After i explained to my DM that my Goliath Wizard was raised by Elves, he replaced one of my features and gave me elven Weapon Training and the Elven language.
My tiefling fighter is practically a thief so my dm had me roll int with my bonus and apparently I rolled high enough so I obtained thieves cant to replace one of my languages.
The new Tashas options ruin humans, if you want versatile characteristics and a ton of other abilities like dark vision, etc. just choose a Dwarf, their 2 +2 are like having an additional ASI, plus they have many other abilities. Choosing a human makes no sense.
@@sciencescripture Variant Humans still get a free Feat, which is pretty good stuff. However you are right, this unintentionally made the Mountain Dwarf super powerful right out the gate.
I'm currently playing Tim the Time Tortle, A Chronurgy wizard who just wants people to slow down and enjoy life. Toss in the lucky feat and he's a handful for GMs.
@@panwall1327 I made it prior to Tasha's, so before I could give him the strength boost. Haven't played it yet, but the combos are potentially ridiculous. Spiked armor works with the Grung's poisoning ability to add poison damage. Grappling causes skin contact causing your victim to make saves vs poisoned condition plus damage from the spiked armor. If they fail the save, they get disadvantaged to escape the grapple and you get advantage to grapple while raging, so it's almost impossible for them to escape. Grapple Master feat gives advantage to attacks against any creature you're grappling. So much synergy and thematically awesome! I really want to play it.
I was considering a mountain dwarf with most of their extra proficiencies swapped out for more tools; "If you name it, I can build it" can be a fun part of a character of just about any class. Turn it up to 11 by playing an Artificer...
i let one of my players do that, a mountain dwarf rogue had zero use for the armor and weapons training so yeah they got a fistful of tools to fuck around with
I made a future Psi Warrior doing exactly this. He was raised and educated by a rogue mind flayer who rescued him from ceremorphosis, so most of his dwarven training(armor and weapon proficiencies specifcally) has been replaced with a pile of tool proficiencies to help represent his different upbringing. Really looking forward to the campaign I eventually use him in.
@@sixofone8663 As a DM I'm more likely to allow exceptions and optional rules if they mostly add to characterization and out-of-combat utility; tool proficiencies tend to fall into that category, especially once you already have a few. Since proficiencies in particular represent personal history/experience/training, there are all sorts of ways that a character with non-default proficiencies would make sense (e.g. the backstory @y2a1979 came up with here). Now I kinda want to see a mountain dwarf clan historian/loremaster/cultivator of traditional arts, done as at least partially a College of Lore bard with an excessive number of skill and tool proficiencies. Focus spell choices on knowledge and craftsmanship to really have the character make sense...
I was building a mountain dwarf. Decide for a bard and remove the weapons and armor and now she has high char and dex and 15 int so she can get bussy with any kind of kit or tool. We are gonna have fun
Loving my half orc armorer artificer. That relentless endurance has been a godsend in my ability to tank with only a d8 hit die, especially at early levels.
Yeah Relentless Endurance is the reason why my Warlock is a Half-Orc too... I called him Oscar, after realising the potential. His Patron is a Devil and he has fallen in love with the Devils Daughter. So he is basically some commoner Half-Orc who is in love with this daughter of a powerful Trademaker. As I realised how close it was, I had to call him Oscar. His true Love wrote a book about them, to tell the whole world that she loved him. But he still isn't happy about the title... Tusk Love.
its funny, I built a mountain dwarf as a sorcerer even before tashas cauldron. basically a mountain dwarf who grew up expecting to be a fighter, but wound up with wild magic. an angry small woman who can wear armour and smash things with a hammer, and is tired of having fireballs center on herself
About to start playing a Warforged Order of Scribes wizard. Sentry’s Rest + Find Familiar means I can read books all night long and take solo watches for an entire night. Not to mention I get to build a mini me that I can talk to while lonely
I've ALWAYS been fascinated with the idea of an Elf Barbarian, just...imagine how epic the rage of such a LONG-LIVED creature must be, how much of a grudge can they keep? how much they remember of entire lifetimes of being wronged? Also totally Agree that a Mountain Dwarf Rogue would be fun as hell to play, you could literaly make him an exile of his clan that gave up on his own customs and picked up his rogue-ish abilities to survive as a "Clanless" Dwarf all on his own!
I was hesitant at first, but once I really read it and wrapped my head around it I really turned around. Most of the flavor in a character is how you role play it. Just opens up the options and that's not a bad thing. PCs are supposed to be exceptional individuals.
What I like is that you are not limited in what race you have to play to play a particular class. I like how it only changed ability scores and proficiencies, both things that you would not be born in it
@@thetwizard9290 i like the versatility of that, but i also think that the reason behind is a little bit wrong, cos of course you nor i born with "ability scores" defined, but when we talk about species is a little bit different, I mean, for me, is completely natural that a specie like tabaxi, be more agile than a human, so a dex bonus is something natural, so it is for a minotaur to have more strenght that a human (or a feline like the tabaxi). for me is fine, is a game, you can make whatever you want, but i think the hability score bonuses are more biological, and then the words race and species get mixed
@@rubenmunoz2912 NPCs of those races don’t get those bonuses. This is because it is not something that those people are born with, just what adventurers get to push them towards a particular architipe, and they get it because of how they were raised, not from birth. That’s how I view it anyway. Edit: obviously everyone is free to change how they view ability score bonuses from races in their own way. One thing I would like to mention is that most playable races would be races, not species, since many can breed, or a least breed with a race that can breed, with each other
@@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar that was a good try from them, clearly in the good direction but still a lackluster race (only on a mecanical point of view for sure).
On the subject of a Tiefling using these rules, I created a Zariel bloodline Tiefling who's parentage comes from a Spine devil. I swapped the Charisma for the Strength, and the Strength for Wisdom and made a Strength Based monk (Path of the Living Weapon from Exploring Eberron) that can using smite spells. He's that giant, muscular, powerful martial artists that utilizes solid foundation and Hung Gar kung fu-style strikes with fists like actual adamantine which gives him a very different play style that is more aggressive, more linear in terms of his movements.
i wonder how the fly speed capstone would interact with your wings. as a DM, my instinct (and what i’m scared of) is to make it become a faster fly speed, but idk
@cak01vej maybe your pixies don’t fly faster, but i would certainly expect a pixie in my world that was also wearing a pair of winged boots to be the fastest thing you’d ever seen
@cak01vej I'm thinking because it's not everyday you get to play a lvl20 campaign, I'm gonna give my players as much as I can without being too broken. Especially because of how fast you have to actually move to fly in real life, it would make sense that you can cover way more ground in one turn by flying.
Started my first campaign. My character is a spore druid. He spent years cultivating various plants and fungi on his skin but one tries to overtake his mind. So my goal is to get rid of it without killing the other plants he considers family. My group responded positively to my backstory. It's been a lot of fun, my dm voices the evil mushroom pusing me towards evil.
Dude that's awesome. I'm also playing a spore druid with a fungus trying to take over their mind (or fuse with it), and it's at a point where they kind of think in unison, referring to themself as "we" and "us", and when they disagree with each other they get all wonky. Here's to sentient fungus.
I'm glad that many players are happy about this. I'm still having trouble accepting the idea of a halfling with a STR 20 in a non-comedy game. And I've played and enjoyed strength-based halflings with the realistic limitations of their stature.
@@matthewparker9276 I'm not sure you can manage that until you hit level 8 (unless I'm wrong, and I may be, no halfling subrace gets a Str bonus). But now you can come out of the gate with it (take that +2 from Dex and put it on Str). I know it's still illogical either way, but I can accept an 8th level chatter having inhuman abilities more easily (for some reason).
I like how this allows players to play more offbeat race-class combinations without feeling penalized, but I do worry that it also tends to take some of the flavor away from races. For my next campaign I've decided to allow my players to move one of the stat increases, but not both. (or in the case of a half elf, they can move the all, since 2 are already a choice. For a Triton, I'd say they could move 2 of the 3 +1s, but let's be real - nobody plays Tritons.) Of course, I always thought it was fun to play offbeat combos even before this change. My last character was a Halfling Wizard.
I suppose it depends on whether you see the 'racial' stats modifiers as inherent to that race/species or as because the members of that race train those stats. I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that half-orcs' STR boost is inherent, that typical members of that species are stronger than typical humans because of their physiology. Then again, it's also not unreasonable to say that average members of that species are strong compared to average humans simply because they live in a culture that values physical strength and thus they train vigorously to a greater extent. I suppose what I'm saying is that it comes down to whether you see stats as nature, nurture, or a combination of both. Your option of allowing one stat to shift suggests perhaps in your game world, it's a bit of both.
@@BlueTressym yeah, it's fine to think of it either way, but I like the notion that the different races do have some predispositions, whether genetic or cultural. I think there's room for any of these approaches in any given campaign setting, and I may choose a different approach in a future campaign.
@@Brashnir I think as long as you can create a backstory that justifies the change, it's fine. Why did your mountain dwarf turn to scholarly pursuits instead of following the clan traditions (to switch from STR to INT), and who was their tutor? There can definitely be a nature vs. nurture discussion, but I agree that there should still be some racial and cultural flavorings that reflect the worlds the characters live in. Ability scores are not as worrisome to me as the skill and proficiency changes.
@@BlueTressym Even if you view the bonuses as inherent moving them can still make sense. Because X race has a bonus to Y stat the can coast by on genetics and spend more time focusing on Z stat instead.
I feel like this reduces the concept of an off-beat character concept. If you can move the con bonus from a dwarf elsewhere, the association of dwarves as tough gets weakened. It makes me think of my mom's doberman and my mini dachshund; I love my dachshund, but there's no way an average dachshund will be as tough, strong, or agile as a doberman. It's just not in the genetics or body shape/size.
