Ok, Laundry and the Dishwasher are both running, so let’s see if I can knock out the Druid quickly.

First off, seriously, why is that elf purple? Not “alabaster tinged with blue”.  Purple. Why are there so many purple characters in this book?

Ahem.

I worry a little bit how much justice I can do to the class before I get to the spell section. Historically, a lot of the uniqueness of the druid could be found in her spells. Without those, she is often just a gimmicky shapeshifter. Still, we’ll see what we can do. I’ve very curious to see if they find a way to handle shapeshifting without the super abstract rules of 4e buth without the bookkeeping of earlier editions.

Before that, I’ll just note that druids cast like Clerics – pray for a certain number of spells, cast N slots per day. They get ritual casting, and they can use a…er…druidic focus as a spellcasting focus. I guess that’s a sickle or something? I have to skip ahead to chapter 5 to check and discover that, no, it’s a sprig of Mistletoe, a totem, a yew wand or an wooden staff. So, ok.

Wild shape (which you get at 2nd level) is, of course, the big question. You get to do it twice per rest, and you can assume a form with a max CR of 1/8th your level (maximum 1, round down, with some limits on things like flying and swimming at lower levels). Notably, I have no idea what that means[1] yet but for examples, a Wolf is CR 1/4, an Crocodile is 1/2 and a Giant Eagle is CR 1.

While shapeshifted, use the animal’s stats, including hit points. Barring situations like getting KO’d in in animal form, you return to your pre-shapeshift HP after a shift, so while it can’t be used for healing per se, it means a shapeshifting druid can stay on her feet a long time. All in all, it’s going to demand that the druid keep a copy of preferred forms on hand for ease of use, but it seems pretty painless. It has nice checks against turning into a 50 hit point mouse or flying at second level, and it explicitly just lets the druid decide what happens to his gear (drop, stays on the new form or merge into the form) which is weird fiction but convenient play.

But the thing is, excepting one or two more things (at level 18 your aging slows down and you can cast spells in animal form, and at level 20 you can wild shape whenever) that’s it. Druid does not have a lot of class abilities. In fact, like the cleric, the druid is hugely defined by her subclass, called a druid circle. The circle is chosen as level 2, grants intro abilities, and then grants more at 6, 10 and 14. Obviously, these circles are a big deal.

For caster druids, the circle of the land is reminiscent of JRPG geomancers, getting extra spells based on terrain types. A druid of the land gets an extra cantrip and recovers a few spell slots on a short rest, if it’s taken in nature. They pick up some of the classic druid abilities like ignoring terrain obstacles, immunity to natural charms and fear (as well as poison and disease) and general friendliness with nature.

They also pick a favored terrain, and expand their prepared spell list with some new spells based on that terrain (much the way a cleric’s domain expands their list). Some of these are pretty badass, and I actually like this hook more than I expected to because it is explicitly to the “land where you became a druid”. In picking a terrain, the players is saying something about their characters history which might be very interesting, especially if the current terrain is far from their home.

The Circle of the Moon is basically for druids who want to shapeshift more and get in fights. They transform faster and into more dangerous creatures, and can burn spell slots to heal while in animal form. Eventually your attack become magical, you can turn into an elemental and you can learn more subtle shapeshifting.

All in all, the druid looks fun, and I could see either circle being a hoot. The shapeshifting looks well designed, and apparently I can turn into a black bear OR a shark at level 4 (level 2, if I go Circle of the Moon), so that seems about right to me.

What seems to be missing is that there is no way to increase the number of times you can wild shape. Until you hit level 20, it’s 2 per rest, that’s it. At first blush, this seems overly restrictive, but as I think about it, I imagine the thinking is that druids should assume a form and stay in it for a while rather than be sort of fey, fluidic shapeshifters. I could see them doing a circle that allowed more shapeshifting, just as they’ve done one to allow more powerful shape shifting, but they definitely would not want the options for both.

Ok, picking up again today with the bard. Like the Gnome, this is another one of those concepts that’s taken a lot of different forms over different editions and stories. It’s been contentious since first edition, so it’s always curious to see which way this jumps. Inspirational? Celtic? Jack of all Trades? Illusionist-y?

