D&D 5E Tasha's and optimization

[Weiley31]

Curse those Mountain Dwarves and their ages of magical study and tradition. Curse them for the fey and arcane race they are! Wait...

Remember the days where they had a anti-magicish passive in earlier editions?

 

[Fenris-77]

Remember the days where they had a anti-magicish passive in earlier editions?

Indeed I do! A significant part of the general hilarity for me.

 

[abirdcall]

I suppose, sure. I'm not even remotely interested in character optimization in 5th mind you, so I haven't given it a ton of thought. I can build cheesy with the best, but it's just not something I care about. 5E has more than enough neat options that I find more interesting things to do. YMMV, or course.

You just said you do care about optimization talking about how racial ASIs limit class availability.

They really don't. People make fun and effective characters with a 15 in their main stat.

Tasha's does nothing for balancing race choice for classes. It just moves around which ones are best. I think it is more likely to make it worse. At the very least it makes a mockery of what themes different races are supposed to represent. We still have races which will be best for certain classes only now they often don't make any thematic sense.

 

[embee]

Winged Tieflings, Winged Kobolds, Aaracokra, etc... become very useful to pretty much every type of PC for their flight.

Red Bull might give you wings but wings give you problems.

1) Aaracokra can't fly in medium or heavy armor.
2) If the armor isn't designed to accommodate wings, then the PC either can't wear the armor (won't fit over the wings) or the wings can't manifest.
3) AoO apply in all 3 axes. If the PC doesn't have a feat like Flyby, than leaving the monster's reach opens it up to an AoO.
4) Hot air rises. Flight doesn't grant immunity from area effects. Cones and spheres go up and down too.
5) Ceilings

 

[Fenris-77]

You just said you do care about optimization talking about how racial ASIs limit class availability.

They really don't. People make fun and effective characters with a 15 in their main stat.

Tasha's does nothing for balancing race choice for classes. It just moves around which ones are best. I think it is more likely to make it worse. At the very least it makes a mockery of what themes different races are supposed to represent. We still have races which will be best for certain classes only now they often don't make any thematic sense.

Not caring about it personally is very different from not knowing what it is or how it works.

That said, I don't get how floating the bonuses doesn't open up a given lineage to more class options given that you can stick 'em where you want or need. It kind of has to work that way at least in terms of ability scores related to class choice. There's a cogent argument that this just more emphasis on the other lineage abilities, and that does have some weight, but that's also not what you said.

I'd also maybe suggest that allowing for builds that work against some of the legacy race-class themes was precisely the point of Tasha's. That doesn't mean that anyone has to like that fact particularly, only that it's the case.

 

[ECMO3]

I reject that premise. Neither from a theoretical point of view, nor from play experience are dex based characters stronger than str ones, except if they are focussing solely on ranged or are rogues/light or no armor users.

Edit: to counter the initiative argument..
If you are a melee character with extra attack, in some typical scenarios you actually want lower initiative, because if you are 60 ft apart (dark vision range), it is better that the wizard first casts the big area spells and then you want the enemy to come close first, so you can then use your movement and extra attack feature.

The problem with strength build is high dexterity generally gets you almost everything a high strength gets you and more.

Dexterity is used for more skills, more important saves, initiative and you can get nearly as high an AC and the weapon choices you lose without strength are not that much better than the finesse weapons, while the weapons you lose with a strength build are ireplacable.

It is not just that dexterity gets better missile weapons, it gets you all the missile weapons that you can effectively use extra attack with (bows, sling). Sure a strength guy can throw a javelin and only loses a little damage doing that, but he can't throw 2 javelins in a turn without a fighting style, a feat or starting the turn with one of them already in his hand (which will only last that first turn). Meanwhile your dexterity melee guy can drop his rapier or shortswords, pull his bow off his back and start shooting twice a turn with his bow on that turn and keep doing it until he runs out of arrows.

The only things strength is better for is:
1. athletics (at the expense of 3 dexterity skills)
2. Lets you use slightly better melee weapons which will net you up to 1.5 more damage per attack
3. Gets you 1 point better on AC.

The last argument on initiative is not true, because it presumes the enemy does not beat you. The enemy can beat both you and the wizard, get between you and really screw up his AOE spells (in addition to chopping him down because no one could move to block him), whereas if the fighter one he could prevent that or at a minimum make the enemy pay for it.

YMMV but having playing both, dexterity builds are generally much better IME except for grapplers or Barbarrians

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think there's much of an argument that DEX isn't the combat stat for 5E, for better or worse. Fenris grumbles into his cold cup of coffee about Elven Paladins wielding rapiers and prancing about like nincompoops...

 

[ECMO3]

Also being dex based is very taxing. You practically have to bump it to 20 if you want to stay on top with AC.

This is not true. As a matter of fact Dexterity of 14 puts you 1 point behind a strength build and a dexterity above 14 does nothing for max AC without a feat. There is literally no reason to invest in dexterity for AC on a martial. You invest in dex for your attacks, damage, saves and skills.

Half plate a 14 dex or higher is AC 17
Full plate is AC 18

If you assume you start with 16 dexterity you can match heavy armor with 1 feat (medium armor master) and no further investment in dexterity at all. So if you play a V Human you could do this at first level without using a single ASI for dexterity. Not saying that is a good idea, but it will get you the same AC as a strength character would have right at level 1.

I mentioned Barbarians above, the other use I have had for high strength characters are grappler builds of any class, but that is a corner case. Other than those two though I feel like you would pretty much always be a stronger character with dexterity instead.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The problem with strength build is high dexterity generally gets you almost everything a high strength gets you and more.

Dexterity is used for more skills, more important saves, initiative and you can get nearly as high an AC and the weapon choices you lose without strength are not that much better than the finesse weapons, while the weapons you lose with a strength build are ireplacable.

It is not just that dexterity gets better missile weapons, it gets you all the missile weapons that you can effectively use extra attack with (bows, sling). Sure a strength guy can throw a javelin and only loses a little damage doing that, but he can't throw 2 javelins in a turn without a fighting style, a feat or starting the turn with one of them already in his hand (which will only last that first turn). Meanwhile your dexterity melee guy can drop his rapier or shortswords, pull his bow off his back and start shooting twice a turn with his bow on that turn and keep doing it until he runs out of arrows.

The only things strength is better for is:
1. athletics (at the expense of 3 dexterity skills)
2. Lets you use slightly better melee weapons which will net you up to 1.5 more damage per attack
3. Gets you 1 point better on AC.

The last argument on initiative is not true, because it presumes the enemy does not beat you. The enemy can beat both you and the wizard, get between you and really screw up his AOE spells (in addition to chopping him down because no one could move to block him), whereas if the fighter one he could prevent that or at a minimum make the enemy pay for it.

YMMV but having playing both, dexterity builds are generally much better IME except for grapplers or Barbarrians

Yeah. I think this is fundamental design flaw in the edition. I already deleted rapier, and I've seriously considered making long bow to use strength instead of dex.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah. I think this is fundamental design flaw in the edition. I already deleted rapier, and I've seriously considered making long bow to use strength instead of dex.

I like both of those notions.