Tasha's Cauldron of Disappointment

[Nagog]

I just picked up a copy of Tasha's Cauldron, and I've discovered almost everything about it that I was excited for has been nerfed/altered beyond recognition. For example:

Favored Foe: Is now infinitely worse. Instead of Hunter's Mark without concentration for free a few times a day, it's no marking an enemy with an attack and dealing 1d4 damage once a round to that enemy. Oh and you can only mark an enemy a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and it's concentration. So every facet that made Variant Ranger competitive in combat (Hunter's Mark stacking with other spells, Hunter's Mark lasting more than a single enemy, etc.) is removed in favor of freeing up your Bonus Action. Granted Rangers are very heavy handed on the Bonus Action, but this placed them solidly back at the bottom of the barrel as far as classes go.

Pact of the Amulet: In the UA, Pact of the Amulet allowed the wearer (not just the owner, so some support capacity there) to add 1d4 to any skill check they make that does not add their proficiency bonus. A nice passive bonus that allows the Warlock to become a sort-of skill monkey, though lacking the weight of Expertise and the like. In Tasha's edition, you may add 1d4 to any ability check you fail a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus. So at the cost of a superpowered Familiar, Martial capacity, or a huge pool of cantrips/rituals, you occasionally get a mediocre bonus to skills, but only skill checks that:
1. Have a pass/fail bar rather than middling successes (So Knowledge checks, many Persuasion checks, etc. are not viable as it needs to be a Failure, no middle ground).
2. You aren't already proficient in.
So this turns an entire new playstyle of Warlocks into objectively the worst Pact Boon option available. To further nail the coffin shut on that potential, many of the skills that bonus could be used for (Athletics, Acrobatics, etc.), a Familiar from Chain could use the Help action for and grant you advantage, so a 1d4 bonus is absolutely paltry in comparison.

Peace Domain: Known as Unity Domain in the UA, Peace Domain has gone from being a proactive damage preventer, utility support, and party buffer into yet another dime-a-dozen healbot. The Channel Divinity that allowed you to mitigate damage that one party member would take and distribute it among the entire party has been replaced by boosted movement and a smidgeon of healing to allies you pass while moving. Meaning to make it viable at anything past level 5-7, you need your party to be gathered together within that movement distance, also providing a prime target for an enemy Fireball or any other crowd control effect.

Anybody have any thoughts on how Tasha's has killed the potential it's content had in the UA stages?

[ftafp]

I've heard it said once that WotC's design philosophy is to nerf by default unless people tell them it's underpowered, which ends up royally screwing any UA they put out that's actually fair and balanced. Peace and Mercy were a perfect example of this, as were the wildfire druid, the psi knight and soul knife and the class variants for Ranger and Warlock. Ranger, Monk and Warlock usually end up getting hurt the worst by this philosophy because the base classes were so poorly designed and underpowered that any attempt to give them stronger subclasses just raises them up to normal, which of course ends up getting them nerfed again at publication

[ATHATH]

I'm still angry that Wildfire Druids lost Fireball.

[Dr. Cliché]

I'm still angry that Wildfire Druids lost Fireball.

Wait what?

Ugh, farewell to another class I was looking forward to.

[Segev]

Wait what?

Ugh, farewell to another class I was looking forward to.

I mean, nothing stops you from using the UA version if your DM is okay with it. Or just asking for fireball on their list.

[Dork_Forge]

Wait what?

Ugh, farewell to another class I was looking forward to.

But now they get Burning Hands and Plant Growth!

[Unoriginal]

Anybody have any thoughts on how Tasha's has killed the potential it's content had in the UA stages?

I'm certainly not disappointed by the options I was looking forward to.

[MrCharlie]

Yeah-the favored foe feature literally seems useless solely because it costs concentration. Or rather, use poor. One idiotic change, ruined the feature. Simple as that. I guess the damage levels, but no, no that does not fix it, at all.

As for the talisman-correct me if I'm wrong, but the version I'm reading says "The wearer" may add 1d4 when they fail, and mentions nothing about it needing to be to a skill you aren't proficient in. It's limited use, but the 1d4 bonus on fail does matter for several skills. The real benefit on the Talisman is the other stuff you can do with it if you build invocations for it, and basically supports a buff playstyle where you give the Talisman to someone you want to keep alive and then punish any attempt to change that status. Are the other pacts better? Well you're right that a familiar can technically aid you on anything, and in general familiars are pure cheese. Blade pact is a bit sub-optimal, but the book pact is and will remain incredible. Overall I find it intriguing if not powerful, which is fine with me honestly. I'll probably try it on my next warlock.

Wildfire druids kinduve needed fireball. Druids lack boom and fireball was the boom they lacked if you want to make a boomey druid. I could go on more about how the druid spell list has a magnificent dearth of non-concentration spells and being able to actually cast something that's worth the time without ending another effect is a huge deal, but at the end of the day, need boom give us back our boom.

Peace domain is fine. Is it worse? Sure. Does it work? Yup. The other changes butchered what they were changing, this is just less powerful. Maybe you have to worry about AOE damage, but that's just a trade off of AOE healing in general-if its got such a large range that you don't have to worry about it, there is a problem.

Twilight domain received the same treatment, but is still great because initiative advantage is amazing. Honestly, initiative advantage is enough, the rest being at least decent is just icing.

Honestly, I'm happy with Tasha's in general, but feel that they went kinduve limp on the alternative class features front, and managed to screw over a ranger fix we needed through rank stupidity. I would like to have seen more, and more drastic, alternative features or extra features-why the hell not go ham if they are all optional? People who can't read that disclaimer don't deserve the time of day.

[Dr. Cliché]

I mean, nothing stops you from using the UA version if your DM is okay with it. Or just asking for fireball on their list.

I could do that with any Druid.

What's the point of Wildfire again?

[Segev]

I could do that with any Druid.

What's the point of Wildfire again?

I didn't say there was one.

[x3n0n]

I could do that with any Druid.

What's the point of Wildfire again?

I thought it was the "buddy Druid" with a Wildfire Spirit. This feels like the "not everybody wants to Wild Shape" book: Wild Companion, Spores's Symbiotic Entity, Stars's Starry Form, and Wildfire's Spirit.

If the loss of that one spell (admittedly a very good one) destroys the whole subclass for you, maybe it wasn't the right one in the first place?

[Kireban]

I am mostly disappointed from the magic items. Most of them are so strong that DMs wont allow any of them.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

I mean, nothing stops you from using the UA version if your DM is okay with it. Or just asking for fireball on their list.

I want to know where people keep finding these UA supporting DMs because I would love one...and that ask.the DM stuff doesn't help the AL players.

[Pex]

Star Druid rivals Moon Druid in its power. It's the Blaster Druid and does it well. The only nerf it got from UA was removing Augury from the free castings. Free castings of Guiding Bolt, bonus range attack from Archer Constellation. "Reliable Talent" on Concentration with Dragon Constellation. Its own version of Bardic Inspiration/Cutting Words.

Genie Warlock retains its awesomeness. Your own personal bag of holding/Leomund's Tiny Hut. Limited Wish. Wish. You're playing a Genie. My disappointment is the invocation where you can put on any armor didn't make it.

I noticed Scribe Wizard got nerfed a little. They can still change the damage type of spells, but it has to be the same level referenced. You'll get Forceful Hands with Burning Hands/Magic Missile, but it becomes harder to change Fireball. Lightningball is easy with Lightning Bolt. Still powerful. Psychic Ray anyone? Scorching Ray/Phantasmal Force.

[Yakmala]

I'll start by saying there is a ton of new material in Tasha's that I'm super excited about and multiple sub-classes I look forward to playing over the coming months.

That being said, I agree with nearly everything the OP said. While I never cared much for Talisman Patron, even in its UA form, I was very disappointed in the changes to Ranger's Favored Foe, the changes to the Unity (now Peace) Cleric and the changes to the Deep Lurker (now Fathomless) Warlock.

On the other hand, I like the changes between UA and Tasha's that were made to the Astral Monk. Reducing the Ki costs of some abilities was a welcomed change. And while the UA version of the Capstone ability was removed, I never expected that one to survive as it was exceedingly powerful.

Overall, the changes to Ranger's Favored Foe are my biggest disappointment. I'm playing a Ranger in a game right now, using the UA version of the rules, but it was with the understanding that we would follow the "official" version if and when it was published. I may be switching characters now.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I thought it was the "buddy Druid" with a Wildfire Spirit. This feels like the "not everybody wants to Wild Shape" book: Wild Companion, Spores's Symbiotic Entity, Stars's Starry Form, and Wildfire's Spirit.

If the loss of that one spell (admittedly a very good one) destroys the whole subclass for you, maybe it wasn't the right one in the first place?

If the entire pull of the subclass was having fireball, maybe just play a Fiend Warlock with Pact of the Chain instead. It checks all the same boxes.
-Minion
-Fireball

It's pretty near identical.

[MrCharlie]

Star Druid rivals Moon Druid in its power. It's the Blaster Druid and does it well. The only nerf it got from UA was removing Augury from the free castings. Free castings of Guiding Bolt, bonus range attack from Archer Constellation. "Reliable Talent" on Concentration with Dragon Constellation. Its own version of Bardic Inspiration/Cutting Words.

Genie Warlock retains its awesomeness. Your own personal bag of holding/Leomund's Tiny Hut. Limited Wish. Wish. You're playing a Genie. My disappointment is the invocation where you can put on any armor didn't make it.

I noticed Scribe Wizard got nerfed a little. They can still change the damage type of spells, but it has to be the same level referenced. You'll get Forceful Hands with Burning Hands/Magic Missile, but it becomes harder to change Fireball. Lightningball is easy with Lightning Bolt. Still powerful. Psychic Ray anyone? Scorching Ray/Phantasmal Force.
The problem with druid blasting in general is the lack of AOE options that don't use concentration, are low level, and which have large AOE. Stars does not fix that, wildfire in the UA did-and without it in the current version we've regressed back to the state where we don't really have an effective blast druid.

Stars is still good though, it's just not really a blaster.

I agree with the rest.

[Sception]

I'm p happy with several bits. The main things i was looking forward to were some of the new spells (esp summin spels & spirit shroud) & fighting styles, the clockwork sorcerer, armorer artificer, twilight cleric (though i still don't understand thematically why it's a weapon & heavy armor instead of cantrip & medium armor domain, not that it matters much either way but srsly, plate armor is not 'evening wear'), eloquence bard (i missed its original printing), racial viariant rules, all of which I'm pretty happy with.

I was not expecting fixes to ranger or monk to actually mean much, though I certainly undersrand the disappointment if those who had allowed themselves to hope for more. Personally, I've written off both classes until 6e, and barbarians & rogues along with them outside of multiclass builds, at least in 'by the book' campaigns, and I liberally swing the house rule buff stick at monks in particular in games I run.

Wildfire druid losing fireball is kinda dumb, yeah. Its not the entirety of the subclass, but still, wildfire druids not getting fireball would be like necromancer wizards not getting animate dead or conquest paladins not getting fear.

I actually like some of the magic items. Yeah, they're kinda strong, but DMs who recoil at the idea of letting players have nice things weren't going to give you new items regardless of how good they are.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Wildfire druid losing fireball is kinda dumb, yeah. Its not the entirety of the subclass, but still, wildfire druids not getting fireball would be like necromancer wizards not getting animate dead or conquest paladins not getting fear.

I don't know if I'd go that far, they've got plenty of fire and healing left in their spell list.

This is more like complaining that a Tempest Cleric has no access to Lightning Bolt. Would it have been nice? For sure. Did they get nothing that services their theme to compensate? No, subclass identity is very much intact without it.

[Arkhios]

I don't get the people claiming "DM's won't allow X" as an universal fact just because they have strong opinions against X. Who gave them the mandate to act as all DMs' voice, I wonder.

Strong or overpowered is subjective.

Besides, default assumption of even getting magic items on your character is NOT being able to buy them at will.

[MrCharlie]

I was not expecting fixes to ranger or monk to actually mean much, though I certainly undersrand the disappointment if those who had allowed themselves to hope for more. Personally, I've written off both classes until 6e, and barbarians & rogues along with them outside of multiclass builds, at least in 'by the book' campaigns, and I liberally swing the house rule buff stick at monks in particular in games I run.

I kinduve want to have a word with you about why Rogues or Barbarians are in any way bad as my first reaction to that post, by the by, but it's not particularly relevant. Rogue in particular was barely modified at all, and Barbarians received some minor tweaks.

Anyway, monk and ranger have some pretty severe conceptual problems they could have at least started to fix here, but which they only made minor progress on. Rangers in particular still don't really have a good use for their spells, due to the frankly awful list they have and lack of synergistic attack+slot abilities that Paladins get. The few good spells on their list don't scale enough to keep up, and the changes present don't do a damned thing for that.

Monk just struggles with a lack of engagement with magic items and actual meaningful interaction with the various ways to empower a character. A whole list of feats, magic items, and races have severe antisynergy with the monk due to how restrictive the base chassis of the class is, and how limited the monks scaling is outside of this chassis. I've had monks go three or four levels without receiving any further upgrade because the adventure didn't add anything that benefitted them in a meaningful way, or there was someone else who clearly benefitted more from the item/ability. They did provide a huge quality of life improvement with the new features (virtually all of them fix some major, major issue) but only the first addresses the elephant in the room, and you still have issues where weapons are anti synergy no matter how you cut it.

Given that, I agree that some serious rebuilding of the entire system would be needed for them to compete on a serious level again, although I suspect the class concept of Monk may just be an inherently doomed endeavor if they continue to pile so much conceptual baggage on the class-the Monks problem is arguably that it knows what it is too much, and that any attempts to make it do anything other than that is like wading through molasses.

[P. G. Macer]

I’ve been griping about the Wildfire Druid losing Fireball since the info first leaked. People who have the book, is it true that their Level 14 Ability now requires you to sacrifice your Wildfire Spirit?

[MrCharlie]

I don't know if I'd go that far, they've got plenty of fire and healing left in their spell list.

This is more like complaining that a Tempest Cleric has no access to Lightning Bolt. Would it have been nice? For sure. Did they get nothing that services their theme to compensate? No, subclass identity is very much intact without it.
It's more like if light cleric lost fireball, and yeah, if light cleric lost fireball they'd be a pretty mediocre subclass. The other features just...don't compensate at all. As it is they are great.

They key isn't just that the spell is great, but that it fills a huge hole in the class that the domain/circle gets to fill by its inclusion.

That said, wildfire druids aren't bad-it's much better than the sheer mediocrity that would be light clerics without fireball-they just don't look nearly as appealing. The other spells they get are not great, mostly not even good, and they really lacked exactly what fireball would have granted them, a 3rd level non-concentration blast with good AOE.

And to clarify, that isn't to say that all spellcasters need fireball, just that if you want to be a serious blaster you do...Yeah, Ima double down on that, any serious blasting class needs fireball or lightning bolt. No other spell compares. Heck, without it, I struggle to imagine how you use many of the features of the subclass-for two spells levels you lack any fire damage spells that work with your level 6 feature, or in other words your waiting until you get flamestrike to effectively use it to deal damage with your higher level blasts. And flamestrike is actually a terrible blast. Your other spells are concentration, require bonus actions, and deal persistent damage, which is hideously antisynergy with the subclass.

Now, it's still a good archetype because the summon is actually a very reliable and somewhat versatile creation and the other features are actually quite good, and the buddy system you and your spirit have going is quite, quite effective. But that one change turned it from a great alternative AOE damage dealer and opportunistic healer to a good striker with some minor AOE and opportunistic healing.


I’ve been griping about the Wildfire Druid losing Fireball since the info first leaked. People who have the book, is it true that their Level 14 Ability now requires you to sacrifice your Wildfire Spirit?
Yeah, but nothing stops you from re-summoning it next turn, so it's not a huge deal. You also regain half your hit points rather than gaining temp HP, which is almost bound to be more effective healing if your CON is decent, but not by much. It's a nerf, but not the big one.

[Sception]

I kinduve want to have a word with you about why Rogues or Barbarians are in any way bad as my first reaction to that post, by the by, but it's not particularly relevant. Rogue in particular was barely modified at all, and Barbarians received some minor tweaks.

Rogues & Barbarians are fine at lower levels, and thus work well in campaigns that are wrapping up by level 10ish or in multiclass builds where the lower levels are the ones you take, but they don't scale particularly well later on, even compared to other non-full-casters, apart from monks obviously. Rogue is the better off of the two, particularly given its non-combat utility, even if still not by enough to make single classed rogue particularly appealing to me. But barbarian really starts to hurt when you reach a point where the main things you still have to look forward to outside of maybe a decent level 14 subclass feature if you're lucky are miniscule boosts to critical damage. Honestly, unless your subclass has something extremely good, levels 13 to 19 of barbarian are kind of a wasteland, and 12 only gets a pass since relentless at 11 put you within a single level of an asi.

[Dork_Forge]

I’ve been griping about the Wildfire Druid losing Fireball since the info first leaked. People who have the book, is it true that their Level 14 Ability now requires you to sacrifice your Wildfire Spirit?

Yes, basically the spirit drops to zero instead of you and you regain half your total hp and stand up.

[MrCharlie]

Rogues & Barbarians are fine at lower levels, and thus work well in campaigns that are wrapping up by level 10ish or in multiclass builds where the lower levels are the ones you take, but they don't scale particularly well later on, even compared to other non-full-casters, apart from monks obviously. Rogue is the better off of the two, particularly given its non-combat utility, even if still not by enough to make single classed rogue particularly appealing to me. But barbarian really starts to hurt when you reach a point where the main things you still have to look forward to outside of maybe a decent level 14 subclass feature if you're lucky are miniscule boosts to critical damage. Honestly, unless your subclass has something extremely good, levels 13 to 19 of barbarian are kind of a wasteland, and 12 only gets a pass since relentless at 11 put you within a single level of an asi.
Okay, agreed. Although Rogues do get a little mileage out of the effects of off-turn sneak attacks, scaling sneak attacks, and abusing some other mechanics if your into SCAG cantrips or other spell assistance. In general Rogues also actually multi-class well into a variety of classes-Barbarians other problem is that their multiclassing choices don't really do a whole heck of a lot, either, and there isn't super synergy with adding fighter levels because extra attacks can't stack, and you can't get clever with spellcasting levels because rage closes that door entirely. Its telling that the later barbarian features have a 1/20 chance of working and close major gaps in your base class features, rather than add something new.

