D&D 5e 2014 Backgrounds Guide: All 13 PHB Backgrounds Ranked

Introduction

Background in the 2014 rules doesn't touch your combat stats. No feat, no ability score bump, nothing that shows up in your damage output. What it gives you instead: two skill proficiencies, usually a tool or language, a starting equipment package, and one narrative feature that changes how your character interacts with the world outside combat.

That makes background easy to treat as an afterthought, and that's a mistake. The right background removes friction at the table constantly: free healing when your cleric runs dry, a contact who gets a message across the continent, a guild that keeps you out of a cell when the city watch gets suspicious. The wrong one just sits there.

Here's every one of the 13 Player's Handbook backgrounds, ranked by how much real table utility their feature provides, plus which background fits which class best.

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How Backgrounds Work in the 2014 Rules

Every background gives you four things:

1. Two skill proficiencies — fixed per background, described in the PHB's skills chapter
2. Tool or language proficiencies — most backgrounds grant one or more; a few grant neither
3. A starting equipment package — themed gear plus a small amount of gold, forfeited entirely if you use the optional buy-your-own-gear rule
4. One named feature — a narrative permission, not a combat mechanic (Chapter 4's own framing: features are role-playing tools, not the source of your character's power)

If a background would grant you a proficiency you already have from another source, you pick a different proficiency of the same kind instead. The PHB also allows full customization: swap in any other background's feature, choose any two skills, and pick two tool proficiencies or languages from any background list, useful when your character concept doesn't match a published option.

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All 13 PHB Backgrounds Ranked

Hot Take: The backgrounds people skip past fastest, Guild Artisan and Noble, are quietly the strongest picks in the book. Guild Membership and Position of Privilege both function as an always-available social safety net, and neither requires the DM to build anything special into the campaign for it to matter.

Rating key: ● Blue: broadly useful in almost any campaign. ● Green: reliably good, especially strong in a matching campaign type. ● Orange: situational, narrower payoff, or mostly roleplay flavor.

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The Top 3 Backgrounds

1. Noble: Position of Privilege

Position of Privilege is the single strongest background feature in the book because it works everywhere, not just in scenarios the DM specifically wrote for it. You're welcomed in high society by right, common folk assume you belong wherever you are, and merchants will extend you credit. That last part matters more than it looks: it turns "we don't have enough gold for this" into a plot hook instead of a hard stop.

History and Persuasion are both skills that see regular use outside combat, and the gaming set proficiency is a solid social icebreaker.

Best for: Paladin, Bard, Cleric, any character built around a noble house or knightly order

2. Guild Artisan: Guild Membership

Guild Membership is a standing insurance policy. Free lodging and food from fellow guild members, funeral costs covered, and (the part that actually saves characters) political backing if you're accused of a crime and a reasonable case can be made for your innocence. Guildhalls also work as a built-in source of patrons, allies, and hirelings in any city with an established guild presence.

Insight and Persuasion round out a solid social skill pair, and the artisan's tools proficiency doubles as a crafting option most other backgrounds skip.

Best for: Warlock, Wizard, Artificer-adjacent builds, any character tied to a trade or secret society

3. Criminal: Criminal Contact

A reliable, trustworthy liaison into a network of other criminals sounds narrow until you actually need to get a message across the continent fast, or find out who's fencing a specific item in a city you've never visited. Criminal Contact is low-friction utility that applies in almost any campaign with more than one settlement, intrigue or not.

Deception and Stealth are both high-value skills for a Rogue, but the feature itself is strong enough to justify Criminal on a class that doesn't already have those skills covered.

Best for: Rogue, Bard, any character who needs an information network

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The Rest of the Field

Acolyte, Folk Hero, Soldier, Sailor, Sage, and Urchin are all solid picks, just narrower than the top three. Acolyte's free temple healing is excellent in a campaign with recurring temple presence and largely irrelevant in one without it. Folk Hero's safe houses among commoners work almost everywhere but never rise above "convenient." Soldier's Military Rank shines in a military-adjacent campaign and does little outside one. Sailor's free ship passage is outstanding for a seafaring campaign and a non-factor for a party that never boards a ship. Sage's Researcher feature is a soft, DM-adjudicated version of a favor with a library, and Urchin's fast city travel is a useful niche tool for a party that spends real time in cities.

