D&D vs Tales of the Valiant, What's Different in Kobold Press's New Game? Playtest First Look!

Following up on Wizards of the Coast's disastrous OGL decisions, many independent RPG creators have been working to make a system to replace their reliance on someone else's IP. The first of those projects is Tales of the Valiant, formerly project Black Flag, from Kobold Press. Tales of the Valiant is largely D&D 5e, but with a very important open license for new creators, and a few nice quality of life changes made to the system. What are those differences? Stick around and find out! Thank you for joining us!
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[@robertsilvermyst7325]

I like the higher base for stats. One of my biggest gripes was that, unless you are a Fighter, Rogue or Variant Human, you were going to be VERY limited on how many feats you could take. Feats really give your character that raw flavor of what makes your character that much different, that much more interesting. Being able to take more feats while needing fewer ASIs to make your character hit the important 20s in the relevant stat(s) really enhances character development.

[@tailfire666]

Notes to help - Heritage is basically your culture, who raised you. Background is your past role/job. - monsters are stronger, so players shouldnt feel that much stronger (hopefully we only have up to 5) - spell ring is now circles (and the spell types are now called sources) - rituals being separated also means that we can get higher level rituals, within reason obviously - weapon options can also be used by the fighter and the Ranger as a bonus action as additional options at 2nd level - talents are not as strong as feats, thankfully. So far. They also changed it so that you can do a + 2 or +1/+1 instead of +1 and a talent - doom and luck is great, no note (I also miss a lot lol)

[@TerrigenCrystal]

I'm really looking forward to the new changes that come with this game. The extra damage on weapons will be a great addition that D&D desperately needs. And I think everyone will be happy with the luck points. I'm sure many will be frustrated that the DM also gets them, but fair is fair and I personally think it will make the game more interesting!

[@weirdguy564]

Making players stronger isn't always a good thing. I actually switched to rules light games because I don't like reading a 300 page tome. I want 50 pages or less to be honest.

[@playerscompanion]

Nothing wrong with that, for sure. I don't mind strong characters, but the challenge has to still be there. If the opponents can keep up, then that's great. But, only playing will prove how the balance works out! What rules light system are you playing in now?

[@maul42]

Personally looking forward to this more than D&D One. Both are attempting minor changes to update the very popular 5e without invalidating what's come before, but while ToV is focused on streamlining, tweaking, and presenting player options, D&D One seems to be presenting a lot of big wonky overhauls that then get rolled back by community uproar. I'm not even sure if they know what their overall goal or direction for D&D One is. I think we're in a glorious time for independent publishers!

[@nrais76]

One of the things that annoys me about ToV is abuse of the English language, lol. What they call "heritage" is properly termed "cultural upbringing," they improperly use the word "dread" (and apparently "scar" as you can't "scar" someone for MINUTES - by definition, a scar is permanent), etc. I have mixed feelings on some of it, but the important things are: do half-casters still feel different now that they draw from the same spell lists as the full casters, did they fix the too-many-concentration-spells, the broken spells that really do nothing (or worse than nothing), did they fix CR (which is used in so many subsystems), do we have alternate speeds of xp progression, do we have high level play (from fixing the math to actually having the ability to have things to do, like manage a domain)? These are the deciders for me and my group.

[@dougpridgen9682]

Emotional or psychological scarring doesn't have to be permanent. WotC certainly isn't fixing any of those broken systems. If you can then go ahead.

[@michaelpinkston2602]

F wotc. My players and I have decided to abandon wotc. We proudly sail under the black flag, seeking to make Valiant tales.