They seem to have gone the flexible path, which is a mixed bag. It’s not bad, but by definition, it’s a little bit uninteresting in it’s lack of clear edges. It looks very similar to the 3e bard with a slightly different skill focus. The spell list looks to be a similar mix of wizard and cleric to 3e, and the abilities surrounding music are familiar in concept, if clever in execution.

Bards use the sorcerous model of N spells known, casting a number of spell slots per level. Spell knowledge seems to be intrinsic rather than via a spellbook, and (quite reasonably) bard’s can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus[1]. They can cast ritual magic, which is definitely a plus.

The bard gets 3 skill proficiencies, which is higher than the average 2, but lower than the rogue’s 4. The bard can choose any skill, so there’s flexibility there, but it’s not really enough to say “this is the skill guy”, especially since the bard gets proficiency in no tools, but 3 musical instruments.[2]

The trick that offsets this is a class-defining feature acquired at second level (presumably so it’s not total multiclass bait) called Jack of All Trades which lets bards add half their proficiency bonus to any check they’re not already getting a proficiency for. That’s very broad, but not crazily potent, so I’m curious to see it in action.

That said, the real signature move of the bard is, as it has been in some past incarnations, bardic inspiration, the buff offered to allies. The way it works now is that you can inspire a nearby ally (with music or words) and, effectively, hand them a d6. Any time in the next 10 minutes, they can roll that d6 and add it to a check, even after the roll is made (though before the GM declares the outcome), which uses up the inspiration. A character can only have one inspiration at a time, and the size of the die gets bigger as you level. You can do this a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier (per short rest after level 5).

When I was reading this, I was struck by the idea that if I were playing a bard, I would probably want to buy several really gorgeous d6s – a number equal to my number of uses of inspiration – and physically hand them to people when I use the ability. Because that seemed like the bardic thing to do. However, as I read on and discovered that the die got bigger and that there were other things those inspirations could be used for, that’s when I realized I’d probably want some kind of token (which is in turn where the realization that Campaign Coins were going to rock this hit)

There’s some other fun stuff. Bardic music enhances healing over a short rest, they get enhanced proficiency bonuses with some skills, and can sing countercharms. What’s curious is that the bardic subclass is the college, a very promising choice of term, since it suggests setting elements (organizations of bards and so on). This is kind of given a nod (colleges are loose associations) but the colleges given are a bit generic in that regard. The College of Lore give you more skills and the ability to burn a bardic inspiration to taunt. The college of valor lets you fight better, and lets others use bardic inspiration to increase damage or defense. Curiously, there’s no spellcasting college, but I’m sure that’ll show up in a future supplement.

I am not sure anyone who loves bards is going to be too excited or too disappointed as is. They look solid and fun, and I suspect that with a few more college options, they’ll be able to hit the right notes.

As an aside, this is now the second class, it’s time to look a bit at subclass design. Bardic colleges grant signature abilities at selection (level 3) then extra abilities at 6 and 14. The barbarian’s primal paths grant signature abilities at selection (level 3) and further enhancements at levels 6, 10 and 14. That is a curious discrepancy, so I’m curious to look at other classes through this lens. For context, it’s worth noting that the bard core class gives some great abilities (Expertise, Magical Secrets AND the inspiration die gets bigger) at level 10, while the barbarian gets only the path ability.

Anyway, putting a pin in that, we move on to the cleric, the class I was most curious about. The cleric has never had the conceptual uncertainty that the Bard has been subject to, but implementation has always been the issue. How do you balance healing responsibilities against the desire to do other fun things? And how do you balance spellcasting in such a way that it’s enjoyable but doesn’t break if it gets tuned by specific deities?

5e seems to have decided to address this by doubling down on the gods, and I am TOTALLY good with that. Yes, clerics have baked in spellcasting (pray for N spells, cast N spell slots) which has seen numerous improvements, not the least of which being somewhat more awesome cantrips.

The idea of channeling divinity has also found a new form, though the concept remains the same. Available from second level, the cleric can raise his holy symbol and project the power of her divinity for some effect. The cleric can do those N times per short rest, so this is the Cleric’s currency move. It has a default effect (turning undead) and something based on the cleric’s divine domain (their subclass).