Charlatan, Entertainer, Hermit, and Outlander land lower not because they're badly designed, but because their features are either conditional (Entertainer requires performing nightly to keep its benefit active), narrowly scoped (Charlatan's forged documents), or a one-time DM-adjudicated hook rather than a repeatable resource (Hermit's Discovery). Outlander's Wanderer overlaps heavily with skills a Ranger or Druid usually has anyway, which dilutes its value on exactly the classes it fits thematically.

None of these are bad choices. 2014 backgrounds are deliberately balanced around narrative permission rather than mechanical power, so the gap between "best" and "worst" here is much smaller than a class or subclass tier list. Pick the one that fits your character concept first, and use this ranking as a tiebreaker.

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Best Background by Class

Sailor doesn't appear above because it doesn't map cleanly to one class over the others. It's an excellent pick for any character on a seafaring campaign, regardless of class.

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Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide Backgrounds

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide adds twelve backgrounds built around North-and-Sword-Coast archetypes: watch officers, faction agents, and traveling nobles rather than the generic PHB roles. Like the PHB set, none grant a feat or ability score bonus - the value is entirely in the skill list, tool proficiencies, and the feature.

A few worth calling out: Faction Agent is the mechanically flexible pick, since your second skill (and your allies and contacts via Safe Haven) shift to match whichever of the Harpers, the Order of the Gauntlet, the Emerald Enclave, the Lords' Alliance, or the Zhentarim you choose. Far Traveler is the strongest pure roleplay hook for a character built around a distant, unfamiliar homeland - it pairs naturally with an exotic race choice. Urban Bounty Hunter gives a Rogue-adjacent build an actual two-skill choice from a strong list (Deception, Insight, Persuasion, Stealth) instead of a fixed pair, making it worth a look even outside a bounty-hunting concept.

These backgrounds also connect to the wider Sword Coast setting: Knight of the Order and Faction Agent both name real Realms organizations you can build a longer campaign thread around, and Uthgardt Tribe Member ties directly into the region's barbarian tribes. For the setting context behind these organizations, and the new subclasses and races that pair with a Realms-set character, see the Forgotten Realms setting guide.

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Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica Backgrounds

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica adds ten more backgrounds, one per guild of Ravnica's guild-run city. Each locks you into a specific guild identity: the skills, tools, equipment, and feature all reinforce your place in the Azorius Senate, the Boros Legion, or one of the other eight guilds. Like every other 2014 background, none grant a feat or ability score bonus - the value is entirely in the proficiencies and the narrative feature.

A few worth calling out: Dimir Operative is the only background in either sourcebook that reshapes your equipment and contacts around a second choice you make at character creation - you pick or roll a secondary guild to infiltrate, and that guild's own starting equipment gets folded into yours on top of the standard Dimir gear. Golgari Agent is a quiet but useful pick for any campaign that treats city navigation as more than flavor text: Undercity Paths doubles your out-of-combat travel speed through the city, letting your party skip past the guards, crowds, and checkpoints other guilds have to deal with. Rakdos Cultist pairs the richest equipment list of the ten (a spiked chain, ten torches, a hooded iron lantern, an actual musical instrument) with Fearsome Reputation, a feature that shrugs off minor property crime as long as no one in authority sees it happen - a strong match for a Bard or Rogue leaning into chaos over stealth.

For the guilds these backgrounds are drawn from, the new Ravnica races, and how to build a character who actually fits Ravnica's guild-run setting, see the Ravnica guide's character options section.

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Eberron: Rising from the Last War Backgrounds

Eberron: Rising from the Last War adds one new background, House Agent, built for a character sworn to one of the twelve dragonmarked houses. Its tool proficiencies flex by house rather than being fixed, which makes it the only 2014 background whose equipment list changes based on a separate choice you make at creation.

