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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I mean, maybe? At the time that certainly seemed like an important decision. However, with the enormous growth 5e went on to experience, people with attachment to an old-school D&D feel are now a tiny minority of players. Maybe it was an important move short-term, but long-term I’m not sure it mattered much.

I think it helped greatly weaken the OSR movement, which was much bigger then. Bringing a bunch of those folks back into the tent was good in the short term but it's also provided a lot of creativity in the third party ecosystem, especially since OSR folks, by definition, have a longer frame of reference than just one or two editions' worth.

Over on Kickstarter especially, a ton of the third party projects you see have OSR folks involved.

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

 

[DnD Warlord]

I’m not married to the combat roles as codified Things necessarily, but making a conscious decision about what a class’s job was in combat, and giving them tools to do it effectively are something I think 5e could have benefited greatly from. Tanks could tank because they had abilities that allowed them to punish opponents who attacked other party members. Controllers could control because they had powerful CC and battled manipulation abilities.

I think roles needed to be fixed but they need to come back...
take the 3 pillars give each class a primary and a secondary role for each pillar...

 

[Rygar]

Wait, really? I mean, they specifically worked with Tracy for 'Curse of Strahd' - this is the first I've heard about all the stuff with Dragonlance.

Yes, M&T floated a new novel series to WOTC right about the time of 5th edition's release. They then went radio silent. I believe you can still find remenants of the event on the Dragonlance facebook page if you go back to around 5th edition's release, and probably a bit harder but at the Dragonlance Nexus forums.

There's an outside chance WOTC agreed, and is waiting for them to deliver the full trilogy before announcing/printing, but I suspect they turned them down.

It's a very weird situation, because we know that a Dragonlance movie script is/was shopped around as Joseph Magniola (Probably misspelled) was showing pictures of it a few years back, and there were some rumors of Hasbro shopping it around as a Game of Thrones competitor. Their behavior with Dragonlance is extremely odd.

The only explanation that really makes sense is that they're trying to turn it into a movie series and/or TV show, and their partners won't take the multi-movie (300-600 million) risk until WOTC proves it has potential based on the reception to the current D&D movie. If that's the case, they'd tie up additional novels until the movies are greenlit/announced and use a new novel line as a marketing tool.

Because I cannot imagine that they're so business-inept that they'd sit on their second biggest game product and the only D&D product that has ever had penetration in the mass market for no reason.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, maybe? At the time that certainly seemed like an important decision. However, with the enormous growth 5e went on to experience, people with attachment to an old-school D&D feel are now a tiny minority of players. Maybe it was an important move short-term, but long-term I’m not sure it mattered much.

But now people who started in the past 6 years have nostalgia for D&D as it was in the Teens...which is harkening back to that Olde Tyme RPGing.

 

[Rygar]

The idea that they're making business decisions in 2020 based on protecting the reputation of a discontinued decade-old edition is deeply conspiratorial thinking.

That is a fair question, and under any other circumstances, I'd agree, but from what I've seen the leadership team on the D&D RPG side is fantastically incompetent.

• First there's 4th edition itself, any business that makes that big of a mistake, doubles down on the mistake, then encourages and supports vigilante groups of fans to attack the fans of their previous products on their own forums isn't a business cursed with an abundance of skill.
• Then they hinged their product line's entire future on digital product lines, and couldn't recover from losing two engineers. I can't think of any other business with WOTC/Hasbro's market value that isn't able to execute on a business plan because they lost two employees.
• Then they tripled down on 4th edition after another company took their customer base, and released essentials, which anyone could've told them wasn't going to bring back all of the customers.
• Then they launched 5th edition and still can't figure out they could be making huge amounts of money by releasing frequent periodic content like they did with Dungeon magazine. Instead relying on random people to sell things on a website that the average customer has probably never heard of.
• Then they tied themselves to phones/tablets as a poorly supported content delivery platform...failing to notice that "Ebooks" plateaued years earlier at a 20% market penetration. So basically, they decided they weren't going to bother with 4 out of 5 customers.
• Then they rejected a sequel to one of their most popular video games by the guy who lead the original (Planescape) when they weren't doing anything with Planescape, had no intention of doing anything with it, and could've just basically received free money.
• Then they made a huge amount of noise about player demographics...except they have no way of knowing player demographics since you're not required to self identify when you purchase a D&D book or identify all of the friends you share it with. So how they expected anyone would believe those numbers is mind boggling, anyone with any business sense would say "Guys, wait, no one's going to believe this. It's obvious it's impossible for us to have this data".
• I'll also throw in - They still keep repeating the old bit about "TSR failed because campaigns fragmented the market" without any evidence of that. The premise hinges upon every D&D player being required to buy product even if they don't like it, and by removing product lines those players would've bought others. To put it another way, it's saying that every person who bought Birthright would've bought Forgotten Realms if Birthright didn't exist, and no person who bought Birthright also bought Forgotten Realms. It's another example of how they don't have anyone who understands metrics.
• Even the Magic the Gathering side demonstrates the same flawed business sense. They decided they needed an intro product for MTG, so they made portal...and it didn't sell. So they made portal 2...and it didn't sell. So they turned the core set into a beginner set...and it stopped selling. So they turned it into an even more beginner set...and it sold even less. Then they cancelled it.

