Character Backgrounds - A work in progress

It's still early days and no doubt the PHB will provide extra information on backgrounds beyond the Basic pdf but here are a few ideas.

Squire.
Squires are aspiring knights, robust youths who train in skill at arms but also busy themselves with tending and caring for their master's gear, keeping it sharp, clean, and ready to use. Squires also learn the courtly arts and etiquette. After proving their loyalty and skill in battle, squires usually become knights. In lands where knighthood is only granted by a king or other monarch, some squires remain so for their entire lives.

Proficiency
Animal Handling
Land (Mounted)
One extra language

Squires may have specialized such as:
1:Herald. 2:Standardbearer. 3: Scout. 4: Messenger. 5:Guard. 6: Cavalry
A squire can find favor at a nobles manor, gaining food and lodgings for himself and his companions.

Barmaid/ Barkeep
Barmaids/Barkeep are servers, entertainers, and even harried cooks in inns and taverns throughout the cities and towns of the world.

Proficiency
Persuasion
Performance
One extra language.

Can find free food and lodging at inns and taverns in exchange for some part time work. Also has a chance to overhear stories, rumours, and secrets that others would rather keep hidden.

Sailor

Shipmates are ordinary sailors, the rank-and-file deckhands who keep any vessel, great or small, afloat and moving. They are alert for danger and quick on their feet, weathered by wind and wave and sun, but always with an eye for what waits beyond the horizon.

Shipmates can be employed as low-level marines, rivermen, bargefolk, or even just be swamp rats living in stilt-houses.

A First Mate is the loyal assistant to a ship's captain. He oversees duties and discipline aboard ship, feared but always respected; he is able to entertain with a sea shanty one moment and ply his trusty lash or flashing cutlasses the next. A first mate could also be the warden of an exotic island prison.

A Captain is mistress of a ship at sea. She may be the legal authority and representative of her nation, company, faith, or faction, or she may be an independent captain owing allegiance to none and claiming no home but the sea itself. Captains may be used as pirates, admirals, or master merchants.

Proficiency choose 2 from:

Sailing (Ships)

Persuasion

Survival (Sea)

Intimidate

Also take Navigation Tools

Cannibal

Cannibals are ferocious, savage humanoids, feral people with a taste for sentient flesh. In battle, they charge with savage war cries, often tossing their weapons aside to hurl themselves onto their foes with hunger and abandon, eager to taste the blood and flesh in the ecstatic heat of battle.

Proficiency

Survival

Intimidate

A Cannibal in his tribe could be

1:Tracker. 2:Shaman. 3:Animal Handler. 4. Warrior. 5. Chieftain 6. Trapper

Cannibal tribes are often feared and respected in the wilder lands and a Cannibal may be granted save passage through humanoid lands for fear of retribution, or may bey hunted or shunned in more civilized societies.

Dealer

Dealers are purveyors of drugs, toxins, poisons, and all manner of proscribed and questionable alchemical substances. Operating from hidden laboratories and kitchens, they import and concoct their wares to rule the streets through the power of their sweet seduction.

Dealers sometime provide their skills as poisoners and assassins, traveling charlatans or snake-oil salesmen, or even semi-honest alchemists, apothecaries, and street physicians.

Proficiency

Deception

Medicine

Herbalism Kit

Corrupt Dealers often have ties with the criminal underworld and can gain favours (for a price) from thieves guilds.
Honest Dealers often rub shoulders with respected alchemists or hedge wizards, and can often acquire more powerful cures or potions and more easily than most, and may even have access to a magical item appraiser or sage.

Prostitute

Prostitutes are workers for hire in the field of love. From cheap trollops to brazen strumpets, saucy tarts to haughty courtesans, they work the streets and backroom brothels of cities and towns, tending to the wants, needs, and dark desires of their clients, often in elaborate costume and makeup for erotic roleplay. Most prostitutes have at least a little larceny in their hearts, however, and those who procure their services would be well advised to keep a close eye on their purses.