House Agent is a background-first choice: pick your house before you pick your class, since the tool proficiencies differ by house and some pair better with certain builds than others (House Kundarak's thieves' tools and tinker's tools suit an Artificer or Rogue; House Lyrandar's navigator's tools and vehicles suit a party that travels by airship or elemental galleon). House Connections is a narrative-forward feature rather than a mechanical one: it guarantees lodging, supplies for house-assigned missions, and a network of contacts, all of which scale with your standing in the house rather than granting a fixed combat benefit.

For which dragonmarked house fits a given character concept, the full mark-to-house comparison, and Artificer-adjacent build synergy, see the Eberron guide's dragonmarks and character options sections.

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Explorer's Guide to Wildemount Backgrounds

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount adds two brand-new backgrounds, the Grinner and the Volstrucker Agent, plus five reskins that tie existing backgrounds to specific Wildemount factions. Both new options come with a built-in secrecy hook: the book suggests keeping your true background hidden from the rest of the table if you pick either one, since both belong to organizations that operate in the shadows.

The Grinner belongs to the Golden Grin, a network of bards and spies that started as an anti-tyranny resistance in Tal'Dorei and has since spread agents into the Menagerie Coast and the Dwendalian Empire. Ballad of the Grinning Fool lets you play a specific coded song in any city of 10,000 or more people on the Menagerie Coast or in Dwendalian territory to find a fellow Grinner willing to shelter you and your vouched-for companions - useful, but risky, since not everyone who knows the ballad is actually a friend.

The Volstrucker Agent serves the Cerberus Assembly as a trained assassin and enforcer, recruited specifically from people broken by tragedy and reshaped into loyal killers. Shadow Network gives you a way to send a letter to any other Volstrucker agent across long distances using special arcane ink that burns away and reassembles in the recipient's hands - a slow but reliable long-range communication tool tied entirely to the order.

Five more PHB and SCAG backgrounds get a Wildemount-specific reskin, keeping the same skills, tools, and equipment as the original while swapping in a faction-flavored feature description:

Spy (Augen Trust) is the one to double-check: it reskins the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide Spy background covered earlier on this page, not a PHB background, so it inherits that background's skills and tools rather than any PHB entry's.

Hot Take: Grinner and Volstrucker Agent are the two picks that change how you play, not just how you look on paper. Both build a secret-identity mechanic straight into the feature, something no PHB or SCAG background does, and both push you toward a double life inside Wildemount's ongoing war instead of flavor text bolted onto a standard adventurer.

Every reskin above ties directly into one of Wildemount's factions, and each new background's feature only makes sense against the setting's Dwendalian Empire-Kryn Dynasty conflict. The Wildemount guide's character options section covers how a Wildemount-set character comes together in full.

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Mythic Odysseys of Theros Backgrounds

Mythic Odysseys of Theros adds one new background, Athlete, built for a competitor from Theros's poleis, the arena, or the open games between them. This is a background, not a feat: don't confuse it with the unrelated PHB Athlete feat, which grants a stat bump and combat-adjacent movement benefits and is covered separately in the Athlete feat guide. Same name, two different character-creation options with no mechanical overlap.

Athlete rolls or picks a Favored Event, the specific competition your character built a reputation on: a marathon or long-distance run, wrestling, boxing, a chariot or horse race, pankration, a fully armored hoplite race, or the five-event pentathlon of running, long jump, discus, javelin, and wrestling. Echoes of Victory then pays that reputation off directly: within 100 miles of wherever you won your past events, there's a 50 percent chance any settlement you visit has someone who recognizes you and is willing to offer information or a place to stay. Between adventures, that same reputation supports a comfortable lifestyle through the "Practicing a Profession" downtime activity.

Hot Take: Echoes of Victory is a narrower Position of Privilege, tied to geography instead of class, but Acrobatics and Athletics as a fixed pair beats almost any other background's skill list for a Monk, Barbarian, or Fighter who was already planning to grab both.

