Monsters Hit Hard

Another reason to love Tales of the Valiant over D&D 5.5E is that the monsters hit hard.

From the SRD 5.2.1, the Ancient Red Dragon, actions:

Multiattack. The dragon makes three Rend attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Spellcasting to cast Scorching Ray (level 3 version). 

Rend. Melee Attack Roll: +17, reach 15 ft. Hit: 19 (2d8 + 10) Slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) Fire damage.

Fire Breath (Recharge 5–6). Dexterity Saving Throw: DC 24, each creature in a 90-foot Cone. Failure: 91 (26d6) Fire damage. Success: Half damage. 

Spellcasting. The dragon casts one of the following spells, requiring no Material components and using Charisma as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 23, +15 to hit with spell attacks): 

At Will: Command (level 2 version), Detect Magic, Scorching Ray (level 3 version) 

1/Day Each: Fireball (level 6 version), Scrying 

-SRD 5.2.1, Wizards of the Coast, p319

Legendary actions (3, 4 in lair) are Commanding Presence (level 2 command), Firey Rays (level 3 scorching ray), and Pounce (free Rend attack). The dragon also has 4 or 5 Legendary Resistances that allow the beast to make a saving throw. It is a pretty simple monster, but it feels underwhelming.

Let's look at Tales of the Valiant, from the Black Flag SRD:

Multiattack. The dragon uses its Frightful Presence. It then makes one Bite attack and two Claw attacks.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (2d10 + 10) piercing damage plus 14 (4d6) fire damage.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d6 + 10) slashing damage.

Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 20 ft., one target.

Hit: 19 (2d8 + 10) bludgeoning damage.

Frightful Presence. Each creature of the dragon’s choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 21 WIS save or be frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s save is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.

Fire Breath (Recharge 5–6). The dragon exhales fire in a 90‑foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 24 DEX save, taking 105 (30d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. 

-Black Flag SRD, Kobold Press, p276 

The dragon can "Boil Over" if it hasn't used their breath weapon, and do a 30-foot AoE that inflicts 2d6 damage on a DC 24 CON save, and inflicts a level of exhaustion. Legendary resistances are 3/day. Across the board, damage is more serious, and the Kobold Press version has a bite attack with fire damage, and claws that do not have that.

The dragon also has access to special "lair attacks" and regional effects.

The legendary actions are where things take a hard turn into lethality. The Kobold Press dragon gets an auto-Detect feature, so it cannot be snuck up on or trapped. A tail attack can be made, along with a wing attack that does 2d6+10 and a DC 25 DEX save, or be knocked prone. The kicker is the Elemental Roar, a DC 21 CHA save to all within 120 feet, and failure makes the character vulnerable to fire damage or removes fire resistance until the end of the next turn.

Yes, this means you take double damage from fire attacks

Instead of being a bag of hit points for level 20 heroes to humiliate, the ancient red dragon in Tales of the Valiant can TPK and entire party and incinerate them all in an elemental roar and fire breath combo. Who cares about the 5.5E scorching ray and single fireball spell at level six? Characters will laugh this damage off.

Hit points in ToV are less: 507 for D&D 5.5E, and 382 in BF-SRD, but in general, the Kobold Press monsters hit harder, but go down faster, leading to faster combats that are more lethal. Kill them quick before they kill you. In D&D 5.5E, we have a lower-damaging dragon that dies much slower, leading to a long, boring, and pretty much easy fight before it even begins.

ToV combats are significantly tighter, faster, and better tuned than in D&D 5.5E. You feel the "squeeze" the designers put into the monsters; these are designed for fast, hard-hitting, brutal, and challenging combats. You will be encouraged to use the monster abilities early and as often as you can, which will address the notorious lack of lethality and pushover fights of 5E.

Do you want spellcasting? Apply a spellcasting template to the dragon. At CR 21, up to second-circle spells are at-will, 3/day up to 5th-circle spells, 2/day seventh, and 1/day 9th. The dragon just got insanely more powerful, and it could have a wish spell handy. Yeah, you're dead.

