Rundown: Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide

Dave goes over the new Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide. Tales of the Valiant is a game system based on the D&D SRD, so it's quite similar, but offers an alternative to playing the Dungeons & Dragons game itself. It promises to "make spellcasting cooler" and provide more tactical options for fighters. Does it do that? Dave shares his take on this, along with other details about this new system.

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[GuardianAcky]

I ran a one-shot in the system, one thing that was very different gameplay wise is that everyone had bonus actions they could pull off; spells, weapon actions, martial actions, class and lineage features all gave access to new bonus actions and even new reactions. The combat was interesting and fairly engaging, with few if any "I attacked and missed so I sit and wait to get hit" moments. The real star tho was that one character was a wild/chaos magic sorcerer and the wild magic surges are so much more fun and frequent.

[saraphys]

I backed ToV for the Players Guide, Monster Vault, and GMG...
While the Players Guide didn't go as far as I would have liked, what it does do is a series of Quality of Life updates that...yeah, can be missed if your not looking for them specifically. For example, practically everyone gets a 2/Multiattack with a weapon now...and thats pretty kool. As far as I can tell, there's still restrictions on the types of attacks made, and the action economy still seems very 5E, rather then Pathfinder 2e; but thats minor.

I think in changes I noticed with classes so far, is that there's more influence from 3.5/Pathfinder then 5E... certain wording for Barbarians, Fighters, and the like have had how they read changed slightly, so that more can be gained out of them. Each level also provides something now, too, rather then there being gaps in classes at some levels... another huge QoL improvement.
...for me, the biggest is the Mechanist/Artificer... Its kept certain 5E changes, but it feels like alot of the class was designed behind the 3.5 Eberron version, With Augements feeling more like the classic Infusions, and being able to do more with them. Also, big bonus, There's no limit on using Augments, just how many active Augments you can have... This, in the hands of a creative Artificer-player, could lead to ALOT of shenanigans. But, its also in the style of the class too, that the Mechanist Subclasses also harken back to the Eberron Prestige Classes, which I really appreciate, too.
That was one of my biggest annoyances with 5E Artificers... all the other classes got Subclasses based on old Prestige Classes; but the Artificer got Subclasses based on Build-types.

From my takeaway of the Mechanist Subclasses so far, I would call their subclasses as being closer to the Cannith Wand Adept PrC, and somewhat a Renegade Mastermaker PrC... not 100%, but its better then WotC's null-attempt. The Mechanist also *Feels* like its a "combat mechanic", a class for someone who wants to be analysing, understanding, and making magic items...

Granted, I dont think they went far enough for my liking...
I wish they went full "Turbo" on "Make it a proper simplified 3.5 experiance"; because I feel sometimes thats what 5E wanted to do, but they brought too much 4E baggage with them (WotC, not KP)... so I wish KP had pushed more into that. But, for a "First Edition", its not bad...

[tomyoung]

Thank you for a good review that is concise and to the point! Too many YouTubers ramble on, repeating themselves and restating the same points again and again! I really appreciate your style!

[j.keithwykowski]

All those little changes really add up when you actually play.

[grimmdm]

Hey you may need to look into Martial Actions, and also KP reorganization of some long spells into Rituals makes it easier for casters..

[Zrdin]

Nice "Battle of the Planets" shirt! And yeah, Now that I see the 2024 PHB... it's like I want the Player Character creation rules (especially for New Monks) from there and the rest of the book from ToV. Frankly, I'm seeing that the GMG is going to be the best thing that comes out of this series of books.

[erikriggiola]

This game cleans up a lot of D&D mess and is one of the best alternatives to D&D. I got the slipcase edition and it's beautiful. Being similar to D&D yet with enough great departures to make it feel upgraded is awesome. Screw you Hasbro!!!!

[shadomain]

It's not exactly correct to say that ToV is "tied to WotC".
It uses the 5.1 SRD, but as the 5.1 SRD is under a creative common 4.0 license, it's no longer owned by WotC, it's not owned by anyone as long as you use the CC4.0 license.
If you did use the 5.1 OGL license (I don't know anyone who would), WotC could theaoretically change that at anytime. That's not true of the 5.1 SRD CC4.0

[homebrewedtabletop]

Just wanted to pass on some advice from another YouTuber who had this same issue... those popping sounds are called "plosives", and you can help cut down on them by putting your mic off center, so it's not right in front of your mouth, or by adding a "pop filter". It will add a lot to your audio quality.

[aurvay]

I was very enthusiastic about Kobold’s 5e hack the first time I heard about it, but I am greatly underwhelmed once I saw the end result.

Just playing 5e as is, is still the best option imho, despite many new systems coming out such as VoT, Nimble 5e, DC20 and —especially— 5.50e.

And if I were to switch systems I would just go OSE (for an OSR-style game) or shadow of the demon lord/weird wizard (for a modern-style game).

[Nobleshield]

I haven't played 5e but I took a quick look at it when my FLGS got it in, and it read like 5e with some tweaks, basically if you wanted to stay with a 5e type game (rather than say OSR) but didn't want to give WOTC money due to the OGL fiasco and them crapping on the original creators.

[lucasterable]

Hasbro raises price of handbooks to 60$ --> outrage.
Kobold Press joins the bandwagon and sells handbooks at 60$ --> perfectly fine.

[BestgirlJordanfish]

Yeah the biggest issue is how much of it feels like DnD5E and holding onto its vestigial issues, and little bitties of PF2E wording and adjusting. Not enough is really streamlined, simplified, or solved. Rather, additional things are slapped on without making them more compelling to new players or those taking more modern games.

It *feels* crunchier by how much it focuses on being 5E, but again with extra stuff slapped on, and its focus on granular design rather than significant sweeping design twists.

[Nolinquisitor]

I have received bad comments from fans for pointing out a flaw in this Luck Mechanic design. This mechanic is designed to be managed without the GM's intervention, freeing him up to focus on other things. Fine. Let's take a player with a Luck pool of 4. If the GM rewards this player for good roleplay (+1 Luck), let's say for the description of a combat maneuver, just before a roll, and immediately afterwards his player character misses his attack (+1 Luck), the player loses ALL his Luck points, must roll his meager d4, for what is basically a beautiful roleplay moment. In this case, and it will happen, although rarely, the design would leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Good design in intention but lacking in refinement, in my opinion.

[G-Blockster]

I admit I was hoping for some mechanics that created a different feel than 5e. The spell classifications are a start, but from this review, it is too little.

[MagiofAsura]

The fact it is so much like 5e is what turns me off ToV. They didnt expect Hasbto to throw the 5e SRD into CC so now they are stuck with this 5e clone.

[nrais]

Some stuff i heard, i distinctly dont like. Luck seems underwhelming, honestly. Frequently a +1 or +2 is irrelevant. Dread in the English language has a definition and it is not this, making me a but annoyed, and "scar a creature for minutes" .... really? How do you SCAR a creature psychologically for MINUTES? Again, words have meanings, and if you are writing a book you should learn them. That said, if some of the problems with 5e that are actual problems get fixed, i will add it to my shelf, and stuff i dont like be damned, since it will be a thoroughly playable game. 5e breaks on us constantly.