5.5E Power Gaming = End of Edition

ToV is still on a break. The D&D 2024 books left a slimy coating on the rest of the 5E shelf, and I am not picking up the ToV Player's Guide just to prove I chose it. The books are upstairs. I can get to them when I want them. It can sit. When I come back, those books will still be the game I left. I am not sure 5.5E will be able to say the same. The late options are already pulling the math around, and the pages look like they are posing.

Arcana Unleashed for 5.5E showed up this month, and the videos are already doing what late books always do. There is a monk that takes the sorcerer list and starts turning slots into Focus. There is a feat that hangs Fireball and Wall of Force on anyone who can already cast, then lets them peel a couple of hit dice into the blast. I am not going to sit here and work the combos. I have watched this part of a cycle before. The options get louder so people keep talking, and after enough of that the community starts wanting a new edition as a reset.

5.5E has a few years of this madness left; the new book drops, the OP options come out, YouTube makes noise, and the cycle repeats. This is engagement, not a balanced, sustainable game engine.

I do not need the clean sheet. Kobold Press is stuck with Tales of the Valiant; in a way, Wizards is not stuck with 5.5E. If this game goes sour, they do not have a 6E waiting behind the curtain, so they cannot spend the next two years creating OP character options to get the YouTubers talking about 5.5E again. They will add books, and I am sure they will. I don't have to take every one of them, and the Player's Guide I already own doesn't pick up a mystic monk or a wall feat because a video needed a title.

I am still taking a break from 5E, but ToV will be the game I come home to.

It will still be stable, playable, and balanced when I return.

5E & Me

I tried to like D&D 2024. I pulled the books the way I pull a new ToV book when it shows up, sat with the layouts for a few evenings, ran a couple of sessions, and kept waiting for the moment when the game would stop posing and start treating its own material like it mattered. What I found instead was a lot of shine laid over rooms I already knew. The pages look expensive, and the options feel arranged to be photographed, and underneath that arrangement I kept stepping into the same fights and the same character-build conversations I have been having for a decade, only now they arrived with a store-window finish that made the whole night feel lighter than the subject deserved.

That finish did not stay in the 2024 books. It rubbed off on the rest of the 5E shelf, including Tales of the Valiant, which is a problem because I still like ToV and don't think the books earned that suspicion. They still work without a website, the monsters still hit, and the pile of 2014 material still plugs in the way it always did. After a week inside style-over-substance, though, I would reach for the Player's Guide and for a minute see another clean spread and another menu instead of a game sitting with its world. That is not fair to ToV. It is just what happens when the flashy version of a family sits in your hands long enough that every neighboring book starts to look like it is performing.

I need time away from the whole 5E itch so that aftertaste can wear off. I am not trying to write a verdict on editions or dare anyone off their table. I just cannot feel 5E as a serious subject while the varnish is still on my fingers, and forcing another session in that mood turns the night into a comparison instead of play. When I want a game that looks at its own material without flinching, my hands go to the other crates. Hyperborea will let you freeze without winking. Palladium puts the rolls in order and allows the world to be ugly. A Dead Reign porch night does not care how the page photographs. Those tables are baggy and a little messy, and right now that is the register I trust.

ToV stays on the shelf. I am not boxing it up or pretending I chose something else. It is still the 5E I picked when I wanted the 2014 game in a form I can own and pass on. I just cannot hear that through the 2024 coating yet. When the shine fades, I will know, because I will pick up the Player's Guide the way I used to, without bracing for a show. Until then, I am leaving 5E alone and spending the chair on games that take their worlds as seriously as the dice on the table.

Why 5E Stopped Paying Me Back

I like Tales of the Valiant.

That is not a small statement. I spent a decade inside 5E. I own the books. I ran the modules. I built the characters. I kept the binders. And then the desire to sit down and play that game fell off a cliff.

It was not boredom with fantasy. It was not a sudden love affair with some other system that “does it better.” It was simpler and more insulting than that. I put more into 5E than I ever got back.

I do not mean the dopamine of a new subclass or a feat that lets me stack another rider on a cantrip. I mean the actual session. The hour at the table. The fight that should have been dangerous and instead became a spreadsheet. The character that started as a person and ended as four pages of exceptions, riders, bonus-action tax, and features I had to look up because they only fire once per long rest and I forgot they existed.