These are NOT the same games.

Tales of the Valiant is the better game, tuned to how I want things to play.

D&D 2024

I own the books now, so I can talk about this game.

The rules of D&D 2024 are fine, I have no issue with them, and the class designs are on par with Tales of the Valiant. They are solid and well-built classes, with ToV ending them on the balance with a better selection of 2014 abilities and the preservation of soft "role play" powers and abilities.

The largest difference lies in the game's lore, and nowhere is this more stark than in the 2024 Monster Manual. The Lizardfolk are sort of the prime example of the change, coming off in the 2024 Monster Manual as good-natured elemental Captain Planet nature defenders, and they are nothing like the Tales of the Valiant, original AD&D lore-derived, savage and fearsome Conan-style enemies that we know and love them as.

Many of the D&D 2024 monsters are progressive fan fiction. They have strayed so far away from the original AD&D lore that this could be any other fantasy heartbreaker game.

And Kobold Press, even though it is just as progressive a company as Wizards of the Coast, can keep those ideas out of its work and preserve the original AD&D lore and classic feeling that we have come to love about D&D. The preservation of D&D lore as D&D lore keeps the game from becoming fantasy slop. D&D 2024 is no different than Daggerheart or any other game that "reimagines lore" at this point, so why do people even stick with the game?

Kobold Press understands "the game is the game," and they can keep their personal feelings out of it. They don't need to rewrite AD&D lore to match some modern cultural zeitgeist that will change in 3 years anyway.

Tales of the Valiant remains a timeless game, with modern values woven into the spaces surrounding it. The game is the bubble, and outside of that bubble, we treat each other with respect and kindness. Inside the bubble is still the savage, Conan-inspired, and classic fantasy game that we know as D&D.

Kobold Press understands the job and delivers "the uncut product" far better than this current incarnation of Wizards of the Coast. This is very much a Breaking Bad reference, and Kobold Press preserved all the 2014 lore, even down to the Orcs still in the Monster Vault. Tales of the Valiant is that pure, blue, undiluted "product" derived from the chemical formulas of AD&D science and lore that we love and are addicted to.

With D&D 5.5E, there is no bubble. The modern and fantasy worlds blend into one reality. You are not supposed to hate Lizardfolk; they aren't cannibals anymore, they can't hold their breath underwater, nor are we supposed to see them as savage, Conan-style, violent reptilian monsters who worship serpent gods who demand human sacrifices. Lizardfolk are valid cosplay options in D&D 5.5E, and we should not make them feel excluded.

Most of the D&D 5.5E monsters are rewritten so heavily that they are not even "monsters" anymore, and they don't even belong in the book. In fact, putting Lizardfolk in a book titled "monsters" is likely a microaggression that is an unforgivable sin. When you have no walls between the real world and fantasy, this is what ends up happening. There is no bubble with D&D 5.5E. Everything becomes an allegory for something in the real world. There is no wall between fantasy and reality. Everything in that universe exists in the modern world as an assumed parallel.

At least in Tales of the Valiant, we can all sit down at a table, agree we are roleplaying in a savage Conan-style world, and all act like we were characters in a Robert E Howard novel. Around the table? Still very inclusive and respectful, as it should be. Inside the game? It is a different world, and we know the difference between fantasy and reality. We know things can work differently in this fantasy world, and it does not trigger us in the real world. If it does, we talk it over and adjust.

D&D 5.5E makes the mistake of mixing fantasy and reality, and it abandons all the classic AD&D lore in favor of progressive rewrites that align the game's lore and history with a 2024 ideal that is already dated. D&D 5.5E is no longer D&D.

ToV preserves the AD&D lore and DNA, which is the heart and soul of the game.

And we now see Wizards backsliding from the terrible mistake of 2024, trying to bring in all these old-school names and personalities. The world is fighting to ignore the mistakes made in the 2024 Monster Manual, and many players are stealth playing with 2014 lore like nothing happened except a rules update. Sad to say, D&D 2024 is no different than any other fantasy slop game at this point, if all you had were the 2024 books and no 2014 lore.