I want to get to the domain, but I want to pause here to call out how they handle this incarnation of turning undead -it’s delightfully simple. Every undead within 30 feet who can see or hear you (yes, every one) makes a wisdom save or runs for it. Turning lasts a minute, and a turned undead can only dash, dodge, and try to escape things that are keeping it from getting away. If the cleric is 5th level and up he can also potentially destroy lesser undead who fail their save – there’s a little chart for it.

I admit, I dig this implementation if only because it is easy to implement. No number crunching or tallying effects, no elaborate subsystem, just normal saves and easily adjudicated effects.

It’s also worth noting that clerics also get an ability at level 10 called “Divine Intervention”, and it’s kind of what it sounds like. The GM pleas to her god and rolls some percentage dice, and if the roll is less than or equal to your level, then the deity intervenes (the meaning of which is up to the GM) and you can’t ask for an intervention for another week. This is kind of delightful, and I can already see it as the basis for many fun war stories.

Oh, and as a bonus? At level 20, it always succeeds. Ponder that.

Ok, so those are the things that all clerics can do, but that is not the interesting part. See everything else that the Cleric class can do is a function of which divine domain (subclass) the cleric picks at first level. This means, among other things, that the range of style and variety among clerics has the potential to be crazily broad[3]

This also means that the domains are potent. Each one is effectively three quarters of a class by itself, so they have a bunch of moves. To contrast with the previous subclasses, the Cleric chooses and gets (big) signature abilities at level 1, and then gets further enhancements at levels 2, 6, 8 and 17. Basically, the subclass defines the class, and for Clerics, that works very well.

We got to see the life domain in the basic rules, and now we have the knowledge, light, nature, tempest, trickery and war domains as well (sadly, no travel). They all expand the cleric’s known spells and grant an array of abilities.

Knowledge gives you extra skills and languages[4], lets you use any tool (if you have time enough to study it), read and influence thoughts, cast spells more potently and eventually read objects and places.

Life, as we’ve seen, get to wear heavy armor and heal a lot. a LOT.

Light lets you throw around flares of light to distract enemies (you can do this a limited number of times, so it introduces a second currency, which I do not dig) and basically blast things with sunlight a lot. Basically, this is 5e’s laser cleric, for better or worse.

Nature gives you a druid cantrip and some outdoorsy skills, heavy armor, the ability to charm animals and plants[5], a passive protection against elemental damage (for you and your party), infuse your weapon with elemental energy and ultimately make your plant an animal minions more potent.

Tempest gets you heavy armor and martial weapons, and has a damage dealign reaction ability (which, like light, has its own annoying currency), you can do extra damage with thunder and lighting, infuse your weapon with lightning and eventually even fly a little. Tempest is weird because for all that, you don’t get lightning bolt as a domain spell for what I can only assume are reasons of tradition (doubly annoying since light gets fireball). Definitely has the means for a good smashy cleric.

Trickery has some predictable stuff – boost stealth, turn invisible and such. it also gets the ability to poison a weapon, which is mechanically identical to the thunder or elemental infusions of the other deities[6] The most interesting (and probably awesome or painful) ability is to send forth an illusionary duplicate which you can use as the origin point of your spells, or to grant you a flanking/distraction bonus in combat. At 17th level you can create 4 of them. This is an ability I can see working very well on a grid, but I’m not sure if it’s going to be rough to adjudicate.

War grants heavy armor and martial weapons (no shock) and a limited number (there’s that secondary currency again) of extra attacks. It also grants attack bonuses (to you and allies), an infused weapon and eventually damage resistance. While mechanically uninteresting, it’s all very solid fighty stuff, which seems apt.

When I first looked over the Life domain, my impression was that if every cleric domain was this cool and interesting, then it would knock my socks off. Now that I’ve seen them, I think I still have at least a little bit of sock left, but they are mostly knocked.

If my passive aggressive asides were not making it clear, I’m not super-excited by the abilities that can be used +WIS times per long rest. The cleric is already tracking channels and spells, so one more thing just seems unnecessary. This is a small gripe, but it bugs me.

