Tonight, after being away for a month, I was able to get three of my regular D&D players, with the intention of testing out updated builds for their existing 17th-level characters.
We had an Artillerist Artificer, an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, and a Storm Sorcerer.
Ultimately, it was really only the Barbarian who changed much - the Artificer, of course, didn't get an update in the new rules, and my Sorcerer player decided he didn't really want to convert the character, so stuck with his existing version.
To have a little extra fun, I sent them against the previewed update of the Ancient Green Dragon.
These are characters who, over a 4+ year campaign, have acquired a lot of powerful magic items - the Artificer, who has both the equivalent of a Tome of Clear Thought and an Ioun Stone of Mastery, and, thanks to Spell Sniper and Elemental Adept now giving a point of Intelligence each (or other mental stats, but obviously for this character it was Int) freed up a spot for Skill Expert, which they then put into Arcana, giving them a +20.
In other words, three characters was plenty against this CR 22 monster.
The dragon was fun to play - though it might have been nice to have some means of escaping once surrounded and flanked - they burned their penultimate turn just disengaging and running, but couldn't outrun the Barbarian (who has a modified Sword of Zariel, essentially).
The real highlight, of course, was the Barbarian and his use of Brutal Strikes, which turned out to be really effective - at a +14 to hit with his attacks, losing the advantage from Reckless Attack wasn't too bad (I also ruled that other sources of advantage still worked, which seems fair, but also meant that once he was flanking, my dragon was in a tough spot).
The downside, I think, is that converting a high-level character means a lot of catch-up. We spent about half the session just building the Artificer and Barbarian in D&D Beyond (neither player had been using it before).
And there can be a lot to keep track of, between weapon mastery effects like Sap and the various debuffs from Brutal Strikes - though I imagine as we become more familiar with these, it'll go smoother.
Ultimately, what I really want to do is start a campaign from level 1 with these new rules, but I felt and feel it is important to let players get their hands on the new stuff and try it out.
I'm a little sad that the Sorcerer is not sold on the new version of various spells - he cited Conjure Animals and Counterspell as big sore points (personally, I hate the old Counterspell and actually proposed something nearly identical to the new version, but if we get more monsters like the Ancient Green Dragon who can both cast a spell and do other things on their turn, I'm actually less worried about the old version). It would have been nice to see how things like Innate Sorcery might have affected the fight.
Of course, this is only some of my players.
My rule will be that no one is forced to convert, which does mean I'll have to deal with multiple versions of certain spells and features, but it doesn't seem fair to force anyone into playing a character that's not the same as the one they had before (I've already had to deal with the Volo's and Monsters of the Multiverse versions of the Goblin, and it hasn't been too much of a problem).
I'm very eager to try out the new rules as a player, too. For now that's likely to mean just converting existing characters, but damn if I don't want to play the new version of the Monk.
Also, boss monsters, especially at high levels, aren't ever going to feel like the kind of threat they should be without a dungeon leading up to them full of resource-draining challenges. I'll take the fact that I bloodied the Barbarian as a win.
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