I still think Barbarians are fine because they have such a bag of hit points with rage+a d12, and their free advantage still matters, but your reasons are good.

(Also, fighters strictly speaking have the same problem from levels 12/13 to 20, people just forget about it because level 20 fighters with action surge are so impressive, and you do eventually stumble into another action surge which is also very good).

Yes, basically the spirit drops to zero instead of you and you regain half your total hp and stand up.
Ooo, I just realized that you could actually have someone cast death ward on the spirit and keep it up, although unless you're at the point where you can have death ward cast on yourself as well it's doesen't do much in the end.

[Dankus Memakus]

I'm fairly satisfied with everything. Yes the ranger was botched but I've seen alot of rangers in play that were fun so I'm not too upset, plus beastmaster is functioning now which is super cool. Honestly I love most of it more than I thought. Nothing has struck me as unplayable like beastmaster once did so I'm satisfied.

[Blackdrop]

I noticed Scribe Wizard got nerfed a little. They can still change the damage type of spells, but it has to be the same level referenced. You'll get Forceful Hands with Burning Hands/Magic Missile, but it becomes harder to change Fireball. Lightningball is easy with Lightning Bolt. Still powerful. Psychic Ray anyone? Scorching Ray/Phantasmal Force.

Hilariously, you can also make Slashing Ray/Slashing Force/Melf's Slashing Arrow with Cloud of Daggers. How could we interpret "resistance to slashing damage from non-magical weapons" in that case? :smalltongue:

[Segev]

I want to know where people keep finding these UA supporting DMs because I would love one...and that ask.the DM stuff doesn't help the AL players.

UA is iffy, but I'm always open to negotiation for things. I just reserve the right to require changes if things turn out to be unbalanced. And I look to balance to the table, so what's balanced in one game may not be in another, even if I'm running both of them.

[Kane0]

Oh man, hearing that about talisman warlock sucks

Edit: fairly happy with the ranger not-hunters-mark though. It works well with all the other BA stuff you’re doing, just sort of disappointed it wasnt something better

[Sception]

Oh man, hearing that about talisman warlock sucks

Lateral shift at worst since it works for proficient skills now. Still doesn't hold a candle to chain's utility.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The Soulknife has been my biggest disappointment, but it's really my fault.

It's been how many years, how many iterations, how many editions, and not a single published Soulknife is ever any good? Why was I expecting anything different this time?

Psi Knight's a close second. It's not bad, but it's so vanilla that soft serve ought to be one of their class features.

[MrCharlie]

The Soulknife has been my biggest disappointment, but it's really my fault.

It's been how many years, how many iterations, how many editions, and not a single published Soulknife is ever any good? Why was I expecting anything different this time?

Psi Knight's a close second. It's not bad, but it's so vanilla that soft serve ought to be one of their class features.
What's actually wrong with soul knife? It seems good to me. Actually, it seems like the best Rogue currently in print to me, besides arcane trickster which has certain...advantages.

[Nagog]

I thought it was the "buddy Druid" with a Wildfire Spirit. This feels like the "not everybody wants to Wild Shape" book: Wild Companion, Spores's Symbiotic Entity, Stars's Starry Form, and Wildfire's Spirit.

If the loss of that one spell (admittedly a very good one) destroys the whole subclass for you, maybe it wasn't the right one in the first place?

In a video about the upcoming features, Jeremy Crawford said that all the new Druid Subclasses will have an alternative use for Wild Shape, as it has (Finally imo) come to their attention that, for being one of 2 core class features, Wild Shape is only really viable on a Moon Druid. Ergo, let other subclasses have their fun without having it as a crutch to be both really underpowered while also not stepping on Moon's toes by buffing it.


I want to know where people keep finding these UA supporting DMs because I would love one...and that ask.the DM stuff doesn't help the AL players.

This is exactly the reason AL is bad. What makes D&D and any TTRPG fun and a different experience from a video game or the like is it's adaptability and the ability to think outside the box to solve problems. AL by it's very base formatting doesn't allow that.


I’ve been griping about the Wildfire Druid losing Fireball since the info first leaked. People who have the book, is it true that their Level 14 Ability now requires you to sacrifice your Wildfire Spirit?

Yes. You can summon it again, though you only have 2 chances to summon it and it's only around for an hour each time, so if there's another caster in the party and/or there's time left in the day that you think you'll have any other reason to use Wild Shape or your Spirit, it's probably best to just go down.


Hilariously, you can also make Slashing Ray/Slashing Force/Melf's Slashing Arrow with Cloud of Daggers. How could we interpret "resistance to slashing damage from non-magical weapons" in that case? :smalltongue:

This is exactly the mechanic that made me want to play a Scribe Wizard so much: Reflavor all spells to be Slashing Damage. Since it's magical slashing damage, to my knowledge nothing in the world resists that, and the ability to flavor your spells as summoning knives/swords/axes/whatever in fun and interesting ways makes for some really fun and flavorful abilities. This nerf limits that flavor to only 1st level spells. Though tbh I have no idea why this nerf was implemented, overall it seems to be the same in terms of capacity other than limiting spell selection.
On that note however, if I cast Fireball and change it's damage to Cold damage (idk if theres a 3rd level spell that does that, just humor me for this), do unattended flammable items in the blast radius still light on fire? It isn't damage per se, but it is an effect of the spell.

[Nagog]

Lateral shift at worst since it works for proficient skills now. Still doesn't hold a candle to chain's utility.

It works for all skills yes, but anything that doesn't have a very clear success/fail DC it cannot apply to. Your 9 history check may only get you the name of a location, so it's not a failure, but a 12 or 13 could've gotten you the location name and things to look out for there, which would be a much better success.

[Rynjin]

The Soulknife has been my biggest disappointment, but it's really my fault.

It's been how many years, how many iterations, how many editions, and not a single published Soulknife is ever any good? Why was I expecting anything different this time?

The Pathfinder Soulknife (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) is great, though. While technically 3rd party, it's from probably the most universally excepted 3rd party supplement in the game (to the extent that Paizo thought it would be a waste of time to try to make their own official Psionics supplement, and went in a different direction with Occult Adventures and its Psychic Magic instead), so I think it counts.

[MoiMagnus]

It works for all skills yes, but anything that doesn't have a very clear success/fail DC it cannot apply to. Your 9 history check may only get you the name of a location, so it's not a failure, but a 12 or 13 could've gotten you the location name and things to look out for there, which would be a much better success.

Are ability checks with "multiple DCs" even officially supported by the rules? I don't see them in the PHB, but I don't have my DMG nearby. If no, then that's not a surprise that abilities are not written to take them into account.

When playing with them, my DM usually consider that if you succeed at one simple DC but not at a harder DC, you chose whether it counts as a success or a failure (as long as it is reasonable), so you can trigger the effect you want.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It's more like if light cleric lost fireball, and yeah, if light cleric lost fireball they'd be a pretty mediocre subclass. The other features just...don't compensate at all. As it is they are great.

They don't compensate in your opinion but that's from a mindset that light cleric is supposed to be a blaster cleric at all. They've got few other features that portray them as that aside from a 17th level ability that does nothing for their damage a channel divinity that plays equally into their theme of light manipulation than it does into dealing damage. Fireball is the odd one out.

I simply cannot agree, you've stated now that the appeal of both of these subclasses hinges entirely on their access to fireball. If that were true, it would be pretty terrible design. I don't think it is true though.

[Sception]

It works for all skills yes, but anything that doesn't have a very clear success/fail DC it cannot apply to. Your 9 history check may only get you the name of a location, so it's not a failure, but a 12 or 13 could've gotten you the location name and things to look out for there, which would be a much better success.

If the wearer wasn't proficient in history, they probsbly aren't the one the party was relying on for higher history checks. Maybe this is just table variation, but most skill checks on my end are of the pass/fail type. Do you clear the gap, or do you fall. Do you keep your balance, or do you fall. Do you calm the wild animal, or is it time for a fight. Does the guard believe your story, or do they sound the alarm, etc.

Furthermore, as with tome and blade, the majority of the boon's utility is in its invocations.

[KorvinStarmast]

I am mostly disappointed from the magic items. Most of them are so strong that DMs wont allow any of them. Yeah, the pouch full of dragon's teeth, artifact, is a bit over the top, but it's an artifact. Those tend to be a one or two per campaign world thing ...

The tattoos: glad they require an attunement slot. Not sure about power level, though. The ones that are like scrolls are kind of interesting.

There is a pile of wizard specific magic items that will stay in the "too fiddly in play, not gonna use them" pile and decorate a shelf in some extradimensional space.

The shards have potential, though.


Star Druid rivals Moon Druid in its power. It's the Blaster Druid and does it well. It looks interesting, to be sure.

Genie Warlock retains its awesomeness. Yep, and it's one of the reasons I got the book. I too was disappointed in the armor invocation going away.

The Soulknife has been my biggest disappointment, but it's really my fault. Play a Protoss then. (Oh, wait, that's not in Volo's as a monstrous race, sorry).

I do like the Cantrip Change/fighting style change at ASI thing. Customizability is a good thing. But of the new fighting styles ... hmmm ... I guess.

[Sception]

Yeah, I can empathize with players disappointed by the psionic subclasses, but at the same time imo it was pretty clear 5e psionics was going to be a disappointment when they dropped the entire idea of psionic classes based on a broad new mechanical framework for psionic abilities and instead decided to go with yet more subclasses of the same core classes with the same core mechanics that have been in 5e since day one. Those subclasses may be more or less effective in and of themselves, but they're all equally disappointing, imo.

It's just not a disappointment I personally associate with this book specifically, even if those subclasses are appearing here, because I came to terms with it ages ago when the mystic was abandoned.

[jaappleton]

This might come off as a little harsh.

But what did you expect?

Unearthed Arcana is purposely made on the more powerful end of the spectrum, and scaled back from there.

Sometimes they nail it on the first try and nothing needs to be scaled back. See: Genie Warlock.

Sometimes they miss the mark in UA, releasing it as underpowered, and make it better upon release. See: Swarmkeeper Ranger.

And sometimes they miss the mark in UA, and still release a huge steaming pile of hot garbage. See: Arcane Archer Fighter.

Having things remain the same from UA to release is almost NEVER how it works. And it shouldn’t be how it works, because you want them to incorporate feedback.

Your complaints on some aspects are valid. Talisman got shafted a bit, for sure. The Ranger changes? I’m actually VERY happy with them. Yes, Favored Foe took a hit, but it’s no action to use (Unlike Hunter’s Mark). You also get Tireless, Canny, etc are all new features.

You need to view the book as a whole for what it does. It’s not fair to it to nitpick individual pieces, while ignoring the great things that come with it.

Do I have some complaints? Oh god yes! I wanted more magic weapons, some unique items exclusively for Monks (Tattoos are nice but can a Monk get anything EXCLUSIVE?!), we didn’t need a dozen books for Wizards, I hate how they outright errata’d the original Bladesinger, and I was really hoping for more new spells than this. And anyone who knows me knows I’m really not some WOTC defender, I’ve certainly had my share of issues.

But I love the new Ranger features as a whole. I dig the new Ranger subclasses. Especially Swarm, which I HATED in UA. Mercy Monk is quite unique. The new spell lists for classes? Adore it. Some long overdue additions to some classes (Clerics finally have Sunbeam! I’ve championed that change LITERALLY for years), although not exclusive to Monks, those Tattoos really help them out a lot.

Overall? I’m very happy with Tasha’s. I actually like it more than Xanathar’s.

EDIT: I want Monks to get their equivalent of the Rod of the Pact Keeper. Scaling rarity which increases their attack rolls and damage, as well as Ki save DC, and once per long rest let’s you regain Ki equal to your... Wis mod? Prof bonus? Whatever. Just make it happen, it’s an overdue item IMO.

[Telwar]

I'm mostly amused by the larger font size with Tasha's over XGTE, Exploring Eberron, etc.

Honestly, not that impressed. It's more stuff, but nothing really calls out to me. Would be nice to have items that buff class save dc for non-casters.

[Waterdeep Merch]

What's actually wrong with soul knife? It seems good to me. Actually, it seems like the best Rogue currently in print to me, besides arcane trickster which has certain...advantages.
Specifically, it's the blades. They're only really useful in any game without magic items, since otherwise they fall behind to basic +weapons with almost nothing to show for it until level 17. They've got range, but you're proficient in the shortbow (and maybe longbow). They let you offhand attack with your ability score bonus to damage, but there's plenty of ways to do that, and it still doesn't make up for being incompatible with magic items.

If there are no (or close to no) magic items in a game, they're fine. But for my purposes, you pretty much ignore them and only use the (admittedly good) non-blade abilities outside of specific unarmed scenarios after you find your first +1 weapon. And that kinda wrecks the fantasy of laser knife hands for me.


Play a Protoss then. (Oh, wait, that's not in Volo's as a monstrous race, sorry).

Githyanki would work, though! They're kinda close!

Yeah, I can empathize with players disappointed by the psionic subclasses, but at the same time imo it was pretty clear 5e psionics was going to be a disappointment when they dropped the entire idea of psionic classes based on a broad new mechanical framework for psionic abilities and instead decided to go with yet more subclasses of the same core classes with the same core mechanics that have been in 5e since day one. Those subclasses may be more or less effective in and of themselves, but they're all equally disappointing, imo.

It's just not a disappointment I personally associate with this book specifically, even if those subclasses are appearing here, because I came to terms with it ages ago when the mystic was abandoned.
I held out some hope after the last UA's turned out being really fun. I let my group use them and they really enjoyed it, much as I still allow an edited Mystic.

So I'll probably continue allowing that stuff, since I'm the DM most of the time and I sometimes use my powers for good. I'm mostly just whinging for myself because I won't be able to guarantee a different DM will be so lenient when I get to play.

[Sigreid]

I'm still angry that Wildfire Druids lost Fireball.

Talk to your group. If it sparkles with everyone just add it back to the list.

[jaappleton]

Talk to your group. If it sparkles with everyone just add it back to the list.

Does casting a spell via an item count as functioning with the Wildfire lv6 feature? I argue yes as so many features say “When you cast a spell using a spell slot”, and this particular feature lacks that caveat.

As such, I know it’s not ideal, but picking up a Wand of Fireballs should work here as a workaround.

[Sigreid]

Does casting a spell via an item count as functioning with the Wildfire lv6 feature? I argue yes as so many features say “When you cast a spell using a spell slot”, and this particular feature lacks that caveat.

As such, I know it’s not ideal, but picking up a Wand of Fireballs should work here as a workaround.

Wands and staves specifically say they let you cast the spell. So, yes.

[x3n0n]

EDIT: I want Monks to get their equivalent of the Rod of the Pact Keeper. Scaling rarity which increases their attack rolls and damage, as well as Ki save DC, and once per long rest let’s you regain Ki equal to your... Wis mod? Prof bonus? Whatever. Just make it happen, it’s an overdue item IMO.

Yes: when they set the expectation for lots of class-specific magic items, I assumed they were specifically planning to fill the "non-casters need cool things at higher level" gap. I was very surprised and mildly disappointed that there were no Monk nor Barbarian exclusives.

All in all, my early feelings about TCoE are mostly positive. I'm very impressed by the Optional Class Features for Monk, and for most of the OCFs in general.

As discussed elsewhere, the sorcerer subclasses look out of whack when compared to the existing ones. I'd probably prefer that they start with only 1 extra per spell level instead of 2.

[MrCharlie]

Specifically, it's the blades. They're only really useful in any game without magic items, since otherwise they fall behind to basic +weapons with almost nothing to show for it until level 17. They've got range, but you're proficient in the shortbow (and maybe longbow). They let you offhand attack with your ability score bonus to damage, but there's plenty of ways to do that, and it still doesn't make up for being incompatible with magic items.

If there are no (or close to no) magic items in a game, they're fine. But for my purposes, you pretty much ignore them and only use the (admittedly good) non-blade abilities outside of specific unarmed scenarios after you find your first +1 weapon. And that kinda wrecks the fantasy of laser knife hands for me.

Good point. I will say that the level 9 features are actually quite good-to put it simply, you aren't using +x magic weapons for the +1 damage as a Rogue, you are most concerned about hitting and applying your boatload of dice. Homing strikes helps you do that, and you have a significant number of uses.

That you can't use other, more interesting magic items is a real problem though. It's part of the same problem the monks basic chassis has-you have this alternative to using magic items, so a huge field of them is no longer of interest. At the very least, it requires the DM to modify them for you, which requires your DM know what they are doing and are allowed to do so.

(Same issue with poisons, by the by-you likely can't apply them to psychic blades, and even if it were possible the blade is intermittent).

Good talk!

They don't compensate in your opinion but that's from a mindset that light cleric is supposed to be a blaster cleric at all. They've got few other features that portray them as that aside from a 17th level ability that does nothing for their damage a channel divinity that plays equally into their theme of light manipulation than it does into dealing damage. Fireball is the odd one out.

I simply cannot agree, you've stated now that the appeal of both of these subclasses hinges entirely on their access to fireball. If that were true, it would be pretty terrible design. I don't think it is true though.
Every mechanic they have access to is passable but mediocre. Everyone I've talked to agrees that fireball is what makes the archetype good. And I consider mechanics to be fundamentally tied to class fantasy, while you are clearly considering it from a different perspective-if a class is mechanically a garbage fire, the class fantasy is irrelevant. Wildfire is still functional, but that nerf was huge.


It works for all skills yes, but anything that doesn't have a very clear success/fail DC it cannot apply to. Your 9 history check may only get you the name of a location, so it's not a failure, but a 12 or 13 could've gotten you the location name and things to look out for there, which would be a much better success.
Pretty sure those are technically all DMG optional rules or Xanathar's/Tasha's rules. The DM is free to say that you still failed, because the DM is free to say whatever they want about skill checks.

This does mean that the DM can be a rule dickens about it, but still.

[Dork_Forge]

Specifically, it's the blades. They're only really useful in any game without magic items, since otherwise they fall behind to basic +weapons with almost nothing to show for it until level 17. They've got range, but you're proficient in the shortbow (and maybe longbow). They let you offhand attack with your ability score bonus to damage, but there's plenty of ways to do that, and it still doesn't make up for being incompatible with magic items.

