D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[Maxperson]

How far and high can a 5e house cat jump? If they take a 10' running start, they can long jump a number of feet equal to the Str score and high jump a number of feet equal to 3+Str mod; without the running start, they can jump half those values (either long or high).

The strength score of a cat is...3 (-4 mod).

...5e is not a simulationist game

Rulings over rules is a guiding principle of 5e. That allows the DM to ditch the rule and simulate a cat jumping.

 

[Maxperson]

If a Badger and a Commoner in D&D 5e play 10 games of Dragonchess, on average, the Badger will win 3 of those 10 games.

So, yeah, I completely agree with you.

I dunno. I've seen some humans playing chess that would lose to my chihuahua.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, but pretty much every time, the conversation goes, "It's not about optimization, it's about making sure I have that +2 where I want it" (which is to say, where it's optimal). I honestly haven't seen a single argument that doesn't boil down to that.

Really? I've seen dozens of people, between the various online platforms I discuss DnD on, talking about not liking that they can't make a weak and sickly minotaur wizard, because having the +2 just isn't going to go away, for instance, and I've seen even more arguments about folks being uncomfortable with categorical divisions referred to as "race" having such strong elements of essentialism. I know you've seen those arguments too, because I know you've been active in the same threads wherein I've seen them.

But even then, the arguments you're paraphrasing are being unfairly interpreted, here. Being able to represent the character you imagine isn't the same thing as doing what is optimal.

I'm pretty sure that they are using some definition of optimization that this somehow doesn't fit, so it's not about bad faith, it's about perception. Those who are saying that it's not about optimization are seeing it differently than I am.

Then they aren't talking about optimization. It's that simple.

But I still haven't heard any argument that I perceive as anything other than about optimizing your character.

Yes, you have. You just refuse to recognize them or take them at their word, for some reason.

"I want to be able to play a half-orc wizard" overlooks the fact that you can do so without a +2 Int, and that there have been half-orc wizards in the PH since 3e. "You have to be able to keep up" is about optimizing.

You're ignoring what people have actually been saying. It's dissatisfying to play a character that is wrong, just because some other people you'll never meet irl don't like the idea of orcs that are naturally very intelligent.

My high Dex and Wis Forest Gnome Ranger just plays more satisfyingly because he has a low Int, just as much as because of his high Wisdom.

But even if we were to just accept your premise without challenge, so what? Seriously? Why do you care?

Some percentage of the population of gamers are just going to enjoy the game more if they can make their Goliath Warlock just as accurate with Eldritch Blast as they would be if they'd colored within the lines and played a fighter or switched to a tiefling. I don't think it's nearly as big a percentage as the people making the other arguments, but I genuinely don't understand why it matters. Their preferences are just as valid as yours or mine.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because optimization in this context is being construed as a negative, and folks don't want to say that's what they're doing? Or folks honestly don't realize that aspect of the rules change?

I mean maybe. I think it's just about people wanting their character to be the character they imagine.

What possible definition of game-breaking? Game-breaking in terms of trivialising encounters, of course. A full caster with the very rare DC increasing spell book/censer/what have you can have a spell save DC of 20 as early as Level 9, and at that point they can completely derail what was supposed to be an epic and challenging fight with a single save-or-suck spell. The beholder, a CR 13 creature (meaning it needs to be a challenging encounter for a party of four level 13 PCs) has a Strength of 10 and a Dexterity of 14, meaning you could make it almost guaranteed that the Beholder will fail a save by using a Strength save or a Dex save spell. Suddenly, your epic confrontation at the end of the dungeon becomes a "I restrain the Beholder with a Maximilian's Earthen Grasp and the Fighter proceeds to pummel the poor thing." And unlike Warlocks, who can only do this two times per encounter with a very limited spell list, the full caster will have a far larger selection of spells and spell slots, meaning that each monster will get at least one laser-precise save-or-suck spell their way.

Until the Beholder...ya know....looks at it.

And if you've given any PC a +3 accuracy boosting item at level 9, it's your own fault if the changes more than you can adapt for. Very very obviously.

Sure, you can work around this. Legendary resistances, multiple monsters, monsters with abilities that specifically counter the wizard... But all this designs around one specific feature of the full caster with the high spell save DC, and a feature that requires everything else in the game to take it into account or be trivialised is the definition of game-breaking

There is absolutely nothing in the game that fits that description.

The funny thing is, WotC had hours of footage that proved the game-breaking potential of giving DC-increasing items to full casters in the form of Scanlan's Hand Cone of Clarity in Critical Role Campaign 1.

You mean the item that...in no way broke the game? What show were you watching??

This was a homebrew item that was a holdover from the party's Pathfinder game that increased Scanlan the Bard's spell save DC by 1 (so not even close to the +3 provided by the Very Rare version of the items in Tasha's), and Mercer visibly hated the item and how it allowed Scanlan to guarantee that some of his NPCs will fail their saves. Later in the campaign, Mercer would make sure that the item's use was minimal by requesting that Scanlan declare that he's casting via the hand cone (which Scanlan's player, Sam, often forgot to do), and despite that the item was clearly overpowered and completely threw the balance off of some of the encounters.

Mathew Mercer is not a genius. He's just a guy. He had a similar reaction to the damage output of Vax, of all characters. He tuned down the Gunslinger, multiple times. For crying out loud Percy would have done more damage with Crossbow Expert and the Battlemaster Archetype.

I love CR, and Matt is a truly wonderful person and very skilled, dynamic, and creative, DM. But the idea that Scanlan broke the game on any level is just absurd.

