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Good to know, thanks. Really looking forward to having the PHB in my grubby paws.

This is elegant, except then you have people complain that they don't want spells or a pet either, which is understandable, but the biggest reason I wouldn't do this is that it might boost a low level ranger too much, even encouraging people to dip a single level into ranger. At higher levels...

Works for me, especially since some ranger spells are often easily explained as non-magical; things like goodberry and create water are just their ability to forage well. More obviously magical spells like spike growth, fog cloud, and daylight can be left off their list. It doesn't seem...

I very much like that spell casting works differently for each class and would be very hesitant to homogenize them in even a small way. As you pointed out, the cleric can recover their channel divinity. Everyone seems to have their perks and downsides.

I love it. Options, not restrictions. That's great. Well, 90% or more of the time it works out great. CG, CN, LN, LG, N, I can see them all as paladins who strive to uphold justice and righteousness in flawed ways. They may indeed think of themselves as LG despite their real behavior, and...

Ran a short session this morning for a couple of players using the Starter set, so I guess my vote should change from Playtest to Played. My wife rolled a wood elf fighter (soldier) and my friend rolled a lightfoot halfling wizard (river merchant). The river merchant backgroud we made up on...

I think all DM's sort of have an informal accounting of player character reputation with various NPC's and factions, but maybe not a system of rewards. What you're talking about is just formalizing it like MMO's do to give a sense of advancement with rewards. I'd be ok with that if it makes...

It is still useful to hit targets further away. But also remember that one goal of 5e is to keep the basic rules simple to speed things up. We will see more tactical options later for tables that want more depth in combat, and I would expect more rules on attacks of opportunity.

Tiamat has been my second favorite D&D villain since the cartoon so I'm excited. This alone has convinced me to try to run Tyranny of Dragons. Bahamut looks amazing. And just in case anyone is wondering, my favorite D&D villain is Bargle. :)

I'm with the apples and oranges crowd here. The products are very different in scope, and with such a small sample size it's sort of meaningless. However, as long as you remember it's not a scientific comparison and treat it as an anecdote it's not completely worthless. WotC could have chosen...

IMO, a house rule is a game mechanic in addition to, or that conflicts with the RAW. Monsters, spells, etc aren't new game mechanics, they are content just like a description of your campaign world, that uses the game mechanics from the RAW. New monsters, magic items and spells could have the...

Good advice on laws, I think this is where I may use Ptolus. Looking through the book, I'm amazed at how great the campaign is, but also reminded of why I didn't run it. It's really just too comprehensive and big for me; I would be flipping through the book more than DM'ing. So I'm going to...

The metal requirement precludes the use of staves; I wouldn't require it to be made of metal. What if they were using a finesse weapon? I wouldn't mention the Strength modifier, just change the damage die. I would also make this knock them back five feet as long as the target is the same...

It's nice, just a little dated with references to hustle instead of dash, and the now non-existent charge action.

Reminds me of the old 1e alignment chart. I think 99% of the time, people around a table can agree without deciding beforehand what's "evil", and it's never been an issue with my group. TBH, alignment changes don't come up a lot in my games. I usually outright ban new PC's from taking an evil...

I think that's a very fair statement.

Your point is taken, but my take on it is that's why we are also seeing the nuances in the alignment rules. Evil races are mostly intrinsically evil. Even the half-orc has to struggle with the evil tendencies of his orcish heritage. Some creatures are completely intrinsically evil. A devil...

Some great ideas, thank you all. I forgot about my copy of Ptolus, going to dust if off and possibly run that, or at least use it.

I've been wanting to run an urban campaign for a while, and the thing that resurfaced that idea in my brain is the 5b death and dying rules. It is easy for both player characters and NPCs or monsters to knock a character unconscious instead of outright killing them. That made me think of...

I get that it can be dramatic and fun to defend a caster while they work furiously to cast that fireball over the course of several actions. But IMO it causes more problems than it's worth. When your action every round for several rounds is casting the same spell, it gets boring for the...