Proficiency
Performance
Deception
Disguise Kit

Prostitutes could be used as members of a harem or an actors' troupe. A prostitute might also be a noble's or wealthy businessman's mistress, or even a barmaid looking to make a little money on the side. Prostitutes also make good low-level spies or undercover agents.


Trapper
Trappers are roving hunters who wander the woods. They take any animal they can safely hunt or trap, but they are best known as the heart of the fur trade, making a variety of handcrafted but deadly effective traps to catch the unwary beasts of the forest. Trappers can work as as royal game wardens, as scouts, or as hunters for a nomadic tribe.

Proficiency
Survival
Tracking

Tools Traps & Snares

Seer
A seer could be a simple fortune teller, earning a trade to entertain the locals or as part of a wandering caravan.

Doomsayers are ranting demagogues who continuously predict doom, cataclysm, and ruin, crying in the town square and distributing pamphlets in literate communities. A doomsayer may build up a cult of personality, but they are happiest when they can ensure that others are miserable.

Doomsayers may be primitive witch doctors or shamans, dark cultists, witches, or rough frontier “priests” in remote villages or other areas without organized clergy.

A medium is a speaker who bridges the worlds of the living and the dead. She proclaims rest and blesses gravesites, ushering in birth and consigning the dead to the ground, yet it is also her seance that recalls the shades of the lost and ensures the continuity of a community's past, present, and future.

A medium could be a village priestess or wise woman, or can simply be used as a generic wandering cleric, or one of many low-to-mid-level priests staffing a temple.

Proficiency 2 of the following

Performance

Insight

Religion

Deception

Plus one language.

Travelling Merchant

Traveling merchants wander the world, peddling their wares, seeking out new markets for their goods, and journeying into distant lands in search of new trade routes to open and exotic commodities to take back home to turn a tidy profit. Many traveling merchants join large trade consortiums or are masters of their own caravans, but they sometimes venture alone (or more usually, with guards) into the wilds carrying small items of high value.

Traveling merchants make excellent diplomats, spies, and information brokers, or even knowledgeable and socially skilled nobles or gentlemen.

A travelling merchant can get items for 10% less than they would normally cost. And sometime may be able to gain access to wares not commonly for sale.

Proficiency
Persuasion
Insight

Notes on THE BASIC RULES

We've been playing using the Alpha for some months now and a couple of weeks ago the free Basic Rules PDF was released. So there were a few adjustments to be made, some on old rules, some on new rules, and some on the understanding of old rules. This is just a quick bullet point list of thoughts for discussion, and items that may need clarification. Its not in any particular order.
Please feel free to add.

