D&D 5E The New D&D Book: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything!

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The new D&D book has been revealed, and it is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, "a magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game." The 192-page book is due out November 17th, with standard and alternate covers, and contains more subclasses, spells, character options, group patrons, and rules. Oh, and psionics!

Cover art is by Magali Villeneuve

WHAT WONDERFUL WITCHERY IS THIS?

A magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game.

The wizard Tasha, whose great works include the spell Tasha’s hideous laughter, has gathered bits and bobs of precious lore during her illustrious career as an adventurer. Her enemies wouldn’t want these treasured secrets scattered across the multiverse, so in defiance, she has collected and codified these tidbits for the enrichment of all.

• EXPANDED SUBCLASSES. Try out subclass options for every Dungeons & Dragons class, including the artificer, which appears in the book.
• MORE CHARACTER OPTIONS. Delve into a collection of new class features and new feats, and customize your character’s origin using straightforward rules for modifying a character’s racial traits.
• INTRODUCING GROUP PATRONS. Whether you're part of the same criminal syndicate or working for an ancient dragon, each group patron option comes with its own perks and types of assignments.
• SPELLS, ARTIFACTS & MAGIC TATTOOS. Discover more spells, as well as magic tattoos, artifacts, and other magic items for your campaign.
• EXPANDED RULES OPTIONS. Try out rules for sidekicks, supernatural environments, natural hazards, and parleying with monsters, and gain guidance on running a session zero.
• A PLETHORA OF PUZZLES. Ready to be dropped into any D&D adventure, puzzles of varied difficulty await your adventurers, complete with traps and guidance on using the puzzles in a campaign.

Full of expanded content for players and Dungeon Masters alike, this book is a great addition to the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Baked in you'll find more rule options for all the character classes in the Player's Handbook, including more subclass options. Thrown in for good measure is the artificer class, a master of magical invention. And this witch's brew wouldn't be complete without a dash of added artifacts, spellbook options, spells for both player characters and monsters, magical tattoos, group patrons, and other tasty goodies.

Here's the alternate cover:

UPDATE! An online event called D&D Celebration from September 18th-20th will be hosted by Elle Osili-Wood, which is "an epic live event with panels, gameplay, & previews of the book!" See the video in the Tweet below!

Gather your party and join the adventure at  D&D Celebration 2020, an online gaming event open to fans all over the world!

Celebrate the release of  Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden  with a weekend of Icewind Dale–themed virtual play sessions and help us create the biggest virtual tabletop roleplaying game event ever! Fans will also get the chance to preview some content from  Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the forthcoming book featuring massive rules options, subclasses, and more for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Watch featured play sessions with D&D luminaries and learn something new with a slate of panels led by the D&D design team and community.


UPDATE! Check out the Nerdarchy site for some previews.

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Has, Well… Everything for 5E D&D

The follow up to 2017’s Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, on Nov. 17, 2020 fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons upcoming Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything must indeed possess powerful …

nerdarchy.com

UPDATE! Other news items around the web about this book:

With D&D's Next Rulebook, Character Creation Will Never Be the Same

Although Dungeons & Dragons’ fifth edition has added as many classes, races, and rules as it has since it first began, for the most part, the way players create characters has stayed the same. You pick a race, that race defines certain things about you, and so on. But the game’s next sourcebook...

io9.gizmodo.com

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything coming in November, brings new ways to personalize your characters

Wizards of the Coast has announced its next D&D book! Entitled Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, this rules expansion follows up Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and will be available on November 17th. Providing both players and DMs with the tools to level up their games, the 192 page tome will be...

gamingtrend.com

Dungeons & Dragons Announces New Book and Fall Event - IGN

The D&D team reveals an online community event in September and a new sourcebook soon to follow.

www.ign.com

D&D's next expansion, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, adds new subclasses and racial customization

Dungeons & Dragons is getting its biggest rules expansion in three years, courtesy of one powerful witch. In November, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything will hit shelves, offering D&D players several new subclasses, some exciting new spells, and a new way to create characters that’s fully...

www.syfy.com

 

[MarkB]

To be clear, I like Phantom Menace a lot! I actually think it’s the strongest film of the prequels. It just, again, isn’t relevant to what I think is the narrative core of the series. Episode order is fine, but it is far less narratively focused and thematically cohesive than either trilogy on its own. Machete order aims to resolve that issue; YMMV on how successfully it does so, but I think it’s the best one can do to tighten up the narrative interplay between the to trilogies short of a full-on different cut.

