D&D 5E The New D&D Book: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything!

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The new D&D book has been revealed, and it is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, "a magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game." The 192-page book is due out November 17th, with standard and alternate covers, and contains more subclasses, spells, character options, group patrons, and rules. Oh, and psionics!

Cover art is by Magali Villeneuve

WHAT WONDERFUL WITCHERY IS THIS?

A magical mixture of rules options for the world's greatest roleplaying game.

The wizard Tasha, whose great works include the spell Tasha’s hideous laughter, has gathered bits and bobs of precious lore during her illustrious career as an adventurer. Her enemies wouldn’t want these treasured secrets scattered across the multiverse, so in defiance, she has collected and codified these tidbits for the enrichment of all.

• EXPANDED SUBCLASSES. Try out subclass options for every Dungeons & Dragons class, including the artificer, which appears in the book.
• MORE CHARACTER OPTIONS. Delve into a collection of new class features and new feats, and customize your character’s origin using straightforward rules for modifying a character’s racial traits.
• INTRODUCING GROUP PATRONS. Whether you're part of the same criminal syndicate or working for an ancient dragon, each group patron option comes with its own perks and types of assignments.
• SPELLS, ARTIFACTS & MAGIC TATTOOS. Discover more spells, as well as magic tattoos, artifacts, and other magic items for your campaign.
• EXPANDED RULES OPTIONS. Try out rules for sidekicks, supernatural environments, natural hazards, and parleying with monsters, and gain guidance on running a session zero.
• A PLETHORA OF PUZZLES. Ready to be dropped into any D&D adventure, puzzles of varied difficulty await your adventurers, complete with traps and guidance on using the puzzles in a campaign.

Full of expanded content for players and Dungeon Masters alike, this book is a great addition to the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Baked in you'll find more rule options for all the character classes in the Player's Handbook, including more subclass options. Thrown in for good measure is the artificer class, a master of magical invention. And this witch's brew wouldn't be complete without a dash of added artifacts, spellbook options, spells for both player characters and monsters, magical tattoos, group patrons, and other tasty goodies.

Here's the alternate cover:

UPDATE! An online event called D&D Celebration from September 18th-20th will be hosted by Elle Osili-Wood, which is "an epic live event with panels, gameplay, & previews of the book!" See the video in the Tweet below!

Gather your party and join the adventure at  D&D Celebration 2020, an online gaming event open to fans all over the world!

Celebrate the release of  Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden  with a weekend of Icewind Dale–themed virtual play sessions and help us create the biggest virtual tabletop roleplaying game event ever! Fans will also get the chance to preview some content from  Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the forthcoming book featuring massive rules options, subclasses, and more for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Watch featured play sessions with D&D luminaries and learn something new with a slate of panels led by the D&D design team and community.


UPDATE! Check out the Nerdarchy site for some previews.

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Has, Well… Everything for 5E D&D

The follow up to 2017’s Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, on Nov. 17, 2020 fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons upcoming Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything must indeed possess powerful …

nerdarchy.com

UPDATE! Other news items around the web about this book:

With D&D's Next Rulebook, Character Creation Will Never Be the Same

Although Dungeons & Dragons’ fifth edition has added as many classes, races, and rules as it has since it first began, for the most part, the way players create characters has stayed the same. You pick a race, that race defines certain things about you, and so on. But the game’s next sourcebook...

io9.gizmodo.com

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything coming in November, brings new ways to personalize your characters

Wizards of the Coast has announced its next D&D book! Entitled Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, this rules expansion follows up Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and will be available on November 17th. Providing both players and DMs with the tools to level up their games, the 192 page tome will be...

gamingtrend.com

Dungeons & Dragons Announces New Book and Fall Event - IGN

The D&D team reveals an online community event in September and a new sourcebook soon to follow.

www.ign.com

D&D's next expansion, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, adds new subclasses and racial customization

Dungeons & Dragons is getting its biggest rules expansion in three years, courtesy of one powerful witch. In November, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything will hit shelves, offering D&D players several new subclasses, some exciting new spells, and a new way to create characters that’s fully...

www.syfy.com

 

[SkidAce]

Is there a way to flag a thread so when it turns into the same edition war debate you can see that without entering it and having to sift through it all?


/semi-tongue in cheek

 

[Sacrosanct]

OK, this myth that 4e didn't have the streaming as a way to boost its popularity is just that, a myth. D&D streamed games didn't start in 2014. They've been around for a while, including by groups like Cryaotic that have been around pre-5e and have 2.5 million subscribers. And people like Matt Coville having been sharing videos about playing for the past 10 years. And Roll20 was launched in 2012 as well.

Streaming has increased over the past decade, because technology has improved. But it's not like 4e was played pre internet or anything, and did in fact have recorded games.

