Playtest (A5E) Level Up Playtest Document #1: Origins

Welcome to the first Level Up playtest document. This playtest contains a candidate for the game’s Origins system—the initial building blocks of your character.

Are you ready to level up your 5E game? Welcome to Level Up, the standalone 'advanced 5E' backwards compatible tabletop RPG coming in 2021!

A crunchier, more flexible version of the 5E ruleset which you know and love. If you love 5E but would like a little more depth to the ruleset, Level Up is the game for you!

Level Up is a standalone hardcover roleplaying game brought to you by EN Publishing, the company which brought you EN5ider Magazine and Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters!

Download the playtest document

What this is
This is a playtest document. We’d love you to try out the rules presented here, and then answer the follow-up survey in a few days.

What this is not
This is NOT the final game. It’s OK if you don’t like elements of these rules; that’s the purpose of a playtest document. Be sure to participate in the follow-up survey in a few days. All data, positive or negative is useful.

What we use this for
Your survey responses help form the direction of the game as it goes through the development process.

Don’t forget!
Sign up for the mailing list for notifications of playtests, surveys, and news. And make sure you get notified on Kickstarter when the project launches in 2021.

 

[CapnZapp]

Interesting.
My only gripe is that the word 'Thunder' is still used for damage made by sound, 3.5's 'Sonic' name made much more sense.

If 5E use Thunder so should this.

 

[Zaukrie]

If 5E use Thunder so should this.

Concur. Alas.

 

[Sunsword]

Under Draconic Paragon Chromatic Paragon is way too good and overshadows the other options by a mile. If you want to keep it I'd suggest a number of uses equal to their Proficiency Bonus.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I've only looked at Dragonborn so far, but I'm also defiantly getting seeing the power creep, which to me doesn't mesh with the backwards compatible that I was hoping for.

I might be missing something, but as far as I can tell I could take the following build: Dragonborn, Gift: Draconic Armor, Culture: Draconic National, background: Soldier (with a charisma boost).

Compared to a PHB Dragonborn with the soldier background.

I lose: +1 Strength
I gain: Scales, claws, pack tactics(!), Persuasion, tool of choice, language of choice.

I'd happily trade +1 Strength for pack tactics alone. The others are pretty situational, but as a whole just make it feel even more powerful.

 

[AntiSqueaker]

Initial reactions- I like that the D&D community as a whole is getting behind separating racial ASIs. With Ancestry & Culture, WoTC copying that for their upcoming Tasha's book, and now this I'm glad to see that the naysayers are apparently a very vocal minority. I think this move will incentivize more flavorful and fun characters rather than people boxing themselves out of fun race/class combos because of lack of ASI harmony.

• I really like the Paragon racial abilities at level 10. They harken back (in a good way) to some of the racial Paragon Paths from 4e. None of them stick out as unrealistic or silly.
• I like how each culture has some subcultures to pick from, and each race has several gifts. Some of these are mechanically quite powerful (e.g. Dragonborn getting access to Wolf-Pack tactics a la Kobold) but none seem egregiously out of balance.
• I was initially skeptical of ASIs coming from backgrounds instead of the culture but on second thought I warmed to the idea.
• I love the inclusion (or return, since it was in Mordekainen's Tome of Foes iirc) of Genderfluid elves, that's so cool! Or I guess the actually term might be sexfluid? IDK, but I like it either way.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Just cracking this open now, but liking what I'm seeing so far.

 

[BlivetWidget]

Also, love that you can "sign" languages!

As do I! @Morrus outrage culture being what it is, you might see some people get bent out of shape by the assumption that the signed languages are, well, signed versions of said language. In the real world, gestural languages developed separately from spoken languages (for instance, ASL is very much not signed English) and these distinctions are a point of pride in Deaf culture. It doesn't bother me, it would be mechanically more difficult to separate it out, and you might say it could be inspiring to imagine a world where signing is built into a language from the beginning... but, something to consider.

PS - Not sure why the attribute bonus was moved to Background. On the face of it, it does make sense thematically, but it also breaks compatibility with existing 5e content for (what seems to me) no real gain. Simply moving that to Culture or even part of stat generation (whether you roll on point buy, you can add +1 to two stats... or something like that) would maintain compatibility with existing 5e backgrounds.

PPS - another typo on p38 "You double your Constitution score for the sake determining" should be "You double your Constitution score for the sake of determining"

 

[Deset Gled]

3) Power Creep: If the options goes through as is, there is definite power creep in level up (I don't necessarily mind that but that was stated in early post to be against the plan...more options but not more power). Some of these options are very very good.

This was my first reaction as well. Some of these options sound pretty darned useful to me. That's not a problem if it's intended, but if the goal was to avoid power creep it should be addressed. Power creep is also detrimental to the idea of this being completely backwards compatible with 5e.

Other than that, I'm liking a lot of what I reading. Definitely a lot to take in, but it's holding my interest extremely well.

 

[glass]

Two things that strike me on first skim through:

1. Since background are not the same as backgrounds in 5e, they should probably have a new name. Professions maybe?

2. I assumed that there was going to be an OGL product, but there is no OGL in the playtest packet.

_
glass.

 

[badooga]

The races seem kinda okay. However, one that caught my eye is that the Orc entry seems like a step back from the entries in Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. It doubles down on some the "warrior culture" stuff, and has features like "thick skinned" that kinda make me uncomfortable.

In general, I personally feel like associating cultures with certain races is a bad move, even if you are allowed to choose cultures from other races. Like, the point is to move away from the idea of race and culture being explicitly linked in some way. If anyone can choose any culture, then it'd make sense to just convert them all into General Cultures. This also makes it easier for DMs to construct their own lore for certain races in their own settings.

For the sample backgrounds, associating a specific ASI with them seems weird. Since you're allowed to customize and build your own backgrounds anyway, why not just take that part out and give everyone a +1 to two abilities somewhere else in the rules?

Above all else, culture and background feel so similar that the former could just be folded into the latter. This would have a few benefits:

• It would keep the number of character creation steps the same as it is in 5e.
• By making things modular, it would avoid any issues with insensitivity and the like, as the players would generally be the ones building their own backgrounds.
• It would allow players to directly determine how much their culture influences their adventuring, rather than either having a full culture or being a "Lone Wanderer".
• It would give players the total freedom to customize their characters' upbringings, rather than having to choose from a selection of premade cultures.
• Mechanically, it would give players more customization options, as the players are allowed to build their own backgrounds from scratch.

Some other feedback:

• Draconian Wings feels weird. Why not just make it like the Eagle Totem? "You have a flying speed equal to your current walking speed. This benefit works only in short bursts; you fall if you end your turn in the air and nothing else is holding you aloft."
• Spiritual Awareness is kinda nutty. Detect Thoughts at will, no concentration? High level elven adventurers being able to read anyone's surface thoughts at will is a pretty world-breaking ability imo.