With the new non-lineage system in the TCoE, Kalashtar Totem Warrior can have +2 Str and +1 Dex/Con from the race and resist everything when raging. There is a preview on the non-lineage system.

Isn't it a little game-breaking? All the players have to do is come up with a story for it.

It's not going to be any more gamebreaking than it already was since Kalashtar were released.

I really dislike the put your stats wherever you want them rule that they are doing.  It makes me very unhappy.

Well, it is a variant rule. You don't have to use it. I personally like it since it allows characters to stray away from the common race-class combos (Half-Orc Barb, High Elf/Gnome Wizard, Tiefling Warlock etc), making things like a Goliath Wizard or a Dwarven Rogue playable without seeming underpowered, opening up more diverse options for characters. 

Oh that crap will be banned in any game that I run.  Race choice should have an impact.  Being down a whole +1 was never a game breaker in the first place, but people had to cry.

Quote from PietyTheCharismatic >>

Well, it is a variant rule. You don't have to use it. I personally like it since it allows characters to stray away from the common race-class combos (Half-Orc Barb, High Elf/Gnome Wizard, Tiefling Warlock etc), making things like a Goliath Wizard or a Dwarven Rogue playable without seeming underpowered, opening up more diverse options for characters. 

 They are already allowed to do that. Any player is free to mix just about any race with any class when building their PCs. If they are restricting their options because of a need for optimization then that’s on them. 

I personally blame WotC for that in part. While it is true that people would optimize anyway, I think that if WotC hadn’t expressly listed a “Primary Ability” for each Class and included “Quick Build” instructions to brainwash people to “First, put your highest ability score in [X], followed by [Y]” then maybe, just maybe people wouldn’t think that was obligatory. It is not.

I think the next campaign I start will have a rule that there can be no optimized PCs, and if a player wants to optimize their Race and Class for “purely narrative reasons” 🙄 then they can get to enjoy a flaw of some kind too, also for “purely narrative reasons” of course. 😉 Get people used to non-optimized PCs for a change.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

Oh that crap will be banned in any game that I run.  Race choice should have an impact.  Being down a whole +1 was never a game breaker in the first place, but people had to cry.

 Good, you've solved the problem and should no longer have any reason to complain about it.

But I will, because I want them to know that I dislike it.  You can choose to not read if you don't like it :)

Do try to remember that D&D Beyond is not run by Wizards of the Coast.  Complaining to them is not going to have any more impact on what WotC does with their books than complaining to Gamestop about a particular video game being exclusive to the Switch when you'd really like to be able to play it on XBox One.

Oh they see the feedback given here.  They likely do not care, but they see it.  Thanks for the pro-tip though, I'll try to remember that the next time I am saying something someone doesn't like.

Wow, Kalastar also get advantage to WIS saving throws by spending their reaction.  That would be a seriously dangerous Totem Barbarian.  

As DM, I would probably rule that Kalashtar Barb can't use the Dual Mind ability while raging until they have reached a certain level in Barbarian and maybe stipulate a session Zero that they need at least a 12 in WIS to get resistance to psychic damage.    

I don't think it's game-breaking as such; it's a combo you can already do, I don't think being able to shuffle around the ability scores makes as much difference as people think it does, certainly not in this case where it's the racial features that combine so well with Bear Totem to give resistance to all damage.

It's important to remember that for levels 3-19 your player can only get full resistance while raging, which they have limited uses of, and which can potentially be interrupted in various ways. It's also worth remembering that while taking less damage is always nice, against many effects that deal psychic damage (and others) it's not necessarily the damage that's the worst part, but the additional effects. While your Kalashtar Bear Totem Barbarian might be pretty happy against Wisdom based psychic spells, ones that target Intelligence or Charisma could still ruin your day (and maybe interrupt rage into the bargain) while Strength and Constitution based saves aren't to be ignored either, despite your bonuses against those.

Basically, damage resistance is good for resisting damage, but there are a whole load of things worse than taking damage in D&D; if your barbarian is charmed or frightened then you may end up wishing you'd gone the much maligned Berserker instead, so there are always ways for your DM to pushback. 😉

As Haravikk says, resistance to all damage isn't really game breaking; the resistance is only when you rage and the DM has easy ways to stop rages if he really wants to.  Something to consider, is if the DM gets frustrated, he can counter, and that might really suck for you because he can drop you out of a rage...and rages are limited resources.

For barbarians, I'd think that allowing a character to start off with 3 16s via half-elf will be better than resist everything via other races.  For arcane casters I'm more concerned about all arcane casters becoming dwarves so they lose their balancing feature of no armor.  Resistance while raging?  Nice, but not broken.

I get why people would want a change that made non-traditional race/class combos more viable in League play, because that's really all this is about, the rules are explicit about encouraging homebrew and house rules to suit your home group's playstyle. If a DM wanted to allow their players to move the racial stat bumps around, they can. Not to mention that rolling stats always has the possibility of making unusual combos viable. But I think completely wildcarding the racial stat bonuses takes it too far. Giving a Halfling and a Goliath the same stat bonuses just seems weird. I would have preferred a middle-ground approach. Assign the racial bonuses as normal, but at the end of the process allow a single +1/-1 swap. With that, anyone creating their character using the Standard Array or Point Buy could start with at least a 16 in their class' primary stat. That would make more combos viable without going overboard. 

Quote from Haravikk >>

 

Basically, damage resistance is good for resisting damage, but there are a whole load of things worse than taking damage in D&D; if your barbarian is charmed or frightened then you may end up wishing you'd gone the much maligned Berserker instead, so there are always ways for your DM to pushback. 😉

   Well, psychic damage is rare in most campaigns anyway.  The bigger problem is that they can get advantage to WIS saving throws so long as they have a reaction to spend.  There are a lot more spells with a WIS save than an INT save.    

Quote from Song_of_Blues >>

Quote from Haravikk >>

Basically, damage resistance is good for resisting damage, but there are a whole load of things worse than taking damage in D&D; if your barbarian is charmed or frightened then you may end up wishing you'd gone the much maligned Berserker instead, so there are always ways for your DM to pushback. 😉

Well, psychic damage is rare in most campaigns anyway.  The bigger problem is that they can get advantage to WIS saving throws so long as they have a reaction to spend.  There are a lot more spells with a WIS save than an INT save.    

While that's true, it's not like there's a shortage of spells that use other saves; meanwhile if a monster only has effects that trigger a Wisdom save then they're going to struggle to use them against any Kalashtar, regardless of whether it's a Bear Totem Barbarian or not.

A DM doesn't have to send those monsters at the party though, or can send them in mixed groups with something that the Bear Totem Barbarian may not so easily shrug off; a DM has near infinite ways to ruin their player's attempts to break the game 😉

Quote from jd2319 >>

I get why people would want a change that made non-traditional race/class combos more viable in League play, because that's really all this is about, the rules are explicit about encouraging homebrew and house rules to suit your home group's playstyle. If a DM wanted to allow their players to move the racial stat bumps around, they can. Not to mention that rolling stats always has the possibility of making unusual combos viable. But I think completely wildcarding the racial stat bonuses takes it too far. Giving a Halfling and a Goliath the same stat bonuses just seems weird. I would have preferred a middle-ground approach. Assign the racial bonuses as normal, but at the end of the process allow a single +1/-1 swap. With that, anyone creating their character using the Standard Array or Point Buy could start with at least a 16 in their class' primary stat. That would make more combos viable without going overboard. 

 

 this was the direction I was /hoping/ they went.

Quote from Haravikk >>

I don't think it's game-breaking as such; it's a combo you can already do, I don't think being able to shuffle around the ability scores makes as much difference as people think it does, certainly not in this case where it's the racial features that combine so well with Bear Totem to give resistance to all damage.

It's important to remember that for levels 3-19 your player can only get full resistance while raging, which they have limited uses of, and which can potentially be interrupted in various ways. It's also worth remembering that while taking less damage is always nice, against many effects that deal psychic damage (and others) it's not necessarily the damage that's the worst part, but the additional effects. While your Kalashtar Bear Totem Barbarian might be pretty happy against Wisdom based psychic spells, ones that target Intelligence or Charisma could still ruin your day (and maybe interrupt rage into the bargain) while Strength and Constitution based saves aren't to be ignored either, despite your bonuses against those.

Basically, damage resistance is good for resisting damage, but there are a whole load of things worse than taking damage in D&D; if your barbarian is charmed or frightened then you may end up wishing you'd gone the much maligned Berserker instead, so there are always ways for your DM to pushback. 😉

After reading this, I am more confirm that Kalashtar Totem Warrior is a little broken. Using Crowd Control (CC) magic to knock Barbarian out of rage works on all Barbarian, not just Kalashtar Totem Warrior. However, Kalashtar Totem Warrior cab handles it better than other Barbarians. Many CC magic are Wis saving type and Kalashtar can use its reaction to have an advantage on saving throw while others can't. While int-save CC magic has the same chance to knock Kalashtar Barbarians out of rage as other Barbarians, it still takes less damage. When I say it is a little broken, I don't mean it is over-power. I mean it is a better choice than other Barbarians choices. When one choice is better than others, it promotes min/max and metagaming.

People say players shouldn't min/max or metagaming in D&D. Then why create one race that is much better than others and promoting min/max/metagaming?

People throw out broken far too much.  Broken is infinite damage combos.  overpowered is not necessarily game breaking.  I'm not even ready to say that Kalashtar barbs are even overpowered let alone broken

If you can reasonably anticipate that a PC will spend their reaction in response to a certain event, you can have enemies plan to take advantage of that.