I suspect that Third_Sundering (correct me if I'm wrong, Third) is including things like subclass options and CFVs, rather than just spells. Don't know how many pages that would take up per class though.
Adept is very clearly using the Monk class as a chassis for their abilities and options, so I think it's fair to us as a comparison vis-a-vis the monk class that inspired it.
I am very, very curious to see what options they have available to spellcasting classes. I'm salivating, actually.
I am getting my numbers of pages from the Level Up index, which they have published.
. . . That isn't a reply to anything Mezzurah said. Mezz said that I was including Subclasses and CFVs in the amount of pages I'd include in the argument of "if you assembled the class options from across the books in 5e, most classes would have at least/around 10 pages total". Mezz was totally correct in assuming that. How many pages Level Up has for a single class isn't really an argument against that point.
One of the stated complaints that these rules are supposed to fix is that martials are not as complex as casters, since casters get spells that add large amounts of variety and utility.
However both Casters and Martials get similar quantity of new abilities (which seems to be the case by page numbers) then casters would still be more complex by the way of spell lists.
I don't think that anyone asked for Martials to be exactly/just as complicated as Casters, they were just asking for more oomph to them. Level Up provides that. In Level Up, every martial class gets Maneuvers and important character choices at every level. The fact that casters also get new options isn't an argument against that.
Furthermore, Rangers are being made pure martials, so losing what casting they currently have.
If you actually followed the news about Level Up, you would know why Rangers lose their spellcasting. It's because the playtesters and people that answered the surveys overwhelmingly wanted that. Non-casting rangers are a popular option amongst the D&D community. This isn't an argument against anything Mezzurah said.
We are also told that these rules are supplemental to and compatible with what already exists, which makes no sense since the casting classes have their own spell list sections in it.
. . . This complaint is nonsensical. These rules are supplemental. You can play a Level Up Monk (the Adept) in the same campaign as the 5e PHB's Druid class. This is true for every class option presented in Level Up. TCoE adds new spells to the spell lists of every class in the game. Just because things change in some minor way (like slight changes to spell lists), that doesn't mean that the rules aren't supplemental.
I don't even get why you're in this thread. What are you doing here? If you don't like the concept of Level Up, no one is forcing you to use it or like it. I personally love their Monster Manual options (which are amazing) and material rules for Weapons and Armors. You don't have to. Just don't crap on something that others of us like. You don't have to be here if you don't like it. Leave this thread for the people who like it to discuss Level Up and what parts of it they think are better than 5e. You don't have to play "Devil's Advocate" in this thread, because you're not being attacked.
We are also told that these rules are supplemental to and compatible with what already exists, which makes no sense since the casting classes have their own spell list sections in it.
I don't see the problem. You can have two versions of a class in your game if you want.
Because people are advocating for this product, which is, in actuality, a product and are giving contradictory descriptions of said product?
Yes . . . this product is in fact . . . a product. Yes . . . people are advocating for this product that they like (or at least like the concept of). What's the problem here?
I have no idea what you mean by "giving contradictory descriptions of [Level Up]". Care to provide an example?
And they are going beyond 'for their game.' One does not need to go to a forum to get permission or support to do any given thing in your game as DM.
No one said otherwise. Care to explain/elaborate on what you mean?
The objective in so promoting it is presumably to get it popular enough that it actually gets finished and published as a finished, viable product. Furthermore, this is a kickstarter product, meaning that it is not being financed by conventional means by the developers but rather by donations and (effective) presales, so buying into a product that does not yet fully exist on the hopes that it it will be finished and will turn out to be what they are hoping for.
. . . The PDFs are already finalized. I know you don't follow Level Up very closely, which is a reason to not make claims about it if you don't actually know much about it. The product is finished, it just needs the backing so that they can get it printed. The product is finished, the Kickstarter is fully funded, and they're giving out additional content to the people that back it.
What's your problem with this? That they're using a popular platform to get the funding for printing their product and that people are excited about it?
So to the extent that this is effectively an Ad for Level Up, there is reason to question the facts of the product.
And you have a problem with this . . . why exactly?
If you dislike that this thread is an "ad" for Level Up, you can ignore it.
(And no one should "question facts", because "facts" are in fact, well, "facts". There's no reason to question something that is true, which you seem to be saying you should do in this post. I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Care to reword it?)
Secondly, for those not promoting this as an Ad but rather as an attempt to convince WoTC to change things up, it is hardly a given that would be done as an option, particularly if it ends up really being the basis for a hypothetical 6e.
So what? 5.5e is coming out in 3 years. We know it is. So what if people want to have more options for the game in the 2024 printing of the Core Rulebooks? You can do exactly what we're doing; give your feedback to WotC and the community when they release surveys for the product.
The problem with the 'If you do not like these new rules, don't use them' is that it is just a re-flavoured 'If you do not like the existing rules, write your own changes or play something else.' It is just being done from the other side.
No, it's not. If you don't like Level Up or how D&D 5.5e works (if it changes in a way that you dislike), you can just continue playing D&D 5e. It's harder to create rules and implement non-official ones on platforms like D&D Beyond than it is to ignore the ones that you dislike. There is no hypocrisy here. You're not being victimized, you're not fighting for justice, and you're not trying to save D&D. Play how you want, and let others enjoy playing how they want. Don't fight against others getting options to play how you like, because that's gatekeeping and crappy behavior.
If it turns out to be immensely popular, then it does. There are plenty of popular products in the world that any given one of us do not personally like.
The Kickstarter for Level Up was fully backed within 18 minutes. It's already "immensely popular". It's now backed 9 times over, and there are still 26 days left on the kickstarter.
It's popular.
However it is counting chickens to simply assume it (or even something like it) will be that successful.
No, it's not. They already have the PDFs for their product, they're just not allowed to release them until the Kickstarter ends. It's not "counting your chicks before they hatch". It's hatched, it's done, all they need to do is wait for the Kickstarter to be over so that the thousands of backers can get their product.
My original intent with this thread was less about EN World's books themselves, since they'll be completely and utterly impossible to implement in DDB where all my rules/characters live, and more about the project's implications for the market. If the books do extremely well, then clearly there is a market for optional overlay rules that improve the game's depth and provide a wider diversity of options for players no matter what the nay-sayers insist. This persistent idea of "you don't neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed better rules, you can already do anything you can possibly want to do/imagine - just tell the DM what you're doing and they'll figure it out!" will have an objectively provable mark against it, rather than just the response "and how many times do you narrate your brilliantly oddball, whacky, weird and Delightfuly RP-y Fun Idea to the DM, only for her to sit there for a few minutes, face in her palms as she tries to even figure out what the hell you just said, before sighing and saying 'Okay...roll an Athletics check, I guess...' because there's no good way to handle whatever oddness it is you're trying to do?"
The Level Up system isn't really something I can use, though I may snag a few PDFs just for inspiration on the homebrew side of things. But its existence is a sign to me that no, the people who want better rules aren't alone in wanting those better rules. Not necessarily more rules, or crunchier rules...just better rules. No matter what the Koaths or Beardsingers or Scarloc Stormcalls might say about it.
I would argue that as with all things online a vocal majority is very often a real life minority. Let’s see if the kickstarter actually gets decent levels of backing, let’s see if the product delivered actually meets the expectations that have been set and let’s see if once produced people who didn’t back it actually buy it.
At the moment a group of people have claimed to have fixed a problem that they have not clearly defined without actually defining how they have done that. I am interested in seeing what the final product is but not enough to put money in, I have not said that there are not improvements that can be made to 5E, but the general consensus on many points seems to be for greater explanation rather then additional rules, minor tweaks made to some of the subclasses and possibly a tweak or 2 to some of the classes. But I have yet to see a consistent agreement as to what is broken. One person claims one thing needs fixing, another says that it is fine as it is but something else needs improving hence we get a back and forth here with no real consensus as to what the problem actually is.
1) From what has been said about Level Up, it is intended as as supplement rather than a replacement. Which means that those classes still have those hypothetical 10 pages on top of the 10 from Level Up. It would be doubling the material for those classes.
That's not how I understand it to be. The classes in Level Up are self contained. They don't need to be tacked on to existing ones. You can play with the Fighter from the PHB using nothing but what's in the PHB, you can play with the Level Up Fighter using nothing but what's in Level Up, and you can play with both next to each other (or with neither, should that strike your fancy). There's no doubling up material for any given class.
No, it's not. They already have the PDFs for their product, they're just not allowed to release them until the Kickstarter ends. It's not "counting your chicks before they hatch". It's hatched, it's done, all they need to do is wait for the Kickstarter to be over so that the thousands of backers can get their product.
So you have seen the whole thing, then?
So, wait, your argument now is that the creators of Level Up now have this giant conspiracy to scam their backers, and that the system isn't even developed because . . . it hurts your argument if it is developed? Oh, how about you take that BS and put it back up where it came from? That would be much appreciated.
BTW, the person in charge of ENWorld and Level Up has a huge preview thread here, with several dozen pages of the Monstrous Menagerie book previewed.
I seriously cannot eyeroll hard enough right now.
If not, then you invested blindly. And so did the others. Investing in a promise is just that.
Do you know how Kickstarters work? If the product isn't delivered, the backers get their money back. They have the product, the only reason they haven't released it yet is because Kickstarter doesn't allow them to do that. (And it's for their own safety. They don't get paid until the Kickstarter ends, so if they released the PDFs now, people could pull out of the Kickstarter and steal from them.)
Seriously, Occam's Razor, dude. What seems more likely; that a renowned publisher for homebrew content for D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and other TTRPGs who has never scammed anyone like this before is trying to scam people with a system that is designed to avoid scams, or that they have the PDFs and are just not releasing them because they can't until the Kickstarter ends?
I don't even know what you're trying to do now, but you can stop with the conspiratorial bullshit.
Now it may well be all written. And it may well be actually fantastic.
But until it is actually out, you simply do not know any more than the preview bits that have been released. And the most any of you have invested in until that time is a sales pitch.
Yes. We only know from the preview bits that have been released, which have been dozens of pages showing the system and how it works. Oh, and the stuff that the developers of it have said about the product(s). Oh, and the playtest material that they spent over a year working on and revising to get the final product.
I don't know what the hell you're trying to say, but it's bullshit, and it would be kindly appreciated if you stopped immediately.
You don't have to like the system, but you can stop trying to get other people to not like it, stop crapping on it, and stop with the conspiracy theory nonsense about how the people that invested in it are going to get scammed.
Are you done?
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We are also told that these rules are supplemental to and compatible with what already exists, which makes no sense since the casting classes have their own spell list sections in it.
I don't see the problem. You can have two versions of a class in your game if you want.
Because people are advocating for this product, which is, in actuality, a product and are giving contradictory descriptions of said product?
[REDACTED]
Yes . . . this product is in fact . . . a product. Yes . . . people are advocating for this product that they like (or at least like the concept of).
I have no idea what you mean by "giving contradictory descriptions of [Level Up]". Care to provide an example? [REDACTED]
And they are going beyond 'for their game.' One does not need to go to a forum to get permission or support to do any given thing in your game as DM.
[REDACTED] Care to explain/elaborate [REDACTED] ?
The objective in so promoting it is presumably to get it popular enough that it actually gets finished and published as a finished, viable product. Furthermore, this is a kickstarter product, meaning that it is not being financed by conventional means by the developers but rather by donations and (effective) presales, so buying into a product that does not yet fully exist on the hopes that it it will be finished and will turn out to be what they are hoping for.
. . . The PDFs are already finalized. [REDACTED] The product is finished, it just needs the backing so that they can get it printed. The product is finished, the Kickstarter is fully funded, and they're giving out additional content to the people that back it.
What's your problem with this? That they're using a popular platform to get the funding for printing their product and that people are excited about it?
So to the extent that this is effectively an Ad for Level Up, there is reason to question the facts of the product.
And you have a problem with this . . . why exactly?
[REDACTED]
If you dislike that this thread is an "ad" for Level Up, you can ignore it.
Secondly, for those not promoting this as an Ad but rather as an attempt to convince WoTC to change things up, it is hardly a given that would be done as an option, particularly if it ends up really being the basis for a hypothetical 6e.
So what? 5.5e is coming out in 3 years. We know it is. So what if people want to have more options for the game in the 2024 printing of the Core Rulebooks? You can do exactly what we're doing; give your feedback to WotC and the community when they release surveys for the product.
The problem with the 'If you do not like these new rules, don't use them' is that it is just a re-flavoured 'If you do not like the existing rules, write your own changes or play something else.' It is just being done from the other side.
No, it's not. If you don't like Level Up or how D&D 5.5e works (if it changes in a way that you dislike), you can just continue playing D&D 5e. It's harder to create rules and implement non-official ones on platforms like D&D Beyond than it is to ignore the ones that you dislike. There is no hypocrisy here. You're not being victimized, you're not fighting for justice, and you're not trying to save D&D. Play how you want, and let others enjoy playing how they want. Don't fight against others getting options to play how you like, because that's gatekeeping and [REDACTED] behavior.
If it turns out to be immensely popular, then it does. There are plenty of popular products in the world that any given one of us do not personally like.
The Kickstarter for Level Up was fully backed within 18 minutes. It's already "immensely popular". It's now backed 9 times over, and there are still 26 days left on the kickstarter.
It's popular.
However it is counting chickens to simply assume it (or even something like it) will be that successful.
No, it's not. They already have the PDFs for their product, they're just not allowed to release them until the Kickstarter ends. It's not "counting your chicks before they hatch". It's hatched, it's done, all they need to do is wait for the Kickstarter to be over so that the thousands of backers can get their product.
1) From what has been said about Level Up, it is intended as as supplement rather than a replacement. Which means that those classes still have those hypothetical 10 pages on top of the 10 from Level Up. It would be doubling the material for those classes.
2) However, excluding spells (which are there in both), of the PHB classes, Barbarian has 5 pages (pp. 46-50). Bard has 5 pages, (pp 51-55). Cleric does have 8 (56-63), Druid has 6 (64-69), Fighter has 6 (70-75), Monk has 5 (76-81), Paladin has 7 (82-88), Ranger has 5 (89-93), Rogue has 5 (94-98), Sorcerer has 6 (99-104), Warlock has 7 (105-111), and Wizard has 8 (112-119).
3) Since they are supplemental rules, or at least so we are told, the Level Up rules more than double the pages of ever class, including the casting classes.
4) Now if you add other books, you do get higher page counts. However the only Level Up class we are able to look at is the Adept, which seems to be a rewritten Monk, not a supplemental one. It actually says so. The first thing worthy of note is that the class has 2 to 3 more Ki than the original Monk does at any given level. That is a straight power boost. Then you basically get a bonus feat per level starting at 3rd. This is in addition to the normal feats/ASI's and subclass abilities. Diving into the details, this is a straight up power increase.
5) Playing Devil's advocate would mean I believe this is a good product and am arguing against it anyway. It would have nothing to do with whether I feel I am being attacked or not.
6) Even if I was playing Devil's Advocate it would be to try to take an objective look at these rules rather than simply blindly praise them. This happens to be my purpose in this thread without playing Devil's Advocate. No criticism on my part is intended as personal but rather honest criticism of these rules as described conceptually and to the extent they are described in detail.
I can't believe that I missed this post! Here's my response:
1) No. Again, you're showing that you don't actually know what Level Up is. Level Up is printing its own Core Rulebooks for the system. The system heavily relies on D&D 5e for the base mechanics, but all of the classes are getting reprinted (a couple are getting renamed, like the "Monk" to the "Adept" and "Paladin" to "Herald") in the new Level Up format. You're thinking of this as how TCoE adds options to the existing classes in the PHB. This is incorrect, it's not like that. Level Up's version of the classes (and all of their other mechanics) can be used completely on their own, without relying on the D&D 5e Core Rulebooks to function (which is a good thing, because the 5e SRD doesn't contain everything that is in the Core Rulebooks).
2) I don't like repeating myself, but I will because you don't seem to be getting it. I meant that "If you reprint all of the class features, subclasses, and optional class features from every official D&D 5e book, all assembled and organized according to their appropriate classes, you would likely have at least 10 pages worth of info and mechanics for nearly every class". Does that make sense? So I don't just mean the PHB Barbarian and its two subclasses, I mean that alongside every subclass in every official D&D 5e product as well as the optional rules contained in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. That would almost definitely be over 10 pages. The original complaint that was raised by @AntonSirius was that there are 10 pages for one class. My response to that was that there are almost definitely over 10 pages of information for every official class in D&D 5e if you just assembled the options from the various books into one place, thus making their complaint null.
3) Again, no, that's not how it works. They're "supplemental" in the sense that you can use them to supplement your normal D&D 5e game. They're backwards compatible. But just like WotC is reprinting all of the class options from the 5e PHB in 2024's "5.5e" Core Rulebooks while still being supplemental, Level Up is supplemental to 5e even though it reprints the classes. So, no, there are not 20ish pages for the Monk/Adept class, because the monk pages from the PHB are not necessary (or even recommended) to use the Adept class from the Level UP Adventurer's Guide.
4) A very common complaint about the Monk class in 5e is that they don't get enough Ki points. The Level Up Design Team recieved that feedback in their playtest surveys, so they implemented that change. Yes, it is "power creep" in the strictest sense of the word, but that's like complaining about Level Up fixing something that WotC designed as being broken. And whether or not you want a power boost for these classes . . . isn't an argument against the supplemental nature of Level Up or even against Level Up. They boosted the power of options that are commonly complained about in the base of D&D 5e. It's a "power boost" in the same way that the Ranger received one in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
5) You're being attacked? You're the one attacking Level Up. Again, you don't have to be here if you don't like it. You can ignore Level Up and this thread. "Devil's Advocate" may have been the incorrect term. "Naysayer" might be more accurate. If you don't like it, fine. Just let other people be and enjoy the thing they like and discuss why they like it. No need to be a party pooper in the party thread.
6) Now who's the one making the personal attacks? "Blindly praise them"?!?! Have you read my posts? I don't like everything that Level Up is doing, but I certainly like a lot of it. Am I not allowed to praise the things that I like about the product and argue against people that argue from ignorance about what the system even does? Your criticism doesn't seem to be objective, because I can't see you saying anything good about the system. Which is probably because you don't follow Level Up news that closely and don't actually know much about it, except that it's a "crunchier 5e", and you hate the very concept of that, like you have so thoroughly explained throughout this thread. From what I've seen, you've been nothing except reactionary and acting if having/wanting a crunchier version of the 5e ruleset is some personal attack against you.
If you don't know what the system is actually like, don't talk about it until you do. You have the resources to find out what it's really like. I've given you links to a preview thread. You should be capable of navigating your way to similar ones on that site. An honest review/response to the system would be an informed one. Get informed, then respond. Don't react and then seek for evidence in the ruleset to support your reaction.
Seriously. Go read through that Monster preview thread that I posted. Anyone that looks through those previews and still can't say anything positive about Level Up is reacting to the system in bad faith and lying. The Design Team for Level Up did an amazing job with creating new and improved stat blocks for the Monsters from the Monster Manual that they could use, creating monsters to replace the ones that they couldn't, and giving useful information for every single monster to use them in your campaign (including lore tables for the knowledge PCs have on them). If you don't read that and see it as a straight up improvement upon how the D&D 5e Monster Manual does it, you're either lying or hate having DM tools.
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Ok as I have said will hold judgement until it is released however I will say one criticism aimed at DND by some is that characters are already too powerful, that beyond level 5/6 characters become almost impossible to kill and the game becomes too easy.
This goes to the core of my point, monk in this extension is being leveled up, I don’t disagree that post Tasha’s monk was left the only class that still needed a boost, it is in no way a weak class but it does need a tweak, whether this is boosting ki points or some other mechanic I don’t know. But there will be many who claim that actually the problem us that other classes need nerfing slightly to bring them down to monk and just weaken everything.
Until we agree the core things we all think need “fixing” any attempt to fix 5.5E will be a game of whack a mole angering as many people as it pleases and potentially making the game less popular overall. I don’t envy the job of the WOTC designers, maybe this extension will end up being a lesson as to how not to do it or maybe it will all work. Until it is fully released and enough people have tested it out at the table in all the different situations we just won’t know. I think trying to say it will fix/break dnd right now from reading a few PDFs is a mute point, it exists, let’s see if we are still talking about it in a years time that is the only way of telling if it has done what was intended.
Ok as I have said will hold judgement until it is released however I will say one criticism aimed at DND by some is that characters are already too powerful, that beyond level 5/6 characters become almost impossible to kill and the game becomes too easy.
This goes to the core of my point, monk in this extension is being leveled up, I don’t disagree that post Tasha’s monk was left the only class that still needed a boost, it is in no way a weak class but it does need a tweak, whether this is boosting ki points or some other mechanic I don’t know. But there will be many who claim that actually the problem us that other classes need nerfing slightly to bring them down to monk and just weaken everything.
Until we agree the core things we all think need “fixing” any attempt to fix 5.5E will be a game of whack a mole angering as many people as it pleases and potentially making the game less popular overall. I don’t envy the job of the WOTC designers, maybe this extension will end up being a lesson as to how not to do it or maybe it will all work. Until it is fully released and enough people have tested it out at the table in all the different situations we just won’t know. I think trying to say it will fix/break dnd right now from reading a few PDFs is a mute point, it exists, let’s see if we are still talking about it in a years time that is the only way of telling if it has done what was intended.
I think characters start to be come hard to kill at this level for a few reasons:
Spells jump in power dramatically
You go from having an AoE spell that does 3d8 (Shatter 2nd level spell) to 8d6 (3rd level fireball).
You from mostly single target debuffs with strong debuffs but also save or suck (Blindness, Hold Person) to mass shutdown spells that can basically give the party a massive action economy boost (Hypnotic pattern, Slow,)
You start to remove environmental issues and death itself (Fly, Revivify, etc...)
Martials get an extra attack (sans rogue)
You can also throw warlocks in here with the EB beam add.
Creatures do not gain enough dynamic changes to counter this jump in power.
Most creatures at the CR 5 level are just starting to get some interesting abilities but most creatures are just bags of HP and multi-attack.
You basically need a caster in order to counter casters at this level and beyond
Overall the game balances better IMO at T2 simply because you can start to throw things at the party that might actually kill them....they now have the strength to take it. The game is best played IMO between level 5 and level 10.
Ok as I have said will hold judgement until it is released however I will say one criticism aimed at DND by some is that characters are already too powerful, that beyond level 5/6 characters become almost impossible to kill and the game becomes too easy.
Frankly, the game seems to have been designed around the power level of martial classes, and something happened with spellcasters.
Ok as I have said will hold judgement until it is released however I will say one criticism aimed at DND by some is that characters are already too powerful, that beyond level 5/6 characters become almost impossible to kill and the game becomes too easy.
Frankly, the game seems to have been designed around the power level of martial classes, and something happened with spellcasters.
Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind. However, with the way people ACTUALLY play the game its more like casters can utilize about a 1/3 or more of their spell slots in one combat as there tends to be more like 1-2 encounters per short rest or about 3-4 encounters total per day.
Plus with things like rituals and cantrips being at will they do not need to use leveled spells outside of combat as much as they anticipated. Now with additional ways to recover spell slots for some classes (Clerics) it only gets worse as if you have a CD left over before a short rest....why not get slots back?
Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind. However, with the way people ACTUALLY play the game its more like casters can utilize about a 1/3 or more of their spell slots in one combat as there tends to be more like 1-2 encounters per short rest or about 3-4 encounters total per day.
Part of it is some classes recovering a lot on short rests instead of long rests. The bigger part is being allowed have long rests in safety too frequently, I think. That's admittedly not the easiest thing to manage for a DM, outside houserules that flat-out restrict how often the party can benefit from a long rest (which, honestly, is not a bad idea) and dropping random encounters on the PCs every other long rest just to force a sense of danger. If the players get regular opportunities to take a long rest without negative repercussions, I can't really blame them for it.
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Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind. However, with the way people ACTUALLY play the game its more like casters can utilize about a 1/3 or more of their spell slots in one combat as there tends to be more like 1-2 encounters per short rest or about 3-4 encounters total per day.
Part of it is some classes recovering a lot on short rests instead of long rests. The bigger part is being allowed have long rests in safety too frequently, I think. That's admittedly not the easiest thing to manage for a DM, outside houserules that flat-out restrict how often the party can benefit from a long rest (which, honestly, is not a bad idea) and dropping random encounters on the PCs every other long rest just to force a sense of danger. If the players get regular opportunities to take a long rest without negative repercussions, I can't really blame them for it.
Agree...its just easier to set up sessions with a long rest being the break between them and honestly I read the modules and they are either hilariously strong encounters with a TPK that is very likely or its a cake walk encounter where I do not anticipate spells being utilized. I feel like most random encounter tables generally produce "easy" encounters (as defined by the encounter calc) but ultimately are just super cakewalks.
Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind.
While that is also true, it wasn't what I was talking about. Higher level casters have strategic scale magics that don't particularly break balance for dungeon crawls but really disrupt other stuff.
Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind.
While that is also true, it wasn't what I was talking about. Higher level casters have strategic scale magics that don't particularly break balance for dungeon crawls but really disrupt other stuff.
They finally shared a small preview of some of their class changes. While I really like the concept of added maneuvers to Martials and expanding on the Exploration pillar of the game, the class reworks they have shown are complete garbage in my opinion. Oh well. I am still holding out hope for some WotC to do something cool in 2024.
You know, the more I see coming out from this project, the more I'm becoming intrigued with it. I don't know how many of the changes they've made I'd necessarily run with (and frankly would be impossible anyway with how my current table is geographically separate from one another) but I think I might pick this up when it comes out.
They finally shared a small preview of some of their class changes. While I really like the concept of added maneuvers to Martials and expanding on the Exploration pillar of the game, the class reworks they have shown are complete garbage in my opinion. Oh well. I am still holding out hope for some WotC to do something cool in 2024.
Do you mind describing how they are garbage to you?
The O5E warlock was a pretty awesome class to begin with, and its highly-modular nature lined up better with the design sensibilities of Level Up than a lot of the other classes, so it’s perhaps a bit surprising that even with those considerations in mind, it’s probably one of the most-improved classes in the game, especially when you consider the rebalancing effect the changes have on multiclassing.
The first notable change is that while warlocks are still a short-rest caster, their spells run on a pool of points rather than a tiny number of spell slots. This does a couple of good things: the first is that it gives a warlock PC a lot more flexibility and a bit more to do between rests than their O5E counterparts. Being able to use a small number of points on a low-level utility spell and still have some resources left if you really need to blast something is both an upgrade to mechanical versatility and in-play variety of playing a warlock. Having the spellcasting run on a class-specific resource also means that you need to use the warlock’s spellcasting to actually cast your spells rather than as a quick-recharging pool of sorcery points or fuel for Divine Smite like it was tempting to do in O5E.
Another significant change is that Eldritch Blast is no longer a cantrip, but rather is a class feature of the warlock. This also has multiple positive effects; for one thing, making it into a class feature gave the designers more flexibility to explore new forms of eldritch power, and Eldritch Blast now comes in four distinct forms, all of which behave differently, as you can see in the snippet from the rules above. As a class feature it improves by warlock level, not by character level, which keeps players from “dipping” a level of warlock (or using a feat) for one of the best sources of long-range damage in the game. Notably, now it doesn’t even have to be a long-range source of damage if that’s not what you want for a particular character; though the “old” version is still there for you under the name Eldritch Ray if you prefer that option.
This change means that, among other things, the old paladin/warlock combo that was deadlier in combat in both melee and at a distance than most other classes is no longer a thing, though you can make a single-classed warlock with the ability to operate effectively at a variety of ranges quite easily thanks to the new options. In fact, Pact of the Blade warlocks now get the ability to use their spellcasting attribute for weapon attacks and damage as part of that pact boon rather than that benefit being limited to a specific subclass. And that spellcasting attribute can now be Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma to better represent the type of person that might be in service to a specific patron and the nature of that relationship.
I don't like any of this. Warlock is, in my opinion, the best class to come out of 5e. It already has a versatile design that allows for a variety of builds and playstyles.
The paladin class feels really good in O5E; it hits like a freight train thanks to its Divine Smite ability, and with its d10 hit die, heavy armor proficiency, and healing abilities, they can also stand on the front lines of combat against even big, beefy monsters and feel confident that they can handle what’s coming their way.
The flavor was artificially limited, though, with the connection to the historical knights of Charlemagne constraining the “palette” for the class to a narrower range of concepts than was necessary. Renaming the class to herald opens up different types of divine or ideological messengers, such as the new Inquisitor subclass, which feels more like Solomon Kane than Sir Galahad.
Much like the warlock, the O5E paladin was a favorite class to “dip” or take just a few levels of. This was primarily for Divine Smite, which allowed players to trade spell slots for bonus damage when they hit with melee attacks. The armor and shield proficiencies of the class also represent a significant defensive upgrade over what classes like the sorcerer, warlock, and bard receive by default. Trading spells for damage, while fun, also meant that while the paladin was a spellcaster, they often didn’t really feel like one; it was frequently more desirable to use spell slots for bonus damage than to actually cast spells with them. In fact, this was often so tempting that it led many O5E players to seek out ways of getting more spell slots than the default; multiclass characters with a few levels of paladin and many more of sorcerer, warlock, or bard were a common way to get extra slots to fuel the Divine Smite ability with and/or take some of the limited resource pressure off of Divine Smite so the player could enjoy casting some spells without worrying about not having fuel for their smites. It’s also noteworthy that this was a place where the surveys that we sent out to the community helped the design team. They were able to go into the design process with feedback supporting a version of Divine Smite that wasn’t tied to spell slots already in hand.
On the licensing side of things, there are a number of first-party “smite” spells that our developers couldn’t use for intellectual property reasons, but add depth, texture, and tactical versatility to the class, so there was a desire to have something similar for the herald.
The herald gets around these and other problems with both single-classed and multiclassed characters by making Divine Smite’s damage scale up with the character’s levels in herald rather than being dependent on the level of spell slots they have access to, as you can see in the table above. Heralds also get a set, level-dependent number of uses of Divine Smite and do not have to spend spell slots to use them. Rather than make a new set of “smite” spells, there is now the Empowered Smite feature which kicks in at 4th level and has some of the same functionality, changing the damage type and attaching additional effects, and as an additional incentive to stick with the herald class, there is also Greater Empowered Smite to look forward to at level 8. In keeping with our design philosophy of adding more player choice, each of these class features has multiple options within it, which allows a herald to adapt their attacks to the foe they are fighting.
The herald still has the ability to trade spell slots in; however, it’s just that now they’re the power source for the maneuvers the class gets and additional uses of Empowered Smite, if desired. That means that whenever you use a spell slot, it will do something more interesting than just adding damage to your attack.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one more small change that may have flown under the radar of some folks who looked over the playtest documents: the herald gets cantrips now! The inclusion of those gives herald players some more options to fully realize their character concepts and brings the class more in line with other types of spellcaster.
I also don't care for this very much. Just like the Warlock, much of this is unnecessary change. They start off saying that the Paladin Class feels really good in 5e, but then proceed to describe how they are going to completely change the class.
“For fighter it was killing the sacred cow of action surges. Action surges were one of the biggest sources of cheese with fighters (especially for multiclassing) as it's a direct break on the action economy. I've given fighters a LOT of hopefully more interesting features as a balance to their removal, but when I took the fighter project removing them was one of my main goals.” - Andrew Engelbrite, Lead Designer (Fighter Class)
The O5E warlock was a pretty awesome class to begin with, and its highly-modular nature lined up better with the design sensibilities of Level Up than a lot of the other classes, so it’s perhaps a bit surprising that even with those considerations in mind, it’s probably one of the most-improved classes in the game, especially when you consider the rebalancing effect the changes have on multiclassing.
The first notable change is that while warlocks are still a short-rest caster, their spells run on a pool of points rather than a tiny number of spell slots. This does a couple of good things: the first is that it gives a warlock PC a lot more flexibility and a bit more to do between rests than their O5E counterparts. Being able to use a small number of points on a low-level utility spell and still have some resources left if you really need to blast something is both an upgrade to mechanical versatility and in-play variety of playing a warlock. Having the spellcasting run on a class-specific resource also means that you need to use the warlock’s spellcasting to actually cast your spells rather than as a quick-recharging pool of sorcery points or fuel for Divine Smite like it was tempting to do in O5E.
Another significant change is that Eldritch Blast is no longer a cantrip, but rather is a class feature of the warlock. This also has multiple positive effects; for one thing, making it into a class feature gave the designers more flexibility to explore new forms of eldritch power, and Eldritch Blast now comes in four distinct forms, all of which behave differently, as you can see in the snippet from the rules above. As a class feature it improves by warlock level, not by character level, which keeps players from “dipping” a level of warlock (or using a feat) for one of the best sources of long-range damage in the game. Notably, now it doesn’t even have to be a long-range source of damage if that’s not what you want for a particular character; though the “old” version is still there for you under the name Eldritch Ray if you prefer that option.
This change means that, among other things, the old paladin/warlock combo that was deadlier in combat in both melee and at a distance than most other classes is no longer a thing, though you can make a single-classed warlock with the ability to operate effectively at a variety of ranges quite easily thanks to the new options. In fact, Pact of the Blade warlocks now get the ability to use their spellcasting attribute for weapon attacks and damage as part of that pact boon rather than that benefit being limited to a specific subclass. And that spellcasting attribute can now be Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma to better represent the type of person that might be in service to a specific patron and the nature of that relationship.
I don't like any of this. Warlock is, in my opinion, the best class to come out of 5e. It already has a versatile design that allows for a variety of builds and playstyles.
The paladin class feels really good in O5E; it hits like a freight train thanks to its Divine Smite ability, and with its d10 hit die, heavy armor proficiency, and healing abilities, they can also stand on the front lines of combat against even big, beefy monsters and feel confident that they can handle what’s coming their way.
The flavor was artificially limited, though, with the connection to the historical knights of Charlemagne constraining the “palette” for the class to a narrower range of concepts than was necessary. Renaming the class to herald opens up different types of divine or ideological messengers, such as the new Inquisitor subclass, which feels more like Solomon Kane than Sir Galahad.
Much like the warlock, the O5E paladin was a favorite class to “dip” or take just a few levels of. This was primarily for Divine Smite, which allowed players to trade spell slots for bonus damage when they hit with melee attacks. The armor and shield proficiencies of the class also represent a significant defensive upgrade over what classes like the sorcerer, warlock, and bard receive by default. Trading spells for damage, while fun, also meant that while the paladin was a spellcaster, they often didn’t really feel like one; it was frequently more desirable to use spell slots for bonus damage than to actually cast spells with them. In fact, this was often so tempting that it led many O5E players to seek out ways of getting more spell slots than the default; multiclass characters with a few levels of paladin and many more of sorcerer, warlock, or bard were a common way to get extra slots to fuel the Divine Smite ability with and/or take some of the limited resource pressure off of Divine Smite so the player could enjoy casting some spells without worrying about not having fuel for their smites. It’s also noteworthy that this was a place where the surveys that we sent out to the community helped the design team. They were able to go into the design process with feedback supporting a version of Divine Smite that wasn’t tied to spell slots already in hand.
On the licensing side of things, there are a number of first-party “smite” spells that our developers couldn’t use for intellectual property reasons, but add depth, texture, and tactical versatility to the class, so there was a desire to have something similar for the herald.
The herald gets around these and other problems with both single-classed and multiclassed characters by making Divine Smite’s damage scale up with the character’s levels in herald rather than being dependent on the level of spell slots they have access to, as you can see in the table above. Heralds also get a set, level-dependent number of uses of Divine Smite and do not have to spend spell slots to use them. Rather than make a new set of “smite” spells, there is now the Empowered Smite feature which kicks in at 4th level and has some of the same functionality, changing the damage type and attaching additional effects, and as an additional incentive to stick with the herald class, there is also Greater Empowered Smite to look forward to at level 8. In keeping with our design philosophy of adding more player choice, each of these class features has multiple options within it, which allows a herald to adapt their attacks to the foe they are fighting.
The herald still has the ability to trade spell slots in; however, it’s just that now they’re the power source for the maneuvers the class gets and additional uses of Empowered Smite, if desired. That means that whenever you use a spell slot, it will do something more interesting than just adding damage to your attack.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one more small change that may have flown under the radar of some folks who looked over the playtest documents: the herald gets cantrips now! The inclusion of those gives herald players some more options to fully realize their character concepts and brings the class more in line with other types of spellcaster.
I also don't care for this very much. Just like the Warlock, much of this is unnecessary change. They start off saying that the Paladin Class feels really good in 5e, but then proceed to describe how they are going to completely change the class.
“For fighter it was killing the sacred cow of action surges. Action surges were one of the biggest sources of cheese with fighters (especially for multiclassing) as it's a direct break on the action economy. I've given fighters a LOT of hopefully more interesting features as a balance to their removal, but when I took the fighter project removing them was one of my main goals.” - Andrew Engelbrite, Lead Designer (Fighter Class)
I pretty much stopped reading after this.
So it seems from this the “problem” the designers have decided to fix are hex blade paladins, I mean I can fix that if I want, just don’t allow them at my table.
They have assumed all warlocks always take E blast, so let’s just give them that for free. I do agree that warlocks could possibly have an extra couple of spell slots and maybe 1 - 2 extra spells to allow a little more versatility, really at low level they are forced to either go damage or roleplay but these changes do not strike me as the things the community are crying out for.
The fighter language alone kind of makes me question the statement that they listened to feedback. “My intention as a designer was to do this thing” is not, “I looked at all the fighter feedback online on the questionnaire and then worked to fix those perceived issues”.
So I agree looks like garbage, an effort to just make things more complicated for the sake of it.
The O5E warlock was a pretty awesome class to begin with, and its highly-modular nature lined up better with the design sensibilities of Level Up than a lot of the other classes, so it’s perhaps a bit surprising that even with those considerations in mind, it’s probably one of the most-improved classes in the game, especially when you consider the rebalancing effect the changes have on multiclassing.
The first notable change is that while warlocks are still a short-rest caster, their spells run on a pool of points rather than a tiny number of spell slots. This does a couple of good things: the first is that it gives a warlock PC a lot more flexibility and a bit more to do between rests than their O5E counterparts. Being able to use a small number of points on a low-level utility spell and still have some resources left if you really need to blast something is both an upgrade to mechanical versatility and in-play variety of playing a warlock. Having the spellcasting run on a class-specific resource also means that you need to use the warlock’s spellcasting to actually cast your spells rather than as a quick-recharging pool of sorcery points or fuel for Divine Smite like it was tempting to do in O5E.
Another significant change is that Eldritch Blast is no longer a cantrip, but rather is a class feature of the warlock. This also has multiple positive effects; for one thing, making it into a class feature gave the designers more flexibility to explore new forms of eldritch power, and Eldritch Blast now comes in four distinct forms, all of which behave differently, as you can see in the snippet from the rules above. As a class feature it improves by warlock level, not by character level, which keeps players from “dipping” a level of warlock (or using a feat) for one of the best sources of long-range damage in the game. Notably, now it doesn’t even have to be a long-range source of damage if that’s not what you want for a particular character; though the “old” version is still there for you under the name Eldritch Ray if you prefer that option.
This change means that, among other things, the old paladin/warlock combo that was deadlier in combat in both melee and at a distance than most other classes is no longer a thing, though you can make a single-classed warlock with the ability to operate effectively at a variety of ranges quite easily thanks to the new options. In fact, Pact of the Blade warlocks now get the ability to use their spellcasting attribute for weapon attacks and damage as part of that pact boon rather than that benefit being limited to a specific subclass. And that spellcasting attribute can now be Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma to better represent the type of person that might be in service to a specific patron and the nature of that relationship.
I don't like any of this. Warlock is, in my opinion, the best class to come out of 5e. It already has a versatile design that allows for a variety of builds and playstyles.
The paladin class feels really good in O5E; it hits like a freight train thanks to its Divine Smite ability, and with its d10 hit die, heavy armor proficiency, and healing abilities, they can also stand on the front lines of combat against even big, beefy monsters and feel confident that they can handle what’s coming their way.
The flavor was artificially limited, though, with the connection to the historical knights of Charlemagne constraining the “palette” for the class to a narrower range of concepts than was necessary. Renaming the class to herald opens up different types of divine or ideological messengers, such as the new Inquisitor subclass, which feels more like Solomon Kane than Sir Galahad.
Much like the warlock, the O5E paladin was a favorite class to “dip” or take just a few levels of. This was primarily for Divine Smite, which allowed players to trade spell slots for bonus damage when they hit with melee attacks. The armor and shield proficiencies of the class also represent a significant defensive upgrade over what classes like the sorcerer, warlock, and bard receive by default. Trading spells for damage, while fun, also meant that while the paladin was a spellcaster, they often didn’t really feel like one; it was frequently more desirable to use spell slots for bonus damage than to actually cast spells with them. In fact, this was often so tempting that it led many O5E players to seek out ways of getting more spell slots than the default; multiclass characters with a few levels of paladin and many more of sorcerer, warlock, or bard were a common way to get extra slots to fuel the Divine Smite ability with and/or take some of the limited resource pressure off of Divine Smite so the player could enjoy casting some spells without worrying about not having fuel for their smites. It’s also noteworthy that this was a place where the surveys that we sent out to the community helped the design team. They were able to go into the design process with feedback supporting a version of Divine Smite that wasn’t tied to spell slots already in hand.
On the licensing side of things, there are a number of first-party “smite” spells that our developers couldn’t use for intellectual property reasons, but add depth, texture, and tactical versatility to the class, so there was a desire to have something similar for the herald.
The herald gets around these and other problems with both single-classed and multiclassed characters by making Divine Smite’s damage scale up with the character’s levels in herald rather than being dependent on the level of spell slots they have access to, as you can see in the table above. Heralds also get a set, level-dependent number of uses of Divine Smite and do not have to spend spell slots to use them. Rather than make a new set of “smite” spells, there is now the Empowered Smite feature which kicks in at 4th level and has some of the same functionality, changing the damage type and attaching additional effects, and as an additional incentive to stick with the herald class, there is also Greater Empowered Smite to look forward to at level 8. In keeping with our design philosophy of adding more player choice, each of these class features has multiple options within it, which allows a herald to adapt their attacks to the foe they are fighting.
The herald still has the ability to trade spell slots in; however, it’s just that now they’re the power source for the maneuvers the class gets and additional uses of Empowered Smite, if desired. That means that whenever you use a spell slot, it will do something more interesting than just adding damage to your attack.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one more small change that may have flown under the radar of some folks who looked over the playtest documents: the herald gets cantrips now! The inclusion of those gives herald players some more options to fully realize their character concepts and brings the class more in line with other types of spellcaster.
I also don't care for this very much. Just like the Warlock, much of this is unnecessary change. They start off saying that the Paladin Class feels really good in 5e, but then proceed to describe how they are going to completely change the class.
“For fighter it was killing the sacred cow of action surges. Action surges were one of the biggest sources of cheese with fighters (especially for multiclassing) as it's a direct break on the action economy. I've given fighters a LOT of hopefully more interesting features as a balance to their removal, but when I took the fighter project removing them was one of my main goals.” - Andrew Engelbrite, Lead Designer (Fighter Class)
I pretty much stopped reading after this.
All those excerpts suggest their design philosophy was, "How do we nerf the multiclasses we don't like/think are cheese?"
Which is a very weird way to approach it
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. . . That isn't a reply to anything Mezzurah said. Mezz said that I was including Subclasses and CFVs in the amount of pages I'd include in the argument of "if you assembled the class options from across the books in 5e, most classes would have at least/around 10 pages total". Mezz was totally correct in assuming that. How many pages Level Up has for a single class isn't really an argument against that point.
I don't think that anyone asked for Martials to be exactly/just as complicated as Casters, they were just asking for more oomph to them. Level Up provides that. In Level Up, every martial class gets Maneuvers and important character choices at every level. The fact that casters also get new options isn't an argument against that.
If you actually followed the news about Level Up, you would know why Rangers lose their spellcasting. It's because the playtesters and people that answered the surveys overwhelmingly wanted that. Non-casting rangers are a popular option amongst the D&D community. This isn't an argument against anything Mezzurah said.
. . . This complaint is nonsensical. These rules are supplemental. You can play a Level Up Monk (the Adept) in the same campaign as the 5e PHB's Druid class. This is true for every class option presented in Level Up. TCoE adds new spells to the spell lists of every class in the game. Just because things change in some minor way (like slight changes to spell lists), that doesn't mean that the rules aren't supplemental.
I don't even get why you're in this thread. What are you doing here? If you don't like the concept of Level Up, no one is forcing you to use it or like it. I personally love their Monster Manual options (which are amazing) and material rules for Weapons and Armors. You don't have to. Just don't crap on something that others of us like. You don't have to be here if you don't like it. Leave this thread for the people who like it to discuss Level Up and what parts of it they think are better than 5e. You don't have to play "Devil's Advocate" in this thread, because you're not being attacked.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Yes . . . this product is in fact . . . a product. Yes . . . people are advocating for this product that they like (or at least like the concept of). What's the problem here?
I have no idea what you mean by "giving contradictory descriptions of [Level Up]". Care to provide an example?
No one said otherwise. Care to explain/elaborate on what you mean?
. . . The PDFs are already finalized. I know you don't follow Level Up very closely, which is a reason to not make claims about it if you don't actually know much about it. The product is finished, it just needs the backing so that they can get it printed. The product is finished, the Kickstarter is fully funded, and they're giving out additional content to the people that back it.
What's your problem with this? That they're using a popular platform to get the funding for printing their product and that people are excited about it?
And you have a problem with this . . . why exactly?
If you dislike that this thread is an "ad" for Level Up, you can ignore it.
(And no one should "question facts", because "facts" are in fact, well, "facts". There's no reason to question something that is true, which you seem to be saying you should do in this post. I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying. Care to reword it?)
So what? 5.5e is coming out in 3 years. We know it is. So what if people want to have more options for the game in the 2024 printing of the Core Rulebooks? You can do exactly what we're doing; give your feedback to WotC and the community when they release surveys for the product.
No, it's not. If you don't like Level Up or how D&D 5.5e works (if it changes in a way that you dislike), you can just continue playing D&D 5e. It's harder to create rules and implement non-official ones on platforms like D&D Beyond than it is to ignore the ones that you dislike. There is no hypocrisy here. You're not being victimized, you're not fighting for justice, and you're not trying to save D&D. Play how you want, and let others enjoy playing how they want. Don't fight against others getting options to play how you like, because that's gatekeeping and crappy behavior.
The Kickstarter for Level Up was fully backed within 18 minutes. It's already "immensely popular". It's now backed 9 times over, and there are still 26 days left on the kickstarter.
It's popular.
No, it's not. They already have the PDFs for their product, they're just not allowed to release them until the Kickstarter ends. It's not "counting your chicks before they hatch". It's hatched, it's done, all they need to do is wait for the Kickstarter to be over so that the thousands of backers can get their product.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I would argue that as with all things online a vocal majority is very often a real life minority. Let’s see if the kickstarter actually gets decent levels of backing, let’s see if the product delivered actually meets the expectations that have been set and let’s see if once produced people who didn’t back it actually buy it.
At the moment a group of people have claimed to have fixed a problem that they have not clearly defined without actually defining how they have done that. I am interested in seeing what the final product is but not enough to put money in, I have not said that there are not improvements that can be made to 5E, but the general consensus on many points seems to be for greater explanation rather then additional rules, minor tweaks made to some of the subclasses and possibly a tweak or 2 to some of the classes. But I have yet to see a consistent agreement as to what is broken. One person claims one thing needs fixing, another says that it is fine as it is but something else needs improving hence we get a back and forth here with no real consensus as to what the problem actually is.
That's not how I understand it to be. The classes in Level Up are self contained. They don't need to be tacked on to existing ones. You can play with the Fighter from the PHB using nothing but what's in the PHB, you can play with the Level Up Fighter using nothing but what's in Level Up, and you can play with both next to each other (or with neither, should that strike your fancy). There's no doubling up material for any given class.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
So, wait, your argument now is that the creators of Level Up now have this giant conspiracy to scam their backers, and that the system isn't even developed because . . . it hurts your argument if it is developed? Oh, how about you take that BS and put it back up where it came from? That would be much appreciated.
BTW, the person in charge of ENWorld and Level Up has a huge preview thread here, with several dozen pages of the Monstrous Menagerie book previewed.
I seriously cannot eyeroll hard enough right now.
Do you know how Kickstarters work? If the product isn't delivered, the backers get their money back. They have the product, the only reason they haven't released it yet is because Kickstarter doesn't allow them to do that. (And it's for their own safety. They don't get paid until the Kickstarter ends, so if they released the PDFs now, people could pull out of the Kickstarter and steal from them.)
Seriously, Occam's Razor, dude. What seems more likely; that a renowned publisher for homebrew content for D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and other TTRPGs who has never scammed anyone like this before is trying to scam people with a system that is designed to avoid scams, or that they have the PDFs and are just not releasing them because they can't until the Kickstarter ends?
I don't even know what you're trying to do now, but you can stop with the conspiratorial bullshit.
Yes. We only know from the preview bits that have been released, which have been dozens of pages showing the system and how it works. Oh, and the stuff that the developers of it have said about the product(s). Oh, and the playtest material that they spent over a year working on and revising to get the final product.
I don't know what the hell you're trying to say, but it's bullshit, and it would be kindly appreciated if you stopped immediately.
You don't have to like the system, but you can stop trying to get other people to not like it, stop crapping on it, and stop with the conspiracy theory nonsense about how the people that invested in it are going to get scammed.
Are you done?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I can't believe that I missed this post! Here's my response:
1) No. Again, you're showing that you don't actually know what Level Up is. Level Up is printing its own Core Rulebooks for the system. The system heavily relies on D&D 5e for the base mechanics, but all of the classes are getting reprinted (a couple are getting renamed, like the "Monk" to the "Adept" and "Paladin" to "Herald") in the new Level Up format. You're thinking of this as how TCoE adds options to the existing classes in the PHB. This is incorrect, it's not like that. Level Up's version of the classes (and all of their other mechanics) can be used completely on their own, without relying on the D&D 5e Core Rulebooks to function (which is a good thing, because the 5e SRD doesn't contain everything that is in the Core Rulebooks).
2) I don't like repeating myself, but I will because you don't seem to be getting it. I meant that "If you reprint all of the class features, subclasses, and optional class features from every official D&D 5e book, all assembled and organized according to their appropriate classes, you would likely have at least 10 pages worth of info and mechanics for nearly every class". Does that make sense? So I don't just mean the PHB Barbarian and its two subclasses, I mean that alongside every subclass in every official D&D 5e product as well as the optional rules contained in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. That would almost definitely be over 10 pages. The original complaint that was raised by @AntonSirius was that there are 10 pages for one class. My response to that was that there are almost definitely over 10 pages of information for every official class in D&D 5e if you just assembled the options from the various books into one place, thus making their complaint null.
3) Again, no, that's not how it works. They're "supplemental" in the sense that you can use them to supplement your normal D&D 5e game. They're backwards compatible. But just like WotC is reprinting all of the class options from the 5e PHB in 2024's "5.5e" Core Rulebooks while still being supplemental, Level Up is supplemental to 5e even though it reprints the classes. So, no, there are not 20ish pages for the Monk/Adept class, because the monk pages from the PHB are not necessary (or even recommended) to use the Adept class from the Level UP Adventurer's Guide.
4) A very common complaint about the Monk class in 5e is that they don't get enough Ki points. The Level Up Design Team recieved that feedback in their playtest surveys, so they implemented that change. Yes, it is "power creep" in the strictest sense of the word, but that's like complaining about Level Up fixing something that WotC designed as being broken. And whether or not you want a power boost for these classes . . . isn't an argument against the supplemental nature of Level Up or even against Level Up. They boosted the power of options that are commonly complained about in the base of D&D 5e. It's a "power boost" in the same way that the Ranger received one in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
5) You're being attacked? You're the one attacking Level Up. Again, you don't have to be here if you don't like it. You can ignore Level Up and this thread. "Devil's Advocate" may have been the incorrect term. "Naysayer" might be more accurate. If you don't like it, fine. Just let other people be and enjoy the thing they like and discuss why they like it. No need to be a party pooper in the party thread.
6) Now who's the one making the personal attacks? "Blindly praise them"?!?! Have you read my posts? I don't like everything that Level Up is doing, but I certainly like a lot of it. Am I not allowed to praise the things that I like about the product and argue against people that argue from ignorance about what the system even does? Your criticism doesn't seem to be objective, because I can't see you saying anything good about the system. Which is probably because you don't follow Level Up news that closely and don't actually know much about it, except that it's a "crunchier 5e", and you hate the very concept of that, like you have so thoroughly explained throughout this thread. From what I've seen, you've been nothing except reactionary and acting if having/wanting a crunchier version of the 5e ruleset is some personal attack against you.
If you don't know what the system is actually like, don't talk about it until you do. You have the resources to find out what it's really like. I've given you links to a preview thread. You should be capable of navigating your way to similar ones on that site. An honest review/response to the system would be an informed one. Get informed, then respond. Don't react and then seek for evidence in the ruleset to support your reaction.
Seriously. Go read through that Monster preview thread that I posted. Anyone that looks through those previews and still can't say anything positive about Level Up is reacting to the system in bad faith and lying. The Design Team for Level Up did an amazing job with creating new and improved stat blocks for the Monsters from the Monster Manual that they could use, creating monsters to replace the ones that they couldn't, and giving useful information for every single monster to use them in your campaign (including lore tables for the knowledge PCs have on them). If you don't read that and see it as a straight up improvement upon how the D&D 5e Monster Manual does it, you're either lying or hate having DM tools.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Ok as I have said will hold judgement until it is released however I will say one criticism aimed at DND by some is that characters are already too powerful, that beyond level 5/6 characters become almost impossible to kill and the game becomes too easy.
This goes to the core of my point, monk in this extension is being leveled up, I don’t disagree that post Tasha’s monk was left the only class that still needed a boost, it is in no way a weak class but it does need a tweak, whether this is boosting ki points or some other mechanic I don’t know. But there will be many who claim that actually the problem us that other classes need nerfing slightly to bring them down to monk and just weaken everything.
Until we agree the core things we all think need “fixing” any attempt to fix 5.5E will be a game of whack a mole angering as many people as it pleases and potentially making the game less popular overall. I don’t envy the job of the WOTC designers, maybe this extension will end up being a lesson as to how not to do it or maybe it will all work. Until it is fully released and enough people have tested it out at the table in all the different situations we just won’t know. I think trying to say it will fix/break dnd right now from reading a few PDFs is a mute point, it exists, let’s see if we are still talking about it in a years time that is the only way of telling if it has done what was intended.
I think characters start to be come hard to kill at this level for a few reasons:
Overall the game balances better IMO at T2 simply because you can start to throw things at the party that might actually kill them....they now have the strength to take it. The game is best played IMO between level 5 and level 10.
Frankly, the game seems to have been designed around the power level of martial classes, and something happened with spellcasters.
Agreed...my theory is that casters were mostly balanced with cantrips with 1-2 leveled spells per combat in mind. However, with the way people ACTUALLY play the game its more like casters can utilize about a 1/3 or more of their spell slots in one combat as there tends to be more like 1-2 encounters per short rest or about 3-4 encounters total per day.
Plus with things like rituals and cantrips being at will they do not need to use leveled spells outside of combat as much as they anticipated. Now with additional ways to recover spell slots for some classes (Clerics) it only gets worse as if you have a CD left over before a short rest....why not get slots back?
Part of it is some classes recovering a lot on short rests instead of long rests. The bigger part is being allowed have long rests in safety too frequently, I think. That's admittedly not the easiest thing to manage for a DM, outside houserules that flat-out restrict how often the party can benefit from a long rest (which, honestly, is not a bad idea) and dropping random encounters on the PCs every other long rest just to force a sense of danger. If the players get regular opportunities to take a long rest without negative repercussions, I can't really blame them for it.
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Agree...its just easier to set up sessions with a long rest being the break between them and honestly I read the modules and they are either hilariously strong encounters with a TPK that is very likely or its a cake walk encounter where I do not anticipate spells being utilized. I feel like most random encounter tables generally produce "easy" encounters (as defined by the encounter calc) but ultimately are just super cakewalks.
While that is also true, it wasn't what I was talking about. Higher level casters have strategic scale magics that don't particularly break balance for dungeon crawls but really disrupt other stuff.
Fair point!
They finally shared a small preview of some of their class changes. While I really like the concept of added maneuvers to Martials and expanding on the Exploration pillar of the game, the class reworks they have shown are complete garbage in my opinion. Oh well. I am still holding out hope for some WotC to do something cool in 2024.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
You know, the more I see coming out from this project, the more I'm becoming intrigued with it. I don't know how many of the changes they've made I'd necessarily run with (and frankly would be impossible anyway with how my current table is geographically separate from one another) but I think I might pick this up when it comes out.
Do you mind describing how they are garbage to you?
I don't like any of this. Warlock is, in my opinion, the best class to come out of 5e. It already has a versatile design that allows for a variety of builds and playstyles.
I also don't care for this very much. Just like the Warlock, much of this is unnecessary change. They start off saying that the Paladin Class feels really good in 5e, but then proceed to describe how they are going to completely change the class.
I pretty much stopped reading after this.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
So it seems from this the “problem” the designers have decided to fix are hex blade paladins, I mean I can fix that if I want, just don’t allow them at my table.
They have assumed all warlocks always take E blast, so let’s just give them that for free. I do agree that warlocks could possibly have an extra couple of spell slots and maybe 1 - 2 extra spells to allow a little more versatility, really at low level they are forced to either go damage or roleplay but these changes do not strike me as the things the community are crying out for.
The fighter language alone kind of makes me question the statement that they listened to feedback. “My intention as a designer was to do this thing” is not, “I looked at all the fighter feedback online on the questionnaire and then worked to fix those perceived issues”.
So I agree looks like garbage, an effort to just make things more complicated for the sake of it.
All those excerpts suggest their design philosophy was, "How do we nerf the multiclasses we don't like/think are cheese?"
Which is a very weird way to approach it
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)