Level Up A5E: Stripped Down

My problem is that I have eight shelves of 5E books. Is it better if I just stick to my core, plus a few third-party "designed for the game" books, and enjoy A5E with as few books as possible? A5E is a solid game; it is my seven and a half other shelves of books that kill it for me.

At this stage of 5E's life, your enjoyment of the game will be in what you get rid of, rather than what you include. Even my Tales of the Valiant collection has gotten too large, three shelves of books, and the system struggles under its own weight. ToV is great, good enough that I write a blog, but it is in my upstairs closet while I work out my lack of shelving issue. But for me, it has gotten too big, and I feel the need to cut back on that game as well.

The thing about A5E is that it tends to get better the more you focus on the original books, and they are really all you need to have fun. The system is well built to work with its own components, and the game is very dense and packed with good content. The system is very robust and filled with options in just the first three books, and in general, it does a lot with a little.

The art in these books is not AI-generated and ranges from average to good quality. The EN World team does an admirable job in the art department; it works, but it is not a strong point of any of their releases, especially compared to the competition.

First stop, the Adventurer's Guide, and my copy is a bit beat up, with bent corners, but I don't care. It is an awesome, well-loved book. One thing I love about A5E is that it sticks to the classic races and character options: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human, Orc, and Planetouched. We don't get clockworks or mycanoids, time travelers, or other out-there backgrounds. Just the basics, and Orc is really the only outlier in the group, but I can give that a pass.

What is shocking is that we don't get Kobolds or Goblins, or any furries of any kind (ToV has a generic beastkin lineage). We do get Goblinkin in other books, but they are not in core, which makes A5E feel more like old school D&D, at least around 4E, to me. Drow are also here as a "shadow elf" culture selection, plus an elf as heritage.

Oh, and A5E uses heritage, culture, and background. ToV uses lineage, heritage, and background. I prefer A5E's terms far more than ToV. To me, lineage is more of a "family tree" term and does not belong in the discussion. Heritage as race is fine, but ToV drops the ball here using heritage as culture, and culture is clearly the better term and far clearer what it is. A5E is closer to race, culture, and background, and those are plain-language terms.

The classic selection of heritages is a strength, since the book focuses on the classics, giving dwarves and elves time in the spotlight again, and not too many silly, science-fiction, or crazy heritages to distract us from starting with a traditional fantasy world.

Mixed heritages are supported in A5E, so we can have half-elves and half-orcs. Thank you.

Where ToV tends to feel like "new-D&D," A5E stays firmly in the classics in tone and feeling.

A5E's destiny system is far better than D&D's inspiration system, and it also beats ToV's cold, mechanical luck system. A5E wins on the character motivation aspect, and you can actually fulfill your destiny and gain a mechanical benefit.

A5E's background system also beats ToV's by a wide margin. If my character has a soldier background in ToV, it is a few proficiencies, equipment, and a talent. In A5E, it is the same, but I get both a feature (allowing me to carouse with other soldiers more easily) and the ability to advance the background, earn a small squad to roam around with, and take on missions from my new commanders. A5E's backgrounds do a lot more work for you, can be advanced to gain new benefits, and are a source of new adventures.

Did we establish a small foothold in the borderlands regions? Great, my experienced soldier can call up his old unit, get a few men to garrison it, and then get orders from high command on what happens next. A5E gives me the exploration game and supports a strong narrative system through the backgrounds, which interact with the campaign.

In A5E, I can do that. In ToV and either version of D&D, I can't.

It is Advanced 5E for a reason.

All the great monsters are here in the Monsterous Menagerie, and they keep the major humanoids as monsters, but since Orcs are a core heritage, they leave them out, but include an NPC section in the back of the book so you can have Orc bandits, thugs, soldiers, and warriors as you need. I would rather have Orcs represented in a monster entry, but at least the book is consistent and includes a section of NPCs representing the various roles and classes from the core heritages.

Fair enough, Orcs are core races, I can live with that, and can always roll my own as monsters. At least they didn't wipe out every humanoid from the monster lists, like they did in D&D 2024. We live in a post-World of Warcraft world, and Orcs should likely "settle down" and have their own realms and kingdoms. The story possibilities are better, but I am not going "full WoW" with them by making them jokes and silly.

They hid the succubus and incubus under the "malcubus" entry. Still there, sort of existing between demons and devils as a neutral-evil entity. Destiny has replaced alignment, but alignment still exists as traits, granted by destiny and other things.

Also note that A5E is balanced against D&D 2014 math, where ToV and D&D 2024 are more CR+1 systems these days and have amped up the damage values. If you miss the original 2014 math and balance levels, then A5E is a clean system that has that "dry balance" without blowing out the damage values.

This is a really good referee's guide. The Trials & Treasures book is where all the rebuilds of the core systems are paid off, and we get hard rules for all the pillars of play, including robust sections for combat, exploration, and social play.

Combat challenges, such as environmental factors, are covered here. Exploration challenges put the wonder and danger back into the world and remind me of the amazing, fantastical landscapes in our D&D 4E games, where an entire ocean would be split by a waterfall hundreds of miles long, cities of the dead, upside-down mountains, a continent built on a massive stone arch, shadow forests, floating islands, ghostlands, and eternal magical vortexes that lay waste to a deep void-blasted crater.

Parties will be begging for a ranger to guide them through this insane world, and that puts the wonder back into the world design and makes the experience memorable.

The Dungeon Delvers Guide is optional, but it has a bit more of everything, plus it has a great section on traps and fills out that part of the core game. Ratlings are the notable heritage here and are a strong addition to the core selection. Despite having Kobolds on the cover, those are not a new heritage here. They can be found in the Handbook of Heritages, published by WolfWorks Press.

The Planestrider's Journal is another optional book, sort of a guide to the planes, how they are done in Level Up, with their own cosmology and layout. There are a lot of fun, unique, and cool ideas hiding in here, and this is not to be dismissed out of hand.

I like this alternate cosmology, and it is a unique take on a planar setting. I am a bit tired of the Great Wheel and the same old planes that have ceased being wondrous places, and the D&D versions have become stale and more paint-by-numbers than places of mystery. You have to ask yourself, "What purpose do the planes serve?" I get the feeling that in many D&D-like games, the question can't be answered; they have always been places to freely come and go from.

The planar book makes me want to pull out my Tales of Arcana hardcover, which I enjoy far more than I should, as a collection of strange and wacky planar races and cultures. Some parts of this book are really silly and childish, but a good 90% of it is solid. Many races are, by default, a touch OP, but they can be tweaked to align with terrestrial selections, or left "as-is" and reserved exclusively for planar backgrounds. If you use this book, use it as-is for all races, but you will not get ability score increases for backgrounds in A5E, since you will get those for your race selection. You will also not get A5E's heritage gifts, since your abilities will be pulled from this book.

This is the only 5E, not-designed-for-A5E book I would use for this campaign, since I enjoy this book way too much for planar races. The silliness is very high with a few, but most are super solid and great options to have in your toolbox.

For my game, this is not optional.

We do have a second monster book, which, while optional, is a good expansion to the system, since more monsters designed for it are a good thing. Horde monsters allow monsters to fight and attack as a group, good for rats and bats. We get heroic monsters that allow them to gain character levels and power up, which are good for allies, master villains, and boss monsters.

This is a solid addition to the core books, not absolutely needed, but a nice-to-have resource.

MOAR Complete is an amazing book, and this is the original designers throwing the kitchen sink at the game, adding an insane amount of cool stuff. We get an amazing amount of expansion material here, easily making up for other books' subclasses, with so many cool options, allowing your masked vigilante to be a dino-rider, and that is insanely cool.

This is for experienced gamers only, after you have explored the core book to the point where you want more.

Paranormal Power is a good psionic power book, complete with a detailed Esper class that does a lot within one class. I like this book, and the one class we get here is better than many of the other psionic classes I have seen; it feels balanced and offers a lot of utility without overshadowing other classes.

There are homebrew and hacking guides for this system that cover creating new heritages and feats, but they are clearly optional. If we are paring down the number of books we need to support, these will be kept close, but by no means will they be needed, just to keep things simple.

An optional book for a robust psionic system.

The Multiclasser's Manuals are excellent. A5E has the concept of multiclass synergies, which are sort of multiclass subclasses with feats and special benefits. These books replace so many third-party guides and use the A5E class synergy rules to build on an excellent multiclassing system that puts many other 5E versions to shame for failing to consider these design features.

Unlike D&D, multiclassing is a core supported feature in A5E, and there are multiclass builds and synergy feats in the game to support it. Finally, somebody thought this through and actually turned the worst part of 5E into the best part. A5E is a genius-level design that turns multiclassing from an exploit into a core game feature. Finally!

This book is for experienced players only, but an excellent expansion for more options.

There is a second book in this series, also highly recommended, but I would use these later in your play, choosing to focus on the core books for options first, then using these to add more options for more experienced players. Use it if you use the first book to expand the game for experienced players.

The Mythological book is a strange book full of historical figures converted to A5E rules, which is a very strange concept, and I likely would not use it very much, so it is off my playlist. Still, as examples of high-level NPCs, this is a good guide, and many of these could be repurposed and renamed for special NPCs.

Not needed for most games.

The Pets & Sidekicks book is useful for companions and expands the heroic monster system, but it is not needed beyond companion rules and expanded class options. This is good for special cases and for more experienced groups who want to play with options and have companion pets and companions.

Optional, but useful for special cases.

The Gat Pass Gazeteers are also optional, good for specific things, but organized as collections of zines.

I have the first three, but want to pick up the 2025 book if they make it a crowdfunding bonus. All of these are optional books, not needed outside the occasional one-off addition.

This is a solid core library, half a shelf, but packed with fun and options. Rarely has there been a 5E library so compact, but so full of densely packed options. The system interlocks and provides depth through its design.

The game's compactness is the appeal here. Compared to ToV and a full set of Kobold Press books, this is a sixth of the library size. The game isn't as popular, but it supports a rabidly loyal fanbase. With A5E, less is more. The game doesn't need much, since what they give is so well done and tightly designed. An example is martial classes and Combat Maneuvers: by creating a system of trainable "special attacks," it removes the need for dozens of specialist subclasses and puts the depth in the existing class as a subsystem with choices, a resource pool to balance them, and tactical options.

Where D&D and other 5E games will just "give you new options" and bloat the game with more and more hardcovers, A5E rebuilds the martial classes with Combat Maneuvers, allowing future books to add more maneuvers which will be available to all classes, not some new subclass hidden somewhere in an adventure or expansion book. The base game's classes and subclasses are not being "rendered obsolete"; they will remain strong core choices and can use the new options. You also get the freedom to pick from themed Combat Maneuver traditions, some ranged, others offensive, and others defensive in nature. So the entire fighting style of your martial character can change depending on your choices.

The rebuild of the core classes and the ability to use modular subsystems are what make A5E shine above all the other 5E clones and even D&D itself.

Level Up A5E is simply the better-designed game, and it shows.

Thinking About: Level Up A5E

Ever since I standardized on Tales of the Valiant, I have had my Level Up A5E books in the garage, in an airtight plastic case, protected, yet waiting there in case I wanted to return to them. I have missed this system because it is one of the best-designed and most well-thought-out revisions of the 2014 5E version on the market.

If you are bought into LUA5E, Tales of the Valiant is nothing to write home about, since it is just a "patched 2014 5E." With Level Up, the game was rebuilt, the SRD rewritten, and the game designed around core pillars of play. I have never seen exploration done so well in a 5E system, and the entire system supports wilderness adventuring beautifully. 

With ToV? It is more of the same as 2014 5E, which is honestly a good thing. But if the exploration pillar of play is not supported, why even choose a ranger? At least ToV keeps the "soft powers" for exploration from D&D 2014, but they have no mechanical benefit since there is no exploration system to support them. Many A5E players never jumped to ToV, preferring the rebuilt classes of A5E, and not seeing enough new to switch. This market fragmentation hurt both games, ultimately helping D&D, but A5E is still out there and doing well.

A5E should be doing better; it is that good.

D&D 2024 is nothing to write home about either. For the ranger, they eliminated all survival powers and focused solely on VTT powers. The design of D&D 2024 is horrible at supporting anything other than VTT play, and it is really the weakest version of 5E out there today in terms of supporting the different pillars of play.

Again, A5E players saw this and said, "Why waste our time?"

In Level Up A5E, we need rangers! All martial classes gain fighting techniques at a stamina cost. Mages can find rare versions of spells. The social pillar of play is supported. There are massive environmental challenges built into the system. Where ToV is content to patch and provide the same thing, A5E rebuilds the entire 5E system in every area, keeping it 80% the same, but that last 20% of the rebuild is what takes an engine from a rough idle to a smooth, powerful purr of power and responsiveness.

This is still 5E, but in every darn way it has been rebuilt and improved. We lose 3rd party subclass compatibility, but when the existing classes are this good, why do I need junky, made-to-fix-2014 subclasses ever again? Many 3rd-party subclasses are either flavor or patch material, and they are nothing I can't simulate by sticking to what is in A5E, rebranding it, and making a few tweaks.

The downsides? It takes a lot of work, by hand, to create a character. The process is slow and painful. But you learn more about the system this way, and if this is the way it is, then I accept it. You want to play 5E, and no VTT will hide the pain for you; play it raw and accept the truth. If you can't, then play an easier system. A5E is a more in-depth system than 5E, and why I would ever want that seems like a recipe for disaster, but somehow, it works.

My low-level character sheets run two double-sided pages per character in A5E.

I do not know how bloated they get at higher levels, which is something I am interested in finding out. Hand-run sheets are generally more compact than a VTT print-out.

A5E is like AD&D for 5E. While I feel 5E character sheets are too long, A5E gives me the extra depth that makes the game actually work well enough to he considered a serious system, rather than "just another 5E." 5E character sheets reprint a lot of rules they don't need to, and some of these "print to PDF" character sheets from VTTs are atrocious and make the game worse for everyone.

What we have in A5E works so well that I feel many 3rd-party subclasses take more away from the rebuilt game than they add. Many 3rd-party subclasses are worthless bloat or are meant to create a style of play that the corebooks should have supported. 

What we have in the core game of A5E, plus the expansion books, is excellent. Multiclassing is not an exploit, but it is celebrated and supported here with multiclass synergy feats and builds. They thought of this stuff! Amazing!

And so many of 2014's issues are fixed, and these continue on into 2024 D&D. Like character death. Fixed. Supplies and survival. Fixed. A weak social game. Fixed. Martial class disparity and boredom. Fixed. Exploration. Fixed. Page after page, if you sit down and read these rules, every one of them fixes a huge problem in 5E, and many of these are still unfixed today, or heavily houseruled in 2024 D&D.

Level Up A5E is the 2024 D&D we should have gotten.

I may revisit this game.

5E: Thrown Together, Not Designed

A lot of 5E D&D is a thrown-together mess. Simplifying and going back to basic options is a great thing, but the break in 2014 with Tasha's being the first "patch release" for 2014 D&D complicates things. The backward compatibility of 2024 confuses things even more.

You have two paths with D&D: play 2024 and ignore everything but the three core books, or play a patched version of 2014 and Tasha's, focusing on fixing the broken core classes in the 2014 PHB.

In a sense, patching the game in Tasha's was a huge mistake.

Tales of the Valiant and Level Up: A5E are better choices. Toss out your 2014 core D&D books, use these as the game's rules instead, and ignore most 3rd-party content. The broken class designs in 2014 are fixed in both these games, and you are not playing with "core plus Tasha's" and pulling in a book's worth of extra rules you don't want or need.

I don't want more; I want it fixed. Please make this 5E game work correctly. And 2024 isn't it, since there are classes they tried to fix in the book, but they messed up even more. The ones they did fix, they just made OP to make people happy, and the nerfs are likely already being written. This is the floating design style of MMOs, and the books are already losing value due to constant patching.

What was OP one week shall be nerfed the next, and the constant stream of buffs and nerfs causes just enough community outrage and discussion to keep people engaged and playing. It is all a lie, purposeful chaos meant to serve as marketing. World of Warcraft has been doing this for decades.

I want books that hold value.

I want a game that gets it mostly right at release.

That isn't hard to do if that is your design goal.

Oh, wait. I have a fixed edition of the game.

Adventures Dark and Deep (ADAD) better merges the first-edition aesthetic with the fifth-edition choices than most of the 5E clone games. It keeps the game on solid Gygaxian math and balance. ADAD is the way forward for first-edition games, with OSRIC being a strong second.

OSRIC 3 looks interesting, and I am interested in that.

ADAD and OSRIC are games worthy of the original Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk settings. If you play any version of D&D from Wizards, you are not getting the authentic experience of living and adventuring in these worlds. It was not how they were originally envisioned, nor when the original lore was established.

I fondly remember later editions in some of these worlds, but the experiences are different, colored by the character-building rules instead of the original legend-building games.

 Also, if you are cheating the rules and invincible, solve-every-problem GMNPCs are running around (like they were in AD&D 2nd Edition) - that is on you. Ignore rules, fudge dice rolls, and protect your darling NPCs; the game master is to blame, and the players should call this out. This sort of "cheat so everyone has fun and can tell their story" garbage is rampant in today's games. Do that, and you are not playing a game anymore. There is no point in designing and maintaining characters; the dice mean nothing, and those rulebooks are wasted. Sit at the table, imagine whoever you are, narrate your action, and roll the dice to pretend you are playing something.

I did that for years.

And this is the thing I most regret.

We never really played those games. We only pretended to.

Rules mean something. They should.

The day you can't play? You will look back at those days and say you cheated yourself and your players.

I should walk away from 5E entirely and return to first-edition gaming. If it weren't for my current D&D game, I would. One of the fundamental flaws of 5E is giving classes too many powers. This started in 4E, when characters became Christmas trees upon which to hang loads of powers and abilities. Going back to the first edition simplifies the entire structure of the game.

You can't balance and have a superhero game unless you deliver a superhero game. This modern era of shipping "broken superhero games" as fantasy RPGs sucks. They give everyone "cantrip superpowers" as class-defining abilities, and they get overused, trite, boring, one-note, and repetitive.

Eldritch blast. Eldritch blast. Eldritch blast. Eldritch blast. Eldritch blast.

Magic missile. Magic missile. Magic missile. Magic missile. Magic missile.

5E is really not that fundamentally different than 4E.

You may get a few leveled spells, but this is 70-90% of the game. Expansion books and 3rd party content just change the names of what you repeat every turn. And worse, because these are broken superhero games, the broken multiclassing system breaks the game even harder, as limited options that were never supposed to be stacked get stacked and combined into freakishly overpowered rule-breaking attacks.

Breaking the game becomes the only fun in the game.

We played our Mystara game back in the day using Champions rules. This was a fun game. If a warlock wanted darkness and entangled power that affected every hex around them, but not them, and it used a focus item and a limited pool of resources, we could design that. Only this warlock had this incredible, thematic power, and people could create whatever they wanted. Cleric with an extraordinary smite power? Done. Want that single-target or an area-of-effect power centered on a hex? Done.

It took forever to design powers, and there was no list to choose from. We had to establish power frameworks for "divine powers" and "wizard spells" and create standard option sets.

But every choice worked and was balanced. They could have a " magic bolt " power if a class wanted a "magic bolt" power. Design, flavor, and justify it in lore, and you can have it. I don't need Seattle game designers to tell me what a class can and cannot have. They rarely get it right anyway.

You did your homework, designed the next power you wanted, tweaked it, saved character points, and waited for the moment you could buy it. You could focus on ability scores for a while. Every player was a game designer, creating extraordinary powers for their characters. Everyone got the powers they wanted and worked how they wanted.

We were doing "5E" back in the 1980s with Champions, and it was a fun game. We did not have broken multiclassing, rangers that sucked, monks that sucked, people using action surge to double-cast fireball, or freakish warlock-paladin builds that created an entirely new fantasy class trope because of a broken set of rules interactions.

If we wanted "the game with fantasy classes" without superpowers, we played AD&D. These days, it is ADAD.

If we wanted fantasy superheroes, we played a superhero game that gave us all the options and was free of headaches.

Non-D&D Games Get Higher Hits Here

I look at my article views, and D&D articles generally don't do as well as random games, and very few play some of the ones I cover. It feels like the end of an era, or maybe my audience is a bit more diversified, and other sites are better for D&D.

The only exception is Level Up Advanced 5E. Those articles do well. I get the feeling Tales of the Valiant landed like a thud with the not-D&D 5E crowd, not many changes, plus a rewording of 5E was not what people wanted. Most of the Open 5E crowd bought into A5E and saw no reason to switch.

Tales is still a nice game. The spell, monster, and adventure support is top-notch. In many places, A5E is still far ahead of ToV, and ToV is scrambling to catch up and forge an identity.

ToV is more the game you want to play if you like 2014 D&D and want the fixed game that 2024 promised. You don't like many rule differences, and the game should play exactly like 2014 with very few changes. ToV kicks 2024 D&D to the curb and is a better game, with classes that are better built for fun at the table.

ToV is the game 2024 should have been.

A5E changed a lot about 5E. The 2014 version of D&D was utterly wrong in many areas, even the math. A5E is a complete rebuild of the system instead of a clone, and a lot was changed under the hood for the better. A5E is AD&D for 5E, pulling in a lot of great rules and concepts from 3.5E and 4E, while keeping what made 5E work so well. The game is not easy; the play testers wanted it more deadly, and they got the game they asked for. They wanted game rule support for every pillar of play.

A5E is the game that 2014 dreamed it could be.

Level Up's Ranger

I watched all these 2014 D&D videos on YouTube about "how to fix the ranger" and how people house-rule and patch them, comparing them to the still-broken class in 2024.

Then I saw videos comparing them to the Tales of the Valiant ranger, and said, "Wow, they fixed the class!"

Then I went back to Level Up.

They had the ranger fixed years ago. And not only fixed, but fixed well. It is even better than Tales of the Valiant. The ranger in Level Up is a different beast, pun intended. The class has exploration skills called knacks. You can focus on various areas, such as combat, survival, companions, supplies, survival checks, or any other area. Your familiar terrain ability is for all terrains. You get three subclasses, and only one of them is a spellcaster.

Of all of the 5E clones, Level Up is the best-designed of them.

Compatibility and the 2014 Mess

Getting back into 5E for my group, and getting them into it, sucks. D&D is intimidating for new players or those returning, and getting a group to learn and explore options seems like an impossibly high wall. The patch list for 2014 is killing me, and I am not buying into 2024. Would it solve problems? Yes. Does it solve the issues I want solved? Some classes are still terrible or worse off, while others are now horribly overpowered.

On a personal level, would I buy 2024 books? Probably not. Then again, I am not convinced 2024 is the way forward for D&D. My gut feeling is the next edition is a few more years out, and 2024 won't have a complete shelf life. The x.5 games from Wizards never really last, and they are more patches for end-of-life systems. Both 3.5E and 4E Essentials (4.5E) were like this.

The work begins on the next edition when a new team joins. If money pressures mount, this version will come sooner rather than later. This is unlike Castles & Crusades, where one version of the game can last for 20+ years. 5.5E will likely have 3.5E's shelf life, about five years. It will be closer to three before the buzz starts for 6E.

It is hard enough to step down to play 2014 D&D. I would rather play any other 5E clone with this group, but this is one of those situations where it has to be "name brand" or nothing.

Tales of the Valiant is the game I would play if I had a decent character builder. I may do them by hand and give up looking for character creation and storage services for this game. Subclasses from any 5E book port effortlessly, just read the ToV Conversion Guide and start pulling them in (only the highest level feature needs a minor tweak on placement). Part of the advantage of using ToV over Level Up A5E is that you have better third-party compatibility since there are very few changes to core systems from 5E.

ToV is a direct drop-in replacement for 2014 D&D.

ToV has its own fixes; many are still better than 2024 D&D. The game was designed for maximum fun at the table, so the "fun features" are pulled forward so you can use them more at the lower levels. That makes sense for a design goal. Put the fun first.

I like Level Up A5E, but from a compatibility standpoint for existing subclasses, ToV is easier and has fewer issues. ToV is a CR+1 game, but all the monsters are also CR+1, so there is that. A5E feels like 2014's sibling, but with many of the systems redesigned for depth and pillar of play support. Level Up also feels more like a CR+0 game with extensive fixes to the math.

ToV also has more spells and monsters than 2014 with the add-on books, so you won't be short in those departments. It also has a premium game world with many adventures.

With an extensive library of character options, ToV will be a better game. If you bought those options for a VTT, then you will be doing conversions of them as you play. Get things in print! Most 3rd party content does a good job at subclass design, but you may also be tweaking power levels to be more in line with ToV subclass options. ToV is the best game for playing 3rd-party content.

Without 3rd party content, ToV is a clean and fixed version of 2014 D&D.

The game is also far easier for beginners and better organized, and character creation flows and makes logical sense. The classes are also "fun stacked" with the good powers coming earlier, so you can get more use out of them at the levels you need to have them. There is a monk power for reducing ranged damage you get in 2014 D&D, where by the time you get it, it doesn't matter, ranged attacks typically exceed what the ability can stop. In ToV, you get that at level one, and you can have the most fun with it while it matters.

I still like Level Up, but it has always been self-contained and less dependent on third-party books. It is compatible with them, but the game does its own thing many times, and it is more fun to play within the framework it creates. The math is very tight, and a solid CR+0 game that preserves the original number balance. The game has many 4E and 3E inspirations and features, and it is a love letter to the 2000-2014 era of gaming, but done with 5E rules. Many of the systems in Level Up are so good that you don't need third-party books, tons of subclasses, or book after book of player options.

Where ToV revels in options, Level Up provides so much depth that you don't need them.

Level Up is the best game if all you ever own are the three core books.

Level Up also feels strikingly old-school; it is deadly and unforgiving of stupid decisions. In D&D and even ToV, you can mitigate a run of bad luck or a plan that backfires, but in Level Up A5E, your party is likely headed to a TPK. ToV and D&D are more "casual heroic," while Level Up is more old-school.

Level Up does its own thing, and it does it exceedingly well.

If I want to play with a book like Battle Zoo Ancestries, that will work best with ToV. Any random third-party book will work better with ToV, since you are not worrying about Level Up's fighting styles, supply system for survival, expertise dice, and many other subsystems missing from "generic 5E content." Level Up will do better with settings and adventures with an old-school feeling.

I can split my library between the Level Up and ToV sides.

ToV will likely be the larger side, since 2014, D&D has collected strange character-option books like flies to honey. ToV also has the excellent Midgard campaign setting, an underappreciated gem that is a drop-in replacement for the Forgotten Realms, and far better supported.

For Level Up, my Frog God Games books for the Lost Lands setting are already on that shelf. This is an old-school game world with its roots in the classic Swords & Wizardry game, so using an old-school version of 5E feels perfect here.

Even from the covers of these two setting books, you can sense what type of game and world this is. Midgard looks like a World of Warcraft-style world and game, with over-the-top heroics and larger-than-life heroes, something ToV does perfectly. The Lost Lands setting feels more realistic, deadly, and dark, which is what Level Up does the best.

Stripped Down A5E

The mistake I made with Level Up A5E was buying too many third-party books. You can dilute your game into this sloppy collection of cartoony books, serious books, strange settings, piles of magic items, so many monsters and spells, cute books, evil books, and books you like that don't match the tone of your game.

My game became a mess.

Add to that a second version of the game with Tales of the Valiant (ToV). I liked ToV a lot, but it wasn't for me.  ToV has it all: tons of monsters and magic, solid rules, and great support and adventures. The setting is fantastic. The adventures are numerous and all well crafted. If you just want a well-supported version of 5E minus Wizards, play ToV. I tried it, I liked it, but it was not the game I wanted or expected.

ToV was good, but it still wasn't as good as A5E. The mix of 5E game rules and the best ideas pulled from 3.5E and 4E in A5E was spectacular. The martial classes were terrific. I liked the support for exploration and social encounters a lot. Rangers did not suck. The old-school, deadly play, combined with multiple fixes for all of 5E's problems, made me miss A5E.

So I put all my books in storage. My shelves were cluttered with two games, multiple sourcebooks, piles of unused items, and an unfocused game that occupied five shelves of space.

More is nothing. I hated it all.

So I came back. Why?

When I started, I had a good game going. The setting and rules worked together very well. Other games struggled to tell the same story. This wasn't a D&D thing; it was a classic hero story that relied on the super-heroic elements, not the invincible ones. I have other games more closely tied to GURPS, the system of advantages and disadvantages, which describes the characters best. A5E told this story the best, since this is how I started it

I asked myself, "Could I limit the game to the best parts?" By getting rid of books, could I make this game fun again?

It is a hard thing to do. In my opinion, all my Kobold Press books needed to be excluded. That is a massive library with thousands of spells and monsters. Those books are for Tales of the Valiant. If I ever play with those rules, I will save them if the character and system options improve. Some excellent Roll for Combat books needed to be excluded; they are great and highly recommended, but not for the game I want to play. Most of my random magic items and class books must be removed.

Many books intended to "fix" 5E are worthless and can harm the game if used. Some books are designed to supplement D&D classes and offer options that can break the fixes A5E implemented. Some books intended for the original 5E will be better with Tales of the Valiant instead of A5E.

I just did not want to deal with other books. They were extra complex campaign settings I did not want to use, or subsystems that would detract from my core inspiration.

Roll20 has a good character sheet for the game. I found this after I decided to return, which was a pleasant surprise. This will help me with my digital conversion and save my games online. I have cleaned my place considerably by removing my gaming table, which may sound like heresy.

What do I have left? The core books, plus some 3rd party books written for A5E that provide options. The collection is very tight and focuses on the core books, plus the books strictly written for A5E to offer options in that framework.

The MOAR Complete book is fantastic, adding many options to the game. I have a few multiclass guides that provide synergy feats, and I have the homebrew and hacking guides written for A5E. For rules, that is about it. The A5E Monstrous Menagerie gives me detailed monsters with some mechanical interest.

If D&D 2014/24 is B/X, then A5E is full-blown AD&D. The complexity and detail are welcome for a game that glosses over far too much and lacks exploration and social mechanics.

I have a few Dante's Guides from Yellowbyte Studios, just for some Diablo-like monsters. There is an excellent Sandy Peterson Cthulhu book, but too many bad guys ruin the game, so that is sidelined. Classic D&D had Hell and demons as the ultimate bad guys, and after the Satanic Panic happened, this went in a hundred "family-friendly" directions, and we got mind flayers, drow, dragons, evil gods, and so on. D&D still has too many "junk drawer" big bad guys.

You could play AD&D and assume most of the monsters and humanoids were "touched by the blood of Satan" or a god, and even dragons were that way and wrestled with their sinister side. Classic Greek Mythology plays into this with one drop of blood spawning an entire etymology of creatures.

Sorry, modern interpretationists, my monsters are classic monsters and not reflections of West Coast street culture. What you see around you is not the world, nor history, nor the classics these games were based on, nor any facet of meaningful truth regarding fantasy gaming. Hiring great writers for these games is becoming more challenging as the education system implodes and classics and history are no longer taught. Anyone with a traditional education can get a better job elsewhere since these skills are in demand and getting harder to find.

Once fantasy gaming "reflects the modern world," it is no longer fantasy gaming.

It is meaningless self-reflection based on vanity.

There is another nice demon guide written by Robert Schwalb (of Shadows of the Demon lord) for 5E, and this is another nice resource for a Diablo-like game. If 5E mainly resembles an ARPG like Diablo, then that is how it plays the best. This was my original A5E game, and I missed it since D&D does ARPG play well, and all of the other pillars of play horribly. With A5E, I get the pillars of play covered, so I have a complete game that covers everything, plus ARPG combat. I also get a fixed game with balanced math and numbers, where D&D or its clones still have terrible balance and scaling issues.

My world books? The best I have are the Frog God Games "Lost Lands" settings, and I have a bunch of old-school adventures converted from S&W to 5E. This good old-school world doesn't carry Wizards' baggage, the Forgotten Realms GMNPCs, or sci-fi elements. It works as-is with enough depth and detail that it feels old school without being tied to anything else that could wreck my game.

I have a mega-dungeon converted to 5E (Rappan Athuk), and plenty of other smaller adventures to toss in everywhere else. This is one of the better "generic 5E worlds" you can get since it flies under the radar of many, has extensive adventure support, and lets you do what you want. Nobody expects that characters from Baldur's Gate 3 will show up here to steal the show and act like GMNPCs in this world, and I am free to shape this however I want.

The world is old-school and traditional, feeling like a medieval fantasy world. Lords rule fiefs and kingdoms, peasants till the land during the seasons, and life continues. Parts of the world are in the early Renaissance, but you can change these and make the world in your vision. No starships are flying overhead. We don't get much in terms of jarring pop culture. The entire setting feels serious.

Also, the setting doesn't try to rewrite the base 5E rules like a few others I have (Brancalonia and Arcanis). Those are excellent settings, but they would work better with a base system closer to D&D, like Tales of the Valiant. I just want a setting that gives me 5E stats and adventures, and isn't trying to rewrite the fighter class or give me entirely new spell lists.

I am down to one and a half shelves of books for my game.

There is nothing on there that is a distraction, nor do I have cute monsters running around.

I am happy with this version of 5E, finally.

My Last 5E

There are times I wonder, "Why would I ever go back to 5E?"

I have far better fantasy games, and ones that speak to me more than 5E's soft, power fantasy, super heroic, broken past level 10 mush. I have Dungeon Crawl Classics, which does that power fantasy far better, and with much less predictability. I have GURPS Dungeon Fantasy for the fantastic character builds. I have Rolemaster for the crit charts, and HARP for a version that actually plays smoothly. I have Swords & Wizardry for the 0e game, and I have Adventures Dark & Deep as my classic first-edition style game. Castles & Crusades and 3.5E are good games.

I have enough fantasy games.

If I had to keep one before selling the eight storage crates, what would it be?

It would not be Wizards D&D. That is getting sold. I can understand wanting to stay with 5E, but not D&D. Get the CC 5.1 SRD printed if you need a rules reference for play.

Tales of the Valiant is also being sold. Despite this being the best-supported and produced Open 5E versions out there, the game is too cartoony for me. Additionally, there are very few differences between ToV and 5E; the two are essentially the same game. This was done for maximum compatibility, which is a plus for some with a lot of 3rd-party content. This may be the game for you if you fall into that category.

It still has the same flaws! I can't support a game that is very similar down to the things I dislike about 5E. What is the point? A slight difference in character options and a CL+1 power level? It isn't made by Wizards? That is enough for many, but I wanted more. I am still holding onto my library and hoping things change for the better.

I wanted structural improvements, drawing on past versions to incorporate the best features in terms of rules, classes, content, and systems. There are still excellent rules from past versions of the game that could be incorporated into 5E. Why do we have to lose all that hard work and progress?

The quality level of the ToV books is fantastic, and there is a wealth of content to enjoy. Thousands of monsters and spells await your use. The only issue is that character creation requires electronic tools, and there is a lack of player options in the core books.

I love you ToV, but you are not for me. I have a better version of 5E in my hands today. Despite the fantastic quality and support for ToV, my heart is with a better-crafted version of 5E.

And no, it isn't Shadowdark. I am keeping this because it is an S-Tier game in its own right.

This is a 5E to me, but the small shelf space is not a question. Additionally, it boasts the best "pick up and play" ability among all 5E games. The game has a great community, heart, and is well-supported. Shadowdark, I can play with anyone, and I can do so instantly, with about 5 minutes of prep.

Shadowdark is more of a competitor to "B/X OSR clones" for me at the moment. Having a game that plays like 5E, yet has the simplicity of OSE, is a winner, especially for pick-up games with new people. I am not describing the OSR, OSE, or any other conceptual "buy-in" sort of theory to new players.

This is a simplified, fast-playing, 5E version.

That is all I need to say.

Most of them will give Shadowdark a chance.

And we have a winner.

Level Up Advanced 5E is the only one that would make me dig through my "sell crates" again to pull just it out, plus a handful of the best third-party books, and I would sell the rest of my 5E collection. The designers dared to fix 5E, which they got roasted for at the time, but it turned out to be the right choice. There is a much drier balance to Level Up A5E; the math is fixed, martial classes have many great options, and the three pillars of play are supported and work well.

They incorporate many of my favorite rules from earlier editions, such as a warlord-style battle commander class and rules for sleeping in armor. If there is something about 5E that makes you say, "Isn't it silly...?" then chances are A5E fixes it.

I'm disappointed that I didn't back their second monster book or collected gazetteer hardback Kickstarter; I'll have to wait for that. I thought I was done with the game.

The game is deadly. They polled the play-testers, and they said, "Make the game deadlier." Turn up the challenge. Give us a sense of accomplishment when we complete a battle, like our characters could die. Don't let combats turn into boring "dice rolling dance breaks" from the roleplaying.

Drawing spell and steel matter. It is a dangerous choice.

Easy combat makes roleplaying meaningless.

You need a ranger for exploration play, and they don't suck here. The exploits have been mostly fixed. Martial classes are insanely fun and have fighting-style customizations. The monsters are scary and deadly. I do not have to multi-class. The characters have depth. The world is exciting and dangerous. Characters feel powerful, but not broken. I don't have much experience with high-level play, but the team made fixes there as well.

Supplies matter. Shelter quality matters. You can't comfortably sleep in your armor, like your character was some plastic action figure who can't ever remove it and wear comfortable, everyday clothing.

There is no such thing as infinite "pop-up healing."

Fatigue will kill you, and it won't be an easy resurrection. The spell is 7th level, takes an hour to cast, requires 2,500 gold in components, and requires approximately four long rests to recover from. Even the "death within one minute" revivify spell requires 300 gold in components to function and is only an in-combat option. The doomed condition requires 7th-level magic to remove it.

You can always house-rule in a hardcore death option and require a system-shock roll on resurrections. Make a DC 5 CON roll, with a result of 1 always indicating a failure. Failing means the soul never wants to return to the living and is happy in the afterlife, roll a new character. Increase the DC by one for every death after the first, and by one for every close friend or loved one you have lost in the mortal world.

You are not taking long rests in a closet in the Tomb of Horrors. Even short rests are not something you can depend on, nor will they restore fatigue. You can break down mentally. Obviously, some of the more egregious 5E tropes have been discarded. Dumb things people feel they have to defend "because it's D&D" are a thing of the past.

You can get "expertise dice" for skills. Destiny replaces alignment and controls inspiration, making it matter again. Inspiration has weight to it, and it isn't a meaningless flippable toggle that other classes can set on your character due to "mechanics."

Orcs and humanoids are still monsters here. Yes, EN World is very progressive, but they respect the hobby and its traditions. You can play an orc, if you want, and they can still be the bad guys. I wish forums and gaming sites could be less divided, but this is the world we live in, sadly. The game itself remains true to the hobby and gameplay, which I appreciate.

The fixes and improvements here render Tales of the Valiant unappealing to me.

Level Up is, hands down, the better-designed version of 5E.

Many LUA5E players skipped ToV, saying, "There's nothing new here. I don't see a reason to switch."

Third-party subclasses do have compatibility issues, but then again, LUA5E offers enough depth and options that I do not really need them. 5E NPCs and characters can "play alongside" characters built with this system, but to get the most out of the game, it is recommended to create them according to the rules.

Level Up A5E also has an excellent character sheet on Roll20. This works nicely with my "all digital" conversion going forward. I am no longer using a part of my house for maps and pawns. My home is cleaner, my shelves have more space, and I'm playing more using an all-digital format.

Level Up did a better job fixing 5E than the D&D 2024 rules do. They bring a game back to the table.

If I do keep a version of 5E, this one and Shadowdark will be the only two. Most of my third-party books, and those that distract from the core experience I want to craft, will be removed. What I keep will be a more focused, better game with fewer distractions, and nothing that makes the game "cute and stupid." I want a serious game.

Too many options can also be detrimental to a game. I don't need thousands of spells or monsters to play 5E. Too many books can kill a game. All I want is one-half shelf of the absolute best.

I own far too much 5E.

Owning less, with the best core game possible, will make me like it more.