The New Rule
To those without access to the D&D 5th Edition (5E) companion book, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (TCoE), here is the quote from page 7 adjusting the Ability Score Increase (ABI) trait:
"...you may ignore your Ability Score Increase trait and assign ability score increases tailored to
your character. Here's how to do it: take any ability score increase you gain in your race or subrace and apply it to an ability score of your choice. If you gain more than one increase, you can't apply those increases to the same ability score, and you can't increase a score above 20.
For example, if the Ability Score Increase trait of your race or subrace increases your Constitution by 2 and your Wisdom by 1 , you could instead increase your Intelligence by 2 and your Charisma by 1."
My Thoughts About the Change
Ultimately, I think this is a real positive. Not confining new characters to specific roles based on their heritage overcomes some challenging and outdated ideas and increases freedom of choice for character concepts. Congratulations, orcs, wizardry is finally within your purview!
There is only one minor negative, however...
This is a change I feel should have been introduced with a new D&D 5.5 Edition, as it throws off the existing balance of 5E. Now, the best choice of race is the variant human for a starting feat or the mountain dwarf for its two +2 stat modifiers which can now be assigned to any stat. There are reasons to choose others for their ribbon abilities in very niche situations, and in non-min-maxing scenarios this is entirely irrelevant, but when crafting mechanically optimized characters there are now only two real choices.
As long as it isn't pursued to a toxic end, "mechanics-first" gameplay shouldn't be discounted as a valid playstyle! I find a lot of joy in creating my characters' stories by starting with the mechanics and justifying them through personality and history. One of my favorite DMs, Brennan Lee Mulligan, said it best in his interview with D&D Beyond's Amy Dallen:
"What I have often found about starting with the story, if you start to get an idea of your character, is that you sometimes get backed into weird positions... . You go, like, "I have a perfect vision for this fantasy character" and then you're taking class selections and you're going, like, "Well, I want druid spells, but I don't necessarily think Wild Shape is right for my character to have" and you end up with...having to accommodate mechanics.
So, especially for one-shots, one of the things I like to do is set a mechanical objective, like "most damage in a single round," and then write the character around all the goofy stuff I chose: where I go, like, "I guess this assassin paladin is a rabbit!" and [my objective becomes] "Make that make sense."
My Homebrew Variant
To counter this mechanics-based penalization of variety in my 5E home-games, I've ruled it so that going forward players must treat their selection like the new races introduced in expansions post-TCoE such as the Harengon in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight:
"Increase one ability score by 2, and increase a different one by 1, or increase three different scores by 1."
I don't imagine this will be my "homebrew" for long, though. I suspect this will be the overall rule in the inevitable next edition, whether that be 5.5 or 6th.
What This Means for Future Builds Here
Rather than make builds using my own homebrewed rule, which feels inapplicable to many people's home games, or now be limited by only two race options, which will kill my creativity and enjoyment, I have decided on the following:
-I will be ignoring the TCoE ABI rule as far as this blog's optimized 5E builds goes.
-Were I not to do this, nearly every character I created would be a human or dwarf, and that's just not fun (for me)!
-When the inevitable 5.5E or 6E releases, I will follow the new rules for the ABI trait for builds of that edition, as it will have been considered in the balance, but I will continue to follow the old ABI trait rules for 5E builds for the same reasons as stated above.
-I will also reorganize the blog into different edition categories for ease of navigation, as well.
I hope I've summarized my thoughts here well, but should you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll respond as regularly as possible!