I really like D&D 5th edition so far. I'm excited. I'm invested. It did a lot things right. But it's not perfect.
I want D&D 5th edition to be everything that it can be. I don't want it to settle for 'good enough'. Not after this much public play-testing.
To wit...
Feats
Stop treating feats like variant rules. Too many people want them. Are planning for them even now. Embrace what the players clearly want, especially with the variant human being vastly more appealing than the regular human.
Fighter
Great Weapon Fighting. Treat 1 and 2 as 3 instead of re-rolling 1 and 2. Otherwise the 2d6 weapon damages are vastly superior to the 1d12 weapon damages.
Fighter
Protection fighting style with a shield should be with any weapon or shield. Restricting this ability to shields kills certain play-styles.
Fighter
The Second Wind of fighters should be limited to once per day, avoiding hourly regeneration. Especially since you nerfed cure wounds and healing word spells. Better yet, make it temporary hit points granted with a bonus action. Perhaps this could also herald the death of martial healing once and for all?
Rogue
Sneak Attack works with a thrown Strength attack, such as a handaxe, but not a melee Strength attack with the same weapon? This is inconsistent. I understand that you want to restrict the weapons, so make it finesse, range, AND light weapons.
Wizard
Potent Cantrip should work on a miss (not a failed saving throw). That way Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, and Shocking Grasp can benefit... rather than inventing new cantrips later on to justify this ability.
Classes
Switch the crowning 20th level class power to an ability score increase/feat for each class. That keeps the progression consistent. Chances are it will probably be a feat by that point.
Race
Mountain dwarf +2 Strength is wonky. The two +2 bonuses make them great for melee classes, but then mountain dwarves also have a free proficiency with light and medium armour. Any melee class they pursue already have those proficiencies. It's redundant. Lower Strength to +1 (in keeping with every other +2/+1 races), and bring back the +1 armour bonus to mountain dwarves.
Skills
Medicine is still a useless skill, especially when untrained use of a Healing Kit can stabilize. This also makes the standard action cantrip Spare the Dying a poor choice (unless changed to a bonus action or given a range). Have the Medicine skill cure diseases and poisoning at least. The DC could be equal to the initial Saving Throw DC. Require a Healing Kit proficiency for that.
Armour
You added Breastplate, Half-Plate, and Splint Armour, but took away Banded armour? There's even an AC gap in the heavy armours for Banded. Make Chain Mail AC 15, Splint AC 16, and restore banded to AC 17. Also, Chain Shirt is a medium armour? Make it light. Moreover, Padded hurts Stealth? There has got to be better mechanic for differentiating Padded from other light armours. Alternatively, if you are going to delete any armour from the list, choose Padded over Banded.
Weapons
So many pointless or redundant weapons on the chart. Mace. Pick. Trident. Take your pick. There are more. Consider weapon properties for groups of weapons (Axes, Bows, Swords, etcetera) to create meaningful differences.
Spells
Did we really need V, S, and M again? It was so elegant during the play-test. All spells have a few words, a few gestures, and a material component. Some have a costly material component (as noted). Done.
Spells
100 gp for Identify? If you say a magical item can be figured out over time, or figured out with a spell that costs 100 gp, guess how useless Identify just became?
Spells
100 gp for Stoneskin? Let the fact that it's a high level spell with less castings than previous editions be the cost. Remove the GP cost of this spell. Like Identify, that sacred cow is not worth preserving.
Languages
Go back to languages granted by Intelligence bonus (in addition to training). This was added after the initial play-tests and then taken away. People want their languages.
Ability Scores
Bring back the ability to buy 16 as a score and raise the point buy total to 30 again. This has a very appealing secondary effect that you may have overlooked. It will encourage players to try non-traditional race/class combinations. See why? Right now, there are very clear race choices (read: ability score bonuses) for specific classes, especially if you want to be effective with a 16 or 17 in your primary ability score, instead of a 15 (the highest score players can currently buy 'without' a racial bonus). If players can buy a 16, then they are more likely to explore unconventional race/class options.
Advantage and Disadvantage
Make the number of Advantage/Disadvantage instances count. Three Advantages? One Disadvantage? You have Advantage. People can tell the difference between a higher and lower number. Like instantly.
Combat
Bring back the charge action. It served a worthy purpose in combat.
Dying
Constitution bonus on death saving throws.
Encumbrance
The new encumbrance rules are bizarre. Strength 10 can bench press 300 pounds? Go back to what you had in the play-test and turf the variant. Make certain armours inhibit speed by 10. Reduce that to 5 for Strength 15, and 0 for Strength 20. Dwarves continue to ignore these penalties, regardless of Strength.
These are all things you can house rule and adjust yourself. The core rules are finished they went to print.
Sonofapreacherman wrote:
Prom wrote:
Sonofapreacherman wrote:
First off, holy opinions batman!
