D&D 5E Abusing Tasha's racial proficiency swaps

[iserith]

This seems to be metagaming

Oh yeah? Explain.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The problem with the swap options is that it makes certain races overall better choices mechanically. Obviously some people will still choose to play certain races for roleplay reasons, but many will choose the more mechanically optimal choices. To implement something like this right, races would pretty much have to be redone to balance them out. IMO this would work for a 5.5E or 6E, but IMO this optional rule just isn't a good choice.

Swap options make several races "overall better choices" if you place a particular premium on the things that can be swapped for. But we are talking about tool proficiencies. You've been able to freely choose up to two of those through a custom background since the game launched, and having a vast array of tool proficiencies has rarely been a big source of power in 5e (sorry artificers).

As a tacked on rewrite of class features it is a bit of a mess, and it is awkward to now have races that had racial weapon proficiencies now also be potentially superior in tool using or using other weapons not granted by class. But this really isn't a tremendous power boost to these races, because 5e mostly doesn't do a lot of build gate keeping between characters and the weapons or tools they need. If you are of a class or subclass that would regularly make use of a particular tool or weapon you generally get handed that tool or weapon as part of that class or subclass. There are certainly a handful of exceptions, edge cases, and idiosyncratic builds where this is not the case for weapon proficiencies. For tools; on a mechanical level I really don't know how you find yourself actually needing any tool proficiency in 5e other than thieves tools. They are mostly there for RP flavor.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I've probably been playing wrong, but I usually let players add their proficiency bonus whenever they can provide a credible reason from their background to have an expertise in the field being tested. It can be skill proficiency, but it can be tool proficiency and I give them a lot of leeway to interpret it, probably because tools are more focussed knowledge, on average, than skills. But I think exposure to needing tools, even in this context, depends on the type of adventures. Investigations adventures rely more on them than exploration in the wilderness for example.

 

[NaturalZero]

As someone who started building a character before realizing that I now get a pile of tool profs, I have to admit that you have to work really hard with the DM to make them relevant, outside of a couple like Thieve's Tools. I can imagine giving a character every tool kit prof in the PHB and not having it effect game balance in any significant or detrimental way.

 

[dave2008]

I've probably been playing wrong, but I usually let players add their proficiency bonus whenever they can provide a credible reason from their background to have an expertise in the field being tested. It can be skill proficiency, but it can be tool proficiency and I give them a lot of leeway to interpret it, probably because tools are more focussed knowledge, on average, than skills. But I think exposure to needing tools, even in this context, depends on the type of adventures. Investigations adventures rely more on them than exploration in the wilderness for example.

It is wrong, but I do the same thing. I took the idea from "Blades in the Dark" and adapted it to 4e and now 5e. I can't see going back to the RAW method

 

[DND_Reborn]

I've probably been playing wrong, but I usually let players add their proficiency bonus whenever they can provide a credible reason from their background to have an expertise in the field being tested

Actually, that is an option presented in the DMG (p. 264) so you aren't doing it "wrong", just different.

 

[jgsugden]

I would argue that an RPG isn't JUST characters playing a role in a story, but also players playing those characters. As such, a player may have their reasons for why they want their character to have x/y/z. It can be problematic when the DM makes assumptions about a players motives.

Note that I said: If there is a story reason for the PC to have all those skills - fine.

I agree that players and DMs should discuss character motivations so that the DM can help cultivate stories around those motivations. However, if a player just adds a line to the backstory of a PC to justify a tool proficiency, rather than having it be an organic element in the origin of the PC that the player created, it is inherently putting the metagaming power grab over the storytelling.

I have played with a lot of players that do this type of thing. Usually it ends up just being ignored, and when they go to use the ability in the future, we have a brief conversation about how they learned about it and how it fits into their character. If they claim it, we use it as part of the overall character. Sometimes that results in additional story hooks - sometimes not.

 

[jgsugden]

I've probably been playing wrong, but I usually let players add their proficiency bonus whenever they can provide a credible reason from their background to have an expertise in the field being tested. It can be skill proficiency, but it can be tool proficiency and I give them a lot of leeway to interpret it, probably because tools are more focussed knowledge, on average, than skills. But I think exposure to needing tools, even in this context, depends on the type of adventures. Investigations adventures rely more on them than exploration in the wilderness for example.

I ask players to roll ability checks, and tell them to make it proficient if they have a skill, tool proficiency, background feature, class ability, racial feature, or anything else that would be applicable to it.

I don't often tell them to roll a persuasion roll, or a deception roll. It is a charisma roll. And you might get proficiency on it because you know about the subject, you have a skill that is relevant or something else.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think this highlights a problem with 5E, but the problem isn't really what the OP describes, rather that in general it's kind of unreasonably hard to get hold of Tool/Weapon proficiencies, and they're overvalued hilariously in terms of their actual impact on the game (armour and skills are less overvalued, though clearly some skills are wildly more useful than others in about 90% of games).

I've always liked the "roll your background as proficiency" approach - as noted, it resembles a lot of other modern TT RPGs. I hope that if they do a 5.5E or 6E they formalize that.

As for the OP's suggestion, yeah, of course elves (always elves...) are well-positioned to take maximum possible advantage of this, but in real terms, as others have said, it's not that much of an advantage, because most tool proficiencies are extremely rarely rolled, and unless you're using the optional approach suggested in Xanathars where skill + tool = Advantage, they don't add much. Even then Advantage is trivially easy to get in most situations due to the help rules, because in most cases, at least one PC is potentially helpful to you.

 

[Azzy]

I think this highlights a problem with 5E, but the problem isn't really what the OP describes, rather that in general it's kind of unreasonably hard to get hold of Tool/Weapon proficiencies

Yup. This is why I implemented the house rule that characters gain a skill proficiency, tool proficiency, or language every four levels.