Only exception I can think of is learning spells through scrolls/spellbooks for wizards, (spells learned from leveling must follow phb+1) which doesn't work for cantrips. For your specific example, if you want booming and/or green-flame blade, you'll need SCAG as your +1.
In season 9, you can play a winged tiefling or an aasimar with wings (both get it at level 5 and give up a racial feature in exchange) without needing to choose either SCAG or Volo's as your +1. However, this is a specific exception for season 9 based on the Decent to Avernus campaign.
The other exception is that wizards can copy spells they find in the content they play and can also purchase spell scrolls from any of the sources which can then subsequently be copied to their spell books. However, spell copying does not apply to cantrips.
Backgrounds can also be picked from the official sources (not including UA or Guild Adept or other similar content) and custom backgrounds where you choose the skills/tools/special ability are also allowed but the "perk" from the background must come from official sources. However, if you join a faction the background characteristic has to be switched to "Safe Haven".
Other than those exceptions, all the character abilities - class/race/spells/invocation must come from only your PHB+1 sources. This means that any race from Volo's for example can ONLY be combined with content from the PHB. If you want to use booming blade and/or green flame blade for melee cantrips then you have to choose SCAG as your +1. Also, keep in mind that if you choose a race/class from one publication, you use the rules for the most recently published even if it isn't your +1. For example, if you want to play a swashbuckler with access to booming blade then your +1 is SCAG where both swashbuckler and booming blade are published. However, when playing you use the rules for Swashbuckler from Xanathar's since it is the most recently published version of the archetype. In some cases, the wording may have changed a bit between publications.
The +1 rule does limit some of the more powerful combinations as well as more thematically appropriate ones. For example, yuan-ti pureblood hexblade/shadow sorcerer might be very popular if it didn't require 3 sources ... it also might be a bit broken because yuan-ti is already a bit above average. However, you also can't build a Shadar-kai (shadow elf) shadow sorcerer or hexblade for the same reason despite the fact it would seem to be thematically appropriate (the shadow elves are in MtoF).
So a Hexblade/paladin using xgte+phb can not use green blade or booming blade.. both are from SCEG. Darn.
Correct. Sorry to say.
I think one of the reasons Booming blade and green flame blade did not make it into Xanathar's is because they are too generally useful for a lot of builds. The material is available in SCAG if folks want to use it in their home brew games but by not republishing them in Xanathar's they effectively keep these cantrips grouped with the classes they came with and the PHB classes for AL. In addition, for spellcasters (except wizards), it forces the choice of using these cantrips OR the spells in Xanathars but not both.
Yep. Sure would be a shame if classes locked to only a single attack per turn with no hope of gaining an extra attack could use a cool Meleemagic cantrip to actually stay relevant past level 5 in a more unique way than being able to throw two, three, five, nine, fourteen attacks a round. Gotta make sure Meleemagic attacks stay buried in the rubbish bin of Good Ideas We Don't Want People To Use, because somebody had the idea that warlocks should be able to attack with Charisma and forgot that multiclassing was a thing. So rogues, clerics, druids, non-fighty bards, oddbuild sorcerers and wizards, the upcoming artificer...none of them get to use Meleemagic attacks because we can't be having no Palahexblades triple-Smiting on a Booming Blade for three hundred damage in one swing.
Clearly it's the melee cantrips that are the problem, not Hexblades being borked beyond belief when you multiclass into every other Charisma caster in creation with one.
Yep. Sure would be a shame if classes locked to only a single attack per turn with no hope of gaining an extra attack could use a cool Meleemagic cantrip to actually stay relevant past level 5 in a more unique way than being able to throw two, three, five, nine, fourteen attacks a round. Gotta make sure Meleemagic attacks stay buried in the rubbish bin of Good Ideas We Don't Want People To Use, because somebody had the idea that warlocks should be able to attack with Charisma and forgot that multiclassing was a thing. So rogues, clerics, druids, non-fighty bards, oddbuild sorcerers and wizards, the upcoming artificer...none of them get to use Meleemagic attacks because we can't be having no Palahexblades triple-Smiting on a Booming Blade for three hundred damage in one swing.
Clearly it's the melee cantrips that are the problem, not Hexblades being borked beyond belief when you multiclass into every other Charisma caster in creation with one.
Rant much?
The +1 rule has existed since AL started as far as I know. It has to do with WotC not having to deal with trying to create balance across all the books they publish for all possible combinations of picks when the books are used for organized play. As far as I know the rule comes from the game publisher and has nothing to do with the folks who administer AL.
The +1 rule also has nothing to do with the current possibly OP combinations of the moment and, in my experience, doesn't limit choice or creativity sufficiently to be an issue any any way. I certainly don't feel an overwhelming need to play a yuan-ti hexblade/shadow sorcerer using booming blade to melee. On the other hand the SCAG cantrips work perfectly well with arcane tricksters, eldritch knights and bladesinger wizards .. all content that existed when the cantrips were introduced.
Finally, all of the "classes locked to only a single attack per turn with no hope of gaining an extra attack could use a cool Meleemagic cantrip to actually stay relevant past level 5" typically have spells and cantrips that keep the exceptionally relevant past level 5. I don't know of a class that doesn't actually have a better choice than he melee cantrips in most cases. The biggest users of booming blade are eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, other rogues with a cantrip, melee clerics, some paladin/sorcerer builds and all of these are possible using the +1 rule already.
Heh. Man, it's really nice for Wizards to let themselves off the hook for making their game more playable by saying "we're going to limit everybody to just one extra sourcebook, so we can make crazy-ass shit people really want every time we turn around but nobody can ever combine it without ogres eating their legs."
Making blatantly overpowered nonsense has never been difficult in AL. Start as a Fighter for one level for Con saves and heavy armor, then take two or three levels of Hexblade to key all your shit off Charisma so you can thoroughly ignore everything but CON and CHA and get a magical assault rifle in the palm of your hand, then fill out the rest of the character with either Paladin or Sorcerer levels to taste. It makes no god damned sense from a story perspective and is blatant powergaming, but you can do it EZPZ with nothing but Xanathar's Guide and have every DM you sit in front of rolling their eyes right out of their heads and quietly wishing they were dead instead of running an AL game for another tableful of munchkins.
But the Circle of Dreams druid who wants to use Green Flame Blade as a manifestation of nature's fury to defend his forest, because he has simple weapon proficiency and by God he'd like to use it for once? The dragonborn storm sorcerer whose Booming Blade is a natural evolution of their thunderous power? Those guys are out in the cold. Because Meleemagic cantrips are apparently Ohh Pee for AL, and we can't be having that. Triple-smite FigPalLocks are perfectly fine, but GFB druids or Booming Blade storm sorcs are just too much.
Are the Tiefling and Assimar variant races part of or outside the PHB+1 rule?
In the current season, you are allowed to use the variants, but only if it's a new character created specifically for this season. So if, say... you have an Aasimar created in the previous season that's only level 1, it's still limited to PHB+ Volo's as its only source.
I have seen and was told race and class is limited to PHB plus 1 of the allowed Books.
Is anything excluded from this Rule? Can I use another source for backgrounds / Feats / Spells (Invocations for Warlocks) Other?
Example: Can I having booming blade and green flame blade?
Only exception I can think of is learning spells through scrolls/spellbooks for wizards, (spells learned from leveling must follow phb+1) which doesn't work for cantrips. For your specific example, if you want booming and/or green-flame blade, you'll need SCAG as your +1.
In season 9, you can play a winged tiefling or an aasimar with wings (both get it at level 5 and give up a racial feature in exchange) without needing to choose either SCAG or Volo's as your +1. However, this is a specific exception for season 9 based on the Decent to Avernus campaign.
The other exception is that wizards can copy spells they find in the content they play and can also purchase spell scrolls from any of the sources which can then subsequently be copied to their spell books. However, spell copying does not apply to cantrips.
Backgrounds can also be picked from the official sources (not including UA or Guild Adept or other similar content) and custom backgrounds where you choose the skills/tools/special ability are also allowed but the "perk" from the background must come from official sources. However, if you join a faction the background characteristic has to be switched to "Safe Haven".
Other than those exceptions, all the character abilities - class/race/spells/invocation must come from only your PHB+1 sources. This means that any race from Volo's for example can ONLY be combined with content from the PHB. If you want to use booming blade and/or green flame blade for melee cantrips then you have to choose SCAG as your +1. Also, keep in mind that if you choose a race/class from one publication, you use the rules for the most recently published even if it isn't your +1. For example, if you want to play a swashbuckler with access to booming blade then your +1 is SCAG where both swashbuckler and booming blade are published. However, when playing you use the rules for Swashbuckler from Xanathar's since it is the most recently published version of the archetype. In some cases, the wording may have changed a bit between publications.