For the full Theros character-creation picture, including Supernatural Gifts, the setting's races, and its two new subclasses, see the Theros guide's character options section.

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Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Backgrounds

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft adds two new backgrounds built around horror and investigation: Haunted One and Investigator. Both skip a standard gold-heavy equipment package in favor of thematic gear, and both send you to the book's Horror Trinkets table for your starting curio instead of leaving that slot blank.

Haunted One builds around a single defining trauma, a Harrowing Event you choose or roll for, ranging from a monster that spared your life for no clear reason to a family curse you can't shake. Heart of Darkness pays that history off directly: commoners can tell you've stared down something terrible, and even when it unsettles them, they'll extend you courtesy and take up arms alongside you rather than leave you to face a threat alone. The flexible skill list (any two of four) and open language choice make it one of the more customizable backgrounds in the game, and its starting kit, stakes, a holy symbol, holy water, manacles, a steel mirror, reads like a monster hunter's pack rather than a standard adventuring load.

Investigator suits a character chasing one specific mystery, whether that means clearing a wrongfully accused friend, tracking down a memory gap, or working a paying case for a client. Official Inquiry is the practical payoff: fast-talking and official-looking paperwork get you access to people and places tied to whatever you're investigating, and local law enforcement already has a firm opinion of you either way. Between Insight, Investigation, and Perception on the skill list and the disguise kit/thieves' tools pairing, it's the closest thing 2014 offers to a built-in detective's toolkit.

Horror Trinkets: Both backgrounds point to the book's Horror Trinkets table for a starting curio, a hundred-entry list of unsettling keepsakes a DM can turn into an adventure hook or a Mist talisman leading toward a specific Domain of Dread. A few samples: a pocket watch that runs backward for an hour every midnight, a locked box that hums a lovely melody at night but that you always forget by morning, a silver pocket watch with thirteen hours marked on its face, and a plague doctor's mask.

For the Dark Gifts, new lineages, and other Ravenloft-specific character-creation options that pair with these backgrounds, see the Ravenloft guide's character options section.

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Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos Backgrounds

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos adds one background per college: Lorehold Student, Prismari Student, Quandrix Student, Silverquill Student, and Witherbloom Student. Every one of these five is mechanically stronger than a standard PHB background, since each grants the Strixhaven Initiate feat for free, locked to that background's college, on top of the usual skills, tools, equipment, and feature. If you have a spellcasting or Pact Magic feature, the college's spells are also added to your spell list.

A free feat is the headline, not the flavor. No other backgrounds-guide entry on this page grants a feat outright; a normal 2014 background's "feature" is a narrative permission, not a mechanical one. A Strixhaven background gives you both: the standard narrative feature framing (you're a student of that college, with the reading list and study habits to match) and the actual Strixhaven Initiate feat, complete with two cantrips and a 1st-level spell locked to your college, layered on top.

Lorehold Student suits a history-minded character: History and Religion as skills, and a kit (ink, a hammer, a hooded lantern, a tome of history) that reads like a field researcher's gear more than a standard adventuring pack. Lorehold's granted spell list draws from the cleric or wizard spell list, so a caster in either class gets a spell they can already use.

Prismari Student is built for a performer or artist: Acrobatics and Performance as skills, plus a choice between a musical instrument and a set of artisan's tools. Prismari's granted spell list draws from the bard or sorcerer list, matching the college's expressive, elemental-art identity.

Quandrix Student targets a mathematically-minded caster: Arcana and Nature as skills, an artisan's tools proficiency, and a kit that includes an abacus and a book of arcane theory. Quandrix's granted spell list draws from the druid or wizard list.

Silverquill Student fits a rhetorician or orator: Intimidation and Persuasion as skills, a book of poetry in the starting kit, and two free language choices instead of one. Silvery Barbs is reachable through Silverquill's granted spell list, since it draws from the bard or cleric list, making this the most efficient background route to that spell for a class that doesn't already have it.

