Our D&D 5 experience seems dead in the water without the Dungeon Master's Guide. I tried spicing some things up with monsters, but the game just does not feel complete without encounter design and magic items. It's strange, if feels more playable with just the Player's Handbook than it does with the PHB & MM combo.
I suppose part of it is monsters do not exist alone. Monsters are the challenge that guards the treasures of the dungeon - a traditional threat and reward relationship. There is also the encounter design thing, and the reward and advancement thing we are missing, so things seem incomplete.
With just the PHB, it feels easy to run just an intelligent PC race style 'no monsters' world. With the MM, we have a bunch of creatures that need better gear to battle, and we also need the rules on how to put together encounters and place rewards.
I am concerned about the magic item power of the DMG, since D&D 5's power curve is so tight, I am expecting magic items in this game to be severely limited in power and scope. While that may be a good thing for some, I would love to know the total power curve in this game before I start designing challenges and distributing rewards. We shall see how this pans out in another two months or so, and that is a long time to wait with players ready to play the full game now.
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