Tasha's shift of player options

[stoutstien]

I'm currently on my 9th cover to cover read of Tasha's (curse of the DM) and something that is emerging is noticable shift of how different classes interaction with each other and the game world.

Dice manipulation- there's always been a little bit of this in the game but tasha is taking it to a whole new level. Rangers might be the only class doesn't have a clear feature that allows them to add dice, reroll, or apply advantage/disadvantage before/during/after a roll is made. It's a not so subtle push to reward teamwork and addresses the issue of how short some encounter turn out to be so the rolls that happen are weighted to match. The D20 system is simple but it is swingy. Not anymore. if you were to randomly generate a four-person party, at least half of them would be able to manipulate the D20 in someway.

Martial control- a lot of expansion on effect rather than damage. Most of the new player options don't challenging the old standards of damage but we have a large addition of options that apply powerful riders on attacks. Even a basic champion can grab something like slasher and feel like they are doing more than damage while also having a nice rider on crits.

[Samayu]

Sounds good to me.

Now if we can just have more options for spellcasters (besides damaging spells) that are not all-or-nothing.

[RogueJK]

Martial control- a lot of expansion on effect rather than damage. Most of the new player options don't challenging the old standards of damage but we have a large addition of options that apply powerful riders on attacks. Even a basic champion can grab something like slasher and feel like they are doing more than damage while also having a nice rider on crits.

This is A Good Thing.

Some pure martial characters (with Champion Fighters being the poster child) get rather boring over long campaigns, especially at higher levels once the "I'm doing a fair bit of damage each round!" cool factor wears off. Being able to inflict status or have a bit of battlefield control is infinitely more satisfying than just "I attack! *roll damage* I attack! *roll damage* I attack! *roll damage*". That's further exacerbated by the fact that these kinds of characters also often have little to do outside of combat. So for 2/3 of the time you're doing little to nothing, and 1/3 of the time you're doing the same thing over and over again.

This is why a Champion is the worst thing to plunk down in front of a new player. Well-meaning people think "Oh, they're new, so this will be easy to learn!", but it can just end up with the new player getting bored and turned off to D&D.


Similarly, folks like to crow about how crazy powerful Eldritch Blast is, but once they've actually played an EB-focused build or seen it played, it's also fairly boring over the long run. Nearly all of your rounds in combat are "I cast Eldritch Blast... again *yawn*"

Reminds me of a (blessedly short) Pathfinder campaign I played in at a game store a while back. Dude showed up with some ultra-niche min-maxed build he had found online that relied on riders for fear effects and a bajillion-and-one castings of Cause Fear each day. Every time his turn came up, he'd say "Um...", stare at his sheet for ~10 seconds, then say "Cause Fear" and the DM would then roll an enemy's Will save. I swear that 90% of what this dude said throughout the entire campaign, including out of combat time, was "Um... Cause Fear". That sort of thing would have bored me to tears. :tongue:

[KorvinStarmast]

Now if we can just have more options for spellcasters (besides damaging spells) that are not all-or-nothing. Spell casters have a plethora of tools. And class features. Example: Wizard (Transmutation), Transmuter's Stone. Some sorcerers get wings and fly. Warlocks get customization tools: Invocations. Druids can turn into a snuggly brown bear or a giant spider ... you've got a box full of toys.

Santa is bringing you a sweater for Christmas. :smallyuk:

[MaxWilson]

Similarly, folks like to crow about how crazy powerful Eldritch Blast is, but once they've actually played an EB-focused build or seen it played, it's also fairly boring over the long run. Nearly all of your rounds in combat are "I cast Eldritch Blast... again *yawn*"

IME the fun part of Eldritch Blast is mostly about exploiting hazards via Repelling Blast and to a lesser extent Grasp of Hadar. "I blast the Umber Hulk off the edge of the spelljamming ship", "I blast the Neogi through the Wall of Fire", "I blast the Behir through the Spike Growth, pull it back towards me, and then blast it back again, for 2d10+12d4+10 total [rolls: 51]", "I blast the black knight off the black dragon's back for 2d10+10 plus 6d6 falling damage", "I blast the Stone Giant off the cliff", etc.

The other fun part is what you're doing with your concentration at the same time. House Lyrandar warlocks (Dragonmark of Storms) get to summon elementals, and any old warlock can summon demons. These are generally a much better use of your concentration than Hex, and more fun too because you have more choices. Find the right angle to blast that bad guy back towards the Chasme so that it will attack him as the closest non-demon! Slow him down with Lance of Lethargy so he can't run away!

[Eldariel]

This is A Good Thing.

Some pure martial characters (with Champion Fighters being the poster child) get rather boring over long campaigns, especially at higher levels once the "I'm doing a fair bit of damage each round!" cool factor wears off. Being able to inflict status or have a bit of battlefield control is infinitely more satisfying than just "I attack! *roll damage* I attack! *roll damage* I attack! *roll damage*". That's further exacerbated by the fact that these kinds of characters also often have little to do outside of combat. So for 2/3 of the time you're doing little to nothing, and 1/3 of the time you're doing the same thing over and over again.

This is why a Champion is the worst thing to plunk down in front of a new player. Well-meaning people think "Oh, they're new, so this will be easy to learn!", but it can just end up with the new player getting bored and turned off to D&D.


Similarly, folks like to crow about how crazy powerful Eldritch Blast is, but once they've actually played an EB-focused build or seen it played, it's also fairly boring over the long run. Nearly all of your rounds in combat are "I cast Eldritch Blast... again *yawn*"

Reminds me of a (blessedly short) Pathfinder campaign I played in at a game store a while back. Dude showed up with some ultra-niche min-maxed build he had found online that relied on riders for fear effects and a bajillion-and-one castings of Cause Fear each day. Every time his turn came up, he'd say "Um...", stare at his sheet for ~10 seconds, then say "Cause Fear" and the DM would then roll an enemy's Will save. I swear that 90% of what this dude said throughout the entire campaign, including out of combat time, was "Um... Cause Fear". That sort of thing would have bored me to tears. :tongue:

It's also ultimately less effective. Enemy HP scales faster than PC damage which means the amount of turns needed to meaningfully hamper enemy activity keeps growing with levels. Meanwhile, control remains just as effective though you have to of course work around resistances and immunities (thus spectrum of options is more valuable on higher levels). So the higher the level, the more you benefit of getting that control effect off to bypass enemy HP.