Even some of the oddball classes are kind of frowned upon. Heck, one of the GM’s hates Bards.

Fixed hit points at each level… we no longer have weaker or fighters any more? Why not just lose all dice roles and give us stock characters instead? Perhaps this is because creating characters has got so complicated and time consuming that getting 1 hit point and losing the character is just too expensive (in terms of time to make a new character) for a player to contemplate… because the rule system has become too complex in the first place! Just a thought…

Anathema! Burn the witch! hehe

Yeah, that definitely throws people at first. But it makes it so that Con isn’t an absolute requirement for every character regardless of class. But it does take some getting used to.

Fixed HP at each level

This is what will throw my group the most when they first level up. But it’s such a common houserule (and for good reason) that I can’t blame them for doing it.

It also means that my Barbarian will never have less HP than the Warlock, except maybe at level 1, which is sweet.

WTF is an Eladrin?

If you had the common High Elf/Wood Elf split in your campaigns, then Eladrin fit in well as High Elves.

If not, you can also just remove the name and call them Elves as well. A player who plays an Elf then gets to choose whether he plays a more physical/woodsy elf, or a more mental/wizardly elf (Eladrin). Both look the same, and both are called Elves.

They also fit well as a distinct fey race, which may or may not be a common PC race. You can easily use them in a similar fashion to Nymphs and Dryads. As a warrior/mage race from whatever Fey realm you use.

Or you could leave them out altogether.

Why is the cheese-tastic Dragonborn now core?

Mostly to allow DMs to let players be draconic without going to the level-adjustment races of the past.

Really, if you haven’t had at least one player (often a new player) ask to play a half-dragon, you’re a rarity.

No Druid or Barbarian (yet, anyway)

Aside from the Barbarian playtest, one of my players is actually playing a Druid in our current game.

Not just a nature priest, but a full-on Elemental Witch style Druid.

All we did was use Wizard as the base class and rename/reflavour the powers. It’s been working quite well, and I should have a post up about it soon.

The barbarian playtest for PHB II is out now, it was a free PDF.

Don’t exist. Never heard of them.

No Druid? No Barbarian? What was WoTC thinking?