@@DungeonDudes Oh I wasn't taking a swipe at the book or the design aspects of the game. I was making a reference to the opening of "Whose line is it anyway" where the host alyways opened the show by saying "Welcome to whose line is it anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter." The flexibility of custom lineage is great.
This means one of my Dragonborn family tree is going to grow now a lot more . Also a Dragonborn Monk (+2 dexterity and +1 Wisdom) with a draconic Breath and resist to the type of damage picked with the the draconic breath
The other thing that I really like about it is it lets you swap the proficiencies too for other things of similar abilities. A lot of race / class combos had overlap there with weapons especially where elves get a bunch of simple and some martial weapons that tons of classes just get for free and now you could say oh I picked up this tool or different weapon you might have wanted. Or swapping a skill you didn't really want for another you did. Tools I think are a generally underutilized part of the game and can be fun to work with when you have them!
I've found that in my groups, playing a less optimal race/class combo has not been a big deal. I'm playing a Dwarven diviner in one campaign, and have not had a problem with the effective -1 to my primary stat bonus. However, there are two caveats: 1) The group is fairly large, so my minor drawback's impact is spread out over the team and 2) the campaign, a fantasy-Victorian setting in which we are investigators, makes the advantages of a diviner strong enough to make the lack of bonus to Int score much less relevant. That said, when Tasha's came out, I asked the DM if I could swap his Strength bonus out for Int, per the rules in Tasha's. Not because I wanted that +1 bonus to my rolls, but because the character's backstory worked better with those bonuses. He was an academic who had never been a soldier nor trained to be one. His role with law enforcement is as an Inspector, not a guard or other combat oriented character. It just made more sense. I like the archetypes being there; players new to fantasy RPGs might be too lost among the options if there aren't a few tried-and-true characters to fall back on. At the same time, these new options stress to those same players that archetypes are a guide, not a law. You can have fun ideas that break the mold, and NPC's can be very different than their societies. I was very happy with these rules and implemented them in my campaign right away.
Yeah, I tend to roll my eyes on people who use the TCoE rules for more power, but I love how they let you make the characters mechanically closer to what makes sense for their personality and history.
I've always wanted to make like an Izaya Orihara-type character, and I've always seen it as a Yuan-ti mastermind rogue. Well, now it's actually that tad bit easier to work with since you can put that +2 into dexterity, and possibly move that +1 into wisdom or charisma. Izaya is smart, yes, but most of his knowledge and technique come from cleaver decision making and social networking, so insight and deception would probably be more important to this character than investigation or history.
If the only meaning races have is a +2 and/or a +1 then thats not a very meaningful choice. If you can get your +2 from a variety of different sources, why your player picks one over the other gets more meaningful not less.
@@EdsonR13 my point is this. Why be anything other than a mountain dwarf or half elf? They get +4 racial asi that you can put where ever you want now. There is no good reason to pick anything else. The only reason ive ever bothered to read any lore on any race aside from human was because of class-race optimisation. Well now power gamers like me can ignore everything but those 2 races.
@@bradleyvenovich6160 why play anything other than a tabaxi 2 skills and feline agility, why play anything other than a tortle 17 base ac, why play anything other than an aarakocra 50 ft fly speed. I can go on, point being different character concepts will want different racial abilities, these options should make you more creative not less, Everyones seen the half orc barbarian its not original
@@EdsonR13 because ultimately asi's are king. Tabaxi are out done by half elves in the skill department. Feline agility is worthless. Tortle having a base ac of 17 is kinda meh also considering you can achieve the same thing by having any character with a 20 dex, which with tashas is even easier to start the game with. So on and so forth.
@@bradleyvenovich6160 do tell me about your 20 dex wizard with 17+ac, just because you havent been able to use feline agility to its fullest potential doesnt mean its useless. Yes ability scores are very key in min-maxing a character but there are plenty other racial abilities worth looking at
At first I was hesitant about the custom character origins because I like the idea that certain races are stronger or more dexterous than others. But after playing with it I can’t go back. I absolutely love the build diversity and potential!
I think this video captures my concerns about the optional ancestry rules. They are really rules that exist due to the tendency toward optimization and push certain ancestries, that were already better than others, even further beyond. You even noted this point with the Yuan-ti. I worry that mechanics have been put so far in the forefront that players believe anything less than an optimal character is unacceptable and that this, in turn, limits the scope of roleplay a bit. There is nothing wrong with optimization but as an MMO veteran I worry about the the proliferation of discussions that label certain ancestries as bad (because they offer fewer features) and others as good (because they offer more features). Of course playing a wizard with 8 int at lv 1 is not better or more noble than playing a wizard with 18 int at lv 1, but I think too many players get hung up on stats, especially considering how player friendly 5th edition is. Finally, I worry that ancestry will become a cosmetic choice with no real impact beyond physical features and life span. You have noted in another response that these rules are optional, and that is of course true. Still, I think it is fair to discuss the merits and differing views surrounding these system changes. Thanks for the videos and good luck in all future endeavors!
I do have to ask though. Is creating races as only a cosmetic choice a bad thing? I mean I prefer it when the classes have most of the interesting mechanical choices since those might be the reasons you play the classes. Some of the options like yuan ti have always been too good and for the tables that don't like how strong their features are, I see them banned. But if we were to make it a cosmetic choice only then there would be no reason to ban them at all except for story reasons with the DMs world.
@Sean Havern This. This comment is not rated enough, and I would like to like it 2000 times. Two weeks ago I was speaking with a player of mine, and he said that he felt "obliged" to take a +2 every 4th level, instead of taking a feat, because abilities are the most important thing. This kind of thinking made me realize that players are becoming all min/maxers, unfortunately, and Tasha has only worsened this attitude.
@@chrisvelo2595 I personally do not like ancestry being reduced to a cosmetic choice because I think it removes something from the game and ignores the real differences that exist amongst the ancestries. This process of reducing to cosmetic could be finished by removing the features from certain races, but that again is placing mechanics over immersion/role play and in my opinion that is undesirable. Of course I understand some folks do not agree with the above concerns and I think WotC was right to make these ancestry options optional. Good luck in all your gaming.
@@kazebaret And I have no inherent problem with Min/Maxers, I think highly competent characters can be great, but I lament players feeling like they have to optimize because frankly, 5e does not require optimization. It is very player friendly unless you are playing at a table where all encounters are deadly. And even deadly encounters are really not that threatening when you have spells and other tools available. Again, I do not think you are a "good player" if you play a bard with 8 charisma, but I do not think players should feel bad about playing a dwarf wizard or elf barbarian. I chafe at the language that Tasha's "finally allows you to play an Orc Wizard." That statement is just false, it allows you to more easily optimize an Orc Wizard.
@@seanhavern2384 And especially in 5e where the abilities are capped. As far as I've seen, this problem stems out of the 3e (I'm a 1st ed player and it was not at issue at all), and I really have no idea if it can be mitigated, or solved. Don't get me wrong: I love 5e, but it is becoming less "D&D" and more "board game" with the passing of time.
With the custom origin, you can now play an aaracokra that doesn’t have a flying speed, which is great because so many DMs don’t allow the aaracokra normally.
This may be a grognard opinion but I hate the race options in Tasha's. It is min/max rocket fuel and drains a lot of flavor from the choice of picking a race.
Was my concern too. But thankfully this is supplemental material and you don't really have to use it if it's not up your alley. Honestly would prefer to use this as a way of creating your own subspecies or some such.
All these new rules made playing a half-elf ranger ideal for me. Between half-elves getting hella skills, the variant ranger rules giving you expertise in a skill, and the ranger already being a pretty skilled class, I'm stacked when it comes to the exploration pillar of the game
I love homebrewing subclasses, so I find myself always lining up all subclasses of a certain class together and analyzing their similarities to figure out how to create a balanced homebrew subclass. I think it would make a great series if you can go over each class, and inspect how its subclasses function in order to give a good guide to dungeon masters on how to homebrew a balanced subclasses for each class. Your work always inspires me to express my creativity in this game 😊
I love the way the new rules encourage you to look at the traits that are not ability score increases or specific proficiencies when coming up with a character concept. One of my new favorite characters is the half-orc armorer or battle smith because of what relentless endurance and savage attacks do when paired with those subclasses.
That's a great point! It really helps expand the possible combinations and center traits or abilities that have more roleplay opportunity than the number.
The custom lineage thing is the greatest tool introduced to flavor and roleplaying possibilities since the PHB. Same for spell flair. It actually came at the most opportune time. We're currently running a campaign that plays about 2 decades after our previous one in which two of our players got hitched and had a daughter. The couple were a tabaxi and a variant human. And thanks to custom lineage I had the idea to bring their daughter to life by playing a half breed between human and tabaxi (yes haw haw I get it neko stuff. Not the reason). The character is a love letter and homage to the two characters who I fell in love with cause their players just roleplayed them so beautifully. The daughter is now a order of scribe wizard, out to do her name justice, being the daughter of 2 sung heroes.
I personally won’t be using these rules in any of my games. The changing ability score bonuses runs counter to what those bonuses represented and it makes the game feel too same-y and video game-esque
A Halfling with a STR bonus brings to mind Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took... big enough to ride a horse, strong enough to decapitate a Goblin Warchief with one swing of his club.
Not the only difference. Custom lineage allows a player who takes a half feat to start the game with an 18 in their primary stat when using the standard array
NO! Using point buy, +2 +1 ability from a feat means that you can get an 18 at level 1. Your other abilities might be lower, but the 18 starting stat means they are significantly more powerful if you're trying to min/max. You can GWM with an 18 at level 4. No other race lets you do this.
Fun vid as always! I'm a bit surprised you didn't go more over the Proficiencies customization options as well, since those have great flavor potential. Like, now my Drow Bard raised above-ground can have gotten regular Elf Weapon Training instead with the other Wood Elves! Which means she thinks of rapier & hand-crossbow as cool bard weapons, even though they make her look more Drow-y now too, and doesn't entirely realize how traveling around with them may have opened herself up to hostility... It doesn't change her toolkit significantly (just Longbow proficiency which she wouldn't be using regularly anyway) but it sure helped me envision that "weapon-training" part of her background and adds more interesting wrinkles to her character.
