All in all, I think the concept is good but it needs a bit more refinement. I hope WotC is watching and gives us something that falls more into the middle ground of what we have and what En World has going.
I looked at those pages you posted and noped the heck out. I don't want D&D to become anything close to that
Very constructive. I like how you analyzed the information and provided reasoned and well measured feedback on the particular points you felt were important. Thank you for your participation in the discussion.
[REDACTED]
I'm certain that if you assembled D&D 5e's options for every class that are scattered throughout the books and put them all together, almost all the classes would have around 10 pages of information and options.
You didn't offend him with your disinterest. You didn't offend him at all, in fact. [REDACTED]
You don't like it? That's perfectly fine. Explain why. Provide points to debate and discuss. Posting to say nothing but "lolnah" is pointless.
You don't like so much depth, diversity, and crunch for a class? Tell us why. Offer a well reasoned, cogently argued view on the proposed rules so people can engage with your ideas [REDACTED].
Yeah definitely not offended, but I also don't want to waste my time either. I have pretty much given up on having any kind of conversation in this thread regarding the merits and flaws of Level Up and what it could mean for D&D. I will just make sure that I and the people I game with fill out every survey that WotC puts out. Who knows what we might get in the coming months.
You didn't offend him with your disinterest. You didn't offend him at all, in fact. [REDACTED]
You don't like it? That's perfectly fine. Explain why. Provide points to debate and discuss. Posting to say nothing but "lolnah" is pointless.
You don't like so much depth, diversity, and crunch for a class? Tell us why. Offer a well reasoned, cogently argued view on the proposed rules so people can engage with your ideas [REDACTED].
Yeah definitely not offended, but I also don't want to waste my time either. I have pretty much given up on having any kind of conversation in this thread regarding the merits and flaws of Level Up and what it could mean for D&D. I will just make sure that I and the people I game with fill out every survey that WotC puts out. Who knows what we might get in the coming months.
The Level up rules mean nothing for DnD for a very simple reason, WOTC has committed to 5.5E being backwards compatible, that means all the sub classes in Tashas, Xanathers, and every other source book that has them have to be fully usable with no tweaks, changes or updates needed.
It means that the classes will still level the same way, that they will still "unlock" benefits at the same levels. It means the rules for actions, bonus actions etc will all remain. It means the mechanic around spell slots and how spells are used will stay the same, skills, proficiencies etc wont be changing because changing all that means much of the older material needs PDF print offs and errata to become compatible and that is not a backwards compatible game. From reading it Level up's idea of "Backwards compatibility" is that you can use 5E adventures, although I imagine you still need to make changes to make them actually balance.
The changes I envisage WOTC making are tweaks to the existing classes, maybe giving the Monk class the makeover that Sorcerer etc got in tashas. Maybe adding a couple of spell slots to Warlocks. I expect racial ASI's to be removed all together and either more points to spend in the points buy system, or a different standard array with higher values, or just give players an auto +1 and +2 to add at character creation.
I expect to see some tweaks to existing spells and the "weaker" subclasses levelled up, wild mage sorceror for instance
You didn't offend him with your disinterest. You didn't offend him at all, in fact. [REDACTED]
You don't like it? That's perfectly fine. Explain why. Provide points to debate and discuss. Posting to say nothing but "lolnah" is pointless.
You don't like so much depth, diversity, and crunch for a class? Tell us why. Offer a well reasoned, cogently argued view on the proposed rules so people can engage with your ideas [REDACTED].
Yeah definitely not offended, but I also don't want to waste my time either. I have pretty much given up on having any kind of conversation in this thread regarding the merits and flaws of Level Up and what it could mean for D&D. I will just make sure that I and the people I game with fill out every survey that WotC puts out. Who knows what we might get in the coming months.
The Level up rules mean nothing for DnD for a very simple reason, WOTC has committed to 5.5E being backwards compatible, that means all the sub classes in Tashas, Xanathers, and every other source book that has them have to be fully usable with no tweaks, changes or updates needed.
It means that the classes will still level the same way, that they will still "unlock" benefits at the same levels. It means the rules for actions, bonus actions etc will all remain. It means the mechanic around spell slots and how spells are used will stay the same, skills, proficiencies etc wont be changing because changing all that means much of the older material needs PDF print offs and errata to become compatible and that is not a backwards compatible game. From reading it Level up's idea of "Backwards compatibility" is that you can use 5E adventures, although I imagine you still need to make changes to make them actually balance.
