't ban options or rotate older material out outside of narrow cases like "you're playing Adventurers' League" or "they put out a whole new edition". And remember that the designers really need to sell those books, because reduced sales threaten their continued employment...