D&D 5E Are proficiency swaps too strong for some races?

[ScuroNotte]

You can swap out armor or a weapon for a weapon or tool. In the example, an elf can swap a long sword for a tool as per page 8. So if a player playing an Elf martial character who already gains martial weapons through the class, can swap the 4 weapons (longsword, shortsword, shortbow, longbow) for 4 tools. Or a martial Mountain Dwarf character can exchange 4 weapons and 2 armor proficiencies for 6 tools.
Or am I over reacting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That's insane. When the designers wrote the original mountain dwarf rules, they had not idea that in several years time a rule for altering the races would exist. They wrote a race that was balanced and worked well. However, when the designer's wrote the rule in Tasha's they full well knew what sort of races the game contained. Nevertheless they wrote a rule that broke the balance.

I'm done arguing. You're obviously not going to be persuaded. I never said that they would/should have known that they would make this optional system, but that doesn't make the race any less of a problem.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm done arguing. You're obviously not going to be persuaded. I never said that they would/should have known that they would make this optional system, but that doesn't make the race any less of a problem.

The absence of this optional rule literally makes the mountain dwarves less of a problem as they're not unbalanced without it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The absence of this optional rule literally makes the mountain dwarves less of a problem as they're not unbalanced without it.

And the absence of mountain dwarves makes the rule less of a problem, as it is not unbalanced without them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And the absence of mountain dwarves makes the rule less of a problem, as it is not unbalanced without them.

It causes similar issues to a lesser degree with some other races. And regardless, the mountain dwarves existed first. If they introduced a new rule saying that suffering any fire damage will automatically ignite target's clothes and deal ongoing fire damage to them, this wouldn't mean that burning hands was always a problem. When you introduce new rules you must always take into account how it will affect the existing rules, and either add caveats to the new rule or errata the excising ones to avoid issues. This is game design 101 stuff.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why? What is the actual problem? Mountain dwarves offered something somewhat useful pretty much regardless of which class you chose without offering so much for any one class that they became an obvious choice for it. How on Earth is that poor design?

Rather than making two races that fit within the racial budget they made one & combined two above budget things (+2/+2, medium armor proficiency, & a bunch of other stuff) that are structured in a way that they each poison each other.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Rather than making two races that fit within the racial budget they made one & combined two above budget things (+2/+2, medium armor proficiency, & a bunch of other stuff) that are structured in a way that they each poison each other.

And why is this a problem?

 

[tetrasodium]

And why is this a problem?

We are having this absurd conversation because it's a problem, you agree as much but seem to refuse to accept any reason. If the poisoning is ever somehow weakened or negated entirely it is wildly overpowered & defeats the whole purpose of having a racial design budget to begin rather than "the races are now an utter mess. They just get a wildly differing random amount of stuff" as you phrased it earlier with. For example, lets say a gm decides that they want aberrant dragonmarks to play a larger role & declares that sorcerer are con based & make use of their aberrant mark rather than charisma & bloodline Using a racial budget & sticking to it would have avoided the problem to begin with

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We are having this absurd conversation because it's a problem, you agree as much but seem to refuse to accept any reason. If the poisoning is ever somehow weakened or negated entirely it is wildly overpowered & defeats the whole purpose of having a racial design budget to begin rather than "the races are now an utter mess. They just get a wildly differing random amount of stuff" as you phrased it earlier with.

Yes. It is a problem now. Absolutely. I agree. But this problem was caused by the rules in Tasha's, it was fine before. I really don't understand what part here is hard to understand, or even with what you disagree.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yes. It is a problem now. Absolutely. I agree. But this problem was caused by the rules in Tasha's, it was fine before. I really don't understand what part here is hard to understand, or even with what you disagree.

Not caused by Tasha's, a problem with a race's balance is on the race, not on the system that revealed that problem.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not caused by Tasha's, a problem with a race's balance is on the race, not on the system that revealed that problem.

JFC, this is blatantly absurd. It was not a problem before.