The changes I envisage WOTC making are tweaks to the existing classes, maybe giving the Monk class the makeover that Sorcerer etc got in tashas. Maybe adding a couple of spell slots to Warlocks. I expect racial ASI's to be removed all together and either more points to spend in the points buy system, or a different standard array with higher values, or just give players an auto +1 and +2 to add at character creation.
I expect to see some tweaks to existing spells and the "weaker" subclasses levelled up, wild mage sorceror for instance
I not sure that you noticed but all of the current 5e Monk subclasses are compatible with the Level Up Rules. The Traditions gain their features at the same time. Level up also uses all the same Action, Bonus Action and Reaction as standard 5e. Spell Slots work the same way as well. The whole system is designed to work with the in the framework of 5e, that is why it is advertised as 5e compatible. The rules they have presented are designed to be completely modular so that if you don't want the changes to the Classes, you can still use all the rules for Crafting, Exploration and the like to enhance your standard 5e games.
This how I know that no one has bother to actually read anything.
Additionally, the people that are filling out the Surveys for En World are the same people filling out the Surveys for WotC. That means that they are receiving the same information about what people want to see in the game. Will 5.5e be anything like Level Up. No. Not very likely. Will we see changes in 5.5e that address similar requests but in a different way. I think that is fairly likely.
I think I am done here. Time to Unsub from the thread and get on with other things.
From reading it Level up's idea of "Backwards compatibility" is that you can use 5E adventures, although I imagine you still need to make changes to make them actually balance.
No, from reading the Level Up designers make it clear they intend complete compatibility with 5E. No need to change anything. They repeat that explicitly in the comments too. It’s not a system makeover in any way, it’s additional and optional content.
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You didn't offend him with your disinterest. You didn't offend him at all, in fact. [REDACTED]
You don't like it? That's perfectly fine. Explain why. Provide points to debate and discuss. Posting to say nothing but "lolnah" is pointless.
You don't like so much depth, diversity, and crunch for a class? Tell us why. Offer a well reasoned, cogently argued view on the proposed rules so people can engage with your ideas [REDACTED].
How about "So many pages for just one class is going beyond mere "better complexity?"
In what way is that not a legitimate criticism?
It would help to know more about what's being criticized. Is it that there's more pages than they want to read? Do they think there's too many options, or that the options are too strong? It would be helpful to have a more in-depth explanation for that.
I'm certain that if you assembled D&D 5e's options for every class that are scattered throughout the books and put them all together, almost all the classes would have around 10 pages of information and options.
Now this is an actual counter-argument. For spellcasting classes that could be argued, because spell lists, but Rangers seemingly have no dedicated ranger spell lists in Level Up.
Furthermore, not sure why the Adept is being pulled out here when it is a completely new class vs comparing changes to the fighter class, which could be compared one for one to what already is.
Also note that, in Level Up, casting classes get their 10+ pages for class plus spell lists additionally. So then what?
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.
From reading it Level up's idea of "Backwards compatibility" is that you can use 5E adventures, although I imagine you still need to make changes to make them actually balance.
No, from reading the Level Up designers make it clear they intend complete compatibility with 5E. No need to change anything. They repeat that explicitly in the comments too. It’s not a system makeover in any way, it’s additional and optional content.
Ok I really shouldn’t read and post at 4am while waiting for the Tyson Fury fight to kick off. It is good they are not trying to completely change, I had a quick look of the headline page on their website and they kept talking about adventures being backwards compatible and I didn’t read the part about the classes being in sync.
My comment was also encompassing comments by other people on this and the 5.5E announcement post calling for large whole scale changes to the DND rules, something that just won’t happen in 2024.
At the end of the day if this alternative set of rules works, is balanced and helps DMs then that is great I don’t think I will be applying it at my table because I really don’t see the problems others do, my players and I picked 5th edition because it is lightweight having previously been playing very rules heavy systems. We wanted something that let us roleplay and story tell without a ton of crunch and so far I have been able to navigate every issue that has been called out although I can see the shortcomings that are there and how less experienced GMs may feel a little unsure how to address things players want to do.
I hope this doesn’t become a pathfinder situation with this extension morphing into more and more books adding more and more crunch and eventually spawning its own system, there is also the possibility that in 2024 any tables using this system find they have to decide what in 5.5E can be removed or added.
As a final point the original post commented that WOTC should just get on with releasing the rules now, that would be the worst possible option. Rushing out a half baked un tested set of rules would do far far more harm. Having lived through examples of systems that do that I have seen the effect on the game and enjoyment round the table and then how hard it is to fix those issues without having to burn the whole system and start over. Maybe they will look at an extension like this and see what works and what doesn’t and then apply those learnings we can just wait and see.
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 Kotaths or Beardsingers or Scarloc Stormcalls might say about how idiotic we are for wanting them and how we should all just play different games.
