Level Up (A5E) The big difference between A5e and 5e?

[Larnievc]

Hi everyone. I have acquired the A5e books during the kickstarter, but I have not had a chance to play it yet. What I am curious about is the play experience: how exactly does it feel to actually play it compared to 5e? Or would someone not really notice? What is the big difference? Is it mostly on the GM side, making it more convenient to run games, or does the game itself feel way different?

My table has hit 7th level and over half are complaining that they have too many abilities to keep track of.

 

[Larnievc]

Has anyone used A5E characters in the published WotC adventure paths? (I know, I'll probably run Holdshire AP once it releases for my first A5E AP; but wondering about after that...)

My table is doing CoS and it’s going fine. Nothing has come up my (DM) side. Four of them have A5E characters and one grognard has an O5E champion fighter.

Works fine.

 

[mAcular]

It's too big a topic to cover in one post, but I'd say your preferences might be more gritty than core A5E. Supply (food, water, firewood, minor medicinals, other consumables) are abstracted into a single 'Supply' value which gets depleted by exploration challenges. Taking a long rest without Supply causes fatigue (exhaustion is split into fatigue and strife) and fatigue can only be recovered at a Haven (i.e. not a campsite or a dungeon). Many food/water creating spells are altered so that they don't grant Supply. Light isn't really something A5E changes. Encubrance, well the rules are there just like in O5E; it's up to you whether you use them!

But I don’t want to mislead you—A5E isn't an OSR game. If that's your preferred style of play, I suspect an OSR game would cater more to your taste?

Nah, I ran multiple types of games. OSR type is just one of them. I was just wondering where it fell on the spectrum compared to normal 5e for a rough idea.

 

[Mike Myler]

Nah, I ran multiple types of games. OSR type is just one of them. I was just wondering where it fell on the spectrum compared to normal 5e for a rough idea.

There's a thing for more intense resource tracking.

also possibly useful for you: Dungeon Builder (Beta) | Level Up

 

[Stalker0]

It's too big a topic to cover in one post, but I'd say your preferences might be more gritty than core A5E. Supply (food, water, firewood, minor medicinals, other consumables) are abstracted into a single 'Supply' value which gets depleted by exploration challenges. Taking a long rest without Supply causes fatigue (exhaustion is split into fatigue and strife) and fatigue can only be recovered at a Haven (i.e. not a campsite or a dungeon). Many food/water creating spells are altered so that they don't grant Supply. Light isn't really something A5E changes. Encubrance, well the rules are there just like in O5E; it's up to you whether you use them!

But I don’t want to mislead you—A5E isn't an OSR game. If that's your preferred style of play, I suspect an OSR game would cater more to your taste?

I will echo this. I use A5e for a more survival oriented game and I found it wasn’t “gritty enough” at base so I had to make several changes.

The new exploration systems are great but if your goal is to replicate a more “nature survival” aesthetic, then you need to either modify the system or consider something else, as that is not what the new system is made to do.

 

[Stalker0]

There's a thing for more intense resource tracking.
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also possibly useful for you: Dungeon Builder (Beta) | Level Up

This variant can help with a make survival type game but you will want to remove or houserule several of the PC class ability around supplies. A lot of them make supply management too easy for a survival game. In my game I limited most of my players to 2 containers (so very very limited supply), but the ranger perks were so good it didn’t matter. Once i house ruled that part the supply segment became a lot more important

 

[Micah Sweet]

It depends... if there is an A5E equivalent I usually swap to that; if not I usually run the O5E monster as-is, however sometimes if I want to challenge my players a little more, I'll spice up the monster by adding a feature or two from some similar A5E beasties.
With groups of enemies, I've even used the A5E version of the monster as the leader, and kept the O5E versions as it's 'goons.'

That's what I do. I wanted to use a nothic, so I just pulled a WotC MM for it. Of course, I still plan on doing an A5e write up for my custom monster compilation.

 

[VanguardHero]

On the topic of stricter resource tracking, I'll throw in that I think A5e would be ideal for a Dark Sun game where I think 5e would be godawful. Supply and resources matter, Ranger doesn't just give a "Skip that entire part of the game" feature, Classes have more depth so barring off Arcane and Divine Options can still result in a satisfying party diversity, Martials have agency to interact with the world and be actually good at combat, and there's rules for equipment made of non-metal materials. Some of that may be useful info?

 

[Selganor]

For psionics there's Steampunkette's Paranormal Powers and "defiling" could raise the difficulty of foraging/hunting

 

[Micah Sweet]

For psionics there's Steampunkette's Paranormal Powers and "defiling" could raise the difficulty of foraging/hunting

Yup. A5e definitely looks to me to be the best modern D&D for Dark Sun. All the setting material is out there.