D&D (2024) Its Ironic That Fire Goliaths Make Better Celestial Warlocks Then Aasimar Do

[DEFCON 1]

DEFCON1 has just accurately described 56% of the threads, and 87% of the arguments, on Enworld!

As always, numbers are both approximate and yet completely accurate. Umbran said so.

87.532%

Precision is important.

 

[WanderingMystic]

So in my opinion the radiant damage and the light cantrip are not that much of a loss if only due to the fact that they are rarely if ever needed. It does however feel a bit unfinished as a player when you find out that you don't get some of your classes abilities as you level up because you already have them.

I compleatly disagree with the notion that if you are upset at this then you are a min maxer or a munchkin. I don't need my primary stat to be higher than a 15 so I don't care what background I pick but this is completely different.

It bothers me a lot more with a Dragonborn draconic sorcerer since the resistances usually are more impactful that the celestial warlock one. That being said I don't think that giving someone immunity is the way to go as that is just so much more powerful than having resistance to two element types.

For me I run into with my character who has a tadpole in their head, I am not a warlock and an aberrant mind sorcerer and loose out on parts of my classes because of it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Quite frankly, yes.

If (general) your thematic ideas of who your character is and who they are narratively is truly the important thing for (general) you... accepting that you can't have that AND a min-maxed character should not that big a deal. It's literally no different than in 5E14 when a player wanted to play an Elven STR-based fighter... knowing full well they weren't going to get a +2 to STR and thus starting with a 15 (when doing point-buy). But if that player really just wanted to play a STR-based fighter (or barbarian or whatever)... they accepted their character was not going to be min-maxed. And it didn't matter. Because the characterization was more important than the numbers and mechanics. Yes, you "got less" that some other combination. But so what? The character is the important thing, not the mechanics. Especially when that "loss" in mechanics was so minor to begin with.

Look, I don't disagree that sure, it'd be nice if the book said "if you get the Light cantrip from two different sources you can swap one out and get something else." But two things with that-- 1) At any home table any single player can just ask of their DM for that anyway. And unless their DM is a total and complete schmuck (and you shouldn't be playing with that DM if that's the case)... the DM should acknowledge that cantrips are so inconsequential to a PC once they reach like 5th level and have spell slots up the wazoo every day that there's zero reason why that DM should ever say "No, you can't have Minor Illusion instead of that second Light cantrip." Having an extra cantrip means virtually nothing in the long run. That's why the game gives PCs two of them with every Magic Initiate feat... because having five, six, eight, ten cantrips just becomes a redundancy of uselessness.

And 2) The book is already written, so no one is getting their way in this anyway. The book isn't suddenly going to get re-printed in the next two weeks with a new line it that goes over what to do in this situation. So every single one of us is going to have to house-rule regardless. So really, what's the point in just complaining about it? What everyone should be doing is working out their own best solution to their problem and solving their issue for themself.

But you know, if people don't actually care about a solution and just want to vent instead... that's fine too. They're free to do so. Just like others are free to question why they are bothering.

I just find it fun to talk about. My own table uses the Level Up expertise die solution that @Corinnguard referenced for stuff like this.

 

[Remathilis]

So just as a curiosity, I looked through a bunch of 2014 era subclasses that gave a fixed free a.) cantrip b.) resistance c.) skill proficiency or d.) tool proficiency. That means, they give a specific option rather than a choice of options.

The light domain, celestial patron, circle of spores, circle of stars, and grave domain (among others) all give you a fixed cantrip you cannot change. The aberrant mind gives you a fixed cantrip, but you used to be able to swap it out if you leveled up (no longer doable in 2024).

No example of gaining a resistance give you anything if you get it later from another source. (storm sorcerer, aberrant mind, celestial patron, undead patron, necromancer, and too many others to mention.)

There is one example of a gaining a skill via a subclass that gives you a choice if you already has it: Purple Dragon Knight "
At 7th level, you gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill. If you are already proficient in it, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, or Performance."
Its worth noting most classes give a choice of skills, and the other other example I found was scout giving you nature and survival (not a choice).

Likewise, most tool proficiencies (when they don't give you a choice) give don't give youan alternative (such as assassin) except for the artificer, who gives you an artisan tool appropriate to a subclass when you take that class and if you already have it, you get a different artisan tool instead.

And in the background section there was a rule that no longer "If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead." I think it could be extended as a general rule, but arguably it could have just been meant for backgrounds. Regardless, the rule seems gone now.

So, I guess WotC has opted to tell anyone who gets the same thing twice they are SOL. The few exceptions that existed appear to be outliers and I wager will be gone if/when they are reprinted (esp artificer). WotC I guess assumes you are either ok with the redundancy and losing a feature OR you plan ahead and design around the redundancy.

As @DEFCON 1 said, It's too late now. The best options to build a well-rounded character is to pick divergent, rather than complementary, options.

 

[Mistwell]

It is interesting. But you shouldn't be penalized through wasted mechanical choices by not choosing it.

You're not penalized on the meaningful aspects of it though.

 

[Remathilis]

You're not penalized on the meaningful aspects of it though.

Would you rather have fire resistance or fire and cold resistance?

Asking for a dragonborn draconic sorcerer.

 

[CreamCloud0]

You're not penalized on the meaningful aspects of it though.

that's still not the same thing as not being penalised at all though, and what authority do you have to decide for other people what are 'meaningful aspects'

 

[Mistwell]

As @DEFCON 1 said, It's too late now. The best options to build a well-rounded character is to pick divergent, rather than complementary, options.

I just spent a lot of time posting every single detail of a given example of this and it turned out to be false. The supposedly redundant species and sub-class worked better with that sub-class than the supposedly not-redundant species.

I think people are looking way too shallow on this and not building real examples and seeing what they really look like. Just counting powers is not a good way to track actual PC power.

 

[Mistwell]

Would you rather have fire resistance or fire and cold resistance?

Asking for a dragonborn draconic sorcerer.

Man I just went through every single aspect of a Aasimar Celestial Warlock vs a Tiefling Celestial Warlock because the claim was made the Tiefling would be better for not being redundant, and it turned out to be wrong. So instead of replying to that you do this sealioning thing where you ignore that and toss out yet more homework for me to do to prove your point?

No, how about you lay out THE ENTIRE THING. Not just those two in isolation, but do what I did laying out the entire comparison with the class abilities and see where it all synergizes or becomes redundant. Because in the prior example it turned out the Tiefling seemed to get more but all their attack cantrips were redundant with Eldritch Blast. And that was only obvious once the whole thing was laid out.

 

[Mistwell]

that's still not the same thing as not being penalised at all though, and what authority do you have to decide for other people what are 'meaningful aspects'

It's not a penalty to have the light cantrip twice. It's the same flavor being repeated. Nobody is picking a species for the light cantrip, particularly when the species has darkvision.

People pick Species for either actual power or flavor. If it's flavor this topic doesn't matter. If it's actual power, then focusing on nearly meaningless powers being redundant isn't an argument about power.