Dungeon Master: D&D 5th Edition Rules Reflection 2015

At this point, we've had some time to get used to the new D&D rule set. In general I've been very happy running it. There have, however, been a couple of areas I felt the reals were lacking (I've already mentioned my feelings on the stealth rules and expertise). However, there are other things that I haven't talked about yet have come to my attention.

Overland Travel

I usually used the Dungeon Master's Guide to determine overland travel speed, though you can figure it out by looking at the travel speeds provided in the basic rules and comparing it to mounts. However, the basic rules mention that most mounts can travel twice the fastest player speed for an hour and then don't mention how long it takes until the mount can do it again. Also, why wouldn't a party travelling at a fast pace not have their mount sprint like that (is there some penalty that is missing?)? On a mount, can you sneak (on one hand, it makes sense to say no but on the other, how do cavalry ambushes happen?)?

So far my verdict has been no to sneaking (it is hard to notice people from far away when there is cover even when they aren't sneaking) and to just use the speeds of the mount and perform calculations for longer periods of time (this is included in the Dungeon Master's Guide). I allow slower mounts to sprint twice the speed of a fast travel pace for an hour and then have an hour break. For faster mounts (60 ft.), I allow them to have double their normal speed. This last part about sprinting can be removed (though it makes the text in the Player's Handbook and basic rules mean nothing).

Ready Action

Ready action and extra attack don't go together well in the rules. In fact, as written, they don't go together at all. However, I feel it is perfectly valid to allow the extra attacks especially when wizards can ready a spell. The character readying an attack already loses their action and reaction, and I feel that is enough punishment. The fighter can't ready 2 actions anyway (they get only 1 reaction) so action surge isn't even useful in this way.

Wizard/Fighter Multiclassing

The fighter's action surge ability is an incredibly potent and useful ability. You can also take 2 levels of fighter to get it and cast a 9^th level spell followed by an 8^th level spell in one turn (assuming a 18/2 wizard/fighter multiclass). This may seem a bit much, especially when looking at what 9^th level spells there are. If you don't like this, either spells themselves can be looked at to make sure casting two in one turn isn't too good (I generally think 8^th level spells are largely fine but have some problems with 9^th level spells) or multiclassing can be restricted by the Dungeon Master (I've already played in games that did just that). I also think this is mostly an issue at higher levels of play.

Master of Death

I'm not a fan of this perk for a monk, unless I'm missing something (I'm generally cautious of any ability that lets players shrug off death). I don't have too much of problem with the ability but I think 1 ki is a bit too cheap. Bumping it up to 5 or so makes it more it more reasonable I think (attaching it to a reaction could also work but would make it less useful since a monk could just be attacked twice in one turn).