How To Make a Custom Background in D&D 5e
by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
So you’ve got a superb character concept down- you’re going to be a circus runaway with a heart of gold who dodged enlistment and sought adventuring to fight back against their cruel government.
Great start- from there, you’ll still need a “Background” in the mechanical sense, and none of the Player’s Handbook or other expanded options fit exactly how you want. Fear not! 5e has built-in rules to give you an easy method for getting close to exactly the background mechanics as you need!
Rules
In Chapter 4 of the Basic Rules, you can find the following rules for Customizing a Background:
“You might want to tweak some of the features of a background so it better fits your character or the campaign setting. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds. You can either use the equipment package from your background or spend coin on gear as described in the Equipment section. (If you spend coin, you can’t also take the equipment package suggested for your class.) Finally, choose two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw. If you can’t find a feature that matches your desired background, work with your DM to create one.”
Step-by-Step Custom Background Creation
We can break this down into easy-to-digest steps that we can apply to our example character above.
Choose Two Skills
Choose Two Tool or Language Proficiencies
Choose Equipment Package or Starting Wealth
Choose a Background Feature, or Create a Custom Background Feature with your GM
Choose your Personality Traits, Bonds, and Flaws
1. Choose Skills
The first step is the easiest; look at your character concept and pick two skills you think your character would have picked over their life so far.
Here is the full list of skills you can choose from organized by their most commonly associated Ability Score:
Skills Table
| Ability Score | Skills |
|---|---|
| Strength | Athletics |
| Dexterity | Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth |
| Constitution | - |
| Intelligence | Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion |
| Wisdom | Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, Survival |
| Charisma | Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion |
A lot of backgrounds could incorporate more than two skills from a flavor perspective. When picking, I’d recommend keeping a few things in mind that can enhance your character by giving them ample room to use the skills you’re background highlights.
First, Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion are generally less frequently called for than the other skills are. When they are called for, they usually offer lore or other worldbuilding information first and foremost and aren’t often going to progress the story. I’d recommend having at most one of those four as chosen skills.
Second, Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion all tend to fill a similar role in social environments. They can open up different opportunities and outcomes, but you won’t often need more than one to navigate many social situations with success.
Finally, keep in mind what other players will be doing, and what your class brings to the table. Groups succeed when they’ve got diverse solutions, and that can be aided by picking fitting skills other characters may not have access to innately.
2. Choose Two Tool or Language Proficiencies
The Customize Your Background rules offer this guideline for selecting bonus proficiencies: “…choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds”.
The Basic Rules list includes gaming sets, thieve’s tools, artisan’s tools, and land vehicles.
The Player’s Handbook backgrounds expand the list, adding disguise kits, forgery kits, herbalism kits, water vehicles, and musical instruments as extra options you can take.
The artisan tools are:
Alchemist’s supplies
Brewer’s supplies
Calligrapher’s supplies
Carpenter’s tools
Cartographer’s tools
Cook’s utensils
Glassblower’s tools
Jeweler's tools
Leatherworker’s tools
Marson’s tools
Painter’s supplies
Potter’s tools
Smith’s tools
Tinker’s tools
Weaver’s tools
Woodcarver’s tools
For more on artisan tools, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything expands their base options with example tasks and their DCs the tools can enable your character to undertake.
Which Should You Pick?
Of this full list, thieves’ tools, disguise kits, forgery kits, and herbalism kits have the most obvious and frequent uses. I’d recommend picking one of those if it fits your background’s concept.
The second tier of options you’ll have to work a little harder to meaningfully use them to contribute to your party’s success, or are more dependent on your setting. They are the vehicle proficiencies and artisan’s tools. I’d recommend taking one of these as your second bonus proficiency.
This leaves the gaming sets and musical instruments as the final options; neither is likely to come up that often for most groups, but still can be incorporated meaningfully in a character concept, and can occasionally offer inspiration for plans that involve playing with those specific items.
Languages
In place of a tool proficiency, you could opt to learn an additional language. Generally, languages aren’t going to be a major component of D&D- navigating language barriers isn’t often an element of exploration many tables want to manage.
Even at tables where it is an element, picking a useful language you’ll be able to use throughout the game is tricky outside of narrow environments; I’d talk to your GM prior to a game to figure out if bonus languages are likely to be valuable if you want to be a linguist. Otherwise, I’d stick to two tools or kit proficiencies, as they all add both flavor and function to your character sheet.