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.
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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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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
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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I'm certain that if you assembled D&D 5e's options for every class that are scattered throughout the books and put them all together, almost all the classes would have around 10 pages of information and options.
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Yeah definitely not offended, but I also don't want to waste my time either. I have pretty much given up on having any kind of conversation in this thread regarding the merits and flaws of Level Up and what it could mean for D&D. I will just make sure that I and the people I game with fill out every survey that WotC puts out. Who knows what we might get in the coming months.
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The Level up rules mean nothing for DnD for a very simple reason, WOTC has committed to 5.5E being backwards compatible, that means all the sub classes in Tashas, Xanathers, and every other source book that has them have to be fully usable with no tweaks, changes or updates needed.
It means that the classes will still level the same way, that they will still "unlock" benefits at the same levels. It means the rules for actions, bonus actions etc will all remain. It means the mechanic around spell slots and how spells are used will stay the same, skills, proficiencies etc wont be changing because changing all that means much of the older material needs PDF print offs and errata to become compatible and that is not a backwards compatible game. From reading it Level up's idea of "Backwards compatibility" is that you can use 5E adventures, although I imagine you still need to make changes to make them actually balance.
The changes I envisage WOTC making are tweaks to the existing classes, maybe giving the Monk class the makeover that Sorcerer etc got in tashas. Maybe adding a couple of spell slots to Warlocks. I expect racial ASI's to be removed all together and either more points to spend in the points buy system, or a different standard array with higher values, or just give players an auto +1 and +2 to add at character creation.
I expect to see some tweaks to existing spells and the "weaker" subclasses levelled up, wild mage sorceror for instance
I not sure that you noticed but all of the current 5e Monk subclasses are compatible with the Level Up Rules. The Traditions gain their features at the same time. Level up also uses all the same Action, Bonus Action and Reaction as standard 5e. Spell Slots work the same way as well. The whole system is designed to work with the in the framework of 5e, that is why it is advertised as 5e compatible. The rules they have presented are designed to be completely modular so that if you don't want the changes to the Classes, you can still use all the rules for Crafting, Exploration and the like to enhance your standard 5e games.
This how I know that no one has bother to actually read anything.
Additionally, the people that are filling out the Surveys for En World are the same people filling out the Surveys for WotC. That means that they are receiving the same information about what people want to see in the game. Will 5.5e be anything like Level Up. No. Not very likely. Will we see changes in 5.5e that address similar requests but in a different way. I think that is fairly likely.
I think I am done here. Time to Unsub from the thread and get on with other things.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
No, from reading the Level Up designers make it clear they intend complete compatibility with 5E. No need to change anything. They repeat that explicitly in the comments too. It’s not a system makeover in any way, it’s additional and optional content.
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It would help to know more about what's being criticized. Is it that there's more pages than they want to read? Do they think there's too many options, or that the options are too strong? It would be helpful to have a more in-depth explanation for that.
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.
Ok I really shouldn’t read and post at 4am while waiting for the Tyson Fury fight to kick off. It is good they are not trying to completely change, I had a quick look of the headline page on their website and they kept talking about adventures being backwards compatible and I didn’t read the part about the classes being in sync.
My comment was also encompassing comments by other people on this and the 5.5E announcement post calling for large whole scale changes to the DND rules, something that just won’t happen in 2024.
At the end of the day if this alternative set of rules works, is balanced and helps DMs then that is great I don’t think I will be applying it at my table because I really don’t see the problems others do, my players and I picked 5th edition because it is lightweight having previously been playing very rules heavy systems. We wanted something that let us roleplay and story tell without a ton of crunch and so far I have been able to navigate every issue that has been called out although I can see the shortcomings that are there and how less experienced GMs may feel a little unsure how to address things players want to do.
I hope this doesn’t become a pathfinder situation with this extension morphing into more and more books adding more and more crunch and eventually spawning its own system, there is also the possibility that in 2024 any tables using this system find they have to decide what in 5.5E can be removed or added.
As a final point the original post commented that WOTC should just get on with releasing the rules now, that would be the worst possible option. Rushing out a half baked un tested set of rules would do far far more harm. Having lived through examples of systems that do that I have seen the effect on the game and enjoyment round the table and then how hard it is to fix those issues without having to burn the whole system and start over. Maybe they will look at an extension like this and see what works and what doesn’t and then apply those learnings we can just wait and see.
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 Kotaths or Beardsingers or Scarloc Stormcalls might say about how idiotic we are for wanting them and how we should all just play different games.
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I don't see the problem. You can have two versions of a class in your game if you want.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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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