D&D 5E Is Tasha's More or Less The Universal Standard?

[Bill Zebub]

The different Attributes are value neutral: there is no balance factor to whether a +2 is for Constitution or Intelligence. Years prior to Tasha's, Crawford and Mearls had already said the difference was flavor and not balance. Samd with the Proficiencies involved.

That is not power creep, because it isn't even better in any real way.

I'm really puzzled about this argument. Surely their claim wasn't that a +2 Int is just as beneficial for a Fighter as is a +2 Str....?

 

[Stoutstien]

I'm really puzzled about this argument. Surely their claim wasn't that a +2 Int is just as beneficial for a Fighter as is a +2 Str....?

No. The point was that when they decided what ability scores were used with a race they mostly disregard classes and other PC options and just went with what matched the lore/feel they wanted. That's why you have the odd double mental score boosts here and there and how often con is used.

Half orcs didn't get a strength boost because they make good fighters as much as the fact they are usually generally stronger so they make good fighters.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Primarily benefits spellcasters. You can't get an 18 under point buy or default array level 1. Variant human doesn't get a +2, every other race doesn't get a bonus feat.

Fey and shadow touched enable it. Having 20 primary spellcasting stat is a lot better at level 4 vs 8.

So the entire case here is "Variant lineage with a feat with a +1 ASI is OP".

Which, yes. There is one single OP race in Tasha's. Meanwhile Fey Touched isn't notably better than whichever is relevant of Observant, Actor, or Keen Mind (all from the PHB). I've seen Observant save the party and change the tone of the adventure with a wisdom class, and I've seen Keen Mind save an entire adventure. (Honestly I rate Telekinetic over Fey Touched). Actor is the weakest of the three in the PHB but is fun and works really well for a whole lot of charisma classes and in the right campaign - and if you aren't playing a charisma class you don't take actor.

There are no S tier feats in Tasha's. Nothing to remotely match Lucky, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Fighter, Sharpshooter, or Bountiful Luck from Xanathar's. There are plenty of A-tier feats - and yes Skill Expert >> Skilled, but that's because skilled is a bad feat. A solid but not S tier feat making something terrible obsolete isn't power creep; it's just not junk.

As for the races, again I don't see much power creep with the one single exception of variant lineage. Yes, a Tasha's mountain dwarf wizard > a PHB mountain dwarf wizard. But I remain unconvinced that a Tasha's mountain dwarf wizard > a PHB Variant Human wizard. Tasha's boosted the weak options without touching the strong ones, and the mountain dwarf wizard is pretty much the most extreme case of boosting options that used to be off-race.

I'm curious how you think it's possible, using your definition of power creep, it's possible to have a splatbook at all with options that are neither power creep nor a waste. To me it's entirely possible and Tasha's succeeds for everything except the Custom Lineage that wasn't already underpowered.

 

[Zardnaar]

So the entire case here is "Variant lineage with a feat with a +1 ASI is OP".

Which, yes. There is one single OP race in Tasha's. Meanwhile Fey Touched isn't notably better than whichever is relevant of Observant, Actor, or Keen Mind (all from the PHB). I've seen Observant save the party and change the tone of the adventure with a wisdom class, and I've seen Keen Mind save an entire adventure. (Honestly I rate Telekinetic over Fey Touched). Actor is the weakest of the three in the PHB but is fun and works really well for a whole lot of charisma classes and in the right campaign - and if you aren't playing a charisma class you don't take actor.

There are no S tier feats in Tasha's. Nothing to remotely match Lucky, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Fighter, Sharpshooter, or Bountiful Luck from Xanathar's. There are plenty of A-tier feats - and yes Skill Expert >> Skilled, but that's because skilled is a bad feat. A solid but not S tier feat making something terrible obsolete isn't power creep; it's just not junk.

As for the races, again I don't see much power creep with the one single exception of variant lineage. Yes, a Tasha's mountain dwarf wizard > a PHB mountain dwarf wizard. But I remain unconvinced that a Tasha's mountain dwarf wizard > a PHB Variant Human wizard. Tasha's boosted the weak options without touching the strong ones, and the mountain dwarf wizard is pretty much the most extreme case of boosting options that used to be off-race.

I'm curious how you think it's possible, using your definition of power creep, it's possible to have a splatbook at all with options that are neither power creep nor a waste. To me it's entirely possible and Tasha's succeeds for everything except the Custom Lineage that wasn't already underpowered.

Custom lineage is a +2 modifier and a feat.