5E rewards building. It is generous there. It is stingy at the table.

You spend an evening assembling a character. You hunt for the right lineage, the right background, the right feat chain, the right magic item that patches the hole the class left open. You print another page. You add another box. You write another reminder in the margin because the game will not remember it for you. Then you sit down to play, and the return on that work is a long fight, a monster that is a bag of hit points, and a feature you never used because the trigger never quite lined up.

After a while the wheels come off.

The sheet gets thicker. The character does not get more interesting. You are carrying more rules than personality. You are carrying more options than decisions. You are carrying a legal document that happens to have a name at the top.

I had the proof sitting right in front of me at a quarry.

The party was up against goblins and dire wolves. Interesting terrain. A timer. Hazards. Elevation. Places to shove people off a ledge. All the encounter-design boxes ticked. A good story attached to it, too. This was not a hallway with six identical rooms. This was supposed to be the kind of fight you remember.

After a while, I got so bored I started fudging the rolls just to make it end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t miss the goblin. Hit with the arrow. Why is this still going? The characters felt invincible. They were invincible. There were no stakes. The wolves were scenery. The goblins were speed bumps with hit points. The timer stopped mattering because nobody was actually going to drop. The terrain stopped mattering because nobody was scared enough to use it.

Why did I even bother?

I wanted ToV to be the fix. On paper it should have been. Luck instead of Inspiration. Lineage and Heritage instead of the old ability-score tax. Talents instead of feat shopping. Monsters that are supposed to hit harder and die faster. Printed books I actually own. Compatibility with a decade of 5E material. The Monster Vault looks meaner than the 5.5E book. The design says the combats should squeeze.

At my table, they did not.

Same chassis. Same long rounds. Same invincible party. Same feeling that I had built a good scene and the system paid me back with a grind. I still found myself staring at the dice and deciding the goblin got hit so we could all move on. ToV did not change that experience. I am still struggling with it.

That is the honest part I have to write down, because this blog is not a press release. ToV is still the 5E I chose. I still prefer it to 5.5E. I still want the books on the shelf instead of a client and a subscription. I still think Kobold Press kept more of the game I liked. None of that made the quarry fight scare anyone.

The problem is deeper than branding. It is the 5E math, the action economy, the way hit points and healing and bounded accuracy conspire to make a “deadly” encounter into a twenty-minute accounting exercise. You can dress it in Black Flag language, and it is still the same machine. You feed it a better encounter, and it gives you a safer one. You feed it a clock and a cliff, and it ignores both until you start lying to the dice.

I am not done with the 5E library. I am done pretending the official game, or the better clone of it, is paying me back for the work.

If the character needs a second page, it had better be because something interesting happened, not because the rules ran out of room on the first one. And if I build a quarry with wolves, a clock, and a drop, I want the fight to scare the table. I do not want to sit there and start missing on purpose so we can all go home.

ToV is still on the shelf. I still like it. I am still looking for the part where the table feels dangerous again.

Tales of the Valiant: Printed Books, No DLC

My Tales of the Valiant books work without software or website support. 100% of the content I can own, either in physical books or PDFs. While some adventures may be available only in PDF, all the rules are in physical, printed books that will last for a few hundred years.

These books can be resold, passed down, traded, and enjoyed long after the supporting websites (hopefully never) go away. The core rules are in the Black Flag SRD. While not all the online rules are as complete as Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2, they are still far better than a digital-first D&D 5.5E, with its Drops and digital, subscriber-only content that will vaporize when D&D Beyond or 5.5E support finally goes away.

Tales of the Valiant is an evolution of 5E, and a superior game to D&D 5.5E. It maintains full compatibility with my 10 years' worth of 5E books.

This is the game I chose for 5E.

Mail Room: Northlands Saga (Worldbook & Sagas)

The hardcovers for the Northlands Sagas and Worldbook came today, and I am impressed. These are very nice books, and they don't try to paint a modern veneer on what should be a brutal and savage world. They don't go out of their way to shock us with violence or gore, but the art does present the setting in a respectful, culturally appropriate, and non-modern way.

