D&D 5E A First Look at Tasha’s Lineage System In AL Player’s Guide - Customizing Your Origin In D&D

The new player’s guide for the D&D Adventurers League has been released. Appendix 1 includes the new info from Tasha’s Cauldron on customizing your origin. It‘s a one-page appendix.

The D&D Adventurers League now uses this variant system from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything since it allows for a greater degree of customization. For ease of reference, the relevant information is included as an appendix to this document and doesn’t count against the PH + 1 rule.

You can do any of the following (obviously the full document has more detail):

1. Move your race ability score increases wherever your want to. “...take any ability score increase you gain in your race or subrace and apply it to an ability score of your choice.”​

2. Replace each language from your race with any language from a set list.​

3. Swap each proficiency for another of the same type.​

4. Alter behaviour/personality race-based descriptions.​

Its not clear if that’s the whole Lineage system or just part of it. You can download the player’s guide here.

 

[dave2008]

I think you are fortunate to not play with min maxers. There are tons of "class guides" out there and the reason there are is that they are popular.

I think you over estimate the % of TTRPG's that research their characters or the game on the internet. The users of these type of forums are a small fraction of the total players, and the active users is an incredibly small fraction.

In 30 yrs of playing I have never run into a min-maxer (many years, but sample size is very small). I've only ever heard such behavior discussed on online forums.

 

[TwoSix]

I wonder if there's any difference (on average) on this between those who played a long time with rolled stats and those who didn't. (Did rolled stats get people used to not being optimal? Did rolled stats give people a burning hatred of not being optimal?). If I was more anxious to avoid work it would be fun to write a big survey and do a discriminant analysis/CART/whatnot to see what falls out.

Do you like beans?

Do you like George Wendt?

Do you like George Wendt eating beans?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I could see dwarves being keen to trade their axes for rapiers, whips or longbows.

But one thing to consider: read this text carefully:

The implication is, if you make changes, it should be justified by the character's backstory.

I would suggest that DMs who feel that a change is not justified by the character's backstory the ability/ASI is lost. This is the approach taken by several superhero RPGs.

 

[TwoSix]

I would suggest that DMs who feel that a change is not justified by the character's backstory the ability/ASI is lost. This is the approach taken by several superhero RPGs.

Or you just adjust your backstory to fit the rules you want. I think this would only be a problem if you were applying these rules changes retroactively to existing characters.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not going to dispute that medium armor is valuable, but that's really all you're getting from Mountain Dwarf. If you expect to get attacked a lot it's very good, but it's perfectly reasonable to have games where you aren't going to get attacked a lot.

Yea, I don't think anyone is arguing it's bad. Mountain Dwarf is certainly a top tier option for any class that doesn't get medium or heavy armor proficiency natively. It's just not a no-brainer pick.

 

[Oofta]

I think you over estimate the % of TTRPG's that research their characters or the game on the internet. The users of these type of forums is small fraction of the total players, and the active users is an incredibly small fraction.

In 30 yrs of playing I have never run into a min-maxer (many years, my sample size is very small). I've only ever heard such behavior discussed on online forums.

In home campaign I only hit it once, or at least only once that it was obvious. In public play it was more common, but it was more of an issue in 3.x.

 

[Retreater]

Come on, folks. Is min-maxing the worst thing there is? I'm a good player, contribute to role-playing, want to help the GM move the story forward, look for out of the box solutions to problems. But I also want my character to be good at what he is supposed to do in the group. I don't want to bring in a wizard with a 12 Intelligence or some other sub-optimal build just because "it's a cool character concept." I can have good stats AND a cool character concept.
D&D is like a team sport. You don't put your slugger in to pitch, and you don't put your pitcher in to bat cleanup. Everyone has roles to play if the team is going to succeed.

 

[TwoSix]

Come on, folks. Is min-maxing the worst thing there is? I'm a good player, contribute to role-playing, want to help the GM move the story forward, look for out of the box solutions to problems. But I also want my character to be good at what he is supposed to do in the group. I don't want to bring in a wizard with a 12 Intelligence or some other sub-optimal build just because "it's a cool character concept." I can have good stats AND a cool character concept.
D&D is like a team sport. You don't put your slugger in to pitch, and you don't put your pitcher in to bat cleanup. Everyone has roles to play if the team is going to succeed.

Believe me, I wish more people min-maxed. In one of my campaigns, I've deliberately made a non-combat focused character just to see if anyone else will pick up the slack.

 

[oreofox]

I guess I am lucky in that I don't really have the power gamer/minmaxer/whateveryouwannacallit player in my games. For the last 2 years, I've switched the ASIs to be closer to how they were in the playtest: +2 from class (usually in the scores tied to the class's save proficiency) and +1 wherever from race. I've only ever had a single mountain dwarf, and that was a fighter (so the armor prof meant nothing anyway). I can see there being a lot more mtn dwarves in AL from those who go on the internet looking for guides on how to build a powerhouse.

I have played in games with the more power-oriented players, so I typically chose a race who gave a +2 (or the +1 from subrace) to my class's primary stat. So in the rare case I get to play again, this could be nice and open up other combos. Variant human and half-elves will still be dominant. If this change means seeing more dwarves being made, then I think it is a good change. And as I said previously in this thread, if this makes it where there will be more tieflings who aren't warlocks, more non-rogue halflings, half-orcs that aren't barbarians, then it's a net bonus. Would be nice to see a tiefling druid for once.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The mountain dwarves getting to keep both of their +2s that they originally had because didn't synergise with their other traits offends me. Like it is not a huge balance issue in practice but it is the sort of imbalance I hate. I can deal with imbalance which is a side effect of simulating something, but not the sort that is simply complerely arbitary and blatantly due the designer not bothering to think things through. If we are moving to floating bonuses then at absolute minimum those bonuses should be the same for everyone.