I’m also not sure what I think about the level 8 ability, which is basically the same across all domains, with small tweaks and one distinction. If you are a spell-casting kind of domain (knowledge or light) then you get to add your wisdom modifier to cantrip damage (because, presumably, that is your primary attack). For other domains, you get the divine strike ability, which adds damage dice of some type to your weapon attack. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but I’m not sure it requires strict consistency, since it feels like a mismatch with, say, trickery.

So, with the exception of knowledge, none of the domains excited me the way that life had, but they’re still pretty good. I look forward to seeing more domains in the future, but the less formulaic, the better.

All right, break there. We’ll pick up tomorrow with the druid.

Ok, one ground rule on this. If I hit upon a topic that I already covered in the review of the Starter Set or the Basic Rules then I’ll probably gloss over it. No one needs me waxing rhapsodic on the virtues of Advantage/Disadvantage again.

Introduction

Short and sweet, with a lovely preface from Mike Mearls, this hist on most of the core ideas of the game, both mechanically (Dice, Adv/Dis, rounding) and conceptually (the describe environment -> describe action -> narrate result cycle, and the 3 pillars: Exploration, Social Interaction and Combat). There are also passing comments which make it clear that every D&D setting you can think of[1] is in scope, which is nice.

There’s a bit on specific rules beating general ones, which is no shock, but no mention of a general rule for handling bonus stacking. This is an interesting omission, because previous editions needed to have very specific baseline rules to handle stacking abuses. From what I’ve seen, the reason for this omission is that a lot of what previously would have been abusable bonuses is now handled gracefully under the advantage/disadvantage system (which allows no stacking), and that the rest of the cases are largely set up so that stacking won’t be relevant. Still, it’s the sort of thing that leaves me looking for edge cases and qualifiers.

Starting Character Creation

Ok, first off, that art: the painting is lovely, but is that dude a ghost? He’s paying for drinks, so I guess not, but if he’s just an elf, he is an elf of strangely uniform color.

This sets up the procedural basics – Race, then class, then stats, then FABB[2] (Alignment, flaw, bonds & background), then equipment. Core concepts like level, hit dice and hit points are explained, as well as the various methods of stat generation.

There’s nothing wrong with those rules, but there’s a bit of a procedural anomaly here – there are detailed chapters on the other steps (race, class, FABB and equipment) but none for stats. Instead, stat generation is presented in this introductory chapter, which means the procedure as read may seem more like stats, then race, then class, then FABB, then gear. I don’t think this is likely to create any confusion in an experienced player[3] but it’s a little bit weird if you’re going through the book and building your character based on where you find the rules. Of course, the stats rules are short enough that it would probably have been hard to given them their own chapter, so I suspect this is an organizational issue of necessity.

It’s also nice to see the sample character getting made throughout these steps, though the one time I looked to those examples for mechanical clarity (for the money rules) I did not find it.

There is an explicit call out to the tiers of play (1–4, 5–10, 11–16 and 17–20) but, interestingly, those tiers don’t actually get named. As presented, they are general yardsticks for adventure scope (local, kingdom, empire,world) but that’s a bit fuzzy.

I actually assumed that these would be the general “bands” for adventures, in the style of the old AD&D modules (so 5–10 is maybe the new 7–9), but the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure is for characters levels 1–7, so that kind of blows that theory out of the water.

I should note, here, that I liked the concept of tiers in 4e very much, even if they mostly mattered at points where the rest of the game got too cumbersome for me. it feels like they expanded this idea in 5e by adding another step at the bottom. That suggests that a level 1 4e characters feels about like a level 5 5e character, and while that’s not precisely true, it’s not completely off base either. 4e characters just started more badass. And as such, this was probably a good structural choice. But in the absence of names suggests that this may end up being a bit vestigial.

Races

Pretty basic stuff structurally – stat mods, size, move etc. It’s called out that most races have subraces, which we’d already seen, but is still noteworthy.

We start with dwarves, and I love the iconic art. She reminds me of Violet from Rat Queens, so that’s a great reference. Also, it implicitly communicates that dwarven women (and perhaps dwarves as a whole, thank you Varric) need not be bearded, though nothing says they can’t be. There’s just a little bit of color to them (they have clans! and hate boats!) but the description does a nice job of framing dwarven longevity as important, something which is often overshadowed when compared to elves.

