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.

 

[ChaosOS]

And soon the same people will feel the same way about non-dwarf wizards. The math says they are better. So I don't know how this is an improvement.

But like... they're not? Assuming point buy, mountain dwarf is +2 point buy stats for your 4th/5th/6th best abilities, poison resistance, medium armor prof, and a pile of tool profs in exchange for 25' speed. It's pretty easy to imagine a wizard who values any of the other race features. For example, high elf gets a similar pile of tool profs, and gets a skill proficiency, charm/sleep resistance, a bonus cantrip, trance, and 30' of movement. It's not particularly clear to me that mountain dwarf is a clear winner here.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Why do so many people seem to think "choose between having a cool concept and being effective" is a good thing?

5e races are mostly effective as written. If you look at the mountain dwarf, for example, it's giving your dwarf wizard medium armor proficiency, which should compensate for the apparent lack of utility of that +2 bonus to strength. These (bad) rules are not making dwarf wizards effective, they're making them better than intended.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Why do so many people seem to think "choose between having a cool concept and being effective" is a good thing?

Because at +1 bonus to hit and damage does not draw a line between "effective" and "ineffective."

 

[TwoSix]

But like... they're not? Assuming point buy, mountain dwarf is +2 point buy stats for your 4th/5th/6th best skills, poison resistance, medium armor prof, and a pile of tool profs in exchange for 25' speed. It's pretty easy to imagine a wizard who values any of the other race features. For example, high elf gets a similar pile of tool profs, and gets a skill proficiency, charm/sleep resistance, a bonus cantrip, trance, and 30' of movement. It's not particularly clear to me that mountain dwarf is a clear winner here.

Not to me either, and I’m speaking as someone who happily power games. Armor proficiency isn’t that big a deal when you have mage armor. It’s shield proficiency that I would really want.

 

[ChaosOS]

5e races are mostly effective as written. If you look at the mountain dwarf, for example, it's giving your dwarf wizard medium armor proficiency, which should compensate for the apparent lack of utility of that +2 bonus to strength. These (bad) rules are not making dwarf wizards effective, they're making them better than intended.

There's a gap in your logic.

Premise 1: 5e races are mostly balanced - Yes, this is true

Premise 2: Mountain Dwarf Wizard gets a lot better with these changes - Also true.

What this doesn't show is that Mountain Dwarf Wizard is actually bending the balance, let alone breaking it. You're moving a combination that was D tier to about a B+ - rather than breaking the game, this is a great example of the system working to improve the diversity of character options. Mountain Dwarf does look more like a premium choice for gishes, but just like every other edition the gish fantasy has been pretty underpowered so buffs aren't going to break anything.

 

[Retreater]

I guess I don't know how to optimize characters properly (though I do consider myself a bit of a min/maxer), because I like standard humans and mountain dwarves for the mechanical bonuses. A human getting +1 in every stat lets you boost uneven ability scores to higher bonuses without paying the point buy cost for doing so. And the mountain dwarf's +2 to Str and Con, I think that's great for any character using Strength-based melee combat.
Maybe if I did a deep dive into splats or something I could find something "technically" better, but these seem pretty good to me.

 

[Sunsword]

WotC doesn't design with min/max in mind IMO. Nor should they really, it is not like that is a big part of the player base. Personally, I like severe penalties and bonus for races, but I don't mind an option that throws all of that out the window.

I think you are fortunate to not play with min maxers. There are tons of "class guides" out there and the reason there are is that they are popular.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Because math? As I said in a post a few back, I know it doesn't bother everybody to play a 14 Str fighter. But it sure as hell bothers me, and I don't seem to be the only one.

Math also says that having medium armour (saving you a spell pick and 1-2 slots/day), +2 to both your primary and secondary ability scores, 5 tool proficiencies, and darkvision is probably better than only +1 to your primary ability score and +1 to your others.

Not to me either, and I’m speaking as someone who happily power games. Armor proficiency isn’t that big a deal when you have mage armor. It’s shield proficiency that I would really want.

Medium armour will generally have an AC as good as Mage Armour and a shield already. Without costing you spell pick or daily slots.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Ah, I don't know about this.

I don't really like this erosion to race distinctiveness. A bit of character tweaking here and there is okay by me, but you've got to draw a line somewhere - and what's going on with free floating abilities scores doesn't seem right.

We'll see how it pans out, but right now I don't support it.

 

[ChaosOS]

I'm not going to dispute that medium armor is valuable, but that's really all you're getting from Mountain Dwarf. If you expect to get attacked a lot it's very good, but it's perfectly reasonable to have games where you aren't going to get attacked a lot.