First, thank you OP for this incredible post!
About me: I'm playing D&D 5e since 4 years now and DM'd almost all the time. I'm currently playing a mostly good/neutral ranger solo-playthrough and started a playthrough as a life cleric today with my gf and played a couple of hours so far.
Before anything else: I'm having lots of fun with the game, I think it is allready a beautiful game and im very happy if it just stays the way it allready is.
I agree with all points made in the original post by ALVIG besides the spoilers, which i didn't read for obvious reasons and the points made by Gaidax.
I'll reenforce the most important ones real quick and maybe add a little to some:
- Starting Stats for "suboptimal" Race/Class combinations are a bummer. I already noticed a +2 on Wis as cleric is not that fun to play, especially with how hard the game gets sometimes, especially if you roll poorly for one or two rolls with suboptimal stats you almost automaticly lose every fight.
- Starting Equipment! Just some choices would help alot!
- The hotbars are fully stacked with spells way to fast when playing a Mage or Cleric. The points made by both Gaidax and ALVIG are perfect. Stack the upcastable spells and things using the same resource (channel divinity) or give us way more slots to place AND see them at the same time (placing them in the second bar feels straightup bad).
- jump/disengage are two things that are weird to have in the same action. split it up, and maybe make jump a free action, as part of movement. Additionally what Gaidax said about the "jumping ritual" getting annoying pretty quick, having to click through all the characters.
I would also add, that pathfinding is sometimes really weird. The selected character will jump down a ledge next to a ladder and take damage, while the rest of the party takes the ladder- This is hopefully a kind of bug that is allready known though.
- Make modifiers add to the roll, not substract from the target number. It feels better to roll a 7 when your bonus is +5 and the target is a 10, then roll a 2 and the target being a 5. Same goes for rolling over 20 (or under 1 if you're bad at something^^).
- AI-wise I found it really annoying to have Lae'zel in the frontline, right in the face and dishing out mad damage, but never having her attacked all fight long in basicly every second fight. No matter if I fought some spiders, Gnolls or Goblins, they all seemed to know who is the most vulnerable (aka lowest AC) and hunt them down at all cost.
I have no problem with smart enemys (aka 10 Int and above) using this tactic, but phasespiders are a bit weird to hardfocus the mage with 13 AC and completely ignoring the scary big and mean Githyanki that hits them for 20 dmg with a good roll.
- Show me what I just found with the perception check I made. I often stood there wondering what I am supposed to see now, that I didn't see before. Make it so obvious that even me, the -2 Int/Wis reallife boi sitting in front of the screen notices whats going on
- finally, probably the most important part: Give XP for non-combat solutions to encounters. I have basicly no encouragement to talk my way out of a fight, except it being a potetially deadly encounter and I don't want to risk it. Being a rather pacifist character is punished pretty hard.
