D&D 5E (2014) What's one thing that pleasantly surprised you, and one thing that disappointed you about the PHB?

[Shadowdweller00]

Forget cephalomegaly, the Halfling racial picture is just downright frightening...

 

[jrowland]

Disappointed by none of the promised modularity. This isn't "Advanced D&D" but "Expanded Basic D&D".

Well, "Expanded Basic D&D" might be just as promised: Standard D&D. I expect "Advanced D&D" will come in the DMG.

 

[Li Shenron]

Disappointed by none of the promised modularity. This isn't "Advanced D&D" but "Expanded Basic D&D".

Well they've been saying for a long time that practically all modules will end up being in the DMG...

 

[TwoSix]

Forget cephalomegaly, the Halfling racial picture is just downright frightening...

To be fair, there are some better pictures of the halfling in the PHB. Pgs. 172 and 176, for example.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Where were you last summer when I was asking for a hard cap of strength for all small races?

Running Savage Worlds XD

I actually really like Small races with no Strength penalty... if they're explicitly magical races. One of my preferred kinds of gnome, for example, would be Small with either no Strength penalty or a Strength bonus because they are stony, earth-fey folks.

But for halflings and D&D gnomes? It's ludicrous. I'm definitely going to be house ruling them, both to make them bigger and to make them less beefy-strong.

 

[evilbob]

Pleasantly surprised: TONS of options for a few of the classes! Mostly great art! TONS of spells!

Disappointed: Only two options for many classes. Halfling art is beyond terrible. No ability to sort through the tons of spells in any useful way other than alpha-by-name (although Mouseferatu has mostly solved this and I expect it will get much better eventually).


Also: it genuinely surprised me how nice the cover looked compared to the jpg of the cover. It still makes no sense, but it is beautiful in person.

 

[fuindordm]

For the overall game:

Pleasant Surprise: Specialist wizards as subclasses.

Disappointment: vague and inconsistent rules for pets and mounts. A warhorse doesn't attack any more?

For minor aspects:

Pleasant surprise: "green knight" paladin variant--the treatment of paladins overall totally won me over to the "paladins can be any alignment" camp, where before 5E I believed they should be LG only.

Disappointment: Bard spell list is versatile but not very bardy. When I think of the legendary powers of music and names, most of these spells make me go "huh"?

 

[DMZ2112]

Disappointment: Halflings. If I have the opportunity to shake Mike Mearls' hand at Gen Con I'm absolutely going to make an impassioned plea on the behalf of the halfling race.

Said I'd do it. Did it. Ball's in his court.

Which is one more then I wanted to see. It means that the cap is no longer absolute once we see one exception it is easier for game designers to decide to bring in more.

Agreed. You either have a rule, or you don't. The existence of the barbarian ability means there's no rule.

To be fair, there are some better pictures of the halfling in the PHB. Pgs. 172 and 176, for example.

Page 172 doesn't depict a halfling, it depicts a gnome. Ears.

And I'm not convinced the small female on page 176 is not also a gnome. Gnomes also have large heads, but they don't have creepy tiny hands and they look like convincing fae creatures. If gnomes, and female gnomes in particular, were not /virtually unheard of/ in D&D art outside of niche Dragonlance products, I would have no reason to think page 176 depicts a halfling.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Agreed. You either have a rule, or you don't. The existence of the barbarian ability means there's no rule.

What? Not at all. Whole swathes of class abilities are about breaking the rules; doesn't mean those rules don't exist.

Fighters can get an extra action per round. Doesn't mean there's no rule about 1 action/round. Bards can take spells from other people's lists. Doesn't mean there's no rule about classes only picking from their own list. The warcaster feat lets you cast a somatic spell even if both hands are full. And so forth.

So, the barbarian has two stats that break the rule by a specific/limited degree, at a specific time. Sounds par for the course to me.

 

[DMZ2112]

What? Not at all. Whole swathes of class abilities are about breaking the rules; doesn't mean those rules don't exist.

Fighters can get an extra action per round. Doesn't mean there's no rule about 1 action/round. Bards can take spells from other people's lists. Doesn't mean there's no rule about classes only picking from their own list. The warcaster feat lets you cast a somatic spell even if both hands are full. And so forth.

So, the barbarian has two stats that break the rule by a specific/limited degree, at a specific time. Sounds par for the course to me.

I may be speaking grandly -- I have a habit of doing so -- but I think my point stands. Bounded accuracy is a big deal in D&D5. It's certainly in the running for biggest reason why I'm excited about it, if it is not actually the reason itself. A maximum ability score of 20 is part of that system. Once you punch through that wall once, it's no longer a convincing barrier. The barbarian goes this far past 20. How much further will a minotaur character be able to go? Or a psychometabolicist? Where does it stop? The strength of a bounded accuracy system is that it is /bounded/.

When I say there's no "rule," what I mean is that there's no /authority/. Prior to the level 20 barbarian, we had it on authority that an ability score of 21 was impossible. Now we have it on authority that it is possible, and that is a very different thing. The most different, really.

I am also concerned about classes granting /more/ additional actions in a round, but that feels substantially less likely to come to pass. It is a far more obvious crack to widen.

Picking spells from other lists or casting spells without components doesn't really represent potential abuse, in my opinion. Wizards only casting wizard spells is a thematic consideration, but if they were to learn a cleric spell (other than a healing spell, at least), it wouldn't dramatically improve their utility.

A feat that allows a PC to ignore somatic components could only be followed by a feat that permits silent spells and a feat that permits casting without materials. Considering how often I forget about the latter I'm hard pressed to see these potential outcomes as a threat to the fabric of the game in the same way that a suddenly /unbounded/ accuracy system does.