I just got back into it and what a disappointment. I bought the players manual, Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual for about $150 and honestly felt I wasted my money. All 3 were the most poorly written load of crap. The info is scattered everywhere to the point it is hard to find anything without flipping back and forth all over the place and often times between all 3 books. Info that should be in the Dungeon masters book is in the player book when it should be in both. Basic monsters in the back of the player manual but the DM manual only has lists of what monsters belong in what terrain. The monster manual only has a hand full of lvl 1 monsters in it and most of those are things nobody would want to fight. Instead of putting them in alphabetical order which is almost useless how about putting them from lowest to highest level in terms of toughness. May as well start a character at lvl 5. Basically it was set up to make you buy all 3 books whether you wanted too or not. They are disorganized and often unclear in areas or at the very least confusing. I really miss the BECMI version.
Spells suck. Too many of them are the same for multiple classes so what makes a druids spells much different from a mage's, ranger's, sorcerer or pally? How many classes get Thunderwave, Goodberry burning hands the list of repeats goes on and on. How droll that the pally or priest you're running with can cast half the same spells that you can? Suddenly your character isn't so special. Then there is the "utilitarian" spells which are virtually useless except for in the most specific circumstances where they might...Maybe come in handy and that's a pretty big maybe. Dungeons are practically non existent since you can't hardly put one monster in a dungeon that won't fight the rest of the monsters in the dungeon. It's all about campaign until your character is maxed then dump him and start and new character and repeat. I may as well go play a video game over and over or just tell a story to someone else as I make up the adventure in my head as I tell it. There are so many short cuts to make the game go faster anyway that I don't know how people haven't gotten bored playing. I mean you only create a new character to then cast most of the same spells, extra attack, same monsters in a different order that you had with the last character even though this time you chose a completely different race, class and background. I think E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson would be disappointed that their masterpiece Idea has been so watered down to this pathetic, slapped together mess. It astounds me that 175,000 fans of DnD thought this was good. The game use to be unique. Each character class had their own spells unique to them, utilitarian spells were actually useful, certain classes used certain weapons that other classes couldn't, you could run dungeons, campaigns, mass battles, build castles, level 35 and spend hours having a ball with friends and your character took on a life of his own that was unique because he wasn't like the other classes in any way other than he was on the same adventure. Now it's a rinse and repeat. Pretty pictures, figurines and watered down characters. Don't forget to buy the next pre-made campaign to spice up you next adventure though. Don't get me all wrong though as there have been some relatively small improvements (the only one that actually comes to mind is the death saving throws to become stable) but other than the one I mentioned I can't think of any off the top of my head because of the prominent list of things that suck with this version far out number the good. I could go on and on even more than I already have but these are the ones that irritate me the most and immediately come to mind. As a matter of fact the only reason I play is because my son is getting into it and it is quality time with him. I hope he loses interest quickly so I don't have to be tortured to play for long and I'll likely never pick it up again.