I doubt that Wall Street or corporate will allow the new D&D team to backpedal and adopt the original lore. This isn't allowed in the modern corporate world. Even admitting that D&D 5.5E was a misstep will hurt the brand and profits.

The heart and soul of D&D is baked into the lore and ecology of the 2014 Monster Manual. That has now changed. The king has lost his crown and scepter. Who sits on the throne has changed.

ToV is D&D to me.

Still Here, on the Crowdfunds

I am currently waiting to play ToV again, but it is in my upstairs closet while I am reworking my shelves. I still love the game, and it is one of the best Open 5E implementations out there, besides Level Up Advanced 5E. And I support the Kobold Press crowdfunding projects.

I am trying to cut down my Tales of the Valiant library and streamline and simplify the game. There is no way I can play this game with eight shelves of books; I need to cut this down to the best-of-the-best corebooks. Even the Midgard books will be kept in the closet; I just want the core books as a core game engine.

To rehabilitate a game, you need to minimize your library.

Currently, I am playing Level Up A5E again and re-reading the books. I like how they rebuilt the engine and rewrote the SRD to be their own IP. They made dramatic changes that were criticized, but these were the same things people held against ToV for being too conservative to make.

The changes in A5E make the game worth playing and increase depth through design, without contributing to bloat. A5E also supports all the pillars of play, including a robust exploration game, and adds some very nice enhancements to social gameplay support. There are rare spells that are used as found treasures. The martial classes and their Combat Maneuvers are a solid addition to the game. I wish some of the advancements in A5E were reflected in ToV, or that they had made more changes than they did.

But, keeping the ToV rules nearly 100% compatible with 2014 D&D was a solid design goal. I can see why they did that, but there is a feeling of "why switch?" I switched on principle, and to ensure that the 2014 version of the rules survives past the end of D&D 5E and 5.5E.

A5E is a different beast, a worthy game in its own right, and different enough that it is worth playing.

Tales of the Valiant: Solid, Stable, and Dependable

With the murmurs of D&D 6E coming sooner than expected, and the renewed "old school" push at Wizards, if I want to play D&D 2014 as-was, and still embrace that era and rules, Tales of the Valiant is still my go-to game. I have no faith that Wizards will keep the next version 5E compatible, and I would rather side-step all of the mess with a "Long Term Support" version of 5E like ToV.

Tales of the Valiant may not be D&D, but it is like a Linux distribution: stable and rock-solid. Many Linux distros come and go; many are filled with flash and unstable beta software, but a few are solid and trustworthy, delivering year after year. Sure, Mint or Ubuntu aren't the latest hot thing, but for the average person, they work, deliver a secure environment, and you can trust them not to blow up on good hardware. The average person can maintain and support them. They work. Some are boring, but boring is good for a computer that grandma will run every day, and I want to avoid being called daily for computer problems.

And unlike Windows, the OS is changing daily. An article could drop on D&D Beyond that changes the game every month. I don't want that, need that, and it is a net negative for supporting the game and maintaining a stable, predictable set of rules. With Windows and some bleeding-edge distros, I get called by grandma every day. With a rock-solid Linux install, I don't have to make tech-support calls.

The same with 5E. If I play with my 2014 or ToV books, I am not "chasing the new edition" or "worried about 6E releasing soon." The thousands of dollars I spent on 2014-2023 5E books are protected, work perfectly, and are supported for the next ten to twenty years.

I really don't care about the current Wizards "thing" with the Luke Gygax nostalgia roadshow. If I want old-school gaming, I've got the OSR, and a far more stable, supported, familiar, and better version of anything Wizards can ever deliver. And most anything in the OSR is true "old school" gaming, not a hybrid, mobile-game, support-model-needed, corporate delivery-and-support system they will try to tie you into.

Sorry, I am sure those involved in 6E are heartfelt and honest about their love of the game, but at this point, I have had better for years now, and with the new stuff in the OSR still going strong, such as OSRIC 3.0 or Adventures Dark & Deep, I have the best versions of 1E ever crafted at my fingertips.

