Once Tales of the Valiant emerged, my interest in Level Up Advanced 5E rose considerably. I had two games to compare. A5E was first, so it bore the brunt of the criticism, such as being "house-ruled 5E." Well, guess what? One D&D will be "house-ruled 5E" compared to the original version of the game everyone came to love.
Past 2024, it is all house-ruled version versus house-ruled version.
The direction that ToV is taking feels like Pathfinder 1e compared to D&D 3.5. Slightly increase character power and monster difficulty, and say you are backward compatible with the previous game. Technically you "are," but playing D&D 3.5 encounters with a bunch of Pathfinder 1e characters gives you an unfair advantage. As I recall, they made a conversion document to increase 3.5E encounter difficulty when facing a similar-CR group of Pathfinder 1e characters.
One of the most significant differences between A5E and ToV is that you get both ability score increases and feats as you level, whereas A5E keeps it as a choice between either. This tells you a lot, and it is a crowd-pleaser sort of gimme from Kobold; it means character power at higher levels will skew higher than 5E. A5E keeps the power level roughly the same as 5E while eliminating cheese builds.
A5E sticks to the 5E power level but rebalances and increases overall encounter difficulty. There is math rebalancing going on here, but nothing raising the curve. A5E had a more demanding job when it came out since it couldn't be seen as "OP easy-mode 5E" and had to stay math-compatible with 5E adventures and expansions.
A5E also eliminated a lot of cheese. As a community-built game, it feels tightly balanced and like a fixed version of 5E - but math compatible.
Of course, time will tell how ToV is eventually balanced and what the power level finally is set at; we are still pre-playtest early, to be fair. Also, I like gimmes and a higher power level since Pathfinder 1e felt more exciting to play than 3.5E. But that said, I did appreciate the "dry balance" 3.5E without all the "bam-pow" flash of Pathfinder 1e.
One D&D's changes to inspiration (making it far more common and happening multiple times during fights) also feel like a power-level bump, and they will need to balance for splat-book power creep in the new edition just to keep up with the work they say they are compatible with before. So far, it looks like a standard set of nerfs and buffs to all the classes, and again, time will tell.
I like A5E's take on inspiration better than ToV's luck (and removal of inspiration) or One D&D's "popcorn inspiration" mechanics. Having inspiration linked to your character as a "Destiny" that can be fulfilled is impressive. Specific roleplaying in-character actions are needed to gain inspiration. Alignment (as a trait) is only gained through a few destiny choices, and for the most part, alignment is not a critical part of the game - but still kept around for spells and items that affect alignments.
If you like the inspiration mechanic, A5E or 5E are your choices, but A5E does better with the entire concept and links it to roleplaying. If you like the luck points mechanic, then ToV is your game.
We are also seeing this with weapon mastery, something in the 5E playtest for martial classes now being given to many classes, and A5E does this better by keeping these moves in the martial class sphere (as what makes martial classes fun to play). Just because something is popular doesn't mean everyone should get it, and this feels like a design-by-committee mistake.
The difficulty is added to A5E by building an exploration pillar and putting resource management into A5E. The rules for A5E's exploration turn the game into an OSR version of 5E, and the situational environment modifiers also tip the hat to D&D 4E. We also get a nicely built social pillar; so much work was put into this set of rules. I hope that ToV adds as well as-designed rules for these two pillars of play and avoids being just another dungeon combat game.
At this point, A5E is much closer to OSR design philosophies than ToV and way better than what stock 5E delivered (or looks to deliver in One D&D).
Suppose you are an OSR player who is okay with a bit of abstraction of resources during travel. In that case, A5E will make you happy, give you a machine-tight level of numeric balance, and still deliver on that brand of superheroic fantasy roleplaying that 5E does so well. This does feel like AD&D versus D&D back in the day in that AD&D was a much more mature and better thought-through set of rules.
As for ToV? That looks like a "fun enhanced" version of 5E, a popcorn crowd-pleaser game. That is my early impression, and we will see if this holds. There is room for both, but you are making a mistake if you ignore A5E for the "shiny new" game. The thought and frameworks around what an exploration and social pillar of play - built from the ground up - can do in a 5E framework are worth the price of admission.
If I stuck with an "as-is" 5E set of rules, with the balance tuned around existing material, A5E would be my choice. Even over the original 5E, which has massive numerical balance issues, A5E cleans up nicely. ToV will also do a lot of cleanups (as needed), but if it comes out as a higher-powered rule set, that is fine too.
A5E would be my game choice with that "dry balance" feeling and classic OSR pillars of play. This is the closest to "as-is 5E" balance minus exploits and mixes in many fun old-school concepts.
ToV would be my crowd-pleaser game for the VTT, with exciting combats and that more brutal Kobold Press encounter build level.
One D&D I will most likely ignore, but it feels more like ToV than A5E in that it leans heavily into table-fun moments (and possibly too much for my liking). I am done with Wizards as a company until the leadership changes. That is a fair position, not trashing the game but holding people accountable. Given all they have done this year, keeping a fair chance open for new people to take over while letting the current crowd know I am still unhappy with their behavior.
Most of my time will be taken up with these two incredible games.
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