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.

 

[grimslade]

This probably deserves another topic, but it has been brought up in this thread. 5E is basically in maintenance mode. There will not be any large system changes to D&D for the foreseeable future. Psionics has shown that they have no interest in adding to 5E depth, so we will get iterative shuffles for the remainder of the 5E lifespan. The lifespan of 5E is essentially another 10 years, possibly more, at the current release pattern. There is no desire in the current designer stable at WotC to develop new systems that may upset the market position of the game. They may decouple subsystems from their silos, i.e. Stat bonus to the class silo, or other rearranging of existing systems as future rule options. The lesson learned from 4E and the UA process is that large change is bad and risk is to be avoided at all cost.

 

[Aaron L]

I absolutely love Bladesingers. I played my first Bladesinger PC back in '93 using the original 2nd Edition Fighter/Mage Kit, a Grey Elf from Celene in a Greyhawk campaign (I hate this modern assumption that Bladesingers are a specialty 'Realmsian thing; the CBoE was a general D&D sourcebook) whom I got up to the maximum levels for an Elf PC of his ability scores (Fighter 13/Mage 19.)
I later played a Gold Elf Bladesinger from Evermeet in a 3rd Edition/v3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign 16 years ago, and got him to 19th level (Fighter 4/Wizard 2/Bladesinger 10/Eldritch Knight 3.)
My current PC is now a 4th level Grey Elven Wizard of the Bladesinger Arcane Tradition in a campaign set in my brother's homebrew campaign setting.
I play them so infrequently even though I love them so much, because I love them so much, and I do not wish to have their specialness be diluted through overuse; I therefore reserve playing them for special occasions in campaigns with just the right conditions and flavor. No one else in our group has ever played one (although my brother would very much like to some day.)

And I very, very, intensely despise the idea of non-Elves being able to become Bladesingers.

Bladesingers were originally described in The Complete Book of Elves as champions of the Elven People, who practice a special, uniquely Elven, magically enhanced martial art, and this martial art was a closely guarded secret that was never taught to non-Elves (not even to revered Half-Elves) and altering these important details so as to allow non-Elves to become Bladesingers only serves to dilute its specialness and rarity, and renders this unique aspect of Elven culture that much more mundane and ordinary (which is yet another part of the ongoing trend of rendering rare and special things into commonplace and ordinary mundanities; if every other person in the world can do something that is supposed to be incredibly difficult, rare, and special, then there is no longer anything at all special about it, and its supposed difficulty is turned into nothing but a joke.)

The reason why the Bladesong was restricted to only Elves was for both cultural and for very practical reasons; it took decades to learn to do it, so that by the time a Human had managed to learn the steps he would be far too old to do anything with it. Also because Bladesinging requires the Elves special connection to magic and magical senses, which are a necessary part of the martial art, the Elf extending his senses out through the magic surrounding him.

I despised it in 3rd Edition when they opened it to Half-Elves (The Complete Book of Elves made it very clear that no non-Elf was ever taught the Bladesong) and if it is indeed true that they have now opened it up to any race then I despise this retcon even more.

If they want to have a subclass for melee-oriented Wizards then they can make a general Battle-Wizard Arcane Tradition; they could even use similar game mechanics as the Bladesinger! But the actual position and title of Bladesinger is a uniquely Elven cultural tradition (the champions of the Elven People, for Goodness sake!) and opening it up to just anyone is actually insulting to those of us who love the idea and concept of Bladesingers as more than just a mere collection of game mechanics.

 

[Aaron L]

So... people have been saying that they are changing the number of times that Bladesingers can use the Bladesong each day because there was a "problem" with some players using the Bladesong just to increase their AC and Concentration check bonus for them just to cast spells, rather than wading into melee combat to attack with their weapons. Is that right?

OK then, I just have to ask... what is the problem here? That was exactly what the Bladesong was created for. The Bladesong was supposed to be a defensive martial art that allows spellcasters to defend themselves with their weapons as they cast spells in combat. Isn't that exactly what these players are doing? I'm afraid I just don't see at all what the problem is.

This entire situation smacks of some writers wanting to try to force a certain playstyle on players, which was one of the main problems with 4th Edition, with the writers forcing every PC of each class to play in a certain playstyle and not allowing for any deviations from that style or your character was completely ineffective.

This is bad design.

Let players play their own PCs however they wish to. I play my own Bladesinger by going into melee combat and mixing weapon attacks with spells, and I think it is a boring waste to do otherwise, but there is no reason to try to force everyone into playing that way, and trying to enforce a certain playstyle on players is absolutely not the place of the game designers.

 

[Kurotowa]

This probably deserves another topic, but it has been brought up in this thread. 5E is basically in maintenance mode.

