Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
I'll echo what's been said that I am disappointed by how little Intelligence contributes to characters that are not absolutely dependent on it. An extra skill proficiency per ability modifier bonus seems a bit excessive; maybe tool or language? That couldn't end up too unbalancing, would it?
I mean, it would also help if Investigation didn't keep getting its lunch money stolen by Perception.
Monster balancing is always going to be a little wonky because it can depend so much on party composition and player strategy. Even in 4e, you still had stuff like Taclords trivializing high-defense monsters. I don't buy the idea that monster design is fundamentally broken because they don't take into account PCs having feats. Those are optional rules that necessarily produce stronger PCs, and thus as a DM you have to make some adjustments to your encounter design to match, as is the case with any optional rules that increase character power. But that's been the DM's cross to bear from the dawn of history, optional rules or no, not a specific thing that's broken about a specific edition.
I will say that it's rather annoying that the -5/+10 feats only seem to exist for a few select weapons. The polearm/hand crossbow feats get similar calls of "OP!" so they seem to cover similar territory. There was that UA that tried to add more options for other weapon groups but my memory is failing me on how successful that turned out to be (which doesn't bode well for it, I'd assume). I don't put much stock in white room math but I'd assume it's been shown that the benefits of the damage boost far outstrips the drawbacks of the accuracy penalty (I'd hope so, anyway, it is a feat after all). But I'd also assume that in actual play they serve to provide more in the way of tactical decision-making than a straight up "you do 10 more damage each attack".
But yeah, I want cool feats for all weapon types. With more variety than what amounts to Power Attack/Power Shot.
Grappling is still borked, but what else is new?
There are a few suboptimal class options (Way of the Elements, Berserker, Beastmaster, and maybe Wild Mage seem like the most egregious), but none of these are so far behind as to be considered broken, at least not from most of the actual play examples we've been getting. Maybe Beastmaster.
I think what will be exciting is to see how many of these things will be addressed in the big honking rules update later this year. Later 4e PHBs attempted (with varying degrees of success) to fix things like skill challenges and stealth, and 4e monster design wasn't fully established (some might say perfected) until the MM3, so I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility to see some of these addressed. We already know they're looking into more weapon options/feats, re-designing the Ranger, etc.
I mean, it would also help if Investigation didn't keep getting its lunch money stolen by Perception.
Monster balancing is always going to be a little wonky because it can depend so much on party composition and player strategy. Even in 4e, you still had stuff like Taclords trivializing high-defense monsters. I don't buy the idea that monster design is fundamentally broken because they don't take into account PCs having feats. Those are optional rules that necessarily produce stronger PCs, and thus as a DM you have to make some adjustments to your encounter design to match, as is the case with any optional rules that increase character power. But that's been the DM's cross to bear from the dawn of history, optional rules or no, not a specific thing that's broken about a specific edition.
I will say that it's rather annoying that the -5/+10 feats only seem to exist for a few select weapons. The polearm/hand crossbow feats get similar calls of "OP!" so they seem to cover similar territory. There was that UA that tried to add more options for other weapon groups but my memory is failing me on how successful that turned out to be (which doesn't bode well for it, I'd assume). I don't put much stock in white room math but I'd assume it's been shown that the benefits of the damage boost far outstrips the drawbacks of the accuracy penalty (I'd hope so, anyway, it is a feat after all). But I'd also assume that in actual play they serve to provide more in the way of tactical decision-making than a straight up "you do 10 more damage each attack".
But yeah, I want cool feats for all weapon types. With more variety than what amounts to Power Attack/Power Shot.
Grappling is still borked, but what else is new?
There are a few suboptimal class options (Way of the Elements, Berserker, Beastmaster, and maybe Wild Mage seem like the most egregious), but none of these are so far behind as to be considered broken, at least not from most of the actual play examples we've been getting. Maybe Beastmaster.
I think what will be exciting is to see how many of these things will be addressed in the big honking rules update later this year. Later 4e PHBs attempted (with varying degrees of success) to fix things like skill challenges and stealth, and 4e monster design wasn't fully established (some might say perfected) until the MM3, so I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility to see some of these addressed. We already know they're looking into more weapon options/feats, re-designing the Ranger, etc.
