D&D 5E Fantasy Grounds Previews of Tasha's Cauldron

Ahead of the November 17th release date, the product page for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has several previews on the Fantasy Grounds website. The previews include the origins customization section, group patrons, sidekicks, and a look at the alternate class features for the ranger Beast Master.

 

[Mistwell]

That is all way blown out of proportion.
The bladesinger and maybe also the eldritch knight a little bit were hit by the sloppily designed bladesinger cantrips.
Both characters now had an ability that played poorly with GFB and BB as they were designed. Probably the best idea would have been completely redesign the cantrips and make them like at will variants of the smite spells. Cast on bonus action and unleash on next weapon attack. That would make them play well with both classes.
They now changed the extra attack from the bladesinger to be special, so that they can encorporate any cantrip. Probably they redesigned the eldritch knight feature to just upgrade extra attack to the bladesinger variant.
The game is actually hurt more by not updating sloppily designed spells and classes. Since the bladesinger is from a comparably unsuccessful supplement, updating the core seems a good idea.
The ranger didn't have the same luck.
Whirlwind attack and TWF don't work well together, actually Rangers have a lot of conflicts with their bonus action so better not use TWF in most cases.
Because for now the PHB is so holy to remain mainly untouched the Ranger gets a few alternate features as a patch.
Wait 3 years, and we will get the full upgrade to the PHB.

Your mentality to never ever upgrade can be compared to software developers refusing to update their system, because they fear to lose older uses, but they ignore that younger uses are used to much better developed systems and at some point have to notice that a newer contender has taken over the market.

You're misrepresenting my position, though I am not sure if it's intentional or just poor phrasing on my part.

I am not saying "never upgrade." At all, in any way. If that was implied by what I wrote, it's a mistake on my part and not my position.

I am saying all of the following:

1) don't use stealth errata to upgrade, use the errata which is the expected way to introduce errata,
2) make errata timely in nature, and do not wait 5 years if it's a known issue,
3) don't errata things which nobody was complaining about or which was a known real issue,
4) if you need to errata because of some new content you're creating, do it in a more elegant way that doesn't mess with older content such that existing players will suddenly feel like their characters are retroactively out of date.

IF this errata is so that new versions of classes can use these cantrips, then PUT THAT IN THE NEW CLASS. Or phrase the errata in such a way that those classes can use the cantrips while old characters outside of those classes can still use them the way they were previously using them. I am betting that's possible. In fact you're a pretty good rules-tinkerer yourself, and I bet you could have phrased these to be compatible with a an older existing class who just had the feat to make opportunity attacks with a cantrip, AND still be compatible with these new class versions, in a way that doesn't break anything.

 

[ph0rk]

For another, the EK can still take an entire attack action adn then BB with a bonus action,

You can't cast Booming Blade as a bonus action; you can use War Magic to cast it as a reaction when you'd usually have an opportunity attack (and it may still work that way, the specifics of targeting are obscured in the image - I hope so).

 

[Mistwell]

Kits and Powers and Options did not keep 2e fresh. Nor did new content keep 3e or 4e fresh....the Dragon Shaman class did not save 3e. The Seeker class or the Battlemind class did not solve the issues that 4e had.

My personal belief is Adventures keep game systems feeling fresh, not chunky salsa rule set additions.

The motive for updating BB and GFB is not keeping the game fresh, that at best, is an unintended side effect. The motive is clarifying poorly worded spells.

I understand and empathize with being frustrated at having the game mechanics change under one's feet.....but many of us, including you Mistwell, have gone through something like this before.
Two magical words will be thrust to the forefront:

Grandfather Clause.

Are you saying you could not have re-written these two cantrips, or the new versions of the classes, to accommodate their unbroken use by both the new class versions as intended and the old class versions as they were being used?

For example, if the issue is "I want the cantrips to be usable with a second attack, and it would be broken if they could also be used as an opportunity attack with the Warcaster feat in the same round where it's used with a second attack" then couldn't you just phrase the cantrip to accommodate that without preventing its use by someone with just a single attack and an opportunity attack?

There is no grandfather clause in 5e. They could write that one too though. They could say in the new book in a sidebar, "DMs, if existing characters were using these two cantrips with the warcaster feat prior to this errata, you should consider allowing that character to continue to use them in that manner, and it will be legal in AL for existing characters to do so." But we both know they're not going to do that.

 

[Weiley31]

So Wizards have Spellbooks that add +1/+2/+3
Warlocks have Rod of The Pact Keeper which adds +1/+2/+3
So for Sorcerers, they get the Extraplanar Shards for their +1/+2/+3?

 

[Weiley31]

Maybe I'm not seeing it, but how is changing the Bladesong, from only two uses of it, to potentially up to 6 uses via your prof rating, a nerf? I mean yeah it sucks you have to wait a decent amount of time to reach up to 5 or 6 uses via natural leveling, but being able to use it more than twice seems like a good thing. okay the change from short rest to long rest sucks. But I have no probs house ruling it that it changes back to a short rest.

 

[ph0rk]

Maybe I'm not seeing it, but how is changing the Bladesong, from only two uses of it, to potentially up to 6 uses via your prof rating, a nerf? I mean yeah it sucks you have to wait a decent amount of time to reach up to 5 or 6 uses via natural leveling, but being able to use it more than twice seems like a good thing. okay the change from short rest to long rest sucks. But I have no probs house ruling it that it changes back to a short rest.

The Long Rest change is the nerf, yeah - you go from as many as six uses in a standard adventuring day at 5th level down to three. If enough combats are spaced out over the course of that day, you'll be on empty.

At least you've got light armor, I guess.

 

[Remathilis]

So at this point, the only parts of SCAG unrevised or reprinted are

• Ghostwise halflings
• Path of the Battlerager
• Arcana domain
• Oath of the Crown
• Way of Long Death
• Purple Dragon Knight
• Undying Pact
• The backgrounds (many of which were just FR themed variants of the PHB ones)

That is a vanishingly small list of things, and most of them are considered inferior options as is. I'm pretty sure they are almost done writing the SCAG out of existence.

 

[Weiley31]

The Long Rest change is the nerf, yeah - you go from as many as six uses in a standard adventuring day at 5th level down to three. If enough combats are spaced out over the course of that day, you'll be on empty.

At least you've got light armor, I guess.

Okay. I figured that had to be it. Again I'm gonna change it back to a Short Rest.

 

[Guest User]

Seems like quite a substancial nerf. Going from two uses per short rest, which is most combats, to [PROF] times per long rest? That means that during a significant number of combats per day you are greatly reduced in being able to enter melee combat. You've already got low HPs for front line against anything with a save, now AC as well.

Many people didn't Bladesing to melee fight, many people used Bladesinging every combat to get an INT Bonus to AC and Concentration checks.

The intention behind Bladesong was never for Bladesong to be Always On.
"While your Bladesong is active, you gain the following benefits:"

In practice, the ability is always on.

I like the Wizard class, as a player, I enjoy Resource Management. The change to Bladesong, makes the subclass more appealing to me.

Now, my inner Power Gamer of course wants to have an Always On boost to AC and Concentration checks.....so that part of me is doing this:

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

There’s nothing about this book that makes me want to buy it. Nothing sounds exciting, nothing makes me want to play. It’s just a bunch of... stuff.