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!

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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.

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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.

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[Stalker0]

Plus using it for potent intimidation is always an option... just think about the effect you create if you just send voices to the head of another creature...

No more than another creative player who quietly bends metal in their hands while staring dead into the person's eyes. Or a person that uses produce flame and has it dance on their fingertips as they begin to giggle and move closer to the target. There are a lot of ways a creative player can use to activate their intimidate skill. Telepathy may seem "alien", but in the context of many other strange magical powers, its not that out there.

Again don't get me wrong, telepathy is very flavorful, and some players are going to love it. But "mechanically" its no stronger than many other abilities, which is important when we consider general balance.

 

[imeannoharm]

I did not even know about this word before you post and now I'm soo happy you used it!

In case you didn't know sir it means an official addition onto a previous document.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've had characters with telepathy in my games...and its very overrated as an ability. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it very cool to send a note to your friend secretly, or freak out a villager by hearing voices in their head. But the fact they can't reply really limits the ability, and for the vast majority of time its just an alternate way to say words.

I actually think the telepathy ones are some of the weakest.

I as well. It's one of those abilities that looks like it should be really great, but in practice it has almost zero chance of ever making any difference over the course of a campaign. I got tired of adjudicating "can we" questions about it in one game with a kalashtar player & told the pc/players to just treat it as having the telepathic bond spell active & it still had basically no influence other than sometimes changing "I say" to "I send." Telepathy in d&d is thought transmission without all the cool abilities that go with it because all of those abilities are specific things that don't need telepathy

Not if you play in a more thematic campaign and have everyone take it. We finished a campaign earlier this year and one character had two-way telepathy. We focused heavily on stealth and espionage, where it is pure gold. Plus using it for potent intimidation is always an option... just think about the effect you create if you just send voices to the head of another creature...

Also, if your DM allows it, telepathy can be possibly a faster way of communication because thoughts are much quicker than spoken words, thus enabling more talk and strategy.

There are multiple spells that produce voices & hallucinations to varying effects in a tIf you've gotta houserule all the cool telepathic tropes onto telepathy knowing that spells & abilities exist for those specific things discrete individual nontelepathic things in order for it to be cool your pretty much admitting telepathy is bad.

It's fine to have a telepathic race, but they should decide what useful to most game features of telepathy it comes with & bake that/those in. If the only time it's going to be useful is for a moon druid in wildshape it damned well better be a race that makes an amazing druid for reasons other than "they can still communicate with the party"

 

[Lylandra]

Oh, I didn't mean to say that telepathy is overpowered. I wanted to use it as an example of an ability that's almost universally useful and compare that to the seemingly lackluster abilities of humans. Because I've never been in a situation where being able to travel a bit more than twice the overland travel speed by foot for two hours would have been relevant. Even if you don't consider the fact that, unless you split the party, those other folx in your group won't be able to keep up with your pace... If you want to go fast, you usually use mounts.

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh, I didn't mean to say that telepathy is overpowered. I wanted to use it as an example of an ability that's almost universally useful and compare that to the seemingly lackluster abilities of humans. Because I've never been in a situation where being able to travel a bit more than twice the overland travel speed by foot for two hours would have been relevant. Even if you don't consider the fact that, unless you split the party, those other folx in your group won't be able to keep up with your pace... If you want to go fast, you usually use mounts.

That's just it. Telepathy is one of those hings that should be useful but is rarely if ever even capable of reaching the low bar of simply being noteworthy & should be adjusted. As to humans I think you might be thinking of it from the PoV of "this is less amazing than a way too good 3.5/5e variant human feat based concept comes online 4 levels sooner". Humans get some really nice heritage stuff

