Yes, i have a party of 3 and really like the option of having a party sidekick that everyone at the table can put together to help the team. Wanting to run a lot of campaigns end up taking a lot of extra time redoing encounters due to the lack of players and this gives an easy way to solve that. It can be controlled by the DM, a PC or all the PC's can take turns controlling it maybe by initiative, whichever PC has the turn prior to it can tell it what to do i think is a fair thing tbh and that way everyone should get a turn in handling the sidekick.
I would also only allow a sidekick for a player that cannot summon or have a pet. So basically Fighter/Rogue/Paladin. Because if you're a caster, have a familiar, and a summon, and a sidekick... that's just way too much.
@@KatanaKamisama again, sidekicks are mostly there to fill in for not having enough players to begin with, so being 'too much' isn't so much an issue. They're there to be a stripped down alternative to having individual players runnung multiple full PCs, and in that sense they are saving table time, not addung to it.
Just thought I'd let you know that your videos on DnD are by far my favourites, simply because you know what you are talking about and have the necessary structure to deliver it.
specifically, choose a single level focusing on teir I and II, and compose a party of 4 adventurers. Put them on a grid, like you did for the tactics videos and show how syncergies would work
@@Tsuna_SoulSilver yes and no. The main reason for this though I think is that it's much easier to "sell" an idea to one player, be it a feat, spell, whatever. PF1 had teamwork feats for instance which were not bad, but required at least one other party member to take it as well in order to be a benefit. I think that most systems often end up with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, but moreso just because the players learn how to best work together. As an example, Guiding Bolt is a decent spell in its own right. Guiding Bolt right before the rogue's turn though is a lot better. When most players select Guiding Bolt initially though they may not even know if there will be a rogue in the party.
The one tatoo that actually feels like a tatoo is the one that increases unarmed attack bonuses and allows a monk to have a +1/+2/+3 weapon with an effect for attunement. That helps their dps a ton.
Pre-Tasha’s there were race and class combinations that were OP but most players avoided them because no one wanted to be the jerk who showed up with a Yuan-Ti Divination Wizard. Tasha’s just creates a lot more of these OP combinations but I do think that a lot of players will avoid them because they don’t want to be “that guy” at the table. However, there will still be power creep as players pick less obvious, less talked about race/class combinations that are going to be more powerful than what is available today.
There are always optimizers out there of course. A lot of it just comes down to being a table friendly player. Optimizers are great at a table full of optimizers, but will be bored outta their skulls at a table full of deep roleplayers. Neither group is doing it wrong though. But yes, new books almost invariably result in power creep. The good thing with 5e is that the releases have been really spread out -- especially compared to 4ed, so the creep has been minimal.
I think it enables roleplayers to build more optimized characters without giving up on flavour. Closing the gap between those that build their concepts around op chars and those that choose based on role-playing instead. The later do not have to give up on building an effective char anymore.
@@gabrielcperrone I think that is an excellent player. As far as what i see the game is still about role playing. If you want to role play every class, race, and build is still viable. But i fear that all these extra features keep collecting it will end up eventually either in a place like PT1 where you have to power play or be a non participant, or else, every one has abilities so mixed and redundant that you no longer have a specific role: you just may be a number that needs replaced.
@@Gargs454 "Optimizers are great at a table full of optimizers, but will be bored outta their skulls at a table full of deep roleplayers." I strongly disagree with this. I'm an optimizer myself, and always play at a full table of roleplayers, and it's never been an issue. The reason for this is that being an optimizer absolutely does not detract from roleplaying. I've never liked the presumption that in order to be a roleplayer you need to play a weaker character. The purpose of optimizing is to make your character actually able to succeed at the thing they're good at more often than not. If they fail their intended role more often than they succeed, then that simply reduces their roleplay options, not increasing them, unless you want to roleplay a bumbling buffoon that can't do anything right.
YES!! The Peace Domain is insanely strong, so many people have forgotten about Zombies and that so many people do not use their Reaction. IMO, a party with a Peace Domain and a Twilight Domain, will have such a higher level of Damage Mitigation, that it’s basically laughable. I really appreciate the video Chris!
The custom races also favor magic users just because now they can give themselves weapon and armor proficiencies easily. Githyanki now becomes one of the best races in the game. Before their Str/Int ability score mix was the only thing holding them back.
@@whitleypedia they didn't shrug their shoulders at that it is to appease those who in their life want to have everyone refer to them as somthing they are only in their head. I can want everyone to acknowledge me as a grilled cheese sandwich but I am not one and I would question the mental stability of anyone who said I am. This is Wizards saying I'm a grilled cheese sandwich.
I feel like group patrons are more about narrative than mechanics. An alternative to the “four random people hired by the same wizard” dynamic. It gives the whole group common goals and a reason to stick together, even if they disagree
My favorite part of this is that you can play as your own patron, even if how they implemented it was a bit lackluster. Being your own patron solves the biggest issue with patrons imo.
Honestly, I was excited for 'be your own patron' support, but that support sadly isn't really there. 'Use the running a business rules from the dmg'. kind of a let down. Oh well.
My favorite part of this book (though I haven’t read it yet) has to be natural phenomena. I am working on a campaign setting that has a massive magical storm around the equator and this might give me some methods to make mechanics for that.
The Eldritch Storms are pretty cool in the book. Have you checked out the Ocean Environs part in GoS? Lots of great stuff in there like a Kraken’s Grave, Magical Storms, Eldritch Mists... etc.
Another theme I noticed (maybe it's just me?) is that there seem to be a LOT more features that scale with proficiency bonus. Where I'd normally expect a flat number or an ability modifier plus something, I'm instead getting "equal to your proficiency bonus". It seems like they're going all in on this new formula, even changing Bladesinger to fit with this new theme. I couldn't tell you how this might effect the game, except that most players will probably end up using those features 3-4 times per day given how long most campaigns last. I'm not mad at it or anything, it just seems a bit odd.
I've only given the book a cursory read so far. My biggest take away is that there is going to be an greater than ever divide between the players who can see and make use of indirect strategies, and those who can only see one step ahead. The groups with 2 or more strategic players will take a HUGE leap forward with this book. Groups without this dynamic will have some new variety, and virtually no change in power. As someone who enjoys the strategic elements, this sounds like fun. As a realist, who recognizes that less than 1/4 of the playerbase is capable of taking advantage of these strategic elements, I see a lot of difficulty balancing tables with a wide mix of players.
System mastery was a key play power modifier in 3.5e. Something they stepped away from in 4 and 5e. They're mostly because of the increased combination options and otherwise power level remains same, I'm very glad to see no marked power creep over the books. It will keep the system playable for much longer. While 5e isn't perfect, and has some confusingly named action economy still, I'm not ready for a 6e. There's a lot more ground to go over. I can easily see another 3-4 years of content
@@AAron-gr3jk I mostly agree, except in the part about power creep. I think it's not only present, but far bigger than acknowledged. It isn't in the form of greater damage numbers or direct survivability. It arrives in the form of second and third order effects. Take, for instance, the thp ability the Twilight Cleric brings. It's not an IWIN on its own. But it brings a level of survivability to an encounter that was previously unavailable. While the Barbarian might be the first focus for this benefit, from my view the greater benefit goes to those who had the lowest survivability. Suddenly, familiars aren't getting one-shot, conjured beasts can effectively tank, and the wizard and sorcerer doesn't have to be back row. That's the second order effect. The third order effect is the ability to move bodies forward to act as movable terrain features, to literally shape an encounter to your benefit. Suddenly, there's a reliable means of creating funnels and choke points, which high impact AoE effects can make great use of. Now, most groups simply don't have sufficient insight and cooperation to make use of these gains. For those groups, not much has changed. The high performing groups, however, will be capable to cruising though encounters with CRs above what should be lethal, with no risk at all. These second and third order interactions have always existed. But TCoE has massively expanded them, and ramped up the potency. The power difference between the casual gamer and the strategist just became far greater than it has been before.
Yea, the 6th level Protective Bond of the Peace Cleric could really make it so martial PCs can choose to take the damage for Concentrating casters. On that note, that is actually a huge buff for martial classes - it gives them a great way to do some battlefield control, something that martial classes had to work very hard to be any good at before.
Speaking of bonus actions, I was pleasantly surprised to see the bonus action attack option for Chain Pact Warlocks. I just picked one up, content that I wasn't going to be as powerful as the other two pacts, but when I found out I could have my imp attack every round I suddenly found myself being the premier damage dealer in the party!
I think this is an invocation you will probably end up trading off though, as the "to hit" of the familiar does not scale with level. +5 to hit is fine at lower levels, but eventually it's going to miss pretty regularly.
Hey Chris I love that you plan on taking on Tashas subclasses starting at the end. Lord knows Wizards don't get enough love. I hope that you mix you up, and just talk about whatever interests you the most week to week, and not what's next sequentially.
About that first puzzle: I'm glad you mentioned the language problem. As a Brazilian player/dm, I saw that and thought "ok, it is not intuitive and wouldn't work with my group in Portuguese". We are fluent in english and all, but we play in Portuguese, and it would take us out of the game to start thinking in another language. My takeaway about this book is that 5e is not for me anymore. I really liked vanilla 5e for its simplicity and the idea of "rulings not rules". Nowadays, I'm feeling like I'm getting into the worst days of 3.5, were those supplements transformed the game so much that you couldn't recognize the player's handbook anymore in the mix. I'm already going back to OSR games to have a simpler/lower-powered feel. And your video is great as always, and very informative.
Power creep sells books. By eclipsing the existing classes, you're compelled to buy the new book or fall behind. This should have been expected, given the way WoTC has handled M:TG from the beginning. Unfortunately it also gives players who have taken time off the feeling that it's not even worth picking it back up again, because it's almost an entirely new game. That's why I'm thinking, since my campaign is currently not running, that maybe it's time to migrate to a new system yet again.
D&D is for everyone. We are all equals. Magic users are just more equal than others. - Treatmonk PS - He did not actually say this. I would have chuckled if he did.
I would have liked to see more spells in this book. Nothing in Tasha’s is exciting as absorb elements, shadowblade, dragon’s breath, thunderstep, find greater steed, synaptic static, crown of stars, or illusory dragon. Instead we get... pets... which are great for weaponizing your concentration without effecting your action economy. Pair this with everyone having reliable attack options with Their bonus actions and it starts looking like everyone’s a cleric. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s worth thinking about before picking cleric, if doing damage from multiple sources is what you liked about it in the first place. Also noticing a thing where very little comes back on shortrests anymore. Only shortrest features that come up are pretty much incidental (channel divinity, wildshape uses)
Sounds like they are trying to tailor to AL with the reduced Short rest mechanics. In AL you might get a short rest if the author planed for it or uou have a nice DM but Long rest only come up if the author wrote the module to be a multi day module.
Short resting is a dungeon delving mechanic, and I don't think many people delve dungeons in D&D any more. Its more like dungeon visiting or dungeon geocatching.
I like the way Group Patrons and Sidekicks can work together when you have a relatively small group of players and some of those players drop in and out as work demands or life responsibilities affect their availability. If you use the Group patron to provide a number of small single session adventures rather than an overarching campaign (more Star Trek than GOT ) and use the patron as a source of sidekicks for a player (or the whole group) to run as a second character when you are short on man power or really need a different set of skills say for the mission. I would certainly agree on not adding them as a permenant party member unless you are really just running the game for two friends (for that Star Trek analogy sometimes you need a geologist on the away team to provide an insight and if they get charmed by the BBEG at the end of the second scene that's fine). I also think the Group patron could be a useful way of lending the party a magical tool for one adventure rather than giving the party something that they can then use to unpick encounters for the rest of the campaign. "Here's a magic carpet to bring the rescued princess out of the fortress once you've stealthily infiltrated the place to find where her cell is, got past the traps, dispatched the guards and countered the magical locks to release her. Have fun be cool and give it back tomorrow."