Well, of course we cannot know who exactly designed which portion of the book, and it's true that Crawford is the lead designer in both books.

So then, we do know who designed the book. It's not complicated. The same person lead the design of the PHB, and Tasha's.

Also, just to be extra clear, I don't think the design philosophy they chose is in itself an abjectly idiotic/unbalanced/badwrongfun direction. I think the problem primarily came from pivoting the game's core design philosophy halfway through the edition, and that meant that old content was just designed with different priorities in mind and having the two content from different eras felt awkward if not janky.

Okay. You're free to see the design of thegame as "janky", but that's literally nothing more than your preferences not being met as specifically as they were with earlier books. That's it. Absolutely nothing more.

Short rest and "PB per day" archetypes run just fine in the same team. The game just isn't significantly different.

Yes I've seen the twilight cleric in play and we used the various optional race stuff.

Okay, what specific problems came up because of those options?

The archetypes are also tuned fairly high mist of them getting high rankings in tier lists.

Okay. Which ones do you feel are higher powered than any archetype in the PHB?

And things like the class tweaks are also power creep.

No, they aren't. The top tier classes barely got anything, what they did get didn't significantly raise their power level they just fixed some pain points in their design, and the big beefy variant features went to the weakest classes in the game. Absolutely nothing in Tasha's raises the power level above what you can make in the PHB.

If you use the lot you get some powerful combinations eg 18 starting score level 1 without rolling, race and class combi out performing the phb by a bit.

I'm not sure what you mean, here. You could have an 18 starting score at level 1 from the PHB.

And again, I'm gonna need some serious proof before I take seriously the idea that anything in Tasha's or enabled by Tasha's outperforms the PHB.

The better races also benefit more from Tasha's than the weak ones as well.

Examples?

Were Mountain Dwarves generally considered one of thebetter races? I sure didn't see any optimizers playing them outside of dirt simple DPR builds that couldn't be bothered with anything outside DPR spreadsheets.

Meanwhile, I've seen a lot more Goliath Druids and Gnomish Fighters and Barbarians, so...

 

[Maxperson]

I can understand those words, but I find the meaning so bizarre as to be surreal. Decades of precedent, in D&D, other games, fiction, movies, etc., including the fluff and non-ASI racial abilities still in 5e, are not erased because Tasha’s makes this one change. 20 years from now you will be able to ask even a non-gamer to describe elves or dwarves or orcs and you won’t find anything changed.

Type changes with the game. Charismatic Tieflings were in type during 2e. Charismatic Tieflings were against type during 3e. Charismatic Tieflings are again in type with 5e. When they change to have no Charisma bonus or penalty with the changes, there will be no more Tiefling type dealing with charisma.

 

[Horwath]

We should get rid of ASIs for "standard" PC races all together and just modify point buy.
It would be much simpler.

point buy pool: 32pts

score 8: 0 pts
score 9: 1 pt
score 10: 2 pts
score 11: 3 pts
score 12: 4 pts
score 13: 5 pts
score 14: 6 pts
score 15: 8 pts
score 16: 10 pts, MAX start score by default.

score 17: 13 pts, optional(would not use it)
score 18: 16 pts, optional(would not use it)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

When they change to have no Charisma bonus or penalty with the changes, there will be no more Tiefling type dealing with charisma.

I just don't see that as a big deal at all. The fact that it's changed in past editions is proof that the "types" that the races have are quite fluid.

Like, if I want to play a tiefling, I'll play a tiefling because I want to be a fiend-blooded humanoid that is possibly descriminated against by humans and other races because of their infernal heritage. To me, that tells way more of a story than "they have a bonus to charisma" does. They still have a "type" even if they don't have "naturally charismatic". If you play a Zariel Tiefling you know that you're descended from a fallen solar that switched sides in the cosmic battlefield to help win the Blood War. If you play a Mammon Tiefling you know that your ancestral archfiend is a master con artist that always gets the good end of the bargain and has a treasure trove bigger than any dragon's hoard. If you play a Changeling you know that you can shapeshift at will and people might mistrust you for that.

All of that tells way more important and compelling stories than "my race has slightly bigger muscles/better eyesight/quicker reflexes than the average person".

 

[Ondath]

So then, we do know who designed the book. It's not complicated. The same person lead the design of the PHB, and Tasha's.

Let's just agree to disagree. We clearly have very different ways of looking at it, and at this point we'll just talk past each other.

 

[Minigiant]

The core issues in the Tasha's ASI discussion are:

1. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are not base combat stats in 5th edition.
2. Strength and Constitution have limited or redundant out of combat use in 5th edition.

You must pick certain classes and subclasses to leverage these ability score in combat or out of combat.

They used to be all combat and out of combat scores. In past editions, you could get base, core, or easy combat or out of combat power out of these ability scores. However in 5th edition you can't.

And D&D heavily leans to combat. So useless the table or DM indicates that the game swings one way or another, leaning to races that boost your primary score isn't power gaming. It is normal.

If 5e edition were allowed to be a bit more complex at base and balance the ability score, the Tasha's racial ASI customization variant rules would not be needed. A fighter could leverage + 2 CHA and a wizard leverage +2 STR and a cleric leverage +1 INT.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The core issues in the Tasha's ASI discussion are:

1. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are not base combat stats in 5th edition.

Well, Int, Wis and Cha are combat stats for Clerics, Wizards, Druids, Sorcerers, Bards and Warlocks. When half the core classes use certain stats for combat, they are combat stats.

The real problem is that the majority of classes use their main stat for both combat and out of combat, but the classes that don’t (fighters, barbarians) aren’t given additional out-of-combat features to compensate.