Mechanically, we’ve got the Hill Dwarves and Mountain Dwarves from the basic rules. They’re still pretty badass. Mention is made of the Dueregar, but (unlike the drow) they don’t get their own entry.

Folks who know me will realized I utterly cringed when I hit the elf section, as who is the iconic? Frickin Drizzt. And in case you weren’t sure, they actually put his name on the picture, something they do for none of the other character images.

The color is ok, and the wood and high elves are presented as expected, but we also now have rules for drow. And I should add, setting aside my unfondness for Drizzt, this is the first time I’ve been mechanically ok with the drow as presented, partly because this is the first edition of D&D where the sunlight sensitivity has more teeth than two weapon fighting has awesome. Specifically, they call out that the penalty (disadvantage to attacks and perception) applies if the drow or the target is in sunlight, so a deep hood won’t save you.

The popularity of Drizzt also reveals another unpleasant side to it, in the writeup of drow culture. It is so important to the character that he be a rebel that it basically means that there’s no chance for any consideration of adding more nuance to Drow culture than “eeeeeevil”. Of course, the idea that they’d reconsider that without Drizzt is probably purest optimism, so I probably can’t blame him for that. Much.

On to halflings. There has been some sort of decision in the art direction that halflings should have giant heads and spindly legs, and the net result looks a little bit creepy to me. Beyond that, though, they’re basically what we’ve seen.

The iconic human art is pretty badass, and they have actually found an interesting hook in the human color. There’s familiar stuff about ambition (because of short lifespans) but the hook I liked is that the distinctive thing about humans is that they build institutions. That is an interesting and thought provoking hook which makes a lot of pieces of generic fantasyland fall into place. It’s a little weird in the law/chaos sense, but I suspect that can be worked out.

Mechanically, the “Variant Human” rule is kind of neat – instead of +1 to all stats, you can get +1 to 2 stats, one additional skill proficiency and a feat. I have to admit, that’s a pretty amazing deal, and I’d be hard pressed to not take it if I, as a player, got to make those choices. Maybe too good a deal. It strikes me that it’s a great template for cultures in a setting, where each culture gets a different set of selections. That would make it a less overwhelmingly awesome tradeoff. And, hell, I wager that’s how it was intended originally, but cut for space reasons.

After these core races come the “uncommon races”: dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc and tiefling. This is interesting because these weren’t in the basic rules, so I’m curious to see the implementation. It’s also curious to see the implicit priorities that resulted in this list. A number of classic races (gnome, half-breeds) which got pushed out of the core 4e PHB are now back in prominence, along with the two races (tieflings & dragonborn) that had taken their slots. It’s a solid list, and probably covers the best range of races that people will start out interested in. Sure, there will be a few goliath or deva holdouts, but you can be sure they’ll be served in future products.

Anyway, we open with dragonborn, who have a lot of what made them fun in 4e: bonuses to strength and charisma paired with a breath weapon (and damage resistance appropriate to that breath weapon). They seem fun, but the most interesting bit about them is a piece of Dragonlance lore tucked into a sidebar, where they basically say that Draconians are Dragonborn with different magic in lieu of their breath weapon. That’s a significant retcon, but I admit it’s one that feels like it makes a lot of sense to me.

Next came gnomes, and they are always an interesting question, because they’ve never really settled in a niche. Are they more like dwarves, elves or halflings? Are they fae tricksters or crazed tinkerers? There are very strong examples in each direction.

5e solves this contradiction by offering two different gnome subraces. They share the bonus to int and certain saves, but after that, they’re radically different. Forest Gnomes are the fey tricksters, with a bonus to dex, illusion spells and the ability to talk to small animals. Rock Gnomes are artificers, with a con bonus, a proficiency bonus to tinkering and the ability to make small gadgets. I think this may be the biggest difference between two subraces in the game, but it’s probably the most elegant way they could have resolved the issue. So, thumbs up.

As with the dwarves, there’s a mention of deep gnomes, but no actual stats.

