--1 out of 5 stars--

The Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide, viewed in a vacuum, is closer to a 2-2.5 out of 5 tabletop RPG, but in the context of acting as a substitute ruleset to replace official 5e Dungeons & Dragons, it is lowered to 1 out of 5. TOV is simply a worse version of the 2014 D&D rules, adding a massive martial/caster divide that was not present in official 5e, by both strengthening spellcasters needlessly, and taking away the tools martial characters required for their contributions in battle. Casters always offered more utility in 2014 5e but martials offered unparalleled damage.

In TOV nearly every martial class is a “trap build” waiting to happen. Select subclasses, if built in an exacting manner, can come close to keeping up with equivalent builds from the 2014 D&D PHB. Taken as a whole, martial classes have become unplayable, save for edge cases. Paladins are limited to a single smite per turn, lowering round to round damage output. The feats martial characters relied on for damage supremacy, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter, have analogues in TOV that are inadequate, leaving martial damage badly lagging compared to what it was in 5e D&D.

Spellcasters, meanwhile, have access to new mechanics such as a Talent that lets them determine exact enemy Hit Points as a Bonus Action, making spells based on an enemy’s remaining HP, like the Power Word spells and Sleep, far more tactically viable. The power of individual spells has not been lowered, compared to 2014 5e D&D, but the martial classes all suffer greatly, compared to their D&D counterparts. Monks were never a viable damage dealing martial class, but the Stunning Strike feature gave them a unique utility. TOV has removed that, taking away the Monk’s sole viable combat option.

Stunning Strike, like a Paladin’s Smite, is now limited to once per turn, and carries additional drawbacks compared to the 2014 D&D PHB version of the ability, in that enemies can also reroll their save each time they take damage. The Paladin had an ability to exhaust much of its daily resources in a single “nova” round where they strike with multiple smite attacks, and that option is removed. Monks, while still a relatively poor class in the 5e 2014 D&D PHB, at least had a contribution in their ability to deliver multiple stun attempts, also now absent in TOV.

For those who were familiar with 5e D&D and its underlying game balance, combining Feats that granted Bonus Action attacks, like Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master, with those that granted -5 to hit for +10 to damage options, like Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master, provided excellent synergy with the classes that gained Martial Weapon Proficiency and the Extra Attack feature, particularly Fighters who scaled to multiple additional attacks. These Feat combinations allowed martial characters to offer a real asset in battle, on par with the reality warping power and versatility of full spellcasters.

TOV seemed to deliberately set out to create an impassible gulf between the usefulness of martial classes and caster classes. Very few people would describe that as a step in the right direction for any revision or alteration of the current 2014 5e D&D rules. There were other missed opportunities, such as the various spells that retain the same abusable loopholes and nebulous language as their original 2014 5e D&D versions. Failing to address those would mean TOV is not better than 5e D&D but might be an acceptable alternative for those want distance from Wizards of the Coast.

Unfortunately, TOV is not equal to the 2014 5e D&D, it is objectively worse. It is a game where roughly half the character classes are essentially trap builds, in a manner that is, in truth, more pronounced than the perceived martial/caster divide of 3.0 and 3.5 D&D. If the goal was to encourage entire parties made up of the full caster classes, simply eliminating martial classes and half-casters altogether would have, sincerely, produced a better game, by omitting character options that inexperienced players might errantly perceive as viable, balanced options, outright, instead of pretending otherwise.

Tales of the Valiant is still more coherent and well-polished than some of the current 5e D&D alternative systems, like the messy and poorly play-tested Level Up: A5E game line. Unlike Level Up, Tales of the Valiant does seem to have been made with some clear design goals in mind by designers who largely understand the system. Sadly, those design goals were seemingly to return to the 3e D&D era norm of useless, trap build martial classes, encouraging system savvy players to stick with spellcasters, exclusively. It is a consistent vision, but not one that legitimately improves 5e D&D.

If there was no 5e D&D, and Tales of the Valiant was a stand-alone gaming system that was not building off the success of another, it could be considered a 2.5-star product. That is not what the game is. It is a 5e D&D rules replacement, one that is fully compatible with existing 5e adventures, but inferior to the rules it seems to replace. TOV has no excuse for making the game balance worse than the system it aims to replace. The new additions, like the universal Luck Points mechanic, simply offer more to track that will slow down combat.

It is easy to speculate why this flawed system would be offered by Kobold Press. It is easier to market supplements towards players portraying spellcaster characters than martial characters, as evidenced by the publisher’s existing Deep Magic series. Offering systemic incentives to forego martial characters in favor of casters could entice more sales of supplements. Those who exclusively play casters may see TOV as a godsend. Those concerned about a balanced, playable game, will see it as a massive, missed opportunity to improve on 5e D&D’s flaws. I had high hopes for TOV, but it proved a massive letdown.

The Monstrous Menagerie is by far the strongest of the Level Up A5E line. It can be used with 5e D&D, unlike the A5E other books which use a different, incompatible system, and it seems to have been written by a different individual or team that is much more familiar with the mechanics of 5e D&D. It adds some problems the original MM did not have, including making CR even further from accurate than even the flawed math in the original, but the majority of the changes to existing monsters are legitimate improvements, unlike the poorly thought out changes to the core rules in the other A5E books. It is one step forward, one step back, with some improved monster mechanics, but an even less usable CR guideline system, so on the whole, this book is about equal to the original flawed 5e Monster Manual, which is a 3 out of 5.

This is a 1 star product and earned its 1 star review. Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition is a perplexing product to everyone save those who have been involved with it from inception. The marketing materials used misleading language, and it's best to know what exactly it is, and what it isn't. First, it is not "compatible with Dungeons & Dragons" as almost every Game Master and player would define compatibility. Some of the material used this, or similar phrases, which is inaccurate. It is an entirely new rule system that shares some common traits with 5th Edition D&D, so they can technically say that 5e D&D modules can be used with Level Up, with some tweaks, much like how Pathfinder could run 3rd ed D&D modules, with (fewer) tweaks. It is not actually compatible, given the staggering amount of rule changes, many of which are very poorly thought out.

A lot of core feats and spells were changed from their D&D versions, purportedly for "game balance" reasons. If the end result was a tightly balanced game, this could be excused, but for every supposed "imbalance" in the original (far superior) 5e D&D rule set (which is not even one of my favorite editions of D&D, notably) they "fixed," Level Up adds at least three new glaring imabalance issues. Despite a second round of edits, the game is riddled with poorly thought out mechanics, poorly worded mechanics, and unusable mechanics. The amount of house ruling it would take to make this game functional is so massive that very little could be used "out of the box" in any kind of a functional game experience.

Those who remember 3.0 D&D's Toughness feat and other similar options recall the issue of "trap" choices and builds. Level Up has added many, many more of these than D&D has ever had in any edition. There are now even "trap" mechanics built in alongside core elements like Grapples and Bull rush. A new armor table is both massively complicated and further unbalanced. It introduced armor and weapon breakage and repair rules that are mandatory, not optional, as the entirety of the balance of the armor table is based on some armor types, otherwise objectively better than others, breaking more often. This is the kind of tedium that most editions of D&D, especially 5e, have moved away from for a reason.

On the rules as a whole, a big letdown is how inseparably linked they all are. It is not possible to treat Level Up like a "optional add on rules toolkit." It is a full system replacement, only, and cannot function otherwise. You cannot use the armor and weapon table without adding the breakage and repair rules. You cannot use many exploration pillar class features without the paired rules limiting carrying capacity in strange, unrealistic ways. The game wants foraging for food to be ever-present, even for level 20 planeswalking characters, so now decanters of endless water produce non-potable water, food stored in bags of holding does not satiate hunger, and spells like Goodberry and Create Water no longer relieve hunger and thirst.

