Having given the rules a read yesterday, it looks functional enough. I like several of the things I've done, and the advantage mechanic may go some way toward mitigating the huge swing of the d20. Current assessment: Neutral to cautiously optimistic, with a big "we don't have the full rules yet" caveat. The references to +number weapons still being a thing make me nervous about the handling of gear and the general basic integrity of the system's math, but we'll see. Venn, were magic items/wealth rules in the playtest and if so, how were they handled?
They were. Magic items are actually not a necessity for characters to keep up, and so far they haven't really caused my players to break anything. Anything higher than a +1 weapon/armor is essentially so rare that almost no one has them. Usually, things with more magic than that moreso have extra properties, like a +1 flaming sword. Magic items tend to do other things, like slippers of spider climbing. The worst offender is the insistence on returning the Belt of Giant Strength and Gauntlets of Ogre Strength back to pre-3E, setting the character's strength to a predetermined score. I've taken to houseruling that the effective use of that is limited. If everyone assumed they could get their hands on one or the other, they'd all dump their strength for a few levels until they could get one. It's the one thing so far I've particularly disliked. Most of my players are cool enough not to all say, "I go looking for a belt of Giant Strength."
Magic Items, like a lot of things in 5E, are treated almost like another optional rule. You can disallow them if you like, and it won't mess anything up. As the DM, your job will be to decide how much magic wealth you want to give your players, and what items.
What makes this easier is a list of rarity, and what level players can generally expect to find items of that rarity. You could scale it back as much as you want, as it's just a general rule.
