Just had a quick look at the new package. I'm going to go through it in more detail and post a full review later, but thought I'd just give my first impressions.
First Imperssions
The Good
--Nice layouts.
--I like the term ‘bonus action’.
--Death saving throws are an easy and elegant addition to the problem of dying.
The Bad
--The Basic rules need a table of contents.
--The critical rules, instant death rules and low hit points mean lower levels are almost certainly going to be swingy games of rocket tag. Lower levels will, counterintuitively, be harder to survive than higher.
--Death saving throws should be influenced by Constitution.
--I do not like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic, for a wide range of reasons, but primarily because it does not stack.
--Allowing the breaking of a move action to allow an attack action between parts of the move is a recipe for abuse. Apparently, you can move through a hostile creature’s reach without provoking opportunity attacks; only leaving the reach provokes.
--Dex is to be used not just for attacks with ranged and finesse weapons, but also for damage. I worry that finesse fighters will be superior to Strength fighters.
--Cone/cube/cylinder rules. These are not going to be easy for many players to picture in their minds, and even harder to measure out without a grid.
--Spell scaling for spells like Burning Hands, Chain Lightining, etc. is back in, though toned down a bit. A Fireball by default is now 8d6, and scales higher even after that? I worry that we are returning to caster dominance at high levels, but since I have to keep this post positive, I'll say, 'Yay! A return to caster dominance.'
--The designers idea of making fighters do more is mostly to have them attack more frequently.
--Weapons and armor are extremely... well, I would call it uninteresting, but since I have to be positive, I will say 'simple!', with many having essentially duplicate statistics and some clear trap choices. Why choose a trident when you can use a spear?
--Some weapons don't seem to really make sense. In real life, a Halberd can do much more damage than a greatsword, due to physics
--Interrupted long rests should not force characters to start from the beginning. If I rest for four hours and then am awakened for an hour, I do not need to sleep for 8 more hours to be fully rested. 4 should be enough.
--In regards to downtime training, is anyone seriously going to spend 250 days training? How many campaigns last more than 250 days?
--The Basic rules need a table of contents.
Quick point... This doc is going to change multiple times over the rest of the year and the page count will be fluid. As someone who has done book layout, it would be a major pain in the a$$ to edit a detailed ToC that frequently. There are quick chapter links in the PDF menu. I expect we will see improvements in this area in the future...
quindia wrote:
Needs monsters. That is all.
Hurin88 wrote:
Finger of Death = endless army of zombies!
ankiyavon wrote:
I did'nt see any mention of traps or how to disarm them. odd thing to leave out.
Hurin88 wrote:
.
Hurin88 wrote:
Minor gripes:
- Don't like how the light armors came. Once you can rub 50 gp together, there is only one useful option out of the three. Plus leather armor is iconic, shame to have it suck...
- One handed quarter staffs
- Trident = hard to use spear
Magi_theKid wrote:
Hurin88 wrote:
Ravenarchon wrote:
Hurin88 wrote:
I'm pretty darn impressed. There wasn't much I didn't like. I give it a big thumbs up. Can't wait to get a chance to run it!
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Hurin88 wrote:
I like most of what I see so far. The Dream spells seems really interesting. I don't remember that being there. I also like that spare the dying stabilizes, but it really has way to many restrictions on it now. I also like
Edit: I like that they increased the rogue hp to d8 ( I can't remember if it got increased during the playtest or not.)
Azzy1974 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
they nerfed prestidigitation, now no more invisible arrows 
ankiyavon wrote:
Emanuele_Galletto wrote:
If you don't like the level up system don't use it.
Back in the old days alot of Dm's I knew either has them level in town or just had them level at the end of the night.
Usually all xp was handed out at the end of the session and the leveling ws done thenwith the only time a trainer being needed was for change of class.
I hear the word "realistic" alot and I find it odd that such a term being thrown around in a game that is not tethered in reality just make the changes you want and go with the flow
As to my *very first* impression - I love how it started out listing many of the various sourcebooks of the 'multiverse' and saying how they are all valid, and not catering to a single world view.
I'm a AD&D1e fanboy, and while that's not going to change, I think this new version is awesome and can't wait to try it out. I like it enough that I preordered two copies of each book.
It's funny hearing people talk about how 'this' or 'that' was nerfed, because I'm thinking that everything is more powerful than it needs to be and becoming unstoppable is too easy. Though, that's understandable since they're trying to appeal to everyone from the Conan style of 'original' to the Warcraft style of 4e - they're no doubt trying to find the middle ground between all of us.