It's unclear who Level Up is for. It is far more complicated than Pathfinder, 1st or 2nd edition, massively more complicated than 5e D&D, and any prior edition including 2nd edition Advanced D&D, and the payoff is dubious, at best. It is not a rewarding system tactically, but rather, riddled with trap builds, bizarre, illogical mechanics, and in need of more than another round of edits, but a complete ground up revision, making it much more of a hassle for potential Game Masters than it is worth. Some of the ideas were sound, like giving classes things to do outside combat that lacked them, adding on martial maneuvers, magic item prices and item creation, and so on. From multiplying static modifiers on critical hits, to altered spells, feats, expertise as rolled dice instead of a double proficiency bonus, and other altered rules, Level Up seems to have made an effort to be as incompatible as possible with D&D rules, while still claiming compatibility with D&D modules.

All of this is so poorly worded, balanced, and presented, in the book, that I cannot imagine a GM who doesn't opt to either find another third-party product that adds similar elements in a more professional fashion, elect to form their own house rules instead, or just play a different game entirely - which could include simply choosing to play 5th edition D&D, since it is a different game from Level Up. It is very strange to see the game made more incompatible than it needed to be, with all of its bizarre rule changes, when none of them were required to "add content to 5e D&D that was not there." Magic item prices are a welcome addition. Creating a system both more complex than simply tracking encumbrance, and less realistic, adds both abstraction and needless minutae that does not fit within the heroic fantasy mold of D&D, or the grittiness of many "hard core" OSR throwback games.

If you want to have to read every new class ability multiple times and then take your best guess at what the designers "meant," since what is written is incomprehensible, have at it. If you want to run official D&D modules but think that weapons and armor breaking mid-combat, followed by a series of largely negligible difficulty rolls to repair them, somehow adds verisimilitude to your games, maybe Level Up is of value to your group. If you plan to use any actual 5e D&D content, however, whether it's classes, sub-classes, races, or feats, whether from Wizards or third parties, you cannot, with the Level Up rule system. There are vague claims that it has been playtested and balanced to work alongside actual D&D classes and races, yet it cannot, by definition. Feats, spells, and abilities those D&D classes rely on to function are altered beyond recognition. New rules for the exploration pillar are addressed in features of Level Up classes that obviously do not exist for actual D&D classes, being new rules, making D&D classes unable to function with these rules, unless the GM wants to engage in such laborious house ruling that it calls the whole endeavor into question.

Level Up is made to replace D&D, and for most, it simply isn't good enough to do that. It is certainly not made to "work alongside" D&D. It is not a series of rules "expansions" that can be cherry-picked from. Everything is, regrettably, linked, so Level Up is a rule set that is all, or nothing. For me, I prefer "nothing," given that the effort of trying to pluck the good bits from this linked web of rules would be extreme (there are some good bits, just not enought to warrant the effort). If you are just looking for magic item price guidelines, there are official Wizards sources, as well as free resources for those. Other third-party products have provided Tome of Battle style martial maneuvers that "add on" to D&D without a system replacement. Essentially, everything Level Up offers that is of worth can be found elsewhere in a version that is more compatible with D&D, more professional, and better thought out.

This game is needlessly complex. Dense rule sets like Exalted, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, and 1st edition Pathfinder running with multiple supplements, are more intuitive. It is extremely imbalanced, adding far more balance problems than those it "corrects" from 5e D&D. Many new rules simply do not make sense, and a GM will have to guess what was intended, because it certainly wasn't written down coherently. It seems to lack editing and playtesting. Given that some major rules changed during the short window between the books' "beta" versions and "final" drafts, by definition those versions of the rules were not playtested, since they were brand new, last minute course corrections done in a span of weeks.

It is entirely understandable that a product like this can happen, unfortunately. With enough time and resources spent on something, re-writing and revising a work multiple times, as well as conducting surveys, reading suggestions, and so on, after enough time a version emerges that seems "good enough." If you've spent long enough on something, it must be good, right? Not in this case. Some works need to be crumpled up and tossed aside for a fresh start. This game clearly needed that at some point, but after sufficient time and investment, a project presses on, whether it has merit and value or not. Level Up does not.

Buyer Beware, and all that.