I'd first like to say that I'm really excited about Next and it's general direction. That said, the devils in the details. I had hopes for 4th too, but was dissapointed (I would have gone with more generic power lists for martial, arcane, and divine abilities to allow greater customization out of the gate). But I digress.
A big goal of Next is ease of character creation. That means that if I want a warrior who specializes in archery I should be able to take fighter, slap on the archery specialty, give my character a good dexterity, and go with it. That means there can be NO trap choices. Odd character concepts requiring tweaking OK, but simple straightforward choices straight from the source fiction should be no brainers. These are some issues I've noticed.
1) Archery specialty Sniper feat is a trap. It works great for a rogue with sneak attack, but is horrid for anybody else. I can spend an action and make an attack with advantage, or just have used my previous action and this to attack. That's still a total of two attack rolls, and the "default" option has higher damage potential. Sure, it ignores cover, so that could be handy. I just take the Archer specialty and Sharpshooter fighting style and..... wait, you mean the only discernable upside to my 3rd level feat from Archer makes my first level maneuver from Sharpshooter (Precise Shot) nearly useless?
2) Guardian specialty plus Protector fighting style don't synergy at first. I can't use the reaction from my Defender feat the same turn as my protect maneuver since they both use a reaction.
These are basic go to concepts for a character and requiring a player to look for these traps and avoid them runs into the same problem that 3rd edition had. Specialties seem to be packaged feat trees that you can grab if you don't want to pick them all by hand and go with it. Same thing for fighting styles and maneuvers. Having to watch out for them working at cross purposes slows down character creation and makes it more of a chore, as well as giving it a higher entry bar for the beginning player to have a character without "feel bad" abilities.
Solutions?
1) Let my sniper option do more. Let it be disrupted like spellcasting if I take damage while aiming, but if both attack rolls would hit, make it an auto crit. More complicated but worth it. I also feel that all specialties should be balanced around the healer, since it's feats are enough to get you excited about when trying to decide which flavor of awesome you want your character to be.
2) They set a precedent in the spell section for spells specifically calling out each other. (Prayer and Bless I think?) Do the same here. State in the protect maneuver that if you use the defender feat to grant disadvantage to an attack and it still deals damage, you may spend your CS dice to reduce it without needing another reaction. I don't know if referencing specific abilities is a good idea, as it could become counter-intuitive and require house ruling as more books and abilities are released, but if they're gonna use it, this is a good place.
A big goal of Next is ease of character creation. That means that if I want a warrior who specializes in archery I should be able to take fighter, slap on the archery specialty, give my character a good dexterity, and go with it. That means there can be NO trap choices. Odd character concepts requiring tweaking OK, but simple straightforward choices straight from the source fiction should be no brainers. These are some issues I've noticed.
1) Archery specialty Sniper feat is a trap. It works great for a rogue with sneak attack, but is horrid for anybody else. I can spend an action and make an attack with advantage, or just have used my previous action and this to attack. That's still a total of two attack rolls, and the "default" option has higher damage potential. Sure, it ignores cover, so that could be handy. I just take the Archer specialty and Sharpshooter fighting style and..... wait, you mean the only discernable upside to my 3rd level feat from Archer makes my first level maneuver from Sharpshooter (Precise Shot) nearly useless?
2) Guardian specialty plus Protector fighting style don't synergy at first. I can't use the reaction from my Defender feat the same turn as my protect maneuver since they both use a reaction.
These are basic go to concepts for a character and requiring a player to look for these traps and avoid them runs into the same problem that 3rd edition had. Specialties seem to be packaged feat trees that you can grab if you don't want to pick them all by hand and go with it. Same thing for fighting styles and maneuvers. Having to watch out for them working at cross purposes slows down character creation and makes it more of a chore, as well as giving it a higher entry bar for the beginning player to have a character without "feel bad" abilities.
Solutions?
1) Let my sniper option do more. Let it be disrupted like spellcasting if I take damage while aiming, but if both attack rolls would hit, make it an auto crit. More complicated but worth it. I also feel that all specialties should be balanced around the healer, since it's feats are enough to get you excited about when trying to decide which flavor of awesome you want your character to be.
2) They set a precedent in the spell section for spells specifically calling out each other. (Prayer and Bless I think?) Do the same here. State in the protect maneuver that if you use the defender feat to grant disadvantage to an attack and it still deals damage, you may spend your CS dice to reduce it without needing another reaction. I don't know if referencing specific abilities is a good idea, as it could become counter-intuitive and require house ruling as more books and abilities are released, but if they're gonna use it, this is a good place.
