D&D 5E Are proficiency swaps too strong for some races?

[ScuroNotte]

You can swap out armor or a weapon for a weapon or tool. In the example, an elf can swap a long sword for a tool as per page 8. So if a player playing an Elf martial character who already gains martial weapons through the class, can swap the 4 weapons (longsword, shortsword, shortbow, longbow) for 4 tools. Or a martial Mountain Dwarf character can exchange 4 weapons and 2 armor proficiencies for 6 tools.
Or am I over reacting.

 

[Charlaquin]

Tool proficiencies no. Armour proficiencies for casters combined with two +2s however is definitely better than what most other races can bring.

I think people are overvaluing the second +2. And if the armor proficiency is all you’re taking Mountain Dwarf for, I think Tortle or Warforged are at least as good if not better options.

 

[tetrasodium]

But some races is still better for certain classes than other races, now it just happens that mountain dwarves and perhaps half elves are better for almost any class than any other races. So I'd say the situation is actually worse than before and certainly not any better.

I think that the problem is less those races being better so much as wotc being so afraid of making something truly good that they hamstrung what should have been good & capable of standing alongside variant human.

Spoiler: Here are a bunch of examples

Spoiler: dragonborn

Spoiler: various aasimar

Spoiler: firbolg

Spoiler: Goliath

Spoiler: Lizardfolk

After the first couple levels it's not even that good even if it were at will!

Spoiler: Triton & many others

I believe every race that knows spells has the same hamstrung mechanic. It's not a spell you consider known or prepped, just a spell you can cast once

Spoiler: hobgoblin

Spoiler: Kobold

Spoiler: Goblin

Likely many others I'm not exhaustively pulling together. Time after time they put in a half baked feature on a race like a spell you can cast once but don't get to count as a free prepped or known spell or they put in a feature with a very specific use case (deal your kevel in extra damage n one attack once per long rest) rather than limiing it like the tabaxi dash or giving a smaller value on every attack.

[/spoiler]
Oddly had they not done this "almost good" racial feature so often we might never have seen a need to add a rule for juggling attribute bonuses.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I disagree. People are real hyped about elves and dwarves right now, but I think time will tell that they’re not even the most powerful races under this system. And again, the differences are minor enough I think this change will only increase diversity in race/class combinations.

They were minor before too yet some people got utterly fixated on a 5% differences. Once the character building guides get updated with this new information and certain races get marked top tier and others as trash the same people will feel the pressure to choose 'the best race' even though in practice the difference is rather insignificant.

And as a person who cares about system aesthetic, I have to say that this feels like such a horrible kludge. Like there is no any sane justification for some races just getting more ability points and more other free stuff. I disagree about removing racial ASIs, but I fully recognise that is preference issue. However this unbalanced mess is just objectively bad. By all means get rid of racial bonuses or even races altogether, but then at least make it so that every character gets the same amount of stuff!

 

[jmartkdr2]

You'd be surprised how many people will straight-up deny that 5e Dragonborn suck.

It's a reasonable point of view if you differentiate "is weaker than everything else" from "sucks."

I've played several dragonborn characters and never felt underpowered, but it's definitely the weakest race (and therefore isn't a good benchmark for determining what's overpowered.)

 

[BacchusNL]

They were minor before too yet some people got utterly fixated on a 5% differences. Once the character building guides get updated with this new information and certain races get marked top tier and others as trash the same people will feel the pressure to choose 'the best race' even though in practice the difference is rather insignificant.

And as a person who cares about system aesthetic, I have to say that this feels like such a horrible kludge. Like there is no any sane justification for some races just getting more ability points and more other free stuff. I disagree about removing racial ASIs, but I fully recognise that is preference issue. However this unbalanced mess is just objectively bad. By all means get rid of racial bonuses or even races altogether, but then at least make it so that every character gets the same amount of stuff!

I disagree. Even as an optimiser myself I think the dominance of Human Variant was way to much before and I'm convinced these chances will only increase race variety at tables.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I agree that the variant human is the most effective race for most builds, and that is because it is the most customizable (even allowing a feat at first level). And it is likely that the changes in Tasha's will change that balance.