The half elf art is a little disappointingly bland, especially since the fiction is about Tanis. It woudl have been nice to see the half elf with a beard. That said, the color goes out of its way to emphasize that half elves are rare and mysterious, which is a nicely tolkein-y way to approach it THe mechanical elements feel a bit right, with some of the human generic flexibility (in stat and skill bumps) and eleven magic (darkvision, resistance to charm, immunity to sleep).

The half orc art is a lot more striking, but it’s very…pink. I think it’s supposed to be greyish (or so the description says)and it’s nice to have non-green orcs, but that particular grey just looks violet. Color wise, they very explicitly tie half orcs to marriages in an attempt to address the most problematic issue surrounding the race[4]. Making lemonade, I suppose.

Mechanically, though? Holy crap. Bonuses to Strength and Con, darkvision, intimidation for free, roll an extra damage die on criticals and, once per long rest, when an attack would drop you to 0hp, drop to 1hp instead. Does that sound terrifying to you? Because that sure sounds terrifying to me.

Not sure why, but the tieflings are purple too. Now, I’m a fan of the old DiTerlizzi tieflings, back when they had no unified appearance and rather all carried some distinctive mark of their infernal heritage. I was not terribly excited when 4e made them a unified race, but I had to acknowledge that the art looked awesome, and the rich red color was really striking. As described, they’re still red, but the example art really undercuts a lot of the goodwill that 4e had earned.

Mechanically, bonuses to intelligence and charisma, darkvision, fire resistance and some intrinsic spellcasting. All fun enough.

All in all, it’s an interesting chapter. Race is definitely designed to carry a lot of mechanical weight, maybe moreso than any other edition[5]. Every race feels like it has a compelling mechanical argument for why its cool, and that’s pretty hot.

Also, it’s very clear where the hooks go in for expansion material. Setting aside the addition of new races (which is a certainty) the ability to add new subraces and build mechanics that hang off the existing races is quite obvious. It is easy to envision a Complete Book of Smallfolk with extra subraces for Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes (including the deep races) as well as other mechanical hooks (feats, class abilities) that are tied into race. You could fill a slim hardcover with that quite trivially.

Which is where the spectre of the license raises its head. These products will exists – the question is whether WOTC will be taking steps to keep them in house, or if they’re going to open it up to third parties.

Classes

To answer the most important question: barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock and wizard. As with the race list, there’s some interesting implicit information with the list. As with the races, the popular favorites that 4e had shuffled off into supplement-land (the barbarian, monk, bard, druid and sorcerer) are back, front and center (at least in part because each class now takes up less page count). 4e’s warlock has returned, but the warlord has not[6]. There is also no sign of psionics, which is probably just as well for the core book.

The barbarian’s place in alphabetical order has historically been a little bit awkward, since it’s not always a great class to showcase the system. 13th Age solved this problem by making it the simplest class, and 5e takes a similar, but not identical, track. There are still fiddly bits, but the Barbarian is really well designed as “the smasher”, which is probably about right.

The “no armor” thing is handled by Barbarian AC being equal to 10 + Dex + Con (+ shield) when unarmored, which is pretty badass[7]. That’s not too unexpected, but the real question was, of course, “how do they handle Rage?”. The answer: pretty damn well.

Basically while raging, you get a bonus to strength checks, (not attacks, at least as I read it), damage and you have resistance to most weapon damage. Rage lasts a minute, and you can do it a few times a day. Notably, there is no downside to raging – it’s just a bit of extra badass. If you take the Primal Path that focuses on rage, then it becomes even more potent but you are exhausted[8] afterwards. Or you can just take the Totem Warrior path and never worry about it. More on that in a minute.

Most of the abilities are just more badass. Extra crit damage (hello half-orcs), more rage, faster movement and so on. That said, there are a few interesting mechanical bits. Reckless Attack" captures all the fiddliness of previous power attack rules in a nice, elegant resolution. Gain advantage on an attack this turn, everyone else gets advantage to attack you this turn. Clean and simple. Indomitable Might* is just clever – if your total for a strength check is less than your strength score, use the strength score instead. Slick way to set a floor on outcomes.