If I want 2014 5E, I have ToV. This is clearly the best decade of the game, and it is well-supported and rock-solid. Tales of the Valiant takes D&D 2014, cleans it up, makes it beginner-friendly, and keeps the system moving forward. It is a clean, modern, and stable implementation of the full 5E rules. To some, it may seem boring and basic, but boring and basic are strong features in a world where a new Kickstarter could change everything overnight.

What I want from 5E I already have with 10 years of great books I've invested in on my shelves.

That game is Tales of the Valiant.

The Nerrath Campaign, Part 2

With the release of the Player's Guide 2, we have the missing options to cover the popular player options introduced in D&D 4E's default setting, Nerrath. We have drow, dragonborn, and elemental scions. We have the Vanguard class. We have all the major options to cover this setting now in the core rules.

Why Nerrath?

I have memories of this place, back when D&D 4E was new and interesting, and the game played more like a battle chess version of D&D, and we were heavy into miniatures and tabletop play. It has almost been 20 years since D&D 4E's release, and that is a bit of a sobering thought.

We had fun here.

This helped us get through a tough time in our lives and revitalized our love of fantasy gaming. While I loved Pathfinder 1e as D&D 4E faded, my brother still held onto D&D and had hopes for 5E. Sadly, 5E never lived up to the hype for us, since the classes he played in the 2014 version were terribly designed (ranger, rogue). A few weak classes killed the first few years of 5E, and we never came back.

Tales of the Valiant does a better job with both classes and brings the fun back to the game with them. I wish he could have played there with these rules. With the Player's Guide 2, we have the rest of the missing pieces of the puzzle. The torch of Nerrath has been passed to ToV.

Thematically, D&D 4E was best at launch, but when Wizards shifted level 10 and higher play to the planes, the game started to fall apart. We loved the challenging world from level 1 to 30, where it felt epic and cool. Orcs starting at level 6 made them the first "tough monsters" that you feared showing up, and you felt a natural progression of the creatures as you leveled.

We also loved the build-your-own monsters in D&D 4E, something D&D 2024 got rid of. Thankfully, ToV's monster creation tools are much better than both games.

Nerrath was a perfect DIY setting once you got beyond the edges of the map. We had some wild areas, arguably more DCC-like gonzo fantasy-inspired amazing fantasy landscapes, such as entire seas falling off a waterfall, amazing abandoned ancient torus gates as large as a mountain, and all sorts of wild landscapes and epic-fantasy tropes. The world was as epic and cool as the characters, with an extreme mid-2010s vibe throughout.

People forget.

Nostalgia blinds you.

That Eberron vibe of an extreme fantasy world was cool. Dungeon Crawl Classics owns gonzo, speculative, extreme fantasy these days, as Wizards gave it all up to chase "the feels." We gave it all up for nostalgia, and the company ended up tarnishing the memory with identity marketing and a flood of low-quality releases at the end of D&D 2014.

The Forgotten Realms was a boring, old, stuffy setting compared to our Nerrath. This was before the world figured out D&D 4E was an embarrassment, mainly due to a lack of proper testing, and that lack of testing continued into D&D 5E. They rolled it all back and pretended they were an old-school game, and then the identity marketing team took over when Tasha's came out, and the wool was pulled over our eyes, and the game was not "a return to old school values."

Part of me wants to run this campaign as a solo experience, and another part of me feels it should be left to memories. Whatever I choose to do, ToV gives me the tools to do it, and the game feels like home.

Is Character Sheet Complexity the Level Eight Wall?

By the company's own numbers, most games never go past level eight.

Why is that?

I get the feeling that the invisible wall is created by the complexity of the character sheet and by how the game is evolving towards VTT-only play. My level fourteen multiclass character with a 16-page physical character sheet would be nearly impossible to run without a VTT.

Perhaps by level eight, the tipping point is reached for tabletop players in terms of being able to manage a typical 5E character sheet, and it forces people away from the game. The percentage of gamers who prefer tabletop play is shut out, and the participation level drops.

