You may have noticed some significant developments in fantasy games that rely on the 5e OGL for their core rules. Not long after the Great OGL Debacle of 2023, Kobold Press announced that they were working on their own set of 5e OGL fantasy rules, and part of the draw for this set of rules is that they could keep their own set of rules closer to what they appreciated about the D&D 5e rules. 

Tales of the Valiant hit the shelves in June, along with the Monster Vault. It arrived before the September release of the D&D 2024 Player’s Handbook and launched with a monster book. Also, with the magic items included in the Player’s Guide, the game was less reliant on the Gamemaster’s Guide, which didn’t arrive until October.

Initially, I was thinking of covering all three at once, but as time wore on, I realized that it would be important to look at each separately. This is driven, in part, by the fact that each part of the triumvirate of core books can be useful in a D&D 5e game, even without the other two, without the adoption of the complete Tales of the Valiant rules. Because of this, I will start my coverage of the core books with this article, focusing on the Player’s Guide. Most of what I will be looking at is a comparison to the 2014 rules rather than the 2024 ones. I’ll review the D&D 2024 rules as we get closer to the Monster Manual’s release.

Disclaimer

I backed the Tales of the Valiant crowdfunding campaign and received a review copy of the Player’s Guide. I am very familiar with 5e SRD fantasy games and have been running a Tales of the Valiant game, although everyone still has tier-1 characters.

 Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide
Publisher: Kobold Press
Lead Designer: Celeste Conowitch
Designers: JB Little, Sarah Madsen, Sebastian Rombach
Developer: Jeff Quick
Lead Editor: Jeff Quick Editors: Misty Bourne, Scott Gable, Meagan Maricle, Thomas M. Reid
Proofreaders: Meagan Maricle, Kenny Webb
Cover Artist: Hugh Pindur
Interior Artists: Paola Andreatta, Darren Calvert, Basith Ibrahim, Maria Viktoria Kanellopoulou, Erika Lundrigan, William O’Brien, Corwin Paradinha, Ian Perks, Roberto Pitturru, Addison Rankin, Kiki Moch Rizki, Craig J. Spearing, Florian Stitz, Bryan Syme, Egil Thompson, Eva Widermann, Mat Wilma
Graphic Designers: Marc Radle, Amber Seger

While composing this review, I’ve been able to reference the PDF, the physical copy of the book, and the Demiplane electronic reference site. The page count is 387 pages, and in the PDF and physical copy, the page breakdown is as follows:

• Front and Back Cover: 2 pages
• Title Page and Endpapers: 2 pages
• Credits and Table of Contents: 5 pages
• Introduction: 4 pages
• Character Creation: 126 pages
• Equipment and Magic Items: 72 pages
• Game Rules: 40 pages
• Spellcasting and Spells: 116 pages
• Appendix: 8 pages
• Index: 5 pages
• Character Sheet: 3 pages
• Ads for other Kobold Press Products: 4 pages

The book has a very clean layout. It’s not dissimilar to other Kobold Press offerings, but the text seems to have more breathing room in this book. The artwork in the book looks great. I know some of it is reused from previous books, but much is brand new, and Kobold Press has always had strong artwork in its products.

While each page has borders with images from elsewhere in the book, the individual pages are white with blue headers, table elements, and black text. I appreciate flourishes like faded art under text or pages that look like ancient parchment, but I have to admit that bright white pages with easy-to-reference layouts usually win out if you ask my preference. 

Delving into the Text

The character creation section is divided into sections for character classes, lineages, heritages, backgrounds, and talents. The magic items appear at the back of the equipment chapter, and this section mentions that magic items aren’t always intended to be for sale despite having prices added to them. The Playing the Game section includes sections about planes of existence (not specific, but what is usually assumed in the type of game these rules are written for) and downtime activities that introduce some new mechanics. Spellcasting splits spells into new source categories and then splits those categories between standard and ritual spells.

I appreciate a few things in the introduction beyond serving its general function of explaining what’s inside. There is a section about what kind of fantasy this game facilitates and a section discussing safety. While it’s only about 75% of a page, it’s got a nice procedural presentation instead of what I’ve seen some traditional games adopting, which is to say that safety is essential. Then, it suggests other places to look for a more in-depth discussion. In this case, it runs the reader through developing lines and veils before the game starts and brings up some common issues that may need to be considered in a heroic fantasy campaign. There is also a section discussing some active safety procedures and tools for use during the game.

A Quick Look at What’s Changed from the 2014 5e SRD

I’m going to try to hit some of these points upfront before I delve into them with more detail later in the review. The most significant changes seem to be:

• No ability score bonuses tied to character elements in character creation
• Race is split into Lineage and Heritage, with lineage being physical traits and heritage being cultural
• Keensense replaces Blindsight and just means you gain the typical benefits of vision via another sense
• Feats are changed to talents, and no talents provide ability score bonuses
• Backgrounds grant you a choice of three different talents
• Subclass levels have been standardized across all character classes
• Spells are organized into sources instead of class-specific spell lists
• Each class has some tweaks to it, but one of the most significant changes is that the Warlock is a half-caster that also has pact magic
• Fighting Styles are now Martial Actions, which take a bonus action to use and which can be used to trigger a weapon’s Weapon Option
• Weapon Options are additional effects a weapon can have, but when you attack with a weapon, you have to choose either to do damage or use a Weapon Option
• Luck replaces Inspiration, and it’s a currency that can either be spent to add to rolls one for one or by spending multiple Luck points, you can reroll
• The downtime activities of Carousing and Researching can generate favors or clues as narrative currency that can be used while adventuring
• Ritual spells can only be cast as rituals, and spellcasters keep track of how many rituals they know separately

Some of these can be summarized quickly but may have more long-term consequences. For example, the changes to spell lists can shift some of the expected competencies of different classes. 

Making Heroes and What Makes a Player Character

The order of character creation steps as presented in Tales of the Valiant rules is as follows:

• Character concept
• Class
• Ability scores
• Lineage
• Heritage
• Background
• Equipment
• Fill in blanks
  

The Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide makes an interesting choice to present multiclassing at the beginning of the character creation section. I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of multiclassing. I think there are enough tools to pick up some flavor from other classes that, for story purposes, you can achieve what you want, and fully multiclassing makes class and subclass design trickier because designers have to take into account what abilities are going to synergize, and what abilities might synergize too well. It also means that many classes are designed to hold off on delivering core elements, so a single-level dip doesn’t provide a separate core play experience.

There are a few subtle changes. Some classes grant simple weapon proficiency, which is redundant in the Tales of the Valiant rules because every class gets at least simple weapon proficiency. Multiclassing into Bard or Ranger was used to grant an additional skill, which has been eliminated from the ToV rules. Beyond those changes, it works the same way as in the 2014 rules.

Most classes have all of their abilities in the 2014 rules or something similar to replace an ability that appears in that source. However, those abilities may shift up or down multiple levels to accommodate the standardized subclass levels. I would love to dive deeper into this, but I could write whole articles for each class so that I will summarize some of the changes to classes here.

Barbarian–Unarmored defense has a higher base AC rather than using both Dex and Con. Barbarians can move when they roll initiative. Brutal Critical affects threat ranges as well as critical damage dice. Unyielding Might now works like the other “reliable” class abilities. 

Bard–Bards get any finesse marital weapon as a proficiency now. Bardic Inspiration doesn’t specify that you need to decide to use it before you know if the roll is successful. Jack of All Trades is removed from the class abilities and replaced with Expertise. Song of Rest is replaced with Bardic Performance, a class feature with multiple persistent effects when active. Cutting Words has been moved to the core class. Bards pickup a subclass feature at 11th level. We’ll go into this later, but Bard is one class that notices the shift to power source spell lists instead of class spell lists. 

Cleric–Manifestation of Faith allows the cleric to either get heavy armor and martial weapons or an extra cantrip from any source and a damage bonus to cantrips. Divine Intervention is more reliable but is limited to spells or effects similar to spells that the cleric could typically cast. Blessed Strikes rolls back to 1st level. Clerics gain an 11th-level subclass feature.

Druid–Druids aren’t proficient in scimitars anymore, but it still appears as an option for starting equipment. Nature’s Gift is a non-spellcasting healing ability that can be used in beast form. Non-beast creatures with animal tags are also fair game for wildshape forms. A hard cap on hit points from wildshape forms is based on level. You eventually gain the ability to burn wildshape uses to recover spells. Nature’s Grace allows you to ignore the need for food or water, and you can’t have ability scores lowered. 