I would argue the opposite. The Dev focus on not flooding the market and future proofing their design by closing off exploits shows they're committed to sustaining 5e for a long time to come.

 

[Don Durito]

If you're looking for interesting mechanics that do more than the standard cautious WOTC approach check out some of the stuff by Kobold Press, especially Midgard heroes and Deep Magic.

They're doing a lot more. They don't always get it right and you may see balance issues if you offer it up carte blanche - but that's the price of trying new things.

 

[grimslade]

I would argue the opposite. The Dev focus on not flooding the market and future proofing their design by closing off exploits shows they're committed to sustaining 5e for a long time to come.

I don't mean maintenance mode like a dead video game. I mean there will only be iterations of existing rules with no changes to grow the depth and breadth of 5E. If you like what 5E has now, but want more adventures and the only rules update books will be stat shuffles and ribbon arrangements, that is what the rest of the edition will be for a long time until sales begin to drop off.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sounds like it is time for you to give 5e a rest. It's clearly coming towards the end of it's edition lifecyle, there is little more WotC can do with it. They are never going to release "advanced rules" because anything official that increases complexity is going to hurt people coming in at the bottom.

You’re right that they aren’t going to release advanced rules, but they’re definitely not coming close to the end of this edition’s lifecycle. As long as 5e continues to sell like gangbusters, they’re not going to move on to a 6e. And they’re going to continue releasing patches like the “alternate class features” rules in Tasha’s rather than starting a new edition for as long as they can manage.

 

[grimslade]

If you're looking for interesting mechanics that do more than the standard cautious WOTC approach check out some of the stuff by Kobold Press, especially Midgard heroes and Deep Magic.

They're doing a lot more. They don't always get it right and you may see balance issues if you offer it up carte blanche - but that's the price of trying new things.

This is my issue. There are many other publishers and DMs Guild authors doing innovative design work. WotC has decided to cede that design space. It is a rejection of what the D&DNext experiment could be. I won't see a WotC robust psionics system or a stronghold system or mass battle system. I will need to go to other publishers to get my fix. I will need to cut myself off from the AL world to pursue these campaigns. This is fine. It is an obvious marketing decision to go low risk but stagnant design space. The modular and mix and max subsystems approach is dead in the D&DNext era. Maybe when new designers will arise for 6E in a decade.

 

[Oofta]

This is my issue. There are many other publishers and DMs Guild authors doing innovative design work. WotC has decided to cede that design space. It is a rejection of what the D&DNext experiment could be. I won't see a WotC robust psionics system or a stronghold system or mass battle system. I will need to go to other publishers to get my fix. I will need to cut myself off from the AL world to pursue these campaigns. This is fine. It is an obvious marketing decision to go low risk but stagnant design space. The modular and mix and max subsystems approach is dead in the D&DNext era. Maybe when new designers will arise for 6E in a decade.

For better or worse D&D is a mainstream product. Well, as mainstream as an RPG can get anyway. That means, that they're the Toyota (or GM if you prefer) of the game world. Nothing too flashy, but you know what you're getting.

You can't please everyone, and they are not pursuing niche purchasers. As much as a vocal minority would like psionics as an example, there's hardly widespread demand for it. It's not that they haven't tried, it's that people who want it can't agree on what "it" is and most people simply shrug and say "meh". In addition, some statements were probably taken for more than intended. Add in shifting priorities from the early design phase and reassessment of a minority wish list vs pragmatism.

The fact that DMsGuild exists is a net positive ... people can get their psionics or weird west fix without the mothership taking that risk. If someone comes up with something that rises to the level of being worthy of notice, WOTC can just "borrow" the ideas. So I wouldn't expect any change, they don't need to. The types of things some people want simply isn't justified with the current model.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Reading all those complaints here and on reddit makes me think that WotC should maybe stop doing UAs.
The features we get are all balanced. Not over the top as some of the UA versions. The revised ranger in no way was good. It was way too good.
The new favoured foe feature is not very good. But favoured enemy was terrible. Yes it was a big situational diplomatic boost... but it is not a good thing for a player ability. The ranger of the PHB is more or less harmstrung by having two ribbon features at level 1. Now he gets an extra skill and expertise (half of the rogue bonuses) a less situational but easier to use sneak attack (which requires concentration). What I would wish for the ranger is con save proficiency instead of dex saves, so you don't lose it so easily or a combat casting feature baked in.
You get better armor and better hp and better weapons than the rogue, so the package is not bad at all.
The new features compare easily put the paladin features of that level to shame, who just has 5hp healing and divine sense and heavy armor which probably is just 1 more hp.