Okay, this options chapter is full of more happiness for me than a grab bag of minis.
Gritty Realism probably isn't good for the precon campaigns that my current GM is running, because the encounters are balanced assuming typical short/long rest times, but Slow Natural Healing (spend HD to heal at the end of a long rest), and Healer's Kit Dependency (can't spend HD to heal in a short rest without expending a healer's kit charge) would work great.
What I'm liking a lot (and not just because I'm playing a halfling using a finesse weapon!) is the Initiative Score (where you don't roll, but Init is 10+Dex mod+other mods) and Speed Factor (where your initiative is modified on Action, like casting a spell is -Spell Level, Light/Finesse weapons give +2, and Gargantuan inflicts a -8 penalty). Combining the two of them would allow for faster combats that still give variables based on action. Injuries and Massive Damage are also pretty good too.
You've gotta love the options sections in all the books. They do a great deal to let you customize your game. However, house rules can still mean a great deal in fixing up the little kinks you find, here and there, that just don't quite mesh with what you want.
I'm loving 5e, even after the rough change from 3.5. Some assorted observations:
- The Fighter isn't as front loaded as it once was, though you don't spend high levels as a walking piece of partial cover either.
Cantrips allow spellcasters to contribute consistently while keeping the good stuff under control.
Healing is easy, which lets the cleric be something other than a walking first aid kit. It sucked spending a campaign unable to cast any spells because I'd need to heal someone instead.
Easy healing is balanced against the reduced number of defensive spells. You can't stack advantage or resistance to the point of invulnerability, so you will be taking your licks in a fight.
Trading stat growth for feats can be slightly unbalanced by the hard cap on stats. Losing out on a point of strength doesn't mean much to someone with a 19 in the first place.
Charged items are much more reasonable now. Limited charges that restore over time gives you an incentive to be judicious in you use, but not terrified that you'll run out. On the flip side you can use your toy safely, but you can't fight an army with a single Wand of Fireball.
The change to spellcasting allows utility spells to show up much more often. Your lose nothing by preparing Locate Object now that it isn't tying up a specific slot.
The setup for allowing healers in general to do more than heal is nice, but I do agree with a lot of the sentiment that healing gets
too easy in the majority of D&D 5e. I'm a HUGE advocate of the "Gritty Realism" Rules.
Also . . . ritual casting . . . dear God does that allow utility spells to come to the forefront like crazy. I've never been more happy to see a Bard taking
Leomund's Tiny Hut to keep the party safe during their nightly rests; and that's just one example among many.
The number of skills and skill points in 3.5 was ridiculous and unwieldy. I much prefer the less cumbersome solution in 5e to skills.
Character generation, 5e all the way. Generation, mind you, not progression. Generation in 5e consists of race (and potentially sub-race), attributes, class, a couple classes have extra skill proficiencies to pick, and a couple classes pick sub-classes at first level. I can sit down someone new to the game and walk them through generating a character in six dice rolls and twenty minutes.
Right with you, there. Honestly, Pathfinder didn't help any, either. Yeah, Pathfinder condensed a great deal of skill together (that needed it, by the way; and I house-ruled similar stuff for 3.5), but when you're having skills reach a +30 skill rating (with item boosts) then what's the point, anymore. You've got to have difficulties of 40+ to mean anything, and the core stats don't mean much when the skill rating is 4-5 times the stat boost a person will have.
At least in 5e a fighter who came from a criminal background and has thieves tools doesn't become utterly useless for such a task, as just one example. Also, someone who has a really high natural Wisdom, but isn't proficient in Insight, isn't utterly dense about what's going on around them.
I like how Pathfinder tightened up in some redundant, perception-related 3.5 skills like notice / hear / smell / dowse and other perception-type skills - there were too many skills. However, 5E took out a lot of knowledge, craft, profession, and interaction skills that had ended many roleplaying situation arguments in my group. It's been frustrating to lose that quantification of PCs' knowledge and abilities in 5E.
Backgrounds: perfect example of 5E's unnecessary separation of rules that bugs me about 5E character generation. Instead of handling them as feats, the way 3.5 and Pathfinder handled many character aspects, 5E separates backgrounds into their own set of rules.
In reality, if you look at what knowledge skills cover, most of the redundant stuff was covered (all the creature type knowledge skills are now put under their respective affiliations: Undead-Religion, Animal/Monstrosity-Nature, Oozes/Dragons/Abberations-Arcana, etc.). Now, I did house rule two knowledge skills back in, but I felt History didn't adequately cover Politics (politics covering generic appraisals, customs, cultures, etiquette, etc.), and I tacked in Cryptology to go into some of the more obscure things out there (covering things like dungeoneering, patterns, riddles, etc.). Regardless, most everything is covered by the skills that you have, by default.
As far as crafts and whatnot, that's what tools are, now. They cover a much broader array of things to be taken into consideration. Now, if you want players to be as good at something as an NPC would be, then that's what Expertise is for, as far as I'm concerned. Only Rogues and Bards spend enough time outside the whole adventuring/combat gigs to really learn trades or skills like a professional expert in the NPC world.
On the other hand, you still have all the social skills you need.
Persuasion covers
Diplomacy/Haggling/Debating, while
Deception covers
Manipulation/Seduction/Conning/Lying, and
Insight prevents people from getting duped, and acts as the
Sense Motive of 5e and the "Social Will Save" of 3.5 or Pathfinder.
You have a problem with Backgrounds? That's kind of sad, but to each their own. I think they're wonderful additions to bringing a character to life from a concept. Also, the "Background Traits" do a wonderful job of filling in a great deal of the mundane stuff that most parties don't want to deal with (and many GM's for that matter). Just having a "Wanderer" in the group can save a GM and party from having to track rations for mundane trips between locations. At the same time the Peasant "Folk Hero" and the "Sailor/Pirate" gets the group the transportation it needs to make that trip, with no fuss.
