D&D 5E (2014) Fantasy Grounds Previews of Tasha's Cauldron

Ahead of the November 17th release date, the product page for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has several previews on the Fantasy Grounds website. The previews include the origins customization section, group patrons, sidekicks, and a look at the alternate class features for the ranger Beast Master.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Respectfully, I keep hearing that message get repeated. What’s the big deal? Why don’t you like the changes I like?

Ironically, this often comes from a person who says the change was “necessary and inevitable.”

people like and value different things. I know I am going to keep playing D&D and having fun regardless but am amazed at these discussions.

it is not differing opinions that floor me but the inability to see another perspective.

I don’t like the race changes personally. But I can sure see why they appeal to some.

I don't care if someone likes or dislikes a change. Perhaps read what I actually said, since I explained what was offputting in the post you quoted.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But, you're forgetting the fact that elves aren't real, bladesingers aren't real, and no one is getting offended because WotC is allowing me to let Githyanki or Gnomes create and practice bladesinging, instead of elves. Maybe in your world the elves would be furious if someone of a different race was practicing bladesinging, but not in mine.

And in my FR games, a non-elf Bladesinger would either be something else in fiction, or face prejudice from elves for stealing their cultural secrets, while in my homebrew worlds, it's more likely to be a gnome tradition than an elf one.

 

[JPL]

I always wanted to play a very old dwarf who still thought it was first edition, and insisted that there's no such thing as a half-orc bard or a warlock or a dragonborn.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And in my FR games, a non-elf Bladesinger would either be something else in fiction, or face prejudice from elves for stealing their cultural secrets, while in my homebrew worlds, it's more likely to be a gnome tradition than an elf one.

Definitely. In my FR games, non-elf bladesingers are extremely rare and discriminated against by the elves. However, in my homebrew world, anyone can be a bladesinger, from hobgoblins, to duergar, and krakenspawn (simic hybrids).

 

[Weiley31]

Everybody and Elves: Bladesinging is an Elven Tradition.

Fey'ri: Please allow us to introduce ourselves.

Everybody and Elves: Hey you can't do that, that's illegal!

Fey'ri; We're Elven Tieflings basically.

Elves: Shocked Pikachu meme face.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I don't care if someone likes or dislikes a change. Perhaps read what I actually said, since I explained what was offputting in the post you quoted.

I did, hence the response.

it was sort of “elves and fairies are pretend” and since you have strong opinions I am “worried” for you.

really? Worried? Or basically telling someone they are having problems because they like something different?

yeah, it’s all make believe fairy magic tea parties. Right up until someone’s preferences aren’t the ones being respected in official releases.

always gonna be winners and losers....and losers don’t have to like it, be quiet or told they are histrionic.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I did, hence the response.

it was sort of “elves and fairies are pretend” and since you have strong opinions I am “worried” for you.

Did you read the post he was replying to, then? Because it's not just a "it's make-believe, so do what you want". It was in response to a statement that somehow these pretend elves would be angry about a mechanical change to the rules. Like somehow the elves know they're in a game and have a say on the rules. Without a hint of tongue-in-cheekness of such a weirdly meta statement.

 

[Aaron L]

Yeah. While the Complete Book of Elves had some tasty ideas, the mechanics were a bit "out of whack" to put it diplomatically. Whether this newest version is OP, I'll withhold judgement until I can see it for myself.

I am always confused by this claim; I never saw any of the kinds of problems with power in The Complete Book of Elves that other people claimed to find in it.

I think the biggest problem that many people had with it, and with the Bladesinger in particular, was that they misunderstood how the Kit worked and mistakenly believed that Bladesingers were supposed to get a massive bonus to their Armor Class at all times, rather than getting a fairly good bonus only when they were actively casting a spell.

Normally Bladesingers got no bonuses to their AC at all; they only received a bonus to their AC while they were actually casting spells, and it was the same bonus that any Fighter got when using the Parry action (half their level +1.) In other words, Bladesingers were able to Parry while they were actively engaged in spellcasting, by executing the kata movements and sword forms of the Bladesong. This allowed them to much more safely cast spells in the front line of combat without having to worry about being easily clobbered.

But, something that most people probably forgot was that during spellcasting you lost all other bonuses to AC; no Dexterity bonus or anything like that at all. So the Bladesinger's AC bonus while spellcasting basically only gave them some of the defense back that they lost from their Dexterity bonus, until they got to very high levels.

