Well, our call to action worked! Crap! :) Actually, I'm pretty ok with this ruling, even if it surprises me. Come see why. / 1367309850707849216 / dndoptimized / dnddeepdive / colbypoulson
This explains a LOT. I've had so many players assuming you could combine CL with EA, then tell me they had heard elsewhere this was legal by RAW because you could be an "elf" CL.
Ha ha - hey there Treantmonk - I've actually been seeing a similar argument made throughout the D&D community, Reddit, etc., so I don't think I was alone in the assumption :). Regardless, I'm not particularly upset by the ruling. Thanks for stopping by!
WotC states in their press release as an example that you’re a custom elf, you’re still an elf. So I fully and completely understand why you gravitated to this rationale - it’s common sense based on what was provided to us. It’s actually Jeremy throwing a curveball saying your custom elf is not genetically an elf anymore? Cuz reasons? It’s CLEARLY a decision based SOLELY on a mechanical standpoint not an immersion standpoint, which inherently makes it weak reasoning in a game based on imaginaaaaaation.
@@maesterx4d I'm almost positive that quote about still being an elf was in reference to the "customize your origin" options and NOT the custom lineage section.
Crawford once said that a cleric could turn on spirit guardians, use dash, and everything that passed though the radius would take the damage. This was later over ruled in an official errata. If you want justification for disregarding his sage advice, there it is.
To be absolutely fair Jeremy Crawford only speaks about weither or not it works RAW and it can be changed. But yes you dont have to go with what Jeremy Crawford says on any ruling
@@DnDDeepDive indeed it was whether that for the conservative side of the lore/game (and respect players investements in books1-4) or a complete liberation of the feats from ties to races. I felt 60% odds into the latter also lol
I don't really comment youtube videos cause i don't feel confortable with my english. But let me say that your channel fills a hole in my hearth :) Long live D&D: Optimized. Un abrazo desde Argentina.
While watching this I had an idea for a series of builds or discussion of builds. Iconic builds for each race that would maximized a race's features. LIke an iconic Half Orc build or iconic Drow or Mountain Dwarf build. Its a thought I had fueled by caffeine. I am not sure it is feasible though.
As a human, I appreciate this ruling. We humans get the respect we deserve post Tashas, and no longer need to be in the shadow of custom elf lineages. Long live humanity!
I never saw most people changing which races they rolled much anyway. Humans will still be dominant either way just because they are easier for people to identify with and remain pretty powerful.
?: So an 18 in agility as a Half-Orc is actually less than an 18 in agility for a Half-Elf / Elf ... I see this as missing the mark Two things can be true at the same time
Yeah I'm gonna have to disagree with his decision, if my custom lineage is 3/4 elf 1/4 Goliath then I should have even more reason to have elven accuracy than a half elf
First, I may be speaking more as a DM involved in play balance than as a player here, but I have to say that I have rarely or never disagreed with Crawford (the guy who basically *wrote* 5e for us, you will please remember) when he reigns in an overzealous player. Second, in this case he's *ABSOLUTELY NOT* wrong. As I noted in another post on this very topic, the *VERY FIRST WORDS* in the Custom Lineage rule are *INSTEAD OF choosing one of the game's races for your character at 1st level ...* This is clear and unambiguous. You can't combine Custom Lineage with the advantages of playing a character race; you need to choose between them. And insisting that they must be combinable, once merely powergaming, is now just sour grapes.
@@morganpetros9635 that's more of an appeal to authority than an actual argument about why you shouldn't be able to combine them. Half elf in the PHB is specifically half human half elf, that's pretty restrictive, so if I wanted to do a half elf half orc then that would fall under custom lineage. If we've already decided that you only need to be half an elf in order to get the benefits of elven accuracy then it makes 0 sense that any other mix of half elf wouldn't benefit from it. Also Jeremy Crawford himself said "if someone told you that my tweets are rules in the game you're playing, that game isn't D&D" so even Jeremy crawford doesn't want you to make "because he said so" arguments in his name.
Oh man, I just realized you could do a whole series on optimizing for specific campaigns. The level range is a known quantity and largely so is the content.
As an engineer, you’re dedication to accurate data organization has ushered my love and respect for your projects to a new level. Keep up the great work!!
Yeaaah. I'm still allowing it. Although I am sticking with my ruling that to take it you have to specifically declare yourself as at the very least half-whatever-the race is, so you can't take half dwarf half dragonborn, half orc half terrasque or whatever, and you gotta be level 4 when you take the racial feat.
RiP Bladesinger with starting Elven accuracy. The shadow blade weapon cost was only put there in order to be able to also use the material weapon as a spell focus, not for gutting shadow blade
For my table, custom lineage just isn't an option. Instead every race gets a feat at lvl 1, Variant Humans can choose either a second feat or a packet of skills from another race, reflecting the variant aspect, a touch of Dragornborn or Loxodon, whatever. I like my players to feel powerful, they're heroes. If Gandalph can wield Glamdring to great effect, why can't my Wizard? I ramble, sorry. Homebrew and house rules have always been the answer to D&D for me, for 40 years. Make it work at your table, don't let anyone tell your fun is wrong. Don't summon demons though, that'll put us back 30 years.
Wow.. love the community support for your crow pie. Hey you got a response back QUICKLY! So you got to enjoy that lol. Let's be perfectly honest elven accuracy is OP! LMAO 🤣 So now looks like we have variant something...or half elf lol. Hey always enjoy the videos keep them coming !
I don't think a whole video apology was necessary for an interpretation very much up for debate, however I love the way you handled it. Love the channel!
I'm salty. Kinda interesting to pick early power of custom/varient vs elven, but most people aren't going to be able to take the feat till 8/12 now which is kinda forever
Forgive me if you've already gone over this. I'm interested in the numbers pairing elven accuracy, the champion subclasses increased crit chance(18-20), lucky, and other feats/abilities that allow Max, or rerollable DMg. Love the content. Keep on truckin.
I get it, so if you’re a Tortle, you can’t just swap the lineage to drop going into your shell for say the Tabaxi freedom of movement. But changing your base stats so you aren’t punished for picking a race that isn’t tied to match the class.
You are good man. Even if I was on the other side I can see many DMs ruling the other way. But I still love Elven accuracy. It has two good effects - hitting high armor class and critical fishing. Going from a .09 to a .14 chance of crit matters only really to one group - rogues. With only one attack they want to make the a best of it and since they can consistently get that advantage it matters. For others like warlocks, it can be engineered (can be effective) but I still think super advantage has good utility. Though for a bladsinger I would think using Telekinesis Feat or the Fey teleportation to get you out of sticky situations tends to be better (but I am partial to a defensive blade singer).
I feel like custom lineage should have access to eleven accuracy, and it might change in the future, but I think you took it extremely well. I would LOVE to see you take on the gunslinger.
I had a feeling it would turn out this way (no gloat). I had hoped that Tasha's would have given the option to exchange a single racial +2 ASI for a feat instead. (No double feats for the mountain dwarf). That would have opened up so many more options for character building.
I don't like his answer, but from a balance pov I respect it. That being said, maybe in the future they can expand on it by having race based lineages that take away something from your primary race, but add something (at a lesser value) from another. For example a Human with a Dwarven lineage could have the +1 to all limited to just 2 or 3, and you gain Dwarven Resilience, but as a reaction once per long rest.
Tbf its only "the only choice" if you're using standard array/ point buy. If you're rolling sometimes you just hit that 16/18 where the +1extra is that signigance
I think we all can take a piece of this pie ahahahaah. When I said to my DM that I have an Excel file to optimize my characters (not just the maximum damage without reason), he became very restrictive. Barovia became darker, but luckily I am a bladesinger elf and my shadow blade always glows in this domain. New ideas: - Party combos optimization, spells, feats, etc. (wizard-sickening radiance + bard-forcecage), - Build against Undeads - Builds against famous monsters/bosses
Also, do you video your sessions? I’d love to see you build a group of characters each month and then play test them in a one-shot at the end of the month.
I love the idea! Alas... time :). We did do a battle royals episode last week for 5k subs you might enjoy, and have plans to start recording our weekly game as soon as we wrap up our current campaigns in hopefully a couple months!
Can you remake Crossbow fighter. It was your second build and used UA Rune Knight + Updated with Tasha (now incorrect interaction with Elven accuracy Feat) Edit: Also I wonder if since you grow if your dm would allow you to do dmg equal to the oversized weapon bonus available in the DMG
It doesn't seem consistent to me but my DM doesn't even allow variant humans anyway, so custom lineage isn't a viable option either. Just cool features for the void rn
Why not? Variant Humans can do so much more from a story telling point of view than a regular human(Comparably). I may be DM-ing for a bloodhunter with a +9 to initiative at level one but it makes a tonne of sense for the character and I really like that. Sorry, just I don't like to restrict choices for my players unless they want to do it themselves. So yeah, I really love Variant Human as long as the player gives me a reason for their character to have the feat that makes sense.
@@quendi5557 yeah. I really don't get why not other than they think a character getting a feat before others isn't fair. Even tho humans are otherwise weaker in every respect. And like, they're a really dope DM, but that's just one of their things. But to be fair, I've never really pressed about a character concept that needed that design, and if I made a good case, maybe they'd allow it, I dunno. I allow it as a DM. The authority is the narrative choices and the internal logic, so if it works in that way, it works. Meanwhile my other DM let me trade in a +2 ability score for a feat at level one lol. I had rolled stupid good so I could afford it
@@basementmadetapes I used to not build the feat into my character and just took one I liked but now I have this thing of, why am I taking this? why does my character have these abilities and it really helps me write a backstory.
@@quendi5557 I've always built characters like that and for all the tables i've sat that's been the design philosophy...everything is character driven. So I keep my ear to the ground for optimization, but ultimately I try and choose honestly for all my choices. Like, I got one dude w the luck feat, and the luck feat is strong and it works w everything, but I'd be corny to take it all the time. But the story of luck is built right into him. Even his ideal is taken from Cormac McCarthy..."you never know what worse luck your bad luck keeps you from"
@@basementmadetapes yeah, I mean I am allowing my players to learn 1 feat outside of Ability score increases. But I will always ask them for that one especially, why? Why is your character learning this. I want to foster that idea of character driven decisions because I wish someone had told me that when I started. I really do. my second character was a non entity, he didn't have a backstory and had the hermit background because I wanted the herbalism kit. Now I want to make a reason why my characters have their skills, I have two characters with the same feat and with only one cantrip different, and yet they have really different reasons for having that feat and very different backstories and class.
Great channel dude, seems to be growing like crazy hope it stays that way for you! I've been making some characters for a few one shots recently and I think this is a sensible ruling. Custom lineages are still more than flexible enough without cherry picking racial feats.
While I recognize D&D Beyond is not WotC... It is worth mentioning that the DDB character builder currently allows you to select from racial feats as your custom lineage feat, so they may need to look into this if this indeed the case. I think it's a bad ruling (if you can call it that) since 1) racial feats are not available for a majority of the playable races, and 2) your custom lineage may include bloodlines from the races that DO have racial feats.
Jeremy crawford has specifically said his tweets are not to be taken as official rules, more like the home interpretation of another DM. We can still do whatever we want to allow in your own games
I know it's probably late but in regards to racial feats they seem to be tied to physical aspects of the race ie... Dragonborn - dragon hide as such I'd would treat elven accuracy in the same light ie.. their eyes give them greater clarity or their minds just think that little bit faster
I think the best argument for restricting this use of custom lineage + racial feat, it tended to push variety in character diversity into narrower and narrower bands. There need to be tradeoffs to having a first-level feat or else nobody will ultimately take other races. Elven lineage draws people to skip Tabaxi or Halflings, for example.
Great idea except when you consider the fact before customizing best races in 5e were half elf if you're not using str and half orc if you are (not counting variant human ofc which trumps both)
The most important thing people need to keep in mind is that these builds are the maximized optimized crazy wombo-combos you can build. These should often be avoided at tables because anything these craziest builds can kill needs a challenge that will wipe the rest of the party easily. For tables I recommend toning it down somewhat as impossibly high damage output or ridiculous survival (AC/Save) skews balancing in ways that are not healthy for a non-optimized party. Say what you want but the combat is bad if 1 party member is easily pushing 100 damage and not taking any while the others are struggling to hit as mobs now have +4 ac to be of any challenge at all or are always targeting them as the rest of the party has 10-15 less AC. Optimized builds ruins many casual tables. It skews the entire game and people feel bad when they are very inferior especially if they have the same role and don't even nearly perform equally. The best solution is to tone down for more casual tables. No holds barred at tables that are more optimized tables or combat oneshots. As an example, my optimized build could easily clear many standard released adventures books solo. That fact literally breaks the game and forces major rebalances to pre-built adventures. I build hundreds of builds in my head. Theoretically optimizing character builds and figuring out the coolest combinations out there. Trying to figure out wombo-combos with multiclass or an assisting player. That kind of stuff. But then I don't always use it for a casual table where people don't pick PAM and HWM / sharpshooter+familiar+elven accuracy. They deal a third of the damage. Maybe i bring out my optimized paladin.. but with tavern brawler instead and have one of the most fun evenings of my life. Fighting on par or even slightly below the others and using my brain to make up for it. Optimizing with a major drawback on purpose to level it out while still stretching my brain and using great combos.
@D&D: Optimized Hey heads up , 3 hours ago he followed up with another tweet backing walking back and saying what you where doing is fine. He basically ment that if you not a Custom 'ELF' it isnt ok I think? I dont know its really confusing to me , here is the Addendum : twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1367591792628011012
No it isn’t. Hes talking about Custom ORIGIN. Which is different from Custom Lineage. You don’t get the level 1 feat is the important part. The ruling wasn’t backtracked
I agree that it SHOULD be allowed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the next evolution of DnD allows any Feat at level 1, linked to Background rather than Race. But yeah, for now it states pretty specifically that your race will count as Custom Lineage with regard to Race specific Feats. Here's my question then: what if you are 1/4 Drow, 1/4 Wood Elf, 1/4 Tiefling and 1/4 Goliath? That's still a total of 1/2 Elf from those 2 types, and according to the Elven Accuracy rules, a half-elf qualifies.
Ever thought about doing a series on homebrew stuff? Perhaps making a series where viewers can submit or suggest fan-created content and you try to "break" it by finding interesting synergies. Focused on classes and subclasses or something like that
I generally agree with decoupling stats from race although not feats and similar racial powers. This allows more role play in the RPG rather than picking a race-class combo that are always complimentary.
I do not agree with it. It doesn't actually allow for more roleplaying. What it does is to make everything homogeneous. It makes everything the same. The issue I see instead is that you think that you must pick a option that is always complimentary with the style you want to play. That you should always go with a dwarf fighter instead of a dwarf rogue. You think that you must minmax for some reason. You are not actually roleplaying at that point. You are doing a numbers game. A numbers game that isn't even that important. The reason stats should be coupled with the races is because they are not humans. Like literally. A elf isn't a human. A dwarf isn't a human. Their are inherent physical differences between a Orc and a Human. The difference in race is not a social contruct in D&D, but are actually real things. If you decouple stats from races, you have made those differences also pointless. A dwarf is a human. A orc is a human. A elf is a human. I think limitations are required in games like this. As much as I hate to say it, but you need diversity in the game options. Yes. Maybe a gnome has problems keeping up when you are forced to run away. However instead of throwing out the problem, and make them just as fast as humans that are much taller than gnomes. You should solve that with creativity. How about that someone cast Tenser’s Floating Disk? That way the gnome can do rear guard duties while standing on the disk and keep the same speed as with everyone else. How about that the gnome buy a Mastiff and ride around on a large dog everywhere? Not only does it give an advantage detecting things, but the gnome have now gained MORE speed than everyone else. You can not come up with these situations if you just throw away the problem. It also presents a narrative issue for a DM. A custom lineage is not actually the race they think they are. A custom lineage elf is not actually an elf. They are custom lineage race. If you have a city where the wood elves comes from. Like the wood elf capital in the wood elf country. The people are destinct with their own culture and their own history. They have physiological diffrences that makes them elves. Like how meditate and do not sleep. This means that in this wood elf capital they most likely do not have the same accommodations as humans have. Maybe they all just sleep in a kneeling position like how Geralt meditate in the Witcher games. This means they do not have beds unless they are made for foreigners. However with custom lineage, you now have a wood elf that do not share the physiological traits of the rest of the elves and require different accommodations to everyone else. All because someone didn't want a race to be its own race and rather wanted a homogeneous blob that offers a better mechanical advantages in some types of games. If you want to decouple stats from race. Fine. You do you. But I do not want that as a general standard as it is a bad stanard to have. It worsen roleplay and world building.
Did I miss something? You mention triple advantage: advantage only adds one extra dice, no matter how many sources give you advantage (PHB p.173)... Or did this get changed?
@Colby This is an opportunity to challenge your optimizing skills. Maybe you could optimize make a video optimizing the features of each race? I think that would be super fun and interesting. Let’s start with the optimized Satyr! 🐐
Check out the synergy between Tasha’s new rules for falling on a creature and the Satyr’s Mirthful Leaps racial feature. The name of the build is probably already formulating in that creative brain of yours. 😉
Well some of the racial feats seem tough to take. Stuff that requires you to have a racial feature. Like Orcish Fury requires relentless endurance. Dragon fear required breath weapon. It makes it hard to clear it to be used with custom lineage.
I think 5e is starting to unravel, there is alot of power creep going on, I do like new content but they are going to keep running into these kinds of problems. I was thinking 2, lets say i do custom lineage and took a feat like resilience and got +1 to modifier. Do i start the game with +3 to one stat?
Yes you would. But do keep in mind it comes at the cost of a +1 to something else and generally other features like maybe a spell, or Brutal Critical-like effects, etc. etc. that other races can get. I do think Custom Lineage is very strong, of course, but there are often good arguments for other races, depending on the build (or, of course, the character you're trying to create.)
@@DnDDeepDive In earlier additions I honestly would not have had a problem with custom lineage. But I feel like a lot of classes that were previously MAD can get away with maxing 1 modifier. For instance, artificers and hexblade warlocks add their spell modifier to weapon attacks. A Paladin that once chose between being tanky, doing damage or having better auras and spell saves can now just max charisma with a one level dip into hex blade and can pretty much do all the above. So being able to rush max 20 one mod seems too good. But id agree, some racials are unique and defiantly become better later on in the game once those more significant feat have been picked up. Also super glad you can't take eleven accuracy level 1, I really like the idea of race feats being slightly stronger than average, with the investment of having to take that whole race including those less desirable features. Any ways rant over haha sorry for the wall
this mean you can use booming blade and shadow blade now with blade singer build. Jermy has spoken and we want to be consistent. This also mean blade singer 2.1 is a must now. Just sayin
Just discovered your content and I love it. The unfortunate thing about this Crawford ruling is that it kind of kills racial feats. Now it's like they cost two feat - first they cost the feat itself, but they also make it so that you can't get a feat in Custom Lineage. I'm part of the D&D conservative crowd, and I think this stinks.
I didn't come here to gloat. I came here to grieve. :( I really don't agree with this ruling. Anyway have to fix some of my martial builds now to be elves and tieflings. My DM is very strict on RAW. oh well. Thankfully we rarely start our games below level 5, so I can still have elven accuracy to start or coming up in a few levels. So anyway I see you recommending the half-elf (which is expected), but do you see any worth mathematically to go for: high elf: another wiz cantrip wood elf: +5 speed drow: faerie fire and darkness 1/day yeah i switched to crusher from orcish fury in my one-shot booming blade builds (retained custom lineage). I think you discount elven accuracy's worth at this point vs. low-mid AC because you aren't factoring its' partners: sharpshooter and gwm.
true on the +10 and -5 feats for sure. I think there's merit to the Elven races, depending on how MAD your character is and how helpful those extra spells are for the build, for sure.
@@DnDDeepDive Given the option to customize ability scores in tasha's it's more of +1 stat vs. 1 wiz cantrip vs. +5 move spd (personally i think I'll respec to this) vs. darkness/faerie fire 1/day. Not all martial builds can use darkness but i think there's merit in faerie fire. however, the problem with the drow option is if you spend some time in sunlight, it makes it unattractive as a race option.
I feel like not having restrictions on racial feats can lead to too many game breaking features imo. I had a custom lineage character that I was working on that had an elf ancestor(rightful heir style thing) so they fought with double bladed scimtar and had elven accuracy, but I realised that it seemed a bit too broken at early levels, so I decided to check if it was legal, hence finding this video.
I believe RAF should be the decision at every table, because we come together to have fun. That said, I love when rulings are made that give respect and deference to older source material, even if it causes some restrictions RAW or RAI. I would be fast to consider allowing Elven Accuracy for Custom Lineage if I ever had an optimizer at my table. But I also think a player sacrificing an ASI for the feat as an elf or half-elf is "earning it" a bit more, and balance-wise it has merit. Still, do what you want. Be a fruitkin banana barbarian (my current party's banabarian) with the Custom Lineage, ignore numbers and focus on unique characters with wacky RP if you love it! Power to the Player
@@DnDDeepDive No prob Homelander. I love the show and plan to catch the earlier episodes some time. I tried to send an email like Friday night after watching the show a bit. dndoptimized@gmail.com right? The n and the ampersand always get me. So I hope that reached you alright and you get a chance to read it. Anyways, TL;DR of the request is the best PHB build, no supplemental material, variants, or optionals whatsoever. What was the barebones meta in base 5e circa 2014?
@@DnDDeepDive Oh dang. Well it's a good thing I commented on YT then. I don't even for DadPat on his Theorist videos cause he's so big and probly ain't got the time to respond. I'm glad to be one of your first 10K subs and that you had time to respond. What are the best social tags to reach you at for future reference? The Reddit board really active? I've never used reddit for discussion, only quick answers and inspiration on what others have already said about D&D.
@@patrickstewart501 I think the Reddit sub is great, but I honestly don't respond much there, as the community itself has become really good at supporting each other and discussing/answering one another's questions :). Honestly, these days I feel like I barely reply to anything in a timely fashion! Twitter might be best, or these comments (though I usually only check the ones that RU-vid highlights for me, and I have no idea which ones they highlight or why :P)
My DM is with Jeremy, so my Bladesinger is a bit in limbo now and I'm trying to figure out how I want to change him. His int is low enough I feel sort of stat-starved already, so I may end up just dropping Elven Accuracy and being a High Elf, the cantrip is tempting since how many cantrips bladesinger's eat up baseline, but even without Elven Accuracy I think I'll still use my familiar (at this point it's important to my backstory to have a fey-spirit familiar and eventually summon fey since they are the patrons of my character's special bladesinger-wizard secret society that is protecting the world (think kind of similar to the Wardens in WoW) Trying some custom lineage or half-elf where I'm half-elf half fey is also an idea I'm trying to figure out and may do as well. It's weird I'm sort of in that same situation you're talking about where the crow I'm eating feels good, it's given me more options.
More options are not always a good thing though, it's not that automatic. As you said due to having +2 on 2 stats a dwarf is now more suited for a dex/int build than an elf, at least stat-wise. That doesn't seem lore friendly, you _have to_ be the exception now as a character. I'm starting to think that even capping abilities at 20 for every race was a mistake, let alone Tasha's...Being conservative means preserving the setting in this case. Tasha isn't just a new ruleset, it's a different world entirely.
I do think Kobold is a great option. I've suggested them a time or two before, and have no doubt that I will again in the future, but yes, probably even more so now.
RAW is fine, but really I don't understand the ruling. Elflings (halfelf/half halfling), Muls (half dwarf/half human), and other such mixed heritages should be a thing and they would obviously qualify.
I may not agree with it, but I think their thought process was that the Half Elf race should be taken in place for those situations. Should be clarified better, because they do state human as the other half in phb, but I think this was their actual intent.
@@The_Yukki if you're GM allows variant human the variant human traits replace the standard human ASI. Variant human raw is the standard human race and its traits are normal human traits, so it should work.
@@markuslang6215 Ohh, is that official rule? I always thought of variant as "if u want your human to be more specialised pick those, but in general humans are flex" kinda pick. I'm pretty sure that even at Mercer's table (yea ik, 1 dm isn't an authority) it works like this, given the fact caleb stared with keen mind and boe started with no feats.
@@The_Yukki The exact wording is: "Variant Human If your campaign uses the optional feat rules from the Player’s Handbook, your Dungeon Master might allow these variant traits, all of which replace the human’s Ability Score Increase trait. Ability Score Increase Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1. Skills You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice. Feat You gain one feat of your choice." so variant human is a standard human modifyed by optional rules and not a subclass.
Does this stop you from being a custom lineage and taking a racial feat at a later level like level 4 or does it just stop you doing it for your free feat at level 1?
@@gymmyclassic579 Ah well, nevermind thanks anyway. Looks like my chaotic good follower of Eilistraee drow bladesinger that im gonna play next will just have to be a normal drow.
I think I might be in the minority on this, but I actually like this ruling. At my table I have no issue with people picking a custom lineage and, for all intents and purposes, being a variant of a race in the game such as elf, or even an, idk, half half-elf half halfling (4 halves in one character!). I think this is all in line with one of the intended uses of the custom lineage (the other being a race that's not even in the game) However, if they also want feats that have racial prerequisites then that raises a red flag to me. If you want to be an elf for your backstory but something in it doesn't fit the character you want to build, then so be it, take custom lineage. But, if you want to be an elf because you want the benefits of the race, then I think you should choose to take that race as written. Remember that as of Tasha's release you're not even bound to the ability score increases anymore. You can switch those around to your heart's content, so you can really be any class you want while being an elf and not take a penalty. In fact, you get some bonuses tied to elves as well. What you don't get "as an elf" is a free feat. In the same way that you don't get flying. It's just something that happens to be unique to variant humans, and now custom lineage. All that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if Elven Accuracy changes to not need a racial pre-req in the first place somewhere down the line, because thematically I feel like it isn't very tied to race like, for example, flight or long life is. But allowing the races to be distinct mechanically (while still being flexible enough to allow for any race / class combination to be viable) gives them a bit more depth in my opinion. Idk, maybe that's just me.
I feel this hard. I'm starting a campaign tomorrow and I'm going custom lineage "dragonborn" and i was going to reason that he was the runt and therefore couldn't breath weapon, but my DM just let me have breath weapon... i almost feel like i'm cheating... but i'll take it
Simpel way to fix all videos is the following... if the race is custom lineage and elven accuracy feat, just replace it with luck, and you are fine, the few times where the 3rd d20 is needed is often covered by lucky... With that said, I respect the lore of why some classes or feat are race specific... to learn the basics of bladesong it takes 50-75 years, if you find the old complete book of elves from TSR... so those short-living races just don't have the time or the mentality to take that time... that is why dwarves have dwarven battleragers...lol