Witherbloom Student suits a life-sciences-and-necromancy character: Nature and Survival as skills, a free Herbalism kit proficiency, and a kit that includes a book on plant identification and an iron pot. Witherbloom's granted spell list draws from the druid or wizard list.

Hot Take: if your table allows Strixhaven content, these five backgrounds are close to strictly better than most of the 13 PHB options for a caster whose class matches one of the granted spell lists. A free feat, plus two cantrips and a spell you can cast without a slot once per long rest, is more raw mechanical value than any PHB background offers, even before accounting for the skills and equipment every background grants anyway.

For the full Strixhaven college breakdown and which classes fit which college, see the Strixhaven guide's colleges section. For the Owlin race, both Strixhaven feats, and the four Strixhaven spells, see the Strixhaven guide's character options section.

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Spelljammer: Adventures in Space Backgrounds

Spelljammer: Adventures in Space adds two backgrounds, Astral Drifter and Wild Spacer, and both grant a full PHB feat for free - the strongest mechanical hook either background carries, and a stronger baseline value proposition than any PHB background offers on its own.

A free feat, not a narrative permission. Like the Strixhaven backgrounds above, both Spelljammer backgrounds pair their feature with an actual PHB feat rather than the flavor-only permission most 2014 backgrounds grant. Astral Drifter's Divine Contact grants Magic Initiate locked to cleric; Wild Spacer's Wildspace Adaptation grants Tough outright, plus immunity to the weightlessness melee-attack penalty.

Astral Drifter suits a character who has spent an unnaturally long time on the Astral Plane: Insight and Religion as skills, two free language choices, and the Longevity trait (20d6 years older than you look, with no aging while on the Astral Plane). Divine Contact's Magic Initiate is locked to cleric specifically, which hands any class two cleric cantrips and one 1st-level cleric spell castable once per long rest without a slot - a solid pick for a non-Wisdom-caster build looking for a reliable out-of-combat utility spell like cure wounds or guidance.

Wild Spacer suits a character raised in Wildspace itself: Athletics and Survival as skills, navigator's tools and vehicles (space) proficiency, and Wildspace Adaptation's free Tough feat - 2 extra hit points per character level, applied retroactively, on top of the weightlessness immunity. For a party that never leaves the ground, Tough alone still makes this background a strictly useful pick; the weightlessness immunity is bonus value specific to a Spelljammer or zero-gravity campaign.

Hot Take: these two backgrounds beat every PHB option on raw mechanical value, full stop, for any class that can use the granted feat. A free Tough or a free Magic Initiate is worth more at level 1 than any PHB background's skills-and-equipment package, and unlike the Strixhaven backgrounds, neither one is locked to a specific spell list or college identity - Wild Spacer's Tough works for literally every class equally.

For the full character-options breakdown including both backgrounds evaluated together with the six new races, see the Spelljammer guide's character options section.

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Planescape: Sigil and the Outlands Backgrounds

Planescape: Sigil and the Outlands adds two backgrounds, Gate Warden and Planar Philosopher, and like the Strixhaven and Spelljammer backgrounds above, both grant a full feat for free rather than a narrative-only feature.

Both grant the same feat. Gate Warden's Planar Infusion and Planar Philosopher's Faction Conviction both grant the Scion of the Outer Planes feat outright - a resistance and a free at-will cantrip tied to a plane of your choice, and the entry point to a five-branch follow-on feat chain at 4th level. This is the same free-feat pattern the Strixhaven and Spelljammer sections above already established; Planescape is a third consecutive sourcebook to use it.

Gate Warden suits a character raised near a permanent portal or a gate-town on the Outlands' rim: Persuasion and Survival as skills, and a feature that also grants free lodging and food in your home community - useful if your campaign returns there.