But I know that a lot of DMs mistakenly believed that Bladesingers got that AC bonus at all times, and so because of that mistake believed that the Kit was vastly overpowered. I mean, other than the spellcasting AC bonus, Bladesingers basically only got +1 to hit and damage with their chosen weapon, and a bonus to hit when making trick-shots which only served to negate the penalty for making a trick-shot (this was a running theme with the Bladesinger Kit; the bonuses they got were mostly in the service of removing penalties.) And all of this was alongside the penalty of never being able to have proficiency with any weapon other than their chosen weapon, to the point of losing the Elven bonus with bows and/or the Long and Short Sword (although a Bladesinger not choosing either Long or Short Sword as their chosen weapon was kind of a dunce move.)

Sure, if a Bladesinger also spent 3 Weapon Proficiency Slots on the Bladesong Fighting Style they could also get a switchable floating 2 point bonus to hit or to AC, and if they spent 2 more Weapon Proficiency Slots on the Single Weapon Fighting Style they could get an additional 2 point bonus to AC, but that was for the cost of 5 entire Weapon Proficiency Slots (which was something that I absolutely loved; allowing Fighters with high Intelligence to gain a real advantage from their smarts, in the form of greater skill from advanced training.)

(As an aside, our DM in our 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms campaign, in which I played Gold Elven Bladesinger, actually used the concept of the steps of the Bladesong as a dance in a very clever bit of non-combat use of the Bladesong; we were on a mission from Evermeet to retrieve an important magic item from an old ruined Elven estate in Myth Drannor... an estate which had actually belonged to a branch of my PC's family. In the sub-levels of the estate we came upon an extremely heavily magically trapped hallway, which was floored in tessellated tiles. In order to pass safely through the hallway one had to step only on certain tiles in a specific pattern. After our party went through a great deal of investigation and thought, my Bladesinger PC was finally able to recognize that the safe path through the hallway was actually the steps of a certain section of a Bladesong kata... specifically a kata that was used by my PC's family! My PC was then able to flawlessly execute that section of the kata and make his way through the hallway without triggering the magical trap [which we learned later could have vaporized all of us] and with some effort was able to successfully talk the other PCs through the correct steps of the kata to get them through the hallway as well (it was only a very small number of steps of the Bladesong so it wasn't really revealing any secrets to them to help them make it through the steps just that one time.) We envisioned the steps of the Bladesong as being similar to Tai Chi and how Tai Chi is taught, which the DM and I had taken classes in together a few years earlier, with the way that Tai Chi steps are divided into sections consisting of a number of steps, each section taught separately [the First Third, etc.] until the student is able to master each section of steps until they are eventually able to string them together into a whole. It was an absolutely incredibly cool use of character background, and of using combat skills in a not-combat way, on the part of the DM [but then, he has always been a wonderful DM.])

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I did, hence the response.

it was sort of “elves and fairies are pretend” and since you have strong opinions I am “worried” for you.

really? Worried? Or basically telling someone they are having problems because they like something different?

yeah, it’s all make believe fairy magic tea parties. Right up until someone’s preferences aren’t the ones being respected in official releases.

always gonna be winners and losers....and losers don’t have to like it, be quiet or told they are histrionic.

Please go back and read the very overwrought post I was replying to. My reply has nothing to do with disagreement on whether non elves should be allowed to be bladesingers. I literally don't care is the restriction is technically there or not, and think that wotc is going a little silly on that one, rather than just maybe stating even more strongly that elf-only is a purely in world FR thing, and not relevant if the DM is allowing the subclass outside of FR.

My response was literally to a person talking about the change being sickening, insulting to the elves, talking about how rightfully upset the elves would be at this change, etc. It's an incredibly uncomfortable thing to read.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am always confused by this claim; I never saw any of the kinds of problems with power in The Complete Book of Elves that other people claimed to find in it.

I think the biggest problem that many people had with it, and with the Bladesinger in particular, was that they misunderstood how the Kit worked and mistakenly believed that Bladesingers were supposed to get a massive bonus to their Armor Class at all times, rather than getting a fairly good bonus only when they were actively casting a spell.

