Advanced 5E Redux

This is still a great edition of 5E, and if you want to sidestep participating in the Tales of the Valiant playtest and want a full-featured 5E alternative NOW - this is the game to get. EN World did an outstanding job with this game, and they put a lot of thought into the modes of play - including exploration, and tightly tie characters to the world through character generation.

Even in the Tales of the Valiant world, A5E feels more like the AD&D to 5E's D&D. In terms of settings, this is what AD&D's Greyhawk was to D&D's Mystara back in the day - a heftier, more in-depth, complete set of rules that pays tribute to the OSR pillars of gameplay.

ToV? That is more like Paizo's Golarion (and Pathfinder 3.75 to 3.5E), a new direction with alternate rules replacing the standard 5E systems (replacing inspiration with luck). A5E cuts closer to the 5E core, and ToV diverges in specific ways. ToV, like Pathfinder 1e, has a higher base power for characters, and the monsters are balanced around that standard.

A5E keeps the choice between ability score increases and feats, and from what I saw, it makes feats pretty worth taking instead of that default-5E ability score increase. ToV? You get both a feat and an ability score increase, and your character power is higher than the 5E baseline (which is already high, admittedly). Is it fun to get both? Heck yes! Is it 5E? Not really, since ToV characters will start collecting "feat lists" as they level, which adds to the complexity.

Again, this is Pathfinder's "gimme" design, where they upped character power and compensated with monster difficulty. Giving players what they want is good, but you pay a cost in complexity for every gimme you give. A5E sticks to the original design goals of 5E while making fixes in plenty of needed places. ToV makes fixes, too, but leans more towards crowd-pleasing and less to the original design mantra.

It also uses an "expertise die" mechanic, which is fantastic, and I like the idea of adding a die to a roll in some situations. Expertise dice are like Shadow of the Demon Lord's "boon/bane" system, but it is a dice chain like in Dungeon Crawl Classics. For example, flanking in A5E gives you an expertise die (not an advantage). If you have no expertise dice with your attack, it starts at a d4. If you already have a die, it bumps up to the next highest, so a d4 goes to a d6.

Simple, and it replaces the need to use "advantage and disadvantage" for every problem.

Another cool feature is linking inspiration to your character's destiny. Destiny in this game is a choice you make at character creation, and it could be something like chaos, knowledge, revenge, wealth, and so on. Doing a "source of inspiration" toggles your inspiration. This is used as usual. One thing I dislike about Inspiration in the One D&D playtests is that they are moving towards making it happen frequently and on things like die rolls of one. Having inspiration linked to your character archetype and roleplaying? Chef's kiss! 

Yes, inspiration makes for emergent gameplay and fun moments. Still, I get this feeling in One D&D that inspiration will be so every day it will be meaningless and another expected part of character power. I really do not like that; even if it is "more fun" to be toggling inspiration multiple times per fight, I would rather have it as a "key moment." resource than a "turn to turn mechanic" one. One is used for special moments, and the other is another thing to track every turn. Huge difference.

These are well-thought-out and cool changes.

Again, this is the more mature, balanced, true-to-5E core AD&D to 5E's D&D. It does a few things differently (expertise dice), but there is some solid game-design reasoning behind these additions.

The Level Up Advanced 5E game should not be ignored in the hype and launch of Tales of the Valiant. I expect Kobold Press to knock it out of the park, but A5E is worthy and a solid AD&D style alternative to 5E.