Level Up (A5E) My first impression

[Morrus]

Is there a list of spells with major changes anywhere? (e.g., fireball type changes).

Besides how manuvers will play out, I'm finding any potential spell changes as the hardest thing to figure out impact through a quick read. Someone commented on how the Wizard seemed buffed from O5e (not a great result if true IMO) but if there are more fireball like adjustments then maybe not. Really hard to figure out without going through all the big spells.

The best - and most fun! - way to find out is to play the game!

We don’t have a list of changes from O5E because that would be a book.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

The best - and most fun! - way to find out is to play the game!

We don’t have a list of changes from O5E because that would be a book.

I plan to!

Wasn't asking about a list of all changes, just a list of major spell buffs or debuffs, like fireball from 8d6 to 6d6. Bonus if it includes designer intent (love the insight and learning from this type of comentary in 13th Age).

But if I have to discover this through play, that's kind of fun too...

 

[Satirical Bard]

Is there a list of spells with major changes anywhere? (e.g., fireball type changes).

Besides how manuvers will play out, I'm finding any potential spell changes as the hardest thing to figure out impact through a quick read. Someone commented on how the Wizard seemed buffed from O5e (not a great result if true IMO) but if there are more fireball like adjustments then maybe not. Really hard to figure out without going through all the big spells.

Not at all a proper list but fireball, banishment, tiny hut, counterspell, goodberry and animate objects are among those to be nerfed fixed.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Not at all a proper list but fireball, banishment, tiny hut, counterspell, goodberry and animate objects are among those to be nerfed fixed.

Thanks!

 

[Morrus]

I plan to!

Wasn't asking about a list of all changes, just a list of major spell buffs or debuffs, like fireball from 8d6 to 6d6. Bonus if it includes designer intent (love the insight and learning from this type of comentary in 13th Age).

But if I have to discover this through play, that's kind of fun too...

Yeah, sorry, we didn't make a list!

 

[jadxq]

For what it's worth, we went through and rewrote all of the spells from O5E as part of the design process. Sometimes the changes were small or non-existant, with new wording more as a legal consideration than a mechanical one, but we rebalanced a lot of them as we were going along. I know I made balance tweaks to several of the ones I worked on; while people are obviously going to have different opinions about which spells need what treatment, double-check that the spell hasn't been changed before getting too disappointed. We also used rare spells to help with some of the stinkers; the example you give of True Strike was one example of that, actually! There's a rare version of True Strike that reads as follows:



So if you've always liked the idea of true strike, but not the implementation, that's now there to be found as treasure or researched in down time.

That's fair. You're right, some of the wording is subtle, and I missed that. As I continue to look through the spells, there are definitely changes that are good (e.g., banishment, tiny hut--also an interesting take on counterspell).

I guess my main concern at this point--apart from quibbles about a spell or two (still would like more of an adjustment to polymorph)--is the potential power creep of PCs. Personally, I would have liked detachment of innate spell ability from heritage and culture (make it a function of class only), and damage immunities at 10th level (as an example) are not to my taste (which is why I like the change to Heroes Feast).

But as I move on to the Monstrous Menagerie, I am hopeful that the O5e CR craziness has been fixed. What are people's impressions of monster re-balancing?

 

[Legendweaver]

O5E subclasses generally tend to work just fine on A5E classes. The subclasses got made after the classes did, so we mostly playtested with O5E subclasses. There are a few places I'd advise caution (Battlemaster + the A5E maneuver system would be a ton of bookkeeping and weird edge cases) but in general terms, you can just drop them right in.

That's great to hear -- I wish this was called out explicitly in the rules somewhere!

 

[Hybban]

So I bought O5E at release and played for a few months with a group of RPG newbies. The players had a lot of fun, me as a DM not so much. I found the game too bland on my side of the screen and shelved the game. I pledged Level Up without any particular expectations and I have to admit, I've been very impressed by the 3 core books. And I've been considering running/playing 5E again thanks to you!