Appreciate the time you took to post such detailed feedback. Agree with some, disagree with a few.
100% down for making the AI smarter, as long as it's not blatantly cheating.
In 5e PnP, there is a distinction between you being "100% unseen, unaware", vs. "can't been seen, but they know where you are". You won't be targeted in the former, but in the latter, the enemy can still attack you with disadvantage, or use AOE to flush you out. So in my dream implementation, shooting and immediately hiding should result in the "can't see, but know where you are scenario".
Hard disagree with this one.
Sacrificing expected quality of life features for "artificial hardcore" across the board is a poor design choice IMO. Combat can last minutes in this game (i.e. taking on the whole Goblin Camp) and I'd much prefer to be able to quit without losing progress. If people save scum, so be it (if they are willing to deal with the load times, more power to them). This should be implemented as an option (along with Hardcore/Honor mode)
Eating food during fights
I'd love for Larian to simply completely rethink food. It's implemented like in DOS 2 right now which I think has no place in 5e DND.
Throws the entire spell/item economy out of wack. Would much prefer an implementation similar to POE 2 (for resting and buffs) may be a better way to go.
Agreed, I would love to see Larian rebalance melee/ranged combat. The current system is quite immersion breaking, although I do appreciate that Larian is trying to add more strategy to melee combat.
In regards to your notes on overpower/underpower spells - unfortunately there are quite a few I disagree with:
Overpowered:Magic Missile: Disagree. Magic Missiles (without the Psychic Necklace) are pretty weak right now, since getting Height Advantage is so easy - other lvl 1 spells like Guiding Bolt are far more devastating right now.
Bless: I agree that it's stronger than most, but not to the point of unbalanced IMO. Bane has the rare ability to affect saving throws (very useful later on), although still definitely weaker. Shield of Faith is still useful since you don't really need 2x casts of blesses (fulfills a different role). Resistance is a cantrip.
Hex: Warlocks don't get many slots, hence the spell needs to be flexible and easy to use. Inflicting a saving throw disadvantage is INSANELY OP though. Affecting saving throws is a very rare effect in 5E.
Agonizing Blast: I think you've explained it. With their 2 slot per short rest, Warlocks operate much more like ranged fighters than casters. This invocation is pretty fundamental to their class. If you remove this, any CHA caster can just pick up Eldritch Blast via magic initiate and be equally as good as a Warlock with it.
Invisibility: The duration is so that it has application outside of combat. I don't think the duration is too bad, unless you're deliberately being very cheesy with it (but that's mainly poor AI).
Underpowered:Dueling: I think your suggestion is
way too OP. Dueling is already better than Great Weapon Fighting.
The +2 flat boost is higher than the reroll on 1s and 2s, which amounts to 1.33 on 2d6 Greatswords. Giving +1 AC for free also makes Defense fighting style useless.
Daggers: they are supposed to be weaker since they are easier to access (simple proficiency). Boosting daggers will punish martial specialists who have martial proficiency
Light armor: Similar to the daggers situation, classes with access to heavier armor proficiencies should be rewarded for it. This is a change from previous editions where heavy armor is often the weakest option, and I personally like it.