If this were 5.5E, Wizards would purposefully do things to annoy you with the art, take shots at old-school players, and then sanitize classic monster lore to the point where nobody has a reason to fight anyone. ToV is my 5E for the foreseeable future, and D&D 5.5E let me down.

Despite all my struggles with 5E, I do keep up with all the Kobold Press crowdfunding, so I am happy I jumped in on this even though my ToV books are in the closet during my last shelf reorganization. They are out now and occupy two of my premium display shelves, next to the three I have for DCC.

We get character options, a gazetteer for the Midgard setting, and new spells and monsters. We also get detailed rules for cold survival, which part of me wanted in the corebooks, but I understand why they were placed here. The rules are here and keep parties from walking straight lines

We also get a book of adventures, a complete adventure path for this land. The adventures are well-written and look fun, and are themed around the new setting.

You could also use these books to play a ToV version of Gods of the Forbidden North, an excellent OSE adventure across three huge books, but if you wanted to play this with ToV and a version of Open 5E, these books are your best bet. This would be a fun campaign with a lot of monster swapping, but worth the effort if Open 5E is your system of choice.

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?

Mail Room: Player's Guide 2 Hardcovers

I got the shipping notification for the hardcover Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide 2 from the crowdfunding campaign, and they should be arriving very soon.

I love owning both physical books and PDFs, not needing to sign in to D&D Beyond to read what I bought, and not having "digital DLC" or "partnered releases" become part of the core system. Once D&D Beyond closes down, you will not have any of the "DLC" you purchased. Parts of your game will become lost forever, and your digital copies will also be gone.

Don't laugh, content companies larger than this have wiped out the movies and music of millions of customers before, and D&D could be sold to new owners at the drop of a hat. You are one press release away from losing everything you purchased.

Wow, it is like Tales of the Valiant is the "normal game," and D&D is the "digital nightmare."

Life is normal over here.

There is no drama.

I have my books and PDFs, and the complexion and feeling of the game is completely different.

I own these books and digital copies.

The game is mine, and I am not renting it from someone else.

The Not D&D Side of the Hobby

I am happy over here on Shard Tabletop, enjoying my Open 5E implementation of the rules, and also finally getting around to cracking open some of the books I collected for the 2014 edition.

And I hear D&D Beyond is busy adapting other systems to 5E D&D, and creating exclusives over there that I do not care about (5E Cthulhu, 5E Pathfinder), rented books with no physical copies or PDFs to own? Why would I even bother?

Tales of the Valiant (and Level Up A5E) are Open 5E these days, and you could still hold onto 2014 D&D, but sooner or later, some contractual support for those will run out, and support on whatever VTT you use will be dropped. I don't trust Wizards of the Coast anymore. I am not supporting their walled garden or the Apple-ifi-cation of D&D. Count me out, I run Linux over here.

If I can't run Linux on my hardware, then I don't want it.

I feel strangely immune to the D&D drama, and  I haven't cared about it in months. I skip right over those clickbait Wizards drama videos. Who cares about D&D vs. Daggerheart? I play ToV and have 10 years of books to work through, and likely 50 years of megadungeons. I am good, thank you. I've bought enough.

Tales of the Valiant is my "game engine" for 5E, and I do not care about the vacant lot that is the 2026 D&D release schedule. I have the Kobold Press crowdfunding to jump on board with. Player's Guide 2 is on its way!

I have Night Hunters to look forward to! Look at all this cool stuff! Who cares about "web release" classes and powers from Wizards? These are hardcopy books with to-own PDFs! This is 5E Horror!

The world is much more fun outside of Wizards D&D, more interesting, and offers much more to look forward to and collect. The lack of drama, cool releases from Kobold Press, and my not caring about D&D YouTube make my time with ToV very enjoyable.

ToV and Generic Fantasy Monsters

When I was sorting through my books, I had the option to pull in the Expanded Monster Manuals, and this would force me to draw in the 2014 Monster Manual, and then I stopped.

Why include these?

My ToV Monster Vault has all the monsters I need, with better ToV support and the game's own take on these creatures. Also, why do I want to start pulling in Wizard's product identity monsters (beholders, mind flayers, displacer beasts, etc.)?

My OSR games do fine without any product identity monsters, and when they are there, if I want them, I prefer the basic mix of generic creatures to the official "Wizards blend." Once I start adding IP-specific monsters, my world becomes part of the D&D Multiverse, and I do not want that. I am fine without them, and this frees me up to discover new terrors and beasts instead of falling back on the old standbys.

