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.

 

[MGibster]

I'd say it's reasonable to apply the Multiclassing minimums as a requirement to choose a Class, but people act like 5E is unplayable with suboptimal characters, but it just ain't so.

I agree with you there. As a player, I don't really care to spend my time building the optimal character. And as a GM, I don't expect my players to build for maximum efficiency either. But I do expect any player bringing a Rogue, Wizard, or Fighter to bring one that's pretty good at the role they intend to fill.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm playing a Hill Dwarf Bladesinger right now. We use rolled stats in that campaign, but his highest attribute is in CON and he works just fine.

What was his starting INT?

 

[MGibster]

In my mind, however, D&D is not like a sports team.

A D&D party has a lot in common with a sports team in that each participant has a role to play in order to help the group achieve their goals. It's very similar to football where teams have quarterbacks, running backs, guards, tackles, centers, and receivers. And like any team, you expect every participant to be able to carry their weight.

If I lived in a D&D world, I (and every sane, comfortable individual) would remain behind the city walls and never leave. If I were to venture past the gate, it's too likely I would crushed by a giant club, , sold into slavery, scorched by a dragon, gobbled up by a T-rex, shredded by a displacer beast, or have my brain sucked out by a mind flayer.

But that clearly isn't the case as every D&D world I'm familiar with has traveling merchants, villages, and other NPC types who live outside the confines of a municipal wall.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yeah. Dark vision makes adventuring less adventurous. Its existence is a net negative on play.

You know that darkvision in 5e is heavily nerfed from 3.x and 4e. Relying on 60ft bad vision asks for trouble more often than not. Your passive perception relying on vision is at -5 penalty which negates a 20 in wisdom or proficiency of a 15th level character...

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Probably the races keep most of their flavor and identity despite this change, just like they did when racial level caps were removed. Maybe some specific associations are lost, like when gender specific ability modifiers were discarded, but some things deserve being thrown out. Is it going to ruin the game by having un-elfy elves that are strong and un-dwarfy dwarves who are smart? Hardly. Elves will still be elfy and dwarves will still be dwarfy.

Maybe your strong elf is the exception that proves the rule, or maybe their background is that they trained with the elven Gryphon Knights who unlike most of their people specialize in heavy arms and armor. Either way, the DM is still determining what your average elf is like. Besides, as the AL PDF takes a moment to remind us, the PC racial package was always only intended for PCs. It "doesn’t apply to every dwarf, just to dwarf adventurers, and it exists to reinforce an archetype." Changing the PC racials does literally nothing to change what the average civilian or NPC is like.

So no one needs to panic that elves will be less elfy because not all of them are lithe and graceful. Even if the DM decides that remains the most common mode of elven people in their game world, PCs are exceptional and are often exceptions. Now we've just got more mechanical support for the elf who took up bodybuilding so he could show off his pecs, or the dwarven runemage who spent most of her days in the library, or the orphan drow that was raised by dwarves and grew up in a smithy, or the charming half-orc that channels the passion in his blood into song and dance.

Why do you believe that you could not play a strong elf or an intelligent dwarf or a charismatic half-orc already?

every class should get +2 to abilities that could raise one or two of class favored abilities. +2 to one ability or +1 to two abilities. Class and race ability boosts cannot go over +2.

At the point at which you're removing ASIs, it is probably best to do so completely. No need to get bonuses from being a particular class: you can just put a higher score in the ability you want to have a high score in.

Yeah. Having a wizard with a 12 Int (or in a group that I DMed, actually with an Intelligence penalty) is different than one with a 14 or 15 Intelligence. I know it's only a +1 modifier, and mechanically it can be insignificant, but I think the wizard should feel like one of the most intelligent party members. The party is relying on you to be able to at least try to be effective at your role.

Why would the wizard not be one of the most intelligent party members even if they didn't get a starting ASI?

Otherwise, it's the same argument as the thief who steals equipment and ties the fighter's shoelaces together while he sleeps, the whole time saying "I'm just playing my character."
If your character is doing stupid stuff that is going to endanger the mission, my character is going to have a problem with you. If you are a good player, you should have some connection to the adventure your DM has planned and you should want your party to succeed.

That would seem to imply that if you don't optimise to the exclusion of everything else, you're letting the group down.

I disagree. Emphatically.

What works in an awesome book like The Colour of Magic might not work well in a game. Rincewind is a lot of fun in the books, he'd probably be a lot of fun in a game using FUDGE, but I don't think he'd be a lot of fun in D&D. But, hey, if that's what floats someone's D&D boat I'm not going to tell them they're doing it wrong. But I do think most players have an expectation that the wizard, fighter, or cleric in their party is going to be pretty good at fulfilling their role.

Do you believe that a 1-point drop in intelligence compared to the absolute optimised maximum means that the character is no longer "pretty good" at fulfilling their role?

 

[Parmandur]

I agree with you there. As a player, I don't really care to spend my time building the optimal character. And as a GM, I don't expect my players to build for maximum efficiency either. But I do expect any player bringing a Rogue, Wizard, or Fighter to bring one that's pretty good at the role they intend to fill.

And I think most people want to be competent, but if one player comes in wanting to be Rincewind...well, the game will still work, that might be more of an interpersonal issue to cover in Session Zerom

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Counter Fun Fact: You can play an exception to the inherent description of a fantasy race (like a bookish weakling orc) without it disrupting the game OR the world in which the game is set.

Yes, but this just makes a different race optimal for something. In a game with different abilities you always find a best fit.

I think allowing for a bit flexibility is not a bad idea, but the races of the PHB are not balanced to just swap atribute bonuses.

You need to completely rewrite defining biological ability bonuses into other bonuses.
4e did a good job there actually:
Elves with elven accuracy
Halfling second chance
(Essential) Human +3 to one roll per short rest (I can't remember the name)
Dragonborn BONUS action dragon breath and resistance to elemental type.
Dwarves BONUS action second wind

You felt dextrous or sturdy or like a dragon or versatile as human, regardless of your stats.

 

[Retreater]

Was coming on here to write a response to one comment I was tagged in and realized there were a lot of references to my sports analogy and concerns that I'm a gaming elitist/gate-keeper.

So everything I'm posting is about my personal gaming preferences. I don't have fun playing with someone who sacrifices their character's effectiveness (and by extension, the party's effectiveness) with intentionally sub-optimal character decisions. There is as lot of wiggle room with what I mean by that. I'm not saying your melee fighter must have an 18 Strength with a 1d10 weapon. I'm saying that if your melee fighter comes in a 10 Strength and 18 Intelligence because as a player you want to create a bookish nerd who also runs away when the monsters come, I will not want to play with you. You have made my wizard a sitting duck, kept me from spending my resources to do what I want to do, and you are commandeering my fun.

I come to the gaming table to surmount the challenges of the campaign world and to participate in epic adventures. If your group is okay with purposefully ineffective characters who regularly converse about why they should be motivated to adventure at all, it's probably not my game, but have fun.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Be snarky all you like. I love it when players play one dimensional min/maxed characters with giant, glaring flaws. It makes it so easy to challenge them.

So that basic human who got a +1 to their lowest stat is fine getting out of the pit and the min/maxed character who got a +0 to that same lowest stat dies horribly because the difference of a half a modifier bonus is that critical in your campaign???

 

[Kurotowa]

Why do you believe that you could not play a strong elf or an intelligent dwarf or a charismatic half-orc already?

Because narrative informed traits don't hold up if they lack mechanical support. But we've been going round and round on that one for multiple threads, so you'll excuse me if I find the question a bit disingenuous.