1. The basic rules don't mention how to gain Experience points (XP) so unless you know something about how the older editions worked you're a bit stumped on how to achieve extra levels.
2. Inspiration is very cool but there is little to say how it is awarded. If it is based on your background, most notable the 5 parts of your personality then surely the DM needs to know this or you are going to have to remind him/her every time - 'Please sir can I have Inspiration because ....'
3. At 5th level Fighters gain an Extra Attack whenever they choose the Attack Action. But if you are a dual wielder you don't get 4 attacks,as the off hand is a Bonus Action - and you only get one of them per Turn.
4. Domain Spells for the Cleric are memorized all the time, but still use up casting slots.
5. The rules mention all alignments but the Backgrounds only have a few Evil personality traits.
6. The Criminal background seems to ignore Assassin type rogues.
7. If your race gives you a Proficiency and your Class or Backgrounds give you the same, you can choose an alternative.
8. Charge is a Feat (Mike Merls published a list). 
9. Without the Charge Feat would it be sensible to allow Charge as an action say an Athletics check to give Advantage to an Attack.
10. How can you use Athletics, Acrobatics, Sneak, Slight of Hand etc to change combat?
11. Each caster prepares a number of spells at the beginning of the day. The number of spells prepared is equal to their Level plus their Spellcasting Ability Modifier. A caster also has a number of spell slots, determined by their class and level. 
12. When a character casts a spell, they expend one slot to power one spell of its level or lower. The list of prepared spells does not change – if you had prepared magic missile, it is still prepared. However, the number of slots you have to cast spells in has been reduced for today.
13. If the slot you used was of a higher level than the spell you cast, your spell may have additional effects. For instance, magic missile creates 3 missiles. However, if you were to use a 3rd level slot, it would produce 5 missiles.
14. If you use a spell with a ranged attack roll when next to an opponent, you have Disadvantage on that attack roll, the same as if you were using a bow.
15. Saving throws, in theory, could draw on any of the six attributes, but most likely link to Constitution, Wisdom or Dexterity.
16. At first level, a character will likely have saving throw modifiers of -1 to +6, whilst at twentieth level, the modifiers will be -1 to +11.
17. In general a spell a player is going to be casting will have a DC from between 13 and 19.
18. Spell concentration can be broken by you taking damage, although you get a Constitution saving throw based on half the damage to avoid losing Concentration. It is also broken by you being incapacitated or if you die.
19. You can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Spending more time than 1 action casting spells requires concentration. When you ready a spell, it takes longer than an action, so concentration applies.
20. Clerics get to prepare any spells on the cleric spell list.
21. Wizards can only prepare spells that are in their spellbook, At first level, they select 6 first level wizard spells to put in their spellbook, and they gain two extra spells (of any level they can cast) for each level they gain. It is also possible for them to find spells in the game and copy them into their spellbook.
22. Wizards may cast any spell they have in their spellbook as a ritual; they do not need them prepared. Clerics may only cast spells they have prepared as rituals.
23. Tools are not tied to a particular ability modifier, whereas Skills normally are.
24. DM will need to be careful when setting DCs. A DC of 10-15 would be adequate for most uses, with 20 and above being reserved for exceptional use. The Basic D&D pdf does not give sample DCs for tasks and just relies on a generic table.
25. A passive check assumes the character or monster rolled a 10. This is most commonly used with Wisdom (Perception). No roll required but the DM needs a list of the characters Passive check score.
26. Marching order. Although characters in back ranks can cast spells or fire missile weapons, they will normally be penalised for the opponents having cover (from the other members of the character’s party.
27. You can happily move through allied characters without penalty.
28. Reach weapons can be used from the second rank, but again may have a penalty.

Herding Cats - .....

..Or the importance of good team tactics, not splitting the party and what fun can be had when it all goes pear shaped.

Its been a while since we last played and so when we began there was lots of fun had just quickly catching up on what people had been doing. I think the last time the group met up we had gone out to the cinema together so while it didn't feel to long a time since we had all met memories had somewhat faded on where we we in the game.
We had our regular guest player back and a new guest member of the party who was to join us for this game only - (but we are all hoping he can join in again in the future). So a quick how to get him into the party was a rather comical 'I jump out from behind a rock and wave'. Our first human party member yay!

And so we were off into the old mine where the orcs had enslaved the villagers. This was a bit of a side quest from the main adventure and I for one was looking forward to rescuing helpless villagers and their families as my characters Priest background is focused around the projection children and the innocent. Unfortunately my character is sometimes as mad as a bag of cats, which presents itself sometimes in angry outbursts, verbal ramblings, and talking about olives - and so the chaos commenced

Our first plan was to try and catch an orc alive after the party came across a group asleep. All fared pretty well first few rounds until my tiefling was hit by the last living orc and so I asked other players how she should react. Quite loudly came the reply 'badly' and so my tiefling sorcerer used a reaction to immolate the orc and so killed it.
So much for catching one alive for questioning. All good roleplay fun and this then lead to another character reacting to the fiascio and storming off. This sort of started a recurring theme of the players getting their characters to go off and do their own thing without any real party continuity.

The second battle was against a beholder - for some reason only my character had any past knowledge of it ( nice DM gave me a Nature roll) so my sorcerer tried to get the rest of the party to lure it so I could get behind to cast spells. Instead they all went the other way leaving me stranded with two kids. Did I mention we rescued two children? Well yes we did.