I am a massive fan of the generic, OSR-style monster lists. I can put them in any world, and then use that as a "soup stock" for a base monster list while I develop my own.

Now, the ToV lists are different, and a bit more Migard-focused, but I have not experienced most of them before, and if I am playing ToV, then all my worlds are on the Labyrinth anyway. The ToV monsters fit there, and are universe-coherent. The special ToV dragons make sense, while variant D&D dragons would feel out of place.

So, for now, those non-ToV monster books are in storage, and I will play with what I got.

And the ToV Game Master's Guide includes 35 pages on how to create monsters! This is an incredible addition to the game, 10% of the book, and you can make monsters by starting at a CR and going from there. If I wanted all new monsters in an all-new world, I could have them. Do I want to make CR 4 "security robots" that are controllers? I got them in a few steps. Making my own creatures was one of the best parts of D&D 4E, and I heard they got rid of the rules in D&D 2024, which is a shame.

The players never knew what to expect, and I could toss together memorable NPC villains with the system, like a kobold baker who could throw wads of sticky dough to slow or entangle, or even blind characters or create dust clouds to interfere with missile fire with flour. That NPC was so hilarious; he stuck around, became a favorite enemy of my players, and eventually won the kobold cook over to work as a chef in town.

This is the process of crafting a campaign, figuring out which books you want to use, and brainstorming with the tools you have.

Mail Room: Player's Guide 2 (ToV)

The Player's Guide 2 was released today for backers, and I am enjoying this. More soon.

My Labyrinth: Midgard

I am building my Labyrinth and putting together some of the best third-party 5E settings, centered around the official Kobold Press world, Midgard. So, of course, I will start here, in one of the best non-D&D world settings out there, and one that feels better supported with gazetteers, adventures, history, and current events.

Midgard feels better constructed than the Forgotten Realms at this point; it is not stitched together from novels, has not undergone so many sweeping changes and retcons, and the entire world feels grounded and cohesive. There is no video game, so there isn't that distraction hanging over the campaign. There are times when I want the video game to stand on its own, and the campaign setting to stand on its own. I have seen a game come in and take over a setting, and it feels like the setting will never escape the pop-culture moment, and shall forever serve it as fan service.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game, but I want to move past it. I am ready for new characters and adventures, and the ones they keep putting on the covers of books need to be retired, lest they become the Realm's next version of the unkillable GMNPCs, which the setting has long suffered from.

Midgard forces me to create new iconic heroes, and nine times out of ten, those will be the PCs.

Also, once I start putting the "TSR/Wizards worlds" in there, they will slowly begin to take over the campaign. They are too comfortable and familiar. You can always "fall back to Waterdeep" and "find a safe place." I want players to feel like a fish out of water, without any comfortable place to lean on, and to be forced to care for and learn about a new and different place.

The best campaigns I ever ran were "fish out of water," where the players were caught entirely off guard, forced to survive, learn about new places and people, and show how clever and resourceful they were to adapt. They had to get to know people, figure out who they could trust, take some bumps along the way, and live in an entirely new world.

Familiarity and comfort are the opposite of excitement and adventure.

Even in the modern era, with the melting pot of 1001 races and cultures, Midgard still holds up far better than most other settings, where new races and backgrounds don't seem to have a history with the world, and everything feels like it was recently dropped in. While Midgard feels more malleable, the other settings' decades of history hold them back. I played in the original versions of Greyhawk, the Treams, Mystara, and all these different races were not in the setting. They exist outside the lore, have no homelands, and have no history; all of them feel transient.

They have all been retconned into the world with no history or reason.

Eberron was one of the few worlds that tried to make sense of the different lore, and that was the last we saw of the company trying to create a setting for the game, rather than play on nostalgia and shoehorn in the new stuff alongside the old. Midgard is not as well-known, and it has a lot of room for my own creations, so it feels more open to change.

Granted, you can say they are "new planar arrivals" in any setting, but Midgard has a stronger connection to the Labyrinth. This less planar, more grounded dimensional passageway feels like The Ways from the Wheel of Time books. I like the Labyrinth a lot, and it is the glue that holds the universe together.