The sequel trilogy throws a wrench in the whole thing, but VII and VIII work as a continuation of Luke’s story.

I like Episode I mainly because it shows, more than even the other prequel episodes, what fully-trained Jedi Knights in their prime are actually capable of. It gives a new context to seeing Luke's progression through the sequel trilogy.

 

[Weiley31]

So glad to find someone as passionate about Episode I as I am (and for the record, I saw IV in theatres when it was just called Star Wars). But I fundamentally disagree that Machete order is fine. The series is far better in Episode order (and Episode films only first, then back to cartoons and anthology films).

I thought the Phantom Menace was a good movie. Heck it introduced the Fandom's love of Maul and gave us Qui-Gon Jinn: the poster boy for the "onscreen" depiction of a Grey Jedi in attitude. I think what knocked it hard, aside from Jar-Jar, but the fact that it was "wordy" and focused more on the Political aspects of what was driving the story. Attack of The Clones was more of an "actiony" take and critics complained bout that. Revenge of the Sith had what was considered to be the "balanced" approach to both of the talking/action that the two prior movies attempted to do.(Not to get off topic in the message board.)

Also yes we need an Arcane Adept fighting style officially to go alongside Druidic Fighting Style and Blessed Warrior Fighting Style.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like Episode I mainly because it shows, more than even the other prequel episodes, what fully-trained Jedi Knights in their prime are actually capable of. It gives a new context to seeing Luke's progression through the sequel trilogy.

That’s cool to see, but I don’t think it serves the narrative enough to justify keeping it in the final cut.

 

[Undrave]

That is an interesting take on the battlemaster. So you could build a warlord class that starts using superiority dice from level 1 on and probably can use them at will or has a few more uses than the fighter. That would be the first warlord concept I would really like. It does not use a new subsystem but retcons the battlemaster as fighter with warlord abilities.

Pretty much yeah. Even the name is like a step down... from 'War' to 'Battle' and 'Lord' to 'Master'.

I've been working on my own Warlord class that takes a somewhat different approach (it's based on the Rogue to have an at-will feel), mostly because I had an idea I thought was cool and wanted to expend on it, but I could also go for this path of being Superiority dice based with more dice, more maneuvers, and, importantly, level-gated and subclass gated maneuvers.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I totally get your point... Maybe the 'Fighting Style' could just let you make your attacks magical? Like...

Arcane Adept
You gain proficiency in the Arcana Skill if you don't already have it. As a bonus action, you can make all your weapon attacks for the turn be considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance to non-magical damage. If you do so, your weapon attacks also inflict additional Force damage equal to your Intelligence modifier (min. 1).

It's a bit out there but it sorta fits the bill of making you feel more magical at level 1?

Just spitballing'.

In the vein of spitballing.

The extra damage is a bit too much. Consider dueling is a +2 damage on a die no larger than a d8.

This takes you bonus action, but gives you a magical weapon (usually not relevant but if it is, you have doubled your damage output). If you are planning Eldritch knight you likely have a +3 INT, making it more damage, in addition to it working on any weapon (ranged or melee). And you gained a skill. Since most fighter's bonus actions aren't getting used, this would be the most powerful fighting style out there.

The design space for magic and fighting styles are just too incompatible, I think. You are either going to make a style obsolete (such as if you gave a reactionary bonus to AC, which is likely superior to defensive's passive +1) or you are going to make it so weak it doesn't feel like it is actually making you part caster at level 1.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I watched the original "Star Wars" trilogy with my little sisters a few years ago; it was the first time they had seen it. Watching a movie with a newbie is a great way to take off your own nostalgia glasses. I sat through the first half of "New Hope" thinking "Holy crap, this movie is bad. Not just not as good as I remember it, this is actively bad. Everything I hated about the prequels, all the wooden acting and wretched writing, here it is. No wonder the reviewers trashed it when it came out."