I’ve done this before. He was a blue draconic sorcerer that used shocking grasp primarily (Lightning Palm Monk). But with the racial +1, draconic bloodline +1, CON bonus, and Tough feat, I wasn’t that worried about being on the frontline as a sorcerer
@@chrisvelo2595 yes, a Tortle sorcerer would be strong, but also think of a Loxodon sorcerer, whose AC is based on their con. If you played a Loxodon divine soul sorcerer, you could have your character involved with Hollyphaunts!
Personally, I am not a fan of the origins customization. It kind of feels like a lot of work was put into each race, giving them strengths and weaknesses which makes them interesting and possible a fun challenge to play. This fleshed out the races and gave fun story telling ideas for the races. Then Tasha's said 'screw that, do what ever you want."
I would agree, but it _is_ optional. Let's hope it stays that way. Personally, I blame the SJWs who think that "if it is old or has a stain, it must be decimated and obliterated!"
I agree, but I am kinda torn on this. There are a couple characters I made based on abilities instead of stats, and part of me is happy I don't have to make that sacrifice, but that kind of makes that decision less impactful like it's dnd easy mode.
It's expanding the story telling options; no one is saying you can't keep the bonus where you want. It really helps broaden the roleplay possibilities and also helps move beyond troubled conflations with race and people (historically a problem in fantasy, lots of scholarship on Tolkien and race for example). It's also not changing things like life spans that are part of their biology. Those and many traits are not mutable. I'm very excited about all the new characters we can see from this. :)
I'm really glad you did point out the roleplay idea, but the real implication there is why there suddenly are going to be heaps of Mountain Dwarves popping out into the world to adventure
Star druid is B tier levels 1-9, then at 10 and onwards it’s a straight up S tier. Just my personal take on it, without having played or seen it in play (Disclaimer).
I have just started a campaign with 4 level 3 characters, one of whom is a star druid. The bonus action attack from starry form makes it seriously powerful at that level, and all three other players felt underpowered. (And the guiding bolts, and guidance!) I think the reaction from the star map will be really impactful in terms of action economy, too. I would highly recommend it, from my perspective as DM it feels like A tier at least.
Dragonborn get the Breath Weapon no matter what you know It's a racial thing Might as well play a Lizardfolk then Because it's not really a *Dragonborn* without probably the most iconic Dragon thing to do *Blasting Elemental magic out of your face*
@@LordTonzilla Yes they do The custom lineage only applies to the Ability Score Improvements Not the innate racial abilities of a race Like Elves, Tieflings, or Half Orcs can't just lose their Darkvision Aasimar and Aracockras can't loose their wings And so on and so forth
@@ancientreddragon5617 nope, I think he meant the custom lineage, where you create your own race with a feat and +2, therefore he can make it look like a Dragonborn and have a feat instead of a +1 strength and a breath weapon
Halfling: Mark of Hospitality Alchemist Artificer. Literally played the character yesterday. Full halfling party, where the PCs are all siblings. Should be fun.
Free lv1 feat for Gloom Stalker, Shadow Sorc, Twilight Cleric, or Devil Sight Warlock still very good tho. And there also some group who play human-only campaign.
Is there an official d&d pronunciation guide somewhere? From time to time I get caught totally off guard by the ways people pronounce things differently than me. Today it was Genasi.
Genasi are genie people. Jinn-ah-si. A surprising number of people have not made the connection, even though that is the whole point of the race. Grumble grumble.
@@Capt.Thunder The problems of using a language that uses the same letter for multiple sounds. It bothers me when people refuse to pronounce things correctly like Nerdarchy with artificer or most people with mana.
@@Dezbood completely agree. I've ran halfling barbarians. They're not meant to be a strong race. They turn out quite mediocre where you end up dumping your crap stat rolls into your racial bumped stats. Doesn't mean they aren't fun. All races can have any class. Doesn't mean they have to be brilliant at it.
@@rossdiggle yeah, it makes sense that different dnd races are in fact different. If you put an average goliath in a wrestling match against the average halfling, one is gonna have better odds of winning. I feel like this origins rule only enables greater min maxing, not greater story telling.
@@aethon0563 i don't think so, i really like the idea of people that deviate from average. Like the orc that was smarter than normal, but he was weak, and became an outcast. So he tried to enter the academy so he can be stronger on he's own way.
For Custom Lineage i'm building an Eldritch Lovecraft aberration, born in the Far Realm with a formless a body, was sent to the material plane without 'memories' but a constant maddening whispers in his mind that at that point just say 'learn, adapt'. The character start with the Eldritch Adept feat, getting the Mask of Many Faces invocation, changing his appearance in every encounter, no one knows his true appearance, couse there is none. He is a Sorcerer Aberrant Mind, and later with lvl dip in Fathomless Warlock. (GOO have some overlapping) the build is basically Tentacles, Mind Control, Maddening Terror... nothing new just a Call of Cthulhu monster in D&D
As a DM, I see the system as a useful tool to tweak a race (or build new ones) for my campaign worlds. For players, I see this as a great opportunity to min-max. At what point do we just say all races are the same and give more ability points? I have a player playing a half-orc sorcerer. He invested heavily in CHA since he had no racial mod for it and will sink points from ASIs into it, but he's finding playing against type rewarding. He doesn't need to be optimized.
I like the potential of the custom origin for expanding on half-races. Currently there's only half elves and half orcs, but using Tasha's, I was able to create a half-goliath, half-tiefling character, where I still used a base goliath, but was able to customize it to reflect her tiefling heritage as well
@@EdsonR13 Lorewise, I just decided that the tiefling mother was an outlander fighter who made it her duty protect villages to the north. The goliath father was a blacksmith in one of those villages. They had a thing, which resulted in the birth of my character, and then they parted ways amicably. Mechanically, well... that might break the PG-13 barrier, but it's not like the races are *that* different ;)
@@EdsonR13 Oops! I built her as a baseline goliath, so she gets all the goliath traits, but I switched out the ability score and languages, so she would pull from the tiefling languages and ability scores instead of the goliath. Looks-wise, she looks like a beefy giant tiefling, but a rather small goliath
This did benefit my character a bit in that I finally had an "official" means by which my half-Orc, half-Halfling could speak Halfling but not Orcish. Otherwise I'm of mixed opinion: on one hand it gives players a means to reflect that their character is a unique individual for their species, maybe what prompts them to leave home and pursue a life of adventure. On the other hand, it means certain players will try to min-max their species of choice into a role they're commonly not suited to, sacrificing that potential for character growth
Victor Le-ver or “Victor the Red” he’s a bulky scary looking suave French accented Half dragon half teifling with huge horns, a pact of the blade warlock, paladin, fighter, bard combo. Super min max. But the Role play is gonna be to die for. Honestly can’t wait to play this guy. 😈
Only from a strict optimization viewpoint. You lose the against type RP advantage and party race and class diversity. All races can now be of maximum mechanical synergy with all classes. This favors races that have a total of +4 to stats. The variant human feat advantage is now of less advantage since they get a total of + 2 stat bonus with no racial advantage of versatility that other races also have.
I’ve played a mountain dwarf abjurer wizard years ago. He was the second tankiest in the party after the barbarian (because of their rage). Not being as naturally intelligent as a gnome didn’t affect him that much The ability score switching isn’t something at my table. The other background skills and features, yes because those are how you are raised. Learning a language isn’t genetic, but ability scores are. You could always play these options before but you just weren’t as good as a race that genetically has that. A halfling isn’t gonna be as strong as a Goliath. However, I also use a slightly modified standard array or my players roll, plus every ASI grants them a +1 AND a feat. So you can build up your power and overcome your handicaps. This altered rule just leans into min/maxing even more
What made your orc wizards/gnome fighters interesting was the disadvantage, the weirdness. There's now no disadvantage, no weirdness. They are now just another cut out of that class. This all feels less interesting, more generic. You are now Ser generic protagonist, good at whatever their story dictates they are good at. And you say yourselves 'oh this is so busted now, it's so min/maxable now' like that sounds horrible to me.
While we entirely disagree with you, we understand that these rules aren't to everyone's taste. Fortunately, these are optional rules, and if you don't think they make your game better, don't use them!
Really want to know where Kelly got his gemed wrist band from! Only major concern I see in these new rules is your table might end up being less diverse across the parties races, should everyone try to min max. But I think most people will still play what they want to.
Exactly, everyone will play mountain dwarves and a party of five dwarves instead of a diverse assortment of races will likely be the end result, since there is no advantage to playing a human whose racial characteristic was being more versatile with 2 floating +1 stat bonuses is now a moot point. A puny feat that one can gain at 3rd or 5th level doesn’t balance out against all the abilities of dwarves, say 2 floating plus 2s, which in itself is like an ASI or feat, in addition to dark vision, etc etc. that dwarves get. They gave the versatility of humans to all other races w/o granting humans with any way to balance the now universal stat versatility or floating stat bonuses, that used to define the race ... so I agree that it may become an issue and the end result can be a less diverse party.
Monty: "As far as I am concerned, having more options is never a bad thing." Except when you really think about it and you take into account long-term effects and unintended consequences. All 'games' are a balance between freedoms and constraints. Too many constraints and nothing interesting happens in your 'frozen' game. Too many freedoms and you don't really have a game; the structure 'melts'. For example, regardless of what you think about soccer, just ask yourself if the game would be improved with the use of hands, tackling, lacrosse sticks, or even "more options" like a mobile net. Either the game breaks down, you are playing a categorically different game, or it becomes absurd.