Planar Philosopher suits a character tied to one of Sigil's twelve factions: Arcana plus a skill matched to your faction (Religion for Athar, Insight for Bleak Cabal, Perception for Harmonium, and so on down the full Sigil Faction Affinities table), and a feature that grants free lodging at any faction holding instead of a single hometown. This is the stronger pick for a campaign based mainly in Sigil itself, since faction holdings are everywhere the Cage's factions operate.

Hot Take: like the Strixhaven and Spelljammer backgrounds, both Planescape options beat a PHB background on raw mechanical value for any character who wants the entry feat anyway. The real decision isn't Gate Warden versus Planar Philosopher on power level - they're roughly even - it's whether your character's roots are a specific gate-town (Gate Warden) or a specific philosophy and faction (Planar Philosopher).

For the full character-options breakdown including all seven Planescape feats and both spells, see the Planescape guide's character options section.

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Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Backgrounds

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen adds two backgrounds, Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery, and both work through the setting's own campaign-wide bonus-feat system rather than a standalone background feature: every Dragonlance character gets a bonus feat at 1st level, and which background you took determines what that feat is.

Every character gets bonus feats, not just these two backgrounds. Any other background still grants a free choice of Skilled or Tough at 1st level, and every character - regardless of background - gets a second bonus feat at 4th level from an expanded list. Taking Knight of Solamnia or Mage of High Sorcery just determines which named feat your 1st-level bonus becomes.

Knight of Solamnia suits a character training with or sworn to the knighthood: Athletics and Survival as skills, a physically capable frontline lean, and free lodging at any Solamnic fortress or encampment.

Mage of High Sorcery suits a character trained by one of the three robed orders: Arcana and History as skills, a scholarly lean, and free lodging at any occupied Tower of High Sorcery.

Hot Take: the real headline here isn't either background individually - it's that every character in this setting runs ahead of the standard feat curve, whether or not they pick a Dragonlance-specific background at all. Choose Knight of Solamnia or Mage of High Sorcery based on which feat chain your build actually wants, since a standard PHB background still nets a free Skilled or Tough either way.

For the full character-options breakdown including the bonus-feat system, all nine feats, and both new character options, see Character Options in the Dragonlance guide.

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Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants Backgrounds

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants adds two backgrounds, Giant Foundling and Rune Carver, and both run through the book's own campaign-wide bonus-feat system: every character in the campaign gets a bonus feat at character creation once the DM allows either background, and which background you took (if either) determines what that feat is.

Every character gets a bonus feat, not just these two backgrounds. Once the DM allows Giant Foundling and Rune Carver, any other background still grants a free choice between exactly two Player's Handbook feats: Skilled or Tough.

Giant Foundling suits a character raised among giants and grown unusually large for their own kind: Intimidation and Survival as skills, Giant plus one language, and a direct grant of the Strike of the Giants feat and its once-per-turn damage rider.

Rune Carver suits a character devoted to studying giant runecraft: History and Perception as skills, one set of artisan's tools, and a direct grant of the Rune Shaper feat and its rune-swap spellcasting subsystem.

Hot Take: the headline here is the same as Dragonlance's bonus-feat system - every character in this setting runs ahead of the standard feat curve, whether or not they pick a giant-specific background at all. Pick Giant Foundling or Rune Carver based on which of the two feat chains (a combat damage rider, or a small swappable-spell toolkit) your build actually wants, since a standard PHB background still nets a free Skilled or Tough either way.

For the full character-options breakdown including the bonus-feat system, the barbarian subclass, all eight feats, and the magic items catalog, see Character Options in the Glory of the Giants guide.

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Final Verdict

2014 backgrounds are lower-stakes than their 2024 counterparts: no feat, no ability score bonus, nothing that changes your build math. That's exactly why the choice is easy to get right. Match the skills to a gap in your class's proficiencies, match the feature to the kind of campaign you're actually playing, and the rest is flavor. Noble, Guild Artisan, and Criminal give you the widest safety net if you don't have a strong concept pulling you toward a specific background already. Everything else on this list is a fine pick once it fits your character.

DMs building a new background from scratch instead of picking from these 13 should see the DM's Toolbox guide for the homebrew process.