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...

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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...

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[DnD Warlord]

Then ya combine that with the Gauntlets from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravinica and you have another cantrip in there.

3 green flame blades at level 11* would be 3w+str+6d6 fire and an adjacent target 6d6+int fire

if we say long sword and we16 str and 16 int you get 22 slashing 21 fire. And 30fire to adjacent

that sounds awesome

 

[Sacrosanct]

3 green flame blades at level 11* would be 3w+str+6d6 fire and an adjacent target 6d6+int fire

if we say long sword and we16 str and 16 int you get 22 slashing 21 fire. And 30fire to adjacent

that sounds awesome

It doesn't work that way. You can only cast one cantrip per round. Also, GFB is a spell, so it's an action, and you don't get to use your action to cast a spell AND then make an attack action. The spell is worded so that "As part of the action casting this spell, make a weapon attack."

Basically, if you had 3 attacks per attack action, you could either use a boosted GFB (assuming you'd be higher than level 5 to begin with) and ONE attack or make 3 regular weapon attacks. And it's a d8, not d6

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and green fire leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of it. The second creature takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8

fire damage to the target, and the fire damage to the second creature increases to 1d8

+ your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8

at 11th level and 17th level.

But to your point, which I know is an exception, shows exactly why you can't stack cantrips. It would be game breaking.

Edit So with illusionists bracers, the best you can do is 2 GFB and give up the extra attack from war caster (which you would since GFB allows an attack anyway.) Those bracers already break things, so no way they'd have a way to do 3 GFB in a turn. Not to mention the bracers cost your bonus action, and you only get one of those per turn.

 

[OB1]

That depends on whether or not 5e's success, at least with respect to tone, is because it helped WotC pull in people attached to the older-school D&D feel or because it tapped into why older school D&D was so popular in the first place. The former may be a minority of players, but we don't know if the latter is or not. It's entirely possible that the older school-friendly tone of 5e has a broader, potentially much broader, appeal than the increasingly fiddly, measured, careful, and precise 3e and 4e.

I think this nails it, and I'll also add that from the beginning of 5e, WotC decided it wasn't enough to try and sell more to the people who already play the game, but to sell the game to more people. The PHB was designed and marketed to appeal to a wide base. New releases are designed and marketed with the intent to sell more PHBs to new players. WotC doesn't need to sell every book to every player to be successful, it just needs to make sure people keep buying PHBs.

 

[Charlaquin]

That depends on whether or not 5e's success, at least with respect to tone, is because it helped WotC pull in people attached to the older-school D&D feel or because it tapped into why older school D&D was so popular in the first place. The former may be a minority of players, but we don't know if the latter is or not. It's entirely possible that the older school-friendly tone of 5e has a broader, potentially much broader, appeal than the increasingly fiddly, measured, careful, and precise 3e and 4e.

I definitely think the latter is more likely.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know why so many people are making a big deal about Tasha. Nobody spent this much digital ink on Volo, Xanathar, or Mordenkainen. And her presence in the book won't be any more than their's, with the exception of a few spells.

I wasn't playing 5E at that point. (We went from 3E to C&C and finally 5E a year ago.)

So, let me catch up:

1) Volo has always been dumb and I don't know why developers keep trying to make him a thing.
2) Xanathar is more interesting, although I think it's possible over-exposing beholders takes a lot of their mystery and awe away.
3) Mordenkainen is good in the sense that it broke the Forgotten Realms monopoly on this stuff, but his name is hard to spell, the character's kind of a jerk, and it should have been ______'s Fiend Folio.

 

[Maxperson]

I just read the Tasha's article in Dragon 33. A simple change to the racial restriction would not qualify as a new version of the Bladesinger, so I'm convinced there will be further changes. Also, it confirms that Tasha is Iggwilv.

 

[Ancalagon]

3) Surges were a static value, and this is something I miss so much. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people get frustrated over low rolls from cure wounds, healing potions, or even short rests. You can burn an extra two or three dice just from the fact that you rolled 1's on the die and didn't recover nearly enough HP. And, static values would go a long way towards making healing more viable. I've got a few DMs who have ruled potions just give max value, and we might even start letting you take the average of your HD, just to help balance things out.

That is a valid complaint. In the PF game I am playing in, any 1 rolled on HP (healing or leveling up) is re-rolled

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bruce has washed his hands of 5E Mystara after he approached Wizards, its still his baby but he doesn't have any interest in 5e. However there are several others that have been working on updating it or at least keeping it relevant. It's sad to see how it's considered a second-tier setting considering in terms of product it was only behind Forgotten Realms in content. It's also extremely popular in Europe because it was one of the first settings introduced there in translations. It's still have a large fan base with Vaults of Pandius, the Piazza, Welcome to Mystara and Mystara Reborn being constantly updated.

Mystara is also where a lot of TSR superstars did some really interesting work in a more experimental space. Everyone scoffs at a halfling homeland gazetteer, but the Five Shires is by Ed Greenwood and presents an incredibly gameable setting that, IMO, is very in step with contemporary tastes of having places not be terrible and grimdark. (Back in the late 1990s, people on the MML were constantly trying to "fix" the Five Shires by making it grim and gritty, which was just weird and misplaced effort, IMO.)

 

[Ancalagon]

(Google+ dying and a bunch of toxic OSR folks being outed probably did more damage to the movement overall, though.)

Google+ dying did damage, yest. But booting a few of those toxic people did the scene a lot of good. It's pretty good now.

In fact, I am running a "major" (major for me ha) project with a number of volunteers.... so yes, the OSR scene and its many offshoots still have plenty of life in them.

 

[Ancalagon]

I really hope they don't nerf the Rune Knight too much. It better not end up like another Arcane Archer where it only has Rune Knight ability for like 30 seconds a day.

I too hope they don't tune it down too much - but is it confirmed that it is in the book?