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1+Str mod. damage has always felt weird in 5e. It should be 1d4, but I guess they didn't want it to step on the toes of the club? Just make it 1d4 since club still has the advantage of being light, and give clubs the Thrown (10) property

A 1 being a critical miss on a skill check makes sense to me. I think checks should be defined as an action that always has a chance of failure. Otherwise there is no check-- you don't roll to breathe, to walk each step in town, etc. However, I do not like 20 as an automatic success, because...

Halflings aren't real, their physiology is whatever their creators say it is. An actual child would simply die in their first combat encounter, so it's understandable people do not want to play halflings who are "realistic" for their size.

I guess I don't see how that's different from the current system? There's a little variation, but if you're playing a specific class, you have 2 save proficiencies, and your stats are going to be fairly similar to everyone else who plays that class.

The ship has sailed on dethroning Wizards from their #1 spot, barring a 4e-style change to the entire game's structure it can't happen. What can be done is narrowing the scope of their power, so that they're not also the best utility class. It's one thing to best the most powerful member of your...

Wizards should become far more specialized, and far less generalized, but I sadly doubt it will ever be accepted after the reaction to 4E. Give each school of magic far more cool school-specific stuff, but heavily restrict casting outside your school. The difference between an Illusionist and a...

Surprised no one has mentioned Saving Throws. Going from 3 saving throws to 6, 1 per ability, felt like an answer in search of a question. It immediately and pointlessly introduced the problem of 3 of the saves barely ever appearing. And then we get to the even bigger problem, which is that the...

I just want to point out that Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are not "removed from the game." Even only using these rules, you can still play them, and in fact you can play with other varieties of mixed heritage as well. I think this is one of the good changes in the rules, in terms of not making...

That's only if you cast it in the middle of a fight. Cast it at the beginning of the day, maintain concentration for 1 hour(automatic if no one is attacking you), and become a Red Dragon for as long as you want.

I don't understand how Forcecage and Wall of Force got through playtesting, they're so obviously broken. Save-or-suck spells, without the save.

A character that's fully obscured still needs to make a Hide check to be hidden because Perception involves both sight and sound. They would still get advantage on an attack though, because advantage only requires being unseen, not being hidden.

If 5e was going to break, it was always going to be in the individual spells. Unfortunately, it looks like lots of players prefer it that way, hence some really bad spells making through all of the playtests. At least it should be easier to houserule than 3.x.

It seems like WotC is never going to learn how to make polymorph spells that aren't broken.

It's certainly not overpowered, either, if you're giving up an action to Hide. Now, Halflings and high-level Rangers can Hide as a bonus action, but that's part of the benefits of playing those characters. And you can still fail you Stealth check, so you might waste a bonus action for nothing.

Using Hide is normally an action in combat, so most of the time you could not Hide and then attack in the same round anyway. I believe the intention of the rules is that you can use an action to Hide, and then on your next turn you can attack with advantage before revealing your position. The...

Yeah, a Fighter with the right background is probably the best way to emulate a 4e Ranger right now. Maybe dip in a level of Ranger for some tracking abilities. It's never been easier to play a skilled Fighter, at least. A Half-Elf Fighter can start with 6 skill proficiencies.

Without legendary actions, solo boss fights easily degrade to repetitive slogs, as often happened with 4e solos. Actions are extremely valuable in 5e, and without LA solos would operate at such an extreme deficit compared to the PCs that it would be hard to make their fights interesting.

So, based on the "Lairs" section in the updated Basic Rules, I have a strong suspicion that the Tarrasque's Lair page will have something that deals with the flying archer, as well as area attacks.

Legendary actions are necessary to keep solo encounters from being dull slug-fests(see 4e solo fights).

The TWF and/or Beastmaster Ranger looks fairly weak, but the class's abilities seem to synergize nicely with an Archery Hunter. If you take the Sharpshooter feat, the -5 penalty is less harsh because of the +2 Archery bonus. Assuming you can consistently hide and get off the first shot in...