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And it's important to note that your example uses an 18 wisdom (not possible at lvl 1 by any character creation method other than random roll) and a monster with low AC, both of which benefit guiding bolt. If you assume a 16 wisdom and a higher AC, then guiding bolt does even worse in comparison...

Even against a single target burning hands should out damage guiding bolt because it always does at least half damage. Against 2 or more enemies it blows it out of the water. Against single targets the fact that magic missile always hits will tend to put it ahead against most enemies. At 1st...

A 2-handed sword pact blade also has to take strength, meaning he has 4 important stats instead of just 3, which is potentially a big problem. There are probably ways to make it better just with existing resources. A fighter level for heavy armor and the great weapon fighter ability is probably...

It is worth noting that a pact blade can use a greatsword and hit for 2d6 damage, which would theoretically place it ahead of eldritch blast. The problem is just the lack of support for pactblades beyond the extra attack. At lvl 3 a pactblade is ahead of the eldritch blast warlock, due to...

Good question. I had thought that they had said that most classes would get a 3rd attack at some point, but going back and looking at the October playtest I see it wasn't true there. I had assumed that since they left out the fighter's 3rd attack in the PHB alpha that they had left out every...

I'm making 2 assumptions which you aren't. First I'm assuming an AC well below 20. My impression has been that even at lvl 11 AC 20 would be very rare (or possibly even non-existent) even among very tough enemies. A more realistic AC would definitely favor the beast ranger more. My second...

A fair point, but I think volley is not as good as it might appear because you get it around the time you start getting several attacks a round. Spreading out your damage vs. many enemies is often not as good as focus firing multiple shots into one. I'm sure it will be useful at times but it's...

Moving away from the trap vs. non-trap discussion, I'm not entirely convinced that the beast master ranger is inferior. A beast master ranger can use a bow and mow people down with archery spells just like a giant slayer ranger can. It's more a question of whether you want the utility granted by...

The biggest thing I'm looking to see change is the barbarian. As Ruin Explorer said he's ridiculously defensive and hard to kill, but much more of a problem is that he gets that ability at lvl 1 meaning every non caster would probably multiclass into 1 lvl of barbarian. Feats didn't bother me...

I'm not entirely sure that I understand your post. Are you saying that the moderately armored feat requires proficiency in light armor as a prerequisite? So far I'm going by the little feat information that I've seen leaked which did not mention that. If that's true, then would change things.

As noted before though the mountain dwarf wizard really isn't a viable build. The armored wizard build is extremely viable, but the mountain dwarf is not the race to choose for that build. With his feat the human wizard gets a 2 point better armor class than the dwarf (because the human can use...

Unless I'm missing something I think the human would be strictly better than the mountain dwarf in every way (other than lack of things like poison resistance). You'd have higher intelligence, higher armor class (since moderately armored gives you shield proficiency) and the same con. Regarding...

I'm fairly certain that they have and that the majority of players will choose an extra feat over +1 to their 4 least important stats. The extra skill is just a bonus.

A feat like actor is great if you happen to have an odd charisma. It gives you the same mechanical advantage that you would get from taking a +2 stat bump and gives you a bunch of extra advantages on top of that. If you happen to have an even charisma score then this feat is much less useful...

I'm not sure that I agree that a skill is supposed to be worth a feat. I'd consider a skill to be dramatically weaker than a feat in fact. I'd consider the feat on it's own to be more than worth the 4 stat points that the human variant gives up, since those stat points are generally going to be...

If those feats are accurate humans will be a very powerful racial option for just about everything. They can even use their feat option for an extra stat point if they want. A human wizard with the moderately armored feat can have the same con and armor as a dwarf wizard without losing the int...

I found that the most effective minions in 4E were ones with ranged attacks. They could stand away from each other and only die one at a time, and they often did enough damage (especially if they were from monster compendium) to be scary and encourage the players to target them and be happy when...

Certainly the adventure per day situation is better then third edition, especially at low level. You didn't have healing surges there so even with a cleric you were unlikely to do more than 2 fights at low level unless they were easy. Needing to rest after 1 fight even was quite common if the...

I would be inclined to rule the other way. A person in a web can still swing a weapon, shoot a bow, take items from their backpack, and do any number of other activities that require their hands. So they clearly still have use of their hands. Ignoring logic and just thinking about balance, I...

I'm assuming we aren't using rolled stats. If we are then balance goes out the window anyway. With point buy or standard array, the dwarf has an int of 15, the human or elf a 16. So the dwarf is -1 and a significantly less effective spell caster. The dwarf is behind for 11 levels, which I'd...