All in all, I'm really stoked by this edition - as it truly seems not only like a legitimate heir, but a *worthy* heir, to AD&D.
Chakrum wrote:
Some of my first impressions (this is based on changes I've noticed since the playtest, not the edition overall):
Likes:
- Each class gives you a choice of two or more skills now.
- The classes seem to be really well balanced now. It seems to me that playing a rogue or fighter will be just as much fun as a cleric or wizard.
- Disengage now just makes it so you don't provoke opportunity attacks, instead of providing extra movement.
- I like the death rules.
- I like all of the background personality traits, trinkets, etc. They add alot of flavor to characters.
- Casters get up to two 6th and 7th level spells per day now, and casters actually gain spell slots after 17th level. They were dead levels before.
- The broken spells (haste, spare the dying, etc) have been fixed.
- The way they changed many of the spells so that they better scale, and how they added scaling options to several of the non-damaging spells, like hold person, dominate and invisibility. Meteor Swarm is actually worthy of being a 9th level spell now, etc. I look forward to trying out a blaster wizard now.
- I like the change to the evoker's overchannel ability that lets him maximize his spells by taking damage.
- Casters no longer need an implement to get their proficiency bonus on spell attacks and save DCs.
- Rogue sneak attack scales much better now.
- No more damage-on-a-miss. I like the "brutal" rerolling of 1s and 2s better, anyway. And we can now be spared of endless forum arguments over DoaM.
Dislikes (more like minor nitpicks, since I haven't noticed anything yet that I strongly dislike):
- Tool proficiencies are still a thing. I would have liked it better if they had just been skills (i.e. herablism instead of herb kit, etc.). Not a big deal, though.
- Potent cantrip does nothing. Oops!
- Antimagic Field, Astral Projection and Gate were taken away from wizards for no explicable reason. Wizards have zero planar travel options now. I can live with losing the other two spells, but gate? Ripping open portals to other planes, sometimes letting nasty demons or worse things escape, is a classic wizard thing, IMO.
- Silence is still effectively a 2nd level anti-magic field, especially since there is no way that I have seen for people to remove the V component from their spells (i.e. no silent spell metamagic).
- They went out of their way to glorify Drizzt as the only good drow, ever.
Overall, the game definitely feels alot more polished now. It's definitely my favorite edition of the game yet!
FallingIcicle wrote:
I have to say that after giving it a good once over I am very impressed. I spent considerable time reading over spells and think they did a great job. I'm excited to get in and start getting my hands dirty.
I like that they used Tika Waylan from Dragonlance as one of the examples, so it's not all FR stuff.
pukunui wrote:
I've always had a soft spot for Tika too.
my first impression
a little prologue:
I've played DnD BECMI + RC, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e. I never cared for class-balance, or min/maxing, and luckily neither did (most of) my players. Truth be told, less/simpler rules is better for me.
What we mostly cared for was a nice game, with a cool story to tell (this is the reason 2e with all his campaign settings, and Eberron for 3.5 are my personal favourite editions to date).
We have played and enjoyed all these editions of the game, and we probably played it so "care-free" that we never noticed the "linear-fighter / quadratic-wizards, whatever that means" issues that so often I read about in the forums. We probably played it "wrong" most of the times, with our wizards mostly been blasters... At least it was fun... 
what I was expecting:
I think I was expecting 3.5 light, something like Castles & Crusades, no feats, no list of skills. Then the "modules" would have added these things in, and those that liked them would have used them.
and finally, the first impression (ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY A PERSONAL OPINION OF SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A GAME-DESIGNER AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE):
Maybe I was so hyped, that it was just impossible to be satisfied, but I'm a little underwhelmed.
I don't know if this is heresy, but the classes look to me more complicated than any other edition.
Class Features are all over the place, Ability Improvements & Features Improvments look randomly placed and I had to read spell memorization two times to get it (eh, maybe I'm just dumb like that).
I don't know, maybe I thought the "basic" would be more streamlined, and then modules would have added all the rest (the class features for example).
Even looking at the pregen char sheet from the starter set, there seems to be a lot going on on the sheet. Too much.
I hope you don't tag me for a super-grognard, I will actually say that the level 1 char-sheet of 4e looked to me clearer than this latest ones. Though maybe if you like 4e you're also a grognard these days. Welcome to the fold!