Second, remember these are the "basic" rules. Certain things might be streamlined for this purpose. This game is meant to introduce new players to the hobby, and appeal to players looking for a OD&D style experience. It is NOT meant for everyone. Included in this is Feats, which were not a part of OD&D, and were a very large part of character building slowdown in 3.5 and 4e. You are right, people do want them. But they are not great for a basic style experience. If they wish to graduate to a more advanced style of D&D, they can buy the PHB.
TLDR: This is "basic" D&D, don't forget that. But I am glad you are enjoying the game 
As I said, these are things you can house rule. When the core books are released use the variant rules you like as has already been mentioned.I'm not looking to argue with you, but errata so early on is in my opinion, jumping the gun.
I add my own gripes here because I share the enthusiasm of the original poster and similar concerns.
I am no longer confident D&D 5e character creation will be customizable enough.
Cleric Personality and Background
D&D Basic now forces all Cleric players to worship gods. Philosophical Clerics are now impossible, or other nonpolytheistic spiritual traditions. For me, this is highly problematic because gods arent the kind of game that I want to play.
(Contrast the Wizard class, where Basic now supports Wizard players who dont want material components. Thus the Wizard class fixes the problem and opens up to more player preferences.)
Race Abilities
When there are only 4 Basic races to choose from, it is annoying that 2 out of these 4 must be Dexterity races.
I want mental races (Int-Wis, Int-Cha, Wis-Cha) who arent small and arent devils.
Will the Players Handbook allow players to customize their race, such as swapping race abilities to something that is more appealing?
The above two concerns are the only way I can create characters that I can be excited about playing, The concerns are decisively important to me.
Haldrik wrote:
I don't agree with absolutely everything the OP said... but I sure do agree with a lot of it.
pukunui wrote:
Sonofapreacherman wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
Warder17 wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I don't think cantrips should do damage on a miss. Casters already have that with many level 1 and up damage-dealing spells.
Sneak attack should only work with ranged, light, or finesse weapons using Dex. Any Str-based sneak attacks is a bad idea, IMO...It opens up rogues using mauls for 'sneak' attacks, lol.
I like the protection fighter build using shields.
Having padded armor give a penalty is kind of silly, IMO as well. I get that its bulky...But it doesn't make lots of noise.
I agree with some, but not all of the OP's statements.
Also, as myself (on other threads) and someone up there on this thread already said, this is the Basic PDF version 0.1. Stuff will be fixed, I assume.
Haldrik wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
I don't understand how the game is forcing gods on you when they are simply domains, and a god is a collection of domains. Those domains are philosiphical and thus the god that represents those domains embrace those philosophies. So please tell me again, how you exactly think that gods are being imposed on you?
You choose to espouse a domain, which happen to be to have deities having influence over them too. The Life domain for exemple - "focus on the vibrant positive energy, one of the fundamental forces of the universe that sustain all life" - which happen to be espoused by gods of life and health. In no way do you have to worship a god though. On the contrary, domais facilitate playing with no gods even more IMO!
Haldrik wrote:
kill_the_wiz_first wrote:
Nice list. My responses (in bold within parentheses)
Sonofapreacherman wrote:
When it comes to skills, I let my players kinda decide what that skill can actually do. Where medicine is concerned thats exactly the type of skill a good roleplayer can use in alot of ways that the skill doesnt state. Even though I dont play 13th age, I really like how they did skills and I might try to merge some aspect of the with 5ths skills.
I beleive you've misread the encumbrance section. It says nowhere a character can "bench press" 30x strength, is says they can "lift" 30x their strength. If anything this would represent a full body deadlft. 300 ibs is a probably little high for an "average," 10 str person, especially since it encompasses both genders, but it's not too ridiculous.
On the other hand, having max load increase linearly doesn't work realistically. 600 for a str 20 character is far too low. The world record without any special equipment is over 1000, and 20 should be at that point or higher.
Steerpike84 wrote:
Sonofapreacherman wrote:
Also loving the Basic D&D rules!
Rules I like as is:
- feats as optional
- restrictions on Protection (was OP in playtest)
- Second Wind frequency
- single advantange or disadvantage (nice and simple, as DM I appreciate it)
- V,S,M for spells makes for interesting situations
- enc rules
- banded armor being gone (did not exist historically)
Agreed they could use a change:
- Medicine could be more useful
- non-finesse range weapons shouldn't be able to Sneak Attack (or another fix to make it consistent)
- bring back +1 armor bonus for mountain dwarves and reduce to +1 STR
- bring back Charge (and also Disarm and Trip as special attacks)
- CON bonus to death saving throws
Haldrik wrote:
kill_the_wiz_first wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
kill_the_wiz_first wrote:
Haldrik wrote:
Domains could as easily represent ancient philosophical schools - Epicurean, Stoic, (neo)Platonic, Pythagorean, etc. - as they do specific deities, but everyone has her breaking point when it comes to system demands. I imagine the PHB has more advice regarding Cleric domains, but I'm not banking on the DMG doing much beyond that. For most people - not all, obviously - that should be enough to create the milieu they're hoping to DM/play in.
StroggTheEel wrote: