Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition from ENWorld

[paladinn]

Has anyone played or run this? I think it was advertised as 5e+crunch; but I'd heard it's really become its own thing.

Supposedly it's completely backward (5e) compatible; but we've all heard that before.

Any impressions?

Thanks!

[BeholderEyeDr]

I'm not an expert: I ended up backing it at the last moment on a whim, based on hearing the sorts of things you mentioned. In general, I don't think that reputation is accurate: it's a crunchier 5E, with more complicated classes and mechanics to support them. I think a lot of people are looking for that, and seem to enjoy this product a lot; but I've also seen a lot of people complain that it's not as modular or compatible as they were led to believe, or that it adds complication for the sake of complication (I'm one of these people). Thankfully, I believe its core rules are available free online (a5e.tools), so you can check it out before buying anything. Ultimately it wasn't what I was looking for, but I'm glad the people who just want a more complicated 5E have this available. I will say that I think the claim of being backwards compatible is mostly false, though; it might be literally true, but it's really a system replacement--you could plop a 5E bard into your A5E game and it would function, but it would be tremendously out of place and you'd definitely feel bad as that bard.

All that said, I think their monster manual is amazing. It actually is completely self-contained, barely referencing other A5E mechanics at all (and that little bit is trivial to ignore or adapt), and is a fantastic improvement over core 5E monsters while still being recognizable but more exciting to use. I can't recommend it enough.

[Warder]

I still haven't read it, but I've heard enough good things about it to be interested. The D&Done announcement convinced me that if I find an affordable way to buy a copy of it where I live, I definitely will even if I never end up playing it. The production quality and the intent behind it are enough to justify the purchase in my eyes.

[J-H]

I backed it for the Monster Manual only. I haven't finished reading the MM, but it's definitely an improvement over the 5e MM in most respects. A few of the monsters have too many things going on, but most have better flavor in how they work, and the addition of
-Signs the creature is near
-Random behaviors you might find the creature doing
-3-5 sample encounters for different CRs all the way up to low 20s

Are all very helpful to have as well.