I agree. Always bringing in new options creates interest and spice to the game but it also introduced characters that can become more broken at earlier and earlier levels
@@chrisvelo2595 "I agree." Well, I actually didn't say anything regarding brokenness, I was discussing the diminishing returns more options bring. Though I suppose more broken characters are part of that. It’s interesting you used the term “spice”, because that analogy also works in cooking: at what point does adding more spice spoil the flavor?
@LP Gaming “WoTC didn’t just throw stuff in a book. They take care and consider balancing in everything they do.” That’s funny. The 45+ year history of D&D (and the 25+ year history of Magic the Gathering, another WoTC game) is soaked with unbalanced rules, weak themes, ham fisted adventures, confusing mechanics, tedious accounting, and intrusive politics - “stuff thrown in a book” to generate sales and pay the bills. The accumulation of ill considered rule expansions IS what lead to the collapse of past editions into heaping piles of boring incoherence. Tasha's is a lurch in that direction for 5e.
I prefer how Pathfinder 2e handles Half-Elves and Half-Orcs in character creation. You're not limited to just Half-Human. You can have a Half-Elf Half-Gnome or Half-Orc Half-Goblin and it would actually have a mechanical effect on your character by way of what racial feats you have access to.
Granted it was my first character and I didn't know how much optimization could go, I kind of hope my DM will allow me to shift my elven +1 INT to WIS someday. I can see why they hard shut me down mid dungeon, but since I've always said my ranger was kept away from academics and she learned by observation it feels like it would make more sense. Hopefully someday.
Changeling abilities granted through Draconic Ancestry for a sorcerer specializing in Subtle Spell, enchantment spells, and proficient in deception and insight? The all-time slimiest Used Car(t) Salesman in your campaign setting.
I hate these rules my players and myself when I'm a player minmqx by nature so I would nerf these by saying you can only change one of your stat bonuses whether is be your plus 1 or plus 2 and I may even restrict it to the plus 1 outright
I was playing an aarakocra barbarian in a game before tashas came out. I'm so interested in revisiting that with tashas rules now. it was fun cause I had a reach weapon with polearm mastery, so I was flying & had reach. no melee could hit me
My two latest favorite characters are a shadar-ki shadow sorcerer and a deep gnome darkstalker ranger. Right before these two, I actually played a Yuanti bard.
So hear me out: A Yuan-Ti Totem Barbarian. • Resist to all magic • Resistance to everything else except psychic damage while raging. At level fucking 3.
That's when you up the challenge by using min/maxed enemies, like casters smart enough to use effects that aren't bothered by your resistances as much(Web, nearly any spell causing difficult terrain, using Fly and/or other movement options to stay out of range until the rage ends, and so on), or by hiring their own barbarians to fight you. Or perhaps their new bodyguard is a Psi Warrior fighter. The combo is certainly potent, but anything has one or more potential counters if you look hard enough.
Surprised they didn't talk about how with Tasha's CO you can have an 18 in any stat at level 1 by putting 2 points in an ability by taking a half feat. Personally, I really like to do this now as it means I can take more feats which is just *Cheff kiss* Finally, my Chef feat is optimal to my character build both mechanically and flavor-wise.
I like Tasha's customization options in the context of homebrew customization for GM's to change up how their races work, but I don't think racial features should change character to character. They're not individual features; they're supposed to apply to every member of that race, since they're "racial" traits.
Dex based barbarians are amazing. Wood Elves and Halflings are my go to races under the normal rules for barbarians and I almost always choose the totem of the eagle or the wolf with dex based barbs.
Kalashtar +2 STR / +1 COS as a Bear Totem Barbarian gets resistance to every damage type... Kalashtar +2 WIS / +1 COS Moon Druid that can communicate while in Wild Shape... Damn, i really love custom lineage. And i really love the idea of a mountain dwarf wizard.
I love this interpretation of the rules!! I've seen too many people being angry about the race thing seeing it as a statement about race when it just let's you make more incredible characters!!
Been thinking of a Half-Orc blade-singer, able to shrug off a knock-out blow once per day and an additional weapon die on a crit is pretty appealing on a hasted bladesong'd wizard in studded leather.
“Oh no! People are going to be picking the lesser played races more often now because more doors have been opened! Oh the humanity! What is the world coming to!?”
@@jasoncarnelian3325 The races that were considered the best but had an ASI that wasn't now are nearly solidified as the best. All races get better, but it's not an even spread. So I don't see my group playing the lesser played ones more; I see us using the same ones we always have more because we can now just slap it on any class without the drawback of a mismatched ASI.
my first ever character was a tiefling noble BM fighter. I'm going to play her again soon, so now i don't have to worry about having a low strength score when i take polearm master + sentinel
After i explained to my DM that my Goliath Wizard was raised by Elves, he replaced one of my features and gave me elven Weapon Training and the Elven language.
I do like this option a lot
Buy your Dm some pizza
I lost natural athlete. I really didn't need that because of my 9 Strength score. I was more in for dexterity (17)
My tiefling fighter is practically a thief so my dm had me roll int with my bonus and apparently I rolled high enough so I obtained thieves cant to replace one of my languages.
Co-worker: "Hey, what ya watching?"
Me: "Dungeon Dudes!"
Co-worker: backs away cautiously
Me: "It's not what you think!"
in the wise words of matt mercer - "that is why one prepares for interchangeability"
I was gonna like the comment but it's at 69, so I can't
@@thomasbdugan come back
@@Hazel-xl8in Yeah we need to get it up to 669 now.
LOL! Thankfully not the same as Dudes and Dungeons. 🤣
Finally, a dexterous Ninja Tortle
Just make sure not to make him too old. He needs to be young to do those acrobatics -- maybe a teenager?
Honestly I just wanted to play a tortle just for this idea.
The new Tashas options ruin humans, if you want versatile characteristics and a ton of other abilities like dark vision, etc. just choose a Dwarf, their 2 +2 are like having an additional ASI, plus they have many other abilities. Choosing a human makes no sense.
A Ninja Tortle that hides retracting into his shell
@@sciencescripture Variant Humans still get a free Feat, which is pretty good stuff. However you are right, this unintentionally made the Mountain Dwarf super powerful right out the gate.
I'm currently playing Tim the Time Tortle, A Chronurgy wizard who just wants people to slow down and enjoy life. Toss in the lucky feat and he's a handful for GMs.
I hope u speak... really... slowly... when... roleplaying... him...
Imagine if someone casts Haste on him and he starts talking normally
Was he trained by a guy named Mr. Wizard?
@@Eshiay lol that's hilarious
Now all I can think of is Treebeard from LOTR. "Don't be hasty"
My doods, Grung Battlerager Barbarian with a strength bonus and being a pugilist or grapple master = Battletoads!
I would allow it
@@panwall1327 I made it prior to Tasha's, so before I could give him the strength boost. Haven't played it yet, but the combos are potentially ridiculous. Spiked armor works with the Grung's poisoning ability to add poison damage. Grappling causes skin contact causing your victim to make saves vs poisoned condition plus damage from the spiked armor. If they fail the save, they get disadvantaged to escape the grapple and you get advantage to grapple while raging, so it's almost impossible for them to escape. Grapple Master feat gives advantage to attacks against any creature you're grappling. So much synergy and thematically awesome! I really want to play it.
Your character prety much a Toxicroak.
I’ve rolled up a grung rune knight with the same intent, except they get to become large
@@mojorn8837 lol was just talking with my DM about it last night and he suggest adding some levels of Rune Knight to get that ability.
I can now legally play the SWOLBOLD
Pack tactics? More like PACK ON DA MUSCLES
Why is the Satyr is always forgotten? They also get magic resistance and have a base speed of 35ft. That’s pretty amazing!
They are also a "fey" and not a "humanoid", so they are immune against spells that target only humanoids such as Hold Person.
I rule that any race with magic resistance doesnt.
Dude, and with the new Ranger's increased speed, you'll be as fast as an animal.
@@gordonross3270 Do you give them something to compensate?
@@hewhogoesbymanynames no. They are plenty good without it. With elemental resistance or a base 35 speed plus extra proficiency.
I was considering a mountain dwarf with most of their extra proficiencies swapped out for more tools; "If you name it, I can build it" can be a fun part of a character of just about any class. Turn it up to 11 by playing an Artificer...
i let one of my players do that, a mountain dwarf rogue had zero use for the armor and weapons training so yeah they got a fistful of tools to fuck around with
I made a future Psi Warrior doing exactly this. He was raised and educated by a rogue mind flayer who rescued him from ceremorphosis, so most of his dwarven training(armor and weapon proficiencies specifcally) has been replaced with a pile of tool proficiencies to help represent his different upbringing. Really looking forward to the campaign I eventually use him in.
@@sixofone8663 As a DM I'm more likely to allow exceptions and optional rules if they mostly add to characterization and out-of-combat utility; tool proficiencies tend to fall into that category, especially once you already have a few. Since proficiencies in particular represent personal history/experience/training, there are all sorts of ways that a character with non-default proficiencies would make sense (e.g. the backstory @y2a1979 came up with here). Now I kinda want to see a mountain dwarf clan historian/loremaster/cultivator of traditional arts, done as at least partially a College of Lore bard with an excessive number of skill and tool proficiencies. Focus spell choices on knowledge and craftsmanship to really have the character make sense...
Yeah, this is one of my favorite ideas too. Mountain Dwarf Artificer is just sooooo insane with the potential tools
I was building a mountain dwarf. Decide for a bard and remove the weapons and armor and now she has high char and dex and 15 int so she can get bussy with any kind of kit or tool. We are gonna have fun
Loving my half orc armorer artificer. That relentless endurance has been a godsend in my ability to tank with only a d8 hit die, especially at early levels.
Yeah Relentless Endurance is the reason why my Warlock is a Half-Orc too... I called him Oscar, after realising the potential.
His Patron is a Devil and he has fallen in love with the Devils Daughter.
So he is basically some commoner Half-Orc who is in love with this daughter of a powerful Trademaker. As I realised how close it was, I had to call him Oscar.
