I have to start by saying that i am having a blast running the playtest, I have a test group of eight so far, composed of four "newschool" players and four "oldschool" players on another day. This is some of the feedback I am receving so far.
They enjoy the new character creation scheme with backgrounds, specialities, wizard traditions etc.
They view word of power as "yet another way to make a fighter obsolete." and I agree, when the cleric can both heal and attack in the same turn, why not just add another cleric to the party instead of a fighter? We are no longer using Word of Power in our games.
Barbarians: Why play anything else? The new Barbarian is vastly over powered, my players were not impressed, I would like to offer advice on how to correct it but it requires further study. Offhand however, I would say Barbarian's should not recieve Martial Damage Dice,
MDD should be exclusive to the Fighter Class. (will Playtest and report back)
The new healing system (ie short rest) greatly reduces long term quest challenge, we intend to modify Healing Kits to provide far less uses and see how that works. 20 uses per healing kit is a bit much.
House Rule Healing:
A Healing kit provides 10 HD of healing.
Short Rest
For each hour of rest the character may heal 1 HD + (Con), a healing kit is required.
Long Rest
At the end of a Long Rest you regain all of your Hit Points if a Heal DC:12 is performed (DC:14 if Bloodied) and 1 HD, if the Healing test fails you only regain a number of HP equal to your Con Modifier. This check uses 1HD from the Healing Kit.