Peace domain is broken and definitely the strongest cleric subclass. You didn’t mention it but Druids won Tashas. They got enormous class and spell buffs and the new subclass changing allows broken combos like moon Druid into shepherds. Also multiclassing got huge buffs, bc u can trade feats for levels and a lot of dip options were opened up. Things like the 1 hex or 1 twilight dip are now immensely strong. Tons of new op grappling builds, interesting sadness combos with wis classes now. Summoners are completely broken now with all the temp hp etc
@@ponytail336 tempest is nice, but it doesn't particularly synergise with these two. It will be as strong in this party as in any other. But any GWM/SS build for example boosted really high by Peace cleric, Shadow Blade users are boosted by Twilight
To me it seems that the designers have lend from the nonsense that is escape-room puzzles... it is a very different way of thinking than "real" mysteries and puzzles. It is a way of thinking that follows a different metagamist logic.
Lots of good stuff in this book. Biggest winner in my eyes is the Sorcerer. Special features at level 1 that give 10 extra spells up until level 9 sorcerer. And you can switch them out with other spells of certain schools of magic depending on which subclass you're talking about. But you get to choose the spells from not only the sorcerer spell list but the warlock and wizards as well. This from a class that normally gets 15 spells known max! It makes the other sorcerer subclasses look like crap in comparison (You can make an argument for divine soul if you really want to use cleric spells with metamagic). Also the metamagic adept feat gives 2 more sorcery points and 2 more metamagic options. If you go with taking a feat at level 1 that means you can use metamagic right away and by the time you get to level 3 you have double the metamagics and almost double the sorcery points of a normal level 3 sorcerer. Deciding between which metamagics to choose just got a lot easier. You can now have quickened, twinned, subtle and distant metamagic (or whatever four you like best) at level 3 instead of level 17! Fey touched and Shadow touched feats are also really good for anyone but especially the sorcerer who can apply metamagic to the chosen spells. Plus there are extra class features, the new metamagic options, etc. A final point I'd like to make is for the mind sliver cantrip. It's a good cantrip for anyone. It's even better for a sorcerer who can quicken it then cast a spell that requires a saving throw right after. Sorcerers won bigtime with this book.
@@sharkforce8147 Agreed. I don't personally like subclass specific free domain spells for the sorcerer, -I like making your own choices. An expanded spell list like warlocks have is fine and flavorful; ultimately though I feel they need more spells known. -like 21+ at level 20 or so. It would have alleviated things if long rest/Spell Versatility had made it to publication. -and it would have made sense for a class where magic just comes to you intuitively.
just so excited to hear your views on this. ordered it for christmas. love your wizard/ spell series. Just got to level 19. gotta say, meteor swarm is pretty sweet.
100% with you on puzzles. I feel like they were designed with crossword fans in mind, not with average RPG players invested in a fantasy world. Good RPG puzzles are like the ones that appear in myths and legends; relying on riddles, creative thinking, deduction and psychology. Not mathematics, rote learning, literacy and pattern recognition I think a good rule of thumb is; could this puzzle work in another language, or for someone who can't spell? If not, throw it out For example the (SPOILERS!) Menu puzzle. Why would a secret organisation hide their password in this way? A much better way to run the puzzle would have one menu item and one drink be clearly disgusting and absurd (and maybe priced strangely), and asking for that menu item with that drink giving you access ("I'll have the slug stew with the gallon of bull milk" "That'll be 5 gold pieces, come with me and I'll show you to your table...")
@@nicka3697 we had that puzzle in my group. i figured it out immediately but noone in the group did so i just got the other two dwarfs in the group to work with me to make dynamite and drill some carefully placed holes. the dm was so surprised
If you want a clue for letter related puzzles, add a segmented cylinder where the number of rings correspond to the number of letters in the solution word and each ring has the alphabet on it. That cylinder doesn't need to anything special, but give a signal when the correct word is assembled.
I also think the Peace Cleric was my favorite subclass from this, and I also think that it might usurp the Life cleric in it's role. That channel divinity feature is a strict upgrade from the Life's one.
Hey Chris, I'd love to hear your thoughts on three of the feats out of Tasha's: Fighting Initiate, Eldritch Adept, and Metamagic Adept. Notably, I'd like to see if any of your prior builds benefit more from access to these cross-class dips without multiclassing - especially your latest Warlock build, I feel like the Voice would enjoy having access to Subtle Spell every so often!
THANK YOU for saying the language stuff on the puzzles. I get that some translations get made, but it's still frustrating to look into the book and thinking about how much work I'd have to do to even make them work. Agree on your points in general and, gotta say, I enjoyed the book, while being aware of some of it's implications. Thanks for the insight!
Only real change to Bladesingers from the SCAG is they can now use a cantrip in place of one of their extra attacks at level 6. Which is kinda neat, removes the headache of choosing which to use and opens up some combos. Might actually make True Strike a decent choice. Not a good one mind but not completely bad. Reason I'm putting this here is because I'm not expecting Treantmonk to make a video for Tasha's bladesinger....maybe if he does a video covering the reprints and any changes therein, in which case foot in mouth.
Personally, I like the idea of Sidekicks. Reason is, not only is this a good way to sup up a couple of guards, or scouts, or other NPC allies if one is outmatched during an ogre attack, and let's just say the mainly spellcaster-filled party needs a few meatshields to absorb damage, but let's say, at Level 1, the group encountered a Bandit, and spared their life - what happens 10+ levels later, when they encounter the same NPC again - only with 10+ levels of Warrior added on? Did that Bandit change their ways, and now uses their skills for good, or have they become even more dangerous? Likewise, what if the Level 10 party has a murderhobo, or two, in it, or there's a thief stealing anything not nailed down - sending an NPC Champion or Blackguard (even reskinned as Guard Captain) might not make sense, but an Experienced, Elite Guard, and well-trained Warhorse pair might do the job. Also, there's no rule against giving Sidekicks magic weapons or armor - although for animal sidekicks, it might be a good idea to improvise something that allows them to overcome resistance and/or immunity to nonmagical damage - like augmented horseshoes for horses, or something.
That painting puzzle gave me flash backs to final fantasy VII. You have to give a password to the Mayor of Midgar, however the password is hidden in the library. In each section of the library there is a book that is in the wrong section (for example a history book in the weapon's development section). The title of each book has a number in front and you have to count that many letters into the title to get the needed letter. Once you have done this in all sections of the library you'll have four letters which you can unscramble to get the password. Honestly wasn't that hard a puzzle, but they did include an option to pay an npc to give you hints as to how to solve the puzzle......which I think may be a good thing to do with this. Some players love, love puzzles, others really hate them and including a short cut for the players that hate puzzles sounds like a good thing with some of the tasha puzzles.
It isn't a hard puzzle in a video game where your options are limited. And you know for sure you need to search for clues, because you need a password, so you are looking for anything that could be a clue for a password. If the average DnD group stumbles upon a room where these paintings are and take the first hurdle of not ignoring them. They'll will note the monsters and then move when the mages didn't find anything magical or behind the paintings.
5E monsters are already known to be underwhelming ("compared to what, Porphy?" - compared to their counterparts in previous editions, where the same monsters had multiple attack options as well as, often, out-of-combat hook/utility options), so of course they boosted the PCs, who will then go up against the same simple bruteforce versions of monsters. What they really, really, really need is to focus less on PC options and more on expanding tools for DMs, some mechanical change options, a sort of advanced version. "But, Porphy, what you don't understand is that splatbooks rife with new cool toys for PCs sell way more than books aimed at, basically, just DMs or game mechanics, or monster tomes" - maybe true, but what I *also* understand is the latter will tend to make the overall gameplay life of an edition longer, and actually will have an effect on the number of people who play it that is larger, since the game will be more varied and interesting. I think HasburoCorp would do just fine even if an individual book didn't sell as well, but it kept people in 5E longer, while now PF2 is starting to draw their (our) wayward eyes. I got jaded on PF1 due to the power creep, for example, tho I had liked that, and drawn into 5E because it was a de-escalation. Now I'm starting to find PF2 attractive compared to 5E, partly for that reason but also because it's a mechanically more robust game, and the monsters have relatively more ways (tools) in which to challenge the party.
Easiest way to learn honestly is to just find a group and play. The good thing about PF is that all the rules are available online for free. There's just such a difference between PF2 and even PF1, much less 5e that you can't really explain it easily.
@@Gargs454 is right, but you can also watch people doing campaigns who stream them or upload them to YT. 2Perception ( ruclips.net/channel/UCCPim39vj5SsGNAGNqlKyCg ) has some fun campaigns worth checking out and they started them both as "lets learn the rules while we play" about a year ago. Paizo streams some sessions with the devs on Twitch too, so it's also a way to learn the mechanics and how they do it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.
Eh, I'd say more that they are just different, with different goals. I think each is better at what they strive for. That said, I very much enjoy both for different reasons.
@@johnharrison2086 D&D 5E is somewhat limited in terms of choices (every character from a subclass ends being a copy of the same subclass from another player, due the best options are usually evident) but on the other hand the class balance in PF2 is really bad (and now seems that D&D 5E is going the same rute).
Thanks for the content :) A couple of thoughts (though I haven't read the book yet, since the European release date has been moved backwards, we'll egt them early december): - sidekicks: I feel like these are more for small parties, if you have only 2 players or even if you do 1 on 1 sessions and you want to add a bit eextra muscle (again I haven't has a chance to read it yet, so maybe I'm far off). I'll probably completely avoid them for any "full" party - race customization: yes there will still be better races for most classes, but I think there are still plenty of races for each class viable (speaking from an optimization standpoint - me personally I'll still play whatever I really feel like currently medium armor proficiency be damned :P (it was ability scores be damned before)). Medium armor or the natural armor of the tortle are certainly great for wizards - but so is a flying speed, or a bonus action hide, or a climb speed (at least in my experience there is almost always some trees or similar nearby, which can provide a pretty safe spot for e.g. a wizard, potentially even some cover from ranged attacks), or rerolling 1s... I'm not claiming each of those examples is as good as more AC, but those were some of the first that came to my mind and some of them are hard to compare to each other in my opinion. Ultimately we end up in a pretty similar world where whoever wants to optimise will prefer certain races (though different ones now), while players who just want to play their half orc wizard (though not dieing once per day isn't bad either) might be a bit less optimised in terms of utility or defense, but they can now have the same spell save DC as everybody at the same levels. I think a lot lies in the feeling - playing a race and seeing your lower DC in comparison to other party members can feel pretty bad (and your abilities failing certainly feels terrible) and I don't think missing out on certain racial abilities will feel quite as bad (even if the difference would be roughly the same, which again is hard to determine)
@@nicka3697 honestly I have yet to see a game where the ban list for races didn't include Yuan ti Pureblood and Aaracokra/Flying tiefling (when I wrote flying speed above I was actually thinking of aasimars) :P So if a DM banned those races before nothing will change, they'll stay banned for their table :) And e.g. the Yuan Ti might be a "problem" with this system, but I thik it was a problem before, so I think the issue lies in that races design rather than in this system ;)
Great video as always. I think the biggest issue with puzzles is that they test the player rather than the character. The problem with that then becomes that what may seem obvious to one person is absolutely impossible to another.
