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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6580936" data-attributes="member: 37579">The lack of building characters is a bit jarring for those coming from 3e, Pathfinder, and 4e. But it's intentional. They wanted the focus to be on playing the game at the table, not between games at your desk/computer. They didn't want levelling up to be a chore or obligation, which it was to many people. I would have liked a little more flexibility and building in the DMG, for people who wanted that. But I can understand why they held back.Things like flat-footed AC, touch AC (and the slightly less used flat-footed touch AC) made some sense but were complicated. There were a lot of factors to consider. Which ones did shields apply to? Did mage armour count? If you had a negative Dex and were flat-footed, would you become harder to hit? It's a lot of modifiers and changes to represent a really simple concept: being easier to hit. So, in play, it's just as effective to give the attacker advantage. It has the same results in combat and at the table, without having multiple different defences. Most of the time it "worked" because the PCs were self-regulating and not setting out to break the game. Just because they could cast a dozen buffs on themselves and the party before the combat didn't mean they did. But not every party is so... considerate.... to the DM and balance. So rules need to be made. If your group isn't going to try and break the game, remove the limit on being able to concentrate on a single spell at a time (or increase the number of spells).As you mention, there are some barebones rules in the DMG. The 3e chart was cool, but... flawed. Making a magic item isn't something you can perfectly reduce to a simple formula, as not every skill is equal, not every feat is equal, and not every spell is equal. As everyone who argued a magic item that continually granted true strike should only be 2000gp demonstrated. Magic item creation is really left in the hands of the DM to encourage or ignore. As has probably been mentioned, the sale price of magic items is in the DMG. HotDQ has been noted as being sparse on magic items. The adventure was written when work on the core rulebooks (especially the DMG) was still incomplete, so the number of magic items awarded was uncertain. They erred on the side of very few, so DMs could choose to add more or not. This came out of the playtest. WotC kept adding more and more healing to the game because people really wanted it. The amount of healing in the final game is a direct response to feedback and the consensus of the gaming community. It's ridiculous, but it's what the most people were happy with.But, there are a couple ways to slow healing in the DMG. Low level characters in 5e are on the squishy and fragile side. It's not just HotDQ. I think the writers of the adventure also really wanted to make things hard and challenging. Old school and such. You need to be able to see something to make an Opportunity Attack. If Ulktar didn't see the lizardman, no OA. If he saw, he could attack, but would be striking into water, which slows down attacks and distorts the location of objects, so it'd be fair for the DM to impose disadvantage on the attack. It'd also be possible for the lizardman to come from beneath the boat, in which case it would have cover, blocking line of sight and thus not being targetable by the OA. Oh, and he'd arguably need the weapon drawn and ready. You can't attack with a weapon strapped to your back.</blockquote>

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