OK, I know that I said I would not DL ENworlds PHBlite (sorry forgot the new name for it). But after I spent all day at work cleaning up the official character sheet I just had to try it out (started out with one I got of ENworld that was still pretty rough and took me a while to polish up).
I had been purposefully avoiding the PHBl because I did not want it to “ruin” the excitement of digging into the actual real PHB for the first time. I know that at least a few of you have been avoiding it for the same reason. I decided that since I had broken down and opened it up I would give you guys my opinion. So here it is:
Sometimes nothing -IS- better than something. The PHBl has just enough information in it leave you wanting more. I was making a sword and board fighter, so I decided to be a Dragonborn since the get +2 to Str. So after allocating my stats, writing down my skills, class, and racial features I started to look at feats. I noticed that dwarves get a feat that gives them +2 to hit and damage! Man that is a TON better than my measly +1 from Str, not to mention the additional HPs I would have gotten from the dwarve’s Con bonus. But then I saw Eldrian had a feat that gave them the same +2 bonus to longswords and spears! That made me wonder… is there a similar feat for every race? Is there a Dragonborn version of the feat I simply do not know about? Mildly upset about not being knowing the feats I started picking out equipment. Then I saw that most of the weapons were missing their proficiency bonus and a lot had questionable additional values.
I could keep on going but it boils down to I felt like I had made 1/2 a character and the omissions were so glaring that it really left me more frustrated and ready for the actual rules than I already was. It actually had the exact opposite effect than I thought it would. So feel free to browse the PHBl with no fears of anything other than growing frustration on how slow these next few weeks are going to feel!
[Edit: If anyone wants my character sheet it is attached.]
