ToV Player's Guide 2 Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepmagic/players-guide-2-new-power-for-5e-and-tov-players

Color me interested after sorting through dozens of videos for D&D 2014 house rules and balance fixes. From the preview page:

Three new base classes including the Vanguard, dozens of subclasses, new lineages, hundreds of new spells, and more for TOV and 5E D&D.

I am interested in dozens of new subclasses, which would single-handedly fix one of ToV's most pressing issues at the moment. I am tracking this.

Fixing 2014 D&D is tiring, and making lists of house rules overwhelms and scares off players. I am tired of the "house rule culture" that D&D fosters, and I would like to buy a game that works.

I Fell Back Into D&D

I found some interested in playing D&D as a group, so I fell back into it. Initially, I wanted to keep my Level Up A5E books and a small subset of those, and keep the rest of my D&D books in storage. This group wanted to play D&D, and any amount of redefinition would have ruined the moment.

I love A5E but can't call it D&D and confuse people.

I am sticking with 2014, though. Some in my group have 2014 books, and the economy isn't letting them upgrade or buy new books. Asking people to buy books will kill interest. Asking people to buy 2024 books will kill interest for others.

How do I feel about the entire A+B character creation method with background and species? I am fine with this method in other games; in those games, it goes A+B+C and even more. Mechanical benefits for backgrounds are a bitter pill to swallow, and while those are fine in other games, they aren't D&D. There are intelligent farmers just as there are strong city folk; you are deflecting the old "racial essentialism" argument and putting that into "social essentialism" and it is just as dumb.

D&D is supposed to be easy: race plus class and go.

Let players come up with their own backgrounds.

And they don't have mechanical benefits.

Besides, Tasha's 2014 book cleared the whole issue up and let you put bonuses where you wanted them. If you are just going to argue, let people say where the bonuses go and be done with it. I am fine with the A+B+C systems in ToV and Level Up; those are "boutique D&D" and get a free pass. Basic D&D is supposed to be easier and more straightforward, just like the older games, and race + class is all I want players considering.

Otherwise, all fighters come from these subsets of backgrounds, and all wizards are in that set. We are back to square one. ToV did its best by putting the "extra points" into ability score creation and removing them from the A+B+C choices, which I prefer. The simpler system lets the A+B+C choices focus on options, not mechanical benefits.

ToV wins this round. Sorry, 2014 and 2024 D&D, and even A5E. Give players more points to generate characters, and stop adding them later.

Another +1 for D&D is the ease of creating characters. Finding a free character creation tool in Level Up A5E or even Tales of the Valiant is nearly impossible. Especially one with character storage and a good web UI. Kobold Press and Level Up cancelling ToV Roll20 support hurts. I want character designers, importers, and a free and open system for character creation support.

And Wizards is far too stingy on their books. I want my PDFs. Not having them sucks. I feel a step removed from the game. With ToV and Level Up? I have my PDFs. It is 2025, and forcing people onto gated websites or physical copies to read a book is unthinkable.

Another loss for 2014 and 2024 D&D. No PDFs? It is 2025, stop acting like it is 2008.

So, 2014 D&D is for my group. I would like to swap out 2014 D&D for Tales of the Valiant, and people in my group could own PDFs. ToV and D&D are interchangeable, and I would like to standardize the core rules and classes on a modern, sane set of options (that isn't 2024). The ToV classes are better designed than the 2014 ones by a long shot, and are more fun to play.

Monks are fixed. Rangers are fixed, and the mystic mark feature is solid (and combine that with Ranged Weapon Mastery's bonus action). Rogues feel like rogues. Every choice is good without all the exploits. There are fewer headaches and house rules here. They are not overpowered and feel like they have the "dry and realistic" 2014 power levels.

The classes in ToV are better than the D&D 2024 ones.

There are fewer subclasses in ToV (for now, they have new ones in The Old Margreve and the Dungeon Builder books, and are working on more) than in 2024 D&D, but they are higher-quality choices than quantity. They are working on more, so we can give Kobold Press time. You can port old ones in, too, since compatibility is very high.

The only honest criticism is that casters seem favored over martials. That is an easy problem; be more generous with magic items for your martial classes and give them parity through loot. Also, consider using the Expanded Special Melee Attacks rules in the GMG (page 73) and the Parry and Defensive Combat rules (page 77), and the game allows stunts like this to replace the need for 2024's weapon masteries and tracking special weapon properties. The parry reaction is a nice rule that expands ToV's action economy.

ToV has weapon options, plus the rules from the ToV GMG feel better than 2024's weapon mastery system, where a few classes have the "learn them" in a slot system and "unlearn them" on a long rest. In ToV? Everyone gets them with being proficient in the weapon; they don't use slots, nobody needs to track them on a character sheet, and they are just "there to use." Plus, the GMG's extra combat rules add more options.

Will it break the game if a wizard wants to use their quarterstaff to bash something in an emergency? No. This is a fun option and should be opened up to everyone. Wizards aren't in melee enough for this really to affect the game, and having it as a tool is a net plus to "fun at the table."

D&D 2024 is, in many ways, overdesigned. All these tracked resources did not need to be added to the character sheet. 2024's weapon mastery is a mistake.

Tales of the Valiant got it right.

ToV also gives you more options regarding ability score improvements and feats; you always get at least a point when you choose a feat. There are no dead levels in ToV, either. ToV is the best of the "modern 5E systems" at this point, and it leads D&D 2024 by a mile in design, function, and usability. If I play with others, ToV would be my ideal choice since I am not posting pages of house rules for 2014, the power levels are the same as 2014, and every choice just works out of the box.

Magic item crafting? ToV also offers that as a downtime activity. I love these YouTube channels acting like crafting magic items is some new thing that D&D 2024 invented. Oh, and we have a price list for magic items, too. No automatic bastions, which is a plus, but Kobold Press has books on running kingdoms, so the subject is well-covered.

We have more wins for ToV, which is managing to be a complete and well-thought-out design. Kobold Press listened to playtest feedback, and it did not disappear into the nether like a marketing campaign.

ToV is also far better regarding access to the base rules. I can point everyone to the Black Flag SRD, which has the game's rules for free. People can own PDFs. Most legacy 2014 books and player options are compatible. Yes, the art is a little cartoony, but there is a charm to that. The rules are why I play.

If you are one of these people, like me, defending 2014 as the better version of D&D, and will never buy into 2024, you need to give ToV another look.

ToV is better designed than 2024 D&D, is easier to learn, more open, is a modern game, and retains the charm of D&D 2014.

For my home games and solo play? I will play Level Up A5E. This system just clicks for me and provides the depth and options I like in a hybrid 5E and old-school game. If I want "overdesigned for good reason and great effect," I will play Level Up.

But if I am stuck with 2014 5E?

I am looking at ToV, the fixed version of 2014, for which I don't need to maintain a list of house rules and patches.

ADAD: Legitimacy

A group of goblin bandits are holding the quarry outside of town.

I played this scenario in 5E, and I felt this sense of comfort. It will be no problem; I have an unrestricted power that lets me toss magic bolts every turn, we can heal, this one gets an advantage on many attacks, and we are all doing super significant damage with maximum ability score modifiers. Every magic character can fling damage as if we were playing an MMO.

In fact, the entire encounter felt like an MMO. I had this "bored sense of it being a waste of time" running through my head as I played it out. Just get me to the boss fight to finish this and turn in the quest rewards.

In 5E, I had so much power before level five that I was tired of the game and uninterested in whatever stories I could tell with it. This was the ultimate easy mode, and I quit the system.

5E is over-reliant on false empowerment, where they double the hit points and make daggers do 1d4+5. There was no damage scaling in the original game, so we did not need all these fixed modifiers. B/X started these out-of-control modifiers, and I prefer 0e or 1e games where those modifiers are scaled way back and kept under control.

You could not infinitely blast away with cantrips. You did not have feats that added damage to attacks. Your ranger had 20 arrows and a melee weapon. That is what you have to deal with the situation. Do you have a mage? Do you want to expend magic to solve this, or is there another way?

Swords & Wizardry was like this: The game did not hand out bonuses like popcorn and candy, and only fighters thoroughly enjoyed the STR bonus for to-hit and damage. Other classes, even the fighter sub-classes, did not get the bonuses. Swords & Wizardry gets it right like Shadowdark gets it right by keeping the numbers under control.