3. Choose an Equipment Package or Starting Wealth
With your skills and tool proficiencies established, it's time to decide on how you’ll get your starting equipment. Here are the starting equipment rules for easy reference:
“When you create your character, you receive equipment based on a combination of your class and background. Alternatively, you can start with a number of gold pieces based on your class and spend them on items from the lists in this section. See the Starting Wealth by Class table to determine how much gold you have to spend.”
You have two options:
Buy your starting equipment from the Player’s Handbook’s equipment section using your class’s starting wealth
Start with your class’s Equipment and a package of equipment offered by a background.
The Starting Wealth by Class table from the Player’s Handbook is below, with the added average result to give you an idea as to how much gold to expect:
Starting Wealth by Class
| Class | Funds | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Artificer | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Barbarian | 2d4 x 10 gp | 50 |
| Bard | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Cleric | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Druid | 2d4 x 10 gp | 50 |
| Fighter | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Monk | 5d4 gp | 12.5 |
| Paladin | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Ranger | 5d4 x 10 gp | 125 |
| Rogue | 4d4 x 10 gp | 100 |
| Sorcerer | 3d4 x 10 gp | 75 |
| Warlock | 4d4 x 10 gp | 100 |
| Wizard | 4d4 x 10 gp | 100 |
You don’t start with both your Starting Wealth and the combined class and background equipment; you get one or the other. To get a fully “custom” equipment selection, the obvious choice is to use the Starting Wealth to purchase items from the equipment section that fits your vision.
If you’d rather take the starting class equipment and want to pick from the background equipment options offered in the Player’s Handbook, here are all of your options presented by background:
Player’s Handbook Background Equipment
| Background | Equipment |
|---|---|
| Acolyte | A holy symbol (a gift to you when you entered the priesthood), a prayer book or prayer wheel, 5 sticks of incense, vestments, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp |
| Charlatan | A set of fine clothes, a disguise kit, tools of the con of your choice (ten stoppered bottles filled with colored liquid, a set of weighted dice, a deck of marked cards, or a signet ring of an imaginary duke), and a belt pouch containing 15 gp |
| Criminal | A crowbar, a set of dark common clothes including a hood, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp |
| Entertainer | A musical instrument (one of your choice), the favor of an admirer (love letter, lock of hair, or trinket), a costume, and a pouch containing 15gp |
| Folk Hero | A musical instrument (one of your choice), the favor of an admirer (love letter, lock of hair, or trinket), a costume, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp |
| Guild Artisan | A set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a letter of introduction from your guild, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp |
| Hermit | A scroll case stuffed full of notes from your studies or prayers, a winter blanket, a set of common clothes, an herbalism kit, and 5 gp |
| Noble | A set of fine clothes, a signet ring, a scroll of pedigree, and a purse containing 25 gp |
| Outlander | A staff, a hunting trap, a trophy from an animal you killed, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp |
| Sage | A bottle of black ink, a quill, a small knife, a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp |
| Sailor | A belaying pin (club), 50 feet of silk rope, a lucky charm such as a rabbit foot or a small stone with a hole in the center (or you may roll for a random trinket on the Trinkets table in chapter 5), a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp |
| Soldier | An insignia of rank, a trophy taken from a fallen enemy (a dagger, broken blade, or piece of a banner), a set of bone dice or deck of cards, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp |
| Urchin | A small knife, a map of the city you grew up in, a pet mouse, a token to remember your parents by, a set of common clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 gp |
These background equipment selections largely serve to tell a story about where you came from; your class equipment offers you more mechanical benefits like weapons, armor, and other needed tools for your class.
4. Choose a Background Feature or Create a Background Feature
Now its time for the hardest element of custom backgrounds: the feature. There is an easy way to do this, and a much harder way that involves getting your GM and the rest of the table involved. You either Choose a Background Feature from ones that already exist (easy), or Create a Background Feature with your GM and party (hard).
Choosing a Background Feature
This boils down to browsing through the existing background features from within other backgrounds and picking one that best matches your story.
Backgrounds with Feats
You can expand this to include newer backgrounds, but be wary of the options that offer feats such as Strixhaven Initiate or Squire of Solamnia; these are designed to work in parties that are all getting similarly “powered up” backgrounds, as these feats tend to dwarf non-feat based backgrounds like Acolyte from the PHB or Fisher from Ghost of Saltmarsh.
