Tasha's - some thoughts

[Waazraath]

[edit: wrote the post when I was tired, fixed few things and completed missing sentences]

Since I own it for over a week now and I've skipped through its contents a few times, some semi-random thoughs:

- on races: I'm not very eager to use the optional rules here. Formerly, classes were balanced by having relative good or bad ability modifiers. Mountain Dwarfs' other features were weaker than hill dwarf, so it had an extra point of ability score increase; and its other feature (light and medium armor proficiency) was useless for classes like fighter and bbn that wanted the +2 str / +2 con. Very good design, the class made an interesting niche (otherwise) unarmored caster by giving it armor, or for a strong melee fighter, with the highest possible con/str combination but without additional benefits. But when costless changing attributes, it suddenly becomes one of the best arcane casters, giving med armor and +2 int/cha and +2 con/dex (as needed). Balance is wrecked. Likewise, some very good races that were held back by mutually exclusive ability increases, like yuan-ti and protector aasimar.
If they would have wanted a system with customizable races, AD&D character points would have been much more elegant and interesting imo - it would also have allowed to keep some degree of differences between races. As for the 'custom lineage', I like it more, since it is much better balanced and gives other races than human the chance to start with a feat.

- on new concepts, especially from (sub)classes: I'm not too impressed. On the good sight, they tried to make 'thrower' and 'grappler' more useable, and unarmed fighting something that can be done by others than monks. They opened a few interesting new concepts, that hitherto were not there: especially the genie and sea warlock, a number of psionic options (through feats and subclasses), the rune knight adds interesting things (both as a magical fighter next to the EK but very different, and a 'rune user' concept), and a wolverine-like barbarian wasn't there yet either. On the other hand, there's some really bland stuff. Worst are the talking bard and the bookish wizard. If creativity is at such an utter low, dear designers, call it a day, and go to the pub - mabye you find inspriration there (thoug mabye that's the reason, bars are closed these days of course).
But also subclasses like Oath of the Watchers (how different from devotion?), circle of stars, peace cleric... I don't feel any of those concepts couldn't been done already with another subclass, and maby a little back story and RP. And some concepts that are new are just plain weird, or very, very niche: the wild magic barbarian, the spore druid and the soulstuff rogue for example.

- mechanically, mostly it's fine I think. Some goofs, like the stupidly overpowered twilight domain for clerics, but lots of cool stuff as well. The option to undo earlier choices that didn't turn out right is really nice. The alternative class features are very nice, more customization through fighting styles, maneuvers, invocations, metamagics: cool! There were some nice bumps to subclasses that needed it, like ki-fueled attack for 4e-monks. Giving barbarians, fighters and monks more stuff to do out of combat was very nice (extra skills, advantage on skill rolls, adding maneuver die to skill checks, etc.). I'm not too thrilled with the sorcerer extra spells, since both subclasses are conceptually locked very tight - if they wanted to do this, they should have added an acf for other sorcerers to get some extra goodies as well. Oh well. I don't think there are any subclasses that are truely bad.

- on christmass trees: in 3.x characters were compared to christmass trees, due to the system governing items / wealth by level. You needed to have, at higher levels, loads and loads of magical items to stay viable. I guess the catch was they resembeled a tree with lots of glittering stuff draped over them? In 5e, items really different, but now we have christmass tree subclasses. Xanathar gave us the Ancestral barbarian, who (upon entering rage) got a bunch of spectral ancestors appearing out of nowhere lifting their spectral kilts and showing enemies their spectral youknowwuts to distract them. Much more Diablo 3 than a ttrpg, especially for a martial class, but fine. Now they got company from the spectral monk, who has spectral arms hovering around. I mean... fine, but this is so very far from what any traditional fantasy archetype is.... I'm not too thrilled about it. It's 3.5 incarnum weirdness all over, in visuals.

All in all, it's an interesting book, I like reading it, and it opens up loads of options for if optimization challanges start again once more :) But as for what I'm really expecting to use: not too much. Maybe some racial stuff if a DM allows, and some alternative class features. But for subclasses, the only ones I'm really eager to try out are the genie warlock and rune knight fighter. And that's not too much...

