My overwhelming impression and criticism? Everyone is a spell caster.

"Drop the 4e powers, guys. They weren't popular, just give everyone MAGIC!"

Everyone now has spells or powers. (Rogue "Blindsense". Really? Really?? Gamist BS "My spidey sense is rolling initiative...") I know you can probably "turn it all off" and play a low magic setting with it, but I can only imagine the self-entitled butt hurt coming from players whose expectations do not marry with that idea.

This, for me is the biggest disappointment coming from reading the system.

Classes that can cast spells:
Bards
Clerics
Druids
Paladins
Rangers
Sorcerers
Warlocks
Wizards

Classes that can't cast spells:
Barbarian (no, wait... Spirit Seeker has rituals)
Fighter
Monk (no, wait... they have Ki magical energy)
Rogue

Not a spell caster edition though. No.

Rogues have the arcane trickster option and Fighters have eldritch knight.  Both are very much spellcasters.

Quote from: Necrozius;783438I wonder if it would "break" the game to allow just about any spell to be cast as a ritual, if it made sense? I just really like that idea...

No especially if you limit it to prepared spells and not the spellbook.

I wrote up my campaign house rules as the Majestic Wilderlands in 2009. The supplement was for Swords and Wizardry a OD&D clone.

Among other things spell casting classes can cast any spell they have in a spell book or know as a 10 minute ritual. For a cost of 10 sp times the spell level squared. You had to keep track of the amount of ritual components you had, in sp. In the supplement I explained that you can make this GP instead. A ritual components weighed 1 pound per 100 GP/sp worth.

In combat time it didn't make a difference.

Dungeon crawling/exploration time rated in turn it was useful especially for clerical healing. Except there was some tension with trying to get everybody healed while I am rolling for wandering monsters. Players also used it to cast the various detection spells.

For overland travel in days it amounted to 5e's long rest when there was a cleric in the party.

The net effect is that it gave a slightly higher magic feel to my campaign than straight Swords & Wizardry. There is still resource juggling with limited components. Utility spells got cast a lot more. Once in a blue moon a combat spell got cast as a ritual.

I see no reason why the effect wouldn't be similar in 5e.

One thing I was pleased with that my adoption of the ritual system for OD&D explained nicely why Chanmail wizards had unlimited fireballs and lightning bolts.

Quote from: estar;783623

Quote from: Necrozius;783438I wonder if it would "break" the game to allow just about any spell to be cast as a ritual, if it made sense? I just really like that idea...

No especially if you limit it to prepared spells and not the spellbook.

The one area where that would lead to trouble is the Warlock with Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets Invocation. (I must know, since that is the one mechanical bit I have been ogling the most since I got my PHB, and would be the one I would be most eager to play... )
When it gets limited to spells actually known, and both the pact and the invocation becomes practically useless.

Quote from: The Butcher;783555Here's another minor peeve. Subclass names. Especially the Fighter's.

Battle Master sounds like a He-Man supporting character whose toy no one bought and now somewhere in Mexico there's a whole landfill of Battle Master action figures, like the old E.T. Atari game. I'd use Warlord or Marshal.

Champion is, um, okay, I guess; I mean, I wish I could do better, but I can't think of anything right now for the go-getter, front-line, die-with-your-boots-on Fighter ("Meat Shield" doesn't sound terribly tempting as far as class choices go).

Eldricht Knight is a mouthful, and because of the overuse of "eldricht horror" to describe Mythos beasties, makes me think of a suit of armor with an icky tentacled sanity-blasting alien monster inside. Which would be a cool monster, BTW. Is anyone writing this down? Anyway, I'd use Swordmage. Yeah, it's one of these agglutinative nouns from 4e people might hate but I'm fine with it. Again, it's no frills and crystal clear.

I can get irritated by words. It's not really a big deal, but the 'Sharpshooter' Feat feels misnamed to me.  -5 to hit, +10 damage, no extra aiming or anything.
I though sharpshooters were more accurate, not less. And may even take time to aim.

The beast master ranger's need to use her action to make the animal companion attack is going to be a serious let down for a lot of players when they start reading the class they were initially eager to play. It's one of the gamy-est things left in 5e so far, and is problematic when you have to think about hirelings and mundane trained animals - why don't they need action commands to do basic things like attack?

Still, I'm not convinced the class feature is actually bad. Yeah it compares poorly to animal summoning spells, but if you compare it to the 3rd level fighter champion ability to improve crits (which the animal companion was designed to be equivalent to in power) it actually looks pretty good and creates a lot of tactical considerations. Stick the pet next to ranged attackers and spellcasters for example.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;783649The beast master ranger's need to use her action to make the animal companion attack is going to be a serious let down for a lot of players when they start reading the class they were initially eager to play. It's one of the gamy-est things left in 5e so far, and is problematic when you have to think about hirelings and mundane trained animals - why don't they need action commands to do basic things like attack?

