I think the new PHB does a much, much better job at introducing the reader to the game and walking through building a character, without overloading them with information or sending them bouncing around to different parts of the book to understand what their own features actually do (spells notwithstanding, but I’ll give the writers some leeway, as that’s probably difficult to do in physical format). There is a ton of art, which I think helps contribute to the formulation of a clear mental image both of play itself, and of the player’s character as they’re building it. It’s the first PHB I’ve read where I’ve felt like a player who has never played D&D before could read it, by themselves, and walk away with a clear understanding of what gameplay looks like, and a first level character they made for themselves.
For all this utility for new players, there is room for improvement. While the digital version is nicely hyperlinked, the physical version is sorely lacking in equivalent page references, which makes the rules glossary less practically useful than it could be (though don’t get me wrong, it is still decently useful as-is!) I also think someone coming to the game for the first time looking to DM would not be sufficiently prepared to run a game from reading this book like a player would. Thats probably fine, as it is a player’s handbook, not a DM’s handbook. But with the staggered release of the core rulebooks, it does make the present moment a less-than-ideal time for a brand new group to start. Fortunately that is a temporary problem, and I think long-term, this is likely to make for a better new group experience than the 2014 core books created.
As for the rules changes, I think the new versions of the classes are going to make players feel more powerful across the board, with martials getting a bigger boost than casters. Increased healing from most of the heal spells will make in-combat healing much more viable, and characters will be much more survivable. YMMV on if those are positive or negative changes, personally I’m in favor, as in my experience the game is generally more fun when the players are excited about the cool stuff their characters can do.
Changes I am less jazzed about include…
• The Ranger, which is in my opinion the least-improved class by far, and arguably took a step backwards, at least in terms of making you go “I can’t wait to try playing one of those!”
• The rules for stealth/hiding, which I won’t get into here, but suffice to say I think DMs who want intuitive results out of stealth will need to rule more restrictively than the rules as written seem to indicate.
• The Influence action presents a highly systematic approach to social interaction, which I think is at odds with the more organic, conversational approach to the social pillar presented in the how to play section. As a big fan of that conversational approach myself, I dislike the Influence action, and think that having both presented within the same book is a recipe for misaligned expectations among players and DMs.
• While I do like the new versions of the Conjure spells, they really don’t feel like conjuring the respective creatures to me, and I generally think spells should actually do what they sound like they would do.
• I really don’t like that the rules for custom backgrounds have been removed. Without them, ability score increases from backgrounds recreates most of the same problems of ability score increases from species. It is an improvement in my opinion, but a small one, whereas keeping custom backgrounds as a standard option would be a small change for a huge improvement.
• This one may be a bit idiosyncratic, but I don’t care for the description of Orcs in the species section. There’s this weird part where it talks about some orcs striving to be worthy of Gruumsh’s favor while others try to move on from it, and… I just don’t get it, why is Gruumsh’s opinion of orcs being focused on so heavily here? He’s still evil, right? Right? [Insert Padme Amidala meme here]
Overall I like this new book a lot. If nothing else, I think it’s going to be a huge boon for introducing new players to the game and helping less experienced players create new characters without needing a lot of hand-holding. It’s not perfect, but no edition has been in my opinion, and I do think there is more to like here than not.