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

- on races: I'm not very eager to use the optional rules here. Formerly, classes were balanced by having relative good or bad ability modifiers. Mountain Dwarfs' other features were weaker than hill dwarf, so it had an extra point of ability score increase; and its other feature (light and medium armor proficiency) was useless for classes like fighter and bbn that wanted the +2 str / +2 con. Very good design, the class made an interesting niche (otherwise) unarmored caster, by giving it armor, or a strong melee fighter, with the highest possible con/str combination. But when costless changing attributes, it suddenly becomes one of the best arcane casters, giving med armor and +2 int/cha and +2 con/dex (as needed). Balance is wrecked. Likewise for very good races that were held back by mutually exclusive ability increases, like yuan-ti and protector aasimar. If they would have wanted a system like this, AD&D character points would have been much more elegant and interesting imo. As for the 'custom lineage', I like it much more, since it is much better balanced and gives other races than human the chance to start with a feat.

I disagree with a lot of what you've posted here but I just want to narrow in on this particular point because I see it a lot.

The classes/races are not balanced by racial ASIs. As per Jeremy Crawford himself, racial ASIs were meant to reinforcing archetypes and never about game balance. See:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_nijkamp
(At about 16 minutes in)

They don't balance around say, a dwarf never being able to get a +2 to intelligence, they balance around the assumption that the dwarf will have a +2. So balance is fortunately not wrecked, and remains perfectly intact even with these new rules. Similarly with the Yuan-Ti, it was never balanced around having a "bad" combination of Charisma and Intelligence, the designers simply wanted to reinforce the archetype of Yuan-Ti being smart and beguiling. Hope this helps!

[Amdy_vill]

I personally think Tasha's is a complete and utter flap. I disagree with you on many points but yeah this book really needed more time. the only things I think we're done while are the sidekicks and the alt class options, note not the alt class feature system just the options. I think the system has some big problems and fails mostly in not actually giving options and just patching holes. I wish it gave you real options and no just-auto picks.

[P. G. Macer]

I disagree with a lot of what you've posted here but I just want to narrow in on this particular point because I see it a lot.

The classes/races are not balanced by racial ASIs. As per Jeremy Crawford himself, racial ASIs were meant to reinforcing archetypes and never about game balance. See:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_nijkamp
(At about 16 minutes in)

They don't balance around say, a dwarf never being able to get a +2 to intelligence, they balance around the assumption that the dwarf will have a +2. So balance is fortunately not wrecked, and remains perfectly intact even with these new rules. Similarly with the Yuan-Ti, it was never balanced around having a "bad" combination of Charisma and Intelligence, the designers simply wanted to reinforce the archetype of Yuan-Ti being smart and beguiling. Hope this helps!

I’ve seen that quote, and this probably sounds absurd and/or ridiculous, but I think Crawford is wrong here. It might not have been an intentional balancing point on the designers’ part, but anti-synergistic racial ASIs were a de facto element of balance, to the point that the most popular homebrew-race-building balance tool (Detect Balance) assigned a malus to anti-synergistic racial bonuses in determining how balanced a homebrew race is. Now, since that is unofficial, you may dismiss that, and not without merit, but I’d be willing to bet that if Yuan-Ti Pureblood assigned its +1 to Dexterity or Constitution instead of Intelligence the number of DMs that ban the race would be even higher than it currently is. Likewise, I suspect that if Vedalken had by default ASIs other than +2 INT +1 WIS they’d be much more popular among powergamers, and you’d see people trying to play them in non-Ravnica games more often.

[Waazraath]

I disagree with a lot of what you've posted here but I just want to narrow in on this particular point because I see it a lot.

The classes/races are not balanced by racial ASIs. As per Jeremy Crawford himself, racial ASIs were meant to reinforcing archetypes and never about game balance. See:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_nijkamp
(At about 16 minutes in)

They don't balance around say, a dwarf never being able to get a +2 to intelligence, they balance around the assumption that the dwarf will have a +2. So balance is fortunately not wrecked, and remains perfectly intact even with these new rules. Similarly with the Yuan-Ti, it was never balanced around having a "bad" combination of Charisma and Intelligence, the designers simply wanted to reinforce the archetype of Yuan-Ti being smart and beguiling. Hope this helps!