I don't think it's necessarily true that combat is going to take longer because of the new "pets". They might promote more use overall, but strictly comparing pets in combat before vs now, I would actually argue the opposite. The statblocks are now a part of the spell or ability instead of hiding in another book behind the DM's decision, and the creatures tend to share your initiative, which allows you to more easily plan your overall actions every round. It's faster for everyone when there's less "lets open up dndbeyond and search for CR x options to choose from", which not only takes time but also can easily lead to options that aren't familiar to you. I'm glad they streamlined some of that, because many of us already house rule things like having your familiar share initiative with you. Obviously same as before, the player bringing additional creatures to combat should be prepared to handle them quickly, but I do think the new options should make things run smoother compared to the old ones.
In my experience, more power to the players just mean I get to break out some scary custom monsters earlier. So while I don't rush their power, I don't mind my players getting ahead of the power curve, as I can compensate for that with relative ease.
I keep looking at Peace Cleric and can't help but feel like there is some sort of Necromancer build there to be uncovered. The free swaps of your pets to pull any aggro from you, plus the group bless/guidance to give them meatier swings...I may be chasing a mirage but even by itself Peace Cleric is a sleeper for sure.
Eh, magic items are purely the domain of the DM, and I've see a lot of single mage parties where the mage suffers because their DC's just don't land ever, especially against legendary monsters where they are the only one forcing saves. Having another built in option for boosting these would be nice. Something I would suggest people look at more after the race stat changes are the Dragonmarked races. You'll often get more value in terms of spells than you would out of Shadow Touched or Fey Touched.
Very surprised you didn't mention the proficiency bonus theme that is very clearly evident in tasha's. You can see where the designer's have mostly gotten accustomed to the system and have found the way they prefer to limit and expand options. Alot of these abilities may have said, "Equal to your [insert AS] bonus", or "add your [insert AS] modifier to the damage roll", which would've made a lot of character to character imbalance, and I much prefer them going off of something that we know is stagnant no matter the race, class, background, or stats.
My dm (aka brother in law) came over for thanksgiving and he brought the book over and we talked about it. He won’t be using any of the new race changes. I totally get it to, his reasoning is that players shouldn’t have to be perfect from the gate and should learn how to be better over time. Flaws are okay lol
@@TVMAN1997 One would expect more of roleplayers since it is supposed to be an interactive story - which means character progression as well as development, but alas.. my greetings to your DM. I hope he can maintain this rare mindset.
For racial options I know of no one who is using them: I just started to run a game, and told everyone that we were not using them and EVERYONE was like "oh thank the gods". But it is more than just stat, it is proficiency. Example - Elf fighter. Swap out longbow, shortbow, shortsword, scimitar (since you get them anyway) for 4 different tools or something. Or even as a wizard - swap out weapons for alchemist/herbalist kits and a couple of proficiency to make Fabricate do some stuff with minimal investment. Or have thieves tools without needing to take a background for it. Or go dwarf - 4 weapon prof, two armor prof, and get +2 +2 stats. Hobgoblin, already strong, gets even stronger now. Or go Changeling and get your +3 to any stat. Lots of interesting choices, and tier lists for sure change now. It is all about unique racial abilities instead of stat lines, and what you can swap out. But again, it seems to be one of those optional rules no one is going to be using right away - or possibly ever (looking at you, 5e flanking rules...).
Not a shocker. The Rogues were tired of *being* the familiar! ;) I've never played an Arcane Trickster before, but I couldn't imagine being one, and not taking find familiar. That said, as a Wizard main, I also use my familiar religiously. The 1st level spell that keeps on giving right-on through the campaign!
I've actually stopped using my familiar out-of-combat in large part because it means I monopolize too much of the limited game time and kind of steals the thunder from our party's rouge(s) who want to be the ones doing the sneaking and infiltration because it's what they built their characters around. I can kind of get how it gets a bit obnoxious to have another party member go "Actually, most of your character concept is superfluous since I can just send this stupid rat or whatever to do the same job".
Having run alot of games over decades I can attest to the risk of puzzles. They can be great fun but are just as likely to shut the game down for hours or if the answer is vital it can end a campaign in a total fail. Be ready as a gm to step in and help if your players just aren't getting the answer. Nobody enjoys a frustrating dead end.
Really looking forward to this! Would you agree that one race, the mountain dwarf, is far and beyond everything else? It was balanced by the fact that no character could make good use out of both +2 Str and medium armor, and +2/+2 freely with medium armor (and more abilities) is way to much. Races with double mental score increases (e.g. tieflings) are better now but had odd bonuses for flavor rather than balance before. And yes half-elves are powerful, but they aren’t better now than they were for the right class before. I will nerf mountain dwarves by a +2 if my players want it.
I would not agree that the mountain dwarf is far beyond anything else, but it is a much better subrace of dwarf now. The most powerful PC race IMO is still the Yuan-ti, probably more than ever. Tortle got a big boost here too. Githyanki as well. Satyr is still really powerful. Half-Elves did really well here as well.
Tbh I think the new items that do it for other classes are a lot stronger. In theory they're the same, but when you consider the sheer number of spell slots that other casters have compared to warlocks, even with a reasonable number of short rests, the other casters pull ahead significantly in my opinion.
@@tyleremery7088 Yeah, I would argue the same (and probably add that the Warlock item was probably too good too). But adding to the save DCs seems a natural extension of power creep in Tasha's, but the items boosting save DCs isn't unprecedented. Fortunately, I know this isn't really going to be a problem at my table (at least when I'm DMing) b/c the party isn't going to find the DC boosting items.
nice analysis! i would counter that for $49.95 MSRP it's a little lite on new content and a little heavy on reprinted material. On the other hand, it is possibly the prettiest D&D book I have ever seen!
It’s cool that I can be an elf that starts off with a feat at lvl 1 with these new rules, but personally I don’t think a feat is worth giving up trance.
So I went back and rewatched this, anyone else feel like swarmkeeper may be being slept on just for being a ranger subclass? I've been seeing some surprises out of it from one of my players
You add enough extra options to characters, and eventually every race and class functions more or less the same, outside cosmetics! :) And this is one solid reason why i still prefer 1E over 5E whenever i can find a game of it. It is just so much easier for every one to have defined roles that you can tweak as needed for that campaign without breaking the system.
Me too. Cause all the other reviews i found on youtube said. Wow thats so powerfull eventhough i find it pretty average. Maybe i just liked the lore master and am now disapointed in the final version.
@@CaitSith87 yeah, it's baffling. Most reviews I've seen on RUclips praise this subclass as something very powerful. Mainly because of Manifested Mind. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here thinking: this has nothing on Divination or Chronoturgy.
@@FelineElaj I mean yes changing damage types i great combined with tempest, but for this you need two levels of cleric meaning you are one level behind in spells and its not like this is the only broken combo. Usually wizards have a good 2nd or 6th level ability. And I think for 6th level ability the manifest mind is not so bad. But i find 10th level and 14th horrible? 10th is an extra spell utlitly spell as cantrips make more damage at that level. Compared to give your familiar fireball or use tiny hut to end an encounter in chronurgy. and the 14th. I have never played in this high level,s, but is this really good? Ignore once damage? I did not like the the UA version of this but at least to trick death sounded more usefull compared to skip damage once. I mean you could go down and the bard could healing word you and you'd be a the same place? One youtuber said this would have been great wizard class features. Like once a day use rituals, be better at creating spell scroles and i agree that would have been awesome, but as a subclass feature which has to compete with portent or alert/lucky (forgot the name) i find it very dull?
Scribes video on Monday. Your view on the subclass is pretty common, and I go over some similar responses to it in the video. Personally, I think it is one of the most powerful wizards mechanically in the game, and I'll explain why in detail.
I still think Rune knight is the most powerful subclass. Fire + storm rune and how well it builds on the base class. Also easily the coolest class. Armourer is also op in power and coolness Path of beast is cool and flexible :)
Overall agreed here, but DMs don’t have to give out the magic items in Tasha’s. Would a +2 spell book make your wizard out of control OP? Don’t give it to them.
That is true, but it creates something new a DM needs to consider when starting a campaign or running a one-shot where the PC's start at higher levels. I've found it quite common for a DM to say, "Your PC will start with an uncommon item of your choice." That same DM needs to think how that statement affects their game differently than it did pre-Tasha's.
Aside from what Treantmonk said, you have to consider that many DMs may not have the knowledge or foresight to understand how powerful a +2 grimoire really is. They will see "rare" and consider it an average item to give out in T2 (possibly T1). In actuality, a +2 grimoire punches far above its weightclass, possibly even legendary, considering it is virtually a +4 to the spellcasting stat. A +1 grimoire being "uncommon" is absolutely ridiculous. It is rare to very rare in terms of power.
New Best Races: Yuan-ti Pure Blood (Cuz Magic), Mountain Dwarf (+2 to any 2 stats, and a LOT of proficiency options including light & med armor), Hill Dwarf (+1 hp / level, all the proficiency options) Honestly Dwarf was already my favorite race... now it's just so juicy.
While the custom lineage and variant human are hands down the best option for most builds, I don't see enough people commenting on the power of the Mountain Dwarf. It used to kind of feel bad that they got the +2 STR with light and medium armor proficiency, since any STR based class is going to have those anyway, plus going to have all the weapon proficiencies that the Dwarf race gives. STR classes also didn't really benefit from a Dwarf's lack of requirement to wear heavy armor, particularly when a race with a +2 STR, so they end up just being slower overall. Now they get 4 different weapon proficiencies, which can be swapped for any other weapons, or even tools. Since they get 2 martial weapons, hello bows for anyone. Even if you're a martial class that gets all weapons, you can swap them out for tools, giving you a lot of out of combat options, which martial classes like Fighter usually lack. Heck, between already getting a tool proficiency, and 4 weapon proficiencies, they can get 5 tools of their choice, which combined with a background, could be 6 tool proficiencies. Say hello to the new leatherworking blacksmith herbalist alchemist woodcarving cartographer. Then they get light and medium armor proficiency. Oh, and did I mention those armors can also be swapped for tools, making the previous list 8 tool proficiencies? Then add that they get +2 to any 2 attributes, and you get yourself an amazing kit, particularly for anyone looking to get by multiclass or feat restrictions. Even with a standard array you get 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15. As a Wizard you can put 15 into INT and give it your +2 for 17 INT. Put your 14 into DEX, and your 12 into CON combined with your other +2 for 14 CON. With this you can start with a 14/14/17 attribute allotment, while still having a 13 to spare into any attribute for multiclassing, such as CHA for Warlock or WIS for Cleric, or just to fulfill the 13 attribute requirement of some feats. Now it's still hard to argue they're more worthwhile than human variant or custom lineage in many cases, but if you planned to use your bonus feat to get yourself some more defense or other proficiencies anyway, Mountain Dwarf may be the best pick for a lot of characters.
Custom lineage seems to just turn any race a variant human that looks different without keeping any of the other flavor. So everyone will still pick it they can just look like a halfing or elf or whatever. I think a better thing to homerule to increase diversity would be remove variant human and add-- "variant feat option" If you choose this option all starting characters gain the following at level 1: human - 1 feat, 1 skill proficiency, 1 tool proficiency or language. All other races - 1 feat.
Heh, long ago I told my players to assume that common was essentially English. Not that the characters know what English was (they do now, they are currently in the Fallout universe with thier astral sea planet hopping). That was any letters they find with wordplay, puns, and puzzles I physically showed them they could assume functioned under the rules of American English. Obviously people from other countries could say common is their native tongue and should probably do so assuming they play in their home tongue rather than English.
Thank you Chris...i will always value your opinion on D&D books...classes and mechanics. The way you break it down really shows your holistic way of valuing what the features or options bring. I really am curious if you will make changes to your variants that i only use when i run games. I view new books like a dungeon delve....always looking out for traps.