• Die Hard Survivor: Sure the feast & famine is of iffy value, but being considered proficient in death saves and counting any roll adding to 20+ as a nat 20 is gigantic
  • Feast & Famine. You are adapted to tightening your belt during hard times. You double your Constitution score for the sake determining how long you can go without eating.
  • Radical Perseverance. Through your sheer stubbornness and will to live, you sometimes manage to wriggle out of death’s grasp. You get a bonus to death saving throws equal to your proficiency bonus. A d20 result of natural 1 or a 20 still yields the normal results, and a result of 21 or higher is treated as a 20.
• Spirited Traveler: This is a lot more useful than you give it credit for. Righ off the bat you have an ability that lets you take what would be a 5 hour trip in 2 hours being able to warn the village, go get supplies left behind/determined to be needed, etc sure it's niche but that's pretty darned useful when you find a use. Sojourner's fortitude is advantage on forced march, this was never the most useful hing even in the past editions before 5e made forced march practically impossible with its rests. Mad dashgives some foreshadowing, 5e may have removed nearly all AoOs for moving around in combat but when you add them back it means a human can get beat to hell & run around/through the front lines to retreat to the party or even ignore the risk of them during a charge or something 1/rest... Back in the days of 3.5 there were feats that did that for just a charge or something & people took them often.
  • Marathon Runner. While you carry no more than half your carrying capacity, and you are not wearing medium or heavy armor, your individual overland travel speed is 10 miles per hour, but only for 2 hours. After this point, you can only travel at a slow pace (2 miles per hour) until you complete a long rest.
  • Sojourner’s Fortitude. You have advantage on saving throws made to resist exhaustion for marching longer than 8 hours.
  • Mad Dash. When you take the Dash action, your movement this turn does not provoke
    opportunity attacks. During this movement, you have advantage Athletics checks made to jump, Acrobatics checks made to avoid hazards, and Dexterity saving throws.
    This trait does not protect you from other reactions, including readied actions. Once you use this trait, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.
• Ingenious Focus: Taking two tools or skills from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, or Religion & never being able to roll below an 8 is gigantic for a skill based character. Imagine a rogue who has a 100% chance of rolling 8-20 before adding mods to thieve's tools & poisoner's kit, or a wizard/cleric/etc who has the same with arcana & religion or whatever. Likewise Inexorable Concentration is great giving human casters free warcaster saves int mod number of times/long rest.
  • Resident Expert. You have a reputation for painstaking detail on certain tasks and subjects. Choose two tools with which you are proficient, or a skill with which you are proficient from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, or Religion. When you make a check with that tool or skill and the d20 shows a natural result of 2 through 7, you can count the d20 result as being 8.
  • Inexorable Concentration. When you fail a Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration, you can immediately reroll it, taking the new result. You may use this ability a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one), and regain all expended uses after a long rest. Seems like villager:Tall tales should allow this to be wis instead of int too though.

 

[Lylandra]

That's just it. Telepathy is one of those hings that should be useful but is rarely if ever even capable of reaching the low bar of simply being noteworthy & should be adjusted. As to humans I think you might be thinking of it from the PoV of "this is less amazing than a way too good 3.5/5e variant human feat based concept comes online 4 levels sooner". Humans get some really nice heritage stuff

• Die Hard Survivor: Sure the feast & famine is of iffy value, but being considered proficient in death saves andcounting any roll adding to 20+ as a nat 20 is gigantic
  • Feast & Famine. You are adapted to tightening your belt during hard times. You double your Constitution score for the sake determining how long you can go without eating.
  • Radical Perseverance. Through your sheer stubbornness and will to live, you sometimes manage to wriggle out of death’s grasp. You get a bonus to death saving throws equal to your proficiency bonus. A d20 result of natural 1 or a 20 still yields the normal results, and a result of 21 or higher is treated as a 20.

Totally depends on the campaign. In my campaigns (both as player and DM), my PCs are really rarely downed, and if they are, their teammates will heal/stabilize them in a round. In a gritty campaign, both traits can be really useful, especially Radical Perseverance. F&F is really niche and not worth it unless your DM sets you to starvation mode regularly and RP depends on your group's combat deadliness.

• Spirited Traveler:This is a lot more useful than you give it credit for. Righ off the bat you have an ability that lets you take what would be a 5 hour trip in 2 hours being able to warn the village, go get supplies left behind/determined to be needed, etc sure it's niche but that's pretty darned useful when you find a use. Sojourner's fortitude is advantage on forced march, this was never the most useful hing even in the past editions before 5e made forced march practically impossible with its rests. Mad dashgives some foreshadowing, 5e may have removed nearly all AoOs for moving around in combat but when you add them back it means a human can get beat to hell & run around/through the front lines to retreat to the party or even ignore the risk of them during a charge or something 1/rest... Back in the days of 3.5 there were feats that did that for just a charge or something & people took them often.
  • Marathon Runner. While you carry no more than half your carrying capacity, and you are not wearing medium or heavy armor, your individual overland travel speed is 10 miles per hour, but only for 2 hours. After this point, you can only travel at a slow pace (2 miles per hour) until you complete a long rest.
  • Sojourner’s Fortitude. You have advantage on saving throws made to resist exhaustion for marching longer than 8 hours.
  • Mad Dash. When you take the Dash action, your movement this turn does not provoke
    opportunity attacks. During this movement, you have advantage Athletics checks made to jump, Acrobatics checks made to avoid hazards, and Dexterity saving throws.
    This trait does not protect you from other reactions, including readied actions. Once you use this trait, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest

Have you even read my post? Unless you have a group of all-humans, you will not let one party member just run off (without armor!) on their own. Plus, as soon as you get horses (and many parties get them at level 1-2, they are not too expensive), this ability is next to worthless unless you are, again, a group of all humans trying to marathon a mountain pass too narrow for mounts.

SF... how often do you have a forced march by foot for over 8 hours in your campaigns? I mean, there are campaigns in which this ability could be useful, but in the vast majority of campaigns? Maybe once or twice. Thinking about the last four campaigns, I can think of one such situation.