Interesting listen, but what I hear is a very general statement, especially from the examples given: elves re not dexterious due to balance reasons, but to reinforce earlier edition stereotypes of races. I can imagine that's true. And if the rest of the game is balanced, it doesn't matter for balance if a race gets +2 dex / +1 int or +2 cha / +1 con.

BUT.

That's not goint into the specifics. It's does not say that they gave mountain dwarf +2 / +2 for purely flavour reasons (instead of the regular +2/+1) and wouldn't have taken balance into account. That would be a really weird assumption: dwarves in earlier editions are no flavour justification for this, and 'not taking an extra +1 into account balance wise' would be design incompetence. And I'd make the same case for classes with 'unlogical' combinations.

So what P. G. Macer's says, but with the addition that I don't know if Crawford is /wrong/, or is just making a general statment.

[Xeko]

It's the JK Rowling approach. Nowhere in the Harry Potter series is it suggested for a moment that Dumbledore was homosexual. Indeed, he actively flirts with both Prof McGonagal and Madam Pomfrey. Not that that necessarily precludes him from being gay, mind you, plenty of homosexual men joke around in that way with close female friends. It technically could go either way. But JK Rowling stating, after the fact, that a prominent character was gay the entire time was pure politics. Something to get brownie points among the kind of vocal types who care about such things. I feel like Crawford is doing the same here, saying the rules are just guidelines, generalizations, and stereotypes. It's a stance born out of anti-racist sentiment, which is all well and good, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees in the real world, but I think it's a mistake to apply to a fantasy setting with non-humans. Takes away a lot of the flavor of playing these archetypes.

Why do I feel that way? Why do I think this is all just pandering? Because Tasha's contradicts itself, on the same page no less. Tasha's confirms that the word "race" is a misnomer, that we are actually talking about different species entirely. This is why there's no such thing as a half-dwarf or half-halfling. Most of the races aren't sexually compatible with one another (presumably this would also imply half-elves and half-orcs are infertile, like real world mules. This would explain why both are considered "exotic races"). But, in the very next sub-section, the book discusses custom lineages, which would account for half-dwarves or half-halflings, or any mix of any two races. If all of the races are capable of mating with one another, then they aren't separate species at all. If the written book can't make up it's mind on a single page, how can we expect Crawford's account to be accurate and true?



Moving away from races, though... I think OP is greatly underestimating the appeal of some of other new class features. Some of the expanded spell lists are pretty big deals, like Aura of Vitality no longer being paladin exclusive. Monk's being able to self heal, yeah it's by a minuscule amount for 2 ki points, but just dump all your remaining ki before a short rest, and you won't need hit die. Rogues being able to give themselves advantage (and thus sneak attack) at any time, pretty nifty. The paladins and clerics being able to regain spell slots as a channel divinity. There's a lot going on. And, true, while many of the subclass themes could have been made to work with existing subclasses (fire or elemental themed Druids were a thing before Circle of Wildfire), there's nothing wrong with WotC offering us a BETTER way to do something we've already been doing. Indeed, if WotC is getting reports that there are an abnormal number of fire-themed druids out there, well, that's reason for them to make a specific fire themed subclass, specifically for that kind of player. The fact that we went out of our ways to twist abilities around to find ways to do these things is exactly WHY these specific subclasses were chosen. I personally don't care for the psychic/psionic aesthetic at all, and a good portion of the new classes fit that theme. I don't really feel like the high tech approach of artificer fits well in a pure fantasy setting either (depends on campaign world, better suited to Eberron than Forgotten Realms, imo). But even so, I think the book was overall a net positive. Underwhelming, maybe, but still good.

[MaxWilson]

I disagree with a lot of what you've posted here but I just want to narrow in on this particular point because I see it a lot.

The classes/races are not balanced by racial ASIs. As per Jeremy Crawford himself, racial ASIs were meant to reinforcing archetypes and never about game balance. See:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_nijkamp
(At about 16 minutes in)

I'd be more likely to believe that balance wasn't a consideration if it were Rodney Thompson or Mike Mearls saying this, and even then I'd be a bit skeptical because they were still operating based off of playtest feedback, and the playtesters may very well have been paying attention to balance. But Jeremy wasn't part of the core 5E design team, he was just a developer.

