D&D 5E My Quick and Dirty Tasha Read

[Azzy]

My Q&D-read of Tasha's:
Feels like I already have most of that in other books, or at least read it in UA.

Well, considering that Unearthed Arcana consists of playtest material for thing intended to be included is future products, I'd say that that's kinda natural

And then these ridiculous pseudo-Psionics classes.

What's ridiculous about the Psi Warrior and Soulknife? They're both pretty cool concepts.

 

[NotAYakk]

I think the swaps are ok, unless as a dwarf fighter you swap all your proficiencies for tools, because the dwarf did not spent his time learning weapons and armor... Only when they suddenly trained to be a fighter... 1 or 2 proficiencies ok, but not all of them.
I think the costs of the trades should be somewhat meaingful.

Yep. So I'm gonna go with:

1) Every race gets a bonus feat. Because feats are fun.
2) You can move attribute bonuses around.
3) You can swap all of your Armor proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
4) You can swap all of your Weapon proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
5) You can swap one Martial weapon proficiency for another Weapon proficiency.
6) You can swap one Simple weapon proficiency for another Simple weapon proficiency.
7) You can swap a Skill proficiency for another Skill proficiency, or 2 Tool/Languages.
8) Every Medium race gets a d8 HD. Every Small race gets a d6 HD. Dragonborn, and Races with "heavy build", get a d10 HD. (and average rounded up HP).
9) Bonuses from your race and level 1 feat cannot exceed +2 on a given statistic.
10) Vhuman is removed (as everyone gets a bonus feat).

Languages do double-duty as "cultural proficiency". The list of languages is determined by countries, not races. So Albion language proficiency grants you ability to speak Albion and a proficiency bonus on checks about Albion culture (history, politics, etc). Nations who speak dialects of each other are noted, but each proficiency means you speak the dialect from that particular country (and know the politics/culture of that country).

Feat+the extra HD bumps level 1 characters up to level 2ish power level, which makes making T1 encounters less work for me (the "early fights" can be less "rats" and more serious, relative to the end-of-T1 fights).

Instead of going from "power level" ~1.25 to ~4 in T1 (3.2x), you go from ~2 to ~5 (2.5x). T2 instead of 6 to 11 (x1.8) does 7 to 12 (x1.7), a small impact. And by T3/4 the HD and feat are relatively small in impact. (Those power levels are approximate, but backed by encounter building math).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yep. So I'm gonna go with:

1) Every race gets a bonus feat. Because feats are fun.
2) You can move attribute bonuses around.
3) You can swap all of your Armor proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
4) You can swap all of your Weapon proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
5) You can swap one Martial weapon proficiency for another Weapon proficiency.
6) You can swap one Simple weapon proficiency for another Simple weapon proficiency.
7) You can swap a Skill proficiency for another Skill proficiency, or 2 Tool/Languages.
8) Every Medium race gets a d8 HD. Every Small race gets a d6 HD. Dragonborn, and Races with "heavy build", get a d10 HD. (and average rounded up HP).
9) Bonuses from your race and level 1 feat cannot exceed +2 on a given statistic.
10) Vhuman is removed (as everyone gets a bonus feat).

Languages do double-duty as "cultural proficiency". The list of languages is determined by countries, not races. So Albion language proficiency grants you ability to speak Albion and a proficiency bonus on checks about Albion culture (history, politics, etc). Nations who speak dialects of each other are noted, but each proficiency means you speak the dialect from that particular country (and know the politics/culture of that country).

Feat+the extra HD bumps level 1 characters up to level 2ish power level, which makes making T1 encounters less work for me (the "early fights" can be less "rats" and more serious, relative to the end-of-T1 fights).

Instead of going from "power level" ~1.25 to ~4 in T1 (3.2x), you go from ~2 to ~5 (2.5x). T2 instead of 6 to 11 (x1.8) does 7 to 12 (x1.7), a small impact. And by T3/4 the HD and feat are relatively small in impact. (Those power levels are approximate, but backed by encounter building math).

I thought about giving a racial hit die with hp and con bonus ad everything, but at the same time I would take away max hp for first level and instead give average hp there too.
The worst you can get is gnome barbarian and then you lose out only if you have no con bonus and you still have more hp per day.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, there aren't really a lot of melee spells, seems like that is what is really missing to make the various half-casters into Gishes.

