Its time to exempt (sub)race from the PHB +1 rule!

[BookBarbarian]

Sorry chopsticks are third party and not allowed.

Oh yeah I forgot that rule. Yeah, that takes Popcorn + Chocolate right off the table for me.

 

[Satyrn]

We now have situation where Aasimar can't be Divine Souls or Celestial Warlocks, Shadar Kai can't be Shadow Magic Sorcerers or Hexblades, Water Genasi, Tritons, Lizardfolk, Sea Elves and Half Sea Elves can't become Storm Herald Barbarians of the Sea, and Tabaxi can't become Barbarians of the Tiger spirit, Hobgoblins can't become Warmages, ect... even the lore behind these races and these subclasses fight like hand in glove, peanut butter and jelly.

This is absurd. Look some people want to keep the PHB +1 rule, but met me half way and compromise, seperate races from that the way they have Gods, Backgrounds, Monsters (Summonable and Companions). This would not unbalanced the game, no race has abilities that are gake breaking in the slightest, nor with the potential to do so in combination with any subclass.

Lets make things make sense.

I think you'd have better chance of getting the change you want if you ask for exemption to specific options rather than exempting a whole category.

For example, AL specifies the variant tieflings in SCAG actually count as part of the PH. So, like, lobby for the aasimar to be treated the same.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I like it how it is. Simple. Keep agitating for the combos you want and maybe they'll toss them into a single source book someday.

 

[Horwath]

I do not play AL, but it seem as dumb rule overall.

It's all official D&D product.

Or you admit in advance that you cannot make 3 balanced books with game mechanics?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I do not play AL, but it seem as dumb rule overall.

It's all official D&D product.

Or you admit in advance that you cannot make 3 balanced books with game mechanics?

I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing. Or at admitting that they balance each with reference to the PH but not the others when it comes to AL's needs. I like it because anyone who shows up at my table only has to have two books to show me info on their character - the PH and their +1. Not five different resources and a folio of web supplements. That was bad enough in 3.5 (and still is in PF).

Do you have some builds slip through the cracks? Probably. If they're important builds agitate to WotC and we'll see if some of those combos automagically appear in future books.

 

[cooperjer]

I was thinking about this recently because of Crawford's discussion on D&D Beyond about Eladrin and Shadar-kai. AL is starting to feel too constrained with the PHB +1 rule with regards to race and class selection. Zanathar's Guide was nice enough to collect spells from PotA, so I felt that a PHB race plus Zanathar's felt a little constrained, but with in acceptable limits. With Mordenkainen's tome adding new races and being separate from Volo's guide, I feel like there is a wealth of options players are limited from exploring in AL. In addition, as the OP suggested there are some races and sub-classes that seem to fit well together in the fiction of the game, but are not able to be combined in AL.

On the other hand, if the AL team does open up the PHB +1 rule, that now might cause a player to desire / need to purchase more than the PHB plus 1 other book. At $50 per book that becomes cost prohibitive. There may be additional arguments to keep the PHB +1 rule.

In a discussion with a friend about this topic recently, it was pointed out that AL DMs have access to all of the books because of the store credit they receive running the game. So, if a player wanted to use a book they don't have, then borrow the DMs copy to create the character. A counter point to this is that not all stores give the AL DMs store credit for running games.

As an AL DM, I feel it's part of my responsibility to be familiar with all of the subclasses and races in the game to an extent that I can run the game with confidence. After all, I'm not 100% confident I'll have the same players from week to week, and I've seen a lot of different mixes come to my table. Opening up the number of books available to the players will not affect my game or how I prepare for my game.

In my home game, I allow anything as long as I get a chance to review it for balance and possible effect on the fiction of the game.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe they should go back to the concept of ''favored class'' for AL that doesnt count as a +1. Ask the community on what race should have as a favored archetype for lore related reasons, then keep a list for player that can be expanded sometime to add a new favored archetype for a specific race.
Something like:
elves; bladesinger
dwarf; battlerager
Shadar-kai; shadow sorcerer
etc

 

[epithet]

Personally, I object to the stupid, stupid "PHB+1" restriction of the Adventurers' League because it leads to wasting pages in new books re-printing verbatim content from previous books. That's crap.

If you want to make race/class combinations possible (where each is official, final, WotC published material already!) then make them available. This whole jumping-through-hoops thing where you have to make sure they're both published in the same book is just asinine.

I don't need another reason to never bother with AL stuff, but if I did this one rule would suffice.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ultimately it doesn’t matter to me since I neither play in nor run AL. That said, I think PHB+1 is a good idea. It allows WOTC to focus on balancing supplements internally and against the PHB, without having to worry about unforeseen combinations of otherwise fair options breaking organized play. With this rule, they don’t have to limit themselves when designing new books based on what came in old books - a spell that is fair on its own but becomes overpowered when combined with a Subclass ability from a different book doesn’t have to be toned down for fear of ruining AL, errata doesn’t have to be issued to fix unseen combinations, which frees those of us who play homebrew are free to deal with those game-breaking combinations in our own way as they arise. And I think excepting entire groups of options (like “all (sub)races”, from the PHB+1 rule undermines the design freedom PHB+1 allows. It’s one thing to say “racial variants for Tieflings and Half-elves from SCAG count as part of the core rules.” It’s quite another thing to say “all races currently existing and that we might ever design count as part of the core rules.” Heck, even saying “all options from XGTE count as part of the core rules” would be safer.

 

[Horwath]

I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing. Or at admitting that they balance each with reference to the PH but not the others when it comes to AL's needs. I like it because anyone who shows up at my table only has to have two books to show me info on their character - the PH and their +1. Not five different resources and a folio of web supplements. That was bad enough in 3.5 (and still is in PF).

Do you have some builds slip through the cracks? Probably. If they're important builds agitate to WotC and we'll see if some of those combos automagically appear in future books.

why?

New books should be for new content, not reprinting and charging me 100% price for 80% new content.

Only reprint that should happen is Rebalance(patch) of the old print. Not completely the same.