[ZRN]

Interesting listen, but what I hear is a very general statement, especially from the examples given: elves re not dexterious due to balance reasons, but to reinforce earlier edition stereotypes of races. I can imagine that's true. And if the rest of the game is balanced, it doesn't matter for balance if a race gets +2 dex / +1 int or +2 cha / +1 con.

BUT.

That's not goint into the specifics. It's does not say that they gave mountain dwarf +2 / +2 for purely flavour reasons (instead of the regular +2/+1) and wouldn't have taken balance into account. That would be a really weird assumption: dwarves in earlier editions are no flavour justification for this, and 'not taking an extra +1 into account balance wise' would be design incompetence. And I'd make the same case for classes with 'unlogical' combinations.

So what P. G. Macer's says, but with the addition that I don't know if Crawford is /wrong/, or is just making a general statment.

My generous interpretation is as follows:

1. The game as a whole isn't balanced around particular races having bonuses to particular ability scores. For example, gnomes don't have, say, a racial trait that would be OP if they could start with an extra +2 Wis. (This is clearly true: in fact, most racial abilities synergize nicely with their race's default ability score bonuses, so for example high elves get an Int bonus and a wizard cantrip.)

2. In the nitty-gritty there are clearly some races/feats that were balanced differently to account for non-synergistic ability scores. The obvious one is mountain dwarves: it seems likely that at some point they had maybe +2con/+1str, but playtesters noted that they sucked as fighters because their subrace abilities were redundant, so they tacked on another +1 str to make up for it. Those races benefit disproportionately from the Tasha's race rules. (Another example: the elven double-advantage feat synergizes extremely well with barbarians' Reckless Attack, and might have been balanced differently if elves were seen as a viable barbarian race when that feat was being tested.)

3. (This part is my interpretation): Despite this, when playtesting the custom race rules for Tasha's, they concluded that any new imbalances those rules created were within acceptable margins, and were made up for by the benefits of these rules. (Those benefits are not primarily anything about being "woke" but instead the flexibility to play many new race/class combos and have them still be quasi-optimized, so you don't feel weak relative to other PCs if you want to play, say, a half-orc sorcerer.)

Obviously I haven't playtested every new race/class combo, but I basically trust their assertion here that it doesn't screw things up too terribly. One piece of support for this argument is that it doesn't seem like there's been a huge revolution in char-op builds on boards like this: mountain dwarf wizards and half-elf barbarians are indeed cool and strong, but they don't seem to be "broken" in a way that's hurting people's play experience.

[KorvinStarmast]

...I’d be willing to bet that if Yuan-Ti Pureblood assigned its +1 to Dexterity or Constitution instead of Intelligence the number of DMs that ban the race would be even higher than it currently is. Likewise, I suspect that if Vedalken had by default ASIs other than +2 INT +1 WIS they’d be much more popular among powergamers, and you’d see people trying to play them in non-Ravnica games more often. I ban Yuan ti now, and I ban Ravnica. (I made an exception for Order cleric, but the player chose another domain instead anyway).

As for the 'custom lineage', I like it more, since it is much better balanced and gives other races than human the chance to start with a feat. Yes, it's nice.

Worst are the talking bard and the bookish wizard. If creativity is at such an utter low, dear designers, call it a day, and go to the pub - mabye you find inspriration there (thoug mabye that's the reason, bars are closed these days of course). That got a grin out of me ... :smallsmile:


The option to undo earlier choices that didn't turn out right is really nice. yeah, buyers remorse for new players in particular is a nice thing to be able to fix.


It's the JK Rowling approach. {snip}
If the written book can't make up it's mind on a single page, how can we expect Crawford's account to be accurate and true? Interesting take.
When we try to mix real life science/physics with fantasy world metaphysics and magic, it never ends well. :smallwink: I, for one, would love to see half elf and half orc be, by definition, sterile like mules as the default. (A predictable result would be nothing but half elf and half orc prostitutes and gigilos in the FR equivalent of Vegas, eh?) The rather annoying stereotype of bards as overly sexualized personalities would of course amplify, since half elves are a near perfect fit for bard ... :smallcool: The half orc tavern server now becomes a far more attractive option for a mild dalliance, right?

