What do you like and dislike?
Like:
- Captures that 'classic D&D feel.'
- Brings back the idea that the DM is the final arbiter, challenging the cult of 'RAW.'
- Returns the Fighter to AD&D-era DPR supremacy.
- Druid is a caster & shapechanger, again, not a Grisly Adams.
- No default wealth/level or magic items factored into class/encounter balance.
Dislikes are mostly 'other side of the coin' factors.
- System is less approachable for new players
- Harder to DM, either more prep time, or more 'fudging' on the fly, or both
- Fighter lacks agency, tactical interest, non-combat abilities
- Ranger & Paladin (and EK and arcane trickster) might as well be done with multi-classing.
- Class & encounter balance is pretty poor.
What do you think of my issues and praises?
Obviously agree with some of 'em.
Combat seems to go quickly. This is huge coming from 3e and 4e. It feels more like the pacing of 1e or 2e which is great.
Encounter balance is pretty inconsistent, the kinds of encounters that you can count on tend to be very simple - few enemies, simple monsters, not too challenging - they go quickly, because there's not much to them. Designing a more complex or engaging combat is much harder and gives inconsistent results, but, if successful (if it didn't just become another rollover, or snowball into a TPK), results in a longer combat. You get out of combat what you put into it, including time spent resolving it, regardless.
Backgrounds. Very nice idea and very nice implementation. I like the "RPG" bonus as well as a bit of crunch (skills). One of those ideas that are obvious in retrospect.
One of the few ideas taken forward from 4e - reminiscent of 2e Kits, as well. And, like both, is a good idea that might have been taken farther. Interaction Pillar abilities could have been mostly 'silo'd in Backgrounds, for instance.
Skills. This is the big one. I feel the bonus for being skilled is just too small.
That's bounded accuracy. On the plus side, it means no one ever need be left out of a group check, and that PCs of different levels can contribute in the same party.
Flexibility. I'm a bit worried that after a bit a member of a specific sub-class will feel a lot like the next member of the specific subclass.
A legitimate concern. Classes (and sub-classes) are differentiated mechanically, so reprising the same class is going to feel similar. If there were less emphasis on mechanical differentiation of classes, to begin with, and more viable/meaningful chargen/level-up choices, then differences among individuals of the same sub-class would be more evident. This is one of those things we could expect to be taken care of as the game filled out, if the pace of publication were faster. But, even worse case, if playing the same sub-class twice is a complete waste of time, there are still 38 different possible characters to play - that should keep anyone busy until 6e.
As taking stat bonuses is probably the way to go (rather than feats) it seems like feats will often come very late in the game.
True, and feats are explicitly optional.
Multi-classing may well address this nicely, but it _seems_ like a sub-optimal choice much of the time (especially for non-casters in this edition!)
Well, caster MCing was much improved relative to 3e.
Alt human is too strong. Don't get me wrong, I think the alt human is cool. But the other races are generally sub-optimal (elf monk and dwarven fighter might be on-par?) as far as I can tell.
As nice as a feat potentially is at 1st level, giving up 4 stat points in a game where /all/ your stats matter to some degree seems a high enough price. My guess is any seeming over-popularity is because it's so similar to the 3e human.
I've also got doubts about class balance, but I'm interested in seeing how those play out--pure theorycraft doesn't mean much there--they are just too complex. And I've not seen enough different classes in play.
There's different ways of looking at class balance. There's whether classes are balanced enough, mechanically, to stay balanced over a wide range of campaigns and situations - and that's fairly objective, quantitative and amenable to analysis. Then there's the range over which classes can be balanced and how to do it - that's much more variable and campaign-dependent. Whether class balance is desireable, and which classes should be favored if it's not, gets into subjective issues.
5e classes are fairly poorly balanced - their resource mixes and range of options are varied enough that they'll only balance for a fairly narrow range of possible campaigns, pacing, and situations - that's nothing new or terrible for D&D. The question is where do the classes balance, and what does the DM need to keep in mind to keep them that way (or make sure the right classes dominate for his campaign) - assuming he cares, at all. That's much harder to answer, and obviously has subjective components. Encounter guidelines suggest a pacing of 6-8 encounter and 2 or 3 short rests between long rests. That's one balance point the designers may have been aiming at.
I'm tempted to just give a generic +2 additional bonus for proficiency and start everyone with a feat. I think that would make the skills feel more useful and make the alt human less desirable. Also would create greater variety in characters.
Depends on how well-balanced feat choices are. If you see everyone taking the same few 'best' feats, it won't help variety much. The only problem with boosting proficiency, is it creates a wider swing at high level. A +13 vs little or no bonus instead of +11. You start to flirt with the problem of only 'specialists' being able to participate when skills come up. Maybe that seems desirable to some, but it's something Bounded Accuracy tried to avoid. You could give a bigger gap at low level, without too big a gap at higher level, by having untrained characters gain a +0 to +4 (current proficiency -2) as they level, and make proficiency a flat +4. Proficient characters are always significantly better, non-proficient ones still able to contribute at higher levels.