You start throwing fixed modifiers into everything, and they take over the game. A fixed modifier of more than half the dice size, like a 1d4+5, is a sloppy game design that invalidates the meaning of the dice. It is a significant mistake in 5E's math. For all the vaunted 'bounded accuracy' 5E hyped (and later tossed out) in the design, they did nothing on the damage dice and let those numbers get out of control.

In ADAD, to-hit modifiers for STR start at 17, and damage starts at 16 - which is only a +1. Most characters will never see a melee damage modifier unless they use magic weapons or are fighters who selected weapon specializations. You need to understand the rules and where your fixed modifiers come from, and you aren't just given everything.

I can play a character who does flat weapon damage; it is not a problem, and the game is designed that way if the monster hit points are low and kept under control. The polyhedral dice mean more if hit points are lower, and when Wizards' D&D starts scaling hit points two to four times and you lean on fixed modifiers far too much, the game breaks hard.

Dungeon Crawl Classics has replaced D&D for me. Shadowdark is still the best 5E, but if I want super-heroic fantasy with many character powers and toys, then DCC fills the need. It is far less complicated than D&D, with its mess of actions and complex builds, and I can run DCC character sheets by hand.

ADAD is perfect for first-edition games. I want characters to do without and have limited powers and options in the first five levels. They need to work together during this time and think smart, use gear, leverage skilled classes, and play smart.

In my 5E game, the party rarely needed synergy or cooperation. Everyone was an “army of me,” and healing did not need to be shared; everyone could heal themselves or rest it off later.

ADAD hits the serious game notes perfectly for me while providing new options to explore.

In DCC, monsters can be deadly, and my characters must work together. At first level, they have quite a bit of power, so they are capable and potent. The world can hit back hard, death is easy, and healing relies on a cleric and a god’s benevolence, which can run dry.

With ADAD, I am playing stories again, and characters must make hard choices when taking risks. Sometimes, there is no choice at all, and fighting is unavoidable. The fewer powers and abilities characters have, the better the stories become. What they get means something, and being a thief in these games is fun; since few have repeatable powers, your thief skills begin to shine, and you are doing all sorts of sneaky things to get away with the crazy plots the party thinks up.

Your weapon speed matters, your armor matters, your encumbrance matters, and the few powers you have matter. Your party composition matters, along with your hirelings. How you travel matters. Rangers can make a journey where you are lost and lose party members to wilderness encounters into easy navigation, and a few times, you make camp. Did you take enough hirelings, pack animals, and carts to haul your treasure back home? Do you have a home?

DCC, S&W, and ADAD all have this style of gameplay. Some are a little more rules-light than others, and some are more gonzo fantasy. They all have that legitimate game loop, where you need to be careful about how you approach situations and think beyond an encounter, and the game forces you to consider the entire journey.

Mail Room: Cepheus Universal

Cepheus Universal (CU) is one of the most impressive science fiction games I own. The Lulu book arrived yesterday, and it's significantly better than the previous print-on-demand (PoD) I received (I think it was from DriveThru); the book is gorgeous.

The game is also awe-inspiring. The original Traveller Little Black Books promised a universal science fiction game, but ultimately delivered only upon the Imperium. The Cepheus Universal game delivers on the one-book, any-universe promise. You can build Star Destroyers and Constitution-class UFP cruisers using the capital ship rules. You have mechs. You have vehicles. You have star-fighters. Everything Traveller forgets to include, you get in CU, including classic Traveller.

CU is the closest thing we have to the original Space Opera game, and that says a lot since that game was a legend in our group.

Hostile, from the same publisher, is a custom-built version of the same 2d6 rules, but tightly tied into the setting. Hostile is better suited for those who enjoy the corporate sci-fi genre, such as Alien, Blade Runner, and Outland, as well as industrial hard-science settings. You can also throw in "underwater" movies in here too, like The Abyss or Deep Blue Sea. Where CU is a toolkit that allows you to create settings ranging from Star Wars to Star Trek, or any other science fiction setting you can imagine, Hostile is built exclusively for the hard-science setting.

But if you are looking for that flavor of industrial, hard-science, dark universe, life is worthless to corporate greed, gritty and dirty science fiction, go straight for Hostile and don't try to emulate it through CU. You could, but Hostile is a complete universe and game built to support the concept.

