Off the Shelf: Ultramodern 5

I don't know why I like this version of 5E, I just do.

It is quirky, strange, cool, different, and it mechanically breaks down the 5E design into a series of interconnected modules. This is a vertical slice of 5E; instead of doing the traditional class-and-subclass thing, they tear the game's internals apart while keeping it at the same level of power and balance as the original. As a result, you get this interesting mix-and-match system where many of the subclass choices exist outside of the class, and it is a really ingenious design that reduced the typical 5E bloat we see from expansive listings of subclass powers (most of which we never use). I would love to see a fantasy version of this game, since the character building is on a step above most 5E implementations, with cross-class archetypes being used instead of subclasses.

Modern weapon damage is also kept under control, with class abilities providing the damage boosts rather than overpowered modern weapons. It seems counterintuitive, but the entire 5E design hinges upon class abilities being the force multiplier, so it makes sense. Less skilled people will not be able to use modern firepower to its full effect, and what matters is the warrior, not the weapon. If you want a modern gun simulation, play GURPS.

Many 5E science fiction designs tend to fail to land for me, being oddly specific, one-note, or just feel like "D&D in space." This has more of a Shadowrun meets Moebius vibe going, and it can sort of be generic "Heavy Metal" science fiction anywhere you put it. It has a default setting, but really, you can throw this at any homebrew "futurepunk" setting mixed with fantastic races and have it work. It works with realistic races and with fantasy races in a science fiction setting. If you wanted to use this with a "Starfinder" type setup where the game's initial promise was "fantasy races in space," this would do that just fine.

This delivers "D&D in space" while maintaining its own unique, gritty, dirty, and broken future aesthetic, whereas many other games are too "Mass Effect"- clean and sterile. That "plastic future" aesthetic is the bane of many games and TV shows, covering up a great moment of societal change with plastic wall panels and slick-looking Hollywood laser rifles in bright white molded plastic shells. That "plas-fi" future is the state selling you hard on giving up basic human rights for the honor of living in a future where everything is covered up in a slick plastic shell and veneer of social order.

Dirty science fiction leaves room for individuality and personal freedom, and even early Star Wars knew this. The future is dirty and mostly broken down, but you can find honest people among the mass of criminals and downtrodden. The white plastic stormtroopers are state symbols of fascist control. Massive defense projects promising world domination are inherently evil. If you never knew New York or LA in the 1970s, right after the Vietnam War, you don't know science fiction.

In this light, Mass Effect-style science fiction that is overly militaristic and clean comes off as some defense contractor hype video for a multi-billion-dollar weapons program for corporate welfare. Modern Star Trek almost always falls into "plas-fi," and it does not know what it wants to be. Like many IPs, including modern Star Wars, it has no place in today's world since it speaks to no one.

There is no message or pain; the false future sold to us by the architects of the Vietnam War, the promise that military force would solve everything, was a lie that got millions killed. Is that message resonating today, or has the machine taken over the messaging? Modern Hollywood is the machine; it can no longer make science fiction or compelling dramas that speak to the human spirit. Hollywood is a generation waiting to die, destroying the world on its way out the door. You can't speak to the future through an aging group of bitter creators dragging you into their graves.

This is why YouTubers' movies are decimating Hollywood, and there will be a science-fiction answer, likely soon. When you fail to speak to people, they will find ways to speak to each other on their own, and your IPs and properties will be excluded from the conversation. This is also why Marvel, DC, and Star Wars are failing. The original sin that created them is fading from memory.

I hate to speak like that, in such dark and broad-brush terms, but you need to understand the underpinnings of Star Wars, and most of the science fiction IPs came from a world that promised us floating cities, flying cars, and daily rockets to Mars in the 1950s, which ended up in the Vietnam War of the 1970s and the failure of the Dream State. That is a 20-year promise of tomorrow, well within a lifetime, sold hard, and it crashed and burned.

Reality set in.

And Hollywood is echoing those same promises of the rockets to Mars and flying cars, and the pen-and-paper industry writes games to echo that failure. Fantasy in this context isn't escapism; it is morphine meant to dull the massive pain of living in today's world. This is where D&D 5.5E is right now, removing any sense of hardship, pain, or triggering content to purify the numbing hit of painting its players as false gods. D&D 5.5E and the world it presents is a painkiller, safe, and corporate-friendly, and it won't upset Wall Street.

The cyclops are fortune tellers. The lizardfolk are eco-defenders. Orcs are character options. Any mention of people enslaving or slaughtering others is wiped clean. Any semblance of playing in a harsh and bitter, Conan-like world is gone. Death and failure are near impossible. D&D as a fantasy game feels dead and numb.

Modern D&D is a fantasy painkiller without a prescription. It is acetamino-fantasy.

Ultramodern 5E is still very much a "dirty" game, science fiction that smells like burnt oil, lived in, unclean, and broken. It manages to restructure and rebuild 5E into a unique, subclass-specific free framework that delivers on the 5E build process. A lot of 5E compatible games either deliver the traditional "dozen page long" heavy class designs full of subclass options. Here is a paladin, and here are 32 pages of paladin subclasses bloating the game to infinity and beyond, most of which you will never use.

D&D 5.5E is a distraction by design.

Ultramodern was designed in an age of system hacking 5E, and of trying new approaches to that monolithic framework, trying to tear it down and make it a better system for science fiction, diverse occupations, and character types. The dream of hacking and remixing 5E died around 2020 when the streamers took over, and the system has been design-stagnant until Shadowdark rolled around.

There is no starship combat; instead, a mecha system gives the heavy-metal vehicle a combat hit. It is a lot like the original Star Frontiers in this regard; it is just a "ground pounding" science fiction game that focuses on personal action, and you could conceivably use "any science fiction naval wargame" as your ship combat system. Frankly, this is a better option, as many science fiction RPGs fail horribly at delivering ship combat. The only exception to that is Stars Without Number, which does a good job of delivering the ship combat goods while keeping the system light and approachable.

The game also has its own magic system, combining all sources into one, and delivering a "spell point" style system that works well for universes that mix magic and "space magic." It avoids the tropes of the D&D 5E spell list and delivers a good selection of powers that build on the system's strengths while remaining simple and usable.

If you ever wanted a 5E spell, put it in a one-shot artifact or scroll, and be done with it.

Ultramodern 5E is a different design ethos from a different time, when 5E was still much more of a "currently hacked" system, constantly remixed with homebrew. In late-stage 5E, 5.5E set in rigor mortis, cementing many of the design expectations, with massive subclass collections and monolithic class designs. 90% of the subclass options in 5E you will never use. Ultramodern opens them all up to you while keeping the base-class designs focused and simple.

For a science fiction 5E game, that works for me, reducing complexity and the number of pages read while opening up the character design system to a box of Legos I can assemble any way I want. This is the version of 5E where I could take a random "fantasy race guide" and throw them all into a science fiction setting, delivering on the promise of "magic and tech" that many games failed to deliver in the past. From Dragonstar to Starfinder, a lot of games have tried, but very few have endured, Starfinder being one, and on the 5E side, Ultramodern 5E feels like the answer to that system.

Perhaps that is why I still like this game; it approaches the massive problem of 5E's class complexity in a novel way, and remixes the rules into a framework that handles the dirty, post-fantasy-world sci-fi that I like.

D&D 5.5E Overexposed?

With Vampire 5.5E coming, along with GI Joe, Transformers, and Power Rangers, now I am starting to get a little worried. D&D 5.5E may become overexposed, with a glut of games on the market, and it may implode in a huge market crash. Don't forget Traveller 5E, either.

Will there be a "tipping point" for "too much 5.5E?"

Pretty soon, we will probably see a glut of classic gaming titles rewriting themselves for 5.5E. I could pick any of them, such as TORG, Paranoia, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and many others. Okay, I take one of those back, Shadowrun 5.5E, I would actually buy, since it would be nice to have standardized rules that were 5E compatible. Then again, I have Ultramodern 5 for that, and that version of 5E is very cool. UM5 is Shadowrun 5E to me, just add fantasy races and monsters, and you are there, plus some.

Then again, UM5.5E would be nice to see. Why not jump in? Sales are sales. Then again, the market here is niche, and unless you are releasing on D&D Beyond, just leave it be. UM5 is so heavily modded that nothing may change for a 5.5E update.

But I foresee a point where the 5.5E gets wildly overexposed, and then, at that moment, Wizards announces 6E, and the entire industry is stuck a version behind the market leader. Nobody wants to rebuy it all again, and the market crashes.

This is another reason to avoid 5.5E and the New Coke edition and stick with what works. I am happy with ToV and my 10-year shelf of 5E books. At best, 5.5E is the "rules update" that you use with your D&D 2014 monster manual. The rule changes are minor. If you can't doublecast? Yeah, you are in a 5.5E game.

You know, third-party bestiary writers... rewriting the D&D 2014 Monster Manual for the 2024 rules with 5.5E design goals, and representing the classic monsters as they were - would be a very compelling thing. Enhance that with special versions of orcs, lizardfolk, and other classics, and you would have a great book on your hands. The "Old School Monster Manual" would likely sell very well and go a long way to removing the New Coke aftertaste of this edition. Just saying.

But with so many 5.5E books coming out, I feel we are heading into a market glut. The crowdfunding projects will overwhelm us with a tidal wave of 5.5E recreations. And we will be left with shelves of books, and no time to play with them. Then, the market will crash.

I do get the feeling that too many eggs are in one basket, but if 90% of the market won't play anything else, what else can you do?

D&D 5.5E: New Coke

D&D 5.5E, taken on its own, is New Coke.

I tried to immerse myself in this game. I slammed into the bottom of the swimming pool here, and it wasn't the Player's Handbook or DMG that was at fault here. Those are okay, with occasionally cringe-worthy art that I can ignore. The rules updates are workable and do their job.

The 2024 Monster Manual takes this game into New Coke territory.

I get the feeling most are still using the 2014 Monster Manual with the 2024 PHB and DMG. If this were all a brand-new system, it would die on the vine. They took what we love about the D&D monsters and erased most of the conflict, savage nature, and villainy from almost every one of them.

Without the classic D&D monsters, this is not D&D anymore.

This was D&D's "secret sauce": the monsters everyone kept coming back to battle. This is what other games lacked. This was the essential difference between a generic fantasy heartbreaker game and D&D. Without the classic D&D monsters, the game is just like any other fantasy slop game, and it needs a lot more going for it to attract attention and remain compelling.

So, D&D cut its own arm off like a terrible Rolemaster fumble chart result.

They reimagined the monsters as progressive fan fiction.

And this is not me being anti-progressive; I support the smart use of safety tools. I love Cypher System, FATE, and Tales of the Valiant. I support Paizo. I play GURPS. I love Goodman Games. I am not one of these culture war gamers. I am pretty much well in the middle of the road on most things. If you make a good game, I am there to play. I also love old-school games, BX, ACKS, and a bunch of other games that pay tribute to classic gaming.

But Wizards messed up so many classic monsters, and they butchered creatures inspired by the classic Appendix N authors. They made almost every monster into a kinder, gentler reimagining.

When I play a fantasy game, I can suspend my everyday expectations of reality. I do not need to superimpose today's values onto a fantasy world. I have a clear idea of what fantasy is and what reality is.

And progressive companies, like EN World, Goodman Games, and Kobold Press, can deliver savage, brutal, evil, and monstrous monsters without watering them down or changing the formula. None of those companies felt the need to change what makes things fun, yet they can deliver a compelling, dangerous, and clearly old-school-inspired experience. They can keep their values separate from the game while maintaining their strong core values and ensuring players feel safe during play, even when their characters are in danger.

If you are still using a 2014 Monster Manual, you don't even see this.

If all you have is a 2024 Monster Manual, the magic is gone. You can ignore a lot of the silly parts of the Monster Manual's rewrites, but nothing in this book feels right. The monsters feel like the monsters in any other slop-fantasy game. They are all fan fiction, not D&D, and feel like off-model animation where Scooby Doo is drawn all funny and doesn't look right.

So, my problem is, if I were using 2014 monsters anyway, why am I playing 5.5E? What is the point of this, to say I am "in 5.5E" and ignoring a third of the game?

I might as well play a game with a unified and consistent presentation that preserves the D&D magic and formula. Where the D&D 2014 monster descriptions were left intact. Where I play something with the version of the rules I like, have fun, and not worry about 2014 vs. 2024.

That game is Tales of the Valiant. It is also Level Up Advanced 5E.

I don't need to drink New Coke.

What few monsters don't exist in ToV can be ported in with a 2014 Monster Manual, if I choose to. The ToV monsters are, however, far better designed, and the fights are built to be short and intense. The D&D 2014 and 2024 monsters are slogs to fight, and I am often better off using ToV monsters.

What really matters, though, are the ecology and descriptions of the 2014 monsters. This is the secret sauce. This is what D&D 5.5E lacks. Tales of the Valiant, of all the things the game did, preserved everything perfectly and locked it into a version of the game we can enjoy forever.

This feels exactly like the Pathfinder 1e and D&D 4E split, where the legacy of D&D 3.5E was passed on to Pathfinder 1e, and that game and world exploded with interest. If the 2014 books were incompatible with 2024, that is where I feel we would be today, with ToV taking over the game's identity. Just like D&D 4E, Wizards has walked away from their lore. It will be a slow, boiling pot from here as 2014 is slowly phased out, and the new lore will take over. The 2014 books will go out of print, and the edition will be harder and harder to play as it was.

And frankly, replacing D&D with ToV is what should happen.

The message needs to be sent.

I'm not doing this New Coke thing.

Tales of the Valiant vs. D&D 5.5E

The classic D&D 2014 lore is preserved and expanded upon in Tales of the Valiant. The game is 100% compatible with D&D 2014 subclasses and adventures. The monsters hit hard and go down easier, leading to tougher, shorter, and more intense fights. Everything feels perfectly like classic D&D 5E. The classes and gameplay flow perfectly, matching exactly what I expect.

The luck mechanic is far, far better than Heroic Inspiration, turning close rolls into successes, and giving the player a bennie for a clear miss.

If I'm playing 5E, I'm playing ToV.

The Player's Guide 2 adds the missing subclasses, filling out all the expected roles in the game. While the first book covers the core basics and is great for new players, the second book expands on it and delivers the theme-supporting subclasses we expect. Nature clerics, mockery bards, elemental druids, twinblade fighters, grenadier mechanists, elemental voice monks, unbound paladins, shadow rangers, trapsmith rogues, and wizards get necromancer, arcanist, and summoner. Keep the corebook new player-friendly, and leave the advanced classes fully fleshed out in the expansion.

Yes, yes, and yes.

The D&D 5.5E Monster Manual pushed me over the edge. Yes, they streamlined monster complexity and optimized for speed of play. Those are laudable goals, especially for a game notorious for combats that take hours to resolve. But they cut too many abilities out of the monsters, and they now all feel like generic stat blocks. Most of the humanoids are gone, and they are confusingly split up between specific and generic types. And the writing team sanitized and scrubbed anything cool about the monsters, and rewrote most of the creatures into terrible Tumblr fan fiction.

Some of these are abjectly horrible to read, cringe-worthy, and turn D&D into a generic fantasy slop game. I can get monsters like these anywhere, heroic lizardfolk nature defenders that are abjectly horrible. The cyclops? They became future-seeing fortune-tellers who protect fate. Wouldn't that make them always win initiative? No? No room for that, or didn't think of it? They were reculsive, primitive, animal-raising brutes who mostly wanted to be left alone and turned into somebody's anime fan fiction.  There is nothing wrong with having them be more pastoral and simple folk. Even the art looks like an AI edit, the same pose as the 2014 art, but with a magical time mage in the background. Monocular Servants of Destiny? What is this book?

I get trying to "spice up" underused monsters, but these examples make no sense. Part of the heart and soul of D&D are the monsters. Changing the classic D&D monsters removes any desire for me to play the game, as I could get the same generic fantasy slop elsewhere. The book tries too hard to present monsters in a positive light, watering down true evil, removing the Conan-like edge from any savage species, and "nice-washing" every monster into a kinder and gentler variant.

You know it is bad when some cultists are described as "privately pursuing esoteric secrets." Let's not judge them, okay? It is like describing cannibals as people with "abnormal culinary tastes" and using the tagline for the monster entry, "Self-Consuming Anti-Agrarian Collective."

I tried to play D&D 5.5E. I bought character sheets. I got a campaign book. I wanted to give it a chance. The D&D 5.5E Monster Manual ruined it for me. The book is filled with tripe and fan fiction. It removes any background, lore, or inspiration for using a monster, leaving generic, dreamed-up reinterpretations.

But I gave the game an honest try.

This is the worst Monster Manual since the loose-leaf binder they sold us back in AD&D 2nd Edition, but at least that had great lore and ecology. The fact that these aren't even the same monsters as we had in that book, and that the lore on them has drastically changed, puts this squarely as the worst Monster Manual ever, with the D&D 4E Monster Manual a close second, due to the fact that some monsters had 1,400 hit points and took a day-long fight to defeat.

Tales of the Valiant? Ah, there are the D&D monsters I know and love! Just as progressive a company, but they have significantly more self-restraint, can deliver the product, and are not rewriting the game to protect players' feelings. You enter this world, there may be things that upset you, like there are things in a Conan novel that may upset you, and we will talk about it if it does. We are not rewriting Conan to protect readers' feelings. People love the D&D monsters and their lore, and this is what sets D&D apart from every other fantasy slop game on the market.

Only, D&D does not have the D&D monster lore anymore.

Tales of the Valiant does. Or D&D 2014. Or even, Level Up A5E, another very progressive company that can focus and deliver the product that gamers want. When D&D changes its lore, this is like Coke changing the formula. You have lost. Pepsi gives every employee a day off. The cola wars are over. D&D isn't D&D anymore unless we have a spare 2014 Monster Manual lying around and use it.

Could I play this?

With this?

Yes. I may have to. This may actually be more fun than playing D&D 5.5E and cringing whenever I look up a monster. I don't want to use a monster that I might accidentally mock or make fun of during play, since the lore and rewritten fan-fiction are so silly. I want the original lore and formula, not the new fantasy-slop versions. If I am not "getting the D&D," I might as well go play Daggerheart or Pathfinder.

Then again, if the 5.5E Monster Manual is that messed up, why would I want to play here? What else did they mess up in the Realms? Is it all rewritten to be audience-friendly and non-triggering? I stopped playing in the Pathfinder 2 world since the changes were terrible, and I have a feeling this will be more of the same.

The less I fight the source material, the more fun I will have.

Again, the Kobold Press alternative may be the better choice here.

B is for Bandit

Okay, this is a failure on D&D 5.5E's part. The Monster Manual organization is terrible; they alphabetized everything. The demons, devils, dragons, and humanoid enemies are all spread throughout the book. If you don't know what a balor is, a demon, you may not even realize what that is, and miss the entry completely when looking for demons. Monsters that should be NPCs are scattered throughout the book.

But, I get it, if you are looking for demons, use the Monsters by Group appendix in the back.

And why are some monsters still here, such as the Kobold Warrior and the Lizardfolk, just using the generic "Scout" stat block? And yet, there are still specific Lizardfolk monster entries, but none for the basic monster? Why is this so hard? And where do I put the Lizardfolk's swimming speed and hold breath abilities? Oh, they aren't there? There is no cultural or background data on the Lizardfolk now?

And they are somehow elementals now? And "Reptilian Defenders of the Land?" Is the D&D 5.5E Monster Manual making a value judgment on players who kill a lizardman?

Similarly, with the Bandit entry, the D&D 5.5E listing mentions that they could be, "driven to lives of crime by unjust laws, desperation, or the threats of merciless leaders." While true, this is another value judgment the writers are making here, and it shows that the book is filled with opinions and amateur writing that should not have made it past an editor.

We get two short paragraphs about Lizardfolk in D&D 5.5E, instead of a page of inspirational material as we got in D&D 2014. We get nothing on the race's basic abilities, like holding breath (gone from all entries), and the information is sparse and flavorless. We get one page on them in D&D 5.5E, two pages in D&D 2014 and A5E, and three in Tales of the Valiant.

We have gone from a savage species of lizard-like warriors and shamans that could have appeared in a Conan novel to kind, gentle, reptilian elemental eco-defenders out of Captain Planet. This doesn't need any more sensitivity readers; it needs a few more "make this make sense to me" readers. Tonally, this is all wrong. Why is a Monster Manual going out of its way to explain why the creatures in the book are somehow not monsters?

And they give the bandits guns that fire gunpowder in D&D 5.5E. This is a Pathfinder 2E influence in which the game's technology level has risen to Victorian Steampunk levels, and it is no longer in the fantasy genre. Are guns an everyday thing now? Is the town guard packing heat?

Seriously, new D&D team, fix this, or you do not have a chance with 6E. This isn't D&D.

And I could argue with so many monsters having been made "good guys" that there are fewer monsters in 2024 that are usable than in 2014. What happens if Lizardfolk are encountered in a legacy adventure? Are they somehow good guys now? If all I had were the 2024 books and my players met Lizardfolk, then why should we be killing them again? Is it "wrong?"

I was driving in my car and thought the 2024 team had hired a bunch of people who knew nothing about the game or its history, and they rewrote all the lore with some idealized, modern take, and it feels like the writers talk down on fans for having enjoyed "that game." Many of the reimagined monsters are not the real ones that helped create D&D; at best, they are fan-fiction reinterpretations. If any of these monsters were out there on DriveThru without the D&D brand on them, they would be a two or three-star, at best.

They wrote a Monster Manual to subvert D&D's lore and history. I get the feeling that too many in the hobby are just afraid to say the obvious, for fear of damaging the brand they love and depend on. Don't tip over the boat we are all in. Just keep quiet. We'll get through this if we keep playing 2014.

The 2014 Monster Manual is a better book, more organized, and far more useful during play. Who cares if the monsters are "streamlined for fast play" if they aren't worth playing with?

This book was written without grouping anything together, as if it were a VTT reference manual rather than a monster book that delves deeper into lore, history, and ecology. D&D 2014, Tales of the Valiant, and Level Up A5E still have the wonderful NPC appendices where bandits are covered, and I can apply any lineage to them. When I want detailed information on a lineage or specific monster race, it isn't there, or it is so abridged and cut down that it is all but useless.

And if you are playing D&D 5.5E, all of a sudden, you need another supplemental NPC Monster Manual just to fill out what is missing. There are some good ones, but this adds another book to the pile, even though the idea of "three books to play" has already been broken. I need another third-party book for the humanoids, bringing D&D 5.5E to five books needed to play.

The D&D 5.5E Monster Manual is a clear step down from the D&D 2014 Monster Manual.

I get the feeling D&D 5.5E DMs are secretly pulling in the "good stuff" from the D&D 2014 Monster Manual, and this is one of the factors keeping the game playable and popular.

And I can't see D&D 5.5E as a normal D&D game after this. It isn't. The new writers came in and changed too much of the classic lore, and the main reason to stay in "D&D" has been erased. If they are changing the lore of D&D this much, I will go play Draw Steel, Nimble, Daggerheart, or DC 20. There is nothing D&D about D&D anymore; it is just like any other modern fantasy slop game.

Most who play D&D 5.5E right now are those looking beyond the changes, using 2014 lore, and appreciating the rules updates and streamlining. They don't want to dump too hard on the game and destroy the hobby. I get it. We are in a terrible place with D&D right now; the game is terribly "sick," and we aren't trashing the game too hard in hopes it recovers.

But the tonal changes in D&D 5.5E remind me of the same World of Warcraft and WWE-style tonal changes they made in D&D 4E, and everyone rejected that change then, too.

If I want detailed, fun, inspiring, wonderfully crafted, and the best monsters in 5E? Do we want the old-school lore respected and properly preserved? The Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault beats the stuffing out of the D&D 5.5E Monster Manual, and it is not even close. This is actually a humiliating comparison. And ToV is still a relatively progressive and socially conscious game, and they managed to get it all right! Orcs are in the Monster Vault, and they look cool.

Tales of the Valiant looks like the premium 5E experience with the best care, love, and detail put into every one of the books. Kobold Press looks like it can strike the right tone and approach to 5E, keeping what old-school players love while not surrendering the core identity that makes the game special.

D&D 5.5E just makes me want to give up 5E entirely and switch games. There is nothing special about it now. It joined the rest of the fantasy slop games and stripped away all the classic AD&D lore.

Tales of the Valiant keeps the soul of D&D alive. It has passed on to a better team, still very progressive, but they show respect for the history of the game, and they can control themselves far better.

ToV is D&D. The lore is enshrined and preserved. The soul is there.

That is the only thing that matters.

The Challenge of ...Challenge Rating

Do CR and balanced encounters hurt 5E? Is the game better played without taking encounter balance into account, and just running "the world as it is"? This topic sort of sucks to cover, since I need to go back to the rulebooks and check exactly what they say to be fair and ensure the game's intent is upheld.

Creating a Combat Encounter

When creating a combat encounter, let your imagination run wild and build something your players will enjoy. Once you have the details figured out, use this section to adjust the difficulty of the encounter.

D&D 2014, Dungeon Master's Guide, pg 81

To me, "use this section to adjust the difficulty" sounds like a subtle nudge towards a requirement to balance encounters. I don't have the 2024 books because I don't want to spend money on them, nor do I have space for books I won't use. Also, 2014 is the more popular version of the game, so that is what I go by.

So, for 2014 D&D, it is "let your imagination run wild" and then "use this section."

There seems to be this huge assumption that we must balance encounters. I suppose the weight of thousands of "how do I balance 5E encounters" videos on YouTube has made the entire subject something we no longer question. What is more confusing is that most say it is just a tool, and many books say it isn't even a sure thing.

BUILDING COMBAT ENCOUNTERS

If you are running a pre-written adventure, combat encounters have likely already been designed for you— with groups of enemies already put together in a way appropriate for the level of the adventure and the events of the story. However, when creating your own adventures or spicing up published material, you may need to create your own combat encounters.

Tales of the Valiant, Monster Vault, Page 7

In ToV? There seems to be a requirement to balance encounters, right in the first pages of the Monster Vault. On page 8, they give three examples of how to create encounters: story-based,  lore-based, and encounter-type. The first two seem like you are not using the tables in the chapter, while the last one strongly implies it. ToV does seem to feel like encounter building is a requirement for running a game, since the section is huge, detailed, and full of advice on building encounters.

In TOV, it is, "When creating your own adventures, you may need to create your own combat encounters." There is a tonal difference here, almost sounding like "Just buy published adventures from Kobold Press." The tools are very detailed, better than D&D 2014, and they feel like a more complete system.

A note here: at least there is recognition that "story-based" encounters are in the game, and this will be expanded upon in the next version of 5E we take a look at. Story-based encounters are unbalanced, "it is what it is" encounters with monsters and wandering monsters, and these are NOT rated on CR, nor are they balanced against a daily budget.

Oddly, these are called "story-based" since that implies the story was prewritten. In most of these cases, they are either wandering monsters or "monsters that are just there," and not part of the traditional, pre-written, balanced, story-style adventures.

Combat Encounters

There are two main ways to build a combat scene: 

Challenge-Based Encounter. The Narrator may set out to prepare a fun, challenging combat encounter and choose opponents accordingly. A set-piece battle in an important dungeon room or the climactic battle in a story arc are often built to challenge the adventurers. 

Story-Based Encounter. Often, the story and player actions determine the nature of a conflict. If adventurers antagonize the city watch they may have to fight guards, and if they anger an archmage they may be forced to battle the archmage. There’s no guarantee that a fight is winnable: the party must deal with the consequences of their choices.

In either case, the Narrator will want to know whether a fight is likely to be trivial, unwinnable, or somewhere in between. In a challenge-based encounter, the Narrator wants to aim for a middle ground of difficulty. In a story-based encounter, the Narrator may want to signal to the adventurers when they’re about to bite off more than they can chew. It’s rarely fun when a crushing defeat or an easy victory is a surprise to everyone (including the Narrator). 

Level Up: Advanced 5E, Trials & Treasures, page 40

Level Up A5E does the best job of clarifying when you should use the CR system. If something is "challenge-based," you use the CR. If the encounter is "story-based," you do not use the CR system; it is what it is. This is more of an old-school interpretation, where a traditional "story-based" module was not written with CR in mind, the entire layout of the dungeon "was what it was," and the players went in there and did their own resource management and judged encounter difficulty themselves.

Walk into a room filled with 40 kobolds?

"The party must deal with the consequences of their actions."

This also implies you can play A5E completely like you would a BX game, throwing out CR, just keying a dungeon, and letting players wander around in there and figure out difficulty and how far they can go by themselves. This is the one thing that was so dangerous about the old Goodman Games 5E versions of the classic TSR adventures: they were presented as-is with 5E stats, and while the B1 recreation does go over encounter balance, the entire B2 adventure is presented as a faithful recreation of B2, and they will happily throw 40 kobolds in a room as a 5E encounter, in a first-level adventure, as an encounter first-level players could run into by the third room they enter.

By A5E's definitions, all of the GG TSR module recreations are "story-based encounters" and meant to be run as-is, without consulting a CR chart or trying to balance anything. That makes sense, and players need to think on their feet again, manage resources, and judge challenges instead of the referee doing it for them.

Ever since Wizards took over D&D, they have been obsessed with balancing encounters and forcing the referee to be the final say. You need to buy the next adventure if you found that too challenging. In previous versions, there was very little balance other than "the monsters in this adventure are suitable for this level range." When we ran the game, we guessed, and most of the time it worked out fine. We knew how things went after a few dozen sessions, and balanced things on the fly.

The overemphasis on encounter balance makes the game harder to referee, for some, trying to perfect and obsess about an imperfect tool, which is only a ballpark estimate with a huge margin of error.

The "party balances content" also applies to all the 5E recreations of the Labyrinth Lord modules, such as Barrowmaze. These all exist in this strange alternate universe where nobody playing 5E used the CR ratings, balanced encounters, or spent all this time worrying about a system that was only made to be a "suggestion" for how to balance encounters, that somehow became rules-as-written, and the only way to create an encounter, or your players will revolt and call you a terrible dungeon master.

Encounter balance is probably one of the things most misunderstood between modern 5E players, "playing by the rules," and the old-school crowd, "calling them as they see them." You will see endless YouTube videos on how to balance encounters, and OSR players sit there wondering why any of this is needed.

Back in the day, it was the players who "balanced encounters" by getting out of there when things seemed too dire, and the resources were nearly all gone. We prayed we would not encounter a wandering monster on the way out or on the way back to town. The referee balanced nothing.

Mail Room: D&D 5.5E

I broke down and got the new D&D books since I have a new blog focusing on old-school 5E gaming. There are a lot of 5E games, and it is nice to have a place where I cover only that, with a stronger focus on the old-school style of gaming and how you get there from these games. Basically, how to play 5E like BX, without needing to play BX.

I am not doing D&D Beyond for 5.5E, nor am I doing digital DLC. If it is not in a printed book, it isn't real to me, nor will it be at my table. If it is not still in the world after an EMP wipes out all computers and AI systems, I am not using it.

If you review my past work, you'll see I've struggled with 5E. The need for online character sheets and the dozen-page-long printouts hurt the game for me. I do not deny that I have had a lot of struggles with this game, especially since there are faster, easier systems out there that do mostly the same thing. I have also had issues with their directions and decisions. It has not been an easy road for me with any of 5E, especially the last few years, starting with the OGL.

Also, it is so easy to listen to YouTube and adopt those as your opinions instead of thinking for yourself. It is like repeating those "Everything Wrong With..." movie or game videos meant as sarcastic humor, but so many just use them as their opinions just to sound snarky and cool. I stopped watching those snarky movie reviews 4 years ago, and I have not missed them. I want to think for myself.

And I have recently given up on D&D YouTube. I find I enjoy the game more the less I hear from them.

There does come a day when I must force myself to be objective and real.

The sad thing is, D&D 2024 feels like a disappointment to many, but it is still generally an improvement over the 2014 5E to the point where this is the better game to start with these days. There are darkvision fixes, a wilderness exploration game, structured exploration, and stronger equipment use. The wilderness rules in 5.5E bring this closer to BX than 2014 D&D, where wilderness adventures were "why bother, run a cutscene."

And still, 80% of the games at my local hobby store are 5.5E. If you want in on live play, you really don't have a choice, and it isn't too hard to adjust.

My new blog is based on one idea: if you play by old-school structures, methods, and principles, it doesn't matter which version of 5E you play, and you don't need to switch to BX to enjoy an old-school experience. All versions of 5E can coexist and give you that experience. Will it work? I'll try it, play with it, and report back on how it went and what changes I needed to make.

That is a fun, creative, positive, hobby-centric project that I crave.

Many of us who love BX will embrace the wilderness adventure rules of 5.5E and see them as a needed improvement, where many 5E players used to 2014 will see them as a hassle and are programmed to automatically ignore them, since "why do we have rules for what should be a cutscene transition, it slows the game down." Laugh if you want, 5E players have been cutting to the chase for 10 years and starting in the dungeon. We who come from BX will say, "Oh, so they finally fixed that?"

Buying three core books and not needing anything else is a huge plus with an asterisk.

You do not need to tell new players to buy the Tasha, Xanathar, and Monsters of the Multiverse books for the fixes. That is three extra books you can avoid, bringing the core books back down to three again. For new players, this is huge, and it makes the game far more accessible. That is half the weight of my backpack, gone.

Am I telling new players to buy and read three books or six?

Yeah, I know which edition I am telling them to buy.

The fact that D&D 5.5E even has wilderness rules is amazing, and they are not shorthanded to the point where if you have a ranger, you can ignore all of them (like 2014). There are still skill checks needed, and the ranger just makes them easier - but the ranger does not short-circuit the entire wilderness exploration system to the point where you ignore the entire part of the game.

"Over time, however, the strengths of the new system became undeniable. The cleaner presentation, improved readability, and streamlined encounter flow genuinely enhanced gameplay once I settled into its rhythm. I also realized that some of the things I dreaded were not actually that prevalent."

Dragonix, D&D 5.5E Monster Manual Expanded, page 2

The rules are streamlined to the point that this feels like a new edition. People who immerse themselves in the changes report that this plays faster and is easier to manage at the table. They say this is just a rules clarification update, but from what I read, people say it feels entirely different to play once you relearn all the systems, and that it's a better game for beginner to high-level play.

Only Tales of the Valiant matches this in terms of new-player friendliness, and I would give D&D 5.5E the top spot just for defining play structure for different parts of the game.

Losing the orcs and humanoid monsters from the Monster Manual hurts, but third-party books are already filling the gap. This is a sore point for the system, and it adds another book to the shelf that I need to consider a "core book." This is the asterisk, and it is a huge omission that wasn't needed.

The 5.5E Monster Manual Expanded has the missing monsters in full. Get this if you are angry about that, or stick with 2014. Personally, I am an old-school player; orcs and goblins should always be in the Monster Manual. This is now a core book, sorry.

Am I bought in on expansion books? Probably not. I'm getting the core books and skipping the rest, for the most part. I am not buying into D&D Beyond, either. Physical books are my thing, and I understand the game is going "digital first" - but I still need to be able to discuss the game fairly and without the bias YouTube spreads.

If it is printed in a physical book, it is a real thing. If it is digital-only, I don't really care.

Heavy users and those burned out on D&D 2014's clunkiness will probably find a lot to love here, but for casual players with a full library, it is a harder sell. For those who bought into other versions of the game, why bother? To me, the best part of 2024 is that it only needs three books to play, four if you miss the Orcs.

Also, if I look at the hobby store schedules? It is wall-to-wall D&D 2024 around here, and you are lucky if you get one D&D 2014 game per month. The world has moved on from D&D 2014. I can't find one ToV game, either. The hobby store tables are a brutal place, and if you want to play, you stick with 2024 and never look back.

The negativity has worn off a little with D&D 5.5E, but the disappointment is still pervasive in the broader community. Many have burned the 5E 2014 rules into their brain's mental pathways, and it is hard to change. But if you are happy with 2014, there is no real reason to switch to 2024. Many do not want to learn new things, nor do they have new players to play with. If this edition came out in 2020, it would have been a different story.

Given the soft economy and D&D 2024 5.5E sales, this edition's shelf life will likely be shortened, which is disappointing. This is one of those Wizards releases like D&D 4.5E Essentials that was well thought out, deserved more of a chance than it was given, and was replaced far too soon. Even the much-loved D&D 3.5E had a five-year shelf life before it was replaced by D&D 4E.

We have about three short years left with this edition, which should be enough to enjoy it while it lasts. If we are lucky, we will have five. This is the legacy of the point-five versions of Wizards games. They are generally the better games mechanically, but they are very short-lived editions.

New players? Dive in! This is good stuff.

Existing players? It depends.

Waiting for this edition to run out is also possible. It would be sad if this had a five-year shelf life.

Overall, I recommend this version for the mechanical improvements and streamlining.

It is not without issues, however.