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

[Nebulous]

Speaking of disappointments, something that came to my mind in the last week or so...

I haven't actually seen the PHB yet, but I've seen lots of previewed page of both the PHB and the MM, and I have been slowly realizing that the biggest practical disappointment is that they look incredibly "light" of material compared to the 3e core books. The fonts are larger, the spacing is wider, each printed row is shorter (don't know if it's just an indentation effect), the pictures are bigger (which is even nice on one hand...), the space between in more. I don't know how many pictures are in the book, maybe they're just showing previews of the best artwork, but overall the majority of pages don't have any? Overall I am starting to be afraid that the 320 PHB pages are worth much less than the 320 PHB pages of 3e, simply because the material contained is much less.

Thinking about 5e as a whole, this may not be a problem at all. After all 5e is supposed to be lighter when it comes to rules, so it probably doesn't need half of the rules, numbers and explanations of them, that were in the 3e core books. But at the same time I know that half of the classes have only 2 subclasses, that some backgrounds were removed, that feats are very few, fighter maneuvers are few, clerical domains are REALLY few, and even the total number of spells is not much more than half of the spells in 3e core (although this is partly due to combining healing, summoning and a few more spells together). And I can't avoid thinking that they might have purposefully padded the 5e books with blank space and used a larger font to cover the fact that they didn't have time to design more material in order to publish the game for Gencon, and to justify the price with the number of pages. But I would have preferred same price, less pages, less padding.

It DOES feel lighter than 3e. But that was their intention, it is definitely an easier game to jump into. Do i wish it had more complexity and a higher page count? ABSOLUTELY. It should be 50 pages longer in my opinion. Take all of that art, spread it out more, and give us more expanded mechanics. Hell, even a few DMG previews of alternate rules or something. But as someone else mentioned, it is brilliantly laid and and infinitely readable, so they nailed that part.

 

[Darth Quiris]

Pleasant Surprise: They made a Bard I can actually like and want to play.
Unfortunate Disappointment: There is only one Sorcerer Bloodlines I like and I say we need more.

 

[TarionzCousin]

2) I'll have to go back and look for the parts of Medieval history and the exploits of Roland and Gallahad where they were traveling alongside wizards and elves and casting spells against mind flayers.

Those are in the Morte d'Artur Part Deux and Les Autres Chansons de Geste--two very rare tomes of medieval tales.

 

[RSKennan]

A DM Here.

Pleasant Surprise: Combat is dangerous in the moment.

Disappointed Me: Long Rests heal full HP. This breaks verisimilitude for me. I've started some variant rules with the understanding that they make healers more important and require those characters to focus more on healing in the absence of magic items.

Pleasant Surprise: Flavorful spells, many of which have utility outside of combat or at least engage with the setting in interesting ways.

Disappointed Me: There wasn't more engagement with the setting- Call Lightning has cool effects when there is a natural lightning storm, but Sleet Storm doesn't.

Petrify requires three saves. I'd prefer one save, even if it was made with advantage. I understand the desire to make it fair for the players, but I'd rather see it be a higher level spell if necessary.

I wish more spells had greater effect if cast from a higher level slot.

At least I can write higher level versions of spells that do what I want them to.

Overall, I'm pretty thrilled with this edition.

 

[RangerWickett]

Petrify requires three saves. I'd prefer one save, even if it was made with advantage. I understand the desire to make it fair for the players, but I'd rather see it be a higher level spell if necessary.

The solution I'm considering when I run a medusa 'boss fight' (wherein I want the PCs to be afraid of her gaze, but would actually prefer no PCs get hit by it, is to have you get paralyzed with fear and revulsion by seeing her if she's within 30 ft. (Wis save negates), and then if she spends a bonus action she can turn on a cone of petrifying gaze. Anyone in that cone gets a Dex save to look away in time. Those who fail are stunned and immobilized and cannot look away; and if the medusa still has line of sight at the start of her next turn, anyone in that cone gets turned to stone.

So you can possibly make a Wis save to not panic when you glimpse her, a Dex save to not make eye contact when she looks at you, and if you fail both of those it's possible your friends still might be able to kill her, or move you or her, or just break line of sight.

 

[aramis erak]

For what it's worth, nothing in what I've seen so far has made me feel that the PHB is "light" on content. There's a lot of art, yes, but it's a substantial book, and I'm finding it fun just to sit and flip through it as I get to know the rules better. My 2cp.

I'm surprised at how little was added versus what's in Basic. In a single go, it's both the pleasant surprise and the disappointment.

No running rule... sure, we get the dash rule, but that's a combat-hustle, and doesn't grant advantage to one's opponents, and only matches Marathon speeds. (A dead sprint should be almost twice that... and sustainable for only a few hundred feet, and make one unable to use reactions.)

 

[RSKennan]

The solution I'm considering when I run a medusa 'boss fight' (wherein I want the PCs to be afraid of her gaze, but would actually prefer no PCs get hit by it, is to have you get paralyzed with fear and revulsion by seeing her if she's within 30 ft. (Wis save negates), and then if she spends a bonus action she can turn on a cone of petrifying gaze. Anyone in that cone gets a Dex save to look away in time. Those who fail are stunned and immobilized and cannot look away; and if the medusa still has line of sight at the start of her next turn, anyone in that cone gets turned to stone.

So you can possibly make a Wis save to not panic when you glimpse her, a Dex save to not make eye contact when she looks at you, and if you fail both of those it's possible your friends still might be able to kill her, or move you or her, or just break line of sight.

See, your method actually models something I understand. I don't really understand what three Constitution saves models versus turning to stone. My immune system is fighting off the magical infection? Hmm.

Actually, that might work for me.

 

[Salamandyr]

(redacted)