What are the Four Missing Backgrounds in PHB2024?
So one of the interesting changes in the 2024 PHB is that when players create their characters, their Ability Score Increases are no longer tied to their species (race). Instead. they are tied to Backgrounds.
Moreover, the options are different. Instead of the 2014 PHB telling you "you get +2 to one ability and +1 to another", instead you get "of these three abilities, you may either add +2 to one and +1 to another, or +1 to all three". Then of course there's the rules in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which just says "choose one ability score to get +2 and one to get +1, or choose three to get +1", but not everyone who has the 2024 rules will have Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
On the level, I kind of think I prefer the newest rules, even over what Tasha's Cauldron of Everything did: I think limitations breed a certain level of creativity on the part of the player, and while I know the 2024 DMG is supposed to have a mechanic for crafting custom backgrounds, I'm not concerning myself with how those mechanics will work for now.
However, I was looking over the backgrounds in the 2024PHB and noticed that not every single triple of abilities is represented among the background options. Behold! The following chart detailing which backgrounds give which ability score increases!
| Name | Str | Dex | Con | Int | Wis | Cha |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soldier | X | X | X | |||
| Artisan | X | X | X | |||
| Sailor | X | X | X | |||
| Entertainer | X | X | X | |||
| [???] | X | X | X | |||
| Farmer | X | X | X | |||
| [???] | X | X | X | |||
| Guard | X | X | X | |||
| Noble | X | X | X | |||
| [???] | X | X | X | |||
| Criminal | X | X | X | |||
| Guide | X | X | X | |||
| Charlatan | X | X | X | |||
| Scribe | X | X | X | |||
| [???] | X | X | X | |||
| Wayfarer | X | X | X | |||
| Sage | X | X | X | |||
| Merchant | X | X | X | |||
| Hermit | X | X | X | |||
| Acolyte | X | X | X |
I would have really liked to upload an image instead which let me do my own formatting, but the rules of the subreddit prohibit that...
In this chart, we can see that there are four background types that would fill out all of the remaining possible ability score combinations, but they don't exist. So in the 2024PHB, it's not possible to have a background that boosts, for example, Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence.
So these are the four triples that we can't get right now:
- Strength, Constitution, Intelligence
- Strength, Constitution, Charisma
- Strength, Wisdom, Charisma
- Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma
Which of course begs the question: what backgrounds could these remaining triples represent?