I don't think TWF is dead so much as ranger-only. Their favoured enemy replacement's bonus damage and fey wanderer's psychic damage are both completely free from the action economy now so the iconic ranger fighting style is a lot more viable for them with this book.
Wonderful review! COVID has sidelined my own table for now the better chunk of a year; but I still ordered this guidebook and am looking forward to diving in. I'm with you on that protective bond feature! The way it's written, I think I've noticed a potential exploit too. It only stipulates that one of the bonded people need to be about ready to take damage. Couldn't this mean that one player could attack another (or themself) in a pinch if they need to be able to teleport the other bonded player tactically? Sounds like a very powerful feature.
Hmm. First Houserule: Pets/Familiars/Etc can use sidekick rules. That will curb the belly aching I hear about squishy adds that classes pick up, and I can treat them as proper part members for encounter planning. Sidekicks also dovetail well with Adventure, Inc as the skilled help you get running your "business." All in all, I'm enjoying what Tasha's brings -- or rather, what it 'gives official permisson' for. 😉
Wizards: "When designing homebrew for Sorcerers, be extra careful about giving them extra spells known, the sorcerer class is designed around the fact that they don't have many spells known" Also Wizards:
haha, I was just looking at that. -OTOH they just made 2 metamagics available as a feat which is the sorcerer's backbone mechanic until level 10, so something probably needed to give. To be fair, the playing with such a limited number of fixed spells known REALLY sucks and I don't think metamagics make up for it, and I think wizard's is starting to get the message.
@@elliotbryant3459 The feat that gives you two metamagics also gives you just two sorcery points to use with them, so honestly the only class I would really want it on is the sorcerer
@@SmugLookingBarrel It is definitely far more valuable on a sorcerer -but I could see subtle, transmuted, extended and careful being pretty clutch on a lot of casters. -For the price of 1 ASI you spare yourself 3 sorcerer levels and maintain your progression of WAY more spells prepared.
Not quite the whole party, unless your party is very small or your level is very high. Still, pooling HP seems really good to me, and it's more than that, as it is a teleport too, providing spell free/concentration free teleports on the battlefield.
@@TreantmonksTemple As someone who has played high level 3.5 with a pair of rings of friend shield, I know how powerful HP pooling can be tactically. Also, I prefer small tables of 3-5 PCs, so by mid tier, that ability would apply to the whole party. My proposed fix would be to add a damage multiplier to force some meaningful choice. Any creature taking damage on behalf of the original target takes 125% or 150% of the damage. This would still be quite a powerful ability but not one players would use with impunity.
Hi! I really like your videos and this channel is my way to go for D&D content, because I have a strategic mindset on spells and class features very similar to you. A bit of constructive feedback, I've found the video a bit useless in the sense that you talk about the changes and new stuff in the book without mentioning what tjose changes are so you ended getting a lot of info about nothing concrete. It would be better in my opinion to split the video, present the new stuff and then give your opinion about it. Keep the channel up is one of the best channels about D&D hands down!!
I actually did consider making this a multi-part video and going into more detail, but I figured the way I wanted to do it in the end was just give a more general overview in this video and do several follow up videos where I go into deeper analysis.
I really liked some subclass options like Armorers, Creation Bards, Aberrant Minds, and Rune Knights. But truth be told, the clerics are way too strong. Twilight domain is probably the first subclass that I would have to ban/nerf.
I couldn't agree more about racial flexibility. Now, instead of trying to solve a puzzle with large, funny-shaped pieces, we're working with small, symmetrical ones. This makes the optimizer's job simpler, and thus less interesting. Political considerations aside, the idea is to make more builds viable, but "viable" is always relative to your other choices. If the optimal builds merely shift from ones which support traditional tropes to new, odd ones, how has this helped? In fact, given that power creep means increased power spread (i.e. a greater distance between the best and average builds), this really looks like it made the problem worse. But while I'm not a fan of this as a standard part of character creation, it would have made a lovely optional tool in the DM's kit. When a player has a vision of what he wants create, and is frustrated trying to realize it, this is just the sort of thing a DM should use to address the problem.
Hey Treantmonk, thank you for this great channel. Do you think Tasha's cauldron saved the monk? Even though the new subclasses seem decent, I'm not convinced it is enough to save the monk.
Knowing my DM, even the +3 to Save DC items won't be enough to overwhelm his luck. Spells are good, until the DM doesn't roll below a 16 for 3 weeks in a row.
Wait, you think that sorcerer's should not have received any extra attention via subclass in the book? Or do you think that the new subclasses are too good compared to the previous Sorcerers'?
GREAT ANALYSIS. just one question: im not sure what you are talking about with the bonus action pet thing. Is it the primal companion thing? well sure but that's a ranger beastmaster (much needed) feature, not something that every PC gets. Is it the summon concentration spells? nothing about them mentions the PC bonus action as a part of anything; the summon take their turn on your turn and no action is needed, but requires concentration. Or is it the sidekicks? i would find it weird to refer to them specifically as pets, even though they can be pets, but once again, nothing about sidekicks relate to the PC's bonus action. A search for "bonus action" through the whole book doesn't bring me to the thing you are talking about as some sort of systematic way to get bonus action on every class.
I think this is the beginning of the acceleration of power creep, as WoTC wants to keep book sales up. As evidenced by the way they have handled M:TG, they do this by ramping up the power so everyone is forced to either buy the new expansion (or book in this case) or be left behind. This is bad for the game, and it's also bad for extended campaigns, because it means that you're not playing the same game at the end as you were at the beginning. My own campaign actually started under a different DM and in 3.5e. We found that all the options and calculations caused "paralysis by analysis", and by third level we were refactoring everything as a 5e campaign. The DM had had enough when we leveled up, and basically all three players said "I'm gonna need a few _hours_ to make my decisions". At third level. We were all at the same XP level at that point, but it would have been even worse if we weren't, because every time ONE character leveled up it would have meant "end of session" since they have a bunch of research to do. That's why we moved to 5e. When Xanathar's came out, it offered some welcome subclass options and spells, but overall didn't excessively force us to overhaul the campaign. This time though, I think we're hitting the beginning of the end. Maybe it's time to check out a different game system if I want to continue running a campaign, since 5e has become a moving target. There are some elements of Tasha's I will immediately incorporate if we ever resume, like the new spells. If they start new characters, Tasha's subclasses will be allowed, but since we're currently not running, I don't see a need to allow the players to retcon existing characters (although I will definitely be retconning my NPCs). I have NO plan to incorporate pets, and don't even particularly like the classes/subclasses that have them by default, because combat is already enough of a slog. We've had sessions begin partway through a battle from the last session, and three hours later when it's time for (at least) a break, we're still in THAT SAME BATTLE. And that's not even a boss fight, and without a bunch of pets running around.
I'm not sure that custom origin is flat better than variant human. Maybe it's just that I play a lot of paladins, but there are characters that really want two starting stat bonuses of +3, and custom origin doesn't fo that without taking a half feat, which means sacrificing the biggest benefit of taking a starting feat race in tge first place. Otherwise, while I wouldn't say every race is great for every class, I would say that with stat swapping no race is bad at any class, which imo is a positive change overall, though, yeah, the armor proficiency thing is an issue.
@@johnpaullogan1365 that also requires taking a half feat, which burns the main advantage of taking a starting feat race in the first place - ie getting a head start on build defining feats like ss, gwm, pam, xbe, sentinel, or the like.
@Treantmonk's Temple About dual wielding, Dual wielding is mostly a bonus action attack option for finesse warriors. There are no other options when you're a Dex build. All weapons in polearm Master are not finesse and Great weapon master bonus action requires an Heavy or Versatile weapon, which none of them are finesse as well. ( With that said, I'm wondering why they have 2 tags for the same thing. As soon as a weapon has 2 handed tag, it has the heavy tag, which limits halflings, gnomes and goblins to sword and board or versatile weapons ) You said Tasha will kill the dual wielding builds. I'm just sharing my thoughts here. ref : dnd5e.wikidot.com/weapons
@@TreantmonksTemple der, yes Order of Scribes. Only thing I can think of for that mess up is I was reading the Master Scrivener at the same time I was typing.
Where are you guys seeing that you can give yourself med armor proficiency that wasn’t available before? The table looks like it only allows you to *remove* armor proficiency in favor of a simple/martial weapon or tool. Unless we are talking feats or certain races, but that was already an option that is just better than it was with the new stat system.
It's about having access to races that provide armor proficiencies (such as mountain dwarf or githyanki) without having to have a lower primary ability score.
I think sidekicks are mostly intended for games with fewer than expected party members, which should mitigate the tume issue.
Yep I’m running a DMPC for my campaign of two. I know the stigma related to them and I’m doing my best to avoid those trappings.
This. I think TM is glancing over the intention of the sidekicks.
Yes, i have a party of 3 and really like the option of having a party sidekick that everyone at the table can put together to help the team. Wanting to run a lot of campaigns end up taking a lot of extra time redoing encounters due to the lack of players and this gives an easy way to solve that. It can be controlled by the DM, a PC or all the PC's can take turns controlling it maybe by initiative, whichever PC has the turn prior to it can tell it what to do i think is a fair thing tbh and that way everyone should get a turn in handling the sidekick.
I would also only allow a sidekick for a player that cannot summon or have a pet. So basically Fighter/Rogue/Paladin. Because if you're a caster, have a familiar, and a summon, and a sidekick... that's just way too much.
@@KatanaKamisama again, sidekicks are mostly there to fill in for not having enough players to begin with, so being 'too much' isn't so much an issue. They're there to be a stripped down alternative to having individual players runnung multiple full PCs, and in that sense they are saving table time, not addung to it.
Just thought I'd let you know that your videos on DnD are by far my favourites, simply because you know what you are talking about and have the necessary structure to deliver it.
I want to see more party optimisation theorycrafting rather than single character focused
Oooh
specifically, choose a single level focusing on teir I and II, and compose a party of 4 adventurers. Put them on a grid, like you did for the tactics videos and show how syncergies would work
It seems all games are focused on a single player experience now.
@@Domina7ion i like the idea but let the man do whatever he wants. It is probably gonna be good content anyways
@@Tsuna_SoulSilver yes and no. The main reason for this though I think is that it's much easier to "sell" an idea to one player, be it a feat, spell, whatever. PF1 had teamwork feats for instance which were not bad, but required at least one other party member to take it as well in order to be a benefit. I think that most systems often end up with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, but moreso just because the players learn how to best work together.
As an example, Guiding Bolt is a decent spell in its own right. Guiding Bolt right before the rogue's turn though is a lot better. When most players select Guiding Bolt initially though they may not even know if there will be a rogue in the party.
The one tatoo that actually feels like a tatoo is the one that increases unarmed attack bonuses and allows a monk to have a +1/+2/+3 weapon with an effect for attunement. That helps their dps a ton.
Pre-Tasha’s there were race and class combinations that were OP but most players avoided them because no one wanted to be the jerk who showed up with a Yuan-Ti Divination Wizard. Tasha’s just creates a lot more of these OP combinations but I do think that a lot of players will avoid them because they don’t want to be “that guy” at the table. However, there will still be power creep as players pick less obvious, less talked about race/class combinations that are going to be more powerful than what is available today.
Word. I'm gonna keep my eye on that one guy in my group who I'm almost sure is gonna try some sly stuff, expecting the DM to not have read it.
There are always optimizers out there of course. A lot of it just comes down to being a table friendly player. Optimizers are great at a table full of optimizers, but will be bored outta their skulls at a table full of deep roleplayers. Neither group is doing it wrong though. But yes, new books almost invariably result in power creep. The good thing with 5e is that the releases have been really spread out -- especially compared to 4ed, so the creep has been minimal.
I think it enables roleplayers to build more optimized characters without giving up on flavour. Closing the gap between those that build their concepts around op chars and those that choose based on role-playing instead. The later do not have to give up on building an effective char anymore.
@@gabrielcperrone I think that is an excellent player. As far as what i see the game is still about role playing. If you want to role play every class, race, and build is still viable. But i fear that all these extra features keep collecting it will end up eventually either in a place like PT1 where you have to power play or be a non participant, or else, every one has abilities so mixed and redundant that you no longer have a specific role: you just may be a number that needs replaced.
@@Gargs454 "Optimizers are great at a table full of optimizers, but will be bored outta their skulls at a table full of deep roleplayers."
I strongly disagree with this. I'm an optimizer myself, and always play at a full table of roleplayers, and it's never been an issue. The reason for this is that being an optimizer absolutely does not detract from roleplaying. I've never liked the presumption that in order to be a roleplayer you need to play a weaker character. The purpose of optimizing is to make your character actually able to succeed at the thing they're good at more often than not. If they fail their intended role more often than they succeed, then that simply reduces their roleplay options, not increasing them, unless you want to roleplay a bumbling buffoon that can't do anything right.
YES!! The Peace Domain is insanely strong, so many people have forgotten about Zombies and that so many people do not use their Reaction.
IMO, a party with a Peace Domain and a Twilight Domain, will have such a higher level of Damage Mitigation, that it’s basically laughable.
I really appreciate the video Chris!
The custom races also favor magic users just because now they can give themselves weapon and armor proficiencies easily. Githyanki now becomes one of the best races in the game. Before their Str/Int ability score mix was the only thing holding them back.
@@whitleypedia they didn't shrug their shoulders at that it is to appease those who in their life want to have everyone refer to them as somthing they are only in their head.
I can want everyone to acknowledge me as a grilled cheese sandwich but I am not one and I would question the mental stability of anyone who said I am. This is Wizards saying I'm a grilled cheese sandwich.
I feel like group patrons are more about narrative than mechanics. An alternative to the “four random people hired by the same wizard” dynamic. It gives the whole group common goals and a reason to stick together, even if they disagree
It is SO refreshing to see card art that isn’t magic the gathering in a dnd video
Thank you for the speed in which you released this first impressions. Great content, as always.
My favorite part of this is that you can play as your own patron, even if how they implemented it was a bit lackluster. Being your own patron solves the biggest issue with patrons imo.
How does that even work? I need a horse for this quest so I give myself a horse? (haven't read the book obviously)
I assume it's not for warlocks. :p
@@poilboiler It uses the rules for running your own business in the DMG.
Honestly, I was excited for 'be your own patron' support, but that support sadly isn't really there. 'Use the running a business rules from the dmg'. kind of a let down. Oh well.
@@odiumwolfe8997 Ah ok, thank you.
My favorite part of this book (though I haven’t read it yet) has to be natural phenomena. I am working on a campaign setting that has a massive magical storm around the equator and this might give me some methods to make mechanics for that.
The Eldritch Storms are pretty cool in the book. Have you checked out the Ocean Environs part in GoS? Lots of great stuff in there like a Kraken’s Grave, Magical Storms, Eldritch Mists... etc.
Another theme I noticed (maybe it's just me?) is that there seem to be a LOT more features that scale with proficiency bonus. Where I'd normally expect a flat number or an ability modifier plus something, I'm instead getting "equal to your proficiency bonus". It seems like they're going all in on this new formula, even changing Bladesinger to fit with this new theme.
I couldn't tell you how this might effect the game, except that most players will probably end up using those features 3-4 times per day given how long most campaigns last. I'm not mad at it or anything, it just seems a bit odd.
That's a good observation. That's true, and with Bladesinger, they even took something that wasn't previously tied to PB and changed it so it was.
I've only given the book a cursory read so far. My biggest take away is that there is going to be an greater than ever divide between the players who can see and make use of indirect strategies, and those who can only see one step ahead. The groups with 2 or more strategic players will take a HUGE leap forward with this book. Groups without this dynamic will have some new variety, and virtually no change in power.
As someone who enjoys the strategic elements, this sounds like fun.
As a realist, who recognizes that less than 1/4 of the playerbase is capable of taking advantage of these strategic elements, I see a lot of difficulty balancing tables with a wide mix of players.
System mastery was a key play power modifier in 3.5e. Something they stepped away from in 4 and 5e. They're mostly because of the increased combination options and otherwise power level remains same, I'm very glad to see no marked power creep over the books. It will keep the system playable for much longer. While 5e isn't perfect, and has some confusingly named action economy still, I'm not ready for a 6e. There's a lot more ground to go over. I can easily see another 3-4 years of content
@@AAron-gr3jk I mostly agree, except in the part about power creep. I think it's not only present, but far bigger than acknowledged. It isn't in the form of greater damage numbers or direct survivability. It arrives in the form of second and third order effects. Take, for instance, the thp ability the Twilight Cleric brings. It's not an IWIN on its own. But it brings a level of survivability to an encounter that was previously unavailable. While the Barbarian might be the first focus for this benefit, from my view the greater benefit goes to those who had the lowest survivability. Suddenly, familiars aren't getting one-shot, conjured beasts can effectively tank, and the wizard and sorcerer doesn't have to be back row. That's the second order effect. The third order effect is the ability to move bodies forward to act as movable terrain features, to literally shape an encounter to your benefit. Suddenly, there's a reliable means of creating funnels and choke points, which high impact AoE effects can make great use of.
Now, most groups simply don't have sufficient insight and cooperation to make use of these gains. For those groups, not much has changed. The high performing groups, however, will be capable to cruising though encounters with CRs above what should be lethal, with no risk at all.
These second and third order interactions have always existed. But TCoE has massively expanded them, and ramped up the potency. The power difference between the casual gamer and the strategist just became far greater than it has been before.
My party can't even concentrate enough to focus down one enemy at a time
Yea, the 6th level Protective Bond of the Peace Cleric could really make it so martial PCs can choose to take the damage for Concentrating casters. On that note, that is actually a huge buff for martial classes - it gives them a great way to do some battlefield control, something that martial classes had to work very hard to be any good at before.
Speaking of bonus actions, I was pleasantly surprised to see the bonus action attack option for Chain Pact Warlocks. I just picked one up, content that I wasn't going to be as powerful as the other two pacts, but when I found out I could have my imp attack every round I suddenly found myself being the premier damage dealer in the party!
I think this is an invocation you will probably end up trading off though, as the "to hit" of the familiar does not scale with level. +5 to hit is fine at lower levels, but eventually it's going to miss pretty regularly.
Hey Chris I love that you plan on taking on Tashas subclasses starting at the end. Lord knows Wizards don't get enough love. I hope that you mix you up, and just talk about whatever interests you the most week to week, and not what's next sequentially.
That's almost certainly what I'll do. The videos aren't as fun to do if I'm not as excited about the topic.
About that first puzzle: I'm glad you mentioned the language problem. As a Brazilian player/dm, I saw that and thought "ok, it is not intuitive and wouldn't work with my group in Portuguese". We are fluent in english and all, but we play in Portuguese, and it would take us out of the game to start thinking in another language.
My takeaway about this book is that 5e is not for me anymore. I really liked vanilla 5e for its simplicity and the idea of "rulings not rules". Nowadays, I'm feeling like I'm getting into the worst days of 3.5, were those supplements transformed the game so much that you couldn't recognize the player's handbook anymore in the mix. I'm already going back to OSR games to have a simpler/lower-powered feel.
And your video is great as always, and very informative.
Power creep sells books. By eclipsing the existing classes, you're compelled to buy the new book or fall behind. This should have been expected, given the way WoTC has handled M:TG from the beginning.
Unfortunately it also gives players who have taken time off the feeling that it's not even worth picking it back up again, because it's almost an entirely new game. That's why I'm thinking, since my campaign is currently not running, that maybe it's time to migrate to a new system yet again.
D&D is for everyone. We are all equals. Magic users are just more equal than others.
- Treatmonk
PS - He did not actually say this. I would have chuckled if he did.
I would have liked to see more spells in this book. Nothing in Tasha’s is exciting as absorb elements, shadowblade, dragon’s breath, thunderstep, find greater steed, synaptic static, crown of stars, or illusory dragon.
Instead we get... pets... which are great for weaponizing your concentration without effecting your action economy. Pair this with everyone having reliable attack options with Their bonus actions and it starts looking like everyone’s a cleric. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s worth thinking about before picking cleric, if doing damage from multiple sources is what you liked about it in the first place.
Also noticing a thing where very little comes back on shortrests anymore. Only shortrest features that come up are pretty much incidental (channel divinity, wildshape uses)
Sounds like they are trying to tailor to AL with the reduced Short rest mechanics. In AL you might get a short rest if the author planed for it or uou have a nice DM but Long rest only come up if the author wrote the module to be a multi day module.
Short resting is a dungeon delving mechanic, and I don't think many people delve dungeons in D&D any more. Its more like dungeon visiting or dungeon geocatching.
I like the way Group Patrons and Sidekicks can work together when you have a relatively small group of players and some of those players drop in and out as work demands or life responsibilities affect their availability. If you use the Group patron to provide a number of small single session adventures rather than an overarching campaign (more Star Trek than GOT ) and use the patron as a source of sidekicks for a player (or the whole group) to run as a second character when you are short on man power or really need a different set of skills say for the mission. I would certainly agree on not adding them as a permenant party member unless you are really just running the game for two friends (for that Star Trek analogy sometimes you need a geologist on the away team to provide an insight and if they get charmed by the BBEG at the end of the second scene that's fine).
I also think the Group patron could be a useful way of lending the party a magical tool for one adventure rather than giving the party something that they can then use to unpick encounters for the rest of the campaign. "Here's a magic carpet to bring the rescued princess out of the fortress once you've stealthily infiltrated the place to find where her cell is, got past the traps, dispatched the guards and countered the magical locks to release her. Have fun be cool and give it back tomorrow."
Peace domain is broken and definitely the strongest cleric subclass. You didn’t mention it but Druids won Tashas. They got enormous class and spell buffs and the new subclass changing allows broken combos like moon Druid into shepherds. Also multiclassing got huge buffs, bc u can trade feats for levels and a lot of dip options were opened up. Things like the 1 hex or 1 twilight dip are now immensely strong. Tons of new op grappling builds, interesting sadness combos with wis classes now. Summoners are completely broken now with all the temp hp etc
Being able to switch subclasses is massive for Druids.
@@TreantmonksTemple At 20th level, any druid should become a moon druid, because you would become almost impossible to kill
Twilight and Peace clerics working in tandem are ungodly synergistic. I want to play in a party with both
then you have a tempest cleric for damage
@@ponytail336 tempest is nice, but it doesn't particularly synergise with these two. It will be as strong in this party as in any other. But any GWM/SS build for example boosted really high by Peace cleric, Shadow Blade users are boosted by Twilight
@@ponytail336 tempest is the subclass you use when you wanna solo dnd lol
Why? D&D isn't game you win. You play to have fun. no challenge = no fun
@@SamSam-ke9zy you can play powerful characters and still be challenged. Your DM just have to use his/her noggin to increase the difficulty.
To me it seems that the designers have lend from the nonsense that is escape-room puzzles... it is a very different way of thinking than "real" mysteries and puzzles. It is a way of thinking that follows a different metagamist logic.
