I participated in the D&D Next Playtest from start to finish, a sentence which here means that I spent a year and a half being gradually convinced that the 5th Edition of D&D was going to be a disaster. This has not turned out to be the case, largely because the nature of a Playtest is very misleading.
The first playtest packet was very stripped down and the simplest set of D&D rules since Basic. If you were approaching the playtest as a fan of the 4th Edition of D&D this was an immediate red flag. Looking at the Dwarf Fighter sheet provided, all you could boast about that character's options was that it was strong, perceptive, and hit pretty reliably with weapons. At second level your Dwarf got to make a second attack. In the previous edition your Dwarf Fighter had two combat maneuvers he or she could use whenever, one that could be used in every combat encounter, and another that could be used once an in-game day. You had a list of 5 skills of which you could choose 3 to be very proficient in. With that first Next playtest packet you background had 3 skills attached, and you didn't get to pick them from a larger list. Every Soldier apparently is perceptive, intimidating, and a Survivalist. Not a lot of room for individuality.
It felt like the end of the world; Wizards were throwing out every positive aspect of 4th Edition in order to pander to the 3.5 playerbase that had switched to Pathfinder. Mike Mearls signed his letter as Himmler and had a post script which suggested dogs and cats can live together in peace.
So it was something of a surprise when, 3 months later, the next packet which featured actual build rules for the classes rather than just a pregenerated character sheet, showed that Fighters had a brand new mechanic: The Expertise Die. This was a die (d6 at first level) that you could spend each turn to use one of 3 maneuvers you had at first level. It could be used for extra damage, to reduce the damage you take, and a third determined by a Fighting Style you chose for your character. The addition of the Expertise Die brought combat options back to the fighter while still keeping it a simple-to-understand class.
Expertise Die were a big hit initially. By the November 2012 Playtest packet Fighters, Monks, and Rogues were all using the system and choosing from what was becoming an extensive list of Maneuvers. As they were being adopted by multiple classes, Wizards began referring to them as Martial Damage Dice. Looking back, that should have been a sign of the mechanic's end, because a major goal with Next was that it would differentiate heavily between the design of each class. So by March of the next year only Fighters had Expertise Die. This left the Monk especially anemic as it had, up until that point, been very invested in the use of maneuvers.
Every release of the Fighter after that March update seemed less and less interesting because Expertise was only being utilized as extra damage. This though is what I meant about the Playtest process being misleading. If something disappeared from the Playtest with the release of the next packet, that either meant it was so poorly received that it was scrapped, or that it was so well received that they didn't bother testing it any further during the open beta. In 2014 we can open up the 5e PHB and see that Fighters have Maneuvers that they can use if they choose the subclass that grants them. That lack of Maneuvers in the final leg of the Open Playtest was to beef up the simpler Fighter Subclass which relies on hitting hard.