Mad Dash is cool, flavorful and really useful in combat. But I didn't question that

Ingenious Focus: Taking two tools or skills from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, or Religion & never being able to roll below an 8 is gigantic for a skill based character. Imagine a rogue who has a 100% chance of rolling 8-20 before adding mods to thieve's tools & poisoner's kit, or a wizard/cleric/etc who has the same with arcana & religion or whatever. Likewise Inexorable Concentration is great giving human casters free warcaster saves int mod number of times/long rest.

• Resident Expert. You have a reputation for painstaking detail on certain tasks and subjects. Choose two tools with which you are proficient, or a skill with which you are proficient from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, or Religion. When you make a check with that tool or skill and the d20 shows a natural result of 2 through 7, you can count the d20 result as being 8.
• Inexorable Concentration. When you fail a Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration, you can immediately reroll it, taking the new result. You may use this ability a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one), and regain all expended uses after a long rest. Seems like villager:Tall tales should allow this to be wis instead of int too though.

Yep, I love this one. Seems a bit too much catered towards casters with IC, but this one I'd take without any second thought.

I'm still missing some more generally useful human heritage benefits. Like, you know.... darkvision+fey ancestry+trance+glance the future

 

[tetrasodium]

Totally depends on the campaign. In my campaigns (both as player and DM), my PCs are really rarely downed, and if they are, their teammates will heal/stabilize them in a round. In a gritty campaign, both traits can be really useful, especially Radical Perseverance. F&F is really niche and not worth it unless your DM sets you to starvation mode regularly and RP depends on your group's combat deadliness.


Have you even read my post? Unless you have a group of all-humans, you will not let one party member just run off (without armor!) on their own. Plus, as soon as you get horses (and many parties get them at level 1-2, they are not too expensive), this ability is next to worthless unless you are, again, a group of all humans trying to marathon a mountain pass too narrow for mounts.

SF... how often do you have a forced march by foot for over 8 hours in your campaigns? I mean, there are campaigns in which this ability could be useful, but in the vast majority of campaigns? Maybe once or twice. Thinking about the last four campaigns, I can think of one such situation.

Mad Dash is cool, flavorful and really useful in combat. But I didn't question that


Yep, I love this one. Seems a bit too much catered towards casters with IC, but this one I'd take without any second thought.

I'm still missing some more generally useful human heritage benefits. Like, you know.... darkvision+fey ancestry+trance+glance the future

I think your expecting too much expecting racials to always be useful in every situation for every class because humans were best at everything in so many editions. It literally only takes one human in the party to pretty much nullify darkvsion for everyone else & you dismiss niche human stuff while praising niche stuff from other races.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think your expecting too much expecting racials to always be useful in every situation for every class because humans were best at everything in so many editions. It literally only takes one human in the party to pretty much nullify darkvsion for everyone else & you dismiss niche human stuff while praising niche stuff from other races.

As I've mentioned above, you want to encourage players to potentially play any and all races. What are we doing to make people want to play humans? Without the ability score bonuses or free feat, the racials feel weak sauce to me. Everyone else has much cooler stuff going on.

 

[Stalker0]

As I've mentioned above, you want to encourage players to potentially play any and all races. What are we doing to make people want to play humans? Without the ability score bonuses or free feat, the racials feel weak sauce to me. Everyone else has much cooler stuff going on.

Looking at my nitty gritty notes in the other thread, I agree. Only the Profiteer I think is "up to snuff". Now the human stuff isn't bad, a lot of it is pretty flavorful, but its not quite at the same strength tier as some other races.

 

[tetrasodium]

As I've mentioned above, you want encourage players to potentially play any and all races. What are we doing to make people want to play humans? Without the ability score bonuses or free feat, the racials feel weak sauce to me. Everyone else has much cooler stuff going on.

I listed a number of good things that make humans attractive. Someone mentioned darkvision fey ancestry & the trance earlier but dark vision is really only useful if you are a sneaky scout type, fey ancestry is only going to come up if sleep or charm spells get used (not the most common since they can cause TPK quick) & the rest will mostly only matter if your gm is in the habbit of interrupting a rest but somehow only if your gm & useful for this type of party role but pretty useless for all others are somehow only relevant when it comes to humans?

You get a heritage and a culture. Human heritages start on 37, human paragon on 38, human cultures on 39. The criticism of human s being "weak" seems to focus on individual components isolated from the rest of the heritage/culture they come with making them feel like complaining that druids are broken because druidic is less useful than thieve's cant, second wind, or rage.

It's certainly possible that there are weak heritages & cultures but those need to be discussed as a whole rather than focusing on just one isolated part of the things various they give while pretending the rest don't come with it. I fail to see how focusing on only the weakest of two or three abilities given by each human heritage You need to talk about each heritage & culture as a whole if you think it's underpowered.