Well now I've had a chance to read through the PHB, fairly quickly (aside from all the times that I had to stop reading, so the process wasn't quick, but the quality of the read through was), and I've started on the DMG.
I am liking the classes stuff. I'm less sure about the magic items, specifically the fact that the PHB has a relatively small collection and there's no sign of customizing them in the DMG. The things I'm liking least are actually the things I've seen or been told by friends that relate to where the rules impact the reality of the game world.
Now, I intend to run a game at some point. My NPCs will have magic items. I'll obviously just have to make sure that they take advantage of the powers, since generally the enhancement bonuses won't apply, and I want it to appear that they do have said items. Which I'm not certain I like. I like the idea of tables that inform me, for game balance, what attack bonuses, defenses, hp, damage, and so on a monster of a given category should do at a given level. But I sort of feel that I'd like to have to determine how it achieves that, not just say "well, it has +13 to hit and does 2d4+3 because it should". Not, of course, that the characters would be aware that the ogre derived no benefit from its +1 greatsword's enhancement bonus.
But things I also dislike are aspects like suggesting that the DM have the players create a magic item wishlist, and then just providing those magic items over the next few adventures. I do want to know what the party wants, but in general they should expect to find the sorts of things that make sense for the encounters they've had, not whatever they want. You're not going to find a magic halberd on that group of swordsmen and archers.
So if a +1 duelist's shortsword is level 3, and a +1 frost shortsword is level 3, what if I wanted to have a +1 duelist's frost shortsword? Is this something that just shouldn't exist, would it be level 4? 5? I've noted a lack of a section on making magic items, and I haven't yet seen if there's details in the artifact section about making your own.