Fighter–Martial Actions replace fighting style; Second Wind is replaced with Last Stand, which lets you use a reaction to spend hit dice if you’re below 50% of your hit points. Turn the Tide adds additional damage that’s non-reducible.

Monk–Monks can throw items they catch with their Deflect Missile ability without spending a technique point. When a stunned opponent takes damage, they get another save against the effect. Slow Fall is moved up to 9th level as part of Perfect Motion. Tongue of Sun and Moon is changed to Astral Teachings, which allows for proficiency in a language, skill, tool, or weapon. The capstone ability is to gain 2 Technique Points per turn and get 4 when you roll initiative.

Paladin–You can use Lay on Hands on yourself as a bonus action. Martial Action replaces Fighting Styles, with minimal options (defending or using two-handed weapons). Aura of Salvation was added as a capstone, which grants resistance to non-magical damage and additional hit points. On the other hand, you can now only smite once per turn, which, honestly, is probably a good thing.

Ranger–Explorer replaces Natural Explorer, grants a swim or climb speed, and makes you immune to difficult terrain that isn’t magical. Most of Hunter’s Mark is rolled into a class feature called Mystic Mark, which you can trigger when you hit a target. Martial Action replaces Fighting Styles with limited options (two-weapon fighting or archery).You no longer get Primeval Awareness. You can eventually always pinpoint the location of marked targets. Stalker’s Step replaces Hide in Plain Sight and Vanish and shows up earlier than either. It allows the Ranger to turn invisible if they have natural cover or concealment. Strider lets you move without provoking Opportunity Attacks and gives you advantage on any saves against effects that slow or still you. You gain Keensense instead of Feral Senses. Foe Slayer is no longer limited to once per turn.

Rogue–Weapon proficiencies are changed to simple and martial with finesse. Precise Critical increases range, and bonus weapon die on a critical hit. 

Sorcerer–Weapon proficiency is changed to simple weapons. Font of Magic moves down to 1st level, and Metamagic to 2nd. Additional Metamagic options include Hunting Spell, Lucky Spell, Retain Spell, and Shielding Spell. Sorcerous Renewal gives back some Sorcery Points on a short rest. Devour Spell allows you to absorb a spell targeting you to convert it to Sorcery Points. Your capstone ability lets you target another creature in range to be affected by a spell that affects you.

Warlock–Eldritch Blast is a class feature instead of a cantrip. Pact Boon is moved down to 1st level. Pact of the Blade lets you attack using Charisma with melee weapons. Pact of the Chain lets your familiar attack without spending any of your actions, and you can speak through your familiar. Some Eldritch Invocations have effects instead of allowing the Warlock to cast a spell. Warlocks gain a half-caster progression in addition to Pact Magic.

Wizard–Magic Sense allows you to detect spellcasters, magic items, and ongoing spells. Rote Spells are spells that don’t count against your prepared spells. Superior Recovery allows you to swap out prepared spells on a short rest. You eventually gain advantage to saves against magic and resistance to spell damage. Spell Mastery now lets you cast each of your Rote Spells once without using a spell slot. Archmage enables you to roll when you cast a spell to see if you used a spell slot to cast the spell. 

In addition to all these changes, each class gains a Heroic Boon at 10th level, which gives you a decision between one of two abilities that might specialize how you want to approach your class’ role. Some feel like valuable tools that can be tailored to play style, while some have more significant effects. Some boons allow you to trigger a class feature when you roll initiative. In some cases, the Heroic Boon is a slightly different expression of an existing ability. For example, the Fighter doesn’t get Indomitable, but at 10th level, they get two effects that do something similar in two different ways. Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards have options at this level to let them add spells of other sources to the spells they can cast.

I like the tweaks away from multiple ability dependence, as seen with the Barbarian. Most abilities that could be triggered a number of times per ability score bonus have been changed to proficiency bonus. However, there are a few that still use ability score bonuses. I like Bards gaining an ongoing ability that can be triggered while maintaining their performance. I miss that concept from earlier edition Bards. I like the idea that Martial Actions require a bonus action to activate, which makes them feel more active, and Martial Actions can be used to trigger Weapon Options. I am a big fan that the Ranger streamlines standard abilities, makes them less fiddly, and still frames them as abilities that a hunter or a scout would learn rather than just adding abilities without context. For both the Ranger and the Warlock, I appreciate that a spell that is effectively a class feature just becomes a class feature. I like that the Wizard’s Spell Mastery has been reworked so that it doesn’t break the game to allow Wizards spells outside their standard list (i.e. unlimited healing).

