For the ranger I'd say it's fairly evident that the class is not well liked, I think WoTC has aknowledged this by trying to make the revised ranger work, and then later adding this class variant features aswell as this overhaul to the beastmaster (which seemed to be one of the least liked sublcasses i the game untill now)
And again, you need to consider why it's least liked.....
I'm just gonna make this short quote here so you know I'm replying you you... In case someone else jumps inbetween the posts... I dunno if I'm an idiot for not being able to figure out how to make these individual quote boxes.. How exactly do you do that? :P Would make replying so much easier.
Anyway... uff.. so.. you are responding to my response to another guy, so this is may get a lil weird.. It's perfectly fine of course, I just worry I'll need to repeat myself ot remember what you said and what he said.
1. First of all... What makes you think I have not considered why it is the least liked? I believe I've expressed my thoughts on that already previously? I'm not sure where you're going with this.
2. Glad we agree to far :P
3. I feel like you are misrepresenting why people who share my opinion take issue with the changes to favored foe in particular. You seem hung up on the idea of it being OP being the key thing here, where as my problem is that the feature has been changed in a way to where it synergizes poorly with the rest of the class, where as the UA worked very well. You must have had a very different experience from me when it comes to the outrage surrounding this change, because most people (including myself) recognise that the UA version was OP.. Again, the power level is not what people are complaining about, it is that the aspect of the feature which people liked the most has been removed, that being that it synergized well with the class... I hope you agree this is possible without it being "OP".
4. That is not my impression at all... I don't see a lot of people expressing the view that WoTC are a bunch of incompetent idiot.. Does it happen? Absoutely... but it's certainly not how most people talk on this forum from what I can see.
Okay... I think you and I need to clear up what you mean by "min/maxers" here... Because .. I don't think wanting an effective character makes you a min/maxer at all.. To me min/maxing is about squeezing every bit of mechanical value out your character despite theme or character concept... Sometimes even to the point of breaking the game (I'm looking at you simulacrum/wish wonkiness).
What I see are just players wanting satisfying mechanics to use... I don't think that's an extreme way of viewing the game.. Infact I would think it's a fairly common.. The way you are talking about people who like certain features you deem "op" or whatever, you'd think they were extremists or something.. Most of us are just normal players who like to have cool features from the classes... I spend most of my time just talking to npcs when I'm playing 5e.. I think we have combat once every few session on average... But I still like to have my character mechanically fun to play with when the time comes.
I don't want to put words in your mouth... But the way you talk about people who care about being mechanically powerful makes it seem like you have some kind of grudge against them.. LIke you don't think it is valid way to play the game.
You are right, they probably know what they are doing.. However as successful as 5e is, it also does suffer from some issues with some classes being unpopular, often due to their class features simply not being very appealing.
I am not assuming they did not make an effort. I am saying that they either did not make an effort, or that they made an effort and failed... Seeing how the feature misses the boat on what made the feature popular in the first place. Again.. they're perfectly free not to care about consumer opinion, but then I simply wouldnt ask for it in the first place.
I think you and I come from fundamentally different points of view when it comes to "Power gamers" and I think that colors the way we talk about these things.. So maybe that kind of conversation won't lead anywere constructive.
I expect most people playing the game won't bother to give feedback at all to be honest.
Where are you getting your data about consumer opinion, exactly? About what features are popular?
They have people who's job it is to study the thousands (maybe tens of thousands or more) of responses to UA content through the surveys they release after the content is made available. It seems like you are taking the voices of a relative handful of people from message boards (or maybe even just your own personal opinion of what you liked) and taking that as representative of the entire player base. It is not. A fraction of players even know boards like this exist, and an even smaller fraction post on them.
The simple fact that they have sold, and continue to sell lots and lots of books seems proof that they are giving most people what they want.
I'm not sure if you're asking with regards to the unpopularity of the ranger in general or the favored foe feature in particular. As for data, all the information I can go off of is the opinions I come across on different forums/podcasts/youtube channels.
For the ranger I'd say it's fairly evident that the class is not well liked, I think WoTC has aknowledged this by trying to make the revised ranger work, and then later adding this class variant features aswell as this overhaul to the beastmaster (which seemed to be one of the least liked sublcasses i the game untill now)
For the favored foe feature. I would think that the group of people bothering with discussing 5e online probably has a fair bit of overlap with the people bothering to take a UA survery, wouldn't you agree? So unless you have a good reason to think that the general feeling around this particular feature being expressed on the internet is considerably different than the majority taking the surveys, I don't see why you would take that position.
Their ability to make a fundamentally easily understandable and enjoyable version of DnD does not make them infallible. Nor does it mean that criticism against how they chose to balance individual features is not valid. Unless you are of the opinion that WoTC have yet to mess up with regards to certain features or subclasses, I don't know why you would think that couldn't be the case here.
I'm not asking about any particular item. I'm asking what facts you are using to inform your opinions when you say that the broad D&D community doesn't like a thing or that WoTC isn't listening to their customers.
I would not necessarily agree that there's a "fair bit of overlap" between posters and people who fill out surveys. That could be true. But I would say we don't know if it is, and have no way of knowing with enough certainty to draw any conclusions about it. (I've heard people refer to interviews where WoTC employees say they often get tens or hundreds of thousands of responses. Which would dwarf the number of people on message boards, if true. But really, unless they start sharing some of the raw survey numbers, we'll never know.)
I would say that the number of D&D players>the number of people who go to message boards>the number of people who actually post on the boards. So if you're basing things on what you see on the boards, you're talking about a fraction of a fraction and that's not enough to draw any conclusions. And those people who do have issues with things are typically the ones who post. People who are happy with something don't come on and start threads about how it's great and they wouldn't do a thing to it, they just play the game and enjoy it. The only people who are going to post are the ones who are unhappy, and are looking for ways to change it to make themselves happy (Which they should do. I'm not trying to tell anyone they're wrong if they don't like something). So it really skews any kinds of conclusions you could draw when you say, there's all these negative posts about [insert problem of the day], because people who like it are, by definition, not going to start threads about how to fix it.
I'm not saying they are infallible. I'm not saying there are not valid criticisms. I'm not saying you should personally be happy and just like what they put out. What I am saying is no one person has enough information to say they know what the community wants, or that WoTC isn't listening to the community. I'm saying that the PHB is, as I'm writing this, ranked No. 195 on Amazon in terms of book sales. Of all books, it's No. 195 after 6 years. That doesn't happen if they aren't giving people what they want. (Tasha's FWIW, is No. 4 in all books. Obviously, that's just an initial rush, sales will no doubt fall in the coming weeks. And maybe it will turn out people don't like it, and then sales will fall of a cliff. I guess we'll see.)
Edit: Aaaah Lyxen just snuck in a response before this one was posted.. It's directed at Xalthu
As I said before, it's perfectly possible to deliver a fundamentally fun and popular product (which 5e undoubtedly is) and still miss the boat with regards to certain aspects. I am not disbuting that WoTC has done a great job making DnD more approachable and playable for more people.. nor am I saying that the game is fundamentally broken... So I don't really know why you think bringing up their success as a reason to think player wouldn't have issues with parts of the game... I mean WoW is still running, and I can tell you everytime I've taken a dip into that game and talked with the average player... they're usually not super satisfied.
Not to mention Critical Role spawning an huge wave of DnD podcasts which has spread the awareness of DnD far wider than ever before... regardless of people actually liking the rules compared to alternatives.. Simply because a lot of new players have never been exposed to a lot of alternatives... There are a lot of reasons something can be popular outside of actually delivering the exactly product your players are looking for... Sometimes it's just the most convenient option.
I don't know why you wouldn't think that there's an overlap.. Yea, you don't know for certain, but I believe we can make a fair guess here... Both would indicate a certain amount of involvement... Not saying it's like a perfect overlap, but I do think it's fair to think that the same kind of person who'd bother answering a bunch of questions is also more likely to engage with other people on the same subject.
What I as saying is that, from the opinions we CAN guage, certain things appears to be very unpopular with the player base. Sure.. we don't know how representative it is of the entire player base as a whole... But to pretend that the criticism we can see being targeted at the same few areas of the game does not indicate something about how the game is percieved seems a bit strange to me.
For the ranger I'd say it's fairly evident that the class is not well liked, I think WoTC has aknowledged this by trying to make the revised ranger work, and then later adding this class variant features aswell as this overhaul to the beastmaster (which seemed to be one of the least liked sublcasses i the game untill now)
And again, you need to consider why it's least liked.....
I'm just gonna make this short quote here so you know I'm replying you you... In case someone else jumps inbetween the posts... I dunno if I'm an idiot for not being able to figure out how to make these individual quote boxes.. How exactly do you do that? :P Would make replying so much easier.
Just press return a number of times after selecting where you want to cut the quote. It's a bid fidgety but it works in general... :D
1. I'm sorry :/ it feels really weird for me.. I'm sure I'll get it one day.. For now I hope you can sort of guess which part I'm responding to from the numbers.
2. I'd written a longer reply to this, but honestly I don't think we'll get anywhere and I'd rather talk about stuff where we can have a better conversation... All I'm saying that it seems strange to me that you are both so willing to act as if the only indication of player opinion we do have pointing a very specific direction means nothing...
3. Hm.. Well.. first of all, I don't think a power boost and OP have to be the same thing.. I'm surprised that you have a problem with class features synergizing.. To me that should be the core of class design, to make sure the abilities work well off eachother, so that, as you level up, you gain new and interseting ways to use the old features by combining them with new features. I generally have a problem with class deisgn that fights against itself, leaving some features barely used because they directly compete with better options.
As for an example that is not a major power boost.. well... That depends on how powerful you consider favored enemy to be I guess. But for me, I think some kind of movement reduction on the first enemy you hit every turn could be an interesting addition to the ranger's toolkit... Something like 10 ft.
4. I mean.. just going through the forum right now.. I just don't get that feeling... But I guess a general impression is subjective. I actually happen to be a developer myself, so I know how entitled a playerbase can be sometimes... But I really don't feel as if that's the general mood around here...
5. hmm.. yea I do remember something like that.. But if the scale is like that.. and a min/maxxer is like.. the more reasonable end of people who enjoy strong mechanics.. I must say I'm even most confused why you talked about them/us as if we're some tiny vocal minority just trying to exploit the game in your previous post.. I mean.. that's sort of the impression I got from the way you talked about the issue.
6. It may not be a question of being interesting for your preferences, but when I sit around doing "builds" in the character creator.. I do so because I find it fun and interesting... This is very enjoyable to me.. I'm a problem solving puzzle kind of a guy and I like to see how to best fit pieces together. It's not really about "squeezing power".. it's about.. "oh and if I do this then this does that.. oh cool!".. I don't think I've ever counted DPR or anything like that.. I'm just interested in having cool mechanical pieces to fit together to a strong and interesting (for me) character. Yea.. Of course you want there to be choices for the player to make.. But for example the new favored foe.. is not an interseting choice at all.. They gave us a poor man's man's version of what is already an iconic low level ranger spell... It's a feature that will probably rarely if ever see use beyond the first few levels because the ranger is so concentratino dependent and they they already has access to a better version of what the feature offers. That is unfortunate design in my opinion.
For me, both aspects are fun and intresting... I'm a fairly new Pen and paper player (3 years ish) so we have a lot to learn about truly leaning into our charcter's personality... but we're getting better.. I don't think our enjoyment of the mechnical elements gets in the way of that though.. But I guess every table is different. I think my character suffers the most from my not having a clue what I was doing when I made him.. I've also started playing shadowrun.. and my character there is much more intentional in terms of personality in that game... So if my wizard ever dies I'll certainly make a character with a stronger sense of personality...
Having played manyPC rpgs over the last.. 20 some years.. what I really appreciate about DnD is the ability to build a cool character concept.. An.. ice sorcerer or whatever, and then express this concept through both my character's behavior and the way they act through the game mechanics... Like.. I really do care about making the ice theme work from a rules point of view, but the fact that DnD allows you to run with it in an open world really takes it to another level.
The print copy is gold though, support your LGS and get it there.
The high quality content of Tashas is like an academic book. You arent paying for the paper. You are paying for the hours and years of research that went into creating its content.
I'm asking what facts you are using to inform your opinions when you say that the broad D&D community doesn't like a thing or that WoTC isn't listening to their customers.
The 5e designers occasionally mention how they rely on their surveys. What is the percentage? 60%? Whatever it is, if the survey has the approval response be over this number, then they publish it. If it is less, then they shelve it to perhaps work on it later.
They also care about feedback about specific bugs and technical problems, to finetune something, but they rely on the survey to publish.
I think Tasha's is a mixed bag. There's some good stuff in there, and there's some absolute crap in there. Most of the stuff I label crap is because it's pure, naked, power creep and I think that's bad, so ymmv. for 20 bucks on DDB? If 20 bucks isn't a major hit to your budget, sure. If it is, you're missing out on some things that will raise your power level easily, but there's nothing that's MUST HAVE imo.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The question was is it worth the $30, the answer is no since the content was and for the most part still is free. Free public playtest of print material is in effect a pandora's box. Trying push it back behind a paywall is going to create backlash.
I won't simp for WotC on this, the content is mostly reprinted from stuff I already own or freely available for download. The handful of changes to subclasses are almost entirely nerfs, and why would I pay to nerf myself or my players? Almost nothing in UA is actually OP unless the DM is lazy and certainly nothing that made it into this book.
That is like saying a cake shop should not let customers try samples, that the shop is being greedy for charging cakes that they once offered for free, and that the customer can always go to Costco or another cake shop that offers samples to get a free lunch. I do not think offering samples is a Pandora's Box, and I think the backlash for sampling is highly unjustified. I do not think that attitude of entitlement should be acceptable or normalized.
This is a strawman, simple as that. The content they're charging for is STILL FREE. You can download the UAs and use them in your game. What changed was a price tag got put on a toolset, and anyone unprepared for the change is forced to pay in order to use the free content when they didn't have to just a few days earlier. A prepared player made a bunch of 3rd level characters and assigned the UA subclasses last week, so that they'd never have to pay for it.
If you want to use your strawman analogy to go further it works like this, cake shop offered you free cake, not a slice, the whole cake. Then after months of free cake they decided to start charging you for cake if you wanted to eat it with a fork, but if you were willing eat it with your bare hands, it's still free.
It isn't a matter of entitlement, it is a matter of value. The thread was about, "Is it worth $30" and the answer to that is objectively, "No, it isn't worth $30 because the content is still free to download."
Having bought the hardcover, I'm of the opinion that it was totally woth my money (if a bit thin—I would have liked there to be more DM material). I will likely buy the digital content piecemeal (as I do with the other books).
It really depends on what you want out of it, though. Personally, I have no regrets.
Personally I think it's really good value, pretty much along the same lines as Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
The key difference is that while Xanathar's seems focused on adding detail to the basic game, Tasha's seems more about giving you more tools and options. For DM's this will be equally valuable, and while it may not be quite as much of a must-buy as Xanathar's or the Dungeon Master's Guide, I think it's more than valuable enough to justify itself, even if any of what it adds are things you were house-ruling anyway.
For players, the book opens up a lot more choices in how you build your character, from race customisation to class features, loads more subclasses (and Artificer) and so-on. We also get feats that enable martial characters to double down on what they're best at, as well as feats that can allow us to multi-class without multi-classing, in a similar way to Martial Adept.
Class feature variants aren't going to please everyone, but overall everybody gets something that lets them customise their character further during levelling and/or gives them more options during a session, and I just can't see any of that as a bad thing. People have complained about "power creep", but every class gets something, and a DM can always just increase encounter difficulty a bit to compensate, so I really don't see how that's a problem. A few others have complained that these features don't balance the classes, but I don't think that's ever been the goal of WotC, as balance is an almost impossible thing to measure, and what matters most is building the character you want to play as, and doing cool stuff with it; that said, some of the harder to use sub-classes do see solid boosts from some of the changes (Ki-fuelled Attack has me looking again at Way of the Four Elements for example), Ranger gets a lot of solid options, and Beast Master makes some important gains. Sorcerers ought to be happy too.
Some people will be disappointed with changes from UA releases, but many of those were too powerful; personally I think everything in the book is at roughly the right level, even if it means losing a cool little rule here or there.
Ultimately for $30 you get a lot, and while you might not need or use all of it, if you play a lot then you should use more than enough to justify the price, especially as a DM.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
"Is it worth it" is a very subjective question, and will vary from person to person. What I consider worth the cost and what you do can be very different.
In my opinion, it's probably worth it for most DMs, or to have at least one copy in a group. There are a few nice bits. It's certainly nowhere near essential, IMHO.
Personally, I don't think it lives up to the hype around it, and I don't think it makes any massive improvements to the game. I dislike the custom origin system, but mainly because I want more. It's a tiny step in the right direction, but it is disappointing that it is nothing more than moving ASIs and swapping tool and skill proficiencies. The CFVs and Subclasses are OK, and could be uprated to essential if they help you realise your character concept. The magic items are OK, but only if you are a casting class, there is barely anything for martial types (although that is understandable given the theme of the book).
Most of Chapters 2 & 4 will be most useful for newer/less experienced DMs, I think. Most experienced DMs already implement similar stuff. I guess it's nice to have it codified officially, but it's all fairly common sense stuff.
All in all, I found it a little disappointing, but I'm still glad I bought it overall. There is enough there which is useful, to a greater or lesser extent.
The question was is it worth the $30, the answer is no since the content was and for the most part still is free. Free public playtest of print material is in effect a pandora's box. Trying push it back behind a paywall is going to create backlash.
I won't simp for WotC on this, the content is mostly reprinted from stuff I already own or freely available for download. The handful of changes to subclasses are almost entirely nerfs, and why would I pay to nerf myself or my players? Almost nothing in UA is actually OP unless the DM is lazy and certainly nothing that made it into this book.
That is like saying a cake shop should not let customers try samples, that the shop is being greedy for charging cakes that they once offered for free, and that the customer can always go to Costco or another cake shop that offers samples to get a free lunch. I do not think offering samples is a Pandora's Box, and I think the backlash for sampling is highly unjustified. I do not think that attitude of entitlement should be acceptable or normalized.
This is a strawman, simple as that. The content they're charging for is STILL FREE. You can download the UAs and use them in your game. What changed was a price tag got put on a toolset, and anyone unprepared for the change is forced to pay in order to use the free content when they didn't have to just a few days earlier. A prepared player made a bunch of 3rd level characters and assigned the UA subclasses last week, so that they'd never have to pay for it.
If you want to use your strawman analogy to go further it works like this, cake shop offered you free cake, not a slice, the whole cake. Then after months of free cake they decided to start charging you for cake if you wanted to eat it with a fork, but if you were willing eat it with your bare hands, it's still free.
It isn't a matter of entitlement, it is a matter of value. The thread was about, "Is it worth $30" and the answer to that is objectively, "No, it isn't worth $30 because the content is still free to download."
I did not make a strawman argument, and you have not explained how it is one either. You made a claim that sampling intellectual property is a Pandora's Box. I made a counter claim that businesses should sample whatever products they want, and applying that logic to cakes show that people who are entitled to intellectual property are absurd and unjustified. And there is no price tag on most of the toolset, as 99% of the toolset is completely free. The options and convenience are behind a paywall, but nothing is stopping a person from using the toolset for private homebrew.
And there is nothing wrong with a cakeshop charging people to use forks on their free cakes. Cake shops have to earn money somehow. There is nothing wrong with eating with your hands either and eating burgers, ribs, and shellfish would be just as messy.
It is totally a matter of entitlement. No one is forced to pay for UA content either. People can still private homebrew the UA subclasses into D&D Beyond with the free toolset if they do not want to spend a dime on it.
Skipping over all the bickering, and going back to the OP:
From the sounds of it, I'd say you want to purchase both physical and digital versions of the book. I would say that the physical version is worth it. The content is pretty good.
Digital? I would say conditionally that it isn't worth it. One of the primary benefits of the digital version of these books is how they interact with the toolset, and, at least on this site, that interaction is very incomplete as of the date of this comment. If that changes, my answer would change with it.
Like I said, it's a good book that has something for everyone, but you'll do fine with just the physical one for now.
Digital? I would say conditionally that it isn't worth it. One of the primary benefits of the digital version of these books is how they interact with the toolset, and, at least on this site, that interaction is very incomplete as of the date of this comment. If that changes, my answer would change with it.
While there are some outstanding issues worth noting before you drop $29.99 on a full digital copy, most of it is there and works just fine. If you're going to get a physical copy though then there's no immediate rush to buy the full digital copy as well; you can just buy the parts you need (feats, sub-classes etc., either in blocks or individually), which then allows your players to use it in a content sharing campaign.
Everything you purchase individually from a book counts towards the cost of unlocking the rest, so if you spend $5.99 to unlock the feats, and $9.99 to unlock the subclasses, then it only costs $14.01 to unlock the rest. This is how I've ended up owning the books I currently have fully unlocked; by buying them in pieces until I'm ready to just pay for the rest to complete the set. It's also hard to put a value on how useful it is to be able to look stuff up digitally using a search; as much as I love the printed books, it can be hard to find things (not always quite exactly where you expect them to be).
Also worth noting; when content sharing in a campaign, while the DM is the one that needs to have the master subscription, anyone can buy the actual content you want to share. Although I'm not DM'ing in any of my current campaigns I've unlocked most of the books and bits and pieces that my groups are using, as I already had some or all of them anyway.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I love it. I feel like they took the time to flesh out all the new subclasses, etc and it's nice to collect them all up instead of feeling like I needed to grab several other books just to have all the options for my PCs. And I loved all the DM tools. The Patrons and Puzzles sections were really helpful for my game overall.
Also worth noting; when content sharing in a campaign, while the DM is the one that needs to have the master subscription, anyone can buy the actual content you want to share. Although I'm not DM'ing in any of my current campaigns I've unlocked most of the books and bits and pieces that my groups are using, as I already had some or all of them anyway.
For Content Sharing, it does not matter who has the Master Tier Subscription. Anyone with the Master Tier Subscription can turn on content sharing for any campaign.
I'm enjoying the book, myself. I don't see a huge appeal in the class features/subclasses. They all seem well thought out, viable and enjoyable, but just not to may fancy is all. I really enjoy the spell list and feats that they have include, I think they're brilliant. Feats wise, Skill Expert is awesome. +1 in any ability, then proficiency in any skill you choose, then expertise in a skill again after that! It's brilliant. From this book my druid gained Summon Fey, which is a great spell, and I intend on getting Skill expert on my nice Feat chance.
I'm just gonna make this short quote here so you know I'm replying you you... In case someone else jumps inbetween the posts... I dunno if I'm an idiot for not being able to figure out how to make these individual quote boxes.. How exactly do you do that? :P Would make replying so much easier.
Anyway... uff.. so.. you are responding to my response to another guy, so this is may get a lil weird.. It's perfectly fine of course, I just worry I'll need to repeat myself ot remember what you said and what he said.
1. First of all... What makes you think I have not considered why it is the least liked? I believe I've expressed my thoughts on that already previously? I'm not sure where you're going with this.
2. Glad we agree to far :P
3. I feel like you are misrepresenting why people who share my opinion take issue with the changes to favored foe in particular. You seem hung up on the idea of it being OP being the key thing here, where as my problem is that the feature has been changed in a way to where it synergizes poorly with the rest of the class, where as the UA worked very well. You must have had a very different experience from me when it comes to the outrage surrounding this change, because most people (including myself) recognise that the UA version was OP.. Again, the power level is not what people are complaining about, it is that the aspect of the feature which people liked the most has been removed, that being that it synergized well with the class... I hope you agree this is possible without it being "OP".
4. That is not my impression at all... I don't see a lot of people expressing the view that WoTC are a bunch of incompetent idiot.. Does it happen? Absoutely... but it's certainly not how most people talk on this forum from what I can see.
Okay... I think you and I need to clear up what you mean by "min/maxers" here... Because .. I don't think wanting an effective character makes you a min/maxer at all.. To me min/maxing is about squeezing every bit of mechanical value out your character despite theme or character concept... Sometimes even to the point of breaking the game (I'm looking at you simulacrum/wish wonkiness).
What I see are just players wanting satisfying mechanics to use... I don't think that's an extreme way of viewing the game.. Infact I would think it's a fairly common.. The way you are talking about people who like certain features you deem "op" or whatever, you'd think they were extremists or something.. Most of us are just normal players who like to have cool features from the classes... I spend most of my time just talking to npcs when I'm playing 5e.. I think we have combat once every few session on average... But I still like to have my character mechanically fun to play with when the time comes.
I don't want to put words in your mouth... But the way you talk about people who care about being mechanically powerful makes it seem like you have some kind of grudge against them.. LIke you don't think it is valid way to play the game.
I'm not asking about any particular item. I'm asking what facts you are using to inform your opinions when you say that the broad D&D community doesn't like a thing or that WoTC isn't listening to their customers.
I would not necessarily agree that there's a "fair bit of overlap" between posters and people who fill out surveys. That could be true. But I would say we don't know if it is, and have no way of knowing with enough certainty to draw any conclusions about it. (I've heard people refer to interviews where WoTC employees say they often get tens or hundreds of thousands of responses. Which would dwarf the number of people on message boards, if true. But really, unless they start sharing some of the raw survey numbers, we'll never know.)
I would say that the number of D&D players>the number of people who go to message boards>the number of people who actually post on the boards. So if you're basing things on what you see on the boards, you're talking about a fraction of a fraction and that's not enough to draw any conclusions. And those people who do have issues with things are typically the ones who post. People who are happy with something don't come on and start threads about how it's great and they wouldn't do a thing to it, they just play the game and enjoy it. The only people who are going to post are the ones who are unhappy, and are looking for ways to change it to make themselves happy (Which they should do. I'm not trying to tell anyone they're wrong if they don't like something). So it really skews any kinds of conclusions you could draw when you say, there's all these negative posts about [insert problem of the day], because people who like it are, by definition, not going to start threads about how to fix it.
I'm not saying they are infallible. I'm not saying there are not valid criticisms. I'm not saying you should personally be happy and just like what they put out. What I am saying is no one person has enough information to say they know what the community wants, or that WoTC isn't listening to the community. I'm saying that the PHB is, as I'm writing this, ranked No. 195 on Amazon in terms of book sales. Of all books, it's No. 195 after 6 years. That doesn't happen if they aren't giving people what they want. (Tasha's FWIW, is No. 4 in all books. Obviously, that's just an initial rush, sales will no doubt fall in the coming weeks. And maybe it will turn out people don't like it, and then sales will fall of a cliff. I guess we'll see.)
Edit: Aaaah Lyxen just snuck in a response before this one was posted.. It's directed at Xalthu
As I said before, it's perfectly possible to deliver a fundamentally fun and popular product (which 5e undoubtedly is) and still miss the boat with regards to certain aspects. I am not disbuting that WoTC has done a great job making DnD more approachable and playable for more people.. nor am I saying that the game is fundamentally broken... So I don't really know why you think bringing up their success as a reason to think player wouldn't have issues with parts of the game... I mean WoW is still running, and I can tell you everytime I've taken a dip into that game and talked with the average player... they're usually not super satisfied.
Not to mention Critical Role spawning an huge wave of DnD podcasts which has spread the awareness of DnD far wider than ever before... regardless of people actually liking the rules compared to alternatives.. Simply because a lot of new players have never been exposed to a lot of alternatives... There are a lot of reasons something can be popular outside of actually delivering the exactly product your players are looking for... Sometimes it's just the most convenient option.
I don't know why you wouldn't think that there's an overlap.. Yea, you don't know for certain, but I believe we can make a fair guess here... Both would indicate a certain amount of involvement... Not saying it's like a perfect overlap, but I do think it's fair to think that the same kind of person who'd bother answering a bunch of questions is also more likely to engage with other people on the same subject.
What I as saying is that, from the opinions we CAN guage, certain things appears to be very unpopular with the player base. Sure.. we don't know how representative it is of the entire player base as a whole... But to pretend that the criticism we can see being targeted at the same few areas of the game does not indicate something about how the game is percieved seems a bit strange to me.
1. I'm sorry :/ it feels really weird for me.. I'm sure I'll get it one day.. For now I hope you can sort of guess which part I'm responding to from the numbers.
2. I'd written a longer reply to this, but honestly I don't think we'll get anywhere and I'd rather talk about stuff where we can have a better conversation... All I'm saying that it seems strange to me that you are both so willing to act as if the only indication of player opinion we do have pointing a very specific direction means nothing...
3. Hm.. Well.. first of all, I don't think a power boost and OP have to be the same thing.. I'm surprised that you have a problem with class features synergizing.. To me that should be the core of class design, to make sure the abilities work well off eachother, so that, as you level up, you gain new and interseting ways to use the old features by combining them with new features. I generally have a problem with class deisgn that fights against itself, leaving some features barely used because they directly compete with better options.
As for an example that is not a major power boost.. well... That depends on how powerful you consider favored enemy to be I guess. But for me, I think some kind of movement reduction on the first enemy you hit every turn could be an interesting addition to the ranger's toolkit... Something like 10 ft.
4. I mean.. just going through the forum right now.. I just don't get that feeling... But I guess a general impression is subjective. I actually happen to be a developer myself, so I know how entitled a playerbase can be sometimes... But I really don't feel as if that's the general mood around here...
5. hmm.. yea I do remember something like that.. But if the scale is like that.. and a min/maxxer is like.. the more reasonable end of people who enjoy strong mechanics.. I must say I'm even most confused why you talked about them/us as if we're some tiny vocal minority just trying to exploit the game in your previous post.. I mean.. that's sort of the impression I got from the way you talked about the issue.
6. It may not be a question of being interesting for your preferences, but when I sit around doing "builds" in the character creator.. I do so because I find it fun and interesting... This is very enjoyable to me.. I'm a problem solving puzzle kind of a guy and I like to see how to best fit pieces together. It's not really about "squeezing power".. it's about.. "oh and if I do this then this does that.. oh cool!".. I don't think I've ever counted DPR or anything like that.. I'm just interested in having cool mechanical pieces to fit together to a strong and interesting (for me) character.
Yea.. Of course you want there to be choices for the player to make.. But for example the new favored foe.. is not an interseting choice at all.. They gave us a poor man's man's version of what is already an iconic low level ranger spell... It's a feature that will probably rarely if ever see use beyond the first few levels because the ranger is so concentratino dependent and they they already has access to a better version of what the feature offers. That is unfortunate design in my opinion.
For me, both aspects are fun and intresting... I'm a fairly new Pen and paper player (3 years ish) so we have a lot to learn about truly leaning into our charcter's personality... but we're getting better.. I don't think our enjoyment of the mechnical elements gets in the way of that though.. But I guess every table is different. I think my character suffers the most from my not having a clue what I was doing when I made him..
I've also started playing shadowrun.. and my character there is much more intentional in terms of personality in that game... So if my wizard ever dies I'll certainly make a character with a stronger sense of personality...
Having played manyPC rpgs over the last.. 20 some years.. what I really appreciate about DnD is the ability to build a cool character concept.. An.. ice sorcerer or whatever, and then express this concept through both my character's behavior and the way they act through the game mechanics... Like.. I really do care about making the ice theme work from a rules point of view, but the fact that DnD allows you to run with it in an open world really takes it to another level.
The high quality content of Tashas is like an academic book. You arent paying for the paper. You are paying for the hours and years of research that went into creating its content.
he / him
The 5e designers occasionally mention how they rely on their surveys. What is the percentage? 60%? Whatever it is, if the survey has the approval response be over this number, then they publish it. If it is less, then they shelve it to perhaps work on it later.
They also care about feedback about specific bugs and technical problems, to finetune something, but they rely on the survey to publish.
he / him
I think Tasha's is a mixed bag. There's some good stuff in there, and there's some absolute crap in there. Most of the stuff I label crap is because it's pure, naked, power creep and I think that's bad, so ymmv. for 20 bucks on DDB? If 20 bucks isn't a major hit to your budget, sure. If it is, you're missing out on some things that will raise your power level easily, but there's nothing that's MUST HAVE imo.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
This is a strawman, simple as that. The content they're charging for is STILL FREE. You can download the UAs and use them in your game. What changed was a price tag got put on a toolset, and anyone unprepared for the change is forced to pay in order to use the free content when they didn't have to just a few days earlier. A prepared player made a bunch of 3rd level characters and assigned the UA subclasses last week, so that they'd never have to pay for it.
If you want to use your strawman analogy to go further it works like this, cake shop offered you free cake, not a slice, the whole cake. Then after months of free cake they decided to start charging you for cake if you wanted to eat it with a fork, but if you were willing eat it with your bare hands, it's still free.
It isn't a matter of entitlement, it is a matter of value. The thread was about, "Is it worth $30" and the answer to that is objectively, "No, it isn't worth $30 because the content is still free to download."
Having bought the hardcover, I'm of the opinion that it was totally woth my money (if a bit thin—I would have liked there to be more DM material). I will likely buy the digital content piecemeal (as I do with the other books).
It really depends on what you want out of it, though. Personally, I have no regrets.
Personally I think it's really good value, pretty much along the same lines as Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
The key difference is that while Xanathar's seems focused on adding detail to the basic game, Tasha's seems more about giving you more tools and options. For DM's this will be equally valuable, and while it may not be quite as much of a must-buy as Xanathar's or the Dungeon Master's Guide, I think it's more than valuable enough to justify itself, even if any of what it adds are things you were house-ruling anyway.
For players, the book opens up a lot more choices in how you build your character, from race customisation to class features, loads more subclasses (and Artificer) and so-on. We also get feats that enable martial characters to double down on what they're best at, as well as feats that can allow us to multi-class without multi-classing, in a similar way to Martial Adept.
Class feature variants aren't going to please everyone, but overall everybody gets something that lets them customise their character further during levelling and/or gives them more options during a session, and I just can't see any of that as a bad thing. People have complained about "power creep", but every class gets something, and a DM can always just increase encounter difficulty a bit to compensate, so I really don't see how that's a problem. A few others have complained that these features don't balance the classes, but I don't think that's ever been the goal of WotC, as balance is an almost impossible thing to measure, and what matters most is building the character you want to play as, and doing cool stuff with it; that said, some of the harder to use sub-classes do see solid boosts from some of the changes (Ki-fuelled Attack has me looking again at Way of the Four Elements for example), Ranger gets a lot of solid options, and Beast Master makes some important gains. Sorcerers ought to be happy too.
Some people will be disappointed with changes from UA releases, but many of those were too powerful; personally I think everything in the book is at roughly the right level, even if it means losing a cool little rule here or there.
Ultimately for $30 you get a lot, and while you might not need or use all of it, if you play a lot then you should use more than enough to justify the price, especially as a DM.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
"Is it worth it" is a very subjective question, and will vary from person to person. What I consider worth the cost and what you do can be very different.
In my opinion, it's probably worth it for most DMs, or to have at least one copy in a group. There are a few nice bits. It's certainly nowhere near essential, IMHO.
Personally, I don't think it lives up to the hype around it, and I don't think it makes any massive improvements to the game. I dislike the custom origin system, but mainly because I want more. It's a tiny step in the right direction, but it is disappointing that it is nothing more than moving ASIs and swapping tool and skill proficiencies. The CFVs and Subclasses are OK, and could be uprated to essential if they help you realise your character concept. The magic items are OK, but only if you are a casting class, there is barely anything for martial types (although that is understandable given the theme of the book).
Most of Chapters 2 & 4 will be most useful for newer/less experienced DMs, I think. Most experienced DMs already implement similar stuff. I guess it's nice to have it codified officially, but it's all fairly common sense stuff.
All in all, I found it a little disappointing, but I'm still glad I bought it overall. There is enough there which is useful, to a greater or lesser extent.
I did not make a strawman argument, and you have not explained how it is one either. You made a claim that sampling intellectual property is a Pandora's Box. I made a counter claim that businesses should sample whatever products they want, and applying that logic to cakes show that people who are entitled to intellectual property are absurd and unjustified. And there is no price tag on most of the toolset, as 99% of the toolset is completely free. The options and convenience are behind a paywall, but nothing is stopping a person from using the toolset for private homebrew.
And there is nothing wrong with a cakeshop charging people to use forks on their free cakes. Cake shops have to earn money somehow. There is nothing wrong with eating with your hands either and eating burgers, ribs, and shellfish would be just as messy.
It is totally a matter of entitlement. No one is forced to pay for UA content either. People can still private homebrew the UA subclasses into D&D Beyond with the free toolset if they do not want to spend a dime on it.
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Skipping over all the bickering, and going back to the OP:
From the sounds of it, I'd say you want to purchase both physical and digital versions of the book. I would say that the physical version is worth it. The content is pretty good.
Digital? I would say conditionally that it isn't worth it. One of the primary benefits of the digital version of these books is how they interact with the toolset, and, at least on this site, that interaction is very incomplete as of the date of this comment. If that changes, my answer would change with it.
Like I said, it's a good book that has something for everyone, but you'll do fine with just the physical one for now.
While there are some outstanding issues worth noting before you drop $29.99 on a full digital copy, most of it is there and works just fine. If you're going to get a physical copy though then there's no immediate rush to buy the full digital copy as well; you can just buy the parts you need (feats, sub-classes etc., either in blocks or individually), which then allows your players to use it in a content sharing campaign.
Everything you purchase individually from a book counts towards the cost of unlocking the rest, so if you spend $5.99 to unlock the feats, and $9.99 to unlock the subclasses, then it only costs $14.01 to unlock the rest. This is how I've ended up owning the books I currently have fully unlocked; by buying them in pieces until I'm ready to just pay for the rest to complete the set. It's also hard to put a value on how useful it is to be able to look stuff up digitally using a search; as much as I love the printed books, it can be hard to find things (not always quite exactly where you expect them to be).
Also worth noting; when content sharing in a campaign, while the DM is the one that needs to have the master subscription, anyone can buy the actual content you want to share. Although I'm not DM'ing in any of my current campaigns I've unlocked most of the books and bits and pieces that my groups are using, as I already had some or all of them anyway.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I love it. I feel like they took the time to flesh out all the new subclasses, etc and it's nice to collect them all up instead of feeling like I needed to grab several other books just to have all the options for my PCs. And I loved all the DM tools. The Patrons and Puzzles sections were really helpful for my game overall.
I find value in it.
Yes the patrons section alone.
For Content Sharing, it does not matter who has the Master Tier Subscription. Anyone with the Master Tier Subscription can turn on content sharing for any campaign.
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Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I'm enjoying the book, myself. I don't see a huge appeal in the class features/subclasses. They all seem well thought out, viable and enjoyable, but just not to may fancy is all. I really enjoy the spell list and feats that they have include, I think they're brilliant. Feats wise, Skill Expert is awesome. +1 in any ability, then proficiency in any skill you choose, then expertise in a skill again after that! It's brilliant. From this book my druid gained Summon Fey, which is a great spell, and I intend on getting Skill expert on my nice Feat chance.
There's something in this book for everyone.
I'm quite pleased with my purchase. I'll be using Tasha's optional rules frequently when in my games.