What subclasses do we know are going to be in Tashas

[AttilatheYeon]

Hi all, i was just wondering if we've heard anymore about what subclasses will be included?

Thanks

[jaappleton]

Here's a list of everything I have confirmed.

---

22 new subclasses, including: Armorer Artificer, Fey Wanderer, Circle of Stars, Genie Patron, College Of Creation, Aberrant Mind, Psionic Soul

Some Volo’s races will be reprinted, but with changes: Orcs and Kobolds don’t have stat penalties anymore. Unknown if there will be other changes to them.

Mind Sliver cantrip and the Summon ____ Spirit spells are in, along with at least two new spells bearing Tasha’s name

Magic tattoos are in

New magic items, ranging from Uncommon and Artifact, are in. Some are CLASS SPECIFIC. (Hopefully Monks get some love?)

One item? The Tarokka deck. THE deck. Not another one, THE deck.

New Infusions for the Artificer, and it’s also presented in a way to be Eberron-free.

Sidekick Classes are in, and have been fleshed out a bit. Good for quick references for helpers to the party (Nobody wanted to be a healer?), or as a way to introduce new players in a streamlined fashion.

Aside from the 22 new subclasses, these five are also in as reprints:
Order Domain (Cleric subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
Circle of Spores (Druid subclass from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica)
College of Eloquence (Bard subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Oath of Glory (Paladin subclass from Mythic Odysseys of Theros)
Bladesinging (Wizard subclass from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide)

Beast Masters now have 3 new options to choose from for their pet. They are called “Primal Beasts”

Your new way of character creation is creating a “Lineage”

[x3n0n]

22 new subclasses, including: Armorer Artificer, Fey Wanderer, Circle of Stars, Genie Patron, College Of Creation, Aberrant Mind, Psionic Soul

JC has also said a few things about this recently, maybe in the D&D celebration video, which I will paraphrase:
* All of the new subclasses were publicly playtested (i.e. UA) and
* Almost all of the UA subclass concepts were retained

Looking on D&D Beyond for live UA (including the ones listed above), we have:
* Artificer: Armorer*
* Barb: Beast, Wild Magic* (was Wild Soul)
* Bard: Creation*, Spirits?
* Cleric: Twilight, Unity
* Druid: Stars*, Wildfire
* Fighter: Rune Knight, Psi Knight
* Monk: Mercy, Astral Self
* Paladin: Watchers
* Ranger: Fey Wanderer*, Swarmkeeper
* Rogue: Phantom, Soul Knife
* Sorcerer: Clockwork Soul, Psionic Soul*
* Warlock: Genie*, Lurker in the Deep, Undead?
* Wizard: Scribes

Asterisks are confirmed, question marks are the two from the very last UA announcement, which may (?) have been too close to have made it.

Without the question marks, that's exactly 22.

Coincidence?

[jaappleton]

JC has also said a few things about this recently, maybe in the D&D celebration video, which I will paraphrase:
* All of the new subclasses were publicly playtested (i.e. UA) and
* Almost all of the UA subclass concepts were retained

Looking on D&D Beyond for live UA (including the ones listed above), we have:
* Artificer: Armorer*
* Barb: Beast, Wild Magic* (was Wild Soul)
* Bard: Creation*, Spirits?
* Cleric: Twilight, Unity
* Druid: Stars*, Wildfire
* Fighter: Rune Knight, Psi Knight
* Monk: Mercy, Astral Self
* Paladin: Watchers
* Ranger: Fey Wanderer*, Swarmkeeper
* Rogue: Phantom, Soul Knife
* Sorcerer: Clockwork Soul, Psionic Soul*
* Warlock: Genie*, Lurker in the Deep, Undead?
* Wizard: Scribes

Asterisks are confirmed, question marks are the two from the very last UA announcement, which may (?) have been too close to have made it.

Without the question marks, that's exactly 22.

Coincidence?

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying.

However, I do wonder how closely some of those subclasses will resemble what we saw in UA. The feedback they got for Scribes was not at all positive, but we never saw a second pass of the Wizard version. Aberrant Mind was one of the most positive feedbacks in all of 5E, but its also very closely themed to Psionic Soul. So was Aberrant made less Psionic-y and more... otherworldly, for lack of a better word?

I've similar questions on the Psionic subclasses like Soul Knife. We saw a first pass, people weren't too high on them. Then they tried the Psi Die mechanic, and the feedback was negative ("No new mechanics!" was the outcry, for better or worse), and then we never saw a third attempt.

So while I do believe these subclasses will be in, I'm very curious as to how familiar they'll be.

EDIT: A personal crusade of mine for quite some time now has been giving Clerics the Sunbeam spell. Its one of the things I'm most curious about. They didn't get it with Class Variant UA, but they did get Wall of Light. I've pestered mentioned this to the development team a bit now, I really want to see if they did it >_>

[x3n0n]

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying.

However, I do wonder how closely some of those subclasses will resemble what we saw in UA. The feedback they got for Scribes was not at all positive, but we never saw a second pass of the Wizard version. Aberrant Mind was one of the most positive feedbacks in all of 5E, but its also very closely themed to Psionic Soul. So was Aberrant made less Psionic-y and more... otherworldly, for lack of a better word?

I've similar questions on the Psionic subclasses like Soul Knife. We saw a first pass, people weren't too high on them. Then they tried the Psi Die mechanic, and the feedback was negative ("No new mechanics!" was the outcry, for better or worse), and then we never saw a third attempt.

So while I do believe these subclasses will be in, I'm very curious as to how familiar they'll be.

Agreed on all counts!

The ones with any confirmed details look similar so far, and the twitter blurbs from announce day sound compatible with the originals, but those are probably cherry-picked because they were already well-liked in their last-published forms.

The rest: who knows.

As you said, having heard about the negative Psi Die feedback makes me wonder what they went with and what impact that will have on the psionic feats, which were very much built around the die.

[AttilatheYeon]

Hmmm, Mercy Monk and PsySorc interest me. Scribes Wizard doesn't seem great. I'll have to see how it got changed if at all to change from Enchanter. Stars Druid also seems interesting.

[Sam113097]

Hmmm, Mercy Monk and PsySorc interest me. Scribes Wizard doesn't seem great. I'll have to see how it got changed if at all to change from Enchanter. Stars Druid also seems interesting.

I was very surprised that Scribes Wizard appears to have made it. I didn't like the subclass or its flavor at all, and it seems like many others weren't big fans either.

(Also, this Reddit thread has an post that updates every time new information on TCoE is confirmed: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndleaks/comments/ifwgvl/everything_we_know_about_tashas_cauldron_of/)

[jaappleton]

I was very surprised that Scribes Wizard appears to have made it. I didn't like the subclass or its flavor at all, and it seems like many others weren't big fans either.

(Also, this Reddit thread has an post that updates every time new information on TCoE is confirmed: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndleaks/comments/ifwgvl/everything_we_know_about_tashas_cauldron_of/)

Stars Druid was an absolute home run, IMO.

Genie made it through with outright zero changes. A rarity indeed.

[x3n0n]

I was very surprised that Scribes Wizard appears to have made it. I didn't like the subclass or its flavor at all, and it seems like many others weren't big fans either.

(Also, this Reddit thread has an post that updates every time new information on TCoE is confirmed: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndleaks/comments/ifwgvl/everything_we_know_about_tashas_cauldron_of/)

"Wizard subclasses test poorly" seems to be a theme. IIRC, War wizard was the lowest-scoring subclass that made it into Xanathar's, and the psionic wizard tested poorly before they pulled it. Apparently it's really hard to make a successful wizard subclass that doesn't correspond to one of the schools of magic, which are all in the PHB?

Since they're clearly not going to make an "Everything" book without at least one new UA-tested subclass for each class, they don't have a lot of choice but to use what they have.

[Story_Optimized]

Reading that Reddit post, it honestly sounds like Wizards took a lot of Pathfinder 2.0 and put it into 5e with Tasha's. I don't want to cross boards here, but bear with me a minute:

Lineage for races? "Heritages" in PF 2.0. I don't know if they'll go so far as to do stats based on backgrounds, but it doesn't sound like it's off the table.
Alternative ability score increases for races: Almost exactly from PF2
New feats for multiclassing - Class Archetype feats in PF 2.0
Magic tattoos - Magic tattoos from PF 1 and PF2

It still feels like there's a lot of new, unique stuff, but I think Wizards was definitely taking a shot at PF2 here.

