I wrote up a piece going over the changes to the game defined in the Rules Glossary in the first playtest packet. You can read it here, but here are some bullet-point takeaways:
** Jamie
- Natural 1s and 20s now work with all types of rolls (as long as the difficulty wouldn't be easy or impossible) and crits are only for weapon attacks or unarmed strikes. (And crits are becoming a player-only feature of the game, apparently.)
- Spell lists are now being standardized under categories: Arcane, Divine, and Primal. This means formerly class-exclusive spells like hunter's mark or wrathful smite are opened up to other classes.
- The Grappling rules are being altered to use unarmed attack rolls to initiate and automatic saving throws to escape, no longer using skills or requiring an action to make an escape attempt.
- Slowed is now a condition that is less complicated than the slow spell from 5e, but the AC and Dexterity penalties are now higher (Disadvantage).
- Inspiration is being taken away from an in-game bribe for roleplaying and turned into part of the game's economy—awarded every time someone rolls a Natural 20 and vanishes at the end of a long rest. (Humans now gain Inspiration after a long rest as one of their racial features.) It can be still be awarded by DM fiat but now there is a 5% chance to earn it every time you roll the die.
- If you've gotten at least an hour of sleep before a long rest is interrupted, you get the benefits of a short rest.
- All the different categories of tools now have standardized prices.
- Tremorsense, once only available to monsters, is now a feature available to dwarves when they're in contact with stone.
- An unarmed strike attack now lets you pick between damage (same as before), grappling the target, or a shove — which automatically pushes it back 5 feet or knocks it prone with no saving throw (barring major size differences).
** Jamie
