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Fifth Edition Options $9.99
Average Rating:4.0 / 5
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by John P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/07/2021 09:04:58

A lot of optional rules that I haven't looked at, since my group mainly uses it for the alternative ability score generation. This product has a lot of pages but doesn't have a table of contents so it maybe hard to find a rule if you can't remember the page number.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by James B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/10/2018 19:53:50

A neat selection of optional rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. There's something here to suit pretty much any sort of D&D campaign, from gritty to cinematic and everything between. A lot of the options are derivative of rules from older editions, especially 3.5, and other d20-based games, but it's still useful to have such rules ready for 5E use. That said, I don't think I'd be as forgiving if I'd picked this up in print; I'm rather glad I bought it as a PDF instead. (Originally posted on Goodreads)



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Raymond T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/19/2017 14:30:43

This item has several rules in it that I have ben waiting for that bring back options from older editions D&D. Including what they call Dual Classing (which in old edidtion (up to 2nd Ed) was called multi-classing), as well as spellcasters recieving bonus spell slots for high ability scores.

This book is the first step in my effort to bring real ballanced options to my players and give a feel to the game that has been missing in this edition.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by David E. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/16/2017 12:23:34

I like having access to all these new options. Would I use all of them, certainly not. Some are great, some are good, some so so, and a few I don't care for at all, but the variety is wonderful. Well worth the purchase.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Abraham Z. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/17/2016 16:44:43

The title is pretty self explanatory. If you ever wanted more options for almost any situation in your 5th Edition game, this is the book to get. Experienced players may recognize or may have already thought of their own variants and rules, taking inspiration from older editions, but this book presents a significant amount of exclusive subsystems and mechanical elements.

If you need more ways to handle character generation, skill successes, item crafting, combat options, and a bunch of GM tools to customize the game according to the campaign's flavor, look no further. This adds a bit more complexity to the game, but in consequence promotes choice per action as well.

The material here is quite easy to convert to other d20 based systems, if you ever need a few extral rule variations. Fifth edition options gives you the right choices for rules customization.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Ethan C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/02/2016 07:01:58

This book looks really interesting. Too bad I'll never get to see any of the gems contained within as it has no table of contents and no index. I'm not going to use this product as a reference, which is what it is, without a way to quickly and easily find the information I'm looking for. This book literally leaves out two of the most essential components necessary when building a REFERENCE book. How is this possible?!? How did this get out the door like this?!? What editor at Total Party Kill Games signed off on this incomplete product saying "Eh, they'll figure it out"?!? Last year I put together a supplement for personal use at my table. 35 pages, built using Word of all things, and not for the public. But do you know what? I put a table of contents in there because I'm not a crazy person. Unbelievable. What a gigantic waste of my hard earned money…



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Ethan, Thanks for the review. In our print book we\'ll add an index. However, the PDF is extensively bookmarked and has everything you are looking for. Cheers!
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Reviewer X. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/11/2016 11:54:37

This book is about variant rules, not more character options, and I really enjoyed it. If you are an aspiring DM looking to tweak the rules of 5e D&D for your games, this is going to be a great resource. There are around 80 pages of info, covering everything from 3.5 features like masterwork items to full skill definitions (a freaking godsend!). There's tons of great mechanical options for everything in the game from combat, initiative and Inspiration. At the end, there's even something called campaign templates which tell you which alternate rules to use for what style of game you are running. I'd say this is a 4.5 star book because the art is mostly stock, but for usefulness, I'm definitely rounding up to 5 stars.

R-X



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/01/2016 05:04:36

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive book clocks in at 79 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page of SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving us with 75 pages of content, so let's take a look!

So, what is this? Basically, this is a huge selection of variant rules for 5e that you can drag and drop in your game. We begin with alternate methods of ability score generation, with grid, dice pool, point-buy that goes up to 18 from the get-go and alternate ability arrays. Rolling 4d6, dropping the lowest and having the GM do the same and then dealing with the devil behind the screen is also mentioned. There is also a option by which class choice and backgrounds influence the attributes, with e.g. Warlocks gaining +1 to Int and Cha and those with a soldier background gaining either +1 Str or Con. The idea of racial maximum stats (here, 18) can be found, though with this system, dwarves get suckerpunched - they're the only race that has two capped attributes.

