Something that bothers me, and I think this is on topic, is when people pressure Larian to change things that are fun.
For instance, the barrels. I've seen a lot of comments about how the barrels are overpowered and should be removed from the game and so on. I completely disagree with that.
Personally, I never use barrels. I don't need to use them to get through the encounters. But I like having them there in case I ever just want to have fun and start blowing them up. Sometimes that's fun, and it's nice to have them around as an option.
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It's like the new weapon features, things like Pommel Strike and Lacerate. I like that stuff. It makes the weapon choice a little more interesting and brings more options into the moment. Someone might argue that it weakens the two weapon fighter because someone with a great sword can now have a bonus attack, but it doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, it's limited to once per short rest, I think, whereas the two weapon fighter keeps going with the bonus attack.
At any rate, regardless, it's just fun. It's extra options. Now I consider these things when I decide which weapon I want to wield.
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That said, I do think it was an improvement to change the height from advantage to a plus two.
It wasn't the barrels themselves people had problems with. Lets say a barrel of booze has the same amount of liquid as an oil drum in the real world. That is 170Kg, now put 4 in a backpack and you have half a metric tonne in your bag...... There was the problem. I do enjoy crazy barrel fun. I am going to MOD BG 3 on release like crazy for the fun explodey times for that very reason. It is why games like fallout 4 and skyrim are still fun to this day. But not main game mechanics.
The weapon features do nothing to effect fighter classes as they have mechanics that makes these attacks even better. I really like they added these weapon options. The issue I have is they are once per rest? I mean why? it isn't "a resource" so this makes no sense in D&D. Why would you only be able to swing a greatsword once a certain way per rest? The point is it has to make sense for it to be homebrew D&D. Like wet characters being electrocuted in water. That makes sense so why not? This is a genuine DM choice.
Homebrew still has to be belevable otherwise it is just stupid and lessens the experience. Throwing a barrel over twice the weight of Lae'zel 60ft is something an ogre couldn't do. No casting a spell in a world where magic exists isn't the same as a halfling carrying a metric tonne of barrels in his pack. Howver there are mechanics in D&D that would allow you to do this. A type 4 bag of holding can carry 1500lbs but cost 10k gp but you would still need to be strong enough to get the barrel out.
Another thing is the arrows that contain "a bit" of acid covering 30sq meters on impact. How does that make sense? See the issue? It not that it isn't fun in a game not claiming to be "something like" D&D as these "little changes" are nothing like D&D. Tidal waves of goop fired from a hand crossbow breaks concentration and damages a class mechanic hard enough to maintain without it.
The game is okay it has the potential to be amazing.