The Labyrinth beats the stuffing out of the D&D Multiverse in comparison to creating a fantasy universe framework. The D&D Multiverse is too closely tied to gods, the old alignment wheel, and there is no mystery to the structure or composition of the planes. It focuses too much on the home of the gods, and not enough on what D&D lumps together in the "Prime Material Plane." The Labyrinth pushes the gods into smaller homes and places greater focus on actual campaign worlds and the connections between them.

Where the D&D Multiverse is god and alignment-centered, ToV's Labyrinth is strictly campaign-world-focused. The Gods have no structure, and if you wanted "Norse god home" you could insert it into the Labyrinth without needing to change much else, or reflect what the Chaotic Neutral god home is, what the Neutral Evil go home is like, and all the silly structure and symmetry the concept is enamoured with.

The Midgard worldbook also cautions against having too many fantastical ancestries in a party, and advises focusing on a few; with too many, the party begins to feel more like outsiders and a motley band of wanderers. Connections and mixing in are essential in a world like this. If you are in the Northlands, play a Northlands mix of ancersteries, have some connections to the place, and fit in better. A frog person, a dhampir, a dark elf, and a trollkin in these lands are going to raise some eyebrows.

Midgard and the Tales of the Valiant cosmology setup is much stronger than D&D's, and it reduces the importance of the outer planes in the setting, and instead puts the focus squarely on campaign worlds, where it should be. Ever since D&D 4E, the outer planes have felt too crucial to the D&D setting, reducing the campaign world to MMO starter zones, and making them feel like places that you forget and move on from once you have planar travel.

In the Labyrinth, I can focus on two or three campaign worlds and never have any travel to the outer planes. The lands, peoples, and places are still significant. These random-planar cities and other outer enclaves, all trying to recreate the magic of Planescape (but failing), do not diminish the importance of the core campaign worlds. Midgard will always be the "prime campaign world," and that will ground the campaign.

When I used the planes in AD&D, nothing was habitable for any extended period, and some outer planes, if you tried living in them, would change you physically and mentally. If you live in the Beastlands for too long, you will develop animal-like features and slowly transform into an animal. Pandemonium? You will slowly go insane. The Abyss? You slowly turn into a demon, grow horns and hooves, and your alignment shifts permanently toward chaos and evil.

Valhalla? You grow wings, your hair turns blonde, you never want to leave, a pegasus shows up and asks to be yours if you stay, and you adopt the northland's accent like a Norwegian or a Swede. Or you turn into a troll or dark elf. The Spider Queen's plane? You all start to slowly turn into dark elves, driders, or, most likely? Insects. You wake up with giant bug eyes, -2 CHR, and get a +2 on perception checks. You decided to stick around and never paid attention to the constant buzzing that drove the halfling insane. The dwarf turned into a giant centipede last night, and we can't find him.

There is no absolute save for these effects, and they will get you, since you are only mortals. The longer you stay, the worse it gets, and the worse the saving-throw penalty I will give you. There are no tourists in the outer planes. Sorry, you are mortals, and these places have far too much power for you to withstand or comprehend.

Some planes do not have air or water, or will dissolve you alive. Others are the insides of living beings. Some lack the third dimension. Others have nonsensical geometry, and you will step into a wall and get lost forever. Save versus spells, fail, and the character sheet gets torn up.

People's brains these days cannot comprehend how alien my outer planes are, or how terrible they are to visit. This is the only way to run them, or they become permanent campaign suburbs that take over the game and render all the game worlds as meaningless starting zones.

But that sort of almost Lovecraftian absolutism is needed, or else the planes are "just another place," and they mean nothing at all.

The art in the Kobold Press books is fantastic, and it feels more like fantasy than the Realms. The current Wizards team is leaning too hard into modernity, and D&D feels like an anime version of Harry Potter, with too many steampunk overtones. Fancy trench coats and Victorian-era suits with vests and ties are not medieval armor, and the art does not match the feeling I want. I want plate armor to look heavy and impose a restriction. It is not fashion; it is armor with a practical, life-saving use.

I want armor to feel like it is needed and saves lives; it is not a fashion choice.

And the Labyrinth forces a geography on players. If the exit to a new world is in a particular world, they will need to start there. The gate spell may not be used, as the spell description mentions.