His true Love wrote a book about them, to tell the whole world that she loved him.
But he still isn't happy about the title... Tusk Love.
its funny, I built a mountain dwarf as a sorcerer even before tashas cauldron. basically a mountain dwarf who grew up expecting to be a fighter, but wound up with wild magic. an angry small woman who can wear armour and smash things with a hammer, and is tired of having fireballs center on herself
Tortle, draconic ancestry sorcerer is a mood
20 AC ???? better than real dragon's
Dragon Tortle, its time to hit the seas.
BOWSER?¡
@@ggogaming7441 AC calcs don’t stack, my guy. Nice try, though.
@@MM-lv7iy that just sad
well get a shield to be 19AC and a ring of protection+ Defense for an 21AC That more than a Red dragon AC
About to start playing a Warforged Order of Scribes wizard. Sentry’s Rest + Find Familiar means I can read books all night long and take solo watches for an entire night. Not to mention I get to build a mini me that I can talk to while lonely
My Half-Orc Sorcerer was okay with the normal rules, +2 STR gave me a dump stat and she used CHA to prove that strength isn't always "ME HIT HARD!"
I had this same experience with my dragonborn warlock.
I've ALWAYS been fascinated with the idea of an Elf Barbarian, just...imagine how epic the rage of such a LONG-LIVED creature must be, how much of a grudge can they keep? how much they remember of entire lifetimes of being wronged?
Also totally Agree that a Mountain Dwarf Rogue would be fun as hell to play, you could literaly make him an exile of his clan that gave up on his own customs and picked up his rogue-ish abilities to survive as a "Clanless" Dwarf all on his own!
I was hesitant at first, but once I really read it and wrapped my head around it I really turned around. Most of the flavor in a character is how you role play it. Just opens up the options and that's not a bad thing. PCs are supposed to be exceptional individuals.
What I like is that you are not limited in what race you have to play to play a particular class. I like how it only changed ability scores and proficiencies, both things that you would not be born in it
@@thetwizard9290 i like the versatility of that, but i also think that the reason behind is a little bit wrong, cos of course you nor i born with "ability scores" defined, but when we talk about species is a little bit different, I mean, for me, is completely natural that a specie like tabaxi, be more agile than a human, so a dex bonus is something natural, so it is for a minotaur to have more strenght that a human (or a feline like the tabaxi). for me is fine, is a game, you can make whatever you want, but i think the hability score bonuses are more biological, and then the words race and species get mixed
@@rubenmunoz2912 NPCs of those races don’t get those bonuses. This is because it is not something that those people are born with, just what adventurers get to push them towards a particular architipe, and they get it because of how they were raised, not from birth. That’s how I view it anyway.
Edit: obviously everyone is free to change how they view ability score bonuses from races in their own way. One thing I would like to mention is that most playable races would be races, not species, since many can breed, or a least breed with a race that can breed, with each other
These rules gives a second life to dragonborn.
Rogue Dragonborn can now exist
Wildmount gave a second life to Dragonborn
@@Mr_Maiq_The_Liar that was a good try from them, clearly in the good direction but still a lackluster race (only on a mecanical point of view for sure).
On the subject of a Tiefling using these rules, I created a Zariel bloodline Tiefling who's parentage comes from a Spine devil. I swapped the Charisma for the Strength, and the Strength for Wisdom and made a Strength Based monk (Path of the Living Weapon from Exploring Eberron) that can using smite spells. He's that giant, muscular, powerful martial artists that utilizes solid foundation and Hung Gar kung fu-style strikes with fists like actual adamantine which gives him a very different play style that is more aggressive, more linear in terms of his movements.
A flying Tempest Cleric does sound very scary
i wonder how the fly speed capstone would interact with your wings. as a DM, my instinct (and what i’m scared of) is to make it become a faster fly speed, but idk
@@Hazel-xl8in I would also say just add it or add half, like how Gloomstalkers gain darkvision at lvl3 with Umbral Sight
@cak01vej maybe your pixies don’t fly faster, but i would certainly expect a pixie in my world that was also wearing a pair of winged boots to be the fastest thing you’d ever seen
@cak01vej I'm thinking because it's not everyday you get to play a lvl20 campaign, I'm gonna give my players as much as I can without being too broken. Especially because of how fast you have to actually move to fly in real life, it would make sense that you can cover way more ground in one turn by flying.
Looks like I can fully realize my beastly socially anxious tiefling druid. Now, I just need a stable gaming group...
The cool thing is that with Tieflings they don’t need to be demons or devils, you could make a rashkasha or Medusa Tiefling.
@@acarnivorouslizardfolk1033 well thats scary now
@@cesargeney5268 a little. I think if you look for it, you can find art for Rashkasa Tieflings.
@@acarnivorouslizardfolk1033 thats gonna be some cool backstory
@@cesargeney5268 indeed! Hope I could help some people.
Started my first campaign. My character is a spore druid. He spent years cultivating various plants and fungi on his skin but one tries to overtake his mind. So my goal is to get rid of it without killing the other plants he considers family.
My group responded positively to my backstory. It's been a lot of fun, my dm voices the evil mushroom pusing me towards evil.
Dude that's awesome. I'm also playing a spore druid with a fungus trying to take over their mind (or fuse with it), and it's at a point where they kind of think in unison, referring to themself as "we" and "us", and when they disagree with each other they get all wonky.
Here's to sentient fungus.
I'm glad that many players are happy about this. I'm still having trouble accepting the idea of a halfling with a STR 20 in a non-comedy game. And I've played and enjoyed strength-based halflings with the realistic limitations of their stature.
You could still have a 20 str handling before tashas, it would just take 1 more asi to do so.
@@matthewparker9276 I'm not sure you can manage that until you hit level 8 (unless I'm wrong, and I may be, no halfling subrace gets a Str bonus). But now you can come out of the gate with it (take that +2 from Dex and put it on Str). I know it's still illogical either way, but I can accept an 8th level chatter having inhuman abilities more easily (for some reason).
Thanks to that new feat, I'm currently playing a Halfling Barbarian in one of my tables (Path of the Beast).
I like how this allows players to play more offbeat race-class combinations without feeling penalized, but I do worry that it also tends to take some of the flavor away from races. For my next campaign I've decided to allow my players to move one of the stat increases, but not both. (or in the case of a half elf, they can move the all, since 2 are already a choice. For a Triton, I'd say they could move 2 of the 3 +1s, but let's be real - nobody plays Tritons.)
Of course, I always thought it was fun to play offbeat combos even before this change. My last character was a Halfling Wizard.
I suppose it depends on whether you see the 'racial' stats modifiers as inherent to that race/species or as because the members of that race train those stats. I mean, it's not unreasonable to say that half-orcs' STR boost is inherent, that typical members of that species are stronger than typical humans because of their physiology. Then again, it's also not unreasonable to say that average members of that species are strong compared to average humans simply because they live in a culture that values physical strength and thus they train vigorously to a greater extent. I suppose what I'm saying is that it comes down to whether you see stats as nature, nurture, or a combination of both. Your option of allowing one stat to shift suggests perhaps in your game world, it's a bit of both.
@@BlueTressym yeah, it's fine to think of it either way, but I like the notion that the different races do have some predispositions, whether genetic or cultural.
I think there's room for any of these approaches in any given campaign setting, and I may choose a different approach in a future campaign.
@@Brashnir I think as long as you can create a backstory that justifies the change, it's fine. Why did your mountain dwarf turn to scholarly pursuits instead of following the clan traditions (to switch from STR to INT), and who was their tutor?
There can definitely be a nature vs. nurture discussion, but I agree that there should still be some racial and cultural flavorings that reflect the worlds the characters live in.
Ability scores are not as worrisome to me as the skill and proficiency changes.
@@BlueTressym Even if you view the bonuses as inherent moving them can still make sense. Because X race has a bonus to Y stat the can coast by on genetics and spend more time focusing on Z stat instead.
I feel like this reduces the concept of an off-beat character concept. If you can move the con bonus from a dwarf elsewhere, the association of dwarves as tough gets weakened. It makes me think of my mom's doberman and my mini dachshund; I love my dachshund, but there's no way an average dachshund will be as tough, strong, or agile as a doberman. It's just not in the genetics or body shape/size.
Welcome to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything where player lineage is made up, and the stats don't matter.
But everything else besides the stats still does! So your racial choice is still a major part of the game and character design.
@@DungeonDudes Oh I wasn't taking a swipe at the book or the design aspects of the game. I was making a reference to the opening of "Whose line is it anyway" where the host alyways opened the show by saying "Welcome to whose line is it anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter."
The flexibility of custom lineage is great.
This means one of my Dragonborn family tree is going to grow now a lot more . Also a Dragonborn Monk (+2 dexterity and +1 Wisdom) with a draconic Breath and resist to the type of damage picked with the the draconic breath
Made a sailor background aarokocra barbarian, angry seagull
Have been wondering if i could make him a goose
Check out Goonie Birds or Blue Footed Boobies
I saw a parrot aarakocra in a pirate game once. Pretty cool
The goose would obviously be a rogue.
Finally! Variant human isn't the king of everything when you aren't sure of what Race to play
I think I've made more dragonmark humans than variant humans honestly, simply for the flavor
The other thing that I really like about it is it lets you swap the proficiencies too for other things of similar abilities. A lot of race / class combos had overlap there with weapons especially where elves get a bunch of simple and some martial weapons that tons of classes just get for free and now you could say oh I picked up this tool or different weapon you might have wanted. Or swapping a skill you didn't really want for another you did. Tools I think are a generally underutilized part of the game and can be fun to work with when you have them!
Only Power Gamers and Min/Maxers needed this. the rest of us like to use the old rules to spice up the story! #BigBrainTime
Quiet Patrick, you're scaring him!