Still, I'm not convinced the class feature is actually bad. Yeah it compares poorly to animal summoning spells, but if you compare it to the 3rd level fighter champion ability to improve crits (which the animal companion was designed to be equivalent to in power) it actually looks pretty good and creates a lot of tactical considerations. Stick the pet next to ranged attackers and spellcasters for example.

I don't have a feel for how this will work in 5E yet, but one of the things a detest about 3X/Pathfinder is overly powerful, and overly numerous summons, companions, etc...

So I hope 5E handles it more to my preferences.

4E tried to handle that but went too far and kinda gimped companions and summons.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;783649The beast master ranger's need to use her action to make the animal companion attack is going to be a serious let down for a lot of players when they start reading the class they were initially eager to play. It's one of the gamy-est things left in 5e so far, and is problematic when you have to think about hirelings and mundane trained animals - why don't they need action commands to do basic things like attack?

Still, I'm not convinced the class feature is actually bad. Yeah it compares poorly to animal summoning spells, but if you compare it to the 3rd level fighter champion ability to improve crits (which the animal companion was designed to be equivalent to in power) it actually looks pretty good and creates a lot of tactical considerations. Stick the pet next to ranged attackers and spellcasters for example.

Of everything in 5e so far, Ranger Beast-Masters seems to be the least thought out.

There is no way to get some of the obvious iconic creatures (Bear, Tiger) at all, which seems made to disappoint people, and the having to give up your action thing just seems a bad deal compared to paying a henchman.

You may well be better of buying a war-trained Bear, and being a Fighter (Battle Master) with the Animal Handling skill - which can't be right.

Quote from: jadrax;783656You may well be better of buying a war-trained Bear, and being a Fighter (Battle Master) with the Animal Handling skill - which can't be right.

Real pros hire Commoner Henchmen for 2sp per day - with Club +2 (1d4) some of them are bound to get through the Armor Class eventually, and probably won't live to actually see payday.

And not forget the Paladin of the Ancient Oath once he gains the Find Steed spell. One character concept that immediately popped into my head was a Gnomish Hide-clad Princess Mononoke rip-off that rides on a wolf into battle

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;783620Everyone now has spells or powers. (Rogue "Blindsense". Really? Really?? Gamist BS "My spidey sense is rolling initiative...") I know you can probably "turn it all off" and play a low magic setting with it, but I can only imagine the self-entitled butt hurt coming from players whose expectations do not marry with that idea.

Why would you try to run a low magic, low-powered game without getting players onboard first? Contradicting expectations is a legitimate complaint if you sell a campaign as by-the-book 5E and then pull a bait-and-switch, it's down to the GM to control expectations from the get-go by being clear about what they're going for.

Quote from: Warthur;783674Why would you try to run a low magic, low-powered game without getting players onboard first?

I didn't take him as meaning that at all, no bait n switch... just that running that sort of game is going against the expectations and desires of a lot of DnD Players... to where you WILL have to warn them going in... and maybe not get any Players at all.
Same as I expect you'll have to if you claim you're running DnD but only intend to use Basic with the optional bits turned off. Still RAW... but 'What? NO FEATS?!!!"
I kind of expect the norm of 5e will be to assume all optional bits are turned on.

Quote from: Skyrock;783629The one area where that would lead to trouble is the Warlock with Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets Invocation. (I must know, since that is the one mechanical bit I have been ogling the most since I got my PHB, and would be the one I would be most eager to play... )
When it gets limited to spells actually known, and both the pact and the invocation becomes practically useless.

With the Book of Ancient Secrets I would just allow any spell to be copied in there and they can only be cast as rituals. The key again to my Majestic Wilderlands that rituals take ten minutes and require a cost in components.

My suggestion is for a referee who wants a more liberal selection of rituals but restrict them further from what I do for the Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: Simlasa;783689I didn't take him as meaning that at all, no bait n switch... just that running that sort of game is going against the expectations and desires of a lot of DnD Players... to where you WILL have to warn them going in... and maybe not get any Players at all.
Same as I expect you'll have to if you claim you're running DnD but only intend to use Basic with the optional bits turned off. Still RAW... but 'What? NO FEATS?!!!"
I kind of expect the norm of 5e will be to assume all optional bits are turned on.

This.

Playing it real low-key and having someone turn up on game night ready to have all the bells and whistles, even after going over it all. (hypotheticals etc)

All that being said, I still want to own the PHB, MM and DMG for the sake of having them. Weird.

Ok. Probably not so much a criticism as just me missing something simple...

But WHERE are the Skill Proficiencies actually described in the PHB???

Quote from: Omega;783942Ok. Probably not so much a criticism as just me missing something simple...

But WHERE are the Skill Proficiencies actually described in the PHB???

Under the Abilities, starting on page 175.