Character creation in Dungeons & Dragons has changed a little bit in the Player’s Handbook (2024), the first in a series of core rulebook revisions to 5th edition D&D. Not much, mind you, but there are a couple tweaks to the process that make your characters a little more unique and turn your character’s backstory into a mechanical benefit.
Our D&D 2024 Backgrounds and Origin Feats guide will walk you through the biggest character creation changes from D&D 5e.
Background and Origin Feats, explained
For a while, D&D has been working to make it easier to have your character’s personal history reflected by their stats. In the 2024 rules revisions, that’s realized through Backgrounds.
Fifth edition’s Backgrounds provided your characters skills, languages, and your starting gear. In the Player’s Handbook (2024), your Background gives you an Ability Score Increase, an Origin Feat, skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, and your equipment.
That Ability Score Increase (the same as when you take the Ability Score Increase feat) lets you add +1 to three Ability Scores, or +2 to one Ability Score and +1 to another. The Abilities you get to pick from are determined by the Background and themed to that background — Farmers choose from Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom, for example. (For languages, by the way, every character starts with three known and Rogues and Rangers pick up more from their Class features.)
This boost lets you customize your character’s background a little more and have it reflect in their current reality (and their stats). Just like species (race) above, you can still use previously published 5e Backgrounds. For Backgrounds, though, you’ll have to do a little customization and figure out your own Abilities, tool proficiencies, and Origin Feat. Speaking of which…
Origin Feats are tied to Background — each Background has a set Origin Feat. These feats go a little further to cement your character’s backstory and history in their stats and mechanics. And it also just makes them a little cooler to have a little perk right from the start.
D&D 2024 Backgrounds list
There are 16 Backgrounds listed in the new PHB:
[Table: PHB 2024 Backgrounds]
D&D 2024 Origin Feats list
The Origin Feats provided by your Background are:
