D&D 5E Abusing Tasha's racial proficiency swaps

[auburn2]

According to Tasha's characters can sway weapon proficiencies for tools. As I understand it there is no limit to this. So an Elf fighter (who has martial weapons proficiency anyway) can and really should swap away all these for four different tools .... enabling said character to start the game as with say poisioner kit, disguise kit, thieves tools and land vehicles, plus more from background and all simple and martial weapons.

This seems to be metagaming, it also seems backwards thematically - "these proficiencies are usually cultural ..... and your character might have pursued different training" but wait they didn't really pursue different training because they did learn to use all those weapons and more!

I like the idea, but I think I am going to limit Tasha's to one simple and one martial weapon proficiency swap for a tool.

 

[D1Tremere]

Character creation in general is meta, in that you are thinking about what you want your character to be good and bad at Etc. In this case I wouldn't consider it backwards thematically as your character didn't learn the skills with such weapons from his culture, focusing instead on learning how to use said tools. He learned the use of weapons at a different time point as a function of his class training instead of his cultural training. This could be represented for example by an elf who didn't learn to use a bow from the elves because he grew up in a city thieves guild where he learned instead to use lock picks, alchemist kits, etc. Later he was taken in by a town guard who taught him to be a fighter. He can now use the same weapons that an elf learns but likely he uses them differently than an elf trained user would (in terms of stances, style, etc,).
Honestly, proficiency in 4 tools instead of 4 weapons is hardly unbalanced either way.

 

[jgsugden]

D&D is an RPG. A role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. If there is a story reason for the PC to have all those skills - fine. If it is just grabbing every little advantage they can muster with no real thought as to why the PC would have those tool proficiencies... well, some games are like that and everyone still has fun. However, that is not the type of gaming I encourage when I DM, or the type of gaming I perform when a player. Story over stats.

 

[Horwath]

Well, it depends.

I really like the optional rule as it is lets say unfair to martial classes that their race is spending "race points" on features that they get from the class and getting nothing instead of it.

I would even argue that dwarven armor proficiency is worth a skill not a tool.

I now play a Rogue(scout) wood elf and I took 3 tools instead of 3 weapons, I kept longbow proficiency

Tool are all in-character:
Cartographer to compliment Outlander background and Scout subclass role,
Woodcarver's tool to replenish arrows and fix a bow if it gets damaged,
Cook utensils to compliment Survival skill and again Outlander background to find food and water in most desolate areas and to gain little more HP if magic healing is limited.

All play to the role of survivor that needs very little support on forward scouting missions.

 

[turnip_farmer]

According to Tasha's characters can sway weapon proficiencies for tools. As I understand it there is no limit to this. So an Elf fighter (who has martial weapons proficiency anyway) can and really should swap away all these for four different tools .... enabling said character to start the game as with say poisioner kit, disguise kit, thieves tools and land vehicles, plus more from background and all simple and martial weapons.

This seems to be metagaming, it also seems backwards thematically - "these proficiencies are usually cultural ..... and your character might have pursued different training" but wait they didn't really pursue different training because they did learn to use all those weapons and more!

I like the idea, but I think I am going to limit Tasha's to one simple and one martial weapon proficiency swap for a tool.

Who cares?

The rogue in my game has all those proficiencies. Over the past year I can only remember him using the thieve's tools.

Why worry about things that crop up so rarely?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yep, other than Thieves' Tools and that one character able to drive Vehicles (Land), I find almost every single other tool proficiency to be at best flavor text for the character.

Musical instruments? Anyone who plays one will usually use Performance anyway. All the makers tools? Maybe if your group actually uses Downtime, but otherwise if you have a continuous ongoing story the group will rarely stay still long enough to allow time to "make stuff". Disguise kits? You probably have a character with the Disguise Self spell already and even if you don't... I imagine most DMs allow PCs to dress up into other clothing and still use Deception to pretend to be other people even without the make-up and wigs associated with a Disguise kit. Heck... I found Disguise kits and Forgery kits to be so unused I started combining them into a single 'Charlatan kit' for PCs... and then still went virtually unused.

