I don't mind a CR+1 game. I have seen a few comments that since ToV's power level is one higher, they have yet to want to play it since 5E, and they don't want to play since 5E is super-heroic in power level. I want to test this since my own playthroughs have confirmed that characters get far too powerful at level 5 and higher, and I get bored of the lack of challenge.
It's important to note that Kobold Press, the company behind ToV, has a proven track record in monster design. They've published three excellent books of CR+1 creatures for their adventures and established solid 5E rules design credentials. They've thoroughly played and tested this version to ensure its balance and enjoyment.
Very few 5E publishers have the experience they have in crafting monsters, adventures, and encounters. KP's business depends on it.
Designing for 5E is no easy task. The game's balance is easily broken, and its loose design allows for a significant amount of broken 1st and 3rd party content. I've witnessed the impact of allowing 'attacks on bonus actions' in a fight, completely ruining many of my low-level encounters. This issue only escalated as the game progressed.
And 5E book after book throws in these sorts of attacks and other unbalanced bonus actions on a whim on everything from races, subclasses, backgrounds, and everywhere else, like giving players candy. This bonus action garbage poisons a character at level one; it feels great and powerful and worsens as the character levels as bonus action attacks start stacking with every other power and attack enhancement.
Much of the 5E content, from 3rd parties and Wizards themselves, is so horribly broken that it only worsens the "overpowered characters" problem. The more books you add, the worse it gets. Wizards broke bounded accuracy in Tasha's because "missing isn't fun," - which fundamentally altered the game and balance going forward.
90% of 5E is the problem with 5E, which gives it a bad reputation. The 5E base books were good, but the amateur designers at Wizards took over as people left, and the game took a turn for the worse. It became power gaming, and the action economy and bounded accuracy systems were abused and broken horribly to where very little mattered except denying the enemy's actions and stacking actions, damage, and power.
Everyone wants to sell books, right?
5E is easily broken, and things you think are minor giveaways for characters are actually game-breaking changes. No book tells you what to look out for; you need to have a few campaigns ruined to learn the ban list, and that is no guarantee that the next thing that comes along won't wreck it all the next time.
I sound negative, but this is a call for sanity and to point out the sheer wall of garbage infecting the 5E ecosystem. Very few reviewers are honest or have the experience to see problems in this massive matrix of interactions and overlapping rules. The general consensus is that "5E is overpowered," we have no idea if these statements are made with third-party content, broken Wizards expansion books, or what.
It is hard to balance a game when the people making it don't care.
ToV feels different and feels like a reset. As people begin to pull things in, the same problems will happen again, but I am more experienced this time. Bonus action attacks are "sus" from any source other than being a monster's unique ability that was never designed for characters.
I will give this one a chance before my 5E books are sold. Many of the junk items will be sold anyway. I know how they broke my game now.
Oh, and Hero Lab needs the new Deep Magic books ASAP. They were designed to work with ToV and should be one of the first added to the app, along with the Tome of Beasts books.
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