There are a few classes where I’m concerned about what happens with 1st level abilities. Nature’s Gift, especially, catches my eye because it scales based on proficiency bonus versus Druid level. The 2014 Bard can almost be the party’s primary healer if you don’t have a Cleric. Still, the Tales of the Valiant Bard loses much of that functionality by being tied to the Arcane source. Their spells become much less subtle, opening up more area attacks with damage that doesn’t focus on psychic or thunder damage. I’m curious to see what the Aim Martial Action does to bounded accuracy in that it doesn’t add +2; it doubles the proficiency bonus for the attack. Moving Slow Fall to 9th level for the Monk feels like it’s really delaying a core Monk feature, and overall, it feels like Monks got a gentle nerfing when it only needed one ability to be nerfed and probably could have used some boosts. The limited Martial Actions for Paladins and Rangers feel very constricting. Paladins have to choose between specializing in a shield or a two-handed sword, so swashbuckling paladins are suboptimal, and Rangers using a spear are just doing it wrong. I can’t even guess what adding half-casting to a Warlock does without taking anything away. I don’t know if it’s an overall negative, but it feels like something significant to tack on without losing anything. 

Subclasses

I’ve said a few times that Kobold Press makes excellent material, but their subclasses have tended to leave me cold. Sometimes, they feel like they’re just a little bit too rigid to be flexible, or they work well mechanically but don’t quite hit the right notes for the story they tell. I’m not saying they’re bad, but they tended to lean toward 2014 mechanics and sensibilities and not fully embrace some evolving design in books like Xanathar’s and Tasha’s. The Player’s Guide has a mix of updated and new subclasses, with some being replacements for subclasses that weren’t part of the 5e SRD.

Barbarian

• Berserker
• Wild Fury

Bard

• Lore
• Victory

Cleric

• Life
• Light
• War

Druid

• Shifter
• Leaf

Fighter

• Spell Blade
• Weapon Master

Monk

• Flickering Dark
• Open Hand

Paladin

• Devotion
• Justice

Ranger

• Hunter
• Pack Master

Rogue

• Enforcer
• Thief

Sorcerer

• Chaos
• Draconic

Warlock

• Fiend
• Reaper

Wizard

• Battle Mage
• Cantrip Adept

Right off the top, I’m thrilled that the Berserker doesn’t cause a level of exhaustion for using their Frenzy, and I like the new ability they get that does extra damage to an opponent with the frightened condition. I like abilities that trigger based on a condition that the target has. It’s great to have a less supernatural barbarian option that might get played. The Wild Fury is an excellent reconstruction of the Totem Warrior. However, players will need to pay attention to notice what abilities shifted to what animals (you’re going to be looking for Toad). I also like that the higher-level abilities have a different set of animals to alleviate some of the confusion from the 2014 Totem Warrior.

There is a simple logic to swapping out Cutting Words as a core Bard ability and putting Jack of All Trades in the Lore Bard. Adding ritual-based abilities also reaffirms the Lore Bard as the one who learns about magic on top of everything else. The Victory Bard is similar in theme to the Valor Bard, but it has more “leader” type abilities, allowing other party members to move and even letting everyone make their save versus an area attack if you do.

The Shifter Druid is a nice update to the Circle of the Moon, without the confusing Moon connection to a subclass about shapeshifting. The Leaf subclass is an interesting addition that says, “If we have an animal-focused subclass, why not a plant-based one?” They can spend their Wild Shape to generate a moving grove surrounding them.

The Spell Blade is a nice update to the Eldritch Knight with a few tweaks. I wish they had gone one step further and removed the school restrictions from the start. The Weapon Master is the Battle Master if none of your options affected other people, and there are no dice involved, just uses of their stunts. My main problem with this one is that it needs more stunts.

I love the Flickering Dark subclass for the Monk. You tap into your inner reserves to generate darkness around you that can either boost you or hinder an opponent near you. It’s thematically a replacement for the Way of Shadow, but it has much different mechanics. The updated Quivering Palm has twists and turns that work against each other. It still can last days before you trigger it, but it goes away when you take a long rest, which is a balancing point for being able to activate it on more than one opponent.

