Level Up Advanced 5E is the best of the Open 5E clones. Unlike Tales of the Valiant, they did not "power up" characters to a CR+1 balance; instead, they worked within the original math to refine it, streamline the rules, and add numerous options for characters. A5E is a CR+0 game and very compatible with the original adventures written for the system.
The math in Level Up is very tight, rebalanced, and the exploits are fixed. This has that flat and dry 2014 balance that many fell in love with back in the early days of 5E. They also fixed so much in terms of "pop-up healing" and put real consequences of death and getting reduced to zero hit points.
A5E has all the fixes people wanted in 2014 D&D, but we never got them in 2024 D&D, and Tales of the Valiant never delivered on them. The mechanical support for the exploration and social pillars of play is excellent, and what we should have gotten with Tasha's. Where 2024 D&D strips out all the softer "roleplaying powers" to make AI-based VTT play easier to develop, Level Up A5E doubles down on the roleplaying, social, exploration, and combat powers and gives us more of them.
If 2024 D&D feels too combat-focused and doesn't deliver on social and exploration, give A5E a try.
EN World's newsletter and web team got into a spat with Goodman Games this year over the City State Kickstarter, which was one of the year's lowlights. What was said by the new owners of Judge's Guild was abhorrent, but it is wrong to attack Goodman Games for its efforts in game preservation and its attempt to correct a wrong. Goodman Games also contributed to the issue with terrible communication, so there is blame on both sides.
And both of these companies are pretty forward-looking, and to have seen them fighting just makes me sick inside. We don't need this sort of vicious infighting during an industry downturn; it drives people away from the hobby. However, to put all this on Level Up A5E is just as wrong as the entire ugly episode.
Goodman Games came out for the better, and they had a fantastic showing at Gen Con this year, so they are doing well, and I am happy for them. Their games have a creativity and imagination that this hobby desperately needs in an era of nostalgia-baiting and endlessly rebooting old adventure modules with fresh coats of paint. How many times has Keep on the Borderlands been rebooted? Do we really need this again, only with worse art? There are times when I feel that Wizards will never create something truly great again, such as a Tomb of Horrors or another classic adventure. They don't have it in them.
The best we will ever have is what we already got.
Other than that, head to the indies to find the new classics.
Level Up A5E felt like it came out on the worst side of this fight, and I have seen no mention of it on YouTube in months. I like the game, and there are excellent design choices here. The fight felt like it hurt A5E more, and none of this needed to happen.
Both games were hurt, and I walked away from this, putting both DCC and 5E in storage. DCC is out again, but all of 5E for me is on ice.
Also, Level Up is the older game. Tales of the Valiant is better supported, with regular crowdfunding and new products, as Kobold Press navigates the 2024/ToV tightrope. ToV is better than D&D 2024 by far, but this is where the interest and excitement are these days, not in Level Up A5E. I don't see many people talking about or playing Level Up these days, and my copies are currently in storage. If it comes down to it, DCC will get shelf space over any version of 5E.
ToV is the best supported version of 5E, once you factor in the Shard VTT and owning PDFs.
A5E is the best custom version of 5E.
I like ToV and tried playing this, but I ended up missing the improvements A5E made to the system. Ultimately, the absence of a robust character creation tool doomed both games, with only Shard being the best one so far for ToV, and nothing much for A5E.
ToV's art varies in quality, and it is distracting at times. Level Up does a better job with the art, although it lacks those amazing pieces, by remaining consistent and good throughout.
I grew tired of relying on character creation software for 5E as a whole, as well as the multi-page character sheets. I have DCC. I have OSE. I have ADAD. I have Swords & Wizardry. I have Shadowdark. I have C&C. None of them needs software. They all do the same thing.
GURPS, admittedly, needs software. However, the calculus is different since it is primarily a one-time cost, or Patreon-supported for the other tool (which is still free, but please consider supporting the hard work that goes into it). If I want realistic fantasy with the best characters, GURPS is my game of choice.
Do I need to play with the 5E math, or is B/X and First Edition math superior? I did the numbers, 5E does not maintain character power as well as B/X or First Edition. 5E has a lot of bells and whistles designed to distract you as your character grows weaker in power as they level, and in that regard, it is like any MMO, but far more challenging to jump in and play.
Where ToV gives you about six "special abilities" after character creation, typically A5E gives you a dozen. This makes A5E characters very heavy, and character creation is slow going. I prefer A5E's final characters to ToV's, and the latter feels like a simplified version of this game. Then again, if I am going to take 90 minutes to create a 5E character, I will play GURPS, spend the same amount of time, and have exactly the character I want with better depth and options.
A5E has some of the best exploration mechanics ever developed for 5E. Resting is not easy. Rangers are needed. Rugged terrain can kill you. Survival is important. Supplies are critical. The hardcore 5E gamers from 2014 want their game back, and they've got it here. This was back before 5E became a player empowerment circus and everyone got soft, in the pre-Tasha's days, where serious gamers could still play 5E.
If I ever return to 5E, it will likely be with A5E. Despite the fight between Goodman and EN World, A5E is a good game. It is wrong to attribute "guilt by association" to anyone, and doing so to A5E is equally unjust.
ToV feels too cartoonish, like modern D&D, with goofy characters and their clown-like appearances. Death means nothing. Resting is far too permissive. ToV also makes minor improvements to the system, and the high level of subclass compatibility comes at the cost of the core game not being significantly better than 2014 5E. The power distribution and fixes in ToV are the real improvements, even surpassing those of 2024 D&D.
A5E rebuilds everything, sacrificing subclass compatibility for improving every pillar of the game. The martial classes and fighting styles surpass 2014, 2024, and ToV. You can find rare and unique spells. Everything is cool.
Level Up A5E is 2014 D&D 5E in a bottle, a game from that era before the hardcore players walked away. This was from that time when people still took 5E seriously, and it wasn't this constant stream of identity marketing, the overused Baldur's Gate 3 GMNPC characters, overpowered classes, designed for a failed VTT, zero-risk gameplay, and games that lacked challenge and got boring the higher level you reached. There was a moment when old-school players still played 5E, and A5E was created for them.
By the time Tasha's came around, we got Strixhaven, Spelljammer, and a whole mess of missteps; very few could take D&D 5E seriously. D&D slowly became a joke, a parody of the genre and itself. People went to Shadowdark and the OSR, and after the OGL, other games entirely.
Pathfinder 2 and ToV captured the alternative 5E market. Shadowdark took the rest. Many have left 5E entirely, sick of the entire mess the market has become.
This left A5E to sit there, still supported, still a good version of 5E, but seemingly forgotten.
No comments:
Post a Comment