[jaappleton]

Reading that Reddit post, it honestly sounds like Wizards took a lot of Pathfinder 2.0 and put it into 5e with Tasha's. I don't want to cross boards here, but bear with me a minute:

Lineage for races? "Heritages" in PF 2.0. I don't know if they'll go so far as to do stats based on backgrounds, but it doesn't sound like it's off the table.
Alternative ability score increases for races: Almost exactly from PF2
New feats for multiclassing - Class Archetype feats in PF 2.0
Magic tattoos - Magic tattoos from PF 1 and PF2

It still feels like there's a lot of new, unique stuff, but I think Wizards was definitely taking a shot at PF2 here.

I wouldn't say it was a shot at them. A shot somewhat implies a negative, doesn't it? I think they were... 'inspired by' what Paizo did there.

I don't know much of PF2. I know quite little, actually, but I do believe the character creation system is along the lines of:

1 from your background
1 from your class
1 from your race

And I do think that's a fine system. I don't know if PF2 has this cap, but I'd cap it so it can't be +3 in one stat. You can do 1, 1 and 1 or +2 and +1, but not +3. My personal opinion.

I think D&D 6th Edition will do a new system, likely quite similar to that. I believe Tasha's is laying the ground work for "Listen, we're changing it up. Moving away from the bog standard we've had for decades. Get ready for it now, so it won't be such a shock when you read it in the 6E PHB. Its not going to be all racial lore dependent now, deal with it."

[Story_Optimized]

I wouldn't say it was a shot at them. A shot somewhat implies a negative, doesn't it? I think they were... 'inspired by' what Paizo did there.

I don't know much of PF2. I know quite little, actually, but I do believe the character creation system is along the lines of:

1 from your background
1 from your class
1 from your race

And I do think that's a fine system. I don't know if PF2 has this cap, but I'd cap it so it can't be +3 in one stat. You can do 1, 1 and 1 or +2 and +1, but not +3. My personal opinion.

I think D&D 6th Edition will do a new system, likely quite similar to that. I believe Tasha's is laying the ground work for "Listen, we're changing it up. Moving away from the bog standard we've had for decades. Get ready for it now, so it won't be such a shock when you read it in the 6E PHB. Its not going to be all racial lore dependent now, deal with it."

I used "taking a shot" more to mean "trying to secure market share from," rather than something derogatory. But otherwise, I think we agree - I like PF2.0's system, and Wizards picking it up is going to add good options for 5e players. (It also demonstrates the danger of having an OGL company!)

P.S. - Your understanding of PF's char creation system is pretty much how it goes in PF2.0... but we should probably discuss the details over in the 3.5 / d20 forum :-D

[Luccan]

There are reasons to not like the Psi Die that aren't just "new mechanic = bad".

Anyway, 22 new subclasses spread across 12 classes actually isn't that many. It's less than two for each class. Though the reprints will boost those numbers. I won't be surprised if Scribe makes it in, the only books wizards haven't gotten new subclasses in were Ravnica and Theros. But yeah, given it seemed generally panned and wasn't publicaly revisited I am not excited to find out how little it's changed. Especially if they're gonna include those new Sorcerer metamagics: a Wizard that gets to change out their damage type for free while a Sorcerer has to expend resources to do so is not gonna fly at any table I run. I already have issues with evokers and careful spell.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Reading that Reddit post, it honestly sounds like Wizards took a lot of Pathfinder 2.0 and put it into 5e with Tasha's. I don't want to cross boards here, but bear with me a minute:

Lineage for races? "Heritages" in PF 2.0. I don't know if they'll go so far as to do stats based on backgrounds, but it doesn't sound like it's off the table.
Alternative ability score increases for races: Almost exactly from PF2
New feats for multiclassing - Class Archetype feats in PF 2.0
Magic tattoos - Magic tattoos from PF 1 and PF2

It still feels like there's a lot of new, unique stuff, but I think Wizards was definitely taking a shot at PF2 here.

Mc Feats were a 4e thing and already had some design space in 5e with the Initiate feats.

[verbatim]

However, I do wonder how closely some of those subclasses will resemble what we saw in UA.

Something really egregious that I assume was a typo that will be fixed was The Undead Warlock (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_Subclasses04.pdf) not having a "once per turn" caveat on Grave Touched the way it did have it on Form of Dread.


Form of Dread (lvl 1 2nd paragraph):

Once during each of your turns, when you hit a
creature with an attack, you can force it to
make a Wisdom saving throw, and if the saving
throw fails, the target is frightened of you until
the end of your next turn.

