D&D 5E What's one thing that pleasantly surprised you, and one thing that disappointed you about the PHB?

[GameDoc]

Technically, half-orc paladins have been in the game since 3.0. (And if IRC a female half-orc paladin was presented as the exemplar for the cavalier in 4e essentials). There are plenty of ways to role-play them that aren't powergamey/munchkiny. But I do see your point, given the history of the paladin class and half-orc race in D&D, the combination isn't exactly iconic.

Tieflings were a pretty popular addition to the standard races in 4e and I imagine that's why they were carried over into 5e along with dragonborn. When I ran Encounters at my local game shop, tieflings were a pretty common choice among players. And not all were played as amoral or dark characters ruled by their fiendish heritage. Again, not an iconic or representative race in the greater history of D&D, but they have their fans. In 4e, I payed a tiefling wizard with a personality patterned after Frazier Crane that was one of my favorites.

But the cool thing is, both half-orcs and tieflings are implied to be rare in default 5e, so it seems reasonable to take them out altogether or place limits on their class and background options if that's what fits your groups preferences.

 

[Li Shenron]

Speaking of disappointments, something that came to my mind in the last week or so...

I haven't actually seen the PHB yet, but I've seen lots of previewed page of both the PHB and the MM, and I have been slowly realizing that the biggest practical disappointment is that they look incredibly "light" of material compared to the 3e core books. The fonts are larger, the spacing is wider, each printed row is shorter (don't know if it's just an indentation effect), the pictures are bigger (which is even nice on one hand...), the space between in more. I don't know how many pictures are in the book, maybe they're just showing previews of the best artwork, but overall the majority of pages don't have any? Overall I am starting to be afraid that the 320 PHB pages are worth much less than the 320 PHB pages of 3e, simply because the material contained is much less.

Thinking about 5e as a whole, this may not be a problem at all. After all 5e is supposed to be lighter when it comes to rules, so it probably doesn't need half of the rules, numbers and explanations of them, that were in the 3e core books. But at the same time I know that half of the classes have only 2 subclasses, that some backgrounds were removed, that feats are very few, fighter maneuvers are few, clerical domains are REALLY few, and even the total number of spells is not much more than half of the spells in 3e core (although this is partly due to combining healing, summoning and a few more spells together). And I can't avoid thinking that they might have purposefully padded the 5e books with blank space and used a larger font to cover the fact that they didn't have time to design more material in order to publish the game for Gencon, and to justify the price with the number of pages. But I would have preferred same price, less pages, less padding.

 

[Kobold Stew]

For what it's worth, nothing in what I've seen so far has made me feel that the PHB is "light" on content. There's a lot of art, yes, but it's a substantial book, and I'm finding it fun just to sit and flip through it as I get to know the rules better. My 2cp.

 

[Wormwood]

One pleasant surprise: Distinctively shaped coin art. Awesome.
One disappointment: Still trying to make Tiefling "Virtue" names a thing.

(edit: actually, they don't even bother me. Just "Weary". That one annoys me.)

 

[Haffrung]

And I can't avoid thinking that they might have purposefully padded the 5e books with blank space and used a larger font to cover the fact that they didn't have time to design more material in order to publish the game for Gencon, and to justify the price with the number of pages. But I would have preferred same price, less pages, less padding.

What you call padding - looser layout, bigger fonts, more white space, bigger illustrations - is a document design choice. Document design is evolving towards that looser, more airy style not because of financial considerations, but for readability. The publishing and design industries have tangible data about readability (the research looks like something out of Clockwork Orange), and the ratio of white space to blocks of text is a major factor in reading ease and retention. The 5E books show that WotC have professional document design and layout people on staff who understand usability and modern design principles. The lack of such expertise among most other RPG publishers has deterred me from buying many books.

 

[captcorajus]

Pleasant Surprise: How much fun this rulebook was to read. How easy and intuitive the rules were
Disappointment: I feel the long rest healing rules are a bit too video game like. Healing everything overnight takes away
from things INHO. I'm going to play it as written to start off, but, I'm thinking it might need to be house ruled.

I'm hoping an alternative system is provided in the DMG.

 

[SigmaOne]

My half-orc Paladin isn't munchkin. I was super happy they decided to use a portrait of my first 5e character (well, from the playtest, then ported to the official rules).

In general, I really like that then tended to choose "non-obvious" race/class combinations for the portraits, although I do agree with folks who weren't too keen on seeing Drizz't (or any drow) as the elf portrait.

 

[Mouseferatu]

My half-orc Paladin isn't munchkin.

Right? I've seen several half-orc paladins since the start of 3e, and none were played by "munchkin" players. Heck, despite the Strength bonus, half-orcs are far from the most optimal race if one's going for an optimized paladin.

And yet, I've seen this attitude toward the half-orc paladin expressed by a couple of different people, now. I do not get it.

 

[sgtscott658]

I love Medieval history, reading about the exploits of Charlemagne, Roland and sir Gallahad were example's Paladins to me. A screaming orc that looks like it is having bowl problems really does not strike me as Paladin like.

But hey, its your campaign you do as you please, you asked why some of us do not like orc paladins and I told ya. there.

Right? I've seen several half-orc paladins since the start of 3e, and none were played by "munchkin" players. Heck, despite the Strength bonus, half-orcs are far from the most optimal race if one's going for an optimized paladin.

And yet, I've seen this attitude toward the half-orc paladin expressed by a couple of different people, now. I do not get it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

1) That doesn't make them "munchkin." That just makes them not to your taste. Big difference. I didn't ask why some people don't like them; I asked why some people assume munchkin players when they see a half-orc paladin.

2) I'll have to go back and look for the parts of Medieval history and the exploits of Roland and Gallahad where they were traveling alongside wizards and elves and casting spells against mind flayers.