If there are no (or close to no) magic items in a game, they're fine. But for my purposes, you pretty much ignore them and only use the (admittedly good) non-blade abilities outside of specific unarmed scenarios after you find your first +1 weapon. And that kinda wrecks the fantasy of laser knife hands for me.


I think you're underselling that the blades do psychic damage (and so by extension psychic Sneak damage) and give you access to a bonus action attack that lets you add your modifier.

You say that there's plenty of way to do it, but that isn't really true for the Rogue, they can multiclass to get the TWF style (or take the new feat) and that's pretty much it. They can't benefit from PAM becuase they need finesse weapons, the double bladed scimitar needs the feat to be finesse and so on.

For a magic weapon to exceed that damage for the Monk it would have to be a lot better than your standard +1/2.

But if you're looking to up the damage of the blades, they should work with the thrown style (and maybe Dueling?) for +2 damage per attack.

[togapika]

Wizard got a bunch of new book options, but what Warlock specific magic items exist besides the Rod of the Pact Keeper???

[Segev]

The Pathfinder Soulknife (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/) is great, though. While technically 3rd party, it's from probably the most universally excepted 3rd party supplement in the game (to the extent that Paizo thought it would be a waste of time to try to make their own official Psionics supplement, and went in a different direction with Occult Adventures and its Psychic Magic instead), so I think it counts.

I was also going to say this. It's a really neat class, well-balanced for 3e's Tier 3 play and can keep up well enough with Tier 1s in most actual play.

That said, that is a different edition, and the concepts in PF don't translate 1:1 to 5e particularly well. 5e is a pretty mature system now. And nothing they've done with psionics has seemed to really satisfy even a plurality.

[Pex]

Monks can use weapons. They can use magical staves and short swords, for example. They aren't left out of the magic weapon game. What's a problem is only a problem (valid) for those monk players who only want to use their body parts to fight for flavor.

[Trustypeaches]

Regarding Wildfire Druids, one buff that has flown under the radar is that the Wildfire Spirit's "Fiery Teleportation" is now an at-will ability.


Fiery Teleportation. The spirit and each willing creature of your choice within 5 feet of it teleport up to 15 feet to unoccupied spaces you can see. Then each creature within 5 feet of the space that the spirit left must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC or take 1d6 + PB Fire damage.
This has a lot of utility, of course, in helping reshape the battlefield, but it's also a pretty cheap AoE effect for a bonus action

Other small buffs include that the Wildfire Spirit uses your spell attack modifier for Attack Rolls.

[Warder]

From what I've seen so far, there are good bits, but overall I'm disappointed too. It's just so dull. Like the psionic subclasses is probably my best example.

There are several ways you can screw up implementing psionics. They can be overpowered, underpowered, indecipherable, time-consuming, and just about anything else you can think of. Yet I'd prefer any of those to what WotC did in Tasha's, which was to say "it's the same as anything else" - i.e. make them mundane. If there's one thing they've always had in common through the editions, it's been that implementations of psionics have always been so weird and alien, both in concept and mechanics. Interesting, and a complete opposite to what they're like in Tasha's. Uninspired, samey waste of potential. :(

[jaappleton]

Regarding Wildfire Druids, one buff that has flown under the radar is that the Wildfire Spirit's "Fiery Teleportation" is now an at-will ability.


This has a lot of utility, of course, in helping reshape the battlefield, but it's also a pretty cheap AoE effect for a bonus action

Other small buffs include that the Wildfire Spirit uses your spell attack modifier for Attack Rolls.

Its essentially casting Misty Step on someone else. Its useful for saving a squishy ally, for movement around hazards, exploration, etc. You're right, its flown nearly completely under the radar. Yes, losing Fireball sucks, but it actually gained ground in other areas.

Also, a change I've seen a few cases that nobody has mentioned: Numerous 'companions', like Steel Defender and Wildfire Spirit, now use your spell attack modifier. To me, this is MASSIVE. I was so tired of seeing companions with below-par attack rolls to where I'd try to find a way to get Spiritual Weapon or something on my character so I wouldn't have to deal with that. The OCD in me is incredibly pleased by this change.

EDIT: Wait you just mentioned it. :smalltongue:

EDIT 2: I've seen a lot of people disappointed in the psionic subclasses, mainly because they wanted more. Whether new subclasses, more subclasses, different mechanic, etc...

I get it. I do.

Honestly? I wouldn't lose hope.

I do believe that a more... for lack of a better term, 'full' version of Psionics is coming. I really do believe that. The inclusion of a couple Psionic flavored subclasses here in Tasha's does not mean there will be no additional subclasses, classes or Psionic systems in the future.

I think a full version of Psionics is desired enough to warrant its own book, likely in a campaign book like Dark Sun. I also think there's enough of a crowd so against Psionics that putting it in its own campaign book is a good way to say, "Its there. Use it if you want. If you're against Psionics, you can just not allow this book". In my experience, people who want something like Dark Sun or Psionics REALLY want it, and people who hate it are so vehemently against it that... Honestly, WOTC knows that crowd isn't going to buy it anyway.

WOTC has been expanding their design team for over a year now, and they're gearing up for more releases. I've said this before, I've presented my case as to why, I'm honestly too busy at work to do it again, but I really do believe a more... uh... thought out version of Psionics is on the way.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I think you're underselling that the blades do psychic damage (and so by extension psychic Sneak damage) and give you access to a bonus action attack that lets you add your modifier.

You say that there's plenty of way to do it, but that isn't really true for the Rogue, they can multiclass to get the TWF style (or take the new feat) and that's pretty much it. They can't benefit from PAM becuase they need finesse weapons, the double bladed scimitar needs the feat to be finesse and so on.

For a magic weapon to exceed that damage for the Monk it would have to be a lot better than your standard +1/2.

But if you're looking to up the damage of the blades, they should work with the thrown style (and maybe Dueling?) for +2 damage per attack.
Psychic is indeed a terrible damage type compared to magical weaponry. Things are resistant or immune to psychic damage. Nothing in the game is resistant or immune to a magic weapon.

Besides obvious psychic gribblies like illithids, aboleths, or gith, you're also incapable of harming any object with psychic damage. You can't even cut nets or rope. There's also particular things that won't interact well with how the blades only manifest when you're attacking with them, including Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade.

[Segev]

Nothing in the game is resistant or immune to a magic weapon.

Bear Totem Barbarians are resistant to all damage except psychic; no exception made for magic weapons.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Bear Totem Barbarians are resistant to all damage except psychic; no exception made for magic weapons.

Ah, right- no published monster/NPC is resistant to magic weapons. This is indeed possibly the only place psychic damage is better than a magic weapon.

I think. Unless I'm forgetting one.

[jaappleton]

Ah, right- no published monster/NPC is resistant to magic weapons. This is indeed possibly the only place psychic damage is better than a magic weapon.

I think. Unless I'm forgetting one.

Demilich out of the Monster Manual.

There's literally one. :smallbiggrin:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Demilich out of the Monster Manual.

There's literally one. :smallbiggrin:
Really? *flips through book*

Well, there it is.

It's also immune to psychic, though, so my calling psychic damage worse stands.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Wildfire is still functional, but that nerf was huge.

But reasonable in a lot of places, not every feature needed to have free damage attached to it.

And as mentioned above, there was compensation for these nerfs. Your spirit is improved, your 10th level feature always leaves a mote rather than taking your reaction to place it, and in using your reaction to activate it you have more options in what kind of target lands on it. Blazing revival didn't need to have damage attached to it, and is now half your actual HP rather than a mass of temp hp. Sure, it's not as good, but your spirit has been upgraded to an actually useful tool instead of something you summon and forget about, if the feature is replacing wild shape it should have a defining presence in the design.

But I guess you're right, I am actually kind of ok with an option being weaker if it's theme is stronger for it. I'm very glad that this subclass has evolved away from "druid with fireball". Fireball is boring, a druid subclass designed around it would be equally boring.

[jaappleton]

But reasonable in a lot of places, not every feature needed to have free damage attached to it.

And as mentioned above, there was compensation for these nerfs. Your spirit is improved, your 10th level feature always leaves a mote rather than taking your reaction to place it, and in using your reaction to activate it you have more options in what kinds of target lands on it. Blazing revival didn't need to have damage attached to it, and is now hand your actual HP rather than as mass of temp hp. Sure, it's not as good, but your spirit had been upgraded to an actually useful tool instead of something you summon and forget about, if there feature is replacing wild shape it should have a defining presence in the design.

But I guess you're right, I am actually kind of ok with an option being weaker if it's theme is stronger for it. I'm very glad that this subclass had evolved away from "druid with fireball". Fireball is boring, a druid subclass designed around it would be equally boring.

Wholly agree.

I actually like Wildfire more now in the final version much more than I did in UA.

EDIT: And since you can have spells originate from your wildfire spirit,, my spirits name is Ninetails and I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST-

[MrCharlie]

Monks can use weapons. They can use magical staves and short swords, for example. They aren't left out of the magic weapon game. What's a problem is only a problem (valid) for those monk players who only want to use their body parts to fight for flavor.
They can't use half their basic features with weapons, and those features that do work don't make most magic weapons better. They can absolutely use extra attack to swing a +1 shortsword, but a fighter can do it one more time, a Barbarian can give himself advantage to actually hit with it, etc.

It's similar to the "Do we give X to the Rogue or Fighter?" Dilemma where more attacks/more HP/More survivability=magic weapons are better, but given that half the monk class is built around not using armor or weapons its even more severe. Plus, they lack proficiencies outside of subclasses to actually use these weapons, and while Tasha's really helped with that specifically it's still generally better to give a magic weapon to a class that can utilize it fully.

Soulknife is similar to this. It's not efficient to give them weapons, but they can still use them.

But I'm not really arguing this logic is 100% sound. There is just a kernel of truth in it.

But reasonable in a lot of places, not every feature needed to have free damage attached to it.

And as mentioned above, there was compensation for these nerfs. Your spirit is improved, your 10th level feature always leaves a mote rather than taking your reaction to place it, and in using your reaction to activate it you have more options in what kinds of target lands on it. Blazing revival didn't need to have damage attached to it, and is now hand your actual HP rather than as mass of temp hp. Sure, it's not as good, but your spirit had been upgraded to an actually useful tool instead of something you summon and forget about, if there feature is replacing wild shape it should have a defining presence in the design.

But I guess you're right, I am actually kind of ok with an option being weaker if it's theme is stronger for it. I'm very glad that this subclass had evolved away from "druid with fireball". Fireball is boring, a druid subclass designed around it would be equally boring.
Thinking on it a bit more, I actually think I'm generally fine with it-Wildfire is weaker, sure, but I guess it's a side grade. We already kinduve have blaster druids from the circle of land druid that has lightning bolt, it's just that if we wanted a AOE druid archetype we haven't really gotten a great one. If we wanted a single target summon/dps druid which also have efficient healing, with some AOE capabilities, we have that in spades.

The one thing I'm not okay with is the lack of other single cast level appropriate fire damage spells, because the level 6 feature is now very hard to actually use-but I suppose the healing capability is still there and getting the bonus damage efficiently to lower level casts isn't a huge deal.

[GlenSmash!]

I just picked up a copy of Tasha's Cauldron, and I've discovered almost everything about it that I was excited for has been nerfed/altered beyond recognition. For example:

Favored Foe: Is now infinitely worse. Instead of Hunter's Mark without concentration for free a few times a day, it's no marking an enemy with an attack and dealing 1d4 damage once a round to that enemy. Oh and you can only mark an enemy a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and it's concentration. So every facet that made Variant Ranger competitive in combat (Hunter's Mark stacking with other spells, Hunter's Mark lasting more than a single enemy, etc.) is removed in favor of freeing up your Bonus Action. Granted Rangers are very heavy handed on the Bonus Action, but this placed them solidly back at the bottom of the barrel as far as classes go.


It's only a d4 until level 6 when it becomes a d6 (and d8 at 14th level). I still prefer the concentrationless hunter's mark of the UA of course

[stoutstien]

Demilich out of the Monster Manual.

There's literally one. :smallbiggrin:

Treant have flatout resistance to blunt/ piercing

[Segev]

Ah, right- no published monster/NPC is resistant to magic weapons. This is indeed possibly the only place psychic damage is better than a magic weapon.

I think. Unless I'm forgetting one.


Demilich out of the Monster Manual.

There's literally one. :smallbiggrin:


Treant have flatout resistance to blunt/ piercing

I do agree that there probably should be more monsters that have resistance to even magical weapon damage. Maybe even some that expressly have resistance to magical weapon damage. Disenchanters, perhaps?

[Rynjin]

I was also going to say this. It's a really neat class, well-balanced for 3e's Tier 3 play and can keep up well enough with Tier 1s in most actual play.

That said, that is a different edition, and the concepts in PF don't translate 1:1 to 5e particularly well. 5e is a pretty mature system now. And nothing they've done with psionics has seemed to really satisfy even a plurality.

For sure, I was just disputing the assertion that no edition had made a good Soulknife.

[Connington]

Demilich out of the Monster Manual.

There's literally one. :smallbiggrin:

Any Swarm is resistant to B/P/S, full stop.

Certain oozes are completely immune to slashing damage. Flameskulls are resistant to piercing damage. Treants are resistant to Bludgeoning and Piercing.

That's just out of the Monster Manual

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

I do agree that there probably should be more monsters that have resistance to even magical weapon damage. Maybe even some that expressly have resistance to magical weapon damage. Disenchanters, perhaps?

If a monster is resistant or immune to all weapon damage magic or otherwise, what exactly is a martial class meant to do in that fight? If a monster's immune to fire, casters have a plethora of other damage types available to them to still put out damage in the fight, but martials do not have that same luxury. Telling the fighter to go sit in a corner while the casters deal with the monster is...not great, and not something that the game really needs to do?

I suppose if it was ONLY magical weapon damage, they might have a non-magical weapon they could switch to, but that has not really been something expected of martials this edition and it would be kind of unfair to start punishing them for not doing that now.

[Segev]

If a monster is resistant or immune to all weapon damage magic or otherwise, what exactly is a martial class meant to do in that fight? If a monster's immune to fire, casters have a plethora of other damage types available to them to still put out damage in the fight, but martials do not have that same luxury. Telling the fighter to go sit in a corner while the casters deal with the monster is...not great, and not something that the game really needs to do?

I suppose if it was ONLY magical weapon damage, they might have a non-magical weapon they could switch to, but that has not really been something expected of martials this edition and it would be kind of unfair to start punishing them for not doing that now.

FAir enough. The list in the post before yours is a good thing to point out, and probably a better way to handle it.

[Pex]

If a monster is resistant or immune to all weapon damage magic or otherwise, what exactly is a martial class meant to do in that fight? If a monster's immune to fire, casters have a plethora of other damage types available to them to still put out damage in the fight, but martials do not have that same luxury. Telling the fighter to go sit in a corner while the casters deal with the monster is...not great, and not something that the game really needs to do?

I suppose if it was ONLY magical weapon damage, they might have a non-magical weapon they could switch to, but that has not really been something expected of martials this edition and it would be kind of unfair to start punishing them for not doing that now.

Rustmonsters
:smallfrown:

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Rustmonsters
:smallfrown:

Rustmonsters are a pain but they are at least unable to damage magical weapons, right? Granted, it's not really up to the martial if they have a magical weapon yet or not, but that's kind of always been a problem with 5e. I think ranged attacks work on them still as well, they just destroy your ammo, but you can always restock on that later. So there is something of an option there, at least? Not ideal but its something.

If items that dealt elemental damage were a little more common and less expensive, it wouldn't be so bad. It would be nice if martials could stock up on acid/alchemists fire and etc. to have options in case of physically resistant monsters. Or if there were some weapon types that dealt elemental damage, but maybe had lower damage die than an equivalent B/P/S weapon. I'm not quite sure what that would look like, though.

[jaappleton]

Any Swarm is resistant to B/P/S, full stop.

Certain oozes are completely immune to slashing damage. Flameskulls are resistant to piercing damage. Treants are resistant to Bludgeoning and Piercing.

That's just out of the Monster Manual

The question was what’s immune to b/p/s from magical weapons. All three weapon types, magical.

According to my search of all creatures via D&D Beyond, that’s the only one. Demi Lich.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Any Swarm is resistant to B/P/S, full stop.

Certain oozes are completely immune to slashing damage. Flameskulls are resistant to piercing damage. Treants are resistant to Bludgeoning and Piercing.

That's just out of the Monster Manual

Okay, so it's a lot easier to do a full search since there's definitely more of these than I expected.

There are 15 monsters in the MM with resistance to magical piercing damage (since piercing is the most common rogue weapon damage, it's easier to judge based on this). 10 of those are swarms, 5 of those just being different varieties of insect swarms. There are then 6 in Volo's (2 are swarms again). Mordenkainen's adds none. All the other settings and campaign books combined add 15, 5 of which are swarms again.

So total across every officially published 5e source, there are 36 creatures with resistance to magical piercing damage. Nearly half of these (17) are swarms, which make up the bulk of their issue. Nothing is immune to magical piercing. One creature in the MM is potentially vulnerable to it, though- the Rakshasa. 4 if you include the 3 extra varieties from Eberron.

Meanwhile, psychic is resisted by only the Revenant in the MM. Volo's adds only 1 extra. Mordenkainen's also adds 1. All the other settings and campaign books combined add 21. There is no real 'rhyme' here to a common type, but it doesn't look bad yet, right? Next, immunity- there's 10 in the MM (5 are constructs). Volo's added none. Mordenkainen's added 8 (2 are constructs). All the other settings and campaign books combined add 53, 42 of which are constructs.

So 24 creatures resist psychic damage, and 71 creatures are flat out immune to it. Of those, 49 are constructs, the psychic type's biggest issue. Also, bizarrely, nothing is vulnerable to psychic damage. At all. Though the Rakshasa thing for piercing isn't often going to be useful for rogue players and they're kind of rare anyways, so I'll give it a pass.

A normal rogue with a +1 dagger would struggle against 36 possible creatures, most notably swarms, while a Soulknife would struggle against 95, most notably constructs which are entirely immune to their primary weapon. And again, all objects are immune to psychic damage as well- no manipulating your environment with your laser fist, that's something only a physical weapon can do. And the normal rogue with a magic weapon is never in a hopeless fight where they can't deal damage. A Soulknife can only overcome 71 of their problems by switching to a normal weapon.

