D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[Arilyn]

I have no problem with Tasha's. As far as balance goes, 5e has never been particularly balanced and Tasha's is not making things worse. Rolling for stats in a game where stats are so coveted has a huge potential for imbalance. The PHB has overpowered Moon Druids in comparison to elemental monks or Beast Master rangers.

I like the subclasses, the artificer and the feats. Floating ASIs are fine. I don't really have any points that the other pro Tasha's have not already brought up. I just don't see it as the beginning of the end!

 

[Blue]

I think if anyone has a problem with an eight foot fantasy species being stronger than a three foot fantasy species they're being a bit silly.

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1. The 3 foot PC and the 8 foot PC have the exact same maximum strength in 5e.
2. What we are talking about holds true even for races that get a +1 to their STR, so the rhetoric what we are talking only about the weakest races is just a strawman argument you are making.
3. The discussion is not about species, that's listed in the Monster Manual. It's about PCs, who already are outliers. It's about "is it possible that there is a single person in a race who is at a higher potential in some category than the average for their species".

Again, for 4d6 drop the lowest rolled PCs, 1 in 11 with a +2 in an ability could start with a 20. But there is no chance any with a +1 could start with a 20. Ever. That's a pretty step drop to say h, this is correct.

(Chance of an 18 in six sets of 4d6 drop the lowest is 9.34% - roughly 1 in 11.)

 

[Arilyn]

Firbolgs get a +2 wisdom, +1 strength in the original system, I believe. Flipping those make just as much sense, if not more so. If I'm picturing a high elf with a higher charisma than intelligence, that too makes a lot of sense. I can certainly picture a dwarf with a +2 wisdom or a Tiefling with anything but a +2 in charisma. I don't think floating ASIs should be thrown out because small races can now put a +2 in strength, when they can work toward a 20 regardless.

 

[Weiley31]

I honestly think Tasha's gets too much slack from the 5E crowd for being/adding "broken" stuff. Honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Not like your DMing a Campaign where the whole party are Twilight Clerics.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I like the subclasses, the artificer and the feats. Floating ASIs are fine. I don't really have any points that the other pro Tasha's have not already brought up. I just don't see it as the beginning of the end!

If you aren't doomcasting, you aren't trying hard enough.

Besides, just think of the joy you'll have the one time you are right, and it really is the end!

...I mean, that joy will be pretty short-lived, but still!

 

[Umbran]

IMO adding the +2 bonus based on the class you choose and the +1 bonus based on the Background you choose would be a better way to go about it, but nobody asks me these things.

When playing against traditional type, I've liked putting the +2 where I needed it, and the +1 where there would traditionally be a +2. I can partially hold up the traditional type, without being strictly bound to it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is a matter of play style. I don't accept that PCs are so unique and special that they share nothing in common with the species that birthed them other than superficial appearance. Setting first is absolutely a thing.

That is one of the biggest mischaracterizations of a book/someone's position on this site that I've seen in a while. Literally, no one/no part of TCoE is advocating for "only superficial appearance differences between races". If you see the whole identity of the race tied to whether or not they have a +2 to Strength . . . you're just as bad as the optimizers that the Anti-Floating ASI crowd complains so much about.

I know you hate the race changes in Monsters in the Multiverse, but if your image of them is "the only difference between races now is nonmechanical physical appearances," then you've got your head on backward. Seriously, just go look at any single updated race from Monsters of the Multiverse or Fizban's, and you will find huge mechanical differences between them that aren't just "superficial appearance differences." There is literally nothing about the new style of design for the game that would suggest that PCs only have superficial similarities with the average member of their race. Duergar still have psionic Invisibility and Enlarging abilities, just like the average member of their race. Elves learn proficiencies from trances that show them visions of past lives. Dragonborn have damage resistances, breath weapons, and specific features tied to the type of Dragon that they're the most closely related to. I could go on and on.

No one has argued that the only similarity between a PC version of the race and a monster version of the race should only be physical appearance. No book has changed the race rules to promote that theoretical playstyle. The fact that you seem to believe that's what some people want and are using it as a basis to support your own opinion is concerning.

 

[Minigiant]

Tasha's strikes me as having a lot of "complexity creep." The class abilities all add more things to track, more round-by-round options, more making use of bonus actions and reactions which slow the game down. For example, creation bard "mote of potential":

This happens every edition.

The start of the edition always does the basic stuff. After that you get twists and substitutions. Then all you have left is increased complexity.


5e skipped the twists and substitution stage by saying "your DM can do that". So boom 5e hit complexity creep fast.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Also, majority rules is a bad way to make rules changes anyway. You just create an irritated minority (especially hard to deal with if the DM is the one that's irritated).

I don’t know. Sometimes annoying the minority…depending upon which group we are talking about…is frosting on the cake.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think if anyone has a problem with an eight foot fantasy species being stronger than a three foot fantasy species they're being a bit silly.

I don’t think anybody does have a problem with that, when speaking of entire species.

It’s when we are talking about the rules for creation of that one-in-a-million creature who is going to be a player character that it gets trickier.