The pdf also provides rules for Small and Large characters, with Strength and Constitution being capped differently and minor modifications. The balance here, though, is off: Large creatures cap Str and Con at 22, gaina dvantage on saves against being pushed, tripped, etc. and have double the capacity of their Medium brethren. Downsides? None. Small characters cap Con at 18, Str at 16, get +1 AC and have only half the carrying capacity of Medium creatures. Yeah...that wasn't really thought through.

2d6 rolls to determine handedness, ability score proficiencies, feats at 1st level with various means of balancing the power-increase this represents - the book has a couple of rather nice customization considerations here. Similarly, the pdf introduces flaws, which can be rather flavorful, though GMs should take heed that the character who takes a flaw gets one befitting of the class: Foes gaining advantage on the first attack roll in melee is nasty, as it should be, but if the character keeps running from melee/ is a caster/etc., it loses some of its oomph. Still, I do enjoy these generally and their effects are generally potent enough.

As a whole, I enjoyed this chapter, though a bit more guidance pertaining the ramifications of the respective power-increases and caps would probably have been beneficent to the less experienced GMs out there. The pdf also provides means for the old-school gamer to play double or triple classes via a stunted XP-progression; basically think of this as the grognard's gestalting before there was gestalting. The pdf also offer variant XP-progressions (basically slow and fast track) as well as ability score increases by level instead of class, which becomes, obviously, relevant when employing the multiclass rules. The pdf also features starting wealth suggestions for higher level characters. If you wish for less lethal saves, adding +1/2 proficiency bonus is suggested for nonproficient saves...though I'm not the biggest fan here.

The second, massive chapter is all about skills: It suggests skill advancement at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, stat-like increases to skills or the altogether elimination of them as optional rules. Alternate skill lists are presented alongside an interesting take on expertise, which suggests using advantage instead, making you more reliable, but capping the maximum you can reach - this one makes A LOT of sense to me and generally can be considered to be one of the rules I'll certainly take from this book. Now the next section will either be useless or a godsend to you, depending on your perspective. 5e's skills are deliberately fast and loose to speed up gameplay; at the same time, one quick google will show you a lot of reddit-questions pertaining which skill to use when etc. - this chapter, thus, provides sample DCs for different tasks for the respective skills - in particular the vastly expanded animal handling DCs should prove to be helpful. While this may not be for every GM, I know that this section will be a rather significant boon for many a table.

Now, as long-time readers may note, one of the few components I liked about 4th edition was the introduction of skill challenges and this book does provide a 5e-twist on them with complex skill checks that require multiple successes that build upon another. The system introduced here is rather smooth and goes through the skills, skill by skill, providing some general guidance and examples for single skill complex checks, though these obviously can be combined. Similarly, complex skill-checks based on tools get a mention here.

Chapter 3 provides more detailed crafting rules that retain the straightforwardness of 5e design. Rules for simpler ammo-handling, impossible rest in armors, better crossbows and firearms that penalize armor, rules for masterwork equipment and new equipment options to enrich the game: From double weapons to those that can be folded or those that are oversized, the book sports quite a few of those, though e.g. doubled damage dice for the big ones with just the note that they "requrie training" and that characters aren't proficient in them can be deemed to be somewhat problematic. Come on, even Guts in Berserk can't swing his dragonslayer as fast as a regular sword. Want to distill poisons? Yup, rules for that in here.

The third chapter deals with combat - there is an alternate rule for rolling two smaller dice to make the hit point roll less swingy. Personally, I absolutely LOVED the slower healing, limited HD-expenditure and fatiguing injuries rules herein: D&D 5e already makes for a surprisingly good dark/low fantasy system and these alternate rules for grittier gameplay really add to that effect. On the other hand, if you dislike the element of chance when recovering, a fixing amount system can be found here as well. Similarly, if you liked the vitality and wounds systems, you'll have a 5e-iteration of the system here...including an ultra-gritty variant.

The pdf goes on with conditions - while 5e has a couple of them, older systems had more - if you're missing some of these, well - here's the list to cherry pick those you want back. The pdf also sports variant initiative systems: Rolling each round, while dynamic, slows down gameplay and round table initiative is simple, but also not that rewarding for all but the player who rolled highest - personally, I prefer that one for beer-and-pretzels-style games. Your mileage may vary, of course!

Minor tweaks like inadvertently hitting allies when firing into melee (default house-rule in my game) and tougher rising from the prone condition makes sense - default 5e is pretty lenient on that one, considering the effects of the prone condition.