And that's the big rub right there- a Soulknife really needs to keep a magic weapon on them at all times to overcome their weakness. The thing that none of their fancy Soulknife powers interact with at all. In some fights it'll just be for teleporting.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

On that note however, if I cast Fireball and change it's damage to Cold damage (idk if theres a 3rd level spell that does that, just humor me for this), do unattended flammable items in the blast radius still light on fire? It isn't damage per se, but it is an effect of the spell.

Why not? Physics is fun. You created your ball of ice by sucking all the heat from the area which had to go somewhere and you shoved it in the flammable stuff.

[Dork_Forge]

Okay, so it's a lot easier to do a full search since there's definitely more of these than I expected.

There are 15 monsters in the MM with resistance to magical piercing damage (since piercing is the most common rogue weapon damage, it's easier to judge based on this). 10 of those are swarms, 5 of those just being different varieties of insect swarms. There are then 6 in Volo's (2 are swarms again). Mordenkainen's adds none. All the other settings and campaign books combined add 15, 5 of which are swarms again.

So total across every officially published 5e source, there are 36 creatures with resistance to magical piercing damage. Nearly half of these (17) are swarms, which make up the bulk of their issue. Nothing is immune to magical piercing. One creature in the MM is potentially vulnerable to it, though- the Rakshasa. 4 if you include the 3 extra varieties from Eberron.

Meanwhile, psychic is resisted by only the Revenant in the MM. Volo's adds only 1 extra. Mordenkainen's also adds 1. All the other settings and campaign books combined add 21. There is no real 'rhyme' here to a common type, but it doesn't look bad yet, right? Next, immunity- there's 10 in the MM (5 are constructs). Volo's added none. Mordenkainen's added 8 (2 are constructs). All the other settings and campaign books combined add 53, 42 of which are constructs.

So 24 creatures resist psychic damage, and 71 creatures are flat out immune to it. Of those, 49 are constructs, the psychic type's biggest issue. Also, bizarrely, nothing is vulnerable to psychic damage. At all. Though the Rakshasa thing for piercing isn't often going to be useful for rogue players and they're kind of rare anyways, so I'll give it a pass.

A normal rogue with a +1 dagger would struggle against 36 possible creatures, most notably swarms, while a Soulknife would struggle against 95, most notably constructs which are entirely immune to their primary weapon. And again, all objects are immune to psychic damage as well- no manipulating your environment with your laser fist, that's something only a physical weapon can do. And the normal rogue with a magic weapon is never in a hopeless fight where they can't deal damage. A Soulknife can only overcome 71 of their problems by switching to a normal weapon.

And that's the big rub right there- a Soulknife really needs to keep a magic weapon on them at all times to overcome their weakness. The thing that none of their fancy Soulknife powers interact with at all. In some fights it'll just be for teleporting.

How common do you expect this weakness to actually be in play? A rough D&D Beyond count (including named NPCs and varieties of dragon) gives 1,879 creatures. 5.056% of all creatures would pose some kind of issue for a Soul Knife, though that includes resistant creatures which are more of a speed bump. If you're going to be playing a campaign that is heavy in constructs etc. then the duty falls to the DM in session 0 to say to the player they may have a rough time of things.

Having to cut rope or something is more of a 'heh that's funny' situation than an actually problem since pretty much everyone would be well served by carrying a back up dagger on their belt.

Meanwhile the blades offer the far more common benefit of not caring about nonmagical BPS resistance/immunity along with more niche Rogue benefits like always having access to them and not leaving a mark for assassination work.

So far it seems like you don't like these Rogues not being able to use magic melee weapons with their blade benefits (though they don't need to use them like other Rogues might either) and you think that Psychic has the potential to be a bad damage type. Is that a complete summary of your issues with the Soul Knife? Obviously you feel differently but I'm not seeing a reason to right them off at all...

[MaxWilson]

Why not? Physics is fun. You created your ball of ice by sucking all the heat from the area which had to go somewhere and you shoved it in the flammable stuff.

Heh. What would be your explanation for poison that sets objects on fire?

[MrCharlie]

Heh. What would be your explanation for poison that sets objects on fire?
Mine is Arsine gas, to interject. Flammable toxins are fun, speaking from the same spiritual plane as dwarf fortress.

I'm sure its just a matter of time before someone pops up with an even more ridiculous example though, like psychic damage setting fires or radiant damage healing undead.

[Jerrykhor]

For anyone wondering why Soul Knife is a massive disappointment, just remember that the psychic blades disappear after you take the attack action, which means you can only make Opportunity attacks with unarmed strikes, unless you pull out a weapon before your turn ends.

Or you might as well just use regular weapons, since any regular schmuck can TWF with short swords for 1d6/1d6, instead of Soul Knife's 1d6/1d4. If you have Dual Wielder feat, you can wield rapiers for 1d8/1d8. Soul knife can... uh, get no benefit from the feat. Why did you spend all these years training your mind to summon shinny weapons again?

[Darthnazrael]

For anyone wondering why Soul Knife is a massive disappointment, just remember that the psychic blades disappear after you take the attack action, which means you can only make Opportunity attacks with unarmed strikes, unless you pull out a weapon before your turn ends.
You can also resolve this with the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style. Opponent provokes an OA, you draw a dagger and attack with it. Soulknives will want this FS anyways for the +2 damage, either through the feat or a fighter dip.

[Dork_Forge]

For anyone wondering why Soul Knife is a massive disappointment, just remember that the psychic blades disappear after you take the attack action, which means you can only make Opportunity attacks with unarmed strikes, unless you pull out a weapon before your turn ends.

Or you might as well just use regular weapons, since any regular schmuck can TWF with short swords for 1d6/1d6, instead of Soul Knife's 1d6/1d4. If you have Dual Wielder feat, you can wield rapiers for 1d8/1d8. Soul knife can... uh, get no benefit from the feat. Why did you spend all these years training your mind to summon shinny weapons again?

The Soul Knife adds their mod to damage on the bonus action attack, that is far better than just two weapon fighting or taking the DW feat.

The opportunity attacks sound more like an oversight than intentional design decision.

[micahaphone]

This squarely falls into the "as a DM I'd modify to do this" camp, but for the Soulknife they should have some method like pact of the blade to bond with a magic weapon, applying its magic to their psi knives. Maybe it takes attunement, and maybe you can only do it with a dagger or short sword or something.

As a DM I'd maybe instead make the enchantment of weapons transferable, so a monk or soulknife player can take a +1 longsword, do some ritual or work with an npc alchemist, and transfer the +1-ness onto their fists or their psi blades or what have you.

Or just make magic items that do that automatically like a necklace or ring, maybe even a magic tattoo! I've never personally played with someone who complained about the verisimilitude of tailored magic items in hoards, but I know some people do, hence the enchantment transference suggestion.




------------------------------------------
And I agree that losing Fireball really sucks, but Revivify is a great alternate pickup that Druid can't normally use. Very on theme too. I think there's enough other cool stuff in the class to make it worthwhile to play. This is the first Druid class that I've been interested in playing.

[Azuresun]

But I guess you're right, I am actually kind of ok with an option being weaker if it's theme is stronger for it. I'm very glad that this subclass has evolved away from "druid with fireball". Fireball is boring, a druid subclass designed around it would be equally boring.

Oh thank goodness, someone else said it! Every time the complaint came up, part of me was thinking "Really, the entire reason this appealed to you was 'I can do 8d6 fire damage at level 5'?"

[Waterdeep Merch]

How common do you expect this weakness to actually be in play? A rough D&D Beyond count (including named NPCs and varieties of dragon) gives 1,879 creatures. 5.056% of all creatures would pose some kind of issue for a Soul Knife, though that includes resistant creatures which are more of a speed bump. If you're going to be playing a campaign that is heavy in constructs etc. then the duty falls to the DM in session 0 to say to the player they may have a rough time of things.

Having to cut rope or something is more of a 'heh that's funny' situation than an actually problem since pretty much everyone would be well served by carrying a back up dagger on their belt.

Meanwhile the blades offer the far more common benefit of not caring about nonmagical BPS resistance/immunity along with more niche Rogue benefits like always having access to them and not leaving a mark for assassination work.

So far it seems like you don't like these Rogues not being able to use magic melee weapons with their blade benefits (though they don't need to use them like other Rogues might either) and you think that Psychic has the potential to be a bad damage type. Is that a complete summary of your issues with the Soul Knife? Obviously you feel differently but I'm not seeing a reason to right them off at all...
That was a response to the idea that psychic was somehow a worthwhile alternate damage compared to magical weapons; I did my homework after people started pointing out that there were more things resistant to magic weapons than I thought. But after digging through everything, while psychic certainly doesn't suffer all that much overall, it's provably inferior to magical weaponry. It might not be by a lot, but it's just one more problem.

Not scaling well compared to magic weaponry is the biggest problem they have in my eyes. Working with magic items would certainly fix that but I'd actually prefer it if they didn't, believe it or not. What I'd like to see is more interesting things they might be able to do with them. As it is, you don't get a single rider until level 17. That's just criminal. I'd much prefer it if you had a few neat status effects or utility tools you could throw onto a hit before then.

[P. G. Macer]

------------------------------------------
And I agree that losing Fireball really sucks, but Revivify is a great alternate pickup that Druid can't normally use. Very on theme too. I think there's enough other cool stuff in the class to make it worthwhile to play. This is the first Druid class that I've been interested in playing.

I don’t have the book yet, but I’m pretty sure all druids get Revivify as part of the expanded spell lists.

[Jerrykhor]

Oh thank goodness, someone else said it! Every time the complaint came up, part of me was thinking "Really, the entire reason this appealed to you was 'I can do 8d6 fire damage at level 5'?"

And what is wrong with that? I don't like this culture of calling out those who whine and brand them as powergamers. Lots of people roll wizards, sorcerers, fiend locks, light clerics just for Fireball. Lots of Bards pick Fireball as their magical secret too.

I was one of those who played the UA version for a while, and I have to say, Wildfire druid is not more powerful than the average full caster that picks optimised spells. The nerf was very uncalled for, especially the 2d10 that was reduced to 2d6, when the non-scaling damage was a bigger problem at higher levels. I played from low levels, it was nice to be able to look forward, and finally get, a powerful spell like Fireball.

I suspect those who are okay with Wildfire druid losing Fireball were never interested in Druids or the concept of a fire druid anyway, and thus its easy to laugh at people who are interested in it, Fireball included or not. And you feel justified when it becomes official. You are convinced that Wildfire Druids don't need Fireball and should be happy with what they got. Well yes, it sucks to lose the one spell which heavily leans on their theme, duh. There's only 2 fire spells in 3rd level, the other being Flame Arrows. Is it too much to as for one fire spell as their Circle Spell?

[Xetheral]

Mine is Arsine gas, to interject. Flammable toxins are fun, speaking from the same spiritual plane as dwarf fortress.

I'm sure its just a matter of time before someone pops up with an even more ridiculous example though, like psychic damage setting fires or radiant damage healing undead.


Arsine is a good one for Poison. Here are some other chemicals that can deal other damage types while still igniting objects:

Cold: dioxygen diflouride
Psychic: methyl bromide? (iffy on the ignition part, if anyone can find a hallucinogen that's pyrophoric at RTP, that would be better)
Radiant: white phosphorous
Necrotic: tert-Butyl hydroperoxide (it's also explosive, for added fun)
Poison AND Necrotic AND Fire: chlorine triflouride

[Justin Sane]

They nerfed the Ranger's Canny ability - it no longer gives an additional proficiency, it's just expertise in something you're already proficient in.

[MaxWilson]

I don’t have the book yet, but I’m pretty sure all druids get Revivify as part of the expanded spell lists.

The expanded spell list, like other optional class features, is explicitly a feature which you should NOT expect a given PC to get automatically. Instead, talk to your DM, and at some point after reaching the listed level, he or she may or may not grant it to you. The book repeats this constantly, with every single class right before listing optional class features.

It reminds me of the DMG Chapter 7 option for granting players bonus feats or skills through training as a reward, except that it won't be obscure because players know about it.

So no, all druids do not get Revivify. HTH!

[Dr. Cliché]

Oh thank goodness, someone else said it! Every time the complaint came up, part of me was thinking "Really, the entire reason this appealed to you was 'I can do 8d6 fire damage at level 5'?"

No, but it was a big part of the theme and appeal of the class.

The issue is not with that specific spell per se. The issue is that that spell gave the Druid something it was otherwise lacking in - an effective, non-concentration AoE spell. Effectively, it was a massive boon for anyone who wanted to play a blasting Druid. Not only that but it was also perfectly in-theme with the whole fire shtick, giving you a good fire spell option for that level.

Without it, you're stuck with stuff like Erupting Earth, which is not only much worse, it's also completely out-of-theme for the Wildfire Druid. If this was a Wizard subclass, it could at least fall back on Melf's Minute Meteorites. Meanwhile, a Druid now gets to fall back on . . . nothing.

Oh but at least you get Plant Growth now. Just what a Wildfire Druid always wanted. :smallconfused:




From what I've seen so far, there are good bits, but overall I'm disappointed too. It's just so dull. Like the psionic subclasses is probably my best example.

There are several ways you can screw up implementing psionics. They can be overpowered, underpowered, indecipherable, time-consuming, and just about anything else you can think of. Yet I'd prefer any of those to what WotC did in Tasha's, which was to say "it's the same as anything else" - i.e. make them mundane. If there's one thing they've always had in common through the editions, it's been that implementations of psionics have always been so weird and alien, both in concept and mechanics. Interesting, and a complete opposite to what they're like in Tasha's. Uninspired, samey waste of potential. :(

This sounds like a similar problem to 4e, where the vast majority of the magic was indistinguishable from mundane attacks and abilities. I'm sure it makes for better balance but it also takes all the magic out of the magic. :smallfrown:

[Azuresun]

And what is wrong with that? I don't like this culture of calling out those who whine and brand them as powergamers. Lots of people roll wizards, sorcerers, fiend locks, light clerics just for Fireball. Lots of Bards pick Fireball as their magical secret too.

"Just for Fireball." No other reason whatsoever other than getting a curve-breaking damage spell? That's quite a claim.

And I don't actually mind powergaming in itself.....I only dislike it when it starts choking out the ability to consider anything other than the most powerful options as worthy of consideration.


I suspect those who are okay with Wildfire druid losing Fireball were never interested in Druids or the concept of a fire druid anyway, and thus its easy to laugh at people who are interested in it, Fireball included or not. And you feel justified when it becomes official. You are convinced that Wildfire Druids don't need Fireball and should be happy with what they got.

I really like the idea, thanks for asking! It's on the list of concepts I'd like to play if I ever stop DMing--I always liked the concepts for the Children of Winter and Ashbound in Eberron, and think this would be a good way of representing more a militant, nature-is-not-nice druid, assuming it'll fit in with the rest of the party and the sort of game the DM had in mind.

[Warder]

I don't understand why people point to Plant Growth as an odd choice for Wildfire druids? It's really thematic, definitely suits the theme of strong growth after a forest fire.

[Dr. Cliché]

I don't understand why people point to Plant Growth as an odd choice for Wildfire druids? It's really thematic, definitely suits the theme of strong growth after a forest fire.

It's not odd, just exceptionally unhelpful.

Fireball gave the Wildfire druid an in-theme spell that it couldn't otherwise take.

Plant Growth gives the Wildfire a somewhat in-theme spell that it could take anyway.

[cutlery]

Psi Warrior sucks, relative to what it could have been.

Zero social/investigation utility, staggeringly weak damage relative to battlemasters, weak longevity over a long adventuring day, and pretty weak ability to mitigate damage for others, too, relative to other fighter subclasses.

The new Psi die is just terrible compared to what it was. The omission of psionic feats that worked with psi die is also bad.

Psionics is always either terribly weak or terribly broken, but the UA version from several months ago was approaching ok while still being a fresh and interesting mechanic. What a shame.

Oh, and bulwark of force is still a pretty niche and awful ability for level 15; unless the party faces swarms of weak enemies often.

[Warder]

It's not odd, just exceptionally unhelpful.

Fireball gave the Wildfire druid an in-theme spell that it couldn't otherwise take.

Plant Growth gives the Wildfire a somewhat in-theme spell that it could take anyway.

Oh, I might have misunderstood then. I thought people were mocking its thematics.

At the risk of upsetting some here, I responded to the Wildfire UA with saying that I thought Fireball should stay as an iconic arcane spell and not be given to druids, and since that's about the only feedback I gave to all these UAs that I got my wish with, I'll take it. :P

[Dr. Cliché]

Oh, I might have misunderstood then. I thought people were mocking its thematics.

Depends what you mean.

It's arguably on-theme in terms of the general fluff of the class, but it's off-theme mechanically in that the Wildfire Druid's other abilities don't interact with it in any way.

Plus, since it's already a Druid spell, you're not really getting anything that you didn't already have. To put it another way, I don't see it as being more on-theme than it would be for any other Druid.




At the risk of upsetting some here, I responded to the Wildfire UA with saying that I thought Fireball should stay as an iconic arcane spell and not be given to druids, and since that's about the only feedback I gave to all these UAs that I got my wish with, I'll take it. :P

I mean, I'd have settles for Melf's Minute Meteors.

Not as good but at least it would have given an on-theme fire spell at Lv3.

[KorvinStarmast]

Oh, and bulwark of force is still a pretty niche and awful ability for level 15; unless the party faces swarms of weak enemies often. Isn't the whole point of the Protoss to tear up zerglings?

I mean, I'd have settles for Melf's Minute Meteors.
One of my players asked about Milf's Minute Meteors, and I asked him if it was a typo. He said no, and as he began to describe the adjusted description I just said "Nope, we are not going there."

[Sception]

"arcane vs. divine" isn't even a thing in 5e. There are classes and some classes have spell lists fitting that class's particular theme and some subclasses have spell lists reflecting the theme of that subclass, particularly where the parent class is lacking spells meeting that theme.

If druid doesn't have a 3rd level fire spell, then the fire themed druid subclass really should have provided one.

Still, at least the pet is pretty cool.