Lots of good stuff in this book. Biggest winner in my eyes is the Sorcerer. Special features at level 1 that give 10 extra spells up until level 9 sorcerer. And you can switch them out with other spells of certain schools of magic depending on which subclass you're talking about. But you get to choose the spells from not only the sorcerer spell list but the warlock and wizards as well. This from a class that normally gets 15 spells known max! It makes the other sorcerer subclasses look like crap in comparison (You can make an argument for divine soul if you really want to use cleric spells with metamagic). Also the metamagic adept feat gives 2 more sorcery points and 2 more metamagic options. If you go with taking a feat at level 1 that means you can use metamagic right away and by the time you get to level 3 you have double the metamagics and almost double the sorcery points of a normal level 3 sorcerer. Deciding between which metamagics to choose just got a lot easier. You can now have quickened, twinned, subtle and distant metamagic (or whatever four you like best) at level 3 instead of level 17! Fey touched and Shadow touched feats are also really good for anyone but especially the sorcerer who can apply metamagic to the chosen spells. Plus there are extra class features, the new metamagic options, etc. A final point I'd like to make is for the mind sliver cantrip. It's a good cantrip for anyone. It's even better for a sorcerer who can quicken it then cast a spell that requires a saving throw right after. Sorcerers won bigtime with this book.
the New Sorcerers won bigtime
@@sharkforce8147 Agreed. I don't personally like subclass specific free domain spells for the sorcerer, -I like making your own choices. An expanded spell list like warlocks have is fine and flavorful; ultimately though I feel they need more spells known. -like 21+ at level 20 or so. It would have alleviated things if long rest/Spell Versatility had made it to publication. -and it would have made sense for a class where magic just comes to you intuitively.
just so excited to hear your views on this. ordered it for christmas. love your wizard/ spell series. Just got to level 19. gotta say, meteor swarm is pretty sweet.
100% with you on puzzles. I feel like they were designed with crossword fans in mind, not with average RPG players invested in a fantasy world.
Good RPG puzzles are like the ones that appear in myths and legends; relying on riddles, creative thinking, deduction and psychology. Not mathematics, rote learning, literacy and pattern recognition
I think a good rule of thumb is; could this puzzle work in another language, or for someone who can't spell? If not, throw it out
For example the (SPOILERS!) Menu puzzle.
Why would a secret organisation hide their password in this way? A much better way to run the puzzle would have one menu item and one drink be clearly disgusting and absurd (and maybe priced strangely), and asking for that menu item with that drink giving you access ("I'll have the slug stew with the gallon of bull milk" "That'll be 5 gold pieces, come with me and I'll show you to your table...")
Any puzzle more complicated than "Speak friend and enter" is going to fool my team of murder hobos.
@@nicka3697 we had that puzzle in my group. i figured it out immediately but noone in the group did so i just got the other two dwarfs in the group to work with me to make dynamite and drill some carefully placed holes. the dm was so surprised
If you want a clue for letter related puzzles, add a segmented cylinder where the number of rings correspond to the number of letters in the solution word and each ring has the alphabet on it.
That cylinder doesn't need to anything special, but give a signal when the correct word is assembled.
One way to improve the Ranger Beast Master Companion.
Make the Companion a sidekick.
I think that what they presented as an optional class feature is more than enough. Now it's no worse or even better than Steel Defender.
I also think the Peace Cleric was my favorite subclass from this, and I also think that it might usurp the Life cleric in it's role. That channel divinity feature is a strict upgrade from the Life's one.
Hey Chris,
I'd love to hear your thoughts on three of the feats out of Tasha's: Fighting Initiate, Eldritch Adept, and Metamagic Adept. Notably, I'd like to see if any of your prior builds benefit more from access to these cross-class dips without multiclassing - especially your latest Warlock build, I feel like the Voice would enjoy having access to Subtle Spell every so often!
THANK YOU for saying the language stuff on the puzzles. I get that some translations get made, but it's still frustrating to look into the book and thinking about how much work I'd have to do to even make them work. Agree on your points in general and, gotta say, I enjoyed the book, while being aware of some of it's implications. Thanks for the insight!
On the language thing, we pretty much assume as players that dms aren't gonna make us do crypto linguistics at the table.
Only real change to Bladesingers from the SCAG is they can now use a cantrip in place of one of their extra attacks at level 6. Which is kinda neat, removes the headache of choosing which to use and opens up some combos. Might actually make True Strike a decent choice. Not a good one mind but not completely bad.
Reason I'm putting this here is because I'm not expecting Treantmonk to make a video for Tasha's bladesinger....maybe if he does a video covering the reprints and any changes therein, in which case foot in mouth.
The new Bladesinger was my first Tasha's video. I guess you missed it.
@@TreantmonksTemple apologies.
True Strike is still completely bad. Attacking once with advantage is strictly worse than two normal attacks.
7:20 One helluva picture selection
A chickenfolk with a polearm bottle opener?
@@poilboiler I think some kind of humanoid cockatrice...
I took a screenshot shot to remember the moment 🤣
Personally, I like the idea of Sidekicks. Reason is, not only is this a good way to sup up a couple of guards, or scouts, or other NPC allies if one is outmatched during an ogre attack, and let's just say the mainly spellcaster-filled party needs a few meatshields to absorb damage, but let's say, at Level 1, the group encountered a Bandit, and spared their life - what happens 10+ levels later, when they encounter the same NPC again - only with 10+ levels of Warrior added on? Did that Bandit change their ways, and now uses their skills for good, or have they become even more dangerous? Likewise, what if the Level 10 party has a murderhobo, or two, in it, or there's a thief stealing anything not nailed down - sending an NPC Champion or Blackguard (even reskinned as Guard Captain) might not make sense, but an Experienced, Elite Guard, and well-trained Warhorse pair might do the job. Also, there's no rule against giving Sidekicks magic weapons or armor - although for animal sidekicks, it might be a good idea to improvise something that allows them to overcome resistance and/or immunity to nonmagical damage - like augmented horseshoes for horses, or something.
That painting puzzle gave me flash backs to final fantasy VII. You have to give a password to the Mayor of Midgar, however the password is hidden in the library. In each section of the library there is a book that is in the wrong section (for example a history book in the weapon's development section). The title of each book has a number in front and you have to count that many letters into the title to get the needed letter. Once you have done this in all sections of the library you'll have four letters which you can unscramble to get the password. Honestly wasn't that hard a puzzle, but they did include an option to pay an npc to give you hints as to how to solve the puzzle......which I think may be a good thing to do with this. Some players love, love puzzles, others really hate them and including a short cut for the players that hate puzzles sounds like a good thing with some of the tasha puzzles.
It isn't a hard puzzle in a video game where your options are limited. And you know for sure you need to search for clues, because you need a password, so you are looking for anything that could be a clue for a password.
If the average DnD group stumbles upon a room where these paintings are and take the first hurdle of not ignoring them. They'll will note the monsters and then move when the mages didn't find anything magical or behind the paintings.
Awesome breakdowns and description box. Super useful and organized. Optimanser approved
5E monsters are already known to be underwhelming ("compared to what, Porphy?" - compared to their counterparts in previous editions, where the same monsters had multiple attack options as well as, often, out-of-combat hook/utility options), so of course they boosted the PCs, who will then go up against the same simple bruteforce versions of monsters.
What they really, really, really need is to focus less on PC options and more on expanding tools for DMs, some mechanical change options, a sort of advanced version. "But, Porphy, what you don't understand is that splatbooks rife with new cool toys for PCs sell way more than books aimed at, basically, just DMs or game mechanics, or monster tomes" - maybe true, but what I *also* understand is the latter will tend to make the overall gameplay life of an edition longer, and actually will have an effect on the number of people who play it that is larger, since the game will be more varied and interesting. I think HasburoCorp would do just fine even if an individual book didn't sell as well, but it kept people in 5E longer, while now PF2 is starting to draw their (our) wayward eyes.
I got jaded on PF1 due to the power creep, for example, tho I had liked that, and drawn into 5E because it was a de-escalation. Now I'm starting to find PF2 attractive compared to 5E, partly for that reason but also because it's a mechanically more robust game, and the monsters have relatively more ways (tools) in which to challenge the party.
Easiest way to learn honestly is to just find a group and play. The good thing about PF is that all the rules are available online for free. There's just such a difference between PF2 and even PF1, much less 5e that you can't really explain it easily.
@@Gargs454 is right, but you can also watch people doing campaigns who stream them or upload them to YT. 2Perception ( ruclips.net/channel/UCCPim39vj5SsGNAGNqlKyCg ) has some fun campaigns worth checking out and they started them both as "lets learn the rules while we play" about a year ago. Paizo streams some sessions with the devs on Twitch too, so it's also a way to learn the mechanics and how they do it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.
Eh, I'd say more that they are just different, with different goals. I think each is better at what they strive for. That said, I very much enjoy both for different reasons.
@@johnharrison2086 D&D 5E is somewhat limited in terms of choices (every character from a subclass ends being a copy of the same subclass from another player, due the best options are usually evident) but on the other hand the class balance in PF2 is really bad (and now seems that D&D 5E is going the same rute).
@@skymanta1222 check out the channel basics4gamers. They have a playlist of pathfinder 2e basics.
Thanks for the content :)
A couple of thoughts (though I haven't read the book yet, since the European release date has been moved backwards, we'll egt them early december):
- sidekicks: I feel like these are more for small parties, if you have only 2 players or even if you do 1 on 1 sessions and you want to add a bit eextra muscle (again I haven't has a chance to read it yet, so maybe I'm far off). I'll probably completely avoid them for any "full" party
- race customization: yes there will still be better races for most classes, but I think there are still plenty of races for each class viable (speaking from an optimization standpoint - me personally I'll still play whatever I really feel like currently medium armor proficiency be damned :P (it was ability scores be damned before)).
Medium armor or the natural armor of the tortle are certainly great for wizards - but so is a flying speed, or a bonus action hide, or a climb speed (at least in my experience there is almost always some trees or similar nearby, which can provide a pretty safe spot for e.g. a wizard, potentially even some cover from ranged attacks), or rerolling 1s... I'm not claiming each of those examples is as good as more AC, but those were some of the first that came to my mind and some of them are hard to compare to each other in my opinion.
Ultimately we end up in a pretty similar world where whoever wants to optimise will prefer certain races (though different ones now), while players who just want to play their half orc wizard (though not dieing once per day isn't bad either) might be a bit less optimised in terms of utility or defense, but they can now have the same spell save DC as everybody at the same levels. I think a lot lies in the feeling - playing a race and seeing your lower DC in comparison to other party members can feel pretty bad (and your abilities failing certainly feels terrible) and I don't think missing out on certain racial abilities will feel quite as bad (even if the difference would be roughly the same, which again is hard to determine)
Yuan Ti pureblood for all! :)
@@nicka3697 honestly I have yet to see a game where the ban list for races didn't include Yuan ti Pureblood and Aaracokra/Flying tiefling (when I wrote flying speed above I was actually thinking of aasimars) :P
So if a DM banned those races before nothing will change, they'll stay banned for their table :)
And e.g. the Yuan Ti might be a "problem" with this system, but I thik it was a problem before, so I think the issue lies in that races design rather than in this system ;)
Great video as always. I think the biggest issue with puzzles is that they test the player rather than the character. The problem with that then becomes that what may seem obvious to one person is absolutely impossible to another.
I don't think it's necessarily true that combat is going to take longer because of the new "pets". They might promote more use overall, but strictly comparing pets in combat before vs now, I would actually argue the opposite. The statblocks are now a part of the spell or ability instead of hiding in another book behind the DM's decision, and the creatures tend to share your initiative, which allows you to more easily plan your overall actions every round. It's faster for everyone when there's less "lets open up dndbeyond and search for CR x options to choose from", which not only takes time but also can easily lead to options that aren't familiar to you.
