I'm liking the varied xp progression. Its a good way for DMs to control the power level of their game.
Why is there a faster progression on the feats?
Pumping up the hp will be a good way to keep 1st level characters being taken down by horses. I'm favourable to the 1st level hp = maximum + Constitution score. And that's the starting hp I'm going to use for the playtest adventures. I also like the standardized design for HD types based on BAB progression. Though I don't beleive that the barbarian should break the mold, and that something else should be thought of when representing the barbarian's extra durability.
Alright onto the actual classes.
Cleric: I'm all thumbs-up for the addition of the auto-proficiency with their dieties favoured weapon. That's something that I've thought should have always in place. The change in the domain powers and orisons seem very favourable. I like the fact that their are now progressive domain powers, it gives a good reason to continue down the path of the cleric.
Fighter: I am unsure of the additional abilities added to the fighter. I won't see how these effect the game until the game are run, themematically though I beleive they fit quite well with the class.
Rogue: The increased hp is certainly a boon here. The sneak attack change is disconcerting though the expansion to all creatures could be overly devastating, sneak attack was already incredibly powerful and to open it up to constructs, undead and other creatures seems a bit much to me. I have often found the standard sneak attack more devastating than any spell or attack. Perhaps a limitation that Sneak Attack only applies to the first attack in a round? I mean honestly imagine the damage potential here when you get into multiple attacks. If we take a rogue of 8th level hits with both strikes in which a sneak attack is possible and they're weilding a shortsword they're going to deal 10d6 plus other modifiers in a single round of combat. Now though this mostly on par with a wizard's spell, except that a wizard runs out of spells. Now imagine a 19th level rogue with shortswords, your looking at 33d6 points of damage in a single round. And as long as a rogue maintains a flanking positition....There needs to be some limitation to this ability to rien it back into par with the rest of the classes.
Wizard: Huzzah for more hp! Gods knows its the wizard PC that is the most likely to fall down no matter the level after a well placed blow.
It doesn't make much sense that the Draconic has to be substituted when the cleric doesn't have to do so with his list of Bonus Languages.
Hmmm...Arcane Bond to an object doesn't see that great. Now the benefit of casting a spell as the wizard does, does this eat up the spell slot? Does it have to be spell that's prepared? Or can it just be one that's in his spellbook? The needing to be inhand to cast spells without a spellcraft check is disconcerting as well. For its limited benefits, this seems a severe limitation.
Cantrips, huzzah for having light, detect magic, prestidigitation, and other such useful spells always on hand. ^^
I am loving the concept of the School Powers for specializing. I have never found school specialization beneficial before, but I think this is going to make specialist wizards popular again.
The bonus feats, can we have Spell Focus, Eschew Materials, and Combat Casting added to the list?
The familiar most certainly doesn't seem to be balanced with the Bonded Object. There doesn't seem to be as many limitations to having one. In fact, there is no penalty for not having the familiar within reach while casting spells. No longer any danger if the familiar is killed either.
~Anry
Seriously, the sneak damage is not that amazing. By the time rogues get to have multiple attacks and 7d6 or more SA dice, the wizard is casting save-or-die spells and damage is inconsequential. It's really not that amazing.
As an afterthought, Multiclassing comes to mind again.
Obviously, the pumped up hp at 1st level is only going to occur at the 1st character level.
But what of the skills. The new skill still leaves me to wonder if you took the 1st level in one class and then in the second would you gain both 1st level selections. Or would it just progress normally along the chart.
There was also a post by Dorje Sylas that suggested that instead of stacking bonuses while multiclass they overlayed bonuses. I'm not sure if it ended up getting lost in the reorganization or not though.
Anyways the idea was that instead of stacking things like BAB and Save bonus, multiclassed characters with classes that had similar bonus progression just scaled along the same pace.
So classes with the same base attack bonus progression would determine the total base attack bonus by the total character level of those classes together.
Example: Cleric 5/Rogue 1
Normally the total base attack bonus would equal the cleric's +3 BAB plus the rogue's +0 BaB for a total of +3 BAB.
Instead since both class have a intermediate BAB progression the total BAB is equal to that of a character level of 6th level (as though you had only taken one class) for a BAB of +4.
This would be applied to saves as well, classes with the same progression in one of the saves (Fort, Ref, Will) would stack character levels to determine the total bonus. This wouldn't a apply to the Cleric/Rogue combo above seeing as they don't have any similar save bonuses.
But for example, a Barbarian 2/Ranger 2.
The saves are F/R/W +3/+0/+0 for the barbarian and F/R/W +3/+3/+0.
Normally this multiclass would end up having the following base save spread F/R/W +6/+3/+0.
But taking the saves that progress the same which are Fort and Will would be determined by the total character level instead. So the Barb/Rng would have a 4th level Good Fort Save and a 4th level bad Will save. Coming up with a F/R/W +4/+3/+1.
Now for a combined example.
Cleric 5/Fighter 5/Rogue 5/Wizard 5
First for the BAB, Cleric and Rogue have the same BAB progression so instead of taking the two bonuses individually we take a intermidiate BAB at 10th level which is +7/+2. Fighter and Wizard are not similar so we will take their 5th level BAB respectivily, +5 and +2. This ends with a BAB of +14/+9/+4. Normally such a multiclass would have ended up being +13/+8/+3.
Now we go with the saves. Both Cleric and Fighter have good Fort save, and then also both Rogue and Wizard have poor Fort saves. So we'll add the bonus of a 10th level good Fort save with a 10th level bad Fort save, +7 and +3 respectivily. So this multiclass would have a Base Fort of +10.
For reflex, only Rogue has a good reflex save, but Cleric, Fighter, and Wizard all have poor reflex saves. So we add a good 5th level Reflex with a 15th level poor Reflex save, +4 and +5 respectivily. For a base Reflex of +9.
For Will, we have a similar split as we did with Fort, with CLeric/Wizard having a good save and Fighter/Rogue with bad. Despite the switch up of class we'll get the same base save as Fort for a +10 base Will save.
So the base saves would be F/R/W +10/+9/+10. Normally the result would have been F/R/W +10/+7/+10.
It doesn't make much of a difference but then look at the Fighter 1/Barbarian 1/Ranger 1 whom as a +6 Fort.
Anyway just thoughts. Which then expanded into a convulted attempt to explain an idea which I'm sure ended up being a lot of rambling. ^^;
Seriously, the sneak damage is not that amazing. By the time rogues get to have multiple attacks and 7d6 or more SA dice, the wizard is casting save-or-die spells and damage is inconsequential. It's really not that amazing.
There you are wrong of how consequential it is because the difference between the wizard's spells and the rogue's sneak attack is that the rogue never runs out of sneak attack.