A variant human is there. +1 to 2, an extra skill, and an extra feat.
Thank God.
And for those who don't use feats, this options already suggests to grant 2 extra skills instead.
Multiclassing is mentioned; but they drop a new? caveat; you must meet both the current class and the new class multiclass prerequisites. No more level 1 10 STR fighters MC'ing into Wizard.
I would have preferred they removed those score prerequisites completely.
But this (surprising) update is actually an improvement IMO, since at least it makes things more equal whether you start as a FTR or as a WIZ. Now those score requirements at most serve the (debatable*) purpose of limiting multiclassing.
*debatable because if I don't like multiclassing I'd rather say "no multiclassing" and if I don't like heavy multiclassing I'd rather say "max 2 classes" or something like that... instead these
apparently clever limits always get bypassed by more clever players
Fighter's using great weapon style re-roll a 1 or 2 on a damage roll. So no DoaM in Basic.
That's great.
Oh bonus prize for people who hate "Martial Healing". This Fighter literally regenerates at level 18.
Martial self-healing is not the same as "martial healing".
Personally I dislike healing fighters that achieve the same effects as a
cure wounds (even if smaller) by running around with bandages, or worse by yelling at comrades. But I don't have any significant issue with
regaining your own HP, although this Survivor ability is so massive that I'd have to see it in play before judging.
Oh my god, this is wonderful! The sex/gender bit is just BAM straight-up LGBTQIA-friendly progressive. It's possibly the most directly progressive message in this department I've ever seen in a mainstream fantasy RPG (granted, some may have escaped my attention), and it's awesome. The example of a character who would be called trans as LITERALLY made in the image of (a) god is just beautiful.
That is definitely what I call a good start to this chapter, and indeed puts me in a good place regarding 5E (as someone with gay and trans friends and players, particularly so).
That was the possibly most unexpected addition for me! +1 to WotC for being so bold.
For the most part they've fixed all the stacking issues regarding tools & skills, but we're still left with a few points of illogic like "why is an herbalist kit at tool but a healer's kit is regular equipment?"
Uhm, hard to say... maybe Healer's Kits never require any ability check (hence no use for the prof bonus) while Herbalist Kit's sometimes do.
They might have still made them tools to prevent everybody to be able to use them, but at this point I guess they wanted the opposite, i.e. they indeed wanted everybody to be able to use them.