Hostile reminds me of the Traveller 2300 and 2300 AD we always wanted to have. We played this in a campaign, and it didn't resonate with us. We leaned more into Alien, and that salvaged the game. Still, 2300 was not interesting enough to us on the low-level, humanistic, grease-and-gears level of science fiction gaming.

Traveller 2300 always had that identity problem. What was this game? It was somewhat of a "not Aliens' setting, and beyond that, it didn't fully take off with our group. To be a great setting, it needs to move beyond the xenomorph. Hostile has your standard 2d6 animal and creature generation, and just replacing these with "strange variants of Earth creatures that want to kill you" works well. Featherless, bat-like vultures that swoop in and rake hooked claws from packs that hunt from the air, squid with ripping claw-like teeth, horse like maw-beasts that look like undead lizards, and if you put a little effort into it and possibly a book on insects and worms, you can come up with things a hundred times more scary than a xenomorph.

There is an excellent Xenomorph expansion that turns them into all sorts of creepy monsters, such as snakes, spiders, runner dogs, and many others. The game is more unrestricted to run with the concept and turn it into something truly terrifying, and it also opens the doors for the referee to take this in many different directions.

If the corporations of the universe want to kill you, then none of the alien creatures you encounter will be something out of a D&D cozy RPG. Everything wants to kill you, tear you into steaks, and feast on your flesh and internal organs. I dislike this "cutesy sci-fi" that assumes a standard distribution of cuddly animals throughout the universe. Sorry, planetary ecosystems activate their creatures, which serve as white blood cells to hunt down and consume colonists, miners, explorers, and anything else the planet sees as "alien" to its billion-year history. Even the rocks and geology will try to get in on the act, trying to kill you.

Roll 2d6; if you roll low, the planet gets to try to do something to kill you.

The game is called "Hostile" after all.

Just assume everything is.

Back to CU. Eliminate Traveller and Alien from your thinking. Although this game does those things, other games do them better, such as OG Traveller and Hostile.

For everything else, CU is going to win. Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Frontiers, Firefly, Pitch Black, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010, and the list goes on. This also wraps up the Cyberpunk, Battletech, and Blade Runner genres quite nicely, along with a fair number of non-gonzo post-apocalyptic genres. CU does all that in a simple, fast, and quick 2d6 format that gives you a heroic option for play.

CU is the best "everything else" science fiction game there is.

It is challenging to review a game like this without discussing the alternatives. Part of my problem with this game is that the first time I saw it, I thought it was "alternate Traveller rules" or "another Alien game"- both of which were incorrect. I saw Cepheus Deluxe (the black and white printing) as a better generic Traveller game, since "Why should I change?" I have a lot of current-edition Traveller books, so that game is the king of that setting.

I didn't understand this at first, which is why I initially discounted it.

I know now not to.

This is one of the best universal science fiction games of this generation.

D&D 2014 Survival Guide

Playing D&D sucks right now.

The company split the player base into two sides with the 2014 and 2024 versions.

When someone remembers D&D and "wants to play that, " I need to explain the differences between editions of 5E. You make my darn job HARDER, Wizards. Most people, when I start explaining 2014 vs. 2024, walk away.

This is too complicated for me! If I buy the old books, will I be able to play? Will they be a waste of money?

Some say 3rd-level 2024 characters are equivalent to the power level of 6th-level 2014 characters. So we are dealing with a potential power-level change.

And here I am calling 2014 5E, "Closer to classic D&D." And you know what? It is true. Orcs and goblins are still bad guys. I am not explaining weapon properties. Racial ability score modifiers are there. The art is closer to the classic game.

I have players with 2014 books who don't have the money for new books or want to buy them. They are happy with their game. I have to keep them in the group. If the group is a 2014 group, it is a tough sell to get them to re-buy what they already have and like.

And with the OGL and other mistakes, many won't give the company another dime.

And I am explaining that to new players, too.

The team that designed 2014 was a far better class of game designers. They made a ton of mistakes, but that design pedigree shows. 2014 5E was the perfect game (with a few fixes). The Wizards team even said so. 5E was supposed to be "evergreen." I would rather have had a new edition of the 2014 books with as few changes as possible to clean up a minimal scope. Keep the game the same with no new rules or features, and just give us an updated book to play with.

What a mess.

Another version split.

A divided community.

They did this to themselves.

I can see why some give up and go to an Open 5E clone. But, to the average person who has never heard of them, it isn't D&D. Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5E? What are those? They aren't D&D. Not to the average person, 20 years removed from the hobby.

Get your hands on a good set of 2014 books with the character options, and call it quits.

Or go Open 5E and call it "D&D."

Mutant Crawl Classics plus Mutant Future

My first game from Goodman Games was Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC), as we were big fans of Gamma World. I discovered DCC later, dismissed it as being "too much," and then spent a little more time understanding the game, falling in love with the system.

Once you understand that everything in the DCC book is optional, including the tables, the game plays like a rules-light 3.5E, functioning as a streamlined, generic, and quick system that handles a wide range of scenarios and genres.

Once I understood why the spells had so many tables and how spell-burn and spell duels worked, the floodgates were opened. Then, lay Rule Zero over the game, and all of a sudden, you have a fantastic toolbox for rules-light 3.5E.

I came to MCC looking for more of my other favorite post-apocalyptic fantasy game, Mutant Future (MF). This is another classic Gamma World-inspired retro-clone, and it still holds up well today. This game is also cross-compatible with Labyrinth Lord, providing you with even more options for reskinning and use in your game.

Mutant Future is one of the best "stuff books" for MCC, offering an impressive selection of equipment, weapons, vehicles, robots, monsters, and other items to utilize in your MCC game. As a resource and a game in its own right, Mutant Future is indispensable for the realism and grit of the setting. The MF game assumes a feudal, long-gone postapocalyptic world, but has that classic Thundarr and Gamma World vibe, where the ruins of the old world are still recognizable. MCC is more fantastical and alien, with the lost world being even farther back in time and relegated to myth and twisted legends.

MF is an excellent, B/X-style science fiction game. It is compatible with Gamma World (1st and 2nd editions) and Labyrinth Lord. By itself, it is a fantastic game.

As an expansion for MCC, it significantly enhances the game. You receive all the low-level details that MCC overlooks, including gear lists, prices, treasures, weapons, primitive water travel, and all the necessary components to support a feudal society, as well as an explanation of how "all the civilization" works. If you want to barter for an oil lamp and a mutant beast of burden, you can find them here.

These two are my "peanut butter and chocolate" post-apocalyptic games, which pair perfectly together and blend seamlessly, or are wonderful on their own.

The Joy of the SDC Palladium Games

c. 1983, 1996

So many have fond memories of any of the SDC-based Palladium games. Palladium FRP, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas and Superspies, TNMT/AtB, Dead Reign, and many more. I am avoiding Rifts in this conversation as that is the obvious one to focus on, but my interest lies in the games without MDC, and the Palladium system working to its fullest on the low end. I am just looking at the SDC-games, with no mega damage, and the damage systems and character stats are still meaningful and working in the base rules.

c. 1984, 1998

Anyone who has given them a chance generally loves them. They reward creativity and inspire passion. Part of this lies in the high degree of character customization in the rules; even the Fantasy game lets you pick and choose so much, and Heroes Unlimited is still one of the best superhero games ever made.

Once you understand character creation, the game is a B/X level of simplicity and fast play. The characters take time to design because you are doing "game design" for the role you will play in the game. It is well worth it, and rules-light games fail to fill the investment you get after you finish Palladium character design.

Remember, do all physical skills FIRST! These often change your attributes. After that, weapon skills to figure out combat bonuses, and then everything else. Print out the physical skills page or find or make a summary. Do this, and your speed at character creation is faster and more straightforward.

The games utilize asymmetrical balance, with classes not on equal power levels, but the specialists excel in their area of expertise. This makes a game that naturally needs a group, where you get this "team of specialized experts" who are not each good at everything, but the individual members can shine at what they do best.

c. 1984

You have a system that builds a group like facets of a diamond. Everyone specializes and is the absolute best at what they love to do. They all have weaknesses and must rely on others. Because you are the best at what you do, you feel fantastic when you finally get to shine. Then, you step back and rely on others for everything else.

Games that design-in everyone's powers into everyone else are boring and anti-group. Why do I need anyone else if every class has self-healing, damage, stealth, magic, defense, social abilities, and so on? You aren't playing D&D with a group; you are playing with a group, alone.

