Multiclass Without Multiclassing Courtesy of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted go through all the character classes in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to sample the 1st and 2nd level features making multiclass dips so juicy. Plenty of video comments notwithstanding they make it clear early in the video they’re looking at broadly useful class features. So while the whataboutism as regards specific or niche character concepts do indeed make perfectly valid sense in many cases this simply isn’t the scope of the video. What is very pertinent when discussing mutliclass options in 5E D&D though is Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. So let’s get into it.

Feats and features for multiclass flavor

Players who enjoy or explore multiclass characters in 5E D&D do so for a wide variety of reasons. Exploiting a particular feature, trait or approach to gameplay represents a large portion of multiclass enthusiasts. Story driven choices to delve into multiclass choices make for compelling reasons also.

Courtesy of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything content now appearing on Fantasy Grounds adds a whole new dimension when it comes to multiclass characters in 5E D&D. There’s some literally game changing new options within the follow up to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything sure to keep players, builders and theorycrafters busy with all sorts of new facets to character creation and development.

New feats in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Back in July’s Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Feats we saw a number of new feats with a distinctly multiclass feel. Several magic feats gave 5E D&D characters a path to adding a few spellcasting options. Other feats simulated class features to provide things like Fighting Styles or weapon mastery. According to a thorough Reddit post collecting everything known about the material in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything the list of new feats in the book are as follows:

• Artificer Initiate
• Chef
• Crusher
• Eldritch Adept
• Fey Touched
• Fighting Initiate
• Gunner
• Metamagic Adept
• Piercer
• Poisoner
• Shadow Touched
• Skill Expert
• Slasher
• Telekinetic
• Telepathic

This is a great direction for 5E D&D to go. Along with so many other new character options in the Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything players can enjoy a tremendously more broad scope to envision and create their characters. Sticking with a single class generally results in a more powerful character overall and new options to inject a bit of pizazz from another class by selecting a feat in lieu of an ability score increase is huge. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the concept of multiclassing through feat selection isn’t something new to D&D either. In fact this concept comes straight out of my favorite edition of the game.

Mixing and changing your subclass

Ready for some unprecedented flexibility for your 5E D&D characters? Because there’s a lot going on in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. For starters Alternate Class Features open the floodgates of versatility. A variation on Beast Master features certainly promises to make ranger enthusiasts very happy and create many new fans of the class. Spellcasters likewise gain a hugely flexible option through Spell Versatility.

Players might also take advantage of an option to completely change their chosen subclass to a different one at levels where you’d typically gain a subclass feature. Yes, you read that correctly. Battle Master fighter not doing it for you? Swap out for Champion at 7th, 10th, 15th or 18th level. Is The Fiend proving a problematic Otherworldly Patron? Discover an Archfey to show you the path to power instead at 6th, 10th or 14th level.

This new option requires characters to train for a number of days equal to their new level and spend 100 gp per level of the class. According to the Reddit post the book suggests a quest may be in order to finalize this change too. It also accounts for story moments as a cause for a sudden and immediate change.

One of the options we saw in Unearthed Arcana to allow changing things like Metamagic, cantrips or Fighting Styles gets scaled back though. In the UA characters could change these whenever they level up, but it seems they’ll now be linked to levels where an Ability Score Increase takes place instead. Personally this sounds much more reasonable to me. I felt like changing these significant choices any time a character leveled up was a bit too much flexibility both mechanically and narratively. I wonder if there will be an option to select subclass features from other subclasses within the same core class. That would be kind of neat, right?

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything promises to be quite a tome. These are just a small sample of the new material we’ll see in the book and I cannot wait! Providing resources for players to help create and play the kinds of characters they imagine is a huge step forward for 5E D&D and I’m so excited to see how this new content freshens up the game we love. As I mentioned incidentally earlier too, seeing aspects of 4E D&D creep into the current edition is a delight. What feats and multiclass options are you most looking forward to from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything for your 5E D&D experiences? Let me know in the comments and as always, stay nerdy!