D&D 5E What's one thing that pleasantly surprised you, and one thing that disappointed you about the PHB?

[SigmaOne]

Edit: not easily house ruled disapointment: I hate the layout of the spells section. Adding to that, the fact that each spell entry does not have the associated class(es). The constant flipping back and forth is really annoying!

I completely agree with this, but I think it comes down to space as a premium for printing. If they do digital books, I expect (hope, pray) for links and bookmarks. But also, I'm not terribly worried by this because this is a problem that should just go away with digital tools, which I intend to use. They could have at least listed which caster type each spell is for crying out loud! (Using B,C,D,P,R,Wi,Wa or some code.)

 

[Crothian]

I don't have the PHB but it does seem that the 20 attribute limit is not as much of a rule as I was hoping it was. That disappoints me.

I am pleased with the amount of fun sounding options.

 

[SigmaOne]

Pleasant Surprise: I actually want to play a paladin now.

Disappointment: The bard. I mean, when a 1st level cleric spell (Bless) is arguably BETTER than the defining class feature (performing to buff one's allies)... um, yeah. Why not just play a cleric/sorc multiclass instead & take that 'motivational speaker' feat?

We have a bard player from the playtest who was really disappointed to see Call to Battle disappear, as she started every major battle with it. But I tried to console her with the fact that Bards are full casters now. I haven't looked through the Bard spell list yet, so I don't know how much being a full caster bumps the bard's coolness factor.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We have a bard player from the playtest who was really disappointed to see Call to Battle disappear, as she started every major battle with it. But I tried to console her with the fact that Bards are full casters now. I haven't looked through the Bard spell list yet, so I don't know how much being a full caster bumps the bard's coolness factor.

If you love Enchantment/Illusionist stuff, it bumps it up a lot.

If you don't love basically being a specialist Wizard dressed as a Bard, it doesn't do anything.

They're more akin to Mentalists from Guild Wars than Bards from D&D, oddly enough. However, the whole thing would be an easy fix for WotC - just make say, 3-5 SPELLS which imitate old Bard abilities, give them to all Bards, and BAM, fixed.

My bet: this will happen, but not for literally 2-3 years, minimum, of WotC trying to suggest we all really wanted to play Enchanter/Illusionists.

EDIT - Quick and dirty house rule - Give Bards a renamed Bless - "Chant of War" or something. Bless in all game respects, just a different name, is known to all Bards automatically.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Surprise:
I'll second the OP's love of the diviner. Not six weeks ago, I lamented "I can think of nothing duller than being a low-level diviner", but man, was I wrong! Never have I been so happy to eat my words.

Disappointment:
Rogues. In some of the play tests, there was a wide variety of builds, with acrobat and treasure hunter and thug -- builds that did not focus exclusively or primarily on DEX. I'm sorry that that wasn't carried through -- there is some variety, but not what I had hoped they'd give.

 

[Saplatt]

Most pleasant surprise: the expanded spell list, including many iconics that didn't appear in the Starter set.


Biggest disappointment: Death Domain and Oathbreaker Paladins won't appear until the DMG.

 

[TDarien]

Pleasant Surprise: I actually want to play a paladin now.

Disappointment: The bard. I mean, when a 1st level cleric spell (Bless) is arguably BETTER than the defining class feature (performing to buff one's allies)... um, yeah. Why not just play a cleric/sorc multiclass instead & take that 'motivational speaker' feat?

Well at early levels, I would say that bless is marginally better, but by 5th level, when the bard is giving out 4d8 (possibly 5d8) in inspiration dice per short rest, it easily outstrips bless, which is still only giving d4s (not to mention being less useful, costing an action, using up a spell slot, and requiring the clerics concentration).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well at early levels, I would say that bless is marginally better, but by 5th level, when the bard is giving out 4d8 (possibly 5d8) in inspiration dice per short rest, it easily outstrips bless, which is still only giving d4s (not to mention being less useful, costing an action, using up a spell slot, and requiring the clerics concentration).

Er, no, not even slightly.

It's 1d4 on EVERY SINGLE attack roll and save whilst it's up for 3+ people. Potentially dozens of rolls.

Bard gives you 1d8 to ONE ROLL for ONE PC. Also EACH d8 requires your Bonus Action, so you have to give them out 1/turn at most, and pre-emptively.

Bless is wildly better.

 

[Snapdragyn]

We have a bard player from the playtest who was really disappointed to see Call to Battle disappear, as she started every major battle with it. But I tried to console her with the fact that Bards are full casters now. I haven't looked through the Bard spell list yet, so I don't know how much being a full caster bumps the bard's coolness factor.

Yeah, play an Illusionist wizard & you'll get greater spell selection (& could easily get just as good armor).

Play 10 clr/10 sorc & you've got full spell slots, plenty of access to illusion spells, Bless, armor, weapons - bard with a bit less skills, IOW.

Well at early levels, I would say that bless is marginally better, but by 5th level, when the bard is giving out 4d8 (possibly 5d8) in inspiration dice per short rest, it easily outstrips bless, which is still only giving d4s (not to mention being less useful, costing an action, using up a spell slot, and requiring the clerics concentration).

Sure, concentration is a big limitation - I'm pretty sure this is why they changed bard 'song' in the first place, since in the playtest you ran into the quandry of 'do I sing, or do I cast a spell... oh wait, most decent bard spells require concentration also, drat.'

That said, even at your 5th level example, the bard may be giving out 4-5 single d8 rolls per short rest, but the cleric casting Bless once can give out that many d4 rolls PER ROUND if everyone in the party is attacking or making saves - and just keep doing that every round, so long as they maintain the concentration. Personally, I'd still prefer Bless.

Edit: Actually, at this point if I wanted to play a bard, I'd just multiclass cleric/sorc (or cleric/rogue if I wanted skills over illusions), go Trickery domain for the flavor, Entertainer background, & reskin the cleric spells as songs. Boom, I'm a bardier bard than the bard could ever bard.

 

[Daern]

I'm just glad all the halflings dont have cornrows and dreads this time. That was weird. At least the bobble headed halflings look silly, as they should imo.

Pleasant surprise: Better art than expected

Disappointment: too many floating posed figures, not enough monsters, dungeons and weirdness in the art