D&D 5E (2014) Are there any races post-tashas that compare with mountain dwarf for casters?

[Wrathamon]

Changeling now lets you put +3 to any stat.

 

[Zardnaar]

Changeling now lets you put +3 to any stat.

Not as good as you think.

With rolled stats might not matter to much, default array you are trading off having two 14's.

Satyrs, Half Elves, Variant human and Yuan Ti can compete mechanically with mountain Dwarves imho.

Everything else not so much. Maybe some of the elves ymmv.

 

[Don Durito]

I think I'm starting to get it now. These optional race rules are a bit like the optional rules in the DMG.

Because we don't have to use them they don't have to be good.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think I'm starting to get it now. These optional race rules are a bit like the optional rules in the DMG.

Because we don't have to use them they don't have to be good.

Pretty much. Still thinking about if I'm going to use them.

 

[Weiley31]

Changeling now lets you put +3 to any stat.

I believe that depends on now, IIRC, you encounter somebody who is dead set on enforcing the Eberron errata where they changed that. unless I misread that when I checked it out.

Me? I'd still allow it.

 

[tetrasodium]

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I believe that depends on now, IIRC, you encounter somebody who is dead set on enforcing the Eberron errata where they changed that. unless I misread that when I checked it out.

Me? I'd still allow it.

I'd likely allow it too since variant human cam still take a half feat that adds to their +2, but wotc has this thing about every race but a couple having a half feat worth of stuff & issued errata to "fix" it

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Changeling now lets you put +3 to any stat.

Nope, changed in most recent errata.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Tasha's introduced the ability to swap racial +N stat bumps for some other stat among other things to radically change which races can work for what classes. skillA for skillB, armor or simple weapon for Simple/martial weapon or tool, Martial weapon for Simple/martial weapon or tool, & toolA for toolB are useful sure, but none of those things are likely to make anyone suddenly decide race:class combo is suddenly great. Missing from that list are cantrips, presumably because eldritch blast shouldn't be a cantrip

By default mountain dwarf gives +2 con, poison resist, darkvision, battleaxe, handaxe, throwing hammer, and warhammer proficient, +2 strength, light & medium armor proficient. The weapons are fairly useless to a caster so convert to an easy 4 maybe 5 skills depending on if you can convert darkvision to a skill or not, two different +2 ability scores, along with light/medium armor proficiency most casters other than cleric will lack one or both of.

There are a few races that give a cantrip or some limited one off spells that are rarely top shelf spells & having spell slots doesn't mean you can use those slots on those spells. The dragonmark races add a bunch of spells to your class's spell list but you still need to learn/prepare them normally keeping them from really competing. What it really makes obvious is the lack of things like brutal critical/relentless endurance or even bugbear's reach level transformative racial stuff for casters. Goblin fury of the small could be awesome but exempts itself with1/long res

Anything that I'm missing?

Well, a big thing you are missing is that the rules don't allow for that.

You can swap a skill for a skill.

Then you can swap armor for weapons or tools

Then you can swap weapons for weapons or tools


So, you can get a grand total of zero new skills by swapping all of your stuff out, but you could gain five new tool proficiencies. Which may be just as good, but certainly aren't skills.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

+2, +2 is always going to be a big draw. Being able to put one of those in a casting stat has definitely upped the mountain dwarf's caster game. I once had schemes of a mountain dwarf archaeologist wizard, but when the stats were rolled making him a race with an intelligence bump was too advantageous. I probably wouldn't make the same call today.

But beyond being able to add both a +2 to your caster stat and one of your defensive stats (be it dex or con) I don't see Tasha's making them particularly better for full-caster types unless you have your heart set on some particular idiosyncratic build. They are probably best served to keep the armor proficiencies as armor proficiencies unless they are getting the same ones elsewhere as many casters are squishy. Changing the mountain dwarf weapons for other weapons might be nice, particularly if you want a ranged or otherwise dexy on not terribly consequential, as classes aren't generally gated by proficiencies from weapons that would work radically better for them. It would be handy early game for casters to have longbows or heavy crossbows instead of shortbows or light crossbows, but it is one die size difference on something they do only occasionally.

This leaves the option of switching those weapons out for tool proficiencies. Now I like tool proficiencies, and I wish they saw more use in gameplay. But character power in 5e decidedly does not revolve around who has the most tool proficiencies in any campaign I've ever played in, seen, or heard of (much to the chagrin of many an artificer).

Only skills can be swapped for skills. So in that department the vaunted mountain dwarf falls behind the many race options that give one or two skill proficiencies. This is really more restrictive now in a post Tasha's world where floating skills of choice aren't just a Half-Elf and Variant Human thing. A mountain dwarf will generally get only two skills from their class list and the two given by their background. Even if they take a completely unrestricted and utilitarian approach to custom backgrounds that makes those effectively free choice, they still effectively only get two off class list skill choices in a world where many races would give one or two additional free choice skills. Casters who aren't Bards tend to have fairly narrow choices in class skills. How you and your table approach skills will effect how much impact this has.

For casters we have to consider that many races also give additional magic. Even a once a day spell is pretty cool when you are a warlock or sorcerer with very limited versatility. More importantly (at least for me) is when you can get a cantrip that you would have otherwise had to take as one of your class cantrips.

And of course there is all manner of other racial abilities that are less readily quantifiable.

Which is all to say that while Tasha's marks the debut of Mountain Dwarf as a really strong option for casters, it hardly blows the existing strong options out of the water. Personally, next time I roll stats for a caster and my best two scores are both even it's likely Mountain Dwarf caster time, the same way that when I roll 5 or more odd numbers it is more often than not going to be Standard Human time. But outside of the floating +2s possibly coinciding to be compelling with particular sets of rolled stats and the option to put classes that are otherwise AC deficient in medium or heavy armor I don't find them particularly compelling for a caster.

 

[NaturalZero]

IDK about mountain dwarf for armor on a wizard, but I just built a duergar fighter for the RotF campaign and I was giggling when I realized that I got 4 free tool proficiencies without losing anything by swapping out all of my BS racial weapon profs. Between base dwarf, background, and optional swaps, I think that's 6 tool profs on top of what Rune Knight will give.