D&D’s 2024 PHB Made One Of The Best House Rules For Character Creation Official

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A common house rule in many games is to allow players to take a «starting feat» at first level. Feats tend to open up some additional actions and options for characters, and taking one at first levellets players individualize their character a bit more right from the jump. It also allows DMs to have slightly more difficult encounters while still giving their early-level players a chance for survival. However, this was a house rule, not something officially supported by Wizards of the Coast.

That is, until the release of the, which brought a handful of changes to how players build their characters. The largest alterations pertain to character origins, which include player background and species, and with the new rules, players do choose a feat right at level one. Now, the feat is tailored to their background and chosen from among a set of options reworked to function at earlier levels. This change brings some official support to a rule many tables enjoy using already.

The includes sixteen new background options, mostly revised versions of previously existing backgrounds like the criminal and soldier. Going along with them are ten reworked «origin» feats, newer versions of classics like skilled and magic initiate, as well as two entirely new feats: musician and crafter. Depending on which background option players choose, they get one of these feats during character creation.

Subclasses are now all reserved for level three, making a one or two level dip into certain classes much less valuable.

Importantly, none of the options are «half feats,» which grant an additional ability score point. This eliminates the option of using a starting feat to get ahead in that way. In fact, all of these feats have been reworked to attempt to make them more balanced with one another. That being said, certain options like lucky definitely stand out as better than others, like the new version of the alert feat. Still, this official version of the starter feat rule certainly imposes some