Faolyn
(she/her)
So you haven't actually tested it out.Press the attack and fall back are obviously messed up from a read. There are some things that come across in text as obviously bad vs the need to test to confirm they’re bad.
I disagree that it causes a "guessing game." In-game, a character is basically making an "all-out attack" that involves advancing on you. You can clearly see this is happening, and thus can respond by holding your ground or falling back. The only "meta" part is that the DM will say that it's using PtA, in much the same way that the DM would tell you that a creature has grappled you.Actions having built in reaction based countermeasure doesn’t line up with 5e game design. It creates a meta-game guessing game that doesn’t resemble in game tactics. Taking a class mechanic and universalizing it isn’t appropriate. Fall back’s disadvantages don’t mean as much to a caster using fall back as a melee attacker, and so on. Groups gain an advantage making the balance of swarm encounters vs solo encounters skewed. This is all apparent from just a read.
I don't think that the version in the pdfs wasn't playtested. I think it was written poorly and didn't convey its full meaning.