This is such cool content. Im glad you two are here to deconstruct this d&d stuff
I've found that in my groups, playing a less optimal race/class combo has not been a big deal. I'm playing a Dwarven diviner in one campaign, and have not had a problem with the effective -1 to my primary stat bonus. However, there are two caveats: 1) The group is fairly large, so my minor drawback's impact is spread out over the team and 2) the campaign, a fantasy-Victorian setting in which we are investigators, makes the advantages of a diviner strong enough to make the lack of bonus to Int score much less relevant.
That said, when Tasha's came out, I asked the DM if I could swap his Strength bonus out for Int, per the rules in Tasha's. Not because I wanted that +1 bonus to my rolls, but because the character's backstory worked better with those bonuses. He was an academic who had never been a soldier nor trained to be one. His role with law enforcement is as an Inspector, not a guard or other combat oriented character. It just made more sense. I like the archetypes being there; players new to fantasy RPGs might be too lost among the options if there aren't a few tried-and-true characters to fall back on. At the same time, these new options stress to those same players that archetypes are a guide, not a law. You can have fun ideas that break the mold, and NPC's can be very different than their societies. I was very happy with these rules and implemented them in my campaign right away.
Yeah, I tend to roll my eyes on people who use the TCoE rules for more power, but I love how they let you make the characters mechanically closer to what makes sense for their personality and history.
i agree, the RP advantage outweighs any minor mechanical issues.
Your excitement on this subject is infectious and now I'm excited lol
Hands down one of my single favorite aspects of Tasha.
It really is, even though a lot of groups have been doing it already, it is amazing to have it in an official book.
@@ryanulrich2147 For sure. It's nice to have Official rules for it.
I've always wanted to make like an Izaya Orihara-type character, and I've always seen it as a Yuan-ti mastermind rogue. Well, now it's actually that tad bit easier to work with since you can put that +2 into dexterity, and possibly move that +1 into wisdom or charisma. Izaya is smart, yes, but most of his knowledge and technique come from cleaver decision making and social networking, so insight and deception would probably be more important to this character than investigation or history.
Yes the dwarf battle wizard who uses magic if his weapons are stolen and weapons in an antimagic zone
Minotaur Monk is awesome. The horns ability boosts that unarmed attack for the first few levels, and adds some damage when you dash.
As a power gamer, this is great.
As a dm, i hate that race no longer has any meaningful choice behind it.
If the only meaning races have is a +2 and/or a +1 then thats not a very meaningful choice.
If you can get your +2 from a variety of different sources, why your player picks one over the other gets more meaningful not less.
@@EdsonR13 my point is this.
Why be anything other than a mountain dwarf or half elf? They get +4 racial asi that you can put where ever you want now. There is no good reason to pick anything else. The only reason ive ever bothered to read any lore on any race aside from human was because of class-race optimisation. Well now power gamers like me can ignore everything but those 2 races.
@@bradleyvenovich6160 why play anything other than a tabaxi 2 skills and feline agility, why play anything other than a tortle 17 base ac, why play anything other than an aarakocra 50 ft fly speed. I can go on, point being different character concepts will want different racial abilities, these options should make you more creative not less, Everyones seen the half orc barbarian its not original
@@EdsonR13 because ultimately asi's are king. Tabaxi are out done by half elves in the skill department. Feline agility is worthless. Tortle having a base ac of 17 is kinda meh also considering you can achieve the same thing by having any character with a 20 dex, which with tashas is even easier to start the game with. So on and so forth.
@@bradleyvenovich6160 do tell me about your 20 dex wizard with 17+ac, just because you havent been able to use feline agility to its fullest potential doesnt mean its useless. Yes ability scores are very key in min-maxing a character but there are plenty other racial abilities worth looking at
At first I was hesitant about the custom character origins because I like the idea that certain races are stronger or more dexterous than others. But after playing with it I can’t go back. I absolutely love the build diversity and potential!
I think this video captures my concerns about the optional ancestry rules. They are really rules that exist due to the tendency toward optimization and push certain ancestries, that were already better than others, even further beyond. You even noted this point with the Yuan-ti. I worry that mechanics have been put so far in the forefront that players believe anything less than an optimal character is unacceptable and that this, in turn, limits the scope of roleplay a bit. There is nothing wrong with optimization but as an MMO veteran I worry about the the proliferation of discussions that label certain ancestries as bad (because they offer fewer features) and others as good (because they offer more features). Of course playing a wizard with 8 int at lv 1 is not better or more noble than playing a wizard with 18 int at lv 1, but I think too many players get hung up on stats, especially considering how player friendly 5th edition is. Finally, I worry that ancestry will become a cosmetic choice with no real impact beyond physical features and life span.
You have noted in another response that these rules are optional, and that is of course true. Still, I think it is fair to discuss the merits and differing views surrounding these system changes. Thanks for the videos and good luck in all future endeavors!
I do have to ask though. Is creating races as only a cosmetic choice a bad thing? I mean I prefer it when the classes have most of the interesting mechanical choices since those might be the reasons you play the classes.
Some of the options like yuan ti have always been too good and for the tables that don't like how strong their features are, I see them banned. But if we were to make it a cosmetic choice only then there would be no reason to ban them at all except for story reasons with the DMs world.
@Sean Havern This. This comment is not rated enough, and I would like to like it 2000 times. Two weeks ago I was speaking with a player of mine, and he said that he felt "obliged" to take a +2 every 4th level, instead of taking a feat, because abilities are the most important thing. This kind of thinking made me realize that players are becoming all min/maxers, unfortunately, and Tasha has only worsened this attitude.
@@chrisvelo2595 I personally do not like ancestry being reduced to a cosmetic choice because I think it removes something from the game and ignores the real differences that exist amongst the ancestries. This process of reducing to cosmetic could be finished by removing the features from certain races, but that again is placing mechanics over immersion/role play and in my opinion that is undesirable.
Of course I understand some folks do not agree with the above concerns and I think WotC was right to make these ancestry options optional. Good luck in all your gaming.
@@kazebaret And I have no inherent problem with Min/Maxers, I think highly competent characters can be great, but I lament players feeling like they have to optimize because frankly, 5e does not require optimization. It is very player friendly unless you are playing at a table where all encounters are deadly. And even deadly encounters are really not that threatening when you have spells and other tools available.
Again, I do not think you are a "good player" if you play a bard with 8 charisma, but I do not think players should feel bad about playing a dwarf wizard or elf barbarian. I chafe at the language that Tasha's "finally allows you to play an Orc Wizard." That statement is just false, it allows you to more easily optimize an Orc Wizard.
@@seanhavern2384 And especially in 5e where the abilities are capped. As far as I've seen, this problem stems out of the 3e (I'm a 1st ed player and it was not at issue at all), and I really have no idea if it can be mitigated, or solved. Don't get me wrong: I love 5e, but it is becoming less "D&D" and more "board game" with the passing of time.
With the custom origin, you can now play an aaracokra that doesn’t have a flying speed, which is great because so many DMs don’t allow the aaracokra normally.
Also: Flightless birds
This may be a grognard opinion but I hate the race options in Tasha's. It is min/max rocket fuel and drains a lot of flavor from the choice of picking a race.
Fortunately they are totally optional rules you do not have to use if you don't like them :)
Was my concern too. But thankfully this is supplemental material and you don't really have to use it if it's not up your alley.
Honestly would prefer to use this as a way of creating your own subspecies or some such.
All these new rules made playing a half-elf ranger ideal for me. Between half-elves getting hella skills, the variant ranger rules giving you expertise in a skill, and the ranger already being a pretty skilled class, I'm stacked when it comes to the exploration pillar of the game
Professor Dungeon Master on dungeon craft with his +1 vest of comment deflection also has a great take on this. Great video gentleman!! 😊
He is less happy about the whole thing though :P
I have to say I agree with most of his points.
Wait, which is the not gentle one? Lol
I love homebrewing subclasses, so I find myself always lining up all subclasses of a certain class together and analyzing their similarities to figure out how to create a balanced homebrew subclass. I think it would make a great series if you can go over each class, and inspect how its subclasses function in order to give a good guide to dungeon masters on how to homebrew a balanced subclasses for each class.
Your work always inspires me to express my creativity in this game 😊
I love the way the new rules encourage you to look at the traits that are not ability score increases or specific proficiencies when coming up with a character concept. One of my new favorite characters is the half-orc armorer or battle smith because of what relentless endurance and savage attacks do when paired with those subclasses.
That's a great point! It really helps expand the possible combinations and center traits or abilities that have more roleplay opportunity than the number.
The custom lineage thing is the greatest tool introduced to flavor and roleplaying possibilities since the PHB. Same for spell flair. It actually came at the most opportune time.
We're currently running a campaign that plays about 2 decades after our previous one in which two of our players got hitched and had a daughter. The couple were a tabaxi and a variant human. And thanks to custom lineage I had the idea to bring their daughter to life by playing a half breed between human and tabaxi (yes haw haw I get it neko stuff. Not the reason). The character is a love letter and homage to the two characters who I fell in love with cause their players just roleplayed them so beautifully. The daughter is now a order of scribe wizard, out to do her name justice, being the daughter of 2 sung heroes.
I personally won’t be using these rules in any of my games. The changing ability score bonuses runs counter to what those bonuses represented and it makes the game feel too same-y and video game-esque
A Halfling with a STR bonus brings to mind Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took... big enough to ride a horse, strong enough to decapitate a Goblin Warchief with one swing of his club.
The Unexpectables have given Tortles some decent love, but I look froward to seeing them more now!
The only difference between Variant Human and Custom Lineage is a skill or darkvision
Not the only difference. Custom lineage allows a player who takes a half feat to start the game with an 18 in their primary stat when using the standard array
NO! Using point buy, +2 +1 ability from a feat means that you can get an 18 at level 1. Your other abilities might be lower, but the 18 starting stat means they are significantly more powerful if you're trying to min/max. You can GWM with an 18 at level 4. No other race lets you do this.
