With all of the changes coming into the realm of tabletop gaming and Dungeons & Dragons in 2020, there’s a lot to learn for new players, and even a lot to adjust to if you’re a longtime player or DM. Wizards of the Coast has a habit of expanding and shuffling rules around for the most popular tabletop RPG pretty regularly. And with a new product launch coming soon, there’s a pretty big shakeup coming. That monstrous shift is called Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is basically the be-all and end-all of D&D character creation tools. As the name implies, the new supplement is everything you need when it comes to making characters. But it’s not just a basic reprint of the Player’s Handbook rules, it’s so much more. This new product will massively expand the toolset for both players and DMs when it comes to making new members of your fantasy worlds.
The new book is a follow-up to 2017’s Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and it will bring a bunch of new options to the table for customization. Building off of months of work on the Unearthed Arcana playtesting, as well as player and DM feedback, WotC has created something special. Jeremy Crawford, the principal rules designer of the game, shared some details with various outlets this week, shedding some light on this new release.
The biggest focus here is on completely revitalizing the character creation process. “Our work on the game is a delightful conversation with the community that never ends,” as Crawford says, hinting that this is just the beginning. New subclass options for every Dungeons & Dragons class is just the tip of the iceberg. There will also be tons of new items and fun things to play with. Or if you’re a DM, devious traps to snare players with. Spells, artifacts, traps and more line the pages of this supplement. Tasha’s caustic brew and Tasha’s otherworldly guise are two mentioned so far.
Various new rules for supernatural environments, natural hazards, and more will help offer more meat to stick onto the bones of your worlds too.
By blending all of this together, there will be endless new combinations to choose from. Players are free to experiment and try to break it at their leisure, or just to test the patience of their DMs.
And yes, there will be additions that tie into other products. Crawford explained one such errata coming to Volo’s Guide to Monsters. By integrating changes like the Lineage system, the product designers wanted to better adapt the rules of this edition to the way so many players engage with 5E D&D through online tools and resources like D&D Beyond.
Players who have been around awhile are all-to-used to the idea of racial stereotypes in Dungeons & Dragons, a hold-over from the Tolkein writings that inspired early RPGs. For all too long, it’s been assumed that Orcs were evil, because they’re Orcs. 2020 is going to change that with the new system that opens up race options in new and inventive ways. By blending race choices into the character creation process and focusing less on the assumptions, there will hopefully be less bias built into the process. The goal here is to get players and Dungeon Masters thinking about new ways to write their stories, rather than relying on tropes to define moral positions.
This is where the subclasses and race combinations that have been tested in UA come in. The new supplement even brings in a new sidekick class that offers a slimmed-down experience that’s better for quick play or more unique one-shot experiences.
And not just content with basic printing, complete with tons of cool art and storied writing, there’s a special limited-run alt cover variant.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is due for launch on November 20, 2020. You can pre-order the book right now via Amazon. The book has an MSRP of $49.95.