Grave Touched (lvl 6):

Your patron’s powers have a profound effect on
your body and magic. You don’t need to eat,
drink, or breathe.
In addition, when you hit a creature with an
attack and roll damage against the creature, you
can replace the damage type with necrotic
damage. While you are using your Form of
Dread, you can roll one additional damage die
when determining the necrotic damage the
target takes.


The implication here being that The Undead Warlock can use a bonus action to upgrade Eldritch Blast from 1d10 force to 2d10 necrotic damage per hit (not counting Agonizing Blast) for 1 minute, with no limit on how many times this can be done between rests.

[Sam113097]

Stars Druid was an absolute home run, IMO.

Genie made it through with outright zero changes. A rarity indeed.

There are quite a few new subclasses that seem excellent; Stars and Wildfire Druid, Rune Knight Fighter, Genie Warlock, Wild Magic Barbarian, and Fey Wanderer Ranger all seem like a lot of fun. It's really just the Scribe Wizard (And, to a lesser extent, the Undead Warlock if that makes it in) that I'm not a big fan of.

Also, I have no idea what these psionic subclasses will look like. I didn't mind Psy Dice, and I hope that they have at least some kind of unique mechanic.

[MrStabby]

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying.

However, I do wonder how closely some of those subclasses will resemble what we saw in UA. The feedback they got for Scribes was not at all positive, but we never saw a second pass of the Wizard version. Aberrant Mind was one of the most positive feedbacks in all of 5E, but its also very closely themed to Psionic Soul. So was Aberrant made less Psionic-y and more... otherworldly, for lack of a better word?

I've similar questions on the Psionic subclasses like Soul Knife. We saw a first pass, people weren't too high on them. Then they tried the Psi Die mechanic, and the feedback was negative ("No new mechanics!" was the outcry, for better or worse), and then we never saw a third attempt.

So while I do believe these subclasses will be in, I'm very curious as to how familiar they'll be.

EDIT: A personal crusade of mine for quite some time now has been giving Clerics the Sunbeam spell. Its one of the things I'm most curious about. They didn't get it with Class Variant UA, but they did get Wall of Light. I've pestered mentioned this to the development team a bit now, I really want to see if they did it >_>

I have fallen into the trap of getting excited about UA making it to print, only to find it had changed as was no longer exciting. I think the worst was Kensei - I had a character planned specialising in nets, another was going to be a plains horseman with a focus on lances, another a mobile fighter using a polearm (some what inspired by the TV depiction of the viper), and finally I could make the Blademaster character from warcraft 3. I was so excited till it was released.


So yeah - between a mix of concepts I don't like, concepts that won't be delivered that well and some genuinely exciting things... I am struggling to really get my excitement that high.

Aberant mind? Meh. Kind of feels like the old one warlock but just better because its on the sorcerer chasis and then they fixed the only real class weakness by giving it extra spells. To me it expemplifies the worst of UA - old thouhts on a new chasis, patching interesting weknesses insead of taking opportunities to derive new strengths.

I thought clockwork soul was by far the more interesting idea and I hope they picked that up over aberant mind. I feel the same way about the djini patron warlocks - you have an elemental themed charisma caster with spells known... again. It isn't that bad, but it still feels like a bit of a wasted space. This coupled with the excptionally poor balance within the option (dao seems more easily exploitable than the rest) and what would be a bir of power creep if hexblade hadn't been released makes me wish there had been another refinement cylce here.


On the other hand I am warming to some of the other ideas - scribes wizard I still don't like because I think the idea is bad, but things like lurkers in the deep and undead warlocks and watchers paladin are good ideas that I would like to see the next iteration of.

I feel it easier to get excited by the prospect of cool ideas being made better and more fun than most of what I have seen. Spirit bard may be the exception; I thought it looked pretty well balanced, thematically strong, mechanically fun and if they fixed up the overly limited thing about bonuses only happening when you used your focus, then it seemed pretty much ready to play.

[Edea]

If the sorcerer subclasses in Tasha's add a boatload of bonus spells known, that's going to obviate most of the origins prior to its publishing barring perhaps Divine Soul.

It's not that I disagree with upping the spells known, quite the opposite, but it should either be a core change to the chassis itself, or all of the sorcerous origins need to be updated with bonus spells known lists (yeah, like they're gonna do that).