The way Kelly says Firbolg has me laughing. I currently play a eldritch knight firbolg and its amazing and super fun
It's almost as bad as the way Monty said Genasi.
that would be a fun character. A rune knight would have been fun too
@@Observer31 Thurnden is his name and he is a blast to play.
@@thomasowen3678 Except they pronounced them correctly. There is a pronunciation guide.
Fun vid as always! I'm a bit surprised you didn't go more over the Proficiencies customization options as well, since those have great flavor potential. Like, now my Drow Bard raised above-ground can have gotten regular Elf Weapon Training instead with the other Wood Elves! Which means she thinks of rapier & hand-crossbow as cool bard weapons, even though they make her look more Drow-y now too, and doesn't entirely realize how traveling around with them may have opened herself up to hostility... It doesn't change her toolkit significantly (just Longbow proficiency which she wouldn't be using regularly anyway) but it sure helped me envision that "weapon-training" part of her background and adds more interesting wrinkles to her character.
I suspect we will see a lot of Hill Dwarf Sorcerers
Or surprisingly tortles since they have a high natural ac
We already had a Mountain Dwarf sorcerer in our Curse of Strahd campaign, and he was mad powerful even without changing his stat bonuses
I’ve done this before. He was a blue draconic sorcerer that used shocking grasp primarily (Lightning Palm Monk). But with the racial +1, draconic bloodline +1, CON bonus, and Tough feat, I wasn’t that worried about being on the frontline as a sorcerer
Imagine a hill dwarf Paladin with +2 str and +1 cha. You can get your spellcasting ability up higher without giving up as much con.
@@chrisvelo2595 yes, a Tortle sorcerer would be strong, but also think of a Loxodon sorcerer, whose AC is based on their con. If you played a Loxodon divine soul sorcerer, you could have your character involved with Hollyphaunts!
Ooh! Ooh! I played a flying Shadar-kai barbarian and he kicked every ass.
Personally, I am not a fan of the origins customization. It kind of feels like a lot of work was put into each race, giving them strengths and weaknesses which makes them interesting and possible a fun challenge to play. This fleshed out the races and gave fun story telling ideas for the races. Then Tasha's said 'screw that, do what ever you want."
I would agree, but it _is_ optional. Let's hope it stays that way.
Personally, I blame the SJWs who think that "if it is old or has a stain, it must be decimated and obliterated!"
I agree, but I am kinda torn on this. There are a couple characters I made based on abilities instead of stats, and part of me is happy I don't have to make that sacrifice, but that kind of makes that decision less impactful like it's dnd easy mode.
It's expanding the story telling options; no one is saying you can't keep the bonus where you want. It really helps broaden the roleplay possibilities and also helps move beyond troubled conflations with race and people (historically a problem in fantasy, lots of scholarship on Tolkien and race for example). It's also not changing things like life spans that are part of their biology. Those and many traits are not mutable. I'm very excited about all the new characters we can see from this. :)
I'm really glad you did point out the roleplay idea, but the real implication there is why there suddenly are going to be heaps of Mountain Dwarves popping out into the world to adventure
I’m interested in where Wildfire and Stars would fit on your Druid tier list. Whenever I finally get to play again I’m looking at a Star Druid.
Star druid is B tier levels 1-9, then at 10 and onwards it’s a straight up S tier. Just my personal take on it, without having played or seen it in play (Disclaimer).
@@eran5005 it seemed pretty strong, especially with the added tankiness in star form.
I have just started a campaign with 4 level 3 characters, one of whom is a star druid. The bonus action attack from starry form makes it seriously powerful at that level, and all three other players felt underpowered. (And the guiding bolts, and guidance!) I think the reaction from the star map will be really impactful in terms of action economy, too. I would highly recommend it, from my perspective as DM it feels like A tier at least.
I play a Tortle Grave Cleric named Ullyses in my friends Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign...loads of fun.
I like that I can play a Dragonborn without the terrible breath weapon or sometimes useless strength bonus.
Dragonborn get the Breath Weapon no matter what you know
It's a racial thing
Might as well play a Lizardfolk then
Because it's not really a *Dragonborn* without probably the most iconic Dragon thing to do
*Blasting Elemental magic out of your face*
@@ancientreddragon5617 They keep the breath weapon if you use custom lineage?
@@LordTonzilla Yes they do
The custom lineage only applies to the Ability Score Improvements
Not the innate racial abilities of a race
Like Elves, Tieflings, or Half Orcs can't just lose their Darkvision
Aasimar and Aracockras can't loose their wings
And so on and so forth
@@ancientreddragon5617 nope, I think he meant the custom lineage, where you create your own race with a feat and +2, therefore he can make it look like a Dragonborn and have a feat instead of a +1 strength and a breath weapon
I do wonder if the Custom Origins does allow you to take race feats
Halfling: Mark of Hospitality Alchemist Artificer. Literally played the character yesterday.
Full halfling party, where the PCs are all siblings. Should be fun.
Finally, now everything is a better human
Why play human when all races can use the custom lineage and get that tasty feat.
Free lv1 feat for Gloom Stalker, Shadow Sorc, Twilight Cleric, or Devil Sight Warlock still very good tho. And there also some group who play human-only campaign.
Main perk of the custom liniage for my groups is being able to play strange undead or monstrous characters.
Is there an official d&d pronunciation guide somewhere? From time to time I get caught totally off guard by the ways people pronounce things differently than me.
Today it was Genasi.
Genasi are genie people. Jinn-ah-si.
A surprising number of people have not made the connection, even though that is the whole point of the race. Grumble grumble.
There were a lot of weird pronunciations in this one.
DND Beyond includes audio pronunciations of most D&D terms. Including Genasi.
@@Capt.Thunder The problems of using a language that uses the same letter for multiple sounds. It bothers me when people refuse to pronounce things correctly like Nerdarchy with artificer or most people with mana.
@@robinthrush9672 I'm pretty sure that you can blame the Normans for most of it, bringing their wicked French ways with them, obviously.
I actually just played a new Mountain Dwarf Abjuration Wizard in a one shot a few weeks ago and had a great time!
I like playing characters that aren't optimised. It's what makes the role-playing fun. Having to over come your shortcomings.
@@Dezbood completely agree. I've ran halfling barbarians. They're not meant to be a strong race. They turn out quite mediocre where you end up dumping your crap stat rolls into your racial bumped stats. Doesn't mean they aren't fun. All races can have any class. Doesn't mean they have to be brilliant at it.
ruclips.net/video/8fKKyaaQE3Q/видео.html i cant disagree more with you Ross Diggle
@@Maximum7077 I can't disagree more with your disagreement theboredone
@@rossdiggle yeah, it makes sense that different dnd races are in fact different. If you put an average goliath in a wrestling match against the average halfling, one is gonna have better odds of winning. I feel like this origins rule only enables greater min maxing, not greater story telling.
@@aethon0563 i don't think so, i really like the idea of people that deviate from average. Like the orc that was smarter than normal, but he was weak, and became an outcast. So he tried to enter the academy so he can be stronger on he's own way.
For Custom Lineage i'm building an Eldritch Lovecraft aberration, born in the Far Realm with a formless a body, was sent to the material plane without 'memories' but a constant maddening whispers in his mind that at that point just say 'learn, adapt'.
The character start with the Eldritch Adept feat, getting the Mask of Many Faces invocation, changing his appearance in every encounter, no one knows his true appearance, couse there is none.
He is a Sorcerer Aberrant Mind, and later with lvl dip in Fathomless Warlock. (GOO have some overlapping)
the build is basically Tentacles, Mind Control, Maddening Terror... nothing new just a Call of Cthulhu monster in D&D
As a DM, I see the system as a useful tool to tweak a race (or build new ones) for my campaign worlds.
For players, I see this as a great opportunity to min-max. At what point do we just say all races are the same and give more ability points? I have a player playing a half-orc sorcerer. He invested heavily in CHA since he had no racial mod for it and will sink points from ASIs into it, but he's finding playing against type rewarding. He doesn't need to be optimized.
It's possible that you've just described the core of 6th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Late comment, but this is my issue; if any race can fill any role, then what makes any of them unique.
@@SomeDigitalGhost races have traits beyond their stats and proficiencies
@@TheArtistKnownAsNooblet You lose them when you use Tasha's rules.
I like the potential of the custom origin for expanding on half-races. Currently there's only half elves and half orcs, but using Tasha's, I was able to create a half-goliath, half-tiefling character, where I still used a base goliath, but was able to customize it to reflect her tiefling heritage as well
Ok you have my attention, tell me more about this half goliath half tiefling. Both lore wise and mechanically
@@EdsonR13 Lorewise, I just decided that the tiefling mother was an outlander fighter who made it her duty protect villages to the north. The goliath father was a blacksmith in one of those villages. They had a thing, which resulted in the birth of my character, and then they parted ways amicably.
Mechanically, well... that might break the PG-13 barrier, but it's not like the races are *that* different ;)
@@autumngerfen5746 lol, by mechanically I meant what abilities did your character inherit from each parent from a game side
@@EdsonR13 Oops! I built her as a baseline goliath, so she gets all the goliath traits, but I switched out the ability score and languages, so she would pull from the tiefling languages and ability scores instead of the goliath. Looks-wise, she looks like a beefy giant tiefling, but a rather small goliath
@@autumngerfen5746 that sounds pretty cool 😁
This did benefit my character a bit in that I finally had an "official" means by which my half-Orc, half-Halfling could speak Halfling but not Orcish. Otherwise I'm of mixed opinion: on one hand it gives players a means to reflect that their character is a unique individual for their species, maybe what prompts them to leave home and pursue a life of adventure. On the other hand, it means certain players will try to min-max their species of choice into a role they're commonly not suited to, sacrificing that potential for character growth
Victor Le-ver or “Victor the Red”
he’s a bulky scary looking suave French accented Half dragon half teifling with huge horns, a pact of the blade warlock, paladin, fighter, bard combo.