Nobody can be expected to flip through a dozen printed pages every turn to manage a character during their turn. And, no, phones are not the answer. Some groups ban phones at the table to reduce distractions, so stop forcing us to put character sheets on them.

Ignore this, and it is like a cereal manufacturer discovering why people don't buy their cereal, which is that the packaging was so full of holes that it kept going stale on the shelf. It was a great cereal, but few could find a box worth eating.

5E is a game that eventually forces you to play with a VTT. This is a major source of profitability and a huge design flaw. If you don't like it, don't play, and there are better games for high-level play.

It is what it is.

Multiclassing

I really don't like multiclassing. To do it well and make it work is hard, and it is not just "well, my story says I have become a bard for a while, so I guess I will level bard!"

If you start treating classes as jobs and story progression, you will make a mess out of your character.

The character sheet will blow up, get so complicated, spells will double up, and you will end up losing character power and falling behind the others. It is a constant headache; you may love the "get something cool" as you pick different class levels and combine things, but you will fall behind those who do not multiclass if you do not plan (aka, read the cheat guides), and make your picks from a very small viable pool of combinations.

Most multiclass combinations will make you unhappy in the long run.

Multiclassing takes very careful planning to make it work well, and your choice must be extremely limited and focused on gaining only the powers you are trying to get. If you do not plan, you will make your character worse as you level.

Other classes will be dropping 12d6 damage attacks at level 14, and you will be throwing around two or three d10. You won't feel you are "keeping up," and others who stick to one thing will have their high-level features become available, and you will have to wait, and possibly never get them.

You will have great versatility, but you will fall behind compared to others. If you never play past level 12, you will likely never care and welcome the short-term versatility. If you play into the late game, you are either exploiting the rules and OP, or you did not plan and are completely hosed and worthless.

My multiclass character sheets blow up, and I need spreadsheets to track spells.

There are times when I would rather bolt on an external progression system to a character than simulate external path progression. Sure, somebody writes and bolts on a gladiator system for 5E, rather than make a gladiator class. At least, any character could be a gladiator, and the system isn't "messing with my build" by forcing me to take levels in gladiator just to be able to excite the crowd and gain support.

With a bolt-on system, I am a wizard 7 and a gladiator rank 3. Thank you. Keep your silly ideas out of my character build. Later on, I can level up another bolt-on system and become a rank 4 pirate, and not affect my wizard progression or knowledge. Oh, and I can still get my level 20 class feature with these bolt-on systems active. Without bolt-ons, I am a wizard 7/gladiator 3/pirate 4, level 14 total, and unhappy I can't cast spells as a level 14 caster.

Then you have the problem that online character creation systems don't support bolt-on systems. It is a constant headache that a point-buy skill-based system (like GURPS or Champions) just does not have. There are certain campaigns with organic ability and skill progression that I absolutely will not play with 5E since it can't do those sorts of games as easily as GURPS, Champions, Savage Worlds, or a point-buy system.

Yes, I like 5E, but they are forcing a class-and-level system game to do things it was never designed to do. It will start off great, but eventually get worse and worse as the different-shaped pegs are forced through the square hole.

I am happy that Tales of the Valiant, by default, makes mutliclassing optional. I would not play with it at my table or in my games. Most of the time, without careful planning, allowing unlimited multiclassing makes players unhappy and increases complexity to the point where its value is questionable.

Plus, ToV's classes are fun enough without multiclassing, as you get something nearly every level. For the complexity and mostly junk builds that multiclassing adds, I don't see the point.

If Kobold Press delivered a "multiclass strategy guide" with successful combinations that I could automatically green-light and allow, that would be another thing, since the designers thought through these builds and made them more widely known. Players could have a book to consult for winning builds and strategies, so they would not make mistakes they would later regret. A guide like this could make "class synergy rules" to buff weaker combinations and make those viable.

But leaving it up to players (or myself) to stumble through is a pain I don't want to deal with, not in a system where character sheets balloon to dozens of pages at higher levels.

If most of the choices are bad ones, and only 5-10% are viable builds, why do I want this in my game?