D&D 5E A First Look at Tasha’s Lineage System In AL Player’s Guide - Customizing Your Origin In D&D

The new player’s guide for the D&D Adventurers League has been released. Appendix 1 includes the new info from Tasha’s Cauldron on customizing your origin. It‘s a one-page appendix.

The D&D Adventurers League now uses this variant system from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything since it allows for a greater degree of customization. For ease of reference, the relevant information is included as an appendix to this document and doesn’t count against the PH + 1 rule.

You can do any of the following (obviously the full document has more detail):

1. Move your race ability score increases wherever your want to. “...take any ability score increase you gain in your race or subrace and apply it to an ability score of your choice.”​

2. Replace each language from your race with any language from a set list.​

3. Swap each proficiency for another of the same type.​

4. Alter behaviour/personality race-based descriptions.​

Its not clear if that’s the whole Lineage system or just part of it. You can download the player’s guide here.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sorry, I don't now what your talking about. What is the context because I am not getting it. How can a player option penalize the player? They simply don't take it.

Same ways that the normal ASIs do, by some splat not getting them, thus being 'worse.' The complaint was that species that didn't get int bonus were 'penalised' as they weren't as good wizards as species who did were. Well under this flexible system species that do not get free armour proficiency are 'penalised' as they do not make as good wizards as those who get it.

With regard to min-max I am refer to surveys in the past the show not many people play that way and I doubt all the influx of new players has changed that.

I hope that is the case. I guess the frequency of dwarf wizards will soon tell us how it is.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeeaah... I was expecting being able to shift one bonus point or something like that... And my first though after seeing this was indeed too that we better get ready for our new dwarven overlords!

You can already minmax with the current classes and races. If the game hasn't been swamped by Yuan-Ti and Satyrs yet, it won't ever be. Frankly, there are too many halfling rogues and half-orc barbarians in the game. This will free minmaxers/powergamers and anyone who wants a barbarian that is strong from being restricted to certain races.

 

[Phazonfish]

Wow. There are so many races that you can find just about any permutation of +2/+1 to the ability scores that you want, so I expected it to be fine, but upon closer examination there really are a few races that are very precisely balanced. Obviously the Mountain Dwarf, but also flying races (I'm of the camp that they are not a big deal, but this certainly isn't helping matters); "my spell save DC will be lower" was my intended approach to persuading a DM to let me play an Aarakocra Wizard.

In 99% of cases this is probably fine, but some choices here seem like exploits; I would not allow my players to use this option by default, and as a card carrying minmaxer, that is never a statement I make lightly.

 

[ChaosOS]

I honestly think people are overblowing the impact of dwarf casters. Relative to literally any other race, what you're getting is another point in your secondary stat - which I assume is so you can have a base 14 instead of base 15 to start with a score of 16. That's worth 2/27 points, so in reality you're actually just bumping you're tertiary stat from a possible 13 to a reasonable 14. Furthermore, you could get those stats with any other race, so it's really just +2 points spread across your 4th/5th/6th best stats. Is it nice that you can make a dwarf wizard with 16 con and 14 dex with medium armor? Yes! Is that broken? Probably not - You're still stuck with 25' speed, and while you get to trade off those weapon proficiencies for tools, your only other positive feature is the anti-poison Dwarven Resilience. By contrast, other races offer other strong features like skill proficiencies, broader resistances, or even spells.

What I'm saying is Mountain Dwarf kinda sucked and this is actually just making them playable, moving them from D tier to a solid B+. Yes, it's a big move, but you're not raising the ceiling.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If min-maxing was not commonplace people would have been happy with their strength 15 halfling barbarians or int 15 dwarf wizards.

There is absolutely no problem with powergaming if everyone in the campaign is having fun.

 

[MikalC]

Yeah this options gonna be a hard pass for me in game’s I run. Dilutes making racial choices, makes half elves even more if a no brainer, and now adds mountain dwarf to that level.

no thanks .

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah this options gonna be a hard pass for me in game’s I run. Dilutes making racial choices, makes half elves even more if a no brainer, and now adds mountain dwarf to that level.

no thanks .

Is that a problem?

 

[dave2008]

Same ways that the normal ASIs do, by some splat not getting them, thus being 'worse.' The complaint was that species that didn't get int bonus were 'penalised' as they weren't as good wizards as species who did were. Well under this flexible system species that do not get free armour proficiency are 'penalised' as they do not make as good wizards as those who get it.

I am not sure what you mean by the bold part. Are you talking about a splat book?

Ya, I'm just not sure what you point is. Are you trying to say that this change just shifts the racial imbalance to different areas? You list armor proficiency, but doesn't the sneak peek say in addition to the ability score you can:

"3. Swap each proficiency for another of the same type."

So can't you just swap those around too. Obviously we are not seeing the full / final rules, but I took it as pretty much make your own. Maybe I misunderstood.

I hope that is the case. I guess the frequency of dwarf wizards will soon tell us how it is.

At my group's pace it will take us two years before we make new characters, so I'm not too worried about an explosion of dwarf wizards

 

[Parmandur]

I hope there's more to the ''lineage system'' than that. I hoped for something like XGtE's Its your life tables, but generating starting proficiencies and ASI instead. If its just ''you can replace whatever with something you like'', calling it a ''system'' might be pushing it little

Thinking about this a bit more, one of the advertised features of the full Lineage system in Tasha is the ability to make one's own Race up wholeclothe, which this does not support and might not be good for organized play at any rate. So this reflects the principles, not the entirety.

 

[Shiroiken]

Total garbage as expected. Basic human is now bust AF, since by the description you can put all your +1 into a single score. Thanks WotC you