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I don't have a problem with a +1 bonus by itself, it would obviously be silly to oppose on principle attack bonuses. But that's not really magical in any way to me, by itself. It should be a side benefit to the primary magic of the weapon, IMO. Also, I think it needs to be limited to +1 with how...

The original sin of D&D with magic items was the invention of the "+1 weapon." This is not an interesting concept, it's a math fix masquerading as treasure. No one ever wrote a story about the wonders of a +1 weapon. It's a problem when players want magic items not because they're interesting...

Part of the issue with shields is using them has nuances D&D isn't set up well to deal with. Virtually every character would realistically get a massive bonus vs. ranged attacks when using a shield, regardless of proficiency. It's not too hard to understand the concept of holding up a big object...

To me, the cap itself is less important than ASIs sharing the same space as feats; I don't like game mechanics that make you choose between "optimal but boring" and "interesting character specialization but sub-optimal." The fact that so many of the new feats include a single ASI shows that they...

Hunter should just be the base Ranger, none of its features are especially good beyond the first one.

I would say Attack action/attack is an even worse problem, because at least when Magic is used as a verb you can determine its meaning by its context. With Attack action, all you have to go on is capitalization, and the writers clearly feel that isn't sufficient, resulting in that awful "when...

Well, I would say WotC already burned that particular bridge before crossing it in 2014 when they decided to name the "Attack action," which is even worse because there's another mechanical term in "attack" which is not actually synonymous.

So much of the spell list could be fixed by utility spells simply giving a bonus to skill checks (this would also fix skills at the same time). You still have the problem of magic being required, but at least the spellcasters would want to cast the spells on people who are already good at the...

While that is true, given D&D's brand awareness vs. literally any other TTRPG, to the point D&D is more or less synonymous with it in the west, I would say the majority of D&D players are not in fact familiar with other TTRPGs whatsoever, and probably could not name more than 3 at most.

This is one reason why, in the magic system I'm working on, "Illusion" magic is actually the manipulation of light and shadows, among other things. This also thematically ties it to concepts like navigation, long-range communication, and magical seals and locks; i.e. you can see secret...

It's really hard to understand why they insist on Sorcerers needing components, beyond someone just demanding Sorcs can never have nice things. It would break virtually nothing and would actually fit their theme.

And this is just another reason the Wizard is a very poorly designed class, a class's power should not exponentially scale with how liberal your GM is with gold (to say nothing of how poor of a design it is to allow one class to trivialize all OOC challenges).

The designers must really regret that 2014 decision to name it the "Attack action" at this point, I mean it was already troublesome when they had to constantly clarify that "attacks" and "Attack action" are two different things, but now the "Attack action" can be used for so many things that...

I could see them changing the name but I feel like they're just too popular for them to leave out. But I could be wrong.

I would bet (not money) on Goliaths and Half-Elves being. With Half-Orcs I lean towards the idea that they will just make Orcs a playable species, no longer inherently evil, and trying to avoid the various gross and racist tropes that Half-Orcs invoke.

I feel like with D&D races, as they've been developed for so long, there is barely even a concept of how you might balance racial abilities. Like with classes, it's fairly easy to compare because everything is broken up into discrete chunks, you have 1st level stuff, features you get at later...

If skill proficiency is worthless for a Fighter, that kind of points to a much larger problem with the skill system itself, not merely a Fighter issue. So this just leads back to the old "anything worth doing outside of combat should be done with magic" issue.

The primary issue with multi-classing in D&D is that they design the game as if people will play 1 class, but then they allow friction-less multi-classing, and only react to overpowered combos after the fact. It results in a variety of awkward design decisions that wouldn't be necessary if...

Yes that's true, but those class-specific skills were fairly specific and few compared to a full-blown skill system (although calling 5e's skills "full-blown" might be too generous). Magic was far more versatile, with the cost of requiring preparation and a precious spell slot. And that's...

Let's be honest, this isn't a Ranger problem, it's a problem with D&D. D&D originated as a game where skills didn't really exist, and the effects of that design paradigm still live on to this day, even when D&D has had skills for 20+ years now, because the magic system was designed for a game...