lichmaster
Hero
I don't want to bash on your comment, but it gives me the impression that you just skimmed through the material without reading it.
LU's choke full of changes, some large, some small, but it has to be 5e compatible. You shouldn't expect too drastic changes.
That said, here's a few significant departures
- races are heritages that can be freely mixed and matched (half-dwarf/half-dragonborn is entirely possible for instance). You don't get ASI from them, but you get some features (many are up to your choice), and at level 10 you gain a paragon feature.
- cultures give yet more features, most with direct mechanical benefits, and play quite well regardless of the class
- there are rules for destinies, which give both a different way to earn Inspiration and also a distinc mechanical benefit when you accomplish your destiniy
- classes have been redesigned. Every class has way more choices than o5e, much more often. Just pick a 5e class and LU's equivalent, and see for yourself. For instance, you can have a Juggernaught Berserker (i.e. a heavy armored barbarian), RAW, from level 1, without losing any class feature (as opposed to 5e). Or you can have a Str focused armored monk (adept).
- there are synergy feats, which combine and compound features for truly unique multiclass characters
- there are feats to turn you into a vampire, or a werewolf, progressively.
- Melee martial classes play totally different due to combat maneuvers, an entire layer that was non esistent in o5e. This alone is as significant as the "spellcasting" feature for pure spellcasting classes.
- equipment is much more fully flashed out. There's also rules for materials, armor breaking, etc.
- combat is more tactial and reactive. You can sacrifice a shield to negate a crit, or take strife/fatigue to negate a crit, but the penalties they imply become more and more burdensome. When dual wielding, if you have the extra attack feature, you can attack twice with your off-hand weapon using a bonus action.
- Expertise has a different implementation, based as a variable sized dice, applicable both on skill checks and as a situational bonus also to attacks.
- Getting to 0 hp causes longer term problems (strife/fatigue). You cannot recover from those except at havens.
- there's an economy layer. Even in a very mundane campaign, there are ways to spend money, especially on strongholds and followers Strongholds are upgradeable, and can give ASI as well
- there are rare versions of spells
- monster math is right, especially the CR and EL computations. It's impossible to overstate how much better Monstrous Managerie is wrt core 5e MM.
- there's an exploration pillar built in the game, and all classes have multiple exploration features unique to them. These are not ribbon features, and exploration is not a weird balancing mechanic among different classes (ranger)
And these are just a few on top of my head.
In all honesty, given the depth, amount and quality of LU material and 3rd party compliant LU material (shout out to Homebrew and Hacking, with point based systems to create feats, heritages and cultures), I see no point for me to purchase any more WoTC product, at least regarding game mechanics. If you have complaints about 5e's "shallowness" wrt 3.5, for example, LU will definitely fill up the void, while still mantaining the core tenets of bounded accuracy and quicker play.
But I particularly like that I can be good at a specific sort of arcana check while another player can be good at an entirely different specific arcana check rather than us both just knowing everything about arcana. This is especially helpful from a DM standpoint regarding figuring out what to tell each player.
