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

[the Jester]

Pleasant surprise: Most of the art is AMAZING.

Unpleasant disappointment: The halfling art is awful.

 

[The Grand User]

Pleasant Surprise: The movement rules, I really like that they've simplified it. Spring Attack for everyone!

Disappointment: The Dragonborn, still without tails, and pretty bare and weak in ways compared to the other races, and significantly weaker than they were in 3.5 while the other races are definitely stronger than they were in 3.5.

I'd have liked to see the breath weapon be a "Recharge 5-6" like other dragon's breath weapons and one or two more flavorful/RP/Exploration features.

And tails... they should have had tails, darn it!

* Imagines a horde of Dragonborn with axes chasing after a group of tieflings. DB: "GIVE US OUR TAILS!", T: D: "STAY AWAY FROM US!!"

 

[Nilbog]

Having followed the entire playtesting process, and all the L&L articles and previews, it's a bit hard to decide where I should consider "this is where my knowledge of the PHB started..."

Compared to the playtest, there are many more disappointments than pleasant surprises.

I can certainly count the artwork to be a positive surprise.

Can I count the full-spellcasting Bard and the traits/ideals/flaw/bonds as positive surprises? At least those were announced quite a lot later than the last playtest packet.

Some nice unexpected (to me) inclusions such as the Hermit background, Monk of Shadows, and Great Old One Warlock, also came so late that they effectively count as "PHB surprises".

Pretty much every other change since the last playtest packet is either neutral or a disappointment to me.

Especially disappointing the exclusion of material that seemed perfectly fine in the last packet (or in previous one). Why did we have to lose the Bounty Hunter and Guide backgrounds? Why they never tried to bring back all the nifty Rogue subclasses?

The final version of 5e D&D still rocks big time, but it also gave me a huge feeling that half of the bravery of innovative mechanics and grand ideas was washed away by reality checks, and became missed opportunities, such as:

- they announced the grand idea that there were no saving throws in 5e, just 6 equally good ability checks! a few playtest packets later, and here comes the old level-based saves progression, then lack of spells with Str/Int/Cha save, and finally let's go back to practically 3e saves
- they presented a cool and powerful system for round-based (i.e. at-will) maneuvers that would make the Fighter finally both highly tactical (if you want) and the actual best in combat; then it was washed down to encounter-based, and guess what we got to compensate? good-old multiple attacks
- we started off with Clerics having weapons & armors proficiencies totally dependent on the chosen religion, finally we can have some variety and even Clerics in robes! Two years later, we're nearly back to 3e, only Heavy Weapon Prof is actually variable.

These final decisions are not bad. But they give me the feeling of missed opportunities.

This, this and more this!

Hoping that lots of extra options are in the DM's guide

 

[DammitVictor]

A lot of pleasant surprises. I dropped out of the playtests early after losing interest.

A small sample...

• Bards, especially College of Lore Bards. This is the first edition of D&D where I've been able to play the character I wanted right out of the box. Even if, maddeningly, they still don't get heal on their own.
• Multiclassing. I hate 3.X style multiclassing, except now I don't.
• The whole spell slot system. So elegant, so flexible.
• Fighters can fight! And move! And fight! So can Barbarians and Monks and everyone else.

No real unpleasant surprises. Everything I'm irritated with in the final product is the stuff I was irritated with in the playtest. I'm already thinking about house rules... but this is already the best D&D I've ever seen.

 

[GameDoc]

Presentation:

1) Pleasant Surprises: The fine print disclaimer near the bottom of the credits page, the suggested readings for inspiration in the final appendix, and the overall presentation being reminiscent of AD&D PHBs. This book knows its roots.

2) Disappointment: Halfling artwork (seriously, does anyone like it?) with the qualifier that I'm glad we didn't go back to them being Hobbits.


Mechanics:

1) Pleasant Surprises: paladins (esp. Oath of the Ancients), they now feel like something different than just a fighter/cleric hybrid

2) Disappointment: Animal Companions. This should have been an option for both the druid and the ranger and in the case of the latter, not the basis for an entire subclass. It should be way less fiddle and handled more like a familiar or paladin's steed.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I haven't had a decent read through of the PHB, but 've got a few from my skimming of various sections so far:

Pleasant Surprises
- The artwork. On the whole I love it. I especially love the full page and half page art pieces. It also gave me a 2E feel.
- The diversity of humans presented. I'm a fairly stereotypical Anglo guy in regards to looks, but it was nice to see a variety of ethnicities shown in the books, as well as a reduction in the chainmail bikini look for women.
- The Inspirational Reading appendix. This was completely unexpected, but I love that they have included it.
- A detailed index. One thing that WotC have been horrible at in the past is indexes. In many 3.5E books there was no index at all and, if there was, it wasn't overly detailed. The 5E PHB index has a very small font, but I can accept that as they did so to fit as many entries in the appendix as possible. I love it.
- The background section, with a heap of tables with personality traits, bonds, flaws and ideals. Finally they've put some effort into showing players how to add a little more depth to their characters.
- Spell referencing. I like that spells no longer reference each other. It was horrible when you spent 30 seconds looking up a spell, only to find that it referred you to another spell. Occasionally that second spell would refer you to a third one!

Disappointments
- The Halfling art. Many others have said it, but I just don't like the bobble-headed, tiny feet depiction of the Halflings in the PHB. It just doesn't look right.
- Drizz't. I love the character and have read most of the books in the series, but he is an atypical character. So to use him as the artwork for an example of elves is just wrong.
- Spell formatting. I much preferred the formatting of the spells in the 3.5E PHB, especially the summary tables that gave you a quick 5-6 word description of what the spell did. It made picking spells a lot easier when you didn't know from memory what each of them did (which was often for me as a DM).
- Artwork for the weapons. I love that they showed a number of different weapons on the equipment page. However they completely missed an opportunity to make use of those illustrations by labelling exactly what they were pictures of!

I'm sure I'll have more once I've had a good read.

 

[GameDoc]

The halfling art seems to be widely reviled. The intro art to the chapters for class, equipment, and adventuring depict a recurring group of adventurers including what appears to be a female halfling wizard. She still has a big noggin, but the other proportions seem okay. Although admittedly, her feet are obscured in all three portraits. Maybe the tiny tiny feet are not meant to be universal.

 

[Pandamonium87]

Unpleasant: most of the artwork is really bad, especially if compared to other RPGs.
Pleasant: the art of the items is surprisingly good

 

[sgtscott658]

Good stuff:
1. Streamlined combat system easy to grok
2. One roll for everything pretty much
3. The Druid and Monk classes is so very cool with nice art

Turn off's
1. Half Orc Paladin. Really? Seriously? A huge turn off. I'm just not a munchkin type player I guess.
2. The klingon looking tiefling; the art sucked and why oh why do they include a fiendish race?
3. The art for the PHB was pretty bad all around, a few nice pieces but 75% of the art work was just bad.
4. Platmail wearing Wizards? Really? Seriously? and if you dont believe me look at pg 201.

Part of me disappointed in 5E but the other part of me has spent 50 bucks so I want my moneys worth outta this edition for now.

 

[Haffrung]

Pleasant surprise: Random tables

Disappointing: Not nearly enough examples of play.