Some of the expanded spell lists are pretty big deals, like Aura of Vitality no longer being paladin exclusive. Monk's being able to self heal, yeah it's by a minuscule amount for 2 ki points, but just dump all your remaining ki before a short rest, and you won't need hit die. I am usually out of ki by the time of a short rest, though.

I'll address these points like a list for brevity's sake.



Rogues being able to give themselves advantage (and thus sneak attack) at any time, pretty nifty.
The paladins and clerics being able to regain spell slots as a channel divinity. There's a lot going on.
And, true, while many of the subclass themes could have been made to work with existing subclasses (fire or elemental themed Druids were a thing before Circle of Wildfire), there's nothing wrong with WotC offering us a BETTER way to do something we've already been doing.
Indeed, if WotC is getting reports that there are an abnormal number of fire-themed druids out there, well, that's reason for them to make a specific fire themed subclass, specifically for that kind of player. The fact that we went out of our ways to twist abilities around to find ways to do these things is exactly WHY these specific subclasses were chosen.
I personally don't care for the psychic/psionic aesthetic at all, and a good portion of the new classes fit that theme. I don't really feel like the high tech approach of artificer fits well in a pure fantasy setting either (depends on campaign world, better suited to Eberron than Forgotten Realms, imo).

1. Yes. 2. Yes, squared. 3. My fire druid homebrew never got its last scrub, but I still like it better than the one in Tasha's. 4. Good point. They do ask questions and take surveys. 5. Agree on artificer. I have only allowed one, and that's because the player is a good friend; I otherwise do not allow them. If I were to ever run Eberron (I need to read some of the novels, I think, to get a better feel) I would of course have them; I think they fit Eberron very nicely based on what's in RftLW.

[Sception]

I agree that mountain dwarves are an issue because of the racial armor proficiency specifically. Racial armor proficiency being a problem in general, one of the reasons why no other proficiencies can be traded for armor proficiencies in the new system.

If you remove the armor proficiency issue specifically - ie with a house rule that if you choose to swap any racial ability scores you first lose any armor proficiencies from the race - then mountain dwarf specifically stops being a problem, and without the issue of mountain dwarves specifically I don't see any particular problem with the racial customization rules. Yeah YTPurebloods are problematic, but they were already problematic and rarely allowed so that's nothing new and if they were banned anyway it hardly matters.

And honestly? even with the mountain dwarf problem, I'm more than happy to put up with mountain dwarf wizards, sorcerers, and bards if it means we can also have more forest gnome druids, drow clerics, shadar-kai hexblades, and other perfectly on theme race/class combinations that previously were rarely seen due to mis-matched racial ability bonuses.

Yeah, the system's slapdash and a better system would be built around these sorts of options to begin with, but the cats well out of that particular bag.


Beyond that, I quite like most of the new and optional class features, though I wish they were presented as phb errata as well. The new subclasses are very much like xanathars, a mix of reprints and evolutions of UA content, some of it weak, some strong, some dull, some interesting, but with at least several options that I'd love to actually try. The feats are nice. I like the new summon spells, probably the best implementation of that concept that we've seen in 5e. Some of the items are cool, though as a player they're out of your hands. The DM stuff has some interesting ideas but half baked implementation, which is unfortunate but absolutely on par with Xanathar in that regard.

I'm not saying the book is perfect, and I'm not saying it couldn't have been better, but I'm confused how anyone expected anything much different than this.

[MoiMagnus]

It's the JK Rowling approach.

I don't really think that's the case, though I agree there is some similarities.

For me, the thing that sum up Tasha is the Monk's new "option": "Hey, here is a feature that we consider should have been in the Monk from the start, fixes some problem the monk has, but we're just gonna pretend like it is an option and not an errata because peoples are gonna complain way too much if we significantly edit the PHB classes."

I think that's preparing for future releases. PF2 already got rid of the "race" terminology, using "ancestry" instead. It would not surprise me if future D&D editions got rid of ability modifiers from race/ancestry entirely. They're currently making half steps and taking a contradictory stance because they're too afraid of taking bigger steps.

[MaxWilson]

Another example: the elven double-advantage feat synergizes extremely well with barbarians' Reckless Attack, and might have been balanced differently if elves were seen as a viable barbarian race when that feat was being tested.

I agree with your main point, but not with this example, because (Nitpick): Reckless Attack only works with Strength, and Elven Accuracy doesn't work with Strength. There is zero synergy between them.

