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So every background grants a skill feat, regardless of whether or not you're trained in said skill. So you end up with feats that might be illegal or otherwise break the general rule very blatantly as technically you get the feat before you get trained in any skills (unless you got it from ancestry).
Do I actually get trained in that skill as well? I feel like backgrounds giving out a free trained skill/signature skill not only solves the problem with signature skills not being customizable enough, but it also clarifies a missing mechanic as far as I can tell.
If someone knows better than me please speak up, I want to know how this works.
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Seelah from the ENWorld thread seems to have gotten Thievery trained for some unexplainable reason. She is entitled to 4 skills + Lore (underworld) yet she has 6 skills trained. Perhaps her skill feat is granting her trained in that too? Or maybe I'm wrong.
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I definitely feel backgrounds should hand out an extra skill or even two besides just the Lore. If the feat associated to the background is a skill feat, (one of) the skill(s) granted would be the prerequisite for that feat.
It would go a long way to helping distinguish the backgrounds more, and open more design space down the road. Especially since a skill is something good enough to trade out for a different ability in more interesting splatbook backgrounds, whereas Lore is basically worthless.
I would also like to see backgrounds come with a bit of equipment and a less combat/check focused, more RP focused ability in addition to their other benefits, like 5E does. For example, Hospitality is something that virtually never affects a skill check but can create good opportunities and moments in play. And of course, this yet again further expands the design space for future backgrounds, so they don't just run out of ability score combinations.
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Not to necro, but I really think we need an answer on this.
I also can't seem to figure out if one can get a skill to expert at lol 1, because Herolab seems to let us. If you have a skill trained from background/ ancestry, can you use your skill increase at first level to go to expert?
Some of the feats you get even require level 2 and expert proficiency. Seems weird.
Can we get upgrades to Feint?
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I found it very weird how my level 1 Cleric wasn't proficient in Athletics, despite having Assurance in it, purely because of the Farmhand background. I guess specific trumps general, but it's still weird. At least being able to mark it as trained makes sense.
I also like Fuzzypaws's idea of keying a skill to the background apart from Lore. Lore doesn't seem to be as useful as other skills. There are exceptions of course, but how often is Circus Lore going to come up? And yeah, I'd like to see backgrounds expanded a bit more. Giving a clear advantage for choosing one background over another (doesn't have to be monetary, but at least RP-wise) would be nice. Such as Farmhand giving a minor boost to Constitution checks, or Street Urchin granting some criminal contacts or such. This way, you combine Traits into backgrounds, shaping your character much more and giving them more relevancy.
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I was just looking over many of the campaign guides for the Adventure Paths I've run, and thinking how they might look if the Campaign Traits were made into Backgrounds.
The short answer is they really lose a lot in terms of diversity, and that saddens me. When I first heard it, I loved the idea that adventures would hand out new Backgrounds where they used to hand out campaign traits, but in practice it's just not as interesting as I would like. The Backgrounds in Doomsday Dawn, especially, are pretty 'meh' at best, in my opinion.
So I heartily agree that shackling the Backgrounds to Skill Feats and the Lore skill is a poor choice. Keep the ability boost portion, but open up the rest of it to give training in potentially any skill, not just Lore. If it's important to them to keep everyone trained in at least one Lore, then perhaps give 2 skills. One useful and one Lore, because let's face it, Lore as a skill is pretty uninteresting and basically pointless in its current form.
I think sometimes skill feats are a great choice for handing out as part of a background, though it's extremely weird that sometimes the backgrounds give out skill feats at first level that require being an expert in a skill, despite the fact that you can't become expert in a skill earlier than level three (unless you're a rogue) and therefore couldn't pick that skill feat up until level 4 (unless you're a rogue). But, and this comes from looking at campaign traits, there's so much more that could be done with Backgrounds besides just skill feats. Training in a saving throw? Training in specific weapons or armor? Additional bonus languages? Uncommon spells known? Your Background should be a huge step in really setting you apart from others of your chosen ancestry or class, but I don't feel like the current iteration of the concept does that well enough.
Not to necro, but I really think we need an answer on this.
I also can't seem to figure out if one can get a skill to expert at lol 1, because Herolab seems to let us. If you have a skill trained from background/ ancestry, can you use your skill increase at first level to go to expert?
Some of the feats you get even require level 2 and expert proficiency. Seems weird.
Can we get upgrades to Feint?
I think that the only way to get expert is with the rogue bonus skill, but I could be wrong.
I 100% back any efforts made to add options to Feint. We got feats for Create a Distraction, one for Feinting (and some for Disarming/Tripping) would be nice to see.