Normally Bladesingers got no bonuses to their AC at all; they only received a bonus to their AC while they were actually casting spells, and it was the same bonus that any Fighter got when using the Parry action (half their level +1.) In other words, Bladesingers were able to Parry while they were actively engaged in spellcasting, by executing the kata movements and sword forms of the Bladesong. This allowed them to much more safely cast spells in the front line of combat without having to worry about being easily clobbered.

But, something that most people probably forgot was that during spellcasting you lost all other bonuses to AC; no Dexterity bonus or anything like that at all. So the Bladesinger's AC bonus while spellcasting basically only gave them some of the defense back that they lost from their Dexterity bonus, until they got to very high levels.

But I know that a lot of DMs mistakenly believed that Bladesingers got that AC bonus at all times, and so because of that mistake believed that the Kit was vastly overpowered. I mean, other than the spellcasting AC bonus, Bladesingers basically only got +1 to hit and damage with their chosen weapon, and a bonus to hit when making trick-shots which only served to negate the penalty for making a trick-shot (this was a running theme with the Bladesinger Kit; the bonuses they got were mostly in the service of removing penalties.) And all of this was alongside the penalty of never being able to have proficiency with any weapon other than their chosen weapon, to the point of losing the Elven bonus with bows and/or the Long and Short Sword (although a Bladesinger not choosing either Long or Short Sword as their chosen weapon was kind of a dunce move.)

Sure, if a Bladesinger also spent 3 Weapon Proficiency Slots on the Bladesong Fighting Style they could also get a switchable floating 2 point bonus to hit or to AC, and if they spent 2 more Weapon Proficiency Slots on the Single Weapon Fighting Style they could get an additional 2 point bonus to AC, but that was for the cost of 5 entire Weapon Proficiency Slots (which was something that I absolutely loved; allowing Fighters with high Intelligence to gain a real advantage from their smarts, in the form of greater skill from advanced training.)

(As an aside, our DM in our 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms campaign, in which I played Gold Elven Bladesinger, actually used the concept of the steps of the Bladesong as a dance in a very clever bit of non-combat use of the Bladesong; we were on a mission from Evermeet to retrieve an important magic item from an old ruined Elven estate in Myth Drannor... an estate which had actually belonged to a branch of my PC's family. In the sub-levels of the estate we came upon an extremely heavily magically trapped hallway, which was floored in tessellated tiles. In order to pass safely through the hallway one had to step only on certain tiles in a specific pattern. After our party went through a great deal of investigation and thought, my Bladesinger PC was finally able to recognize that the safe path through the hallway was actually the steps of a certain section of a Bladesong kata... specifically a kata that was used by my PC's family! My PC was then able to flawlessly execute that section of the kata and make his way through the hallway without triggering the magical trap [which we learned later could have vaporized all of us] and with some effort was able to successfully talk the other PCs through the correct steps of the kata to get them through the hallway as well (it was only a very small number of steps of the Bladesong so it wasn't really revealing any secrets to them to help them make it through the steps just that one time.) We envisioned the steps of the Bladesong as being similar to Tai Chi and how Tai Chi is taught, which the DM and I had taken classes in together a few years earlier, with the way that Tai Chi steps are divided into sections consisting of a number of steps, each section taught separately [the First Third, etc.] until the student is able to master each section of steps until they are eventually able to string them together into a whole. It was an absolutely incredibly cool use of character background, and of using combat skills in a not-combat way, on the part of the DM [but then, he has always been a wonderful DM.])

I've had some similarly cool out of combat moments with my Gnomish Bladesinger. His magic is all about circles and is inextricably linked with the Training Circle of the Spanish Magic Circle of rapier fencing, and the geometric concepts of movement contained therein (as written down by Thibault, since it's the most complete written account of the tradition), combined with magic circles like the Goetic Circle of Evocation, and the like.

In the game we treat his Detect Magic as a non combat version of the Bladesong, allowing him to see the flow of magical energy around him, and he was able to use it to puzzle out how a hag was escaping notice and infecting people with her evil, predict her next target, and set a trap for her in the Ethereal Plane, where me and my Monster Slayer buddy hid using oil of etherealness and ganked her in two turns after getting the jump on her.

But it also just informs how I describe my magic, drawing circles, whistling chiming notes that corespond to types of magic and effects, and tuning my sword to the magic I've gathered, causing it to reverberate with swelling chords of music and magic, letting the geometry of the magic formations guide my precise steps in combat or while engaging in acrobatic stunts, or when performing for a crowd.