Aw well, hopefully playing at the table will prove me wrong, I promised the local game store I would DM Adventurers League, so we'll see.
cheers
docdoom77 wrote:
Well, they're very honest about the casters being more important than the muggles, that's for sure. Should appeal to the Harry Potter generation.
Edit: A further thought, this is a game that's written as if 3e and 4e never happened. 4e because they've decided to retreat in panic from it's mechanics, 3e because they've seen what went wrong with that and pretended it won't happen again even if they do similar things.
The thing I want to nitpick on is the starvation rules.
So, you need 1 pound of food a day. Sure, that's an easy number, I can buy that.
You start starving if you go more than 3+Con mod days without food. You can eat a 1/2 pound of food to slow that time by half.
Eating 1 pound of food (a full day) resets your timer to 0. So, you can eat 1/2 a pound of food a day for 6 days without penalty (3 pounds total), or you cold eat 1 pound of food every 4 days, 3 times, and not suffer a penalty for 15 days.
That's incongruent. Why even have the 1/2 rule if you can just eat 1 pound of food every few days?
Xeviat-DM wrote:
I don't know if I have understood correctly the "Dueling" Combat Style: does it mean that you get the +2 bonus to damage if you are fighting using just one melee weapon, but you have at the same time, for instance, a shield on the other hand?
Thanks everybody! 
Polaris wrote:
Xeviat-DM wrote:
Fenn_Grunberg wrote:
Polaris wrote:
Initial Impressions:
Low HPs at 1st level brings things back to Rocket-Tag standings where characters can quite easily drop before they ever get to act. (Easy to fix, mind you, but RAW impression)
Starvation rules (As Polaris Stated above instead of copying/retyping)
Fighters are still boring, basically can't give them anything interesting to do, just let them hit more often possibly, and give them more stat bumps than everyone else (definitely not for that)
Consistent Proficiency Bonus for everyone I think is kinda lame, especially starting everyone at +2, Casters should have a higher Casting Proficiency bonus scale, while Non-aster types have a higher weapon/skill proficiency bonus.
I still prefer NADs over Saving Throws (very easy to houserule, but just giving My RAW impression)
Not Sure about:
Encounter Building based on CR appears to be the same as it was based on Level really, just using the term CR in place of Level for Monsters, at least that's My impression, if so, I think they went the wrong way and Encounter Building should be modelled after 4e D&D, that was truly the best Encounter Building guidelines ever released, and if you add in advice on encounter breakdowns based on how difficult/what style of campaign your going for, even better.
ie:
Basic Encounter Breakdown:
15% of Encounters Easy (Avg Char Level - 1 or more)
50% of Encounters Normal (Avg Char Level to Lv+1 challenge)
15% of Encounters Difficult (Avg Char Lv+2 to Lv+3 Challenge)
15% of Encounters Hard (Special Circumstances needed, or Avg Char Lv+4)
5% of Encounters Very Hard/Boss (Avg Char Lv+5 or more) where running away or alternative to combat is the recommended response
Again, just My initial impressions.
Delazar78 wrote:
So far, my initial impression is that this thing is wonderful!
"Trap choices?"
What the hell does that even mean?
I swear, it seems like some people think the numbers attached to a piece of equipment is the only reason to ever take it. I just can't see the fun in such a dreary outlook on the game!
WhiteHarness wrote:
Gunthar wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Hurin88 wrote:
LupusRegalis wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
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Hurin88 wrote:
I think the only disconnect for me is the time scale.
250 days to train, uninterrupted. So our proffessional adventurers need a little over 8 months of time off, with nothing exciting or important happening. That seems to be a little odd when most games have maruading hordes, evil tyrants, ect.
Also, you know, going on adventures is their primary form of income, how often do you take eight months off work?
I also agree the food and starvation stuff is odd.
But this is all stuff that is easy enough to handwave if you need to
Chaosmancer wrote:
I really don't understand why people have a problem with the rapid passing of time in game.
We usually use forums and emails to resolve down time actions anyway. I've even had entire years pass in my games and no one seems to complain.
Chaosmancer wrote:
I've already decided that on advantage and disadvantage that I'd adjudicate the net effect. In some cases they might cancel if I feel both sources are of relative merit. If I feel the advantage is more important then I'll keep advantage and the same for disadvantage.
Chaosmancer wrote:
spelley wrote:
Orethalion wrote: