Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything – A Review

New rules options for Dungeons & Dragons

Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is the latest expansion to the D&D universe. It contains new rules and options for your players to have fun with. If the DM approves, of course.

It consists of 4 chapters, each with its own type of options:

• 1. New features and subclasses
• 2. Patrons
• 3. New spells, magical items, and magical tattoos
• 4. Various rules for the campaign

The first chapter is all about your classes. It starts out with throwing all the standard rules up into the air and let us catch them as we will. You no longer have to have a high constitution as a dwarf; you can have a high intelligence instead. A gnome can be strong instead of nimble, and who says your Gnome grew up among other gnomes. No, she might have grown up among elves learning their language as her primary. Proficiencies are up for grabs as well; basically, you can change just about everything to make that character YOU always dreamt of making. 🙂
I like the idea of this – I’ve run into the annoyance of not getting the stat bonus you want cause you want to make a specific race – or the other way around. Choosing another race to get the bonus you want. So, the idea of being able to change things around seems good to me.

A new class – The Artificer – is added to the cauldron, a master of invention who tackles magic in a technical way. In addition to that, we get new class features, spells, and feats for all the existing classes. So now your fighter can be a PSI Warrior or your Rogue a Phantom. Always great with new features; just remember to look at them with your DM to make sure they fit the campaign.

Next up are group patrons. New adventures await at the patron’s command. You are sent on missions or rewarded for initiatives taken on behalf of the organization they represent – and you do. You’ll find examples of different kinds of organizations: crime, religious, political, etc., and what kind of missions you can get from them. You will also find information on what perks having such a patron can bring. Many good adventure hooks to be had from this chapter – and it even has a short finishing note on how to be a patron to others.

Chapter 3 is called “Magical Miscellany,” and you’ll find 21 new spells here, 9 of them summoning, though, so not a vast amount of spells added. There is a short note about personalizing spells – i.e., magic fluff 😉 Many players already do something like that, but here are some tips to get started if you need input.

You’ll also find 46 new magic items in the book, a bunch of them being the new magic tattoos rules. The idea of putting tattoo magic into the world is cool. However, their system for the tattoo being magic in a needle you attune, and can thus un-attune, seems a little odd to me. I would have liked tattoos not being a magic item but a separate entity, a whole new system of gaining abilities/power while personalizing your character.

The last chapter has tools for the Dungeon Master. First of a bit about have a Session Zero – a session before the real game begins where you work with the player to flesh out the character and the world. Then there are some rules for making a sidekick to your character/group. There is a fun table of what monsters want from you – like.. your soul 😉 A bunch of tables about more mystical environments and magical places. The chapter finished with a handful of natural hazards and puzzles—all in all, a good group of potential adventure hooks or brainteasers for the party.

To summarize – Tasha’s is a useful resource for both players and the Dungeon Master, lots of extras to add to the campaign, and worth the buy.

Keep playing – have fun 🙂