Now the human had ran away from the conflict thereby leaving the children to a fate worse than death, or so it was in the eyes of my character. The reason for this became known later on in the game as he only had a constitution of 4 and so only 4 hit points at 3rd level. Of course his character hadn't communicated with the party that he was easily hurt or fainted under the slightest cut. So after the beholder is killed the kindly teifling sorcerer escorts the children out of the mine on her own. Then she sees the human sitting on a rock and goes bat-shit crazy and chases him around the hillside - while magically transformed in to a demi-human half dragon - all so she can angrily tell him off. This was handled very well through a bit of proficiency dice rolling and roleplay and didn't, as can sometimes be the case, end up with players trying to kill other players.

So argument over, and grumpy dwarf joins human (tells him off also)and tielfling and they rest. But where we the rest of the party? After the beholder battle the dwarf went on his own and eventually got to the surface to rest, and the rest ignored the tiefling and the dwarf and decided to explore further into the mines and then rest.
The result of this was they were nearly ambushed by more orcs and a beholder, and the elf ranger accidentally shot a human slave (we think) in the dark. Thus forced a hasty retreat and so the other party members didn't get to rest.
The party had taken a lot of damage from the first beholder and used up half of their spells and special abilities and now were faced by another battle.

It didn't go as well as hoped though we did defeat the enemy,but with two characters very low on hit points and two more dead, the party are in dire straights and the game ended with us being immediately attacked by a mind flayer.
TPK may be just round the corner.

And why were we in such mess? Well the truth is because we didn't plan and coordinate our attacks or actions as well as we had previously done. So rather than whole being greater than the sum of its parts,  we were divided and almost conquered.
This shows not only in roleplay terms but also in team tactics how a coordinated response can be vital to party survival. It also shows with DnDNext how well different classes complement each other so that as a team they can cover many conflicts and scenarios with confidence.

As the characters get to higher levels and get more useful they also get more complicated to play. It was clear, and by their own accord, that some of the players struggled a bit to keep on top on how best to use their characters abilities, no doubt compounded by the length of time since our previous game session. We have now reached 4th level which gives us the option of choosing a Feat so another layer to add to our characters skills.
My sorcerer wants to become a Paladin (or a pirate) and so has begun trying (very unsuccessfully and very comically) wielding a glaive as a weapon. So maybe her chosen feat will be Polearm Master rather than something for sorcerer focused.

I cannot say that everyone had as much fun that day as previously, sometimes a character death can seem unfair especially if the odds (compared to previous game sessions) feel suddenly stacked against you. However it is all part and parcel of the game, and a good learning curve. And of course the added bonus is you get a chance to try a whole new character, or even just play your previous characters twin if you so wish.

I enjoyed it and in truth was ready to have my character killed - whether its from past experience, being able to read the story well or plain luck I somehow knew this mine would hold a much greater challenge than before. And as the DM said , now that were were higher level we needed to face harder monsters, where running away was a suitable option. As a result I had roughed out a new character just in case it was required.

We may see some Multi-classing coming in, there has also been talk of one player maybe switching to a new character entirely which will be interesting to see how that is played through, and especially how this will affect inter party relationships if well established and useful characters are replaced with someone new.

As a last note, it was felt by players and DM alike that we hadn't progressed as far in the adventure as in previous games. Maybe this was down to the fact we were all having lots of fun and so plenty of laughing and joking. Maybe the uncoordinated efforts of our characters made the conflicts and exploration eat up more time.

There were some great little snippets of roleplay, some tiny but evidence of how the players are evolving their characters, the reaction of teifling and dwarf to the human fleeing combat, and the subsequent interaction between dwarf and teifling. The Druid has become the party agent of stealth and is mad about loot - clearly wants to be a thief. The warforged leaping in to save others.

Can't wait to find out what happens next time we play, Total Party Kill probably.