Bohemond D'Arlac
First Post
After skimming through the Big Three and playing for a couple of sessions I can say that like this edition of D&D much more than I thought I would ; the DMG is a surprisingly pleasant reading in its own right, and it reminds me of the writing quality of the AD&D 2e DMG, which I loved as a kid.
That said, I must also say that rule-wise I am a bit disappointed by the excessive simplification (the reach rules for example, with their questionable "donut of safety" effect) and by the overlapping of abilities which the bounded accuracy approach made necessary. For our current game I rolled a strenght-based Mountain Dwarf Fighter (I love playing martial character and it was actually refreshing to find out that I had no longer to be a dmm
ersistent cleric not to suck at it) and I noticed that all the combat features of my race beside the ability bonuses were absolutely useless to a martial character...the system is basically telling me that dwarves undergo a significant martial training but those actually pursuing a martial career will have no benefit for that, whereas a wizard or a bard would.
Heck, I cannot even brag about my ability to move faster in heavy armor as my strenght is already above 15 anyway (assuming that actual encumbrance rules are not in effect, as those completely void this feature regardless of the character's Strenght score.) I understand that one of the tenets of bounded accuracy is "raise the floor, not the ceiling" but really... couldn't they simply think of minor bonuses (a +1 to damage with Hammer and Axes, for example, and 1 DR when wearing medium or heavy armor) so that these racial abilities wouldn't become obsolete before actually seeing play for the character class that in theory is the most iconic for that race (so much that the sample character used in the creation chapter is Bruenor Battlehammer?).
Other instances of overlapping that I found disappointing are the (non)stacking rules for advantage/disadvantage, the way a Bear Totem Barbarian cannot tank for another one of his kind...again minor things that betray the devs intent to keep everybody in a very narrow headroom, except maybe for Simulacrum spamming cabals and the ever-strong Druidzilla.
That said, I must also say that rule-wise I am a bit disappointed by the excessive simplification (the reach rules for example, with their questionable "donut of safety" effect) and by the overlapping of abilities which the bounded accuracy approach made necessary. For our current game I rolled a strenght-based Mountain Dwarf Fighter (I love playing martial character and it was actually refreshing to find out that I had no longer to be a dmm
ersistent cleric not to suck at it) and I noticed that all the combat features of my race beside the ability bonuses were absolutely useless to a martial character...the system is basically telling me that dwarves undergo a significant martial training but those actually pursuing a martial career will have no benefit for that, whereas a wizard or a bard would. Heck, I cannot even brag about my ability to move faster in heavy armor as my strenght is already above 15 anyway (assuming that actual encumbrance rules are not in effect, as those completely void this feature regardless of the character's Strenght score.) I understand that one of the tenets of bounded accuracy is "raise the floor, not the ceiling" but really... couldn't they simply think of minor bonuses (a +1 to damage with Hammer and Axes, for example, and 1 DR when wearing medium or heavy armor) so that these racial abilities wouldn't become obsolete before actually seeing play for the character class that in theory is the most iconic for that race (so much that the sample character used in the creation chapter is Bruenor Battlehammer?).
Other instances of overlapping that I found disappointing are the (non)stacking rules for advantage/disadvantage, the way a Bear Totem Barbarian cannot tank for another one of his kind...again minor things that betray the devs intent to keep everybody in a very narrow headroom, except maybe for Simulacrum spamming cabals and the ever-strong Druidzilla.
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