[Xervous]

I think that's preparing for future releases. PF2 already got rid of the "race" terminology, using "ancestry" instead. It would not surprise me if future D&D editions got rid of ability modifiers from race/ancestry entirely. They're currently making half steps and taking a contradictory stance because they're too afraid of taking bigger steps.

We do have the apology letter penned at the peak of the bandwagon forming up on the latest marketing buzzword. It was a box from corporate they had to check and it’s not surprising the material is a tad unpolished aka rushed.

[ZRN]

I agree with your main point, but not with this example, because (Nitpick): Reckless Attack only works with Strength, and Elven Accuracy doesn't work with Strength. There is zero synergy between them.

Oh, good point! I hadn't actually read the text of Elven Accuracy in forever.

[ZRN]

I think that's preparing for future releases. PF2 already got rid of the "race" terminology, using "ancestry" instead. It would not surprise me if future D&D editions got rid of ability modifiers from race/ancestry entirely. They're currently making half steps and taking a contradictory stance because they're too afraid of taking bigger steps.

They're taking half-steps because you can't change that stuff mid-edition. If you're worried they're using PF2 as a model in the future, bear in mind that PF2 actually still includes ancestry ability modifiers - and penalties, even!

[Xervous]

They're taking half-steps because you can't change that stuff mid-edition. If you're worried they're using PF2 as a model in the future, bear in mind that PF2 actually still includes ancestry ability modifiers - and penalties, even!

That’s about the only part of PF2 they could use that wouldn’t invite worry. Well maybe the degrees of success on spells if they don’t also cripple spells.

[Willie the Duck]

My generous interpretation is as follows:
1. The game as a whole isn't balanced around particular races having bonuses to particular ability scores. For example, gnomes don't have, say, a racial trait that would be OP if they could start with an extra +2 Wis. (This is clearly true: in fact, most racial abilities synergize nicely with their race's default ability score bonuses, so for example high elves get an Int bonus and a wizard cantrip.)
2. In the nitty-gritty there are clearly some races/feats that were balanced differently to account for non-synergistic ability scores. The obvious one is mountain dwarves:


If you remove the armor proficiency issue specifically - ie with a house rule that if you choose to swap any racial ability scores you first lose any armor proficiencies from the race - then mountain dwarf specifically stops being a problem, and without the issue of mountain dwarves specifically I don't see any particular problem with the racial customization rules. Yeah YTPurebloods are problematic, but they were already problematic and rarely allowed so that's nothing new and if they were banned anyway it hardly matters.

And honestly? even with the mountain dwarf problem, I'm more than happy to put up with mountain dwarf wizards, sorcerers, and bards if it means we can also have more forest gnome druids, drow clerics, shadar-kai hexblades, and other perfectly on theme race/class combinations that previously were rarely seen due to mis-matched racial ability bonuses.

Yeah, the system's slapdash and a better system would be built around these sorts of options to begin with, but the cats well out of that particular bag.

I tend to agree. Regardless of WotC statements, it sure seems that stat-benefit dis/synergy and overlap were design principles for certain races, including mountain dwarves and yuan ti. Those, plus half-elves, have gotten a significant shot in the arm by using Tasha's without DM intervention. I also agree that it is a small price to pay if it convinces people to play more on-brand-but-redundant-ability themed characters, and for that matter directly off-brand characters like half-orc wizards. Yes, it is an after-the-fact-patch and like most of those does the job less well than if the system had been designed from the ground up with this in mind, but it's hardly the first time in TTRPGs that such has happened.

Regarding Tasha's as a whole, it seems a bit sparse on stuff for which I was really champing at the bit. Some of the subclasses are interesting new mechanics, but other than psionics, there weren't a lot of themes I didn't think an existing archetype could accomplish (perfect example: eloquence bard -- nifty new mechanic, but I never thought a lore bard wasn't sufficient to play the type of character I'd now use eloquence). There are some fixes to existing classes, and they are pretty good for monk and fighter (and some of the ranger fixes, although nothing will work until they address the exploration pillar in general). It's nice to have artificer in the main product line, and some updates to some of the SCAG material, but overall the book is mostly a splatbook of unnecessary-but-probably-fun new archetypes.