At the same time, however, of the races that are in the PHB and subsequent volumes, I think there's no doubt that dwarves and elves are both the most powerful and the best supported (have any other races been given exclusive subclasses?). And, with these changes, that gap -- between elves and dwarves on the one hand and all other races except v-human -- increases. Not only can stats now be shifted, but the weapon proficiencies can be swapped for multiple tool proficiencies; an option available to very few other races.

Increasing the spread in ability doesn't make sense. If we were talking about backgrounds, for example, and said that each background provided 2 skill proficiencies and 2 proficiencies in languages and tools, but sometimes they provided 6, it would pretty obviously be imbalanced, and the obvious solution would be to give everyone the 6, if they wanted it.

The only reason not to do that here is because the player or DM wants elves and dwarves to be more powerful than other races. It was suggested above that this might be a mark of longlived races, and if that's your approach, great -- you have an in-world reason for the mechanical imbalance. But it is an imbalance.

If you don't think it's an imbalance, and that tool proficiencies don't mean much, then DMs might as well give up to four extra tool proficiencies to any character (except v-human?) for free. That would also solve the problem.

 

[DnD Warlord]

It’s tools... they’re barely useful, I’m not sure what makes it broken??

In my games we use some tools a lot (smiting, alchemy, theives, herbalism, navigation) but some never

 

[Undrave]

The real problem is that some races are just bad, not that elves or dwarves are too good.

 

[BacchusNL]

I agree that the variant human is the most effective race for most builds, and that is because it is the most customizable (even allowing a feat at first level). And it is likely that the changes in Tasha's will change that balance.

At the same time, however, of the races that are in the PHB and subsequent volumes, I think there's no doubt that dwarves and elves are both the most powerful and the best supported (have any other races been given exclusive subclasses?). And, with these changes, that gap -- between elves and dwarves on the one hand and all other races except v-human -- increases. Not only can stats now be shifted, but the weapon proficiencies can be swapped for multiple tool proficiencies; an option available to very few other races.

Increasing the spread in ability doesn't make sense. If we were talking about backgrounds, for example, and said that each background provided 2 skill proficiencies and 2 proficiencies in languages and tools, but sometimes they provided 6, it would pretty obviously be imbalanced, and the obvious solution would be to give everyone the 6, if they wanted it.

The only reason not to do that here is because the player or DM wants elves and dwarves to be more powerful than other races. It was suggested above that this might be a mark of longlived races, and if that's your approach, great -- you have an in-world reason for the mechanical imbalance. But it is an imbalance.

If you don't think it's an imbalance, and that tool proficiencies don't mean much, then DMs might as well give up to four extra tool proficiencies to any character (except v-human?) for free. That would also solve the problem.

Personally I have always been thoroughly confused by the fact that A feats are an "optional" rule in 5E (Although so deeply ingrained in D&D that I havn't seen many tables where they wern't standard) and B they didn't just make "feat at level 1" baseline.

I guess it had something to do with trying to get away from 4E-style character building at the time but trying to pass them off as "optional" only lead to them being more of an afterthought development-wise, which is how we ended up with things like Mage Slayer on the one end and GWM on the other.

And this problem only got exacerbated when in the same breath (or book, rather) they created Human Variant, setting up those feats (plus the flexibility of assigning 2x +1's at will) up against the racial kits and the predetermined stat bonusses of other races.

If only they had put in a bit more thought into the whole thing initially (balancing out the feats and racial traits, level-gating some of the stronger ones to level 4 or 8 ect) then all these band-aid solutions would not be needed.

 

[jgsugden]

Is this a joke thread?

Are people seriously worried about the number of tool proficiencies a PC can get? If so, stay the heck away from Xanathar's guide, because tool proficiencies are 10 weeks of downtime and 250 gp each. An elf that gets a few levels behind them can take a year of downtime and add 5 tool proficiencies (or languages) easily.

Remember: Balance isn't like in physics - it isn't a point. It is a range. If things are balanced, they can be fun to play, and do not ruin the fun of others when played. Every character option in 5E fits in that range.