So yes, superficially it might sound like a conspiracy theory, but all available evidence indicates that they really are that clueless and as such, it becomes very plausible that they really don't have any idea why the 4th edition books didn't sell.

 

[humble minion]

Because I cannot imagine that they're so business-inept that they'd sit on their second biggest game product and the only D&D product that has ever had penetration in the mass market for no reason.

From the survey results that WotC have publicly released, and from the poll results on here, it seems like Dragonlance is kinda in the second-tier of popularity as far as gaming settings go now. I think it's very unlikely that it's 'second biggest' anything these days, although historically things were very very different. Hell, the biggest single D&D game product outside the core books is probably Critical Role these days. WotC don't get everything right, but they do do their market research. If there was a vast undertow of demand for 5E Dragonlance, they'd have done SOMETHING about it by now...

My very unscientific impression is that Dragonlance WAS once the 800lb gorilla of D&D, but that times have changed and tastes have changed. Part of the reason FR overtook DL was that it was a more expansive setting that was less centred around a single dominant storyline. Plus, part of the changes in the fashion of the fantasy genre in general since the highpoint of DL in the 80s has been a general drift away from heroic quests against Dark Lords and manichean good vs evil morality, and towards ambiguity, grounded villains with comprehensible and understandable motivations, and similar ethical messiness.

 

[MoonSong]

On 4e, how about we all agreeing that it was a great game that could have sold better, many of us miss, and some people could have loved it more or hated it less? And then we let that dead horse rest in peace?

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?

The controversy on whether it's the Psionic Soul Sorcerer or the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, I think we've got different sources saying different things.

Personally I liked it better when it was the Aberrant Mind, as I felt the subclass lost a lot of its flavourful appeal as the Psionic Soul.

I'm kinda hoping we get both. A very slimy flavorful Aberrant Mind, and a flavor neutral Psionic Soul but more involved with the psionic die thing. If we had both, we'd be able to claim psionics as something sorcerers do but wizards don't?

Is there a benefit to pre-order rather than waiting to closer to the release date?

There's another benefit, or more like the absence of a hindrance. When Xanathar's was coming out, I decided against pre-ordering it and instead order it around the launch week. On launch day, my local chapter of Amazon was out of it and I ended up having to wait a whole month for it. If you preorder it, you'll have it on launch day.

 

[Undrave]

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. And also that they make it so you can put rune on other people's stuff too.

And I hope they made the Phantom more synergetic with the whole trinket thing, I thought that was the coolest part and should have been the core of it!

Anybody has some UA subclass they hope aren't too wildly changed?

Since she's gonna be primarily offering commentary in the margins, a la Xanathar, in terms of giving the book flavor, does anyone have any predictions for how they'll address her "other side" in the text?

There could be two different sets of commentary, seemingly dueling with each other?

The controversy on whether it's the Psionic Soul Sorcerer or the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, I think we've got different sources saying different things.

Personally I liked it better when it was the Aberrant Mind, as I felt the subclass lost a lot of its flavourful appeal as the Psionic Soul.

Yeah, I liked the link to the Far Realm, even if they toned down the mucus and tentacles. I also liked the Deep Sea Warlock a lot...

The title is a dud; too closely copying Xanathar. I hope the content is awesome to compensate.

(The phrase "Tasha's Cauldron" has promise, but needs a better follow-through. It evokes an expanded spell list book, imo.)

Why is everybody so fixated on the use of 'everything' in the title?! It makes sense to brand those book similarly! It's a generic term attached to a bunch of specifics, what makes it confusing?! Are people really that stupid that they'd confuse Tasha and frickin' Xanathar? Books that start with an 'x' are actually pretty rare you know... This isn't 'Xasha's' or 'Zanata's' or 'Zantafio's', it starts with a T and it has 'cauldron' in the title...