The Ranger subclasses make changes to the Hunter and the . . . Ranger with a pet that feels like net positives. The Hunter removes some choices and focuses, makes defenses more straightforward, and gives the Ranger the ability to shortcut to a targeted creature. The Pack Master lets your pet get the benefits of your Mystic Mark, and you can sacrifice them to save you if you take an attack that would take you to 0 (how dare you).

The Enforcer has a lot of the Assassin in it, but you aren’t sneaking around to kill people; you’re the person called in to hurt people. Their Brawler ability gives them the same ability as the Swashbuckler subclass, granting sneak attack if you pair off with people to beat down. Kill Shot has a feature that implies something we’ll touch on in a bit, but half of the feature works fine. Thief has some useful changes, but it’s hard for me to get excited about them.

I like Chaos much better than the Wild Magic Sorcerer, but you need to roll too often to check for Chaos manifestations. I appreciate that there are features that give you something for triggering a Chaos surge, so you have a reason to want to do it willingly. The Draconic Sorcerer doesn’t worry about playing with fear as much, other than imposing disadvantage to save versus the frightened condition. It has more elemental damage tricks, eventually giving your opponents vulnerability to your elemental type.

The Fiend Warlock has some positive tweaks addressing common problems with the subclass. The Reaper Warlock gets an ability that lets them attack in addition to firing off eldritch blasts, and eventually, you can reap souls to give you an armor class boost and area melee attacks as a capstone.

The Battle Mage is a merging of Evocation and War Wizard, giving the wizard a bonus to AC when casting spells, keeping from blowing up your allies, and doing damage to opponents when the spell is typically a save or no damage spell. I wish the Cantrip Adept had almost any other theme. “I’m really good at cantrips” doesn’t feel like an exciting draw. Converting one action spells to a bonus action is great, but everything else is about cantrips, and adding more damage to cantrips.

I didn’t have much to say about the Cleric or the Paladin subclasses. Overall, these are both interesting subclasses that update some known issues for many, if not all, of the classes. My other minor quibble about subclasses is that, for some reason, subclasses don’t have “titles” anymore. It’s not the Circle of the Leaf; it’s a Leaf druid. Some wording in the classes makes it seem like there may have been names for the subclasses, but that didn’t translate all the way through. 

What About That New Class?

The Mechanist is interesting for several reasons. It’s designed to be more of a front-line combatant than the most comparable class in D&D, the Artificer. In some ways, it’s designed to be the opposite of the Artificer. The Artificer can be a front-line fighter with the proper subclass, but the Mechanist is built that way from the start. The Artificer is a spellcaster, but the Mechanist is only a spellcasting class if you take the subclass that grants it spells. 

Thematically, I like that this class is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Can I play one of those legendary dwarven smiths or elven swordmakers? That makes the name Mechanist an interesting choice for them since it’s easy to picture them as supernaturally gifted crafts-folk. Beyond the name, the one thing that throws me a little is that the Mechanist’s Shard of Creation is flavored as a glowing glob of plasma that can be shaped into various items. I would have almost rather it had been a little more open to interpretation, as a toolkit, a lump of clay, maybe even a runestone housing lots of the Mechanist’s previous works to be retrieved.

Lineage and Heritage

Beyond loving the concept, I don’t have much to say about the specifics. In general, Heritages are a little broader than I would like, but I understand this is a core rulebook, and you have to go broad, while a setting book can go more specific. I like the Lineages, with a few notes. Beastkin, Sydereans, and Smallfolk are all “multipurpose” Lineages. Beastkin can be anything from Ravenfolk to Minotaurs, Sydereans can be Aasimar-like or Tiefling-like, and Smallfolk rolls halflings and gnomes into the same package. This goes back to the broader appeal a core book needs because, with fewer lineages, a player can emulate more character concepts. But I like these “subcategories” to have more distinct personalities. Given that Kobold Press has released (as of this writing) two smaller PDFs with more specialized Lineages like Bearfolk and Ratfolk, it shows that they will follow up with more specific options.

Backgrounds and Talents

Backgrounds only have about a paragraph or so of text but have supporting narratives attached to them. For example, each Background has a Reason for Adventuring that shows examples of why someone with that background would start to delve into dungeons or hire themselves out as a sellsword. There are also three different talents attached to each background, allowing it to be used for multiple character concepts, such as a fighter and a wizard, both of which have a soldier background. 

