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I just had a play with the latest rules.

This week the party had

Dwarf cleric (stormcaller)
Halfling cleric (Trickster)
Human Fighter (Archer)

with the dwarf fighter (veteran) and the high elf wizard (battle) being away.

For the first time, my character seem to be really challenged. they battle with 3 before and even then an orge against three level 1 only knocked one out.

They found 2 griffons, and they barely killed them.

They found a cave of 10 monkeys and they had nearly failed (compared to last week when twenty pirates was done in four rounds).

Plus finally, the awesomeness. A random encounter against a Roc.

They had no chance, so they ran. A party ran, most of these people started with 4e and the fact that they knew they had to run in this new open adventure style, of the mind game means i am pleased they actually feel challengedand have to be clever.

The roc grabbed the very unstealthy dwarf and carried him into the air, he cast cause fear, the halfing cast command "drop" and he hit the ground but lived. and the fear let him live.

I attribute this level of challenge to

lower attack bonuses: compared to previous iterations they now are lucky to hit half the times as opposed to our archer who use to only miss on a 3 or less against a human archer.

Spells, the removal of signature spells now means spells are more powerful but not a constant thing. so people still must decide if it is worth it. also the fact that spells now have flavour is also and can be used to roleplay so much.

so keep up the good work, the monster math is closer than it ever was before with the lower attack bonus. which means, my party no longer complains they found a +1 longsword because it not an warhammer. they take it and they are glad for it.

I would agree with this.  In my playtesting, the party has come close to death a few times, but never completely dead.  They used all of their resources and skills to make it through.

Jan 1, 2013 -- 11:13PM, Aurok wrote:

I have a party that is great at using player skill and cleverness, rather on on-sheet resources, and I'm very glad that the emphasis has remained on creativity.  What I noticed most about the new playtest was not having to go off the rule book to account for what my players or monsters were doing; they felt really competent and typically had a skil or feat or feature that made what they wanted to do easier.  Everyone agreed it was the smoothest flowing edition of D&D we've ever played.

i agree with that, the party also dealt with 13 hobgoblins back in level 1 by forming a bottle neck. they used every single spell and potions and one had to just dodge to live.

creativity is awesome, our archer is like batman, she carries  caltrops, ball bearings, acid, and hunting traps and she uses them to great effect. not to mention, our halfling got crushed by a falling griffon and used soap to get advantage to get out from underneath. awesome.