The +1 rule does limit some of the more powerful combinations as well as more thematically appropriate ones. For example, yuan-ti pureblood hexblade/shadow sorcerer might be very popular if it didn't require 3 sources ... it also might be a bit broken because yuan-ti is already a bit above average. However, you also can't build a Shadar-kai (shadow elf) shadow sorcerer or hexblade for the same reason despite the fact it would seem to be thematically appropriate (the shadow elves are in MtoF).
So a Hexblade/paladin using xgte+phb can not use green blade or booming blade.. both are from SCEG. Darn.
Correct. Sorry to say.
I think one of the reasons Booming blade and green flame blade did not make it into Xanathar's is because they are too generally useful for a lot of builds. The material is available in SCAG if folks want to use it in their home brew games but by not republishing them in Xanathar's they effectively keep these cantrips grouped with the classes they came with and the PHB classes for AL. In addition, for spellcasters (except wizards), it forces the choice of using these cantrips OR the spells in Xanathars but not both.
Yep. Sure would be a shame if classes locked to only a single attack per turn with no hope of gaining an extra attack could use a cool Meleemagic cantrip to actually stay relevant past level 5 in a more unique way than being able to throw two, three, five, nine, fourteen attacks a round. Gotta make sure Meleemagic attacks stay buried in the rubbish bin of Good Ideas We Don't Want People To Use, because somebody had the idea that warlocks should be able to attack with Charisma and forgot that multiclassing was a thing. So rogues, clerics, druids, non-fighty bards, oddbuild sorcerers and wizards, the upcoming artificer...none of them get to use Meleemagic attacks because we can't be having no Palahexblades triple-Smiting on a Booming Blade for three hundred damage in one swing.
Clearly it's the melee cantrips that are the problem, not Hexblades being borked beyond belief when you multiclass into every other Charisma caster in creation with one.
Please do not contact or message me.
Rant much?
The +1 rule has existed since AL started as far as I know. It has to do with WotC not having to deal with trying to create balance across all the books they publish for all possible combinations of picks when the books are used for organized play. As far as I know the rule comes from the game publisher and has nothing to do with the folks who administer AL.
The +1 rule also has nothing to do with the current possibly OP combinations of the moment and, in my experience, doesn't limit choice or creativity sufficiently to be an issue any any way. I certainly don't feel an overwhelming need to play a yuan-ti hexblade/shadow sorcerer using booming blade to melee. On the other hand the SCAG cantrips work perfectly well with arcane tricksters, eldritch knights and bladesinger wizards .. all content that existed when the cantrips were introduced.
Finally, all of the "classes locked to only a single attack per turn with no hope of gaining an extra attack could use a cool Meleemagic cantrip to actually stay relevant past level 5" typically have spells and cantrips that keep the exceptionally relevant past level 5. I don't know of a class that doesn't actually have a better choice than he melee cantrips in most cases. The biggest users of booming blade are eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, other rogues with a cantrip, melee clerics, some paladin/sorcerer builds and all of these are possible using the +1 rule already.
Heh. Man, it's really nice for Wizards to let themselves off the hook for making their game more playable by saying "we're going to limit everybody to just one extra sourcebook, so we can make crazy-ass shit people really want every time we turn around but nobody can ever combine it without ogres eating their legs."
Making blatantly overpowered nonsense has never been difficult in AL. Start as a Fighter for one level for Con saves and heavy armor, then take two or three levels of Hexblade to key all your shit off Charisma so you can thoroughly ignore everything but CON and CHA and get a magical assault rifle in the palm of your hand, then fill out the rest of the character with either Paladin or Sorcerer levels to taste. It makes no god damned sense from a story perspective and is blatant powergaming, but you can do it EZPZ with nothing but Xanathar's Guide and have every DM you sit in front of rolling their eyes right out of their heads and quietly wishing they were dead instead of running an AL game for another tableful of munchkins.
But the Circle of Dreams druid who wants to use Green Flame Blade as a manifestation of nature's fury to defend his forest, because he has simple weapon proficiency and by God he'd like to use it for once? The dragonborn storm sorcerer whose Booming Blade is a natural evolution of their thunderous power? Those guys are out in the cold. Because Meleemagic cantrips are apparently Ohh Pee for AL, and we can't be having that. Triple-smite FigPalLocks are perfectly fine, but GFB druids or Booming Blade storm sorcs are just too much.
Please do not contact or message me.
Are the Tiefling and Assimar variant races part of or outside the PHB+1 rule?
In the current season, you are allowed to use the variants, but only if it's a new character created specifically for this season. So if, say... you have an Aasimar created in the previous season that's only level 1, it's still limited to PHB+ Volo's as its only source.
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