I rewatched Princess Bride with my kids, and yes, some scenes really showed their age.

 

[Undrave]

In the vein of spitballing.

The extra damage is a bit too much. Consider dueling is a +2 damage on a die no larger than a d8.

This takes you bonus action, but gives you a magical weapon (usually not relevant but if it is, you have doubled your damage output). If you are planning Eldritch knight you likely have a +3 INT, making it more damage, in addition to it working on any weapon (ranged or melee). And you gained a skill. Since most fighter's bonus actions aren't getting used, this would be the most powerful fighting style out there.

The design space for magic and fighting styles are just too incompatible, I think. You are either going to make a style obsolete (such as if you gave a reactionary bonus to AC, which is likely superior to defensive's passive +1) or you are going to make it so weak it doesn't feel like it is actually making you part caster at level 1.

I just didn't know if the magic weapon thing was strong enough on its own, since it's not super relevant until maybe the point where the Monk can just get magic fists.

What you could do is make a new Shillelagh that works on any weapon, setting the damage to d8, and just have the style give that along side either Prestidigitation, Mending, Dancing Light and maybe one other thing?

It wouldn't give you as much offence and would start you off as a gish?

 

[FrozenNorth]

Honestly, a brief Star Wars detour is always preferable to re-litigating the 4e wars for the zillionth time.

Hey, a lot of Bothians died in the 4e wars!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You never know what's going to hold up and what isn't.

I watched the original "Star Wars" trilogy with my little sisters a few years ago; it was the first time they had seen it. Watching a movie with a newbie is a great way to take off your own nostalgia glasses. I sat through the first half of "New Hope" thinking "Holy crap, this movie is bad. Not just not as good as I remember it, this is actively bad. Everything I hated about the prequels, all the wooden acting and wretched writing, here it is. No wonder the reviewers trashed it when it came out."

It got better in the second half, and "Empire" and "Jedi" held up much better. But man, Episode IV is never going to be the same for me.

That's funny to me, because I find that it holds up better than Empire.

And no, it's definitely not nostalgia.

 

[Marandahir]

@Charlaquin @FrozenNorth @doctorbadwolf

Spoiler

To be clear, I like Phantom Menace a lot! I actually think it’s the strongest film of the prequels. It just, again, isn’t relevant to what I think is the narrative core of the series. Episode order is fine, but it is far less narratively focused and thematically cohesive than either trilogy on its own. Machete order aims to resolve that issue; YMMV on how successfully it does so, but I think it’s the best one can do to tighten up the narrative interplay between the to trilogies short of a full-on different cut.

The sequel trilogy throws a wrench in the whole thing, but VII and VIII work as a continuation of Luke’s story.

I don't think I can separate out Episode I from Luke's story - it's too important to show the parallels between innocent Anakin on Tatooine and innocent Luke on Tatooine, and with Episode I as the pivotal moment that defined Anakin's journey, it provides necessary context for Luke's temptation and risk of fall. The saga is about these parents and their children and their (dysfunctional) relationships, and Vader saving Luke from Palpatine is letting him become the father he never got to have because Qui-Gon died. There's a really good discussion of the important of Episode I by Dave Filoni on the Making of the Mandalorian series on D+, if you're interested.

Hey, a lot of Bothans died in the 4e wars!

FIX'd for you.

That's funny to me, because I find that it holds up better than Empire.

And no, it's definitely not nostalgia.

Oh, I agree. Leia in particular is a lot more inspiring of a character in IV than she is in V. This is something that particularly has bothered me over recent rewatches of the OT - Leia's character degrades over the course of the series. As does the marksmanship of Stormtroopers, fyi (in IV they're purposefully missing on Vader's command; in V-VI they're just bad shots because they were comically bad shots in IV; missing the point of Vader's hubris).

Okay okay I'll stop.

On a separate topic, I'm hoping they did some feat revisions ahead of this book - Artificer Initiate itself seemed a very poor patch to Artificer not showing up in the Magic Initiate list of casters. Would be better IMHO to just reprint the original feat with errata in this book, saying that at your DM's permisision (as always) you can use this version of the feat instead of the original.