The racial swaps fix a few things for oddball choices like Nature and Arcane Clerics along with generally just being better than phb. You can swap racial weapons for better ones eg a rapier or tools along with armor.

So Elves and Dwarves are that much better and they were already pretty damn good.

Races that legit needed help eg Dragonborn and Gnomes got bupkiss except floating ASI.

The best races got better.

 

[Redwizard007]

I find the talk about Tasha's racial changes odd considering how it's already irrelevant

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Irrelevant the racial options alone in Tasha's is power creep. Throw in twilight cleric and variant class abilities it's all power creep. That's undeniable.

No, they aren't, and you've never actually supported the claim that they are.

I'm not comparing it to 3.5 all by itself it's power creep. A d 5E is already tubed into easy mode and has been since 2014.

Those are wholly separate conversation topics, but mostly, again, no. It's not power creep.

Inlinevtashas is a key component of various powergsmer builds some do say you need to convince your DM to allow it though.

So was multiclassing in the PHB, and yet the game wasn't unbalanced then either. Nothing in Tasha's outshines the strongest PHB CharOp builds.

You may like the power creep or not but it's there. That's just the optional features it excludes the archetypes low. Most of them while tuned high are probably fine with the exception of the two clerics. Same with the feats and the fixed Beastmaster is also fine.

I mean, no, it's not, though. It certainly isn't there as some sort of objective fact, regardless of how many times you repeat it.

I assure you, the game absolutely does not break down at all if you just blanket allow everything published by wotc. I'm not saying you need to do that, I'm just saying that the balance of the game hasn't changed since the core books, except to raise the power floor a bit, and to very recently make monsters hit harder and be harder to counter.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Custom lineage is a +2 modifier and a feat.

The racial swaps fix a few things for oddball choices like Nature and Arcane Clerics along with generally just being better than phb. You can swap racial weapons for better ones eg a rapier or tools along with armor.

So Elves and Dwarves are that much better and they were already pretty damn good.

Races that legit needed help eg Dragonborn and Gnomes got bupkiss except floating ASI.

The best races got better.

so what they gotta fix every problem in one book or none of it counts? lol come on

 

[Einlanzer0]

I don't allow it.

I don't understand this. It seems too controlling and would give me a bad vibe at a table. It's official, therefore it should in most cases be allowed. I don't really like how they dealt with the ability score thing - it was lazy, uninteresting, and accomplishes very little. But it's legal, nevertheless.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Custom lineage is a +2 modifier and a feat.

Yes, custom lineage is OP. Not disputing. I am saying it is the only racial choice I can think of that's actively OP.

The racial swaps fix a few things for oddball choices like Nature and Arcane Clerics along with generally just being better than phb. You can swap racial weapons for better ones eg a rapier or tools along with armor.

So Elves and Dwarves are that much better and they were already pretty damn good.

Races that legit needed help eg Dragonborn and Gnomes got bupkiss except floating ASI.

The best races got better.

To emphasise my own question. How do these races compare to variant human in your eyes? Are you saying that elves and dwarves were already better than variant humans and got better, elves and dwarves were worse than variant humans and are now better than variant humans, or that the balance between variant humans and these races is nebulous enough that it doesn't actually matter? And yes, Dragonborn had to wait until Fizban's.

I'm in the "Variant humans are good enough and the tweaking you are talking about is minor enough that it doesn't actually matter" - and variant human is still the best race and the most powerful variant human builds use the S-tier feats from the PHB. This isn't like e.g. Toll the Dead in Xanathar's where just about every non-warlock who could started taking it because it was simply better than the alternative despite that spell doing almost nothing to enhance themes.

Also I'm amused to see you talking about how dwarfs are so good when tieflings and dragonborn have been kicking dwarfs out of the top five for years and 2020 was the year they and half-orcs finally kicked out elves - and dragonborn finally (and deservedly) got buffed by Fizban's. Meanwhile no one cares about gnomes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't understand this. It seems too controlling and would give me a bad vibe at a table. It's official, therefore it should in most cases be allowed. I don't really like how they dealt with the ability score thing - it was lazy, uninteresting, and accomplishes very little. But it's legal, nevertheless.

The tone of Tasha's is slightly different to the PHB and Xanathar's; in most of the PHB and Xanathar's there is a fairly hard division between the magic and the mundane. Meanwhile Tasha's is full of liminal abilities as seen clearly in the two rogue subclasses with the psychic spy and the soul-manipulating assassin. I find this makes for a richer, more interesting, and more fantastic fantasy setting and that while my reaction to Xanathar's was "meh" I like Tasha's - but there are a lot of traditionalists who don't like the implied changes.