Super min max. But the Role play is gonna be to die for.
Honestly can’t wait to play this guy. 😈
My very first 5e character was a Tortle fighter at an adventurer's league event! Now they're so much more flexible.
Only from a strict optimization viewpoint. You lose the against type RP advantage and party race and class diversity. All races can now be of maximum mechanical synergy with all classes. This favors races that have a total of +4 to stats. The variant human feat advantage is now of less advantage since they get a total of + 2 stat bonus with no racial advantage of versatility that other races also have.
I’ve played a mountain dwarf abjurer wizard years ago. He was the second tankiest in the party after the barbarian (because of their rage). Not being as naturally intelligent as a gnome didn’t affect him that much
The ability score switching isn’t something at my table. The other background skills and features, yes because those are how you are raised. Learning a language isn’t genetic, but ability scores are. You could always play these options before but you just weren’t as good as a race that genetically has that. A halfling isn’t gonna be as strong as a Goliath. However, I also use a slightly modified standard array or my players roll, plus every ASI grants them a +1 AND a feat. So you can build up your power and overcome your handicaps. This altered rule just leans into min/maxing even more
What made your orc wizards/gnome fighters interesting was the disadvantage, the weirdness. There's now no disadvantage, no weirdness. They are now just another cut out of that class. This all feels less interesting, more generic. You are now Ser generic protagonist, good at whatever their story dictates they are good at. And you say yourselves 'oh this is so busted now, it's so min/maxable now' like that sounds horrible to me.
While we entirely disagree with you, we understand that these rules aren't to everyone's taste. Fortunately, these are optional rules, and if you don't think they make your game better, don't use them!
Really want to know where Kelly got his gemed wrist band from! Only major concern I see in these new rules is your table might end up being less diverse across the parties races, should everyone try to min max. But I think most people will still play what they want to.
Exactly, everyone will play mountain dwarves and a party of five dwarves instead of a diverse assortment of races will likely be the end result, since there is no advantage to playing a human whose racial characteristic was being more versatile with 2 floating +1 stat bonuses is now a moot point. A puny feat that one can gain at 3rd or 5th level doesn’t balance out against all the abilities of dwarves, say 2 floating plus 2s, which in itself is like an ASI or feat, in addition to dark vision, etc etc. that dwarves get. They gave the versatility of humans to all other races w/o granting humans with any way to balance the now universal stat versatility or floating stat bonuses, that used to define the race ... so I agree that it may become an issue and the end result can be a less diverse party.
Monty: "As far as I am concerned, having more options is never a bad thing." Except when you really think about it and you take into account long-term effects and unintended consequences. All 'games' are a balance between freedoms and constraints. Too many constraints and nothing interesting happens in your 'frozen' game. Too many freedoms and you don't really have a game; the structure 'melts'. For example, regardless of what you think about soccer, just ask yourself if the game would be improved with the use of hands, tackling, lacrosse sticks, or even "more options" like a mobile net. Either the game breaks down, you are playing a categorically different game, or it becomes absurd.
I agree. Always bringing in new options creates interest and spice to the game but it also introduced characters that can become more broken at earlier and earlier levels
@@chrisvelo2595 "I agree." Well, I actually didn't say anything regarding brokenness, I was discussing the diminishing returns more options bring. Though I suppose more broken characters are part of that. It’s interesting you used the term “spice”, because that analogy also works in cooking: at what point does adding more spice spoil the flavor?
@LP Gaming “WoTC didn’t just throw stuff in a book. They take care and consider balancing in everything they do.” That’s funny. The 45+ year history of D&D (and the 25+ year history of Magic the Gathering, another WoTC game) is soaked with unbalanced rules, weak themes, ham fisted adventures, confusing mechanics, tedious accounting, and intrusive politics - “stuff thrown in a book” to generate sales and pay the bills. The accumulation of ill considered rule expansions IS what lead to the collapse of past editions into heaping piles of boring incoherence. Tasha's is a lurch in that direction for 5e.
@LP Gaming Sure. No problem. We can leave it at that. Great gaming to you.
I prefer how Pathfinder 2e handles Half-Elves and Half-Orcs in character creation. You're not limited to just Half-Human. You can have a Half-Elf Half-Gnome or Half-Orc Half-Goblin and it would actually have a mechanical effect on your character by way of what racial feats you have access to.
Kinda disappointed that you didnt mention a rogue tortle that can roleplay being adopted by an old rat and feeds on pizza
Granted it was my first character and I didn't know how much optimization could go, I kind of hope my DM will allow me to shift my elven +1 INT to WIS someday. I can see why they hard shut me down mid dungeon, but since I've always said my ranger was kept away from academics and she learned by observation it feels like it would make more sense. Hopefully someday.
Changeling abilities granted through Draconic Ancestry for a sorcerer specializing in Subtle Spell, enchantment spells, and proficient in deception and insight?
The all-time slimiest Used Car(t) Salesman in your campaign setting.
Next npc found
Very cool, very fun episode. Really got my imagination running wild. Great news on the Drakkenheim book. I look forward to seeing that.
I hate these rules my players and myself when I'm a player minmqx by nature so I would nerf these by saying you can only change one of your stat bonuses whether is be your plus 1 or plus 2 and I may even restrict it to the plus 1 outright
Fortunately they are totally optional rules you do not have to use if you don't like them :)
Create a Gnome Barbarian. Throw the tiny, raging barbarian at enemies and watch the fun
I was playing an aarakocra barbarian in a game before tashas came out. I'm so interested in revisiting that with tashas rules now. it was fun cause I had a reach weapon with polearm mastery, so I was flying & had reach. no melee could hit me
How does that work, do you hold and use the weapon with your bird feet?
@@GrassPokeKing they have arms
Dustin Fabricante Oh, was I thinking of the Kenku?
My two latest favorite characters are a shadar-ki shadow sorcerer and a deep gnome darkstalker ranger. Right before these two, I actually played a Yuanti bard.
So hear me out:
A Yuan-Ti Totem Barbarian.
• Resist to all magic
• Resistance to everything else except psychic damage while raging.
At level fucking 3.
Oh no look at all them mind flayers over there
@@hellishrebuke8169 Because we all know how regular of an enemy mindflayers are.
@@dist0rt3dhum0r they are now.
@@iododendron3416 Right, because that's definitely how a good DM takes care of that kind of thing.
That's when you up the challenge by using min/maxed enemies, like casters smart enough to use effects that aren't bothered by your resistances as much(Web, nearly any spell causing difficult terrain, using Fly and/or other movement options to stay out of range until the rage ends, and so on), or by hiring their own barbarians to fight you. Or perhaps their new bodyguard is a Psi Warrior fighter. The combo is certainly potent, but anything has one or more potential counters if you look hard enough.
Surprised they didn't talk about how with Tasha's CO you can have an 18 in any stat at level 1 by putting 2 points in an ability by taking a half feat.
Personally, I really like to do this now as it means I can take more feats which is just *Cheff kiss*
Finally, my Chef feat is optimal to my character build both mechanically and flavor-wise.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who has the concept for a mountain dwarf abjurer running around in my mind.
My main campaign I play as a Hill Dwarf Druid. It's grand. His origins are all based around him being in the woods his entire adult life.
I like Tasha's customization options in the context of homebrew customization for GM's to change up how their races work, but I don't think racial features should change character to character. They're not individual features; they're supposed to apply to every member of that race, since they're "racial" traits.
I played a tortle wizard prior to tashas. Having a wizard who was hard to hit and could hold its own was unique.
I don't think this really opened many doors for me; I was the person that made a halfling barbarian anyways.
Dex based barbarians are amazing. Wood Elves and Halflings are my go to races under the normal rules for barbarians and I almost always choose the totem of the eagle or the wolf with dex based barbs.
Kalashtar +2 STR / +1 COS as a Bear Totem Barbarian gets resistance to every damage type... Kalashtar +2 WIS / +1 COS Moon Druid that can communicate while in Wild Shape... Damn, i really love custom lineage. And i really love the idea of a mountain dwarf wizard.
Kalashtar Bearian? You mean the Hulk?
@@dragonmaster613 didn't know there was already a build 😂
I love this interpretation of the rules!! I've seen too many people being angry about the race thing seeing it as a statement about race when it just let's you make more incredible characters!!
Totally agree! Great for the game.
I always wanted to make a strength based paladin tabaxi, climb speed and basically 24/7 double speed sounds like a perfect fit for a paladin
Get ready for my stronk elves and skinny dwarves, my dudes!
We’ve been homebrewing exactly this for years m8
It's a joke lol but alright
William Mena Raabe I, for one, am ready and waiting for both our Buff Elf Overlords, as well as our Lithe Dwarf Underlords 😍
This is making me think that maybe a system where the ability bonuses being attached to the background feature might be interesting too.
Rolled up a custom lineage that looks like a kenku but is a human cursed by a hag
SIIIICK
Been thinking of a Half-Orc blade-singer, able to shrug off a knock-out blow once per day and an additional weapon die on a crit is pretty appealing on a hasted bladesong'd wizard in studded leather.
I worry it makes customization a bit *too* easy. The opportunity cost of picking one race over another is reduced.
“Oh no! People are going to be picking the lesser played races more often now because more doors have been opened! Oh the humanity! What is the world coming to!?”
@@jasoncarnelian3325 The races that were considered the best but had an ASI that wasn't now are nearly solidified as the best.
All races get better, but it's not an even spread. So I don't see my group playing the lesser played ones more; I see us using the same ones we always have more because we can now just slap it on any class without the drawback of a mismatched ASI.
my first ever character was a tiefling noble BM fighter. I'm going to play her again soon, so now i don't have to worry about having a low strength score when i take polearm master + sentinel
She's going to be amazing!