Okay, the next section will be rather divisive, I wager. We get combat maneuvers. Including the whole Pathfinder array not covered by 5e as well as Power Attack, leaping on larger creatures etc. Myself, I am torn - Power Attack, for example, provides twice the penalty taken to atk as a bonus to damage, which I am not a fan of in the context of 5e. Then again, and this is a pretty big thing, the maneuvers remain worse than the comparative abilities of the Battle Master...at least as long as you don't add the loathsome feats introduced in the companion book to this one.

The pdf also has a variant rule for stacking advantages and disadvantages, more opportunity attacks, variant crits, inherent class defense bonuses, armor as DR (not a fan for 5e)...a lot of material. Rules for sniffing out magic items, for identifying them etc., while not necessarily the thing I look for in 5e-games, may well be welcome in some other tables. Similarly, feat-based better attunement may work for higher fantasy games. Personally, I'm a pretty big fan of the variant counterspelling for higher magic games, since it actually does allow for pretty quick and easy mage duels. Groups that wish to abolish the hard limit on spells in effect via concentration have a means to do so via this book and if you're missing bonus spells for high spellcasting ability scores, well, here's the table. Special conditions for simpler spell recovery, resurrection that permanently decreases attributes...quite a few nice tricks here.

The pdf also provides a simple fear-system for horror-games (based on Wis-saves) that does its job, but is pretty barebones. Doom, as an opposite of inspiration (somewhat akin to the Conan-RPG) is mentioned and extended inspiration mechanics are covered alongside a simplified XPsystem based on tokens. Alternate alignments based on convictions (very welcome in my game) with circumstantial advantage on certain checks based on the characters conviction are pretty neat, though the mechanical balance of them isn't always perfect. The pdf also provides three appropriately weak, barebones NPC-base classes and concludes with campaign templates, where a selection of rules are compiled for your convenience. Kudos!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are pretty good on both a formal and rules-language level. layout adheres to a parchment-style two-color full-color standard with solid stock artwork. In a minor nitpick, sometimes single letters in headers do look a bit larger than their brethren - might be a cosmetic font hiccup, but yeah. Artworks ranged from b/w-pieces I haven't seen before to full-color; it's generally nice, but not the reason you would get this book. The pdf comes with full, nested bookmarks for your convenience.

Brian Berg and Jason Sonia's 5th edition options...were a total surprise to me. After the horrendous book on feats, I honestly didn't expect to like this book. Well, guess what? I really like this book. No group will ever use all of the variant rules herein. Roleplaying games veterans will be familiar with the concepts. However, they actually have been updated to 5e rules with...care and precision. Total Party Kill Games delivers a complete 180; If I didn't know better, I'd refuse to believe that this book was crafted by the same company as the feat book.

This book utilizes proper rules; it takes complex variant systems and adjusts them for use with 5e. Wounds and vitality? Check. Crafting? Check. It provides basically the vast majority of alternate rules you can find out there, with only a complex crit/fumble-system à la Laying Waste or a complex Sanity system à la ToC/CoC missing. Apart from these two (which could be, scope-wise, books of their own), this pdf offers options. A LOT of options. Not all options will be great for all groups; not all rules will be utilized by any group out there. But whether you want a higher fantasy closer to Pathfinder, or a simpler, grittier lower fantasy closer to the darker OSR-options, this has the customization tools.

While here and there, I would have liked to see a bit more guidance for the respective GMs regarding the consequences of the respective rules-implementations to help them choose, the book as such does a great job in collecting a TON of alternate rules and ideas to customize the very tone of the campaign. Make no mistake - this is a toolkit. A big one and one that probably will have something for almost every 5e-game out there. While the required broadness of the scope also means that some further elaborations would have helped and that no group will ever use the totality of this book, I do consider this to be a fair and good buy, particularly for GMs hesitant (or too time-starved) to change the rules themselves. How to rate this, then? Well, you see, this is where it becomes difficult for me, since testing all combinations of rules herein is a sheer impossibility. I can see some conflicts/minor issues crop up - but generally, this is indeed a great toolkit. If anything, the main weakness of this kit lies in the fact that it does not have the one killer-variant-rule-system. It has, though, several small ones that can coalesce into cool templates to use.