From the standpoint of starting from scratch while keeping the game familiar, I like Talents being organized into groups that aren’t open to everyone and standardizing them so that there aren’t some that grant ability bonuses and others that don’t. It feels like a more controlled way of making “feats” more familiar to the game’s core experience.

Equipment and Magic Items

Most of this section isn’t radically different than what you might expect from the 2014 rules, but there are a few tweaks here and there, some of which are more important than others. For example, Weapon Options were added to weapons. Those options don’t trigger every time the weapon is used, but various classes can use them with some of their abilities, and you can always use them instead of doing damage with the weapon. I like that making those options trigger less often they feel more like a tactical choice that will make a player choose what they want to use. The Weapon Options are Bash, Disarm, Hamstring, Pinning Shot, Pull, Ricochet, and Trip.

Armor entries have a “natural materials tag,” which shows that armor of that type isn’t affected by something like a Rust Monster or Heat Metal. That tag got me all excited that they wouldn’t remove the Druid’s restriction on metal armor, but alas, it has been removed. 

Giving certain materials specific properties is something I like, but I’m not thrilled with how it’s executed in the examples in the book. Silver gives you a smaller die to roll when you attack a creature with the Shapeshifter tag with a silvered weapon, and Adamantine weapons do the same to constructs and objects. We’ll look at this when we get to the Monster Vault, but the exception to damage reduction has been taken out of these entries and is left to the material quality. But one problem with this is, as written, a silver weapon doesn’t bypass a lycanthrope’s damage reduction; it does its regular damage, plus the extra die, still halved for the damage reduction. It feels wrong if that’s the intended way for this to work.

If you like vehicles with a stat block, they’re still in this book. 

One of this section’s best parts is in the tool entries. Each of the tool kits that characters can have proficiency with has the following entries:

• Associated Abilities
• Components
• Special Uses
• Example Tasks

I like the additional guidance for these toolkits and the reasons why you may want to use them.

Magic items now have prices associated with them, which aren’t restricted to rarity. Other factors can shift the prices up or down. The book clarifies that magic items aren’t commonly available, but occasionally, you may want to make them available, and the prices help facilitate what happens next.

A new level of rarity has been added to the book, fabled items. Fabled items gain more abilities based on the character’s level attuned to the item to grow with the characters. These don’t have prices because they are meant to be exceptional story-based items. I like all this, except we only get four in the Player’s Guide. I would have loved an example item that would be worthwhile for each character class in the book.

Playing the Game

The core rules haven’t been updated much here. Some terminology changes, like shifting Blindsight to Keensense, are made. The biggest change is the addition of Luck.

Luck is a new currency players gain once per turn when they fail an attack roll, a saving throw, or whenever something significant happens and the GM wants to award it. You can spend Luck 1 for 1 to increase the result of a die roll and three Luck to reroll. You can only have up to 5 luck.

Seeing this in action in a few games, I like this. I like it better than Inspiration (Heroic Inspiration), which it replaces. The biggest complaint is that in combat and action scenes, Luck takes care of itself, but if you go a long time between those kinds of dangers, your GM still needs to remember to find reasons to hand it out. 

Encounter Gameplay

While this is a Player’s Guide, this is essentially the GM’s section of the Player’s Guide, giving examples of how adventures and campaigns unroll and adding some rules like Hazards. It also includes downtime activities and creates some new currencies that surround them.

Carousing can be used to find contacts and generate favors, and research can be used to generate clues. There are examples of what kind of favors can be called in from different contacts, and clues can be used to automatically succeed on an Intelligence check to recall information.

The training downtime allows characters to learn proficiency with weapons, armor, or talents, in addition to languages and tools. It still takes forever to learn something, but some of those might be more tempting for a player to attempt.

Spellcasting

The most significant changes to spellcasting involve splitting spells into four sources, Arcane, Divine, Primordial, and Wyrd, and separating Rituals from other spells. There are no class spells, only sources of power, which certain classes use for their spells. 

Arcane magic is drawn from ambient magical energies, Divine magic is drawn from the gods and powers of creation, Primordial magic comes from the natural world, and the Wyrd power source pulls from places beyond the standard planes of existence. I have the most problem with Wyrd because it mainly exists for Warlocks