I’m not married to the combat roles as codified Things necessarily, but making a conscious decision about what a class’s job was in combat, and giving them tools to do it effectively are something I think 5e could have benefited greatly from. Tanks could tank because they had abilities that allowed them to punish opponents who attacked other party members. Controllers could control because they had powerful CC and battled manipulation abilities.

Yup. The design intent was much stronger and easy to 'feel' in 4e. It doesn't mean that a class in 5e couldn't switch role through subclasses, for exemple, but having a clear design goal makes for better class design.

 

[pkt77242]

Yeah, I am not sure about your business sense. In almost no business is a customer required to provide demographics but yet somehow businesses figure it out. Spoiler: Businesses have ways of knowing who their customers are without asking them.

I am not sure that Dungeon is the money maker that you think it is. Sure it could make money but would it be enough? What is the ROI?

I don’t know enough about 4E to comment as I skipped it but I know of “product lines” that I would bet have higher revenue than D&D that would be in deep naughty word if 2 people left. Many companies aren’t aware/ignore that risk until they have to face it.

What is ignoring 4/5 of their customers about? Are you talking PDFs? Apps? And anyways, I doubt that either are 4/5 of their customers.

Do you know the details of the Planescape video game sequel? Do you know how profits would split, the platforms, any costs that would be incurred by WotC?

I get that you might not like WotC‘s decisions, that is fine. Honestly they have most likely made some mistakes in the last 5 years (and probably even more during 4E) but many of your grievances don’t hold water.

That is a fair question, and under any other circumstances, I'd agree, but from what I've seen the leadership team on the D&D RPG side is fantastically incompetent.

• First there's 4th edition itself, any business that makes that big of a mistake, doubles down on the mistake, then encourages and supports vigilante groups of fans to attack the fans of their previous products on their own forums isn't a business cursed with an abundance of skill.
• Then they hinged their product line's entire future on digital product lines, and couldn't recover from losing two engineers. I can't think of any other business with WOTC/Hasbro's market value that isn't able to execute on a business plan because they lost two employees.
• Then they tripled down on 4th edition after another company took their customer base, and released essentials, which anyone could've told them wasn't going to bring back all of the customers.
• Then they launched 5th edition and still can't figure out they could be making huge amounts of money by releasing frequent periodic content like they did with Dungeon magazine. Instead relying on random people to sell things on a website that the average customer has probably never heard of.
• Then they tied themselves to phones/tablets as a poorly supported content delivery platform...failing to notice that "Ebooks" plateaued years earlier at a 20% market penetration. So basically, they decided they weren't going to bother with 4 out of 5 customers.
• Then they rejected a sequel to one of their most popular video games by the guy who lead the original (Planescape) when they weren't doing anything with Planescape, had no intention of doing anything with it, and could've just basically received free money.
• Then they made a huge amount of noise about player demographics...except they have no way of knowing player demographics since you're not required to self identify when you purchase a D&D book or identify all of the friends you share it with. So how they expected anyone would believe those numbers is mind boggling, anyone with any business sense would say "Guys, wait, no one's going to believe this. It's obvious it's impossible for us to have this data".
• I'll also throw in - They still keep repeating the old bit about "TSR failed because campaigns fragmented the market" without any evidence of that. The premise hinges upon every D&D player being required to buy product even if they don't like it, and by removing product lines those players would've bought others. To put it another way, it's saying that every person who bought Birthright would've bought Forgotten Realms if Birthright didn't exist, and no person who bought Birthright also bought Forgotten Realms. It's another example of how they don't have anyone who understands metrics.
• Even the Magic the Gathering side demonstrates the same flawed business sense. They decided they needed an intro product for MTG, so they made portal...and it didn't sell. So they made portal 2...and it didn't sell. So they turned the core set into a beginner set...and it stopped selling. So they turned it into an even more beginner set...and it sold even less. Then they cancelled it.

So yes, superficially it might sound like a conspiracy theory, but all available evidence indicates that they really are that clueless and as such, it becomes very plausible that they really don't have any idea why the 4th edition books didn't sell.

 

[Undrave]

I'm kinda hoping we get both. A very slimy flavorful Aberrant Mind, and a flavor neutral Psionic Soul but more involved with the psionic die thing. If we had both, we'd be able to claim psionics as something sorcerers do but wizards don't?

Oh that would be cool too. I would find it boring if we'd ONLY get a neutral Psionic Soul.