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!


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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:

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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.


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




 
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Marandahir

Crown-Forester (he/him)
It would have made total sense in 4E. Only in 5E is it extremely confusing, because of the bizarre and unnecessary lore-hole (which I've discussed a few times), where only Good-aligned gods are served by angels, and Neutral and Evil-aligned gods are served by... basically no-one (explicitly NOT devils/demons, the same book outlines that - an Evil god might have the odd devil/demon who chooses to serve it, but it's not a general thing). Personally I just disregard it and have all gods served by angels like in 4E to avoid the lore-hole, but it was a really bizarre choice, especially an edition where alignment has been played down arguably even more than 4E.

It has to do with the return to Planescape and planar-alignments. Angels are "Upper Plane" denizens and Demons, Devils, Yugoloths, etc are "Lower Plane" denizens. While in 4e, Devils were Upper/Astral Plane Denizens and Demons were Lower/Elemental Plane denizens, and Upper/Lower wasn't = Good/Evil.

Player Alignment is even more downplayed, but planar alignment is up-played because of the virulent backlash against the World Axis model (or more so, against gutting their beloved Planescape to try something new).
 

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Now I am wondering, if with this handbook you will can summon undead minions, why not deathless? A special undead monster subtype from Book of Exalted Deeds, healed by positive energy and hurt by negative, controlled by good clerics and turned by evils.

How will be the future new PC races after this book? I hope also with optional list of racial traits for more flexibility and to avoid typecasted with the classes.
 

It would have made total sense in 4E. Only in 5E is it extremely confusing, because of the bizarre and unnecessary lore-hole (which I've discussed a few times), where only Good-aligned gods are served by angels, and Neutral and Evil-aligned gods are served by... basically no-one (explicitly NOT devils/demons, the same book outlines that - an Evil god might have the odd devil/demon who chooses to serve it, but it's not a general thing). Personally I just disregard it and have all gods served by angels like in 4E to avoid the lore-hole, but it was a really bizarre choice, especially an edition where alignment has been played down arguably even more than 4E.

And if they'd called these deific servitors something other than 'angels' then it probably would have worked out! It's a perfectly reasonable idea, but (in my head at least) the term 'angel' as a servant of good carries too much cultural weight to be arbitrarily re-assigned to also apply to minions of Vleshnax, the God Of Thumbscrews, Syphilis, and Genocide. YMMV, of course.

Personally when I was GMing always just decided that any given god had a handful of favoured creature types that acted as their emissaries. Choose a critter, bump mental ability scores a bit if necessary, add or swap spells or special abilities to make them more on-theme, and then describe them slightly different from the standard issue. But I never got hugely into the whole complexity of the Great Wheel cosmology etc either, so it was mostly a moot point for me...
 



Weiley31

Legend
Just because an Evil Cleric turns into an angel, doesn't mean it's not a fallen angel or looking like the Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Some evil Cleric's perceptions are warped. Like how an evil Cleric with the Love Domain isn't "love" but instead reskinned/look at as Obsession/Lust.
 

Undrave

Legend
Rime of the Frostmaiden has three new spells, I hope they make their way into Tasha's as well

Why the heck are they putting three random spells in an adventure book? Just, random player-facing content dropped in the middle of a beefy DM book? Unless... they're specifically scrolls that you can find in the adventure?

And if they'd called these deific servitors something other than 'angels' then it probably would have worked out! It's a perfectly reasonable idea, but (in my head at least) the term 'angel' as a servant of good carries too much cultural weight to be arbitrarily re-assigned to also apply to minions of Vleshnax, the God Of Thumbscrews, Syphilis, and Genocide. YMMV, of course.

What about Archons?
 



interesting, to me Angel means Servant of god more than it means servant of good. and I'm wondering if the reasons for that get into to things we're not allowed to talk about here.

Probably! There's certainly a bit of my cultural upbringing behind how i interpret the word. When i hear 'angel' my brain goes directly to 'white robes, feathery wings, halo, harp' etc. Which is where my personal mental disconnect comes in, because it's hard to envisage an entity like that serving the aforementioned Vleshnak the Unhygenic.

What about Archons?

Works for me. Archons, exarchs, heralds, emissaries, shards, exemplars, choristers, servitors - just not 'angels'. I know Planescape/2e's LG celestials were called archons, but it wouldn't be the first time D&D has reinvented a creature. Hell, I remember a time before kobolds were dragony, when they were sort of dog-critters...
 

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