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{{Underbar|Why Aren’t These Skills?|While there are many reasons to restrict the previous skill abilities to characters of at least a certain level, there are basically no reasons to restrict non-magical non-combat abilities in a similar way. There are in fact several reasons not to do so. These background abilities do not scale up in “fantastic” in the same way as other skills do without problems. Perform could be made to scale nicely, but steps all over the bard class in doing so. Knowledge is just a check to see if you read up on something during downtime previously and not functionally different from visiting a library in many respects. To scale it up would make it a divination-based “learn secrets” skill that is outside of our focus here. Craft might scale acceptably well if you could make magical items, but access to that system is currently controlled by feats and class features, and reworking it to not need those or make them redundant is outside of the scope of this work. Profession just doesn’t scale up at all, as there aren’t really any fantastic uses of being a barkeep or sailor (except weathering a magical storm or something like that, which doesn't come up often).
So direct conversion to scaling skills is unpalatable for one reason or another, but leaving them in the skill system as non-scaling (and thus low-level) abilities causes other problems. While you can just let people spend skill points on them in low-level games and not worry about the lack of scaling, it fails in higher-level games because the character winds up giving up high-end abilities in exchange for these very low-end ones. It is a poor trade in the long run, and not one that makes sense to write into the system in such a way unless you want to allow characters to intentionally hobble themselves.
Even if the value or conversion problems were solved, these background abilities also have the potential for tremendous bloat in skill format. Craft, Knowledge, Perform, and Profession are not just one skill each, but a collection of individual skills that are each invested in separately. Craft and Knowledge might be similar in many cases, but are likely to have a number of exceptions and alternate cases based on the specific specialty. Perform is extremely problematic, because we could write a single skill for wind instruments and stringed instruments, but it would be a great disservice to the differences between instrument types in the folklore and source material. And that’s before we get to the open-ended nature of the profession skill. There are just too many permutations of these skills to write up and not enough worth in doing so.
But a more compelling reason than the mechanical concerns is the story one. If these background abilities are tied to level in the same way as the other skills are, then they are also tied to combat ability (the alternative, where levels are not a measure of combat ability but of some other thing, is not considered here, because so much of the rest of the game assumes combat is the function of level or CR). Tying them to level means that sages with incredibly specialized knowledge never need protection or bodyguards, master crafters cannot be kidnapped and held against their will, and every exquisitely trained butler also knows kung fu because they all must possess sufficient levels to qualify for their level of skill in a background ability. It is a straightforward reduction in the amount of stories that can be told, and we don’t get any new stories in exchange. By breaking these background abilities away from character level or CR, you can have both helpless sage and powerful sage stories as you need them for your games.}}
shuffling
Each individual background ability possessed by a character has a grade associated with it that indicates how well the character can perform at it. This grade determines whether or not you need to make a check to complete a particular task, what your bonus on the check is, and how much more or less you can expect to earn should you work in the field during your downtime. The grade is generally advanced through the investment of downtime and an attribute check, though exceptions for higher-leveled characters exist.
{{Underbar|Why Aren’t These Skills?|While there are many reasons to restrict the previous skill abilities to characters of at least a certain level, there are basically no reasons to restrict non-magical non-combat abilities in a similar way. There are in fact several reasons ''not'' to do so. These background abilities do not scale up in “fantastic” in the same way as other skills do without problems. Perform could be made to scale nicely, but steps all over the bard class in doing so. Knowledge is just a check to see if you read up on something during downtime previously and not functionally different from visiting a library in many respects. To scale it up would make it a divination-based “learn secrets” skill that is outside of our focus here. Craft might scale acceptably well if you could make magical items, but access to that system is currently controlled by feats and class features, and reworking it to not need those or make them redundant is outside of the scope of this work. Profession just doesn’t scale up at all, as there aren’t any fantastic uses of being a barkeep or sailor (no, weathering a magical storm doesn't count).
So direct conversion to scaling skills is unpalatable for one reason or another, but leaving them in the skill system as non-scaling (and thus low-level) abilities causes other problems. While you can just let people spend skill points on them in low-level games and not worry about the lack of scaling, it fails in higher-level games because the character winds up giving up high-end abilities in exchange for these very low-end ones. It is a poor trade in the long run, and not one that makes sense to write into the system in such a way unless you want to allow characters to intentionally hobble themselves.
Even if the value or conversion problems were solved, these background abilities also have the potential for tremendous bloat in skill format. Craft, Knowledge, Perform, and Profession are not just one skill each, but a collection of individual skills that are each invested in separately. Craft and Knowledge might be similar in many cases, but are likely to have a number of exceptions and alternate cases based on the specific specialty. Perform is extremely problematic, because we could write a single skill for wind instruments and stringed instruments, but it would be a great disservice to the differences between instrument types in the folklore and source material. And that’s before we get to the open-ended nature of the profession skill. There are just too many permutations of these skills to write up and not enough worth in doing so.
But a more compelling reason than the mechanical concerns is the story one. If these background abilities are tied to level in the same way as the other skills are, then they are also tied to combat ability (the alternative, where levels are not a measure of combat ability but of some other thing, is not considered here, because so much of the rest of the game assumes combat is the function of level or CR). Tying them to level means that sages with incredibly specialized knowledge never need protection or bodyguards, master crafters cannot be kidnapped and held against their will, and every exquisitely trained butler also knows kung fu because they all must possess sufficient levels to qualify for their level of skill in a background ability. It is a straightforward reduction in the amount of stories that can be told, and we don’t get any new stories in exchange. By breaking these background abilities away from character level or CR, you can have both helpless sage and powerful sage stories as you need them for your games.}}
==Grades==
==Types==
There are five types of background abilities: crafts, languages, occupations, proficiencies, and studies.
===Craft===
