Ruined 5e
Everything was going so well! You had a life of luxury, love, and comfort when you suddenly lost it all. Perhaps you were framed for crimes you didn’t commit and lost your reputation, fortune, and career. Maybe a rampaging dragon or another monster wiped out everything you had in a single calamitous afternoon. Or you might have sought out a Deck of Many Things, hoping to make your successful life even more glorious- only to draw a destructive card that changed your destiny forever.
Your desperation has driven you to a career of adventurer. You don’t seek out dark dungeons and their monstrous inhabitants for excitement and glory; you do it because every other path is closed to you. But you have risen high on fortune’s wheel once before, and with luck and fortitude, you could do so again.
Languages: One of your choice
Tool Proficiencies: One gaming set of your choice (such as playing cards or three dragon ante cards)
Equipment: A cracked hourglass, a set of rusty manacles, a half-empty bottle, a hunting trap, a gaming set (matching your chosen proficiency), a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 13 gp.
Feature: Still Standing
You have weathered ruinous misfortune, and you possess hidden reserves others don’t expect. You gain the Alert, Skilled, or Tough feat (your choice). Your choice of feat reflects how you’ve dealt with the terrible loss that changed your life forever. If you’ve kept your senses sharp for every opportunity and climbed your way out of misery by seizing the tiniest scrap of hope, choose Alert. If you’ve redoubled your efforts to reclaim what was once yours, choose Skilled. If you’ve stoically persevered through your misfortune, select Tough.
Ruined Characters
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
With the Book of Many Things comes two new backgrounds, each offering a free starting feat, each representing fate making or breaking your character’s current standing and outlook on life. Ruined characters have had everything taken from them, forced to a life of adventure out of need.
Skills
Their skill proficiencies of Stealth and Survival automatically set you up to excel in dangerous environments. The overlap with Rogue and Rangers’ typical skill selections makes it an appealing consideration, but I’d prefer using this as a method to gain those proficiencies in classes like Warlock, Sorcerer, or Fighter who can greatly benefit from hiding, but don’t get Stealth as a class skill.
Other Proficiencies
Any language of your choice makes this one of the easiest backgrounds to shape to your own personal story. Whatever tragedy you’d like to have befallen your character can be reflected here. Gaming sets aren’t particularly useful, especially when stacked against artisan’s tools, but you’re still getting a lot of storytelling built in with the proficiency that can tie you to items like the Deck of Many Things.
Equipment
The starting equipment offered tells a pretty clear story on its own, and is something I’d look to adjust on characters sheet to sheet. The only thing hat affect game play are the hunting trap, gaming set, and gold. Having a hunting trap is kind of nifty, and may get to shine in an early encounter, but for the most part, this is standard, story-driven stuff.
Feature
Still Standing gives you your choice of one of three feats: Alert, Skilled, or Tough. Of the three, I think Alert probably is the best in a vacuum as it helps you act earlier in encounters for a form of action advantage. It helps that this feat benefits most characters, but is heightened further by options like Gloom Stalker or Assassin who kind of want the feat, but don’t want to commit their species for Variant Human or an Ability Score Improvement replacement for it.
Tough might make this an appealing option for Barbarians and Paladins as well; I can even see some Monk builds with the goal of taking lots of damage getting Tough this way early to beef up their hit point pool as the game progresses.
All Together
Ruined is a pretty loose theme for a character packed with decent boons. Two solid skill proficiencies go a long way on a background, and the bonus feat, while not offering the strongest feats in the world, are a welcome addition to a wide range of character types. I can see many tragic figures opting for this over Criminal or Urchin for that bonus background feature boost.
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