"Deities and other planar rulers can prevent portals created by this spell from opening in their presence or anywhere within their domains." - ToV, Player's Guide, page 283

When you exit, you are forced to "start here," wherever "here" may be. There could be a couple of exits in the same world, and travelling between them is dangerous, but faster than the alternative. This gives the referee some control over the "gate game" and forces players to deal with the locals when they pop out. Campaigns can be ruined by "too many gates" or "gate rooms" where travel between worlds becomes too easy, and you just use a transport hub to get anywhere you want to go.

Midgard has maps, cultures, places, fascinating lore, and a story behind every place in the world. I can read the book for hours and be inspired to create adventures here. This world still feels like a fantasy to me, and that gritty, down-to-earth touch of life without technology feels true here.

Once you dig in, you will find this is a fantastic setting that does everything you want it to. It does feel like Paizo's Golarion, in that there are dedicated areas for every type of adventure, but they feel distinctly different than Pathfinder's offerings. Where Golarion's themepark areas seem very on the nose, Midgard's areas are more subtle and have their own identity.

Choosing Midgard as the campaign homeworld for my version of the Labyrinth feels like a good choice, as does keeping the TSR/Wizards worlds off the cosmos so we can focus on this world, and not fall back on comfort or nostalgia.

Midgard is a solid choice, and a great place to begin.

ToV: The Nerrath Campaign

I miss Nerrath.

My brother and I were recovering from a hard time in our lives, and we used D&D 4E to work through it. We escaped to Nerrath to get away from a world that abandoned us and forced us to fight for ourselves. Restarting all our roleplaying here felt like a fresh start, and it served as a microcosm of our fight to regain a sense of normalcy.

For about four years it lasted, until another tragedy struck with my brother's health, and D&D 4E moved to the Essentials line, a 4.5E that started to abandon the game, similar to D&D 2024. We discovered how badly 4E sucked at the higher levels. We got over his health issues together, but D&D 4E died on the vine, and 5E never replaced it.

My brother played a ranger, and the 5E ranger always sucks. If there is one class Wizards will never understand, it is the ranger, and this is their curse. The ToV ranger is so much better, and at least they keep their role-playing wilderness powers. They are not just a "map combat class" like they are in 2024 D&D.

With my brother gone, there are times when I want to come back here and enjoy the world again.

Tales of the Valiant would do this world justice and play like I remember it. It would be slightly "Kobold Press" flavored, but that is not a bad thing, given how much D&D 2024 has changed the game into something unrecognizable and heavily censored. ToV has a few issues, too, like removing alignment, which drains the game of direction and motivation. I can add an alignment system if I want, so it is not a huge problem.

Kobol Press' monsters and additions feel more fantasy-oriented than D&D, which skews more towards pseudo-modernism. I like the clockwork and kobold elements; they feel fun and a bit silly, and there should be more of that in games. The void influence is also extraordinary and extra-worldly, without feeling too planar.

The Kobold structure of the place is better than D&D's tired "Great Wheel" model, and much more open. The Labyrinth exists as the "world between worlds" and allows travel between worlds without going too gate-happy. This is a much more sane model of universe structure, like how the Eleven Hells are next to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and the Celestial Realm is adjacent to the Plane of Air. It all makes sense.

The Labyrinth model also better simulates the world model of 4E, where interconnected worlds are all in the same area of the universe. The later D&D 4E releases sabotaged us with this "all-in-one" planar model, where stating worlds became MMO starting zones and were unimportant to the grand scheme of things. D&D 4E assumed you would end up on the planes, and the homeworlds were unimportant.

We took the opposite view, in that you could find creatures from level 1-30 in the world, and there were places you did not go. ToV supports that worldview nicely.

In the Labyrinth, you could have a "level 20 world" where nothing below a CR 20 exists, and we had that world in our D&D 4E game. Even houseflies and common rats were CR 20; traps were all certain death CR 20 killers, and this world was insane, but a lot of fun to treasure-hunt for the good stuff. If you can get in and out without dying, you often can find something extraordinary.

We expanded the world with many new locations, which turned out to be fun additions full of flavor. Going "beyond the map " was an adventure to find "what was out there," and that was always fun. The home base was always Fallcrest, but we had several base towns and other places outside of here that served as adventure hubs.

I could see the Fallcrest area being a spot on the Labyrinth. All the lineage options are there, if you include the Dragonborn from the Labyrinth Worldbook, and we will need to wait for the Player's Guide 2 for the Drow (but easily addable in Shard as a custom lineage), and the gang is all here.

We did have a character from Midgard in our D&D 4E game! So, in our continuity, the worlds were linked, and a possible ToV version of Nerrath is likely, given that Nerrath is likely destroyed and forgotten, with the reality shards lying out there for the ToV gods to reconstruct in a ToV form.

The ToV would be slightly different, with the Kobolds and Clockworks running around, but they are cool and thematically fit the "Lost 4E" vibe. Similarly, Aasimar and Tieflings are replaced by the Sydereans (of both celestial and fiendish flavors). I don't mind the changes, and it reflects the world being rebuilt in the Koboldverse, rather than being left to die in the Wizards-verse.

I still stay on the Kickstarters and new books for ToV for this reason.

A chance to go back and be there again.

Bundle of Holding: Vales of the Valiant

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TalesOfTheValiant

What a deal today over on Bundle of Holding!

The three core books, plus five adventures, are going for just $25!

For half the price of ONE D&D 2024 core book hardcover, or a little less than just ONE of the D&D 2024 digital books, you get the entire game plus five adventures! Oh, and the monster and GM books are 100% D&D 2024 compatible, so if you play that game, you have more for it. The GM book is impressive, far superior to the D&D 2024 DMG, and it has far more valuable tools for game masters. An entire 10% of the book is devoted to monster creation, which is absent from the 2024 DMG.

And you get them in PDF.

Yours to own.

No subscription required.

An incredible deal today, and if you are on the fence, now is the time to jump in and check the system out!

Shard Tabletop & ToV Thoughts

I play Tales of the Valiant over on Shard Tabletop, and they have a good selection of ToV books and character options, along with the ability to create your own custom content.

If I want a Drow, I can pull one in from a source, create a custom lineage, and have it. Until Player's Guide 2 drops, and then, Shard support, I will need to use my custom one for a while. If I get the PG2 PDF, I can update my creation to match, and then flip from custom to official when I get the Shard version.

Custom content support is critical, especially for a game like ToV, which does not port in 5E races but expects them to be in the lineage format to work with the character designer. I wish the Book of Blades were on Shard. I like keeping up to date. There is a wait for VTT support, and that is not fun.

So, why am I playing ToV again? I own the books (PDF for now), I paid for them, and this version of 5E is not too bad. While the Second Edition (using For Gold & Glory) is my all-time favorite, the character builds in ToV work well and have an ARPG vibe. If you are going to play a pen-and-paper game that plays like a video game, ToV is a good choice. The core attraction of the 5E system is the gamification of the rules, action combat, and reduced lethality.

If Level Up: Advanced 5E was on Shard, I would be playing that, too. Esper Genesis is on there, and I would like to see other 5E games on there, too, even Shadowdark.

In contrast, old-school games are less gamified and more logic puzzles, as you figure out how to crack a room or encounter with as few resources as possible. Combat is often expensive and very lethal in older editions of the game, and death is not always recoverable. I wish the Kobold Press had hardcore play options laid out in the GM's Guide; then again, I am free to use anything that works with 5E.

I am not playing D&D 2024. I don't see the need for the new edition, and I have a game from a company I like better that lets me own my PDFs. I don't feel great about Wizards after the OGL, and that comes down to a choice about who I want to give my money to.

The fight between playing 5E and a game like World of Warcraft is always a hard choice for me, since I play solo, and World of Warcraft does a lot of the work for me, and gets me in touch with other live people playing the same game. The WoW storytelling sends me right back to 5E, and all MMOs become a grind after a while.

Still, Shard plus ToV is a fun experience, and I enjoy making maps and playing through smaller scenarios, like a Shadowdark, one-page-dungeon vibe. Something simple I created with my subscription to the Dungeon Scrawl online map tool. 5E plays solo well, and I can run 3-4 characters in a party without feeling overwhelmed.

I would like to have room for my books, but I don't, so I stick to my PDFs and online tools, and that is enough fun for me.