This is a good point. It’s odd that there aren’t a collection of arcane themed weapon attack spells, and more rangery attack spells.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is a good point. It’s odd that there aren’t a collection of arcane themed weapon attack spells, and more rangery attack spells.

I want the Aegis spells to be brought back.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yep. So I'm gonna go with:

1) Every race gets a bonus feat. Because feats are fun.
2) You can move attribute bonuses around.
3) You can swap all of your Armor proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
4) You can swap all of your Weapon proficiencies for a Tool or Language proficiency.
5) You can swap one Martial weapon proficiency for another Weapon proficiency.
6) You can swap one Simple weapon proficiency for another Simple weapon proficiency.
7) You can swap a Skill proficiency for another Skill proficiency, or 2 Tool/Languages.
8) Every Medium race gets a d8 HD. Every Small race gets a d6 HD. Dragonborn, and Races with "heavy build", get a d10 HD. (and average rounded up HP).
9) Bonuses from your race and level 1 feat cannot exceed +2 on a given statistic.
10) Vhuman is removed (as everyone gets a bonus feat).

Languages do double-duty as "cultural proficiency". The list of languages is determined by countries, not races. So Albion language proficiency grants you ability to speak Albion and a proficiency bonus on checks about Albion culture (history, politics, etc). Nations who speak dialects of each other are noted, but each proficiency means you speak the dialect from that particular country (and know the politics/culture of that country).

Feat+the extra HD bumps level 1 characters up to level 2ish power level, which makes making T1 encounters less work for me (the "early fights" can be less "rats" and more serious, relative to the end-of-T1 fights).

Instead of going from "power level" ~1.25 to ~4 in T1 (3.2x), you go from ~2 to ~5 (2.5x). T2 instead of 6 to 11 (x1.8) does 7 to 12 (x1.7), a small impact. And by T3/4 the HD and feat are relatively small in impact. (Those power levels are approximate, but backed by encounter building math).

I'm actually doing something pretty similar to that.

 

[NaturalZero]

Hardly. I’m in melee with my BS all the time. Works great. You don’t need to be a tank to be a melee character.

It's sort of the opposite though, right? - good at tanking but not great at melee. The issue is that because they're primarily a wizard, they're better served doing wizard stuff like fireball, lightning bolt, polymorph, wall of x, et all, instead of going into melee and trying to use Dex to hit with melee cantrips. Even with the melee cantrips, they're limited to using a one-handed weapon while other gish builds have the option for more damage.

This is a good point. It’s odd that there aren’t a collection of arcane themed weapon attack spells, and more rangery attack spells.

Yup. You can be harder to hit, sure, but almost all of your class power comes from spells slots, which do they exact same things as every other wizard. The bladesinger is in an interesting position because you could completely revamp it's functionality by adding spells instead of rewriting the class. Aegis spells and melee-enhancing concentration spells would be useful.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

they're better served doing wizard stuff like fireball, lightning bolt, polymorph, wall of x, et all, instead of going into melee and trying to use Dex to hit with melee cantrips.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to care about this.

I’m playing a Bladesinger. Why on earth would I even look at spells that aren’t designed to be used in melee?

 

[humble minion]

I think the darkvision sharing out to 300' is pretty darn powerful too.

I still shake my head at that, and even though I know it was probably floated in the Twilight cleric UA at 300ft, I still don't entirely believe they did it. Subconsciously I'm least 75% expecting that to be errataed back to 30ft relatively quickly on the grounds it was a typo.

Just seems wildly out of proportion with the darkvision ranges that literally anyone else gets.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I still shake my head at that, and even though I know it was probably floated in the Twilight cleric UA at 300ft, I still don't entirely believe they did it. Subconsciously I'm least 75% expecting that to be errataed back to 30ft relatively quickly on the grounds it was a typo.

Just seems wildly out of proportion with the darkvision ranges that literally anyone else gets.

It's not a typo. In the UA it was infinite darkvision, which they could also give to allies. This is scaled back from the UA, but is still the most powerful darkvision in the game.