[ProsecutorGodot]

"arcane vs. divine" isn't even a thing in 5e. There are classes and some classes have spell lists fitting that class's particular theme and some subclasses have spell lists reflecting the theme of that subclass, particularly where the parent class is lacking spells meeting that theme.

If druid doesn't have a 3rd level fire spell, then the fire themed druid subclass really should have provided one.

Still, at least the pet is pretty cool.
Mechanically there isn't much distinction, sure, but thematically there certainly is otherwise we wouldn't have subclasses entirely dedicated to crossing those themes, like divine sorcerer/warlock or arcana cleric. Wildfire Druid is notably not crossing those lines.

I don't exactly agree they need a fire spell for every spell level either, their pet is an always on fire source (it's very hot :smallwink:). The fact that they do have a spell dedicated to their theme (renewal by fire) at every level is good enough.

[ATHATH]

To me, the reason that losing Fireball stings so much for Wildfire Druids was that Fireball synergized so well with the design and toolkit of the Circle of Wildfire subclass.

A big problem for Druids is that their spell list is packed with solid concentration spells, but very, very few (good) non-concentration spells. Basically, once you cast your big concentration spell of the fight, you don't have much left to do with your action other than spam Healing Word, Ice Knife, and maybe Erupting Earth if you have the higher level slots to spare for it. Part of the reason why Moon Druids are so good is that they can use their ability to Wild Shape to make more effective use of their actions while they're concentrating on a spell. The UA!Circle of Wildfire, as its defining mechanical schtick/reason to take it over the other Druid subclasses, adds solid non-concentration blasting spells to the spell lists of Druids who take it, allowing them to spam spells like Scorching Ray and Fireball instead of upcasted Ice Knife and Erupting Earth. It also gives Druids who take it the ability to spend their Wild Shape uses on using their bonus action (!) to summon and control a minion that can increase their damage output in combat further.

Fireball was a large part of this subclass identity, as it was not only an effective, on-theme, and satisfying way to spend your action while concentrating on a spell, but also a spell that synergized with the other features of the subclass, including the bonus fire damage and the fire immune wildfire spirit (who you could happily center your Fireballs on).

Without Fireball, your blasting kind of feels... underwhelming, and more importantly, it feels less thematic, as if you want to do appreciable AoE damage (or even just not be inefficient with your 3rd level spell slots), you're forced to use normal Druid staples like Erupting Earth instead of a cool FIRE-themed spell from the expanded spell list of the FIRE-focused Druid subclass. It's like if Tempest Clerics didn't get Call Lightning (or any good 3rd level spell that dealt lightning damage).

And I don't remember too many people complaining that the Wildfire Druid was too strong back in its UA discussion thread, which makes the decision to kneecap the Circle of Wildfire subclass by stripping the most important spell for the subclass to have from it even more baffling to me.

[micahaphone]

Didn't the UA wildfire also give them the fire bolt cantrip? I understand that nerf, the devs don't want too much scrutiny towards why produce flame and fire bolt exist in the same game.

[P. G. Macer]

Oh, I might have misunderstood then. I thought people were mocking its thematics.

At the risk of upsetting some here, I responded to the Wildfire UA with saying that I thought Fireball should stay as an iconic arcane spell and not be given to druids, and since that's about the only feedback I gave to all these UAs that I got my wish with, I'll take it. :P

No offense, but I would find this argument much more persuasive if A) the distinction between arcane and divine magic in 5e wasn’t almost entirely relegated to a sidebar in chapter 11 of the PHB, and B) if Light Clerics didn't get Fireball already, also in the PHB. I suspect that many wanting Fireball to remain an arcane-only spell aren’t pleased with Light Clerics getting it, but IMO that cat’s already out of the bag.

[TigerT20]

Didn't the UA wildfire also give them the fire bolt cantrip? I understand that nerf, the devs don't want too much scrutiny towards why produce flame and fire bolt exist in the same game.

Well, Produce Flame has the advantage of being able to be used as a light source and the fact that you can hold it - you don't have to attack right away.

Firebolt has the completely overwhelming advantage of utterly outclassing Produce Flame in every single way by doing 1 more damage on average. And having longer range I guess, but who ever cares about range amirite?

Edit: Ok I forgot that the damage gap increases as you level up but... you still caring about 3 or 4 damage either way at level 3+?

[HappyDaze]

Well, Produce Flame has the advantage of being able to be used as a light source and the fact that you can hold it - you don't have to attack right away.

Firebolt has the completely overwhelming advantage of utterly outclassing Produce Flame in every single way by doing 1 more damage on average. And having longer range I guess, but who ever cares about range amirite?

Edit: Ok I forgot that the damage gap increases as you level up but... you still caring about 3 or 4 damage either way at level 3+?

Based on the action economy, produce flame being able to be held doesn't actually provide any advantage.

Firebolt also has the advantage that it can target objects. Produce flame cannot target (and thus ignite) things like a puddle of oil, a funeral pyre, or a bundle of sticks you want to use to start a campfire.

[MaxWilson]

Mine is Arsine gas, to interject. Flammable toxins are fun, speaking from the same spiritual plane as dwarf fortress.

I'm sure its just a matter of time before someone pops up with an even more ridiculous example though, like psychic damage setting fires or radiant damage healing undead.

[thinks] How about Thunder hailstones from Ice Storm?

[Yakmala]

Having had more time to read through TCoE, I found one more disappointment. Tattoos.

I've been allowing the UA tattoos in my home game and the players were really enjoying them. One of the unique things about Tattoos was that they were limited by space on your body more than attunement. All tattoos counted as a single attunement slot, but the rarer the tatoo, the more space it took up on your body.

In TCoE, each tattoo appears to be its own attunement slot. There are a number of minor tattoos that were worth it under the old system as part of a collection of tattoos, but individually, are not worth one of a character's three attunement slots. And, you are still bound by the space they take up on your body as well.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Having had more time to read through TCoE, I found one more disappointment. Tattoos.

I've been allowing the UA tattoos in my home game and the players were really enjoying them. One of the unique things about Tattoos was that they were limited by space on your body more than attunement. All tattoos counted as a single attunement slot, but the rarer the tatoo, the more space it took up on your body.

In TCoE, each tattoo appears to be its own attunement slot. There are a number of minor tattoos that were worth it under the old system as part of a collection of tattoos, but individually, are not worth one of a character's three attunement slots. And, you are still bound by the space they take up on your body as well.

Unless you're running a campaign with heavy magic item rewards it's probably not going to be a frequent issue with characters having items competing for their attunement slots.

[micahaphone]

Based on the action economy, produce flame being able to be held doesn't actually provide any advantage.

Firebolt also has the advantage that it can target objects. Produce flame cannot target (and thus ignite) things like a puddle of oil, a funeral pyre, or a bundle of sticks you want to use to start a campfire.



Thank you for the reminder about the ridiculous finer points of the spell targeting system. I know magic doesn't follow real world logic but I love the idea of a druid sticking a blazing hand into a pile of oil soaked hay and nothing happens. Or a warlock that's suspicious of some intimidating statues, so they point their EB finger guns at them. No magic occurs, proving that they're objects not creatures.

[MrCharlie]

Oh thank goodness, someone else said it! Every time the complaint came up, part of me was thinking "Really, the entire reason this appealed to you was 'I can do 8d6 fire damage at level 5'?"
The real complaint is that fireball let you use your level 6 feature on a worthwhile damage spell. Given the once-per-spell nonsense we have baked into this edition and the crippling lack of fire damage that isn't concentration on the druid list, there are few ways to effectively use the 1d8 damage aspect of the feature. Fireball let you do it, now we either need to do it inefficiently with scorching ray, a weak AOE like burning hands, or a concentration spell where we get one use out of it for the entire cast. Or we need to take the metamagic spell to transmute some fire spells into being a couple times per day, I guess.

Fireball scaled well, was an AOE action, and used the feature effectively. There really just aren't any other spells that do.

This squarely falls into the "as a DM I'd modify to do this" camp, but for the Soulknife they should have some method like pact of the blade to bond with a magic weapon, applying its magic to their psi knives. Maybe it takes attunement, and maybe you can only do it with a dagger or short sword or something.

As a DM I'd maybe instead make the enchantment of weapons transferable, so a monk or soulknife player can take a +1 longsword, do some ritual or work with an npc alchemist, and transfer the +1-ness onto their fists or their psi blades or what have you.

Or just make magic items that do that automatically like a necklace or ring, maybe even a magic tattoo! I've never personally played with someone who complained about the verisimilitude of tailored magic items in hoards, but I know some people do, hence the enchantment transference suggestion.

------------------------------------------
And I agree that losing Fireball really sucks, but Revivify is a great alternate pickup that Druid can't normally use. Very on theme too. I think there's enough other cool stuff in the class to make it worthwhile to play. This is the first Druid class that I've been interested in playing.
I absolutely agree on both points. The learned this lesson before the edition started which is why you can bond magic items with blade pact, how did this not transfer to soul blades in some capacity?

[cutlery]

Isn't the whole point of the Protoss to tear up zerglings?

Never cared much for starcraft.

Anyway; I'd have much rather had bulwark available at, say, 7 - but then they'd have no feature for 15 (suggestion!)

[KorvinStarmast]

Anyway; I'd have much rather had bulwark available at, say, 7 - but then they'd have no feature for 15 (suggestion!) A great many classes/sub classes have features that come on latet (original Ranger Evasion for example) that would be rather handy during normal play (Tier 1 and 2).
I am now off to build more pylons ...

[cutlery]

A great many classes/sub classes have features that come on latet (original Ranger Evasion for example) that would be rather handy during normal play (Tier 1 and 2).
I am now off to build more pylons ...

I think in some cases that's for balance reasons (or based on old balance reasons) - the ranger shouldn't be better at evasion than the rogue - but evasion is evasion, so we'll give it to them later.

OTOH, a lot of the latter features for fighters in particular are pretty bad.

Blah blah blah, the base class is strong enough. Fine. Give them some cool social stuff for the 15th and 18th level features, then.

[Warder]

No offense, but I would find this argument much more persuasive if A) the distinction between arcane and divine magic in 5e wasn’t almost entirely relegated to a sidebar in chapter 11 of the PHB, and B) if Light Clerics didn't get Fireball already, also in the PHB. I suspect that many wanting Fireball to remain an arcane-only spell aren’t pleased with Light Clerics getting it, but IMO that cat’s already out of the bag.

Absolutely no offense taken, I get that point of view too. But - and no offense meant here either - I'm not trying to make that argument to you (or anyone else) either. I know most people don't care about the distinction, and that's fine. I do care about it, and I'm happy that it still exists as a loose theme even if spells aren't explicitely tagged arcane or divine either. That's why I was opposed to giving fireball to druids in the UA, and why I'm happy that it's one of the few UA things which ended up going "my way". I'm not trying to persuade anyone to not be upset with that change, I know I'm certainly upset with a bunch of things in Tasha's myself.

[Hael]

Fireball scaled well, was an AOE action, and used the feature effectively. There really just aren't any other spells that do.


It was perhaps a bit much for tier 2 play. A wildfire druid could send his standard summon spells to wipe out one arena entrance worth of incoming enemies, and turn around and wipe out the second group of incoming with fireball + his features.

If they got fireball a bit later in the game, that would be fine.

[Pex]

Just realized something. Tasha does not give Sorcerer the popular UA ability to change one spell known after a long rest. Changing a metamagic or cantrip is good, but changing a spell known was a Nice Thing not granted.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think in some cases that's for balance reasons (or based on old balance reasons) - the ranger shouldn't be better at evasion than the rogue v

Let us agree to disagree, then.

[micahaphone]

Just realized something. Tasha does not give Sorcerer the popular UA ability to change one spell known after a long rest. Changing a metamagic or cantrip is good, but changing a spell known was a Nice Thing not granted.

What are you talking about, wizards can now swap cantrips on a long rest. Same thing, right?

[Arkhios]

What are you talking about, wizards can now swap cantrips on a long rest. Same thing, right?

Sorcerer ≠ Wizard. Different classes, different rules. Although literature, movies, and tv-shows often use those names interchangeably, in D&D they convey different purposes.

[Razgriez]

Psi Warrior is definitely on the disappointment side: "Oh, you basically gave me Psionic-Flavor Battle Master. Its a good thing Battle Master didn't get anything in this bo... oh they did? Well its a good thing that I have a Psi Dice which I can keep using all day long so long as I....oh they changed that too? So now its 2x PB +1? Only recharges on a Long rest while Battlemaster needs only a Short Rest Breather or a new encounter? And Battle Master can now use their dice for Social/Exploration encounters?"

Its not that its terrible (if anything, Psi Warrior has decent Defensive/Battlefield Control options), its just that it doesn't offer a whole lot outside of some exploration and combat, and asks you to pick up Intelligence as an additional core Attribute just for a few modifier bonuses to its Psi Dice abilities. Still, at least its 3-level Dip consideration for others

Soulknife is great in a low magic-item campaign, and terrible the first second any magic weapon shows up for the Rogue. DMs are pretty much going to have to come up with custom magic items for the Psi-Blade or some sort of house rule for those Soul Knifes. The only good news is, you now have a better way to play a Thrown-Weapon user since you don't have to worry about collecting your knives afterwards. 9th is where the fun ends and your cue to stick around only long enough to get Reliable Talent and jump ship, before you reach 13th/17th and are forced to ask yourself "Why didn't I just simply play an Arcane Trickster/Monk?", respectively.

I like the magic items they added, but its a shame that the physical focused classes didn't really get anything specific for them.

[micahaphone]

Psi Warrior is definitely on the disappointment side: "Oh, you basically gave me Psionic-Flavor Battle Master. Its a good thing Battle Master didn't get anything in this bo... oh they did? Well its a good thing that I have a Psi Dice which I can keep using all day long so long as I....oh they changed that too? So now its 2x PB +1? Only recharges on a Long rest while Battlemaster needs only a Short Rest Breather or a new encounter? And Battle Master can now use their dice for Social/Exploration encounters?"

Its not that its terrible (if anything, Psi Warrior has decent Defensive/Battlefield Control options), its just that it doesn't offer a whole lot outside of some exploration and combat, and asks you to pick up Intelligence as an additional core Attribute just for a few modifier bonuses to its Psi Dice abilities. Still, at least its 3-level Dip consideration for others


I guess psi warrior is kind of a battlemaster variant for tables with "one big fight a day" styles of play

[Emongnome777]

Psi Warrior is definitely on the disappointment side: "Oh, you basically gave me Psionic-Flavor Battle Master. Its a good thing Battle Master didn't get anything in this bo... oh they did? Well its a good thing that I have a Psi Dice which I can keep using all day long so long as I....oh they changed that too? So now its 2x PB +1? Only recharges on a Long rest while Battlemaster needs only a Short Rest Breather or a new encounter? And Battle Master can now use their dice for Social/Exploration encounters?"

I agree with your assessment of the psionic subclasses, but to clarify one tiny point, it isn't 2xPB +1, it's 2xPB +1 +1/SR. Per the book: "In addition, as a bonus action, you can regain one expended Psionic Energy die, but you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest." This goes for both classes, so if you are using a couple short rests per day, you'll start with 7 per day and end with 15.

[MrCharlie]

It was perhaps a bit much for tier 2 play. A wildfire druid could send his standard summon spells to wipe out one arena entrance worth of incoming enemies, and turn around and wipe out the second group of incoming with fireball + his features.

If they got fireball a bit later in the game, that would be fine.
I mean, balance constraints didn't stop them with the other archetypes they released in this book, so....

[Dark.Revenant]

Psi Warrior: 2 Short Rests (assuming at least 2 dice expended before the first rest, and 1 die expended before the second rest), 16 INT at level 1, 18 INT at level 8, 20 INT at level 12
Battlemaster: 2 Short Rests (assuming all dice expended before each rest), Superior Technique at level 1, Martial Adept at level 8

The following graph shows total bonus damage done by blowing all resources on the basic "add damage when you hit something" feature.
https://i.imgur.com/o3kQggf.png

Even with absolutely optimal conditions for the Battlemaster, the Psi Warrior still keeps up in terms of total damage added, and eventually pulls way ahead. The difference in power can be chalked up to the fact that the Battlemaster can nova more easily and has extra rider effects in addition to bonus damage. Overall, I'd say the two are about on par with each other.

Edit: Relentless doesn't tend to trigger meaningfully, but assuming you get two uses out of it per Long Rest (the theory goes you trigger it once before each Short Rest, but you save your dice up for the big fight at the end of the day—thus not triggering it a third time) the graph changes:
https://i.imgur.com/0MwzQuS.png

[HappyDaze]

I have to say I don't like the way the game looks right now. We have many abilities in this book that are usable (prof bonus) times and recharge on a long rest or that are usable once unless another resource (spell slot, sorcery points, etc.) is used to refresh it. That's fine, but they don't really mesh smoothly with older abilities usable (ability bonus) times or a set number of times, often with no recharge other than a rest. Speaking of that, very little seems to key off of the short rest anymore...

To me it looks like they saw the car was looking a little shabby and decided to repaint some panels but not the whole thing. Unfortunately, this makes the original panels and newly painted panels look distinctly different from one another and makes you wish they had just repainted the whole car. IOW, a new edition--say 5.5--that uses the Tasha's model of building abilities for all of the original class & subclass abilities and gets rid of some of the most broken crap in the game--most of which comes from the PHB.

[Evaar]

I haven't exhaustively gone over everything, but what disappoints me is synergies they removed.

For Fey Wanderers, for example, they left in the seemingly very niche charm/fear redirection effect. That ability always struck me as weird, because it just seems very likely to not come up in most fights and therefore be forgotten in the handful of fights where it might apply. But they also had the Smite-style ability that imposed a fear effect, so then it made sense - try to smite/fear and if they succeed on the save, point it at another creature with your reaction. Now you're using it regularly. But the smite/fear is gone now so... it's now actually where I thought it was - a weird niche ability that will probably not see much use, and is likely to be forgotten when it could see use. It just seems less fun.

