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.

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[tetrasodium]

I've only had a chance to skim through, but some initial thoughts in no particular order

• Humans shed the free feat that makes them just as good or better at every other race's niche in favor of some interesting hooks on their endurance predator evolution. This is a great improvement
• I like that the races all give a visceral boon that will significantly impact how a given class will play at the table & think the power creep complaint someone made is off the mark
• The races seem at least somewhat genericized (ie shadow elves rather than drow) which is understandable & great because some of them have pretty heavy duty lore baggage attached to the name... but then thy hit almost every faerun trope on the way out of that lore laden tree. I'd love to see a few tweaks.
  • instead of FR's zany steampunk gnomes maybe adopt some shades of eberron's ww2/coldwar-esque SS/KGB-like judge jury & executioner trust secret policed civilization or MHI's straight up "Gangsta" gnome clan shading?
  • All of FR's well established elves are represented pretty much as is but doesn't seem to be anything leaning towards the desert running elf tribes of Athas, either of eberron's warlike Valenar elves, or eberron's necromancy involved Aerenal elves.
• edit: @badooga mentioned orcs shifting back to fr's evil warrior raider antagonist role earlier & I agree it's a step back in terms of story telling & such especially with wotc's racial insensitivity announcement/plans to fix going forward

 

[Weiley31]

The section for the Orc's Divine Gift/Stuff: Theresistance should be The Resistance.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Holy hell I love this. Sure, most origins are more powerful than the PHB's one, but that's okay, because they represent a bigger part of the whole character instead of the small influence the race choice has with the PHB method.

The level 10 feature is superb, it need to stay! Make origins relevant beyond level 1! Hopefully there will be a way to take other heritage gifts instead of an ASI.

Those are so cool, I feel like I dont even need a class. I could play a character which is only mechanically using Origin.

It like PF2, but usable at my table because it is presented without a bunch of over-conditional +1s.

Good work, I'm sold.

 

[Morrus]

@badooga mentioned orcs shifting back to fr's evil warrior raider antagonist role earlier & I agree it's a step back in terms of story telling & such especially with wotc's racial insensitivity announcement/plans to fix going forward

I thought we'd done the opposite of that. We certainly worked hard to! We describe them as passionate, and comment on the injustice of the baggage the word "orc" carries and that people think "warhorde" first. Of the four cultures, only one of them is militaristic. Caravanners, Longstoics, and Communals are not.

"...those few tribes that revel in battle have grown to have different traits than those that value family or their ancestors above all else."

But that will definitely be part of the survey -- we'll be digging into whether we need to lean more into that or not. Looking forward to seeing what the community thinks!

 

[tetrasodium]

I thought we'd done the opposite of that. We certainly worked hard to! We describe them as passionate, and comment on the injustice of the baggage the word "orc" carries and that people think "warhorde" first. Of the four cultures, only one of them is militaristic. Caravanners, Longstoics, and Communals are not.

"...those few tribes that revel in battle have grown to have different traits than those that value family or their ancestors above all else."

Going back for a reread instead of thinking back to the skim when I saw his post I think your probably right in that they are very interesting & did well to break the FR mold but the first paragraph in orc culture really sticks. Having fought hard to break players of their FR-orc all orcs are evil beliefs & push eberron style orcs in my eberron games over the years that paragraph is what will stick. It's like describing germans as a warlike people who excel in warfare before describing modern day german life because it applied well in 70bce. Maybe also instead of bringing up how they are easily rallied to a warband & such flip the narrative there & go into how the orc artisans/scholars/etc look on in sadness or try to speak reason to their neighbors even if those attempts at restraining the fury of crowds ultimately fail in tragic ways?

 

[CubicsRube]

I've only skimmed it so far, but I like the split.

Just from a layout point, I'd second that perhaps all cultures are split into their own section, away from heritage. Whether they want to be put as generic, such as "warhorde" without mentioning orcs, or otherwise I think this would make it clearer.

I know you mentioned that any heritahe can pick any culture in the document, but it's one of those things that can be easy to miss on a casual read and might be a cause for misinderstanding.

 

[Morrus]

Just from a layout point, I'd second that perhaps all cultures are split into their own section, away from heritage.

It was something we were 50/50 on, and decided to present it like this and cover it in the survey. We're not married to either option.

 

[CapnZapp]

The fact that we can't even change small things is why I'm really worried about the "Backward compatible"

No, we can change small things.

If there's a point to the change.

Switching terminology just for the sake of it will likely never be considered useful enough to merit such a change.

 

[Sir Brennen]

The fact that we can't even change small things is why I'm really worried about the "Backward compatible"

The fact that what we've seen so far isn't changing small things should reassure you about backwards compatibility, not worry you.

Changing small things like "sonic" for "thunder" would break it to a small degree, as players start looking though their PHB to figure out what the heck "sonic" damage is. Or the DM who says Sonic attack doesn't affect his creature, because it's only vulnerable to Thunder damage.

EDIT: And I'd say swapping "sonic" for "thunder" isn't a small change, it's a change to a defined term in the core book, and so should be left alone for compatibility.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I must say: I cant wait to see the new lifepath system from WotC in Tasha's, because they would need to create something really awesome to come close to the Origin system.

What I like about it is that it isnt more complicated, its just more choices for the players, and it gives them more capabilities for their character to better define who they are beyond their class.

I do think that the descriptions are a little wordy and may benefit from being trimmed down a little, and the dragonborns really have too many forking paths, IMO.

Also: I dont get the reference for the twilight halflings, what fantasy archetypes are they representing?