Stuff about 5e that bugs me:
Cyclical initiative - too predictable
It used to, but I've totally bought into the balance benefits. I'm not married to it, but I'm skeptical of alternatives.
Fighter subclasses - so bland!
Yeah, but that's kinda the point -- kinda. It only seems so because the Fighter masters a mechanic available to everyone -- putting the pointy end in the other fellow. That's still a core aspect of the game and should be enjoyable and interesting in itself. I wouldn't mind a bit of spicing up, especially for the Battle Master. Don't get too fancy, though. The Fighter is about being good at combat w/o magic or Wuxia-type abilities, so no Bo9S.
The divide in the warlock between the pact and the pact boon - boons should be options chosen from among stuff your specific pact can give
Not sure what he's getting at, here. I will say that the pact boons seem to be almost ribbon abilities and could use a
lot more pizzazz.
Ranger - I'd rebuild it using the paladin as more of a model
Covered elsewhere.
Druid - I'd make shapeshifting more central, maybe scale casting back to paladin or rogue level, use a nature domain for the guy with a scimitar and shield
The truth is that the Nature Cleric really has stolen most of the original Druid's defining toys. The current Druid is left with stuff that were nifty, but not necessarily archetypal -- I always thought the shape shifting was more like the contest in Disney's
Sword in the Stone. Both were accomplished casters, but the sort of casters they were also gave them shifting. Druids weren't quite Clerics. They were more theurges, with a natural bent. The distinction is a bit esoteric for an RPG, so it really is a bit redundant to have both Nature Clerics and Druids-as-priests.
It makes the most sense to have all the priestly goodies under the Cleric class, so kill the Druid in its current form. I just don't like calling it a Druid, since that has real-world, historical meaning. It's also too far removed from the origin of the class. Give it a new name, like Mystic did for psionics. Some suggestions: Warden (personal preference), Haruspex, Witch, Protean, Preserver.
I think focusing on shifting would be a bit narrow for a whole class. What do the subclasses look like? One focuses on natural critters, another focuses on transforming their stats? Mammals versus avians? Nope. It's a subclass of something else. Give pets back to Wardens, as a subclass. Maybe even take totems from Barbarians (a wart of a class) and make them yet another subclass.
James Wyatt wrote a cool sample adventure for the DMG that we couldn't include. Wish we had.
This sounds like an excellent UA article. Or, put it on DMs Guild.
A better treatment of actions - action typing is still too fuzzy for more tastes.
This scares me. I do
not want a return to the specificity of 4E. I'll buy that things could be cleaned up a bit. Leave it flexible, though. You can't complete remove the need for GM adjudication and trying too hard breaks more than it fixes.
Bonus action - they're pretty hacky; I'd get rid of them and just design smarter. Prior editions always poke through your thinking and distort it. We were so dependent on swift/minor actions that it took a lot of work to stop framing concepts in their terms.
I think bonus actions work pretty well and have no problem with the concept. Several of my players had a very hard time with it, though, so I'd be willing to look at a better way of presenting the ideas. Ultimately, though, there are only so many ways you can say, "You get to do one significant thing on your turn," while also allowing for moderately significant actions without letting the whole thing get messy.