I'm glad they streamlined some of that, because many of us already house rule things like having your familiar share initiative with you. Obviously same as before, the player bringing additional creatures to combat should be prepared to handle them quickly, but I do think the new options should make things run smoother compared to the old ones.
Fully agree, plus the new summon spells only summon one creature, rather than the nightmare that is Conjure Animals
In my experience, more power to the players just mean I get to break out some scary custom monsters earlier. So while I don't rush their power, I don't mind my players getting ahead of the power curve, as I can compensate for that with relative ease.
As a Dutch player, I completely agree with your criticism on the puzzles.
* Can you do a new video on which races through custom lineage are OP first before classes? It's a big new factor. thx
I will go over this, but I'm hitting some subclasses first.
I keep looking at Peace Cleric and can't help but feel like there is some sort of Necromancer build there to be uncovered. The free swaps of your pets to pull any aggro from you, plus the group bless/guidance to give them meatier swings...I may be chasing a mirage but even by itself Peace Cleric is a sleeper for sure.
Eh, magic items are purely the domain of the DM, and I've see a lot of single mage parties where the mage suffers because their DC's just don't land ever, especially against legendary monsters where they are the only one forcing saves. Having another built in option for boosting these would be nice.
Something I would suggest people look at more after the race stat changes are the Dragonmarked races. You'll often get more value in terms of spells than you would out of Shadow Touched or Fey Touched.
Very surprised you didn't mention the proficiency bonus theme that is very clearly evident in tasha's. You can see where the designer's have mostly gotten accustomed to the system and have found the way they prefer to limit and expand options. Alot of these abilities may have said, "Equal to your [insert AS] bonus", or "add your [insert AS] modifier to the damage roll", which would've made a lot of character to character imbalance, and I much prefer them going off of something that we know is stagnant no matter the race, class, background, or stats.
My dm (aka brother in law) came over for thanksgiving and he brought the book over and we talked about it.
He won’t be using any of the new race changes. I totally get it to, his reasoning is that players shouldn’t have to be perfect from the gate and should learn how to be better over time.
Flaws are okay lol
That's a laudable approach - and sadly a rather rare one these days it seems.
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 it really is rare to see
@@TVMAN1997 One would expect more of roleplayers since it is supposed to be an interactive story - which means character progression as well as development, but alas.. my greetings to your DM. I hope he can maintain this rare mindset.
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 me too! I share a pretty similar mindset, TCOE is a literal game changer
@@TVMAN1997 yes. But not for the better...
Obviously you're starting with scribes. Bookworms assemble!
Been looking forward to this.
For racial options I know of no one who is using them: I just started to run a game, and told everyone that we were not using them and EVERYONE was like "oh thank the gods".
But it is more than just stat, it is proficiency.
Example - Elf fighter. Swap out longbow, shortbow, shortsword, scimitar (since you get them anyway) for 4 different tools or something. Or even as a wizard - swap out weapons for alchemist/herbalist kits and a couple of proficiency to make Fabricate do some stuff with minimal investment. Or have thieves tools without needing to take a background for it.
Or go dwarf - 4 weapon prof, two armor prof, and get +2 +2 stats.
Hobgoblin, already strong, gets even stronger now.
Or go Changeling and get your +3 to any stat.
Lots of interesting choices, and tier lists for sure change now. It is all about unique racial abilities instead of stat lines, and what you can swap out.
But again, it seems to be one of those optional rules no one is going to be using right away - or possibly ever (looking at you, 5e flanking rules...).
Familiars never were for just Warlocks and Wizards. The most likely person in my campaigns to have familiars have been the Rogues...
Not a shocker. The Rogues were tired of *being* the familiar! ;) I've never played an Arcane Trickster before, but I couldn't imagine being one, and not taking find familiar. That said, as a Wizard main, I also use my familiar religiously. The 1st level spell that keeps on giving right-on through the campaign!
I've actually stopped using my familiar out-of-combat in large part because it means I monopolize too much of the limited game time and kind of steals the thunder from our party's rouge(s) who want to be the ones doing the sneaking and infiltration because it's what they built their characters around. I can kind of get how it gets a bit obnoxious to have another party member go "Actually, most of your character concept is superfluous since I can just send this stupid rat or whatever to do the same job".
I didnt even look at the items so far.
this is insane!
rod of the pact keeper equivalents for evenry class......
Having run alot of games over decades I can attest to the risk of puzzles. They can be great fun but are just as likely to shut the game down for hours or if the answer is vital it can end a campaign in a total fail. Be ready as a gm to step in and help if your players just aren't getting the answer. Nobody enjoys a frustrating dead end.
Really looking forward to this! Would you agree that one race, the mountain dwarf, is far and beyond everything else? It was balanced by the fact that no character could make good use out of both +2 Str and medium armor, and +2/+2 freely with medium armor (and more abilities) is way to much.
Races with double mental score increases (e.g. tieflings) are better now but had odd bonuses for flavor rather than balance before. And yes half-elves are powerful, but they aren’t better now than they were for the right class before. I will nerf mountain dwarves by a +2 if my players want it.
I would not agree that the mountain dwarf is far beyond anything else, but it is a much better subrace of dwarf now. The most powerful PC race IMO is still the Yuan-ti, probably more than ever. Tortle got a big boost here too. Githyanki as well. Satyr is still really powerful. Half-Elves did really well here as well.
I thought there was already a Warlock rod that added to your save DCs.Granted, this is a new item type for other PCs.
There is, but it was pretty unique. Now Wizards, Bards, Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids get similar items.
Tbh I think the new items that do it for other classes are a lot stronger. In theory they're the same, but when you consider the sheer number of spell slots that other casters have compared to warlocks, even with a reasonable number of short rests, the other casters pull ahead significantly in my opinion.
@@tyleremery7088 Yeah, I would argue the same (and probably add that the Warlock item was probably too good too). But adding to the save DCs seems a natural extension of power creep in Tasha's, but the items boosting save DCs isn't unprecedented.
Fortunately, I know this isn't really going to be a problem at my table (at least when I'm DMing) b/c the party isn't going to find the DC boosting items.
nice analysis!
i would counter that for $49.95 MSRP it's a little lite on new content and a little heavy on reprinted material. On the other hand, it is possibly the prettiest D&D book I have ever seen!
It’s cool that I can be an elf that starts off with a feat at lvl 1 with these new rules, but personally I don’t think a feat is worth giving up trance.
I guess by giving up trance you also give up a ton of elven culture and quite possibly your afterlife
So I went back and rewatched this, anyone else feel like swarmkeeper may be being slept on just for being a ranger subclass? I've been seeing some surprises out of it from one of my players
Just the video I was looking for!! Great work!
You add enough extra options to characters, and eventually every race and class functions more or less the same, outside cosmetics! :) And this is one solid reason why i still prefer 1E over 5E whenever i can find a game of it. It is just so much easier for every one to have defined roles that you can tweak as needed for that campaign without breaking the system.
Can't wait for your video on the Order of Scribes!
Personally, I'm in love wity the flavour of it, but sorely disappointed in the mechanics.
Me too. Cause all the other reviews i found on youtube said. Wow thats so powerfull eventhough i find it pretty average. Maybe i just liked the lore master and am now disapointed in the final version.
And is it just me or did dakota kraut read the ua or is somboedy a fan of the werewolf walrock biblimonacer? :)
@@CaitSith87 yeah, it's baffling. Most reviews I've seen on RUclips praise this subclass as something very powerful. Mainly because of Manifested Mind. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here thinking: this has nothing on Divination or Chronoturgy.
@@FelineElaj I mean yes changing damage types i great combined with tempest, but for this you need two levels of cleric meaning you are one level behind in spells and its not like this is the only broken combo. Usually wizards have a good 2nd or 6th level ability. And I think for 6th level ability the manifest mind is not so bad. But i find 10th level and 14th horrible? 10th is an extra spell utlitly spell as cantrips make more damage at that level. Compared to give your familiar fireball or use tiny hut to end an encounter in chronurgy. and the 14th. I have never played in this high level,s, but is this really good? Ignore once damage? I did not like the the UA version of this but at least to trick death sounded more usefull compared to skip damage once. I mean you could go down and the bard could healing word you and you'd be a the same place? One youtuber said this would have been great wizard class features. Like once a day use rituals, be better at creating spell scroles and i agree that would have been awesome, but as a subclass feature which has to compete with portent or alert/lucky (forgot the name) i find it very dull?
Scribes video on Monday. Your view on the subclass is pretty common, and I go over some similar responses to it in the video. Personally, I think it is one of the most powerful wizards mechanically in the game, and I'll explain why in detail.
I still think Rune knight is the most powerful subclass. Fire + storm rune and how well it builds on the base class.
Also easily the coolest class.
Armourer is also op in power and coolness
Path of beast is cool and flexible :)
Overall agreed here, but DMs don’t have to give out the magic items in Tasha’s. Would a +2 spell book make your wizard out of control OP? Don’t give it to them.
That is true, but it creates something new a DM needs to consider when starting a campaign or running a one-shot where the PC's start at higher levels. I've found it quite common for a DM to say, "Your PC will start with an uncommon item of your choice." That same DM needs to think how that statement affects their game differently than it did pre-Tasha's.
Aside from what Treantmonk said, you have to consider that many DMs may not have the knowledge or foresight to understand how powerful a +2 grimoire really is. They will see "rare" and consider it an average item to give out in T2 (possibly T1). In actuality, a +2 grimoire punches far above its weightclass, possibly even legendary, considering it is virtually a +4 to the spellcasting stat. A +1 grimoire being "uncommon" is absolutely ridiculous. It is rare to very rare in terms of power.
New Best Races: Yuan-ti Pure Blood (Cuz Magic), Mountain Dwarf (+2 to any 2 stats, and a LOT of proficiency options including light & med armor), Hill Dwarf (+1 hp / level, all the proficiency options) Honestly Dwarf was already my favorite race... now it's just so juicy.
maybe a video showing newer DMs how to adjust encounters would be a good idea?
It would be a repeat though, as I did a video for DMing for Optimizers where I went over that. ruclips.net/video/r__S8KsI6F0/видео.html
ALAZING video. Why it doesn't have 10 times the views is beyond me.
While the custom lineage and variant human are hands down the best option for most builds, I don't see enough people commenting on the power of the Mountain Dwarf. It used to kind of feel bad that they got the +2 STR with light and medium armor proficiency, since any STR based class is going to have those anyway, plus going to have all the weapon proficiencies that the Dwarf race gives. STR classes also didn't really benefit from a Dwarf's lack of requirement to wear heavy armor, particularly when a race with a +2 STR, so they end up just being slower overall.
Now they get 4 different weapon proficiencies, which can be swapped for any other weapons, or even tools. Since they get 2 martial weapons, hello bows for anyone. Even if you're a martial class that gets all weapons, you can swap them out for tools, giving you a lot of out of combat options, which martial classes like Fighter usually lack. Heck, between already getting a tool proficiency, and 4 weapon proficiencies, they can get 5 tools of their choice, which combined with a background, could be 6 tool proficiencies. Say hello to the new leatherworking blacksmith herbalist alchemist woodcarving cartographer.
Then they get light and medium armor proficiency. Oh, and did I mention those armors can also be swapped for tools, making the previous list 8 tool proficiencies? Then add that they get +2 to any 2 attributes, and you get yourself an amazing kit, particularly for anyone looking to get by multiclass or feat restrictions.