[diplomancer]

Worst are the talking bard and the bookish wizard.

Thog misses talkey-fighter-man archethingy.

As to the racial stats and balance thing. Crawford is being disingenous. Yes, the chosen ASIs are not there for balance, but for reinforcing archetypes. But if they did NOT consider which ASIs which races get to try to balance them with each other, they were remiss in their duty of at least trying to make a somewhat balanced game.

So, design process probably went more like this: archetypes->ASIs + Features-> check whether the whole package is more or less balanced (except for Dragonborn, those are silly and no one should play with them ever, let's make them suck).

[Sception]

People complain about the scribe wizard, but I like that there's now at least one wizard subclass for players who just want to play a wizard without any particular extra flavoring on top. Like the old non-specialist mage wizards. Other classes generally have subclasses of that type. The champion 'just a fighter', the thief 'just a rogue', oath of devotion 'just a paladin', etc. Uncluttered vanilla archetypes. It's many not something I'm normally looking to play myself, but I don't at all mind it existing. And if you look past the flavor to the mechanics and the particular stories you can tell with it, I like Scribe all the more. I mean, the overeager but untrained apprentice drawing arcane power beyond their personal ability from a book containing the spirit of a great wizard of yore, or maybe of the apprentice's deceased mentor, seems like a neat character concept, and one that the scribes wizard would bring to life more explicitly than any other wizard subclass.

And then there's the mercy monk, genie warlock, psychic warrior fighter (yeah I'm bitter about the overall approach to psionics in 5e but the psychic warrior in and of itself still looks pretty cool), wild magic barbarian.... there's a lot I'd like to try in theory.

Even if in practice I'll probably just make another conquest paladin next time I get the chance.

[P. G. Macer]

I’d also like to point out on another (race-unrelated) thread in this conversation, is that the Eloquence Bard, which has received some complaints here, actually first appeared in the Theros book, and its Tasha’s appearance is a reprint. Many of the complaints of it being overly powerful existed back when MOoT came out, and since the subclass was reprinted without any changes, they still hold.

What is interesting to me is the complaints about it being overly generic, because I didn’t feel that way about it in MOoT, but in the context of TCoE, I can see how that could be an issue. Oratory and rhetoric were a prestigious art in antiquity (Since Theros doesn’t concern itself with Rome, the main historical Greek example that comes to mind is Pericles’s Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War), so its inclusion in the Theros Book made sense and was thematic. In Tasha’s, however, devoid of the context of the setting it was made for, I can see how it just comes off as “The talking bard.”

I ban Yuan ti now, and I ban Ravnica.

I also ban Yuan-Ti already, as it happens, and ban elements of Ravnica too depending on what world I’m running. I always ban the backgrounds and Simic Hybrid, and often reserve Spores Druid for evil characters due to my worlds having a more traditional attitude towards undead, and the Loxodon and Vedalken are reserved for less serious contexts, while the other races printed in that book also appear elsewhere.

[MaxWilson]

People complain about the scribe wizard, but I like that there's now at least one wizard subclass for players who just want to play a wizard without any particular extra flavoring on top. Like the old non-specialist mage wizards. Other classes generally have subclasses of that type. The champion 'just a fighter', the thief 'just a rogue', oath of devotion 'just a paladin', etc. Uncluttered vanilla archetypes. It's many not something I'm normally looking to play myself, but I don't at all mind it existing. And if you look past the flavor to the mechanics and the particular stories you can tell with it, I like Scribe all the more.

I'd have to say that War Wizard does this "no particular flavoring" thing better than Scribe wizard, despite the name. Getting to do minor counterspells (Arcane Deflection/Deflecting Shroud) and having better numbers when concentrating isn't a completely generic thing, but it's more generic than having a mystically intimate relationship with a haunted book. That is, War Wizard's bonuses can be divorced almost completely from the game world fluff (you could even rule that the PC is barely even aware of them, he just feels more alive somehow when he's busy concentrating on magic), whereas you can't do that with a Scribe wizard.

[KorvinStarmast]

the main historical Greek example that comes to mind is Pericles’s Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War), OK, so where's that like button again? :smallbiggrin: +1 I think I wrote three papers (8-10 pages) on that book. (academic requirement, not anything of brilliance)