Obviously all tables are different and others might find tools are used all the time (in which case, yes, the Tasha swap might be too much). But I'm just pointing out my own experiences to show that a DM really just needs to take a hard look at how their table plays before automatically declaring something overpowered, underpowered, or broken.

That being said... if you want to limit things just due to thematic reasons then I can certainly understand that if you think it helps with your stories and world. But I know for me personally, I don't find elves keeping proficiency in weapons they never use to be any more or less thematic than switching over to tool proficiencies they never use. After all... an Elven Fighter has proficiencies in warhammers, flails, greataxes, tridents, heavy crossbows, etc. etc. and never uses those... so keeping proficiencies in long and shortswords and long and shortbows just to suggest they are "elves" does not actually do anything for me.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

As several posters have already indicated, proficiency in extra tool kits won't break the game, IME. Especially at low levels where a PC likely does not even possess the extra tool kit anyway. Those proficiencies then become fodder for some personal quests (or at least to adventure to gain the money that could potentially buy the components of each tool kit.) If the player has spent time and thought trying to obtain the components of a tool kit, I'd say they're more likely to find ways to incorporate the use of said tool kit into the game. Adds an extra element to their character which could add to creativity in exploration and social interaction -- as opposed to, in the wood elf example, a weapon proficiency they'll never use (e.g. how many characters actually have both a long and a short bow that they use regularly?)

 

[D1Tremere]

D&D is an RPG. A role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. If there is a story reason for the PC to have all those skills - fine. If it is just grabbing every little advantage they can muster with no real thought as to why the PC would have those tool proficiencies... well, some games are like that and everyone still has fun. However, that is not the type of gaming I encourage when I DM, or the type of gaming I perform when a player. Story over stats.

I would argue that an RPG isn't JUST characters playing a role in a story, but also players playing those characters. As such, a player may have their reasons for why they want their character to have x/y/z. It can be problematic when the DM makes assumptions about a players motives.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I think allowing "switches" of proficiencies can be useful. It's a waste to be a member of a species that benefits from some advantage, like a proficiency, so the players considers that it would be make a good species to be, say, a archer because he reads the species gets proficiency with bows, only to have it mechanically wasted because his class will grant the exact same proficiency, so there is no benefit to be of said species, while he could be a good wizard/archer if he hadn't picked a warrior class. So I can see recycling in order to avoid "losing" an edge given by a species if your edge overlap with your professional edge (with DM approval, maybe in some worlds dwarves aren't good at smithing because it's cultural among them to learn smithing but because their soul is empowered by the Smith God and even if they are raised among men or illithid they will still hear its voice deep down, so it wouldn't make sense to consider innate benefit to be cultural because, in real life, what you learn is cultural -- but the group could still agree to have unrealistic knowledge acquisition in a fantasy world).

Maybe the next smart step would be to get rid of races altogether and just give a few point-buy for proficiencies, martial weapons and various "small feats" like darkvision (the backstory of the player could provide some rational as to WHY you have a fly speed or can see in the dark, whether it is because I fell into a cauldron of magical potion when I was young or because I am a member of a group of naturally winged humanoids). With absolutely no mechanical distinction, people would only play a member of a specific species if they want to, not because "it's more efficient to be X or Y". It would prevent also one species to be superior to another if they all have the same "point buy".

(my guess is that human would be the 90% choice if this system was adopted).

 

[Shiroiken]

The problem with the swap options is that it makes certain races overall better choices mechanically. Obviously some people will still choose to play certain races for roleplay reasons, but many will choose the more mechanically optimal choices. To implement something like this right, races would pretty much have to be redone to balance them out. IMO this would work for a 5.5E or 6E, but IMO this optional rule just isn't a good choice.