Even with a standard array you get 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15. As a Wizard you can put 15 into INT and give it your +2 for 17 INT. Put your 14 into DEX, and your 12 into CON combined with your other +2 for 14 CON. With this you can start with a 14/14/17 attribute allotment, while still having a 13 to spare into any attribute for multiclassing, such as CHA for Warlock or WIS for Cleric, or just to fulfill the 13 attribute requirement of some feats.
Now it's still hard to argue they're more worthwhile than human variant or custom lineage in many cases, but if you planned to use your bonus feat to get yourself some more defense or other proficiencies anyway, Mountain Dwarf may be the best pick for a lot of characters.
I do think we will see a lot more mountain dwarves, though strangely far more in spellcasting classes and less in the martial ones.
Custom lineage seems to just turn any race a variant human that looks different without keeping any of the other flavor. So everyone will still pick it they can just look like a halfing or elf or whatever. I think a better thing to homerule to increase diversity would be remove variant human and add-- "variant feat option" If you choose this option all starting characters gain the following at level 1: human - 1 feat, 1 skill proficiency, 1 tool proficiency or language. All other races - 1 feat.
Heh, long ago I told my players to assume that common was essentially English. Not that the characters know what English was (they do now, they are currently in the Fallout universe with thier astral sea planet hopping). That was any letters they find with wordplay, puns, and puzzles I physically showed them they could assume functioned under the rules of American English. Obviously people from other countries could say common is their native tongue and should probably do so assuming they play in their home tongue rather than English.
Thank you Chris...i will always value your opinion on D&D books...classes and mechanics. The way you break it down really shows your holistic way of valuing what the features or options bring. I really am curious if you will make changes to your variants that i only use when i run games. I view new books like a dungeon delve....always looking out for traps.
I don't think TWF is dead so much as ranger-only. Their favoured enemy replacement's bonus damage and fey wanderer's psychic damage are both completely free from the action economy now so the iconic ranger fighting style is a lot more viable for them with this book.
Wonderful review! COVID has sidelined my own table for now the better chunk of a year; but I still ordered this guidebook and am looking forward to diving in. I'm with you on that protective bond feature! The way it's written, I think I've noticed a potential exploit too. It only stipulates that one of the bonded people need to be about ready to take damage. Couldn't this mean that one player could attack another (or themself) in a pinch if they need to be able to teleport the other bonded player tactically? Sounds like a very powerful feature.
This is the end ... the precursor to 6E.... the optomancing is crazy
I thought the same thing, and this is the first book that made me think that. Seems like this could really spin out of control.
Same feeling here.
Hmm. First Houserule: Pets/Familiars/Etc can use sidekick rules. That will curb the belly aching I hear about squishy adds that classes pick up, and I can treat them as proper part members for encounter planning. Sidekicks also dovetail well with Adventure, Inc as the skilled help you get running your "business." All in all, I'm enjoying what Tasha's brings -- or rather, what it 'gives official permisson' for. 😉
> Puzzles
The best puzzles are Grimtooth's.
"Those aren't puzzles, Porphy! Those are traps!"
What? I don't see the difference.
Wizards: "When designing homebrew for Sorcerers, be extra careful about giving them extra spells known, the sorcerer class is designed around the fact that they don't have many spells known"
Also Wizards:
haha, I was just looking at that. -OTOH they just made 2 metamagics available as a feat which is the sorcerer's backbone mechanic until level 10, so something probably needed to give. To be fair, the playing with such a limited number of fixed spells known REALLY sucks and I don't think metamagics make up for it, and I think wizard's is starting to get the message.
@@elliotbryant3459 The feat that gives you two metamagics also gives you just two sorcery points to use with them, so honestly the only class I would really want it on is the sorcerer
@@SmugLookingBarrel It is definitely far more valuable on a sorcerer -but I could see subtle, transmuted, extended and careful being pretty clutch on a lot of casters. -For the price of 1 ASI you spare yourself 3 sorcerer levels and maintain your progression of WAY more spells prepared.
Let's go, Wall of Force-erers!
Yeah that protective bond of the peace cleric is beyond broken. It essentially makes the whole party one large pool of HP.
Not quite the whole party, unless your party is very small or your level is very high. Still, pooling HP seems really good to me, and it's more than that, as it is a teleport too, providing spell free/concentration free teleports on the battlefield.
@@TreantmonksTemple As someone who has played high level 3.5 with a pair of rings of friend shield, I know how powerful HP pooling can be tactically.
Also, I prefer small tables of 3-5 PCs, so by mid tier, that ability would apply to the whole party.
My proposed fix would be to add a damage multiplier to force some meaningful choice. Any creature taking damage on behalf of the original target takes 125% or 150% of the damage. This would still be quite a powerful ability but not one players would use with impunity.
Hi! I really like your videos and this channel is my way to go for D&D content, because I have a strategic mindset on spells and class features very similar to you. A bit of constructive feedback, I've found the video a bit useless in the sense that you talk about the changes and new stuff in the book without mentioning what tjose changes are so you ended getting a lot of info about nothing concrete. It would be better in my opinion to split the video, present the new stuff and then give your opinion about it. Keep the channel up is one of the best channels about D&D hands down!!
I actually did consider making this a multi-part video and going into more detail, but I figured the way I wanted to do it in the end was just give a more general overview in this video and do several follow up videos where I go into deeper analysis.
I feel like classes subclasses and spells is the best spot to start and then add other stuff if it’s cool
What did you think of the new summoning spells?
I will be going over this.
Respect for the speed and taking the time to do it in general...
That said, your content seems to get thinner and thinner recently.
13:30 My main peoblem with telekenetic is it does the main subclass feature of the arcane trickster but better.
I have tried to explain to people that the Tasha's book will completely change the game of D&D 5E.
I really liked some subclass options like Armorers, Creation Bards, Aberrant Minds, and Rune Knights. But truth be told, the clerics are way too strong. Twilight domain is probably the first subclass that I would have to ban/nerf.
I couldn't agree more about racial flexibility. Now, instead of trying to solve a puzzle with large, funny-shaped pieces, we're working with small, symmetrical ones. This makes the optimizer's job simpler, and thus less interesting.
Political considerations aside, the idea is to make more builds viable, but "viable" is always relative to your other choices. If the optimal builds merely shift from ones which support traditional tropes to new, odd ones, how has this helped? In fact, given that power creep means increased power spread (i.e. a greater distance between the best and average builds), this really looks like it made the problem worse.
But while I'm not a fan of this as a standard part of character creation, it would have made a lovely optional tool in the DM's kit. When a player has a vision of what he wants create, and is frustrated trying to realize it, this is just the sort of thing a DM should use to address the problem.
Hey Treantmonk, thank you for this great channel. Do you think Tasha's cauldron saved the monk? Even though the new subclasses seem decent, I'm not convinced it is enough to save the monk.
Knowing my DM, even the +3 to Save DC items won't be enough to overwhelm his luck. Spells are good, until the DM doesn't roll below a 16 for 3 weeks in a row.
Can you make an armorer build?
Great video btw!
Wait, you think that sorcerer's should not have received any extra attention via subclass in the book? Or do you think that the new subclasses are too good compared to the previous Sorcerers'?
The timestamp for changing your character does not seem to work on mobile at least.
Insightful video as usual, cheers!
As always well thought out.
I want to understand why the Peace Domain Cleric is so good(need more detail). Can you do a video for this, please?
GREAT ANALYSIS. just one question: im not sure what you are talking about with the bonus action pet thing. Is it the primal companion thing? well sure but that's a ranger beastmaster (much needed) feature, not something that every PC gets. Is it the summon concentration spells? nothing about them mentions the PC bonus action as a part of anything; the summon take their turn on your turn and no action is needed, but requires concentration. Or is it the sidekicks? i would find it weird to refer to them specifically as pets, even though they can be pets, but once again, nothing about sidekicks relate to the PC's bonus action. A search for "bonus action" through the whole book doesn't bring me to the thing you are talking about as some sort of systematic way to get bonus action on every class.
I think this is the beginning of the acceleration of power creep, as WoTC wants to keep book sales up. As evidenced by the way they have handled M:TG, they do this by ramping up the power so everyone is forced to either buy the new expansion (or book in this case) or be left behind. This is bad for the game, and it's also bad for extended campaigns, because it means that you're not playing the same game at the end as you were at the beginning.
My own campaign actually started under a different DM and in 3.5e. We found that all the options and calculations caused "paralysis by analysis", and by third level we were refactoring everything as a 5e campaign. The DM had had enough when we leveled up, and basically all three players said "I'm gonna need a few _hours_ to make my decisions". At third level. We were all at the same XP level at that point, but it would have been even worse if we weren't, because every time ONE character leveled up it would have meant "end of session" since they have a bunch of research to do. That's why we moved to 5e. When Xanathar's came out, it offered some welcome subclass options and spells, but overall didn't excessively force us to overhaul the campaign. This time though, I think we're hitting the beginning of the end. Maybe it's time to check out a different game system if I want to continue running a campaign, since 5e has become a moving target.
There are some elements of Tasha's I will immediately incorporate if we ever resume, like the new spells. If they start new characters, Tasha's subclasses will be allowed, but since we're currently not running, I don't see a need to allow the players to retcon existing characters (although I will definitely be retconning my NPCs). I have NO plan to incorporate pets, and don't even particularly like the classes/subclasses that have them by default, because combat is already enough of a slog. We've had sessions begin partway through a battle from the last session, and three hours later when it's time for (at least) a break, we're still in THAT SAME BATTLE. And that's not even a boss fight, and without a bunch of pets running around.
I'm not sure that custom origin is flat better than variant human. Maybe it's just that I play a lot of paladins, but there are characters that really want two starting stat bonuses of +3, and custom origin doesn't fo that without taking a half feat, which means sacrificing the biggest benefit of taking a starting feat race in tge first place.
Otherwise, while I wouldn't say every race is great for every class, I would say that with stat swapping no race is bad at any class, which imo is a positive change overall, though, yeah, the armor proficiency thing is an issue.
i think most classes would take a +4 and +2 over two +3
@@johnpaullogan1365 that also requires taking a half feat, which burns the main advantage of taking a starting feat race in the first place - ie getting a head start on build defining feats like ss, gwm, pam, xbe, sentinel, or the like.
@Treantmonk's Temple
About dual wielding, Dual wielding is mostly a bonus action attack option for finesse warriors. There are no other options when you're a Dex build. All weapons in polearm Master are not finesse and Great weapon master bonus action requires an Heavy or Versatile weapon, which none of them are finesse as well. ( With that said, I'm wondering why they have 2 tags for the same thing. As soon as a weapon has 2 handed tag, it has the heavy tag, which limits halflings, gnomes and goblins to sword and board or versatile weapons )
You said Tasha will kill the dual wielding builds. I'm just sharing my thoughts here.
ref : dnd5e.wikidot.com/weapons
I look forward to you looking at the Order of Scrolls wizard.
If you mean Order of Scribes, video will be released on Monday.
@@TreantmonksTemple der, yes Order of Scribes. Only thing I can think of for that mess up is I was reading the Master Scrivener at the same time I was typing.
Where are you guys seeing that you can give yourself med armor proficiency that wasn’t available before? The table looks like it only allows you to *remove* armor proficiency in favor of a simple/martial weapon or tool. Unless we are talking feats or certain races, but that was already an option that is just better than it was with the new stat system.
It's about having access to races that provide armor proficiencies (such as mountain dwarf or githyanki) without having to have a lower primary ability score.
@@TreantmonksTemple ahh fair enough, long live the mountain dwarf wizards.