D&D 5E Tasha's Group Patrons Preview

IGN has previewed the Group Patrons section of Tasha’s Guide to Everything.

Meet Some of D&D’s Fanciful New Patrons Your Adventurers Could Work For

We've got an exclusive look inside the next major rules expansion for Wizards of the Coast's beloved tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. It covers the details of how to create powerful Group Patrons for your parties to work with.

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[Aaron L]

I just got an email update from Amazon last night saying that I should be receiving my pre-ordered copies on the 17th.

I would happily have bought them from my local FLGS... but I don't have an FLGS. I don't even have a bookstore within a 45 minute drive of me, damn BFE Central Pennsylvania. It takes an hour drive to State College to get to the nearest FLGS, and I don't have a car.

 

[jgsugden]

I've long believed we need 4 books for the Core Rule Books: The MM, the PHB, a Crunch DMG, and a Training DMG.

The PHB would be essentially the same.

The MM should be essentially the same, but I'd add a chapter at the end that covers the Great Wheel Planar Cosmology.

The Crunch DMG would have the stuff that we reference in the DMG during the game. It would have Magic Items, Environments, Advanced Mechanical Rules, Diseases, Poisons, Traps, etc...

The Training DMG would be EDITION AGNOSTIC. It would introduce NO MECHANICS. It would be a textbook for training someone with the skills a DM CAN use to run a game. Different ways to track initiative, how to build a campaign world, how to do a session 0, game styles (adventure path, sandbox, etc...), acting, how to keep notes and maintain consistency in your world, handling politics, preparing NPC personalities, etc... Ideally, this book would be essentially unchanged between editions. The Matt Colville videos are an excellent example of things that could go into this book.

 

[Aaron L]

I don't understand why WotC is so convinced that, before now, no one ever considered that the PCs might work for someone else.

I suspect they're trying to give DMs more tools to get players to follow the plot railroad. But maybe I'm just cynical today.

Our gaming group actually considers the fact that Tasha's Cauldron is introducing game mechanics for Patrons to be incredibly funny, seeing as how party patrons have been an integral element of our campaigns for years, especially those of my younger brother ever since he started DMing for us a few years ago. He is one of our gaming group's two main Dungeon Masters, and runs one of the two campaigns we are currently playing (although most of us have run several campaigns at various times over the years.) He has basically always used patrons as a basic starting point and feature of his campaigns.

We usually either begin the campaign already attached to an organization or government, or we meet the person who will become our patron not long after our party forms, usually sometime during the first game session. We meet someone in some kind of position of power who offers us tips, rumors, dungeon locations, and employment possibilities, doing jobs that will aid his business or organization, for the mutual benefit of both him and our party. Usually throughout the campaign the wealth, power, and reputation of the patron and the party will rise in prominence alongside each other as a direct result of the tips and employment opportunities our patron has offered us, as our jobs greatly help him out, and he in turn helping the party to make connections with the mover and shakers of the area (of which the patron is usually one.) We will usually end up becoming great friends with our patrons and forming permanent alliances once our mutual positions of power have been secured.

We are looking forward to seeing what kinds of game mechanics Tasha's Cauldron will present for Patrons, and if we will be able to use or adapt them to our existing patronage situations already established in-campaign.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Everything in these types of books is obvious and already done by a select group of DMs (thus rendering that part of the book kind of useless or unnecessary to them). But I in no way begrudge other players using or enjoying the rules even if I don't need them.

Heck, I'm constantly looking at the threads where people have been thanking the deities for all the Variant Class abilities coming in Tasha's and wondering what the heck have y'all been doing these last 6 years? I "fixed" my Ranger back in 2014 and haven't cared about any of these UAs or what's in the new book for them whatsoever. But I'm in no way mad or upset that WotC is spending some their word count putting in options for the rest of you.

Hell I homebrew quite a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited for some of the fixes in Tasha's, and will probably change some of my homebrew items to whats in the book. If it does the same job, just as well, might as well use the official version. At least then it's easier for players to build their character accurately on DnDBeyond or using the MPMB sheet.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I don't see "expeirenced DMs already do this" as a repudiation of Tasha's including these rules. I certainly didn't mind the NPC and role ideas presented by Eberron. There were things I had not considered in there, and that made it worthwhile.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm curious... But aren't monster books, and magic books, and class books filled with stuff someone has done before? This is a weird discussion.

I've been playing since the game first came out, and I find the patron rules in Eberron inspiring. Just as something featuring a slightly different dungeon can be, or a slightly different spell.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WotC doesn't care as much about the old guard as they do the fresh recruits.

The old guard are massively outnumbered by the fresh recruits and, more importantly, the yet to be recruited.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've been playing since the game first came out, and I find the patron rules in Eberron inspiring. Just as something featuring a slightly different dungeon can be, or a slightly different spell.

Yeah, even the worst splatbooks (looking at you 2E, what up?) always had something I hadn't thought of before or, at worst, made me think "that's a terrible idea, here's how I would do it."

In the case of the patron rules, though, I'm running several monthly campaigns right now, and several of them do have patrons. So I'm looking forward to seeing if these rules add things that would make that a more interesting part of my game.

And, although I understand that it's not as universally applicable as the rest of the list, I'm sorry the newspaper patron didn't make the jump over from the 5E Eberron book, since my campaign world actually does have broadsheets.

 

[SkidAce]

Hell I homebrew quite a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited for some of the fixes in Tasha's, and will probably change some of my homebrew items to whats in the book. If it does the same job, just as well, might as well use the official version. At least then it's easier for players to build their character accurately on DnDBeyond or using the MPMB sheet.

I also do this when I have a homebrew, and then they publish a similar system.


...still waiting on psionics, so I can dump mine...

 

[Erdric Dragin]

The old guard are massively outnumbered by the fresh recruits and, more importantly, the yet to be recruited.

Were that true, we wouldn't have so many editions. Just updates and patches. Like how an MMORPG works. New editions are always meant for new recruits, because in every instance of a new edition it was always rather sudden, it was never because the main customer base desired it. It was always to get "new blood" so to speak, for an influx of cash. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I miss the days before WotC. Back when the books had smaller font to fit more material, larger in page count, so much lore, poster maps, massive campaign setting material and world building, and always new and different ways to play the same game while still keeping it within the same edition and compatible with the rest of the game.

The boxed sets alone were glorious. I hate my past self as a kid for not taking good care of the boxed sets I had. There's a reason they're worth several hundred dollars per box now. Had I known D&D was going to change so drastically, I would have taken perfect care of all my boxed sets. Had every Ravenloft and Planescape one. Still have them but they're all so battered.

Now it's "Here's an adventure 2-3 times a year, put an extremely tiny bit of everything else, and call it a night."

Corporations suck.