 

[Dire Bare]

I mean, other than skill challenges (which took many iterations to get... let's be honest, just barely passable, but is still great idea) and 4e monster design principles (which, again, took a few iterations to become truly great) what design choices are those? 5e improved upon the idea of rituals, and better balanced classes without making them symmetrical in design... and they're even finally getting around to the idea that feats are the superior multi-classing.

What else is missing? The W-☠☠☠

All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

 

[Parmandur]

As if 5e didn’t have a multi-year marketing campaign and a massive boost from the advent of streaming games.

I don't want to wage into a war, here, but... I've watched Chris Perkins DM 4E on stream, and DM 5E on stream (both while working on material for said edition was his job). I've seen Matt Mercer DM Pathfinder on stream after DMing for 3.x for some 14 years of his life, and DM 5E on stream like two weeks after picking up the books (the Critical Role folks had just switched to 5E and we're learning the rules as they went). That's as close to a controlled comparison as I think we are likely to get.

With all due respect, there are elements of 5E that (quite accidentally, as WotC didn't see it coming) make it a better fit for streaming than 3.x or 4E. Not better in se, but more fit for the medium. That's half luck accident, half intentional design to make a streamlined experience at the table (which happens to stream well).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've seen Matt Mercer DM Pathfinder on stream after DMing for 3.x for some 24 years of his life

Matt Mercer may be wasting the potential of his time machine.

 

[Parmandur]

Matt Mercer may be wasting the potential of his time machine.

I dunno, he's making a living playing Dungeons & Dragons professionally with his best friends. Doing it right, maybe?

 

[Marandahir]

Long shot prediction time: There are 22 entirely new subclasses in Tasha's Cauldron. People counted up the UA material and got 24, which less the two Wizard subclasses that had been called out as not making the cut (Psionic and Onomancy Wizard) leaves 22. Thus people have assumed that some version of everything else made it in. But is that true?

There's been conflicting information on if the Sorcerer subclass that made it in is the Aberrant Mind or the Psionic Soul. But is there a conflict? In one of the Dev videos, they commented that the feedback on Aberrant Mind was "Too much mucus" and the feedback on Psionic Soul was "Not enough mucus". What if they decided to please both camps by finding enough design space to do both of them?

Thus my long shot prediction is that both the Aberrant Mind and Psionic Soul will be in the book, and an unknown 1 of the other 21 UA subclasses got left on the cutting room floor.

College of Spirits and The Undead don't count as they were UA'd too recently for the book.

So there's precisely 22, if you consider Order of Scribes > Onomancy, Aberrant Mind > Psionic Soul, and Phantom > The Revived.

FYI for edition warriors out there - 4e ran through the end of 2013. Remember that in 4e, everything is core. Including Dragon & Dungeon magazine. December 2013 was the last edition of 4e Dragon & Dungeon, and we got a lot of cool content through 2012 and 2013 even though Next was also running. Most of the adventures in Dungeon were published with both 4e and Next rules at the time, though.

 

[cbwjm]

OK, this myth that 4e didn't have the streaming as a way to boost its popularity is just that, a myth. D&D streamed games didn't start in 2014. They've been around for a while, including by groups like Cryaotic that have been around pre-5e and have 2.5 million subscribers. And people like Matt Coville having been sharing videos about playing for the past 10 years. And Roll20 was launched in 2012 as well.

Streaming has increased over the past decade, because technology has improved. But it's not like 4e was played pre internet or anything, and did in fact have recorded games.

Not only streaming but also podcasts. The penny arcade/PvP streams started as a podcast introducing 4e and later streamed the videos from pax.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't want to wage into a war, here, but... I've watched Chris Perkins DM 4E on stream, and DM 5E on stream (both while working on material for said edition was his job). I've seen Matt Mercer DM Pathfinder on stream after DMing for 3.x for some 14 years of his life, and DM 5E on stream like two weeks after picking up the books (the Critical Role folks had just switched to 5E and we're learning the rules as they went). That's as close to a controlled comparison as I think we are likely to get.

With all due respect, there are elements of 5E that (quite accidentally, as WotC didn't see it coming) make it a better fit for streaming than 3.x or 4E. Not better in se, but more fit for the medium. That's half luck accident, half intentional design to make a streamlined experience at the table (which happens to stream well).

That I do not disagree with. One of 5e’s greatest strengths is its ease of use, and that ease of use also happens to make it uniquely well-suited among D&D editions to being streamed. It’s also why I do prefer 5e to 4e overall. But I don’t think that would necessarily be lost, had 5e embraced more of 4e’s design ideas.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@WotC please, for humanity’s sake, please leak some new details about Tasha’s to get us back on topic.