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 agree that the cantrips should be utility things that make sense for the culture

I'm not arguing against the choice, choosing an attack cantrip is perfectly fine, but choosing a few utility cantrips is a bar that comes close enough in value to choice of firebolt/toll the dead/etc to make the questionneeding to choose between of a single attack cantrip or a few utility ones a tough one because odds are good those utility cantrips combined will be useful enough often enough to justify the choice.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sometimes I wonder about the idea of racial talismans. Theses would be a single-use magic item, as potions and scrolls, but only for certain race. Somebody from that race could spend a catrip or racial spell-like abilite to activate (or reload) that talisman.

I love the idea to add all the dragons as subraces for dragonborn.

I wonder about the option the small beast speech to be replaced with "animal companion speech" for gnomes PCs with a "monster pet". Somebody will dare to a PC gnome riding a bear or a dire badger.

 

[Mike Myler]

♥

 

[FireLance]

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

I think they are meant to represent the halflings of the Birthright campaign setting.

 

[TheSword]

I’ll say this, though I fear it may be controversial.

The human section reads like someone has an axe to grind. In a game attempting to be a real world analogy of the 18th and 19th C then this might be interesting but in D&D it feels very jarring. In fact it reads like the human section has been written based on white western society rather than humanity as a whole.

It claims colonization is an unfortunate legacy of human culture due to birth rate leading to expansion and migration. Every society has expanded over time unless it stayed exactly where it was formed. Colonialization has unavoidable associations with colonialism where people and resources are funnelled back to a remote metropole causing huge socio-economic Problems (this association is cemented by the profiteer and sheltered citizen cultures). Societies on the other hand have expanded and tested borders for thousands of years. We’re all the product of migration. In fantasy settings it often isn’t at the expense of others as seems to be heavily suggested.

These descriptions of humans bear little relationship to how humans are used in current d&d settings. Let’s take the Forgotten Realms - the majority of human lands do not behave this way - the Sword Coast, the North, the Dales, Damara, Waterdeep These are not empires. In fact any empires in the Realms are generally long in the past. With the exception of maybe Baldurs Gate (which has expressly walked back from that idea in products).

The cultures associated with humans are overwhelmingly perjorative. Profiteer means someone who makes a profit unfairly or illegally - it is not synonymous with capitalist. The culture is appears modeled on the colonial East India company. Sheltered Citizen suggests naïveté and little c conservatism. Pioneering is linked with colonization at the expense of others rather than expansion/exploration (neutral and common to most civilizations) which again is not the same thing. These could easily have been neutral... or gasp... may be even positive. Trader is just as relevant as ‘Profiteer’. The word citizen can be used without the ‘Sheltered’ adjective.

The villager Culture at least is neutral but I see absolutely no reason why humans are more likely to live a village life than any of the other heritages. That rural life is common to all heritages as far as I can see. However I wouldn’t expect other ancestries villages to look like the one described in this culture.

Go back and read the text of the human section and then compare it to the balance of overwhelmingly positive or at least neutral descriptions in the other entries. It reads as if someone is trying to make a political statement about the last 350 years of human existence not describe fantasy humans in D&D.

If I make one piece of feedback stronger than any other, please if the language isn’t substantially revised then separate culture from ancestry completely. Otherwise you are being just as stereotypical as the existing rules - more so in fact - as the PHB rarely makes such sweeping and perjoritive statements about cultures. From reading the document the ability to take any culture is not clear and strongly associates some heritages with the cultures that follow.

 

[Thirdpartycollector]

I’ll say this, though I fear it may be controversial.

The human section reads like someone has an axe to grind. In a game attempting to be a real world analogy of the 18th and 19th C then this might be interesting but in D&D it feels very jarring. In fact it reads like the human section has been written based on white western society rather than humanity as a whole.

It claims colonization is an unfortunate legacy of human culture due to birth rate leading to expansion and migration. Every society has expanded over time unless it stayed exactly where it was formed. Colonialization has unavoidable associations with colonialism where people and resources are funnelled back to a remote metropole causing huge socio-economic Problems (this association is cemented by the profiteer and sheltered citizen cultures). Societies on the other hand have expanded and tested borders for thousands of years. We’re all the product of migration. In fantasy settings it often isn’t at the expense of others as seems to be heavily suggested.

Adding onto that i'll point out that the orcs in the doc are mentioned as being not so short sighted as humans when it comes to taking care of the enviroment in many cases, and the down playing of them being the baddies despite them literally having an evil god influencing them in faerun. So maybe treat humanity with a bit more sympathy? Remember most fantasy worlds seem to have a village razed every few weeks by monsters and other humanoids. Orc raiding parties are a thing, even though all orcs are not evil, same goes for Ogres, giants, goblins, and then there are things that are practically always evil or just not sentient enough to care. Perhaps they colonize places where everyone died a long time ago? The human section feels like it could do with a little less self loathing.

 

[Taylor Espy]

A few of the options remind me of the Zeitgeist books, that's pretty cool.

 

[Morrus]

A few of the options remind me of the Zeitgeist books, that's pretty cool.

Funny that!

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm think you misunderstood me, I was saying it worried me, in that it's making me think sticking to backwards compatibility is a bad idea, not that I'm worried we'll won't stick to it. I'm saying that if we hold tight to exactly how things are done in WOTC's books what's the point of even making a new book if we can't fix issues

Please don't relativize, that is, don't make the argument "if we can't change everything we can't change anything".

The name of an energy type remains so inconsequential it isn't worth changing.

We should honor the decisions 5E made except when we see real value in not doing that.

 

[Taylor Espy]

Funny that!

Well I hope you folks decide to make that more prominent, Zeitgeist is probably the best setting i've ever had the pleasure of running multiple games in, and i'd pay good money for content designed with a steampunk setting in mind.