The Orc in both Tales of the Valiant, the SRD, and Level Up Advanced 5E tells you where the designer's heads were. Level-Up Orcs have 10 hit points, so whoever made them felt the SRD Orcs were too strong. Also, Orc is a PC heritage, so it should be on par with dwarves, elves, and others as the "basic option" and not be artificially strong.
Orcs in Tales of the Valiant possess a captivating ability and unique hibernation mode. This feature sets them apart and sparks curiosity. It allows them to be buried alive and frozen, entering a state of suspended animation. They can survive in this state until they are dug up and thawed out, lending them a fantastical, somewhat planar, and timeless quality reminiscent of the Githyanki from D&D.
Orcs in LU are more like those in games like World of Warcraft. They can be acclimated to harsh environments, touched by divine magic, or come from more magically adept tribes.
In Level Up, the gameplay experience with Orcs is distinct. Unlike in Tales of the Valiant, the game does not emphasize granting incredible powers to characters. The power level is balanced, with the math based on the OG 5E core books, and tightened considerably for gameplay. Each class still offers unique abilities, but the game's feel is more akin to an old-school simulation than a 1980s action movie.
Orcs, if you use them as monsters and cast some as evil-worshipping, will be easier to take down than their SRD or ToV versions. This is clearly old-school inspired. Level Up retains alignment, but only as traits gained by destinies - and only the four extremes: law, chaos, evil, and good.
You can't compare ToV and Level Up. They are different games entirely.
You will sit there, look at one point, like how many hit points Orcs have, and say one game sucks or the other is better. Both these games have a design goal; ToV is the crowd-pleasing, bam-pow high-powered superhero game - a crowd-pleaser. LU is the old-school simulation with the original 5E math. I love the old-school "sim" aspect of LU.
LU still has many cool things to do, as fighters here are miles better than D&D fighters. Martial classes in LU rock, with access to different fighting styles, almost like fighting orders taught at military academies, thieves guilds, and monasteries. Level Up has some fantastic options, and with the expansions, it gives you a depth and level of customization that even D&D can't match.
LU does a lot that ToV doesn't do.
It is still worth investing in and playing, especially if you like lower-powered, simulation-style, old-school play. The death mechanics in LU are better than those in ToV. Exploration and social options are far better in LU as well. Everything matters, and even where you rest matters in terms of resources and health recovery. A lot of it can be mitigated by party composition and character design, but you must take along the right people on a long expedition to survive.
LU's terrain hand hazardous encounter game is fantastic and worth checking out. The world can be fantastical and dangerous. A sea of sand can swallow caravans and characters, and they may fall victim to places explorers should never go. The party may circumvent the hungry sands and stick to more dangerous rocky crags to avoid those dangers. The overland game and the world's dangers will open your eyes to exploration-based adventures and how amazing they can be.
You can discover unique and rare spells that improve the regular spell selection, giving casters things to search for, steal, and find.
Level Up has rules for bone weapons and armor, dangerous terrains, and that brutal level of realism a survival game needs - making a fantastic engine that opens your eyes to the true Dark Sun for 5E. Since LU is excellent, this would be the only way I play Dark Sun for 5E. Low Fantasy Gaming comes a distant second (lacking many genre support rules), but LU is how to experience this setting in 5E.
A ToV Dark Sun would be a fun game, but it would be missing a lot of the rules needed to make Dark Sun come alive. This would be more of an action-heavy game without the simulation aspects.
Level Up has them all, plus more. Level Up is the "Skyrim realism, survival, magic improvement, and combat options mod" applied to a 5E framework.
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