The totem warrior path is neat, but it feels a bit like “we need something that’s not just more rage…what have we got?” It lets you ritually speak with animals, but mostly it lets you choose a totem (bear, eagle or wolf) to gain extra abilities in and out of rage. That they are basically protection, fury and arms is not lost on me.

All in all, the class seems fun, and it gives us a heads up on what’s coming next. Specifically, a lot of the classes have two things in common. First, they have a choice. For the barbarian it’s primal path, for the Bard it’s Bardic College, for the Rogue its Roguish Archetype and so on. These are always called different things, but their general structure is the same – somewhere between levels 1 and 3, a choice is made in the character design which can differentiate it from other characters of the same class. For all intents and purposes, these are subclasses, and I will likely call them such.

The other commonality is a currency. Not every class has these, but most do – it’s a limited resource that recharges under certain conditions and can be used for a variety of things. The Barbarian has the simplest currency in the number of rages, which recharge after a long rest. Monks have Ki, spellcasters have spells (arguably its own thing), Bards have inspirations and spells, and so on. This currency management is something worth paying attention to when picking a class, and is also a reason that 5e is an absolute blessing for Campaign Coins.

Oh, ye gods, I think that’s enough for today. I’ll pick up again later with the Bard.

Ok, the meeting I’ve been prepping for all morning just got postponed so I need a break, so I’m going to start up with the Player’s Handbook. I mentioned on Twitter that I have not opened it yet, but I have strong opinions about it. This is no hyperbole. And to illustrate this, I present you with my review-of-the-PHB-Without-Actually-Opening-it-(except-once-but-I-didn’t-actually-read-anything).

1. Binding

Picking it up, I was a little nervous. The binding feels fat, which is not terribly technical, but I’ll try to explain. There are indentations between the spine of a hardcover and the actual covers which serve as hinges. Depending on how many pages have been squeezed into the hardcover compared to the size of the physical cardboard pieces, you can end up with a book that has a bookblock (the pages) that is not quite the right size for the hard cardboard pieces[1]. Those cardboard hinges give the whole form a little bit more flexibility, but you can feel the difference, and the PHB feels a little big.

This is noteworthy since it’s usually a red flag for binding issues. However, this is why I cracked it open once, and I’m not worried. They bound the hell out of this book. So much so that it’s almost too stiff, but I suspect that will age well. So thumbs up.

2. Branding

I talks about this when discussing the Starter Set – there is more art and less brand than I would expect on the cover of this. This is bold, but I suspect it’s predicated on the fact that, for all Pathfinder’s success. the D&D brand still owns the headspace. RPGs are D&D by default to most people, so they can afford to go very art-centric.

3. Binding, part 2: The Spinening!

When sitting edge out, you see this:

The ampersand at the bottom is nice, but I’m boggled that the small red banner on the front doesn’t wrap.

4. Back Cover

Feel it. Feel it. They did a lovely texture trick that I’m fond of, mixing gloss and matte finishes on the back cover. It’s a small touch, but one that I love. Greatly improves the tactile element of the book.

5. Art

I expect the art to draw a lot of commentary, and lose looking for reasons to criticize it will have no shortage of options. Specifically because the style is more painting-like than the Pathfinder house style[2] (so it has brush strokes and less crisp detail) it’s goign to simply look wrong to a lot of people. It’s also very busy, and emphasizes the monster over the characters, which is an odd choice. I admit I wonder at its cropping, and the Starter Set does make me immediately wonder “is this a crop of a bigger image?”

But for all that, I dig it. It’s distinctive, the sense of motion is wonderful, and I’m pretty happy with the images chosen for the heroes. If I were to really criticize it, my big concern was that I wish the hellhound on the back cover popped more. Red on red makes it more boring than it needs to be, which takes away from my love of the back cover.

5. Price Point

$50.  At the thickness, I’d have guess $40 (Hoard of the dragon Queen, also hardcover, is $30), but $50 is not out of bounds for this level of production.  Also,  I imagine it’s necessary to round up considering how many will be sold at some manner of  discount, so a solid $50 makes a lot of sense.

Can’t wait to crack it open.

EDIT: PS – It does indeed fit inside the starter set box