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Polearm Master is very good. From http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?366703-Feats-that-are-particularly-great-at-low-levels, more opinions on good feats: And from sigfile:

I happen to agree that it doesn't make sense to treat an encounter as harder when creating it, but not award extra XP. The original post in this thread is focused on how to accurately determine the difficulty of encounters, which is a different issue than the XP awards. It wouldn't be difficult...

There has been an update, see p. 57 of the DM Basic encounter guidelines. http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMDnDBasicRules_v0.1.pdf

He means the number of goblins. The key is that you can't easily figure out the number of goblins that is equivalent to a giant in the official encounter XP multiplier system because you have to try out multiple numbers of goblins and see if the XP per goblin * the number of goblins * the...

See Gobelure's fix to the encounter system. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it It should approximate the regular DM guidelines when all of the monsters are the same CR, but should diverge from it (in a way that logically makes more sense) when...

Updated my post for clarity. This system does adjust the number of Goblins that a Giant is equivalent to, if you don't use the Encounter XP multiplier rule from DM Basic Guide p. 57, and that's why it can do away with the Encounter XP multiplier rule and achieve similar results.

The key is that this system lowers the number of Goblins that a Giant is equivalent to (as opposed to a standard where you compare a Giant to a number of Goblins worth the same XP, and do not consider the "Encounter XP multiplier" in the DM basic guide). That's why it doesn't have to consider...

This chart is missing the guide to determining what's an easy vs. hard encounter, which seems like it would be useful to have in the same place NPCs in this system should be treated based on their CR, not based on the PC table.

Gobelure did this analysis: in his new encounter design tables PC and monster power scales more slowly with CR/levels, so that you don't need the "fudge factor" of an Encounter XP multiplier. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it This seems like a...

Great analysis. The key is that in your new tables PC and monster power scales more slowly with CR/levels, so that you don't need the "fudge factor" of a multiplier. You don't explain that as directly as you could. Here's how I put it in another thread, feel free to use any of the wording...

Do you have plans to look at the encounter guidelines and the progression of how much tougher monsters get by level (or maybe you already have done this)? It seems to me that PC and monster power doesn't scale as fast in general as the XP numbers alone would imply (e.g., a CR 5 Hill Giant worth...

The encounter guidelines have the "XP multiple for determining difficulty" for larger groups, but this multiple makes little sense when applied to a small number of strong creatures plus a few very weak creatures. For your encounter, the 2 skeletons and 2 cultists increase the "encounter...

There are a few feats that seem particularly incredible at first level (the Variant Human gets a feat at first level instead of needing to wait until level 4). Heavy Armor Mastery is great because DR 3 is a large fraction of damage at this level and because magic weapons or the damage types it...

From his other posts, the party is quite low level, and the Fighter is a variant Human so he started with it (presumably somewhere before level 4). Potential small fix to the feat: Instead of gaining DR 3, gain DR equal to your proficiency bonus, to a maximum of 5. That way it scales a bit...

I do agree that having a new high level replacement come in every time a PC dies or a new person joins the game can strain credibility in certain settings. However, I'd rather make that one introduction (he was on the Avengers West Coast team, you just didn't hear much about him before now!)...

If you split XP equally, the 1st level PC will level very quickly in a high level party. The rest of the party will level more slowly, assuming that the GM keeps the encounters a correspondingly similar difficulty for the weaker state of party with a 1st level PC instead of a higher level one...

It's certainly true that PC combat power increases at a slower rate as you gain levels in 5e than it did in either 3e or 4e. However, the reason why starting new characters at first level in 3e and 4e is a bad idea is that a character who is vastly less powerful than the party will not be able...

In 5e, the Adult Red Dragon (CR 17)'s Fire Breath is a 60 foot cone that does an average 63 damage with a DC 21 Dexterity save for half. The typical level 1 PC has between a +0 and +5 Reflex save (and this save does not progress quickly; the typical level 3 PC will have the same Reflex saves...

Good GMs can make plenty of not-so-good in general ideas work, and people's preferences differ as well. How did the new 1st level PC fit in with the 4e epic level characters?

Of course you are correct. Starting PCs at level 1 in a medium-high level group means that: 1) new players won't want to join, 2) old players who are tired of their characters will either begrudgingly play on or simply drop out, 3) no one will want to risk anything, 4) when characters die, or...