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

[Parmandur]

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....?

That's not relevant to the balance of a Race: a High Elf with +2 Stregnth and +1 Constitution is a better Fighter than standard, probably, but not better than a standard Half-Orc. The Race abilities are value neutral, and were only ever differentiated for enforcing flavor. Now the flavor is left to the player cresting a character, amd they can assign the identical bonus as desired.

 

[Parmandur]

Custom lineage is a +2 modifier and a feat.

It might be a bit underpowered, honestly, compared to something like the Half-Elf. The other Races are value neutral, though Race choice isn't as restrictive for different Classes if one feels the need to "optimize."

 

[Zardnaar]

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

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.

Variant humans are close to the top things like Aaracokra and smatybe Yuan Ti and Satyr are better.

Half Elves and Elves were below them, Dwarves somewhere in the middle with Tasha's they're another Elf more or less.

I'm not talking about popularity but power. Casuals will play whatever for whatever reason.

 

[Irlo]

I find the custom lineage uninteresting and certainly not overpowered, and not nearly flexible enough to do what it's supposed to do. You give up a lot by not selecting a standard race. If any of my players felt they needed a custom lineage to match their imagined theme, I'd be more inclined to work with them to homebrew a race to better suit.

 

[Parmandur]

Variant humans are close to the top things like Aaracokra and smatybe Yuan Ti and Satyr are better.

Half Elves and Elves were below them, Dwarves somewhere in the middle with Tasha's they're another Elf more or less.

I'm not talking about popularity but power. Casuals will play whatever for whatever reason.

You overestimate the value of the free Feat.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know if it is "the universal standard" or anything, but we're using it.

I just spent the last few days adding the material from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything to my campaign notes, and letting my players know that when they roll up new characters in a few weeks, the character classes will have a few new abilities and subclass options. I just bought the digital copies for my Roll20 Compendium, too.

So far, one of my players is stoked about creating a custom half-dryad, using the new rules for creating a Custom Origin...we're about half done with it. Another player is stoked about playing a Circle of Spores druid. A third player hasn't said much about it except to express relief that he "can finally play a dwarf and not feel like I made the wrong choice" regarding the ability score adjustments (I guess he was wanting to play a dwarf wizard or something?)

 

[Arilyn]

I find the custom lineage uninteresting and certainly not overpowered, and not nearly flexible enough to do what it's supposed to do. You give up a lot by not selecting a standard race. If any of my players felt they needed a custom lineage to match their imagined theme, I'd be more inclined to work with them to homebrew a race to better suit.

It hasn't been used much at our table because of this. I used it once to make a brownie. I took the cooking feat so he could give out little magical treats.

 

[Irlo]

It hasn't been used much at our table because of this. I used it once to make a brownie. I took the cooking feat so he could give out little magical treats.

Brownies ARE magical treats.

 

[Arilyn]

Brownies ARE magical treats.

Don't you dare eat my brownie!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Variant humans are close to the top things like Aaracokra and smatybe Yuan Ti and Satyr are better.

Half Elves and Elves were below them, Dwarves somewhere in the middle with Tasha's they're another Elf more or less.

I'm not talking about popularity but power. Casuals will play whatever for whatever reason.

I'll agree with that other than to point out that the Yuan-ti have taken two nerfs (they and satyrs now only get spell resistance rather than magic resistance (so gnomes have better magic resistance) and they get dwarf style poison resistance rather than immunity) and I think have been pushed out of S-tier thanks to that combination. Interestingly Genasi have been buffed - and the new look goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds are all excellent.

But if the dwarves are only buffed to somewhere in the middle that's a power boost but not actual power creep except in the way any good splatbook has. It's making more things competitive rather than setting a higher benchmark.