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.

 

[Wolfram stout]

Not at all. This doesn't change the physical appearance of any of the races.

I think that is the point. A half-orc (for example) looks like a half-orc always has, just chose the starting package of modifiers and abilities from a master table and go. They have not gone that far, but it is not a horrible idea. If you want a gnome with the breathe weapon from Dragonborn work with your DM for any required justification and you are good to go.

 

[Umbran]

Not at all. This doesn't change the physical appearance of any of the races.

Beyond size, the physical appearance is not a mechanical element. While the appearances described in the book set expectations, they have no power beyond that.

 

[SirGalrim]

What's the point of even having races (or lineages or heritages or species or whatever) anymore? They are now all basically humans that just look a little different. They might as well just say that it's just for flavour to pick a "race". Choose a race for aesthetics, then you choose two ability scores to get bonus, then choose your proficiency etc.

 

[Retreater]

And I don't know where this is going. You can do all of that while maxing out your stats too. I honestly don't see how this relates unless you're trying to imply that failing to maximize stats is on the same level of behavior... something I utterly reject as equivalent.

If the decisions made during character creation are so extreme, they can hamper the party's overall effectiveness. These can be based on roleplaying quirks or mechanics. Most of the times I've personally seen these come up at my table are from players deliberately wanting to break the social contact of the game.
And I think the contract of the game includes an element of working together to reach a common goal. "Bad" players are out for themselves. Making an intentionally ineffective character is selfish to the rest of the players.

 

[Kurotowa]

I'm asking why you feel that an elf with a Strength of 15 isn't already strong. In order to feel that your character is 'strong', or 'intelligent' or 'charismatic', do you feel that it has to have the maximum possible number that anyone can have in that attribute?

I'll turn it around. What's lost by making this change? If a small difference in ability score modifiers isn't a big deal to your eye, what's the harm in letting the people who care about it put their elf's racial ASI in Str instead of Dex? If it doesn't cause game balance problems, then you're saying it's a flavor issue and you're in favor of mechanically enforced racial essentialism. Which is fine for your game but you should see how not everyone's on board. If it does cause balance issues, then you're saying that those small differences really do make an important difference when it comes to power levels. Which proves the point that people don't want wide swaths of potential characters ruled out due to being mechanically deficient.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What's the point of even having races (or lineages or heritages or species or whatever) anymore? They are now all basically humans that just look a little different. They might as well just say that it's just for flavour to pick a "race". Choose a race for aesthetics, then you choose two ability scores to get bonus, then choose your proficiency etc.

Except a race in D&D 5e is more than ability score bonuses and proficiencies. There's size, darkvision, natural weapons, speed, and so much more that is more important to a race than a +2 to Dexterity.

 

[Parmandur]

So basically just make whatever you want, slap a name on it and call it good?

How do you think the designers came up with stuff the in the first place?

 

[DND_Reborn]

what's the harm in letting the people who care about it put their elf's racial ASI in Str instead of Dex?

There's no "harm" of course, except these ASIs aren't really racial anymore. Everyone (with two exceptions) get a +2 and a +1--- it now no longer has anything to do with your race. For the people this bothers, that is the harm.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There's no "harm" of course, except these ASIs aren't really racial anymore. Everyone (with two exceptions) get a +2 and a +1--- it now no longer has anything to do with your race. For the people this bothers, that is the harm.

That's kind of the purpose of this change. It detaches ASIs from race, and it should go even further in future editions, IMO.

 

[TheSword]

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.

Wait a minute, Rincewind isn’t dumb. He’s a smart guy who had all the lesser spells scared out of his head by one of the great spells. Yes he’s a coward, and extremely unlucky/lucky but he’s also amazing at languages and even spends a little time as a nuclear physicist.

Arguably a few of the faculty of UA come across as less switched on however it’s also strongly implied that they are cunning b@st@rds. I’ve always seen them as low Wisdom high Intelligence like a lot of people in academia (I live in Oxford Uk and see that all the time)