Groups that opt to allow these background features will want to offer everyone equivalent “background” feats; options recommended in official books include Tough and Skilled. I’d open that up slightly depending on circumstance- the feats from Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons feel close to me to options like Squire of Solamnia, where options like Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master may offer still too much mechanical power.
Creating a Background Feature
Making custom background features requires similar thinking to incorporating the background features that offer feats- you want everyone at the table to have similar opportunities. If everyone else is using a background feature from the Player’s Handbook, Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, your feature likely will need to only offer opportunities to expand your roleplay potential and give your character the feeling of place in the world.
Alternatively, if players are starting with the backgrounds offering feats, you can juice up the power the background feature offers. These may look like infrequent uses per long rest of a small damage bump to a weapon attack or cantrip, or a feature with limited uses that mimics effects around the power of a cantrip.
5. Choose Choose your Personality Traits, Bonds, and Flaws
This final step is most up to you; you can use any of the personality traits, bonds, and flaws presented in any of the tables you find fit your character, or come up with entirely custom ones yourself. They are great guidelines to inform how you play your character in roleplay moments. How you want them to act is up to you!
Example Background: Failed Student
Let's put this into practice with an example: we’ll make a character whose background is they failed out of a wizarding academy, and have found themselves fallen from a position of privilege into needing to adventure to make a living. There aren’t any backgrounds that nail this concept, making it a perfect candidate for this process!
Step 1: Skills: Deception and Insight
This character needed some level of deception to coast for a while through their studies; Deception seems like a fitting option- they used it to cheat and lie to maintain their image. Second, we can add Insight; this infers their ability to read people which helped them get out of uncomfortable situations they were commonly forced into over their grades. They’ve needed to wise up about the world quickly to survive on their own, too, and their skill of identifying people’s moods has translated well to a life of adventuring when dealing with new people constantly.
Step 2: Tool Proficiencies: Musical Instrument (Guitar) and Forgery Kit
This person is demonstrably a poor student; this could translate into other non-academic hobbies they do have passion for. Maybe part of their failings was due to obsession over a hobby like music. A musical instrument proficiency makes sense as an option to pick up, then! They also may have needed to convince benefactors back home that they weren’t failing in order to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, leaving to frequent forgeries- proficiency with a forgery kit seems like another slam dunk.
Step 3: Starting Equipment: Sage and Class
The Sage background equipment can work for this; we have the tools of academia and a concerned letter! We’ll take that and whatever class we opt for as our starting equipment!
Step 4: Background Feature: Position of Privilege or Magical Mishaps
For our background feature, I’ll offer an option for both an existing PHB option we could go with as well as a custom option.
The Noble’s Position of Privilege can fit our general concept, and further tells a story about who this character is- they do belong to a noble family of some stature, but most of their life has been defined by their academics and failures. The Position of Privilege feature still can reflect their noble family’s position, even if they’ve been forced out.
Alternatively, we can create an option akin to the basic feats offered by Squire of Solamnia and similar options. Perhaps part of our expulsion was due to too many magical mishaps- we’ve learned to cultivate that, getting a small pool of magic that can provide unpredictable outcomes!
Magical Mishaps
You have an odd knack for producing magic, but lack the tools to predictably control it. As an action, you can call forth this magic. Roll on the Magical Mishaps table. You then cast the rolled spell without expending a spell slot. Your spellcasting ability for this feat's spells is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (choose when you select this feat). You decide the spell’s targets after knowing what spell you’re about to cast. If the spell would require you to concentrate on it, it instead lasts for its duration, and you don’t need to concentrate on it.
Magical Mishaps Table
| d6 | Spell |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hideous Laughter |
| 2 | Bless |
| 3 | Magic Missile |
| 4 | Ray of Sickness |
| 5 | Grease |
| 6 | Bane |
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expanded uses when you finish a long rest.
This feature offers slightly more juice than a bonus d8 damage, but you don’t get to control which effect you get. It is a rough draft, and may need some workshopping in play, but is fairly close to other examples out there.
Step 5: Background Traits
The last step is to come up with their traits; I think this character is perpetually late to everything and has small fixations on random topics daily. They’re innately curious to a fault and have been forced to become more world-wise than the rest of their family. Their noble upbringing still shines through in their table manners and pleasantries.
Make The Perfect Background For Your Character
With these steps, you’re ready to create the perfect background for your favorite character. Go with confidence, and present your ideal character to the world!
Thanks for reading!
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