In the end, this book will not elicit universal cheers on every page, but just about each group will find some nice material to scavenge within these pages. hence, my final verdict will clock in at 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by George W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/12/2016 01:44:52

Thoroughly impressed! I wasn't sure what to expect based on the other reviews, but I have to say that this is well worth the $9.99 I paid for it. I would even dare to say that the original $19.99 price is on the mark for the amount optional rules and exemplary details for new and aspiring DM's like myself. First off, there are some great alternate rules for character creation, ability scores, taking a really cool random personality disadvantage to get a bonus feat at level 1, and old school multi-classing rules for double and triple multi-classes, complete with their own XP tables. Reminds me of old school 1st edition D&D Fighter/Mage/Thief and Cleric/Fighter type characters -- simple and a very cool option for creative players!

Then it goes into a massively detailed section of how to best utilize each of the basic game skills in very creative and detailed ways. For example, there are specific rules for using Acrobatics to navigate through a battlefield or for tightrope walking, Athletics to climb walls, grab and save falling characters, or to swim effectively. There's a great section on using deception to seduce NPC's or disguise yourself. The list goes on and on. But my favorite has to be the section on how to use Survival to cover your tracks, move faster, track enemies, and determine direction. I was also very impressed with the rules for using persuasion to haggle, and there's even VERY detailed rules on how to use Animal Handling to train wild animals, dogs, and even magical beasts to perform tasks and fight for you. Oh, and they even explain how to use multiple skill checks to determine degrees of successes or failure for very complex situations. All of it was VERY useful stuff that was previously undefined by the core 5e content and rulebooks.

There are a lot of really cool rules and options for things like deadlier crossbows, simplified ammunition, crafting, double weapons, poisons, rolling for HP, alternate vitality and wounds, confused enemies, blind fighting, alternate initiative rules, variant combat options, rules like dirty fighting and leaping on a larger enemy, additional daily spell slots based on the primary stat, fear checks based on enemy types, better inspiration, and an entire new way of viewing alignment.

Overall, there is ALOT your everyday DM can beneit from here, as well as the everyday player (assuming the DM approves). If you're a new DM, then you absolutely need this document. If you're been DMing for a few years, you probabaly already have a system, so this will be a good suppliment/reference. The bottom line is this. If you already have all the answers, then move on. If you're open to new ideas and change, then definitely download this. If nothing else, it will give you a ton of RPG ideas based on the basic character skills.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Roman B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/04/2016 02:11:41

I purchased this at $10 and wouldn't consider buying it at more. One of the previous reviewers wrote that it would be more appropriately valued at less than $5 and I agree with that. However, there is a lot here to inspire some decent level of play. I'm a relatively new GM and player only having started playing with 5E, and have received a lot of inspiration from the options presented here. While I wouldn't use everything here, I really enjoyed knowing different ways to tweak the options. While not having played Pathfinder or earlier editions of D&D, I understand those are more complicated and rules based, yet my problem with 5E is that there are too few rules, and I find much of 5E to be as nebulous as Fate. I enjoyed these options immensely and look forward to implementing at least a few of these options. Personal favourites were the Wound system, and DR for armour, along with the change to how AC is calculated.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Fifth Edition Options
Publisher: Total Party Kill Games
by Jimmy P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/01/2016 13:37:38

I am fairly underwhelmed by this product.

The product contains rules that are sometimes a direct import from 3rd edition rules. This is the main thing that bugs me about it. If this book was advertised as a way to use 3rd edition rules within 5th edition, that would have been fair advertisement - and I would have probably steered clear from it as I find 3rd edition rules to be cumbersome compared to 5th edition.

The skills section attempts to put an actual difficulty rating on many actions that could be attempted with skills. While this may be useful for a beginning DM, the experienced one would not really use this section - it just slows things down to look at charts during play. It still can provide the DM of any level with interesting new ways to look at what skills can do.

This product introduces character flaws. This is an interesting section, even if only 33 flaws are included here. I would have wanted more, but what we have is decent.

The look is decent if not great. The layout appears a bit amateurish to my taste. The art contained is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but overall is not consistent.

Overall, this product is of inconsistent quality and with a rather high price tag - 9$ for 79 pages - I am not happy with my purchase. In comparison, for 10$ more, I could have gotten a full game of high production value (like Werewolf: Forsaken or Gods of the Fall for Cypher system). This product would be more appropriately priced at 3-4$.

This is my second purchase with this game studio. I believe it will be my last. Unfortunately, it feels like the 3rd edition gold rush cash grab all over again.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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