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After tweaking some characters to fit into the changed rules, we began where we left off. The party discovered most of the secret doors in the dungeon thanks to successful spot checks, and found the undead drow "king", from whom they managed to get the crown from by paying him with 90 gp in compensation (the price was originally 300 gp, to which they managed to make him agree to by making hard persuasion checks, and managed to make him agree to a lower price by a nigh-impossible deception check). I gave them XP for good role-playing, and they leveled up. The party, after returning to town, decided to tackle the Ogremoch's Bane quest. They have yet to encounter meaningful threats in terms of combat. The skill die mechanic, while nice, sometimes seems a little too swingy, and I think there should be an option that lets you use a fixed bonus. I am wholly in support of making magic missile a first-level spell instead of a cantrip by default, but having a watered down version as a cantrip you could only take with approval by the DM would be nice. Also, wizards shouldn't have a limit other than spell slots on the number of spells they prepare.

I finally managed to get a group of people, albeit ones who are very new to tabletop roleplaying, together to test the playtest materials, using the reclaiming Blingdenstone adventure:

Characters:

Name: Z. (Real name unkown)
Race: Wood Elf
Class: Fighter (Archer)
Background: Spy
Specialty: Magic-User

Name: Rebecca
Race: Human (I tweaked the race to give an extra feat at level 1, since, surprisingly, the "+2 to one, +1 to all others" ability adjustment, by itself, is pretty weak)
Class: Sorceror
Background: Commoner
Specialty: Necromancer

Name: Gemlin
Race: Hill Dwarf
Class: Fighter (Protector)
Background: Bounty Hunter (also, Z's contact)
Specialty: Survivor

Name: Hamza
Race: Wood Elf
Class: Cleric of Pelor (Sun)
Background: Noble
Specialty: Archer

First of all, character creation was great in that it took up a lot less time than previous editions.

We established that Gemlin was already in Blingdenstone, gathering information. When the other characters arrived, I told them that they knew thay Blingdenstone's further reaches were infested with orcs, kobolds and purple worms, an unkown terror (Ogremoch's Bane) lurked in in the furthest reaches of the caverns, and that Burrow Warden Kargien might have work for them. After being given the quest of retrieving the crown from the House Center, the players agreed to do that first. They dispatched the zombies and fire beetles easily with magic missiles and weaponry, and sprinted through the guard post before the portcullises fell by making successful dexterity checks.

==END OF SESSION 1==

Up until now, I like the current system. The combat, being short due to low HP, doesn't get in the way of the story, although more combat-oriented campaigns would benefit from WotC making rule modules for high HP campaigns ("multiply base HP and base HP gained every by 3, and multiply monster HP by 3" would suffice, and, on the flipside, there could be rule modules for wounds, limb loss, etc.). Advantage/Disadvantage is a nice mechanic since the DM can give it out easily.

In my opinion, rangers should have the option between choosing to specialize in a type of biome (underground, forest, etc.) and gain physical benefits, such as skill training, ability to ignore difficult terrain related to your biome, etc. or be able to use ritual magic from arcane, divine or primal power sources.

I think rangers should still also get a fighting style. For example, a two blade ranger gains feats from the dual wielder specialty as bonus feats, along with other benefits, such as being able to take disadvantage on each attack in exchange for full damage on each one while benefiting from two weapon fighting, while archer rangers gain bonus feats from the archer specialty, and gain exclusive benefits too.

I think spells will be divided according to their power sources, or the main caster class of their source, excluding psionic abilities. So they'll probably be divided into arcane (AKA Wizard), Divine (AKA Cleric), Primal (AKA Druid) spells and psionic abilities.

Psionics should be optional rules, implemented as a feat which grants you psionics when you first take it, and gives you more powers as you take it multiple times, and supplemented by metapsionic feats, and be based around power-points. I think psionic abilities should be divided into minor abilities, which function like minor spells, lesser abilities, which require power points equal to their level, and greater abilities, which require power points equal to twice their level.

Example idea:
A fighter takes the aforementioned psionic feat and gains power points equal to his highest mental ability score, adding 2 every time he gains a level. He gains a number of psionic abilities equal to his highest mental ability score modifier, none of which can be of a higher level than him.