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.

 

[Minigiant]

Just skimming it right now. Deep dive later. First thoughts.

1) One thing I wish this and the original PHB did is put a simple list of the Backgrounds in a little box at the start of the chapter

2) I really expected the Human Cultures to be Urban, Suruban, Rural, Pioneer/Fringer as those seem be more humanish divides once you get past class. Sure they can be generic but the "city to farm to wilds" always felt like a human trope that any other race in fantasy.

 

[Zardnaar]

Damn this stuff is a min maxers wet dream. Might even be worse than 1995s Skills and Powers.

On the plus side some things like culture make sense and the races suck a bit less than the phb defaults.

Just being able to trade out abilities that your class doesn't use much powers stuff up.

Dragonborn and Shadow Elves won the lottery.

Quite a bit looks like fun as well in a can I break this kind of way.

 

[clearstream]

My thoughts.

Even though I like the idea of moving the stat bonuses from the ancestry to the background, I see some potential problems as suddenly characters end up being pidgeonholed into specific backgrounds when making MAD classes... it's the same problem we had with races all over again, except now with backgrounds.

Also, the Noble giving +1 Str bonus seems like a misprint (or maybe a typo?). At least to me, being a noble implies either having a good education ( Int ) or well mannered/diplomatic aspirations ( Cha ).One could say, however, that nobles could be good at anything...

I was thinking about that, and maybe it turns out the fixed assignment is going to be your secondary, not primary attribute. What I mean is, you have a point you can put anywhere, so that can easily go onto whatever attribute you most want. And you have the fixed assignment (for Nobles, Str) which if you want the other benefits of the background you have no choice about. So it might equally fall on your primary or your secondary.

This isn't disagreeing with you, more a side-comment. Strength on Noble does seem odd. I just wanted to point out that the fixed assignment is probably not all that constraining, as it can be the primary or the secondary.

 

[clearstream]

Elf:

• I would rather have eladrin proficient with longsword and longspears/pike as a nod to 4e.
• Like the dragonborns, keeping the Aspect to Seasons + Star court + Shadow court, should be enough.

Elves also need to reconcile their darkvision overlaps! One of their cultures extends it, but their paragon makes it unlimited...

 

[clearstream]

It states it several times. There’s even a whole sidebar which states it.

It might be the sidebar pulls it out and makes it feel like an optional rule, to ignore on first glance. I feel like it is a very important rule and should just go in main text, at the start of the culture section.

(Actually, I'd generally prefer if crunch came before fluff in the text... but I know for many players the fluff is paramount. For me, the crunch tells me the truth of what the race/class/culture/background really is. The fluff might align with that truth, or it might be a fairytale...

Would you consider releasing crunch-only versions of the playtest packets?)

 

[clearstream]

Elves have some particularly cool mechanics, I love foresight and int to interaction stats.

Lucky Elven Diviner / Lore Bard incoming

 

[Lylandra]

Also only read Dragonborn so far and I stumbled across:

Dragonbound Teachings. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard or cleric spell lists. Intelligence or Wisdom (your choice) is your spellcasting ability for it.

Umm... wouldn't Dragons be naturally inclined to be sorcerers, not wizards? Maybe this is for making INT more int-eresting, but it irritated me a lot.

 

[tetrasodium]

I noticed that there does not seem to be anything like PHB125's "If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead." is something that should never have been a thing since classes are always choose x skills from the following list like wizard giving 2 Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, or Religion & sage giving arcana and history so bob starts with arcana religion persuade & perception. It was jut too nakedly transparent & definitely something that should be avoided

Also only read Dragonborn so far and I stumbled across:

Dragonbound Teachings. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard or cleric spell lists. Intelligence or Wisdom (your choice) is your spellcasting ability for it.

Umm... wouldn't Dragons be naturally inclined to be sorcerers, not wizards? Maybe this is for making INT more int-eresting, but it irritated me a lot.

Teaching implies it was something taught so int. Dragons are known for teaching magic too.

 

[Lylandra]

Teaching implies it was something taught so int. Dragons are known for teaching magic too.

Yeah, but can you teach something you don't know? Like... the same dragon can teach both wizard AND cleric cantrips but nothing else?
Wouldn't this imply that there are no sorcerer dragons that can teach their "children" how to use their inner magic? Also, if teaching implies INT then why would the WIS option even appear?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for keeping the INT option, but I'd broaden it to include CHA options (sorcerers) as well. Or maybe open it up so you'd have silver dragons teaching a paladin cantrip, or copper dragons teaching bard cantips etc.

 

[Lylandra]

2) I really expected the Human Cultures to be Urban, Suruban, Rural, Pioneer/Fringer as those seem be more humanish divides once you get past class. Sure they can be generic but the "city to farm to wilds" always felt like a human trope that any other race in fantasy.

I skimmed through the human section and thought that they were pretty weak and lackluster compared to the other heritages. The reason why humans are a trong choice in 5e is because they either provide more ability boni than other heritages or because you get an extra feat and skill. And then compare Marathon runner to telepathy... (even though I do like the fact that whoever wrote the human section included the reason actual humans were able to strive in ancient civilization: They got superior running skills and stamina - in addition to a really strong "throw skill")

Also, Profiteer needs to be the language expert. Always found it odd that those guys who get around most would speak as much or even less languages than a sheltered, xenophobic wood elf.