first post of two:
Game Mechnics:
(I have the beta, and have the dead in thay)
First I want to say some good things:
Nice artwork as always, has a nice 3rd-4th mix feel (as expected), I personally like the advantage/disadvatage mechanics, and I like the backgrounds;
Then we are back to “Linear Warriors - Quadratic Wizards”
meaning:
The Warriors are good at low levels, but are bruttaly outclassed at high levels be the flexibilty and number of options a Full-Caster has.
Especially the Fighter is reduced to “Full Attack Guy”, because maneuvers at low levels are not available.
In addition, to make things worse, Hit Points of Monters escalate very, very quickly!!
This fact makes “Save or Suck” spells even more powerful than before.
This is added to the fact, that now every Ability has its own save.
(e.g. a lot of Illusion spells have a Intelligence save.)
So a Caster can target a weak Save of a monster to gain maximum effect, even more easily than in 3.X / Pathfinder.
At first a Caster will be weak, since he has very few spells / day, but even at medium levels, especially if equipped with illusion spells*, that she could cast as a “Ritual” without expending the spell slot, things turn onesided for casters, very fast.**
- a lot of monsters save pretty badly against Intelligence
but I have to admit I have only seen Monsters up to Level 10, so maybe later it will get better, but I highly doubt it.
** I don’t mind that some classes are stronger, than others, but when the “Monk” turns out to be weaker than a class feature (animal companion) of the “Druid”, like in 3.X, something is not right.
Especially the “Champion” Archetype is pretty weak - maybe he looks good on paper, but one easily forgets that critical hits are far weaker in 5th than in previous editions. (they only double the die of the weapon, so d8+7 = 2d8+7)
It seems that the “Champion” was made for “beer & pretzels” players, who like to sit back and make full attacks, and nothing else.
The “Battle Master” can finally use all the cool stuff a 3.X/Pathfinder vanilla Fighter can do anyway: like disarm or feint in combat.
The only Fighter specialization that is not as weak is the “Eldritch Knight” - who is a caster - again.
(btw. the same is true for the “Arcane Trickster” - Rogue Archetype, but to a lesser extend)
The only real good thing (mechanics wise) of a Fighter is, that a caster could dip 2 levels Fighter to get the bonus action 1x/rest, which is by far more useful to a Caster than a Warrior btw.
Magic Items or as i call it:
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”
Maybe to give the game a more “old School” vibe, they had the brilliant idea to make Ability items like the “Belts of Giant Strength” again like in AD&D times.
splendid
That means: If you wear the "Belt of “Cloud Giant Strength” your Strength will be that of a Cloud Giant, regardless what the original Strength Ability score of your character has been. As opposed to the 3.X/Pathfinder “Belt of Strength +6”, which gives you a +6 enhancement bonus to your Strength score.
Maybe (hopefully) they will change that, till the final version of the 5th DMG will come out.
- too bad I can’t see the faces of those, who see the Hocus Pocus video the first time. 