This "playing with others, alone" design mentality has killed interaction in MMOs for years and is the death of many games. Nobody needs a group; everyone is a solo-er, and few play together. We live in an age of "me, not us," and we put influencers on pedestals, and everyone wants to be one. As a result, our games become "what I do" each turn instead of "what we do."

c. 1988, 2005

Palladium is an entirely different design rooted in classic party dynamics. In this model, everyone has a well-defined strength and a collection of weaknesses they must rely on others to fill. What happens in this model? There will always be a moment for every player where they "save the day by being the most awesome." The party cohesion will be powerful. The moments you were allowed to use your class's OP powers will be remembered for the rest of the player's days.

c. 2008

Unlike B/X or most D&D-style games, you aren't a wimp when you begin. 5E tried to up the starting power level to about 3rd level, but you are still weak, and you don't really shine in your role versus everyone else. Nobody needs your abilities in most situations; everyone can do almost everything. D&D also has this terrible thing where casters have all the powers of rogues, and they eventually do everything better than them.

c. 1995

The core seven SDC games, the ones Rifts pulls from for dimensional beings, are all amazing and stand up independently. You can make a "non-Rifts mega-verse" just out of these games, say "Rifts never happened," and have an amazing, multi-versal, cross-dimensional game with many options and diverse character types.

c. 1985, 2001

And they are worth playing on their own. The TNMT-inspired After the Bomb game can be a post-apocalyptic or gritty street-level heroes game. The TNMT RPG is also being reprinted this year, and you can still get a pre-order in. This is still the best "fighting humanoid animals" game ever designed, and it is the king of this niche, no matter how many animal-cracker "all the same" shapes D&D 5.5E wants to say it has. In AtB, you have it if you can dig, tunnel, use sonar, claws, tusks, hooves, fly, glide, or any other remarkable ability! It isn't just, "oh, a plus to a few ability scores and pick some feat" or some other weak-sauce, water-it-down, make-it-pedestrian, nobody-gets-anything-special mass-market game design D&D is so good at.

I can be a badger-man in AtB with digging claws, poison resistance, brute strength, extra mental and physical endurance, and night vision. I can get tunneling if I want. I can pick a few weaknesses, like musk glands, to balance my points. In D&D, if they had a badger race, I would allocate ability score points like everyone else and look like a badger, but do nothing like a badger. It would be pure cosplay, vapid and meaningless, with no powers given.

We live in this false age of pretend, where Wall Street companies tell us they are giving us something, peer pressure us into saying X is Y, and they deliver nothing. Palladium games are more complicated, but you always get the real thing.

And this badger would work in any of these seven worlds just fine. He could fight alongside superheroes, survive zombies, exist in a fantasy realm, fight ninja clans, be a suave super-spy, investigate mysteries, or have any other adventure you could imagine. The powers, tunneling, claws, and every other power would still work in any other sister-world.

You can do this in GURPS, too. But in Palladium, a lot of the work and base idea-crafting has been done for you, at least for character archetypes, and you are not starting from scratch. Palladium games have been played so much that the designers hone in on the best character options that provide the most fun and significant party synergies, and ship those with the game as the default options.

If people malign Palladium games, it is usually third-hand or later knowledge. People talk trash about these games to pretend they are an influencer with a popular opinion. Many who have played them still stand by them to this day. I find a deep sense of loyalty and love for these books that transcends even decades of being away from them, like they were a part of someone's life, and they still hold that close.

Even those who have moved on to other games remember these games fondly.

Yes, they are dated, but some of the best music ever made is dated, too. We just don't know what we had when it first came out, and the fact that we can still play these brings me back to a better time. The fact that they have not changed keeps them rooted in those better days, like an original recording of a song you love.

For many of these games, you can build a soundtrack for the year they were released, including a two or three-year period before. I put that soundtrack on, pick up the game, and am instantly taken back like a time machine.

Today's games don't do that for me. They play like highly processed "food in a box"—too slick, commercial, and full of salt and preservatives (anger and platform lock-in). They aren't "real food" to me. Are Palladium games perfect? No. The songs I love from those days are not perfect creations either.

With Palladium games, I have 40 years of time machines on my shelf.

I can go back.

I only have to open a book.