Similarly for the Way of Mercy Monks, they removed the triple damage against incapacitated/poisoned enemies on Hands of Harm. And they removed the poison aura. But they added the ability to poison an enemy for one turn with Hands of Harm. And it's like... why? I mean, it's not terrible, giving a target disadvantage for a turn is useful, but the earlier design had these abilities working together and you understood why you'd want to poison your enemies. Getting triple damage is a pretty good incentive and feels rewarding. But now that's gone. So... poisoning things just doesn't feel that important anymore. It's definitely no longer central to the mechanics of the subclass. Now you're mostly a healer monk, whereas before it actually delivered on the flavor of being a healer/killer hybrid.

And I just don't get it. Were these overpowered? I frankly doubt it. They seemed fun. How is the game improved with these new designs? It just seems like wasted potential.

[MoiMagnus]

I have to say I don't like the way the game looks right now. We have many abilities in this book that are usable (prof bonus) times and recharge on a long rest or that are usable once unless another resource (spell slot, sorcery points, etc.) is used to refresh it. That's fine, but they don't really mesh smoothly with older abilities usable (ability bonus) times or a set number of times, often with no recharge other than a rest. Speaking of that, very little seems to key off of the short rest anymore...

To me it looks like they saw the car was looking a little shabby and decided to repaint some panels but not the whole thing. Unfortunately, this makes the original panels and newly painted panels look distinctly different from one another and makes you wish they had just repainted the whole car. IOW, a new edition--say 5.5--that uses the Tasha's model of building abilities for all of the original class & subclass abilities and gets rid of some of the most broken crap in the game--most of which comes from the PHB.

From a conceptual point of view, I agree. (I reserve my practical point of view for after playing with them).

In a D&D homebrew my group created and played few years ago, we had a similar problem where the more the homebrew advanced, the more we felt like powers scaling with abilities didn't scale as intended. In the end, while thematically it was good, there was just something wrong with how it worked in practice and we ended up reworking all those abilities to scale differently (still keeping influence from the abilities, but no longer a "scale with ability modifier"). Fortunately, we were on an homebrew already quite unstable, so nobody complained when we changed that. Doing technical reworks on a published game requires more than "we just felt like it was slightly better".

Here, the design team clearly changed of mindset on "how to design abilities", but refuse to commit to it and make a clean 5.5e (or is not allowed to do so by the marketing department). At least for now, we will see in the future.

[x3n0n]

Similarly for the Way of Mercy Monks, they removed the triple damage against incapacitated/poisoned enemies on Hands of Harm. And they removed the poison aura. But they added the ability to poison an enemy for one turn with Hands of Harm. And it's like... why? I mean, it's not terrible, giving a target disadvantage for a turn is useful, but the earlier design had these abilities working together and you understood why you'd want to poison your enemies. Getting triple damage is a pretty good incentive and feels rewarding. But now that's gone. So... poisoning things just doesn't feel that important anymore. It's definitely no longer central to the mechanics of the subclass. Now you're mostly a healer monk, whereas before it actually delivered on the flavor of being a healer/killer hybrid.

And I just don't get it. Were these overpowered? I frankly doubt it. They seemed fun. How is the game improved with these new designs? It just seems like wasted potential.

I agree that the new version is not as obviously synergistic, and that I don't get to roll as many dice. However, the new version adds my Wis mod to the necrotic damage, so it's significantly stronger in general use, which is pretty relevant because I didn't have any reliable way to get the right conditions until Stunning Strike and the old poison aura (which was itself anti-synergistic with Hands of Healing), both of which required a failed Con save in order to function (making it hard to get the triple dice on the big bads against whom I needed it the most anyway). By making its damage more consistent, that makes the new lv11 feature more functional: it's a straight +d8+Wismod on every Flurry, helping ease over the "Monks don't deal damage past level 11" hump. (TL;DR: the new Hand of Harm probably deals more relevant damage over a career than the old one did, but it's not obvious because it's hidden behind the Wis mod.)

The save-less poisoned rider on the new Hand of Harm is actually pretty unique, and functions kind of like a mini-Dodge or mini-stun if I'm focusing fire on one enemy.

Level 17 is also pretty unique! (No material components, deals with real death after a full day, lots of HP back.) It is very weird that I never really want to use my highest-level feature, though. I wish it had an evil twin that did damage; that feels like a missed opportunity.

All in all, it's not what I expected, and I was disappointed at first, but I'm getting through it and I think it's probably stronger overall, just not as exciting-looking.

[Dork_Forge]

I haven't exhaustively gone over everything, but what disappoints me is synergies they removed.

For Fey Wanderers, for example, they left in the seemingly very niche charm/fear redirection effect. That ability always struck me as weird, because it just seems very likely to not come up in most fights and therefore be forgotten in the handful of fights where it might apply. But they also had the Smite-style ability that imposed a fear effect, so then it made sense - try to smite/fear and if they succeed on the save, point it at another creature with your reaction. Now you're using it regularly. But the smite/fear is gone now so... it's now actually where I thought it was - a weird niche ability that will probably not see much use, and is likely to be forgotten when it could see use. It just seems less fun.

Similarly for the Way of Mercy Monks, they removed the triple damage against incapacitated/poisoned enemies on Hands of Harm. And they removed the poison aura. But they added the ability to poison an enemy for one turn with Hands of Harm. And it's like... why? I mean, it's not terrible, giving a target disadvantage for a turn is useful, but the earlier design had these abilities working together and you understood why you'd want to poison your enemies. Getting triple damage is a pretty good incentive and feels rewarding. But now that's gone. So... poisoning things just doesn't feel that important anymore. It's definitely no longer central to the mechanics of the subclass. Now you're mostly a healer monk, whereas before it actually delivered on the flavor of being a healer/killer hybrid.

And I just don't get it. Were these overpowered? I frankly doubt it. They seemed fun. How is the game improved with these new designs? It just seems like wasted potential.

You want to poison things because it imposes disadvantage on that creature's attacks and checks, throwing a pretty nice debuff on top of damage that's fairly comparable to a Divine Smite for roughly half the cost. It's most defnitely still a killer Monk, adding more damage on top of such a low ki cost would be a bit much, where it's sitting right now is clearly good, but not outright better than all of the other Monk options.

[Evaar]

old poison aura (which was itself anti-synergistic with Hands of Healing)

Actually that's a good point.

I still think the triple damage against poison was more interesting, but hey if you're happy with it then great. I will just continue not to play monks.


You want to poison things because it imposes disadvantage on that creature's attacks and checks, throwing a pretty nice debuff on top of damage

I don't understand this urge to reply with things that were already acknowledged in the original post.

[Dork_Forge]

I don't understand this urge to reply with things that were already acknowledged in the original post.

Partly for emphasis on the thing itself, you also cut off the rest of my quote, posioned on its own is eh, poisoned on top of Smiteish damage on the otherhand is a different kettle of fish. Then when you throw those effects onto a Flurry of Blows for no additional cost? That's gravy.

What level of damage does this Monk need to be doing to be interesting to you?

[Evaar]

What level of damage does this Monk need to be doing to be interesting to you?

Thinking about it, I don't think it's a specific amount of damage I can spell out. Rather, it's the sense of efficiency.

It seems that for a monk to do anything interesting, they have to spend Ki. Hands of Harm is no different, although at least it doesn't require an attack roll to see if you wasted your Ki. So in that sense it's better than Flurry.

But it felt like you were getting more of a deal if you knew you were going to get the triple martial arts damage for 1 Ki, rather than basically getting just another unarmed strike (again, acknowledging this one doesn't require its own attack roll).

It just goes back to what turns me off about the monk - stingy design that seems built to prevent the player from having too much fun. Maybe that's just an emotional assessment.

[Dork_Forge]

Thinking about it, I don't think it's a specific amount of damage I can spell out. Rather, it's the sense of efficiency.

It seems that for a monk to do anything interesting, they have to spend Ki. Hands of Harm is no different, although at least it doesn't require an attack roll to see if you wasted your Ki. So in that sense it's better than Flurry.

But it felt like you were getting more of a deal if you knew you were going to get the triple martial arts damage for 1 Ki, rather than basically getting just another unarmed strike (again, acknowledging this one doesn't require its own attack roll).

It just goes back to what turns me off about the monk - stingy design that seems built to prevent the player from having too much fun. Maybe that's just an emotional assessment.

I mean the Monk is built around Ki, the Mercy Monk actually has a really low cost for their abilities that fit fairly seemlessly into their action economy (at mid levels the cost ceases to exist essentially).

If you like abilties that don't use Ki and certain effects then I'd say you'd probably like Kensei, though for some reason it has a negative stigma around it.

[x3n0n]

Thinking about it, I don't think it's a specific amount of damage I can spell out. Rather, it's the sense of efficiency.

It seems that for a monk to do anything interesting, they have to spend Ki. Hands of Harm is no different, although at least it doesn't require an attack roll to see if you wasted your Ki. So in that sense it's better than Flurry.

But it felt like you were getting more of a deal if you knew you were going to get the triple martial arts damage for 1 Ki, rather than basically getting just another unarmed strike (again, acknowledging this one doesn't require its own attack roll).

It just goes back to what turns me off about the monk - stingy design that seems built to prevent the player from having too much fun. Maybe that's just an emotional assessment.

I can sympathize.

I think of the post-lv6 Hand of Harm like a zero-risk mini-stun that also deals damage, which seems like a great deal.

As far as spending ki, I think it's worth looking at the published version of Astral Self. You do need to spend a (single!) ki to manifest the arms, but you get a lot of value from it: a mini burst of damage, reach attacks, improved grappling, and SADness (making those stuns more likely to connect), for 10 minutes at a pop. You still pay, but you get a lot of value.

[Pex]

I have to say I don't like the way the game looks right now. We have many abilities in this book that are usable (prof bonus) times and recharge on a long rest or that are usable once unless another resource (spell slot, sorcery points, etc.) is used to refresh it. That's fine, but they don't really mesh smoothly with older abilities usable (ability bonus) times or a set number of times, often with no recharge other than a rest. Speaking of that, very little seems to key off of the short rest anymore...

To me it looks like they saw the car was looking a little shabby and decided to repaint some panels but not the whole thing. Unfortunately, this makes the original panels and newly painted panels look distinctly different from one another and makes you wish they had just repainted the whole car. IOW, a new edition--say 5.5--that uses the Tasha's model of building abilities for all of the original class & subclass abilities and gets rid of some of the most broken crap in the game--most of which comes from the PHB.

It's fine you don't like the mechanic, but I have a feeling they did it this way on purpose to test it. They want the mechanic to compete with the old way. Surveys and playtest can only go so far. Preliminary analysis showed it wasn't overwhelmingly negative in opinion and tryout. Now it's given to the general masses and actual use over time will give the result for future endeavors. Do people prefer ability score or proficiency bonus measuring? Do they prefer rest refreshing or resource management refreshing? Do they like both equally? Is one overwhelmingly getting negative comments? Is one getting all the hype and the other method will not be used? Is a method being houseruled to use the other? They're getting ready for 5.5E or 6E. Years down the line, for sure, but I'm liking the 2024 50th anniversary theory for the Grand Announcement.

[Razgriez]

Psi Warrior: 2 Short Rests (assuming at least 2 dice expended before the first rest, and 1 die expended before the second rest), 16 INT at level 1, 18 INT at level 8, 20 INT at level 12
Battlemaster: 2 Short Rests (assuming all dice expended before each rest), Superior Technique at level 1, Martial Adept at level 8

The following graph shows total bonus damage done by blowing all resources on the basic "add damage when you hit something" feature.
https://i.imgur.com/o3kQggf.png

Even with absolutely optimal conditions for the Battlemaster, the Psi Warrior still keeps up in terms of total damage added, and eventually pulls way ahead. The difference in power can be chalked up to the fact that the Battlemaster can nova more easily and has extra rider effects in addition to bonus damage. Overall, I'd say the two are about on par with each other.

Edit: Relentless doesn't tend to trigger meaningfully, but assuming you get two uses out of it per Long Rest (the theory goes you trigger it once before each Short Rest, but you save your dice up for the big fight at the end of the day—thus not triggering it a third time) the graph changes:
https://i.imgur.com/0MwzQuS.png

Oh don't get me wrong, in combat Psi Warrior does exactly what it was built for: Being a Fighter capable of doing some damage, tanking, and repositioning of self/party/enemies. The issue I point out however, is that Combat is all it brings to table. Battle Masters just got a nice buff in adding several Maneuvers to aid in Social and Exploration. Even outside of an optimization standpoint, being able to participate in more campaign activities/more roleplay opportunities is nice.

I just wish Psi Knight was given some kind of skill proficiency or something more to tie in with the theme, is kinda what I'm grumbling about.

[Segev]

If you called "superiority dice" instead "psychic dice," would it feel "off?" Or are psychic dice and superiority dice exactly the same mechanic?

[HappyDaze]

It's fine you don't like the mechanic, but I have a feeling they did it this way on purpose to test it. They want the mechanic to compete with the old way. Surveys and playtest can only go so far. Preliminary analysis showed it wasn't overwhelmingly negative in opinion and tryout. Now it's given to the general masses and actual use over time will give the result for future endeavors. Do people prefer ability score or proficiency bonus measuring? Do they prefer rest refreshing or resource management refreshing? Do they like both equally? Is one overwhelmingly getting negative comments? Is one getting all the hype and the other method will not be used? Is a method being houseruled to use the other? They're getting ready for 5.5E or 6E. Years down the line, for sure, but I'm liking the 2024 50th anniversary theory for the Grand Announcement.

It's not that I don't like the mechanic, it's that I wish the game used a more unified method of determining uses & refreshes. We have Bladesinger that went from 2 uses per short rest to PB uses per long rest...so would it break the game if Druids' Wild Shape did the same? Anyway, I just think that everything is looking patchwork and inelegant at this point.

[Kane0]

It's not that I don't like the mechanic, it's that I wish the game used a more unified method of determining uses & refreshes. We have Bladesinger that went from 2 uses per short rest to PB uses per long rest...so would it break the game if Druids' Wild Shape did the same? Anyway, I just think that everything is looking patchwork and inelegant at this point.

I do like all classes having a mix of long and short rest respurces, just as long as it isnt so uniform that it’s effectively AEDU 2.0
I do like going with prof bonus instead of stat mod and the option of using resources to refill one another but this doesnt appear in the PHB so they feel out of place.
IF ONLY there were SOME WAY that WOTC could possibly make some sort of UPDATE to EXISTING MATERIAL without starting over.

Edit: on mobile, cant bluetext.

[ZZTRaider]

IF ONLY there were SOME WAY that WOTC could possibly make some sort of UPDATE to EXISTING MATERIAL without starting over.

Some sort of optional or variant rules... But in what book could they possibly put such things?

[Dork_Forge]

If you called "superiority dice" instead "psychic dice," would it feel "off?" Or are psychic dice and superiority dice exactly the same mechanic?

They're similar in that it's a dice pool mechanic, but they differ in the following:

-Recharge rate: SD are all back on any rest, PD are long rest recharge but you can BA get one back per short rest
-Expenditure: If you use a maneuver you burn a SD, regardless on the outcome. That isn't necessarily the case with PD, some abilties only burn the die on a successful use of the ability
-Expanding the pool: It's pretty clear cut that you can take Martial Adept and Superior Technique to grab more SD, there is currently ambiguity on how the PD pools of the PK and SK interact when multiclassed.

[Kane0]

Some sort of optional or variant rules... But in what book could they possibly put such things?

Actually not what I meant, because then we would end up with things like the Undead patron warlock compared to the Undying, or worse yet the Hexblade.

[Segev]

They're similar in that it's a dice pool mechanic, but they differ in the following:

-Recharge rate: SD are all back on any rest, PD are long rest recharge but you can BA get one back per short rest
-Expenditure: If you use a maneuver you burn a SD, regardless on the outcome. That isn't necessarily the case with PD, some abilties only burn the die on a successful use of the ability
-Expanding the pool: It's pretty clear cut that you can take Martial Adept and Superior Technique to grab more SD, there is currently ambiguity on how the PD pools of the PK and SK interact when multiclassed.Thanks for the run-down!

Would Battle Master play significantly differently/worse if it used the PD mechanics? What about vice-versa?

[Makorel]

Oh don't get me wrong, in combat Psi Warrior does exactly what it was built for: Being a Fighter capable of doing some damage, tanking, and repositioning of self/party/enemies. The issue I point out however, is that Combat is all it brings to table. Battle Masters just got a nice buff in adding several Maneuvers to aid in Social and Exploration. Even outside of an optimization standpoint, being able to participate in more campaign activities/more roleplay opportunities is nice.

I just wish Psi Knight was given some kind of skill proficiency or something more to tie in with the theme, is kinda what I'm grumbling about.

I for one am excited to be able to jump 60-120 feet and potentially knock down anything that had the audacity to fly in my presence. That sort of movement is great for a melee character in combat as well as for general exploration, particularly because Fighters tend not to get a lot of movement abilities.

[Thunderous Mojo]

16 INT at level 1, 18 INT at level 8, 20 INT at level 12


I think that might be too rosy of a projection for a starting stat.


The issue I point out however, is that Combat is all it brings to table. Battle Masters just got a nice buff in adding several Maneuvers to aid in Social and Exploration. Even outside of an optimization standpoint, being able to participate in more campaign activities/more roleplay opportunities is nice.


The U/A Psi Knight had exploration boosts through Jedi Leap. Shrinking a Psi Die down from a D8 to a D6 is much less of a cost than spending an use of a Long Rest recharging resource.

If Psionic Dice recharged on a short rest like Superiority Dice then the Psi Warrior would explore like a Psi Knight.
Instead Psi Warriors will hoard dice to use as a nova, in combat.

The U/A Psi Knight could Force Protect every round. A Psi Warrior has too few dice, to effectively do this.

Psi Warrior is a 5MWD class, which is not very Jedi nor Sith.

A Kalashtar Battlemaster Fighter with the Telekinetic feat is comparable and has better endurance than a Psi Warrior.

[Dork_Forge]

Thanks for the run-down!

Would Battle Master play significantly differently/worse if it used the PD mechanics? What about vice-versa?

The Battle Master would probably suffer from not having as many dice (and depending on your playstyle, clear paths to increasing your pool), to illustrate this, assuming two short rests per day:

-At 3rd level a BM has potentially 12 SD to use, a PD subclass has 6PD

-At 7th level a BM has 15 SD to use, a PD subclass has 8PD

-At 15th level a BM has 18 SD* to use, a PD class has 12

That's rough mapping, since PD is prof based it obviously scales more granularly across levels, something important to note is that unlike other dice pool mechanics in 5e (SD, Bardic Inspiration) and other kinds of core resource (Fighting Spirit), the Psionic Subclasses never get an ability that says "When you roll initiative, if you have no uses/dice left you gain one."

So no matter what level you're at you'll always have to be more careful with your PD use in comparison to your SD use and remember to always regain your one PD before short resting since it isn't a given, it's an active ability.

Something to also bear in mind is that PD start at a d6 and then scale up, so SD are also going to be on average more impactful in any situation where they're rolled.

If you can actually get two pools essentailly of PD from multiclassing and can then cross use them (so basically 4xprof with 2 back per SR) then you wouldn't have to worry about them, ever pretty much. Since that would be so incredibly potent I can only imagine that isn't how it would work.

I think the PD mechanics work for those subclasses because they get to use the if it fails don't burn it clause, I'll have to see it in play to see how the pacing of the dice actually work out though.

Edit: It's worth mentioning that when the Psi Knight uses a die for damage, they roll it and add their Int modifier to it.

[ZZTRaider]

Actually not what I meant, because then we would end up with things like the Undead patron warlock compared to the Undying, or worse yet the Hexblade.

Thinking of errata, then?

Honestly, I just think Tasha's was a perfectly natural place to add these sorts of needed boosts to existing subclasses, and they could call them "optional" so nobody can really get mad that their PHB is no longer accurate, or whatever. I would've much preferred that sort of content over the list of bad Battlemaster builds.

[Makorel]

Something to also bear in mind is that PD start at a d6 and then scale up, so SD are also going to be on average more impactful in any situation where they're rolled.

Edit: It's worth mentioning that when the Psi Knight uses a die for damage, they roll it and add their Int modifier to it.

Also that Psychic Energy dice catch up to BM Maneuvers at level 5 and then they both scale very close with each other for the rest of each Fighters' career. Realistically there are only one or two levels where Maneuvers are "Ahead" of Psi Dice and with a good Int modifier not at all.

[Dork_Forge]

Also that Psychic Energy dice catch up to BM Maneuvers at level 5 and then they both scale very close with each other for the rest of each Fighters' career. Realistically there are only one or two levels where Maneuvers are "Ahead" of Psi Dice and with a good Int modifier not at all.

SD are a die size greater than PD for the majority of the levels they are a factor in, the use of Int makes them more competitive, but also makes the Psi Knight MAD in comparison to the Battle Master that can set their DCs off of Str or Dex.

It can certainly end up being better (and more reliable) but you're going to have to invest for that and then you simply won't have as many dice to spend per day, requiring a heavier investment in Int to compensate.

[Makorel]

SD are a die size greater than PD for the majority of the levels they are a factor in, the use of Int makes them more competitive, but also makes the Psi Knight MAD in comparison to the Battle Master that can set their DCs off of Str or Dex.


They're really not. Maneuvers are bigger at 3rd and 4th level, 10th level, and 15th and 16th level. that's 5 levels out of the 17 that Fighters have access to their fancy fight dice.

MADness is a legitimate concern although Fighters, with their many ASIs, are the class perhaps most able to combat MADness. Still a point in favor of the Battle Master who is less restricted in this way.

[BamBam]

I like Tasha's. Blind fighting style is sure to shake things up.

Players that get their s#!/& together and coordinate can benefit big!

[HappyDaze]

I do like all classes having a mix of long and short rest respurces, just as long as it isnt so uniform that it’s effectively AEDU 2.0
I do like going with prof bonus instead of stat mod and the option of using resources to refill one another but this doesnt appear in the PHB so they feel out of place.
IF ONLY there were SOME WAY that WOTC could possibly make some sort of UPDATE to EXISTING MATERIAL without starting over.

Edit: on mobile, cant bluetext.

That's a pretty good rephrasing of my issues, except that I have some reservations about basing ability uses off of proficiency bonus because I feel it benefits multiclassing too much. Almost every crack in the game gets wider with multiclassing shenanigans, so I prefer not switching to something that further encourages it. Imagine if the Barbarian rage damage bonus was "add PB to damage when raging" along with "you can rage PB times, this recharges on a long rest." Now damn near everybody playing a martial character would find room for Barbarian 1 in their build.

[Ritorix]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.

My biggest problem with Tasha's is the "it's all optional" nature of the content. That's just not what I'm looking for from a game update. I want definitive changes that are at least somewhat balanced. Fix the ranger, for real. Fix the sorcerer spell lists, for real. WOTC shouldn't put the whole mess on the DM to figure out, nor should players have to advocate for every feature they want 'turned on' at a table.

[stoutstien]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.

My biggest problem with Tasha's is the "it's all optional" nature of the content. That's just not what I'm looking for from a game update. I want definitive changes that are at least somewhat balanced. Fix the ranger, for real. Fix the sorcerer spell lists, for real. WOTC shouldn't put the whole mess on the DM to figure out, nor should players have to advocate for every feature they want 'turned on' at a table.

The whole optional nature of this book isn't that different from any of the others released. They emphasized it more than Tasha with formating but XGtE has the same preface.

The changes in design principle is telling though.

[MaxWilson]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.

Hmmm, you might be right. Tasha's feels to me like Player's Option: Skills and Powers.

[Darzil]

Yeah-the favored foe feature literally seems useless solely because it costs concentration. Or rather, use poor. One idiotic change, ruined the feature. Simple as that. I guess the damage levels, but no, no that does not fix it, at all.

Am I missing something? Can't help feeling that whilst Favored Foe is seriously nerfed from the Revised Ranger, that other parts were hurt more?

In particular as far as I can see Natural Explorer no longer gets advantage on initiative, ignore difficult terrain or advantage on creatures who have no yet acted. That is bigger in my mind than changes to Favored Foe.

(I do think the UA was too strong, mainly because it was incredibly front loaded with abilities that remain strong at higher levels. The class itself has issues that are more around being situational)

[WadeWay33]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e.

I’m not really getting that feel at all. This is only the second supplement to give us a decent amount of subclasses. Sure, there’s some kinks, but it feels like it’s gearing up to something bigger if that makes sense.

[Kane0]

Thinking of errata, then?


Again, no. Errata is fixing typos and other syntax errs.

Imagine if WotC included a code for a PDF copy with every book sold, or for a years’ subscription to the online resource for that book. You could also purchase or subscribe to these things directly if you dont want the hard copy.

On the same online store/resource you could find freely available items such as the basic rules, EE players companion, UA, etc as well as all errata and changelogs of anything released in book form with changes such as the Bladesinger.

Not that much different from the current setup, save for legitimate pdfs and WotC not outsourcing it.

But here’s the kicker: when something is updated or changed or whatever add that into the online resource and make it available to those who already have the product via code, so those that have the books have access to both the old and new with neither being obsolete. The owner of a 2015 PHB and the owner of a 2020 PHB both have access to the 2015 and 2020 Ranger despite the hard copy having different abilities listed at level 1 to reflect things learned and fine tuned over the years, as well as notes to explain when and why these variations occurred.

Edit: then truly alternative class features could be presented in a splatbook rather than fixes-in-disguise

[Pex]

SD are a die size greater than PD for the majority of the levels they are a factor in, the use of Int makes them more competitive, but also makes the Psi Knight MAD in comparison to the Battle Master that can set their DCs off of Str or Dex.

It can certainly end up being better (and more reliable) but you're going to have to invest for that and then you simply won't have as many dice to spend per day, requiring a heavier investment in Int to compensate.

Fighters have the ASI to do so. It would mean less feats, but they don't necessarily need them and I don't think people would complain if there was one less great weapon master/pole arm master PC.

[HolyDraconus]

I was hoping that it was a typo from the UA, and that they would fix it when it was released... but really? 300ft Darkvision? with all armor and weapon profs? with advantage on initiative? for a single level??? This sub is stupid. Its Hexblade the wisdom edition. I gotta keep going back to that. 300ft Darkvision. Why? Just... WHY?? I could understand that it goes down for every character that you share it with and it instead becomes a pool for the party, but that's thinking way too much like balancing. Doesn't help matters at all that you probably aren't going to go any higher than 6th in cleric with this either, 7th at most cause greater invisibility but they could of balanced this out.


On another note, while the art for the special edition is beautiful, why didn't it keep to the black color scheme of the other ones? It looks out of place when sitting next to the rest of them.

[Amdy_vill]

On another note, while the art for the special edition is beautiful, why didn't it keep to the black color scheme of the other ones? It looks out of place when sitting next to the rest of them.

other books before broke their scheme so they keep breaking it. I wish they had never broken the scheme.

[saucerhead]

On another note, while the art for the special edition is beautiful, why didn't it keep to the black color scheme of the other ones? It looks out of place when sitting next to the rest of them.

I thought the same with Saltmarsh, as I t had a poorly done special edition cover.

[HolyDraconus]

I thought the same with Saltmarsh, as I t had a poorly done special edition cover.

Saltmarsh atleast has the saving grace that you have to look twice to see that something's amiss. This one can be seen from across the room.

[Razgriez]

The whole optional nature of this book isn't that different from any of the others released. They emphasized it more than Tasha with formating but XGtE has the same preface.

The changes in design principle is telling though. (Emphasis mine-Razgriez)

Yea. The big tell of the design shift is this greater focus on Proficiency Bonus to determine certain aspects (such as Resource Limits). Also, over the past several books, there has been a certain favoritism to early level power/front-loading, which gives a larger emphasis to Multi-Classing. Whether this is just a change in direction for 5th edition balancing or not, I don't know.

I don't think we're going to see 6th edition yet, and certainly not for a number years (especially with the previous announcement of further 5e books). But Tasha's does raise the question of what direction D&D rules are going.

That said, there are parts of TCoE, that I wish applied to other things. (I' really want to see Arcane Archer receive Arcane Shot Uses = PB with recharge on any rest)

On other notes, I actually kinda like Ranger's variant options. Deft Explorer I think is an interesting exchange. You trade away the "Skilled Guide" and some party utility in specific terrain for improved general purpose personal abilities. Plus some of the effects of Natural Explorer (particularly those related to Tracking and Foraging) can be easily covered by picking Survival as your Expertise skill (if you really need Expertise in it)

Favored Foe vs Favored Enemy is definitely one of the more mixed opinion. If you were hoping for Classic Ranger where you' get damage bonuses and not wait to Ranger 20 for Foe Slayer? Then Favored Foe is better.
Favored Enemy is better where skill checks, social, or stealth is valued higher. And also where the name gets silly, and the Ranger picks this do things like Search and Rescue in their spare time they're not searching for Criminals on the run. Or as an advisor to a diplomat.

[Ettina]

I want to know where people keep finding these UA supporting DMs because I would love one...and that ask.the DM stuff doesn't help the AL players.

Our group has three DMs (we switch off between campaigns) and all of us allow UA.

[Fynzmirs]

Are we just going to ignore the fact that the "Peace" domain doesn't even have calm emotions as a domain spell? But... why?

[stoutstien]

Are we just going to ignore the fact that the "Peace" domain doesn't even have calm emotions as a domain spell? But... why?

Clerics already have it and the list is pretty stacked with spells they could prepare already. They needed a few slots for expanded options.

[Fynzmirs]

Clerics already have it and the list is pretty stacked with spells they could prepare already. They needed a few slots for expanded options.

I get it, but if I had to choose a single spell that fits the concept of a "Peace" domain best, I would definitely choose calm emotions. Why couldn't they ditch aid? It's a good spell but it doesn't fit this domain as well as calm emotions does. And it's also from the cleric spell list.

[Trafalgar]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.


I felt the exact same thing.

[stoutstien]

I get it, but if I had to choose a single spell that fits the concept of a "Peace" domain best, I would definitely choose calm emotions. Why couldn't they ditch aid? It's a good spell but it doesn't fit this domain as well as calm emotions does. And it's also from the cleric spell list.

I think the issue here is the domain fluff. When I read it I think balance, luck, or protection.

[Pex]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.

My biggest problem with Tasha's is the "it's all optional" nature of the content. That's just not what I'm looking for from a game update. I want definitive changes that are at least somewhat balanced. Fix the ranger, for real. Fix the sorcerer spell lists, for real. WOTC shouldn't put the whole mess on the DM to figure out, nor should players have to advocate for every feature they want 'turned on' at a table.


The whole optional nature of this book isn't that different from any of the others released. They emphasized it more than Tasha with formating but XGtE has the same preface.

The changes in design principle is telling though.

I'm beginning to think they're afraid to commit. People yelled about 3E unbalancing and power. They made 4E, getting rid of everything and making balance the one and only thing that mattered, so everyone was samey. That bombed. In 5E they bring back the variety, lower powered than 3E but still have Cool Things. They drew a line. They commit to the power level up to that line. Anything over they let the DM decide to allow, so they can't be blamed as in 3E. If the DM doesn't like it the DM doesn't use it. Problem solved. It's probably also why whenever there's a question about a vague rule in Sage Advice they almost always rule to what makes the player less happy. They don't want to go above that line. Making things optional allows them to do what they want over the line but take no responsibility as a DM decides to use it or not.

[Razgriez]

Are we just going to ignore the fact that the "Peace" domain doesn't even have calm emotions as a domain spell? But... why?

There's a reason for this:

Earlier this year, Peace Domain started as the Love Domain. It did many of the things Peace does, but was supposed to represent bonds and love of strong relationships (Marriage, Close Friends, Camaraderie, Companions, etc etc).

There was however, two sticking points. Channel Divinity: Impulsive Infatuation, and the use of various charm spells

Because the Internet Is Forever, it took all of a minute to look up this original version courtesy of folks who had saved the original UA PDF.


Cleric Level Spells
1st Charm Person, Heroism
3rd Enthrall, Warding Bond
5th Beacon of Hope, Hypnotic Pattern
7th Aura of Purity, Confusion
9th Greater Restoration, Hold Monster



Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived but intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense.

As an action, you present your holy symbol and choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw; a creature can choose to fail this saving throw if it wishes. On a success, the creature is unaffected. On a failure, the creature is charmed by you until the start of your next turn, and it must immediately use its reaction to make a weapon attack against a target you designate. If there are no valid targets, it uses its reaction to admire you.

Needless to say, this drew some comments and becomes less "Strong bonds of love" and more "One Combat stands under the influence" (and lets leave it at that.)

Wotc Producer: "Whoops"
WotC Writer: "Whoopsies"

It was very quickly pulled down by Wizards of the Coasts, and brought back a few days latter as Unity Domain. The Spell list was changed much closer to the final result of Peace domain. Channel Divinity was changed to "Shared Burden" (The Cleric takes a reaction, and selects WIS Mod= Number of Willing Creatures to split up damage as you saw fit, Minimum of 1 damage)

We then finally reach to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything version as the "Peace" Domain (Where apparently "Peace" domain looks more like "We're all friends here!... Except those guys. They're not our friends. Kill them.")

Probably should've just stuck with "Love/Companions" as the name but use Tasha's rules.

[micahaphone]

There's a reason for this:

Earlier this year, Peace Domain started as the Love Domain. It did many of the things Peace does, but was supposed to represent bonds and love of strong relationships (Marriage, Close Friends, Camaraderie, Companions, etc etc).

There was however, two sticking points. Channel Divinity: Impulsive Infatuation, and the use of various charm spells

Because the Internet Is Forever, it took all of a minute to look up this original version courtesy of folks who had saved the original UA PDF.


Cleric Level Spells
1st Charm Person, Heroism
3rd Enthrall, Warding Bond
5th Beacon of Hope, Hypnotic Pattern
7th Aura of Purity, Confusion
9th Greater Restoration, Hold Monster



Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived but intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense.

As an action, you present your holy symbol and choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw; a creature can choose to fail this saving throw if it wishes. On a success, the creature is unaffected. On a failure, the creature is charmed by you until the start of your next turn, and it must immediately use its reaction to make a weapon attack against a target you designate. If there are no valid targets, it uses its reaction to admire you.

Needless to say, this drew some comments and becomes less "Strong bonds of love" and more "One Combat stands under the influence" (and lets leave it at that.)

Wotc Producer: "Whoops"
WotC Writer: "Whoopsies"

It was very quickly pulled down by Wizards of the Coasts, and brought back a few days latter as Unity Domain. The Spell list was changed much closer to the final result of Peace domain. Channel Divinity was changed to "Shared Burden" (The Cleric takes a reaction, and selects WIS Mod= Number of Willing Creatures to split up damage as you saw fit, Minimum of 1 damage)

We then finally reach to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything version as the "Peace" Domain (Where apparently "Peace" domain looks more like "We're all friends here!... Except those guys. They're not our friends. Kill them.")

Probably should've just stuck with "Love/Companions" as the name but use Tasha's rules.


I'll also point out that the Love domain UA was only seen via leak - it was up on the website but no official links to it, someone guessed at the URL by following previous naming schemes and found it.

The official UA release a few days later had already changed it to unity domain after the uproar.

[Xervous]

Yeah, it's like they don't want to make any missteps, but still want to cater to all the different DnD crowds. It feels like the thinking is "how can we get more players that like 3E to come along for the 5E ride?"

How exactly is this supposed to cater to 3.5E/PF1 players? There may be a <5% step in that direction but if there is it’s so small as to be unnoticeable. Power creep and more ways of doing the same thing don’t really change the core experience that 5e promises.

[Arkhios]

To me, 5th edition D&D is designed to meet the players halfway; it's supposed to be easy-to-approach and easy-to-play by both old and new players. And honestly, there's nothing wrong about that. 5th edition aims to cater to a wider spectrum of players than to the narrow extremes of games such as 3.5e ("verisimilitude extraordinaire") or 4e (overtly gamistic).

Tasha's is no different in that regard. They provided us with new optional rules, while still keeping their rules in line with the rest of the 5th edition: easy-to-approach and easy-to-play.


Here's a (controversial) thought to everyone:

Don't like it? Don't use it.

[WadeWay33]

Don't like it? Don't use it.

You, I like you.

[diplomancer]

It's possible that the Tasha's changes just don't appeal to me, personally. But having read everything in it (except DM options yet), I have ZERO enthusiasm for any of the changes; I remember how excited I was with Xanathar, thinking of all the new builds and spells I could try out. This time, nothing, no subclass, no spell, no magical item. Some artifacts look fun, but that's about it. So either Tasha IS pretty bad or I'm just losing my enthusiasm for 5th edition.

[Sception]

So either Tasha IS pretty bad or I'm just losing my enthusiasm for 5th edition.

If you liked Xanathar, but don't like Tasga, it's really probably the latter, because they are two *very* similar books in both the nature and quality of content. Similar power creep, similar mix of content evolved from UA and reprinted from other books, similar GM content full of interesting ideas but somewhat lacking in detail, similar mix of good, neat, weird, & bad subclasses with many of the more intetesting bits of their ua incarnations filed off.

Despite the racial & class variants getting so much attention, at it's core Tasha's really is Xanathar's 2, More of Everything (good and bad).

[Waazraath]

If you liked Xanathar, but don't like Tasga, it's really probably the latter, because they are two *very* similar books in both the nature and quality of content. Similar power creep, similar mix of content evolved from UA and reprinted from other books, similar GM content full of interesting ideas but somewhat lacking in detail, similar mix of good, neat, weird, & bad subclasses with many of the more intetesting bits of their ua incarnations filed off.

Despite the racial & class variants getting so much attention, at it's core Tasha's really is Xanathar's 2, More of Everything (good and bad).

From what I've seen so far this is pretty spot on. I liked Xanathar, especially for the extra options, and Tasha's gives the same, though not all options are good (or good for balance).

[Arkhios]

It's possible that the Tasha's changes just don't appeal to me, personally. But having read everything in it (except DM options yet), I have ZERO enthusiasm for any of the changes; I remember how excited I was with Xanathar, thinking of all the new builds and spells I could try out. This time, nothing, no subclass, no spell, no magical item. Some artifacts look fun, but that's about it. So either Tasha IS pretty bad or I'm just losing my enthusiasm for 5th edition.

Give it some time, maybe it'll grow on you.

[KorvinStarmast]

If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e. I hope that does not happen.

My biggest problem with Tasha's is the "it's all optional" nature of the content. I like that.
That's just not what I'm looking for from a game update. THis isn't a video game. This isn't a game up date. It's a supplement. That's how this game works.

I want definitive changes that are at least somewhat balanced. While I feel similarly, they didn't bother to fix the hexblade, but instead doubled down. But you don't have to use it.

Fix the ranger, for real. baby steps. New beast master is a good step forward.

Fix the sorcerer spell lists, for real.
We've had some threads on this. They went overboard for the two in Tahsa's. There should be one per level added for spell levels 1 through 5 based on origin. For all origins. That's my opinion.

WOTC shouldn't put the whole mess on the DM to figure out, nor should players have to advocate for every feature they want 'turned on' at a table. I very much disagree with you here. This isn't a video game. Each game, each campaign, is its own instance of D&D. That's a feature, not a bug. Quite frankly, I enjoy each game world run byh each DM feeling a lot different. The world I Co DM with my brother, on the other hand, we are frequently in touch (email is great, as are phones) to try and remain consistent. Since he originated it, and I am helping to flesh it out in one area, I always defer to his final call as "world builder" though he's taken a few of my ideas and run with them.

The people at the table are more important than the game's details.

If you won't talk to your DM, instead of at them {which is the vibe I got from your post, apoogies if I did not correctly parse the tone}, and work with them to make the campaign, the imaginary world and the adventures come alive, then the player is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The whole optional nature of this book isn't that different from any of the others released. They emphasized it more than Tasha with formating but XGtE has the same preface. The changes in design principle is telling though. Yeah. I've been mucking about with PB features in a few homebrew ideas, and I like it ... kind of.

.. but really? 300ft Darkvision? with all armor and weapon profs? with advantage on initiative? for a single level??? This sub is stupid. Its Hexblade the wisdom edition. Yep, I mentioned that in a different thread.

Are we just going to ignore the fact that the "Peace" domain doesn't even have calm emotions as a domain spell? But... why? Ya got me. Life has Bless as a domain spell. And cure wounds.

Earlier this year, Peace Domain started as the Love Domain.
Wotc Producer: "Whoops"
WotC Writer: "Whoopsies"
I recall writing a scathing bit of feedback on that domain when the UA came out. Just don't like it at all. Peace 'feels' less garbagey.

To me, 5th edition D&D is designed to meet the players halfway; it's supposed to be easy-to-approach and easy-to-play by both old and new players. And honestly, there's nothing wrong about that. 5th edition aims to cater to a wider spectrum of players than to the narrow extremes of games such as 3.5e ("verisimilitude extraordinaire") or 4e (overtly gamistic). And they succeeded in that quest. I hope they'll not throw away their gains in the never ending dollar chasing that is publishing new D&D books. Thus I would ask them for: more published adventures, more setting stuff. We have more options than we need already.

But I will agree with "show Ranger a little more love" as posited above by Ritorix. That apple could use a bit of polishing.

Tasha's is no different in that regard. They provided us with new optional rules, while still keeping their rules in line with the rest of the 5th edition: easy-to-approach and easy-to-play. The only jarring bit is the beginning of a mechanical shift toward Proiciency bonus resource baselines.

Don't like it? Don't use it. We have that policy at our table.

[Darzil]

I think the Cleric domains are unusual in two ways. One is that they give a lot of improvements in their first available level compared to many other sub classes. The more important is that they give them at level one, rather than level three like most classes.

I suspect splitting those improvements over a few levels rather than one would make single level dips far less unbalanced.

[stoutstien]

I think the Cleric domains are unusual in two ways. One is that they give a lot of improvements in their first available level compared to many other sub classes. The more important is that they give them at level one, rather than level three like most classes.

I suspect splitting those improvements over a few levels rather than one would make single level dips far less unbalanced.

I would rather go the other way and move subclasses down to lv 1-2 so you don't feel like you have to wait that long before your character starts doing the stuff you want. Break up the big bundle of stuff from 3 and spread them out over those first levels.

Multi-classing is just an area they really crapped the bed.

[Darzil]

I would rather go the other way and move subclasses down to lv 1-2 so you don't feel like you have to wait that long before your character starts doing the stuff you want. Break up the big bundle of stuff from 3 and spread them out over those first levels.
Totally fair. The main thing is to spread out the gains so that there isn't a simple choice.

[Xervous]

I would rather go the other way and move subclasses down to lv 1-2 so you don't feel like you have to wait that long before your character starts doing the stuff you want. Break up the big bundle of stuff from 3 and spread them out over those first levels.

Multi-classing is just an area they really crapped the bed.

Well you either shoot high or shoot low on multiclass and if everything shot low people would complain that WotC ‘removed’ multiclass. The only real way to make sure no options run away or fall behind would be another degree of normalization being applied to the game at further cost to meaningful choices.

[Sception]

I'd rather keep subclasses at level three, or at least two, so that new players have time to learn the core mechanics and functionality of the parent class before having to pick a subclass to focus or twist that core. However, I'd also like to see starting at level three more normalized, perhaps via GM advice to do just that, and more adventures in the vein of Curse of Strahd that explicitly run from levels 3 to whatever, with maybe an optional side adventure in their index to take parties from level 1 to 3 for those that do want to start at level one.

If starting from a new edition, maybe have subclasses at level 1, but also have an official level 0, clearly marked as an optional thing for players looking for a more simplified starting point before major subclass decisions are made?

[stoutstien]

I'd rather keep subclasses at level three, or at least two, so that new players have time to learn the core mechanics and functionality of the parent class before having to pick a subclass to focus or twist that core. However, I'd also like to see starting at level three more normalized, perhaps via GM advice to do just that, and more adventures in the vein of Curse of Strahd that explicitly run from levels 3 to whatever, with maybe an optional side adventure in their index to take parties from level 1 to 3 for those that do want to start at level one.

If starting from a new edition, maybe have subclasses at level 1, but also have an official level 0, clearly marked as an optional thing for players looking for a more simplified starting point before major subclass decisions are made?

I can understand this sentiment but from my experience the first 2 levels are so swingy it like playing an entirely different game before you start playing the game.

[diplomancer]

Levels 1 and 2 go by so quickly, we are talking 4 sessions max. So, whether abilities come at levels 1, 2, or 3, is only relevant for multiclassing, not for single classes or for character concepts.

[Chaosmancer]

I can understand this sentiment but from my experience the first 2 levels are so swingy it like playing an entirely different game before you start playing the game.

Yeah, I never start at level 1 unless I want my players to spend the beginning of the campaign as post-apocalyptic survivors or something else where the desperation is key for setting the tone.

Normal game, start at 3, otherwise it is just too brutal. And even 3 and 4 are a bit rough, as everyone pines for level 5's massive boost in being able to do things.

[Sception]

I'd have to disagree with the "similar power creep" part of what you said. Tasha's has a lot more to me with being able to pick any race and change around the ability scores, being able to change your subclass, picking different abilities for your class, and outright additional abilities at no cost (even if some make really good sense).

This raises the floor dramatically more than it raises the ceiling, and increases in the power ceiling are generally what I talk about when I talk about power creep. Sure, half orc wizards with Tasha stat swapping are much better than they were before, but they're not better than high elf wizards were before, and high elf wizards aren't much better now than they were before either. The best paladin races are still variant human, half elf, and aasimar, the only difference there is that protector and scourge aasimar are now co-best with their fallen brethren.

Stopping players from being stuck with bad choices, either because the choices are no longer inherently bad (as with stat swapping races so they can be good at whatever class) or by letting you swap out a choice you don't like in practice for something else (as with subclass swapping or variant class features to swap out fighting styles, cantrips, and so on), doesn't count as power creep imo unless the result is stronger than just making good choices was in the first place before.

And there /is/ some of that kind of power creep in Tashas. Mountain Dwarf is now arguably slightly better for wizards than the previous best option for that class, discounting commonly disallowed options like flying races. But not by enough to get worked up over. Some of the subclasses are arguably stronger than previous subclasses within their class - eg the monk subclasses, or the sorcerer subclasses. But no more so than we saw in Xanathar's guide with the ranger subclasses being significantly stronger than those that came before them, or the hexblade being significantly stronger than any other warlock subclass before or since.

In the feats there are some that are strongest within some specific narrow focus. Fey Touched, for instance, is probably the strongest officially published half-charisma feat in the game. Maybe the strongest half-intelligence or half-wisdom feat as well. Certainly the strongest that isn't tied to a particular racial choice. But it's still not pushing an overall feat envelope defined by things like GWM, PAM, SS, Lucy, Mobile, Alert, War Caster & so on.

So even by my standard of only looking at increases to the ceiling, there's still /some/ power creep in Tasha's, but I really don't see how it could be considered out of step with that seen in previous 5e core expansion content, particularly Xanathar's guide.


I'll give you that Tasha's items are stronger than those added in Xanathar's, but only in that Xanathar's specifically only added 'common' items. They don't seem out of step with the power creep seen in items added by other 5e sources, mostly setting books and adventures.


Personally, I kind of wish Tasha's were /more/ as wildly experimental as it has been accused of being a few times in this thread. The options added here are dramatically more conservative, far less willing to question or branch out from a default 5e experience that has remained largely unchanged since the PHB was released, than those seen in the latter days of previous editions. Nothing nearly as bold & revolutionary as Essentials/Heroes of in 4e, or Tome of Magic/Battle in 3e, or player's/DM's option books in 2e, or probably even Unearthed Arcana in 1e, though I don't have firsthand experience to go on there.

To me, tasha's has a feeling of stagnation & growing pains, rather than the flowering of creativity and encroachment of experimental paradigms that might herald radical revision to come. If we see a 6e soon, I expect it will be a minimal shift, like that from 3e to 3.5, rather than a major leap like from 2e to 3e, 3e to 4e, or 4e to 5e. Which, again, I think is a bit of a pity. I've enjoyed 5e, and still enjoy 5e, but I have played it a bit out, and wouldn't mind something really fresh.


I always liked Dark Sun for starting characters at level 3. Nowadays I like starting experienced groups at level 4. Everyone has a chance for a feat depending on if they multiclass or not, and their backstories can be a little more in depth. If we're starting off at level 1 it usually means we are introducing someone new to DnD and playing in a short E6 campaign.

I could see anything from 3 to 5 being a good starting point. Maybe I'll do Mad Mage for my next game, and just have the players roll up 5th level characters to start.

[Gyor]

I kinduve want to have a word with you about why Rogues or Barbarians are in any way bad as my first reaction to that post, by the by, but it's not particularly relevant. Rogue in particular was barely modified at all, and Barbarians received some minor tweaks.

Anyway, monk and ranger have some pretty severe conceptual problems they could have at least started to fix here, but which they only made minor progress on. Rangers in particular still don't really have a good use for their spells, due to the frankly awful list they have and lack of synergistic attack+slot abilities that Paladins get. The few good spells on their list don't scale enough to keep up, and the changes present don't do a damned thing for that.

Monk just struggles with a lack of engagement with magic items and actual meaningful interaction with the various ways to empower a character. A whole list of feats, magic items, and races have severe antisynergy with the monk due to how restrictive the base chassis of the class is, and how limited the monks scaling is outside of this chassis. I've had monks go three or four levels without receiving any further upgrade because the adventure didn't add anything that benefitted them in a meaningful way, or there was someone else who clearly benefitted more from the item/ability. They did provide a huge quality of life improvement with the new features (virtually all of them fix some major, major issue) but only the first addresses the elephant in the room, and you still have issues where weapons are anti synergy no matter how you cut it.

Given that, I agree that some serious rebuilding of the entire system would be needed for them to compete on a serious level again, although I suspect the class concept of Monk may just be an inherently doomed endeavor if they continue to pile so much conceptual baggage on the class-the Monks problem is arguably that it knows what it is too much, and that any attempts to make it do anything other than that is like wading through molasses.


The Feywander Ranger is pretty powerful, with the Ranger extra features is wicked skill money, and the ability to cast Summon Fey without duration should not be under estimated, with a level 4 slot they have two attacks for every spell level, and a bonus action teleport with kicker and they get a free casting too. And they get a pile of free misty step spells later on.

If you have another character with Wish, you can use wish to cast Planar Binding on the Summoned Fey without having to worry about Duration, or better yet have a Sorcerer cast twin wish/planar binding on two of the Fey.

[stoutstien]

The Feywander Ranger is pretty powerful, with the Ranger extra features is wicked skill money, and the ability to cast Summon Fey without duration should not be under estimated, with a level 4 slot they have two attacks and teleport every level, and they get a free casting too. And they get a pile of free misty step spells later on.

If you have another character with Wish, you can use wish to cast Planar Binding on the Summoned Fey without having to worry about Duration, or better yet have a Sorcerer cast twin wish/planar binding on two of the Fey.

They can cast summon fey without concentration but the duration limit is reduced to a minute.

[Gyor]

The balanced between Sorcerer subclasses is just wrecked to Hell with this book. Yes Transmute Spell is great for Dragon & Storm Sorcerers, and Feywild Shard is a dream come true for Wild Sorcerers, but the new Sorcerer subclasses each come with 10 extra spells known!

I think they should have at least had a Sorcerer option that added extra spells to the other Sorcerer subclasses.

Summon Celestial is good for Divine Souls, but the Clockwork Sorcerer is a solid challenge to the Divine Soul as the best support Sorcerer.

[Arkhios]

They can cast summon fey without concentration but the duration limit is reduced to a minute.

A lot can happen in 10 rounds (=1 minute)

[MrStabby]

I could see rejigging the levels a bit. Make the D&D default to be starting at level 3 and make level 2 an ASI (2, 6, 10 etc. from then on). This way your sarting character isn't too complex for newcomers, it isn't too delicate for newcomers and you can also ensure players start with the feel for both class and subclass with an ability from both in their hand at the start. It avoids 1 and 2 level dips - 3 is enough of an investment that I think we could all begrudge people less for that kind of dip. And if the default is to start at level 3 it dodges some of those wierd issues where you are a cleric before you know what god you are worshiping or you are a magic-fighter class but don't get any spells till you level up twice.

If they were to do something like this for a 5.5 or whatever then I could see the scalping with proficiency bonus sticking around - as long as it is never on any ability you can pick up in under 3 levels its a bit harder to abuse.

[Clistenes]

I get a strong "last years of a D&D edition" vibe from Tasha's. It reminds me of when increasingly goofy options and classes started to be a thing in 4e. Wilden and shardminds are just around the corner. If we see a 5e Rules Compendium announced, that is officially the beginning of the end, as was the case for 3x and 4e.

My biggest problem with Tasha's is the "it's all optional" nature of the content. That's just not what I'm looking for from a game update. I want definitive changes that are at least somewhat balanced. Fix the ranger, for real. Fix the sorcerer spell lists, for real. WOTC shouldn't put the whole mess on the DM to figure out, nor should players have to advocate for every feature they want 'turned on' at a table.

That would be a pity. I am quite fond of 5e, despite not having much time to play anymore... it is simpler than 3.5 while keeping the classic D&D feel (unlike 4th edition).

I miss the depth and development the settings were given during previous editions, though... I understand WotC is wary of publishing again every book describing Oerth, Toril, Athas, Krynn, Sigil, the planes, the Spelljammer setting...etc., in detail, but reading those books really made me want to play...

I don't know if I will be able to get excited about a new edition... I may return to 3.5 or migrate to Pathfinder...

[PhoenixPhyre]

That would be a pity. I am quite fond of 5e, despite not having much time to play anymore... it is simpler than 3.5 while keeping the classic D&D feel (unlike 4th edition).

I miss the depth and development the settings were given during previous editions, though... I understand WotC is wary of publishing again every book describing Oerth, Toril, Athas, Krynn, Sigil, the planes, the Spelljammer setting...etc., in detail, but reading those books really made me want to play...

I don't know if I will be able to get excited about a new edition... I may return to 3.5 or migrate to Pathfinder...

I agree, although I don't miss the setting books. Mainly because I'm a setting snob and can't stand playing in most of those published settings :smallwink:. If they pushed a new edition that was mostly just numbers/mechanics changes, I don't know if I'd migrate. 5e does basically everything I want right now, and I'm happy making my own content. It'd take a change in philosophy for me to experiment. But even then, that's unlikely.

I'm very happy with the "it's optional" standpoint of the supplements so far. I wish it'd be even more explicit about it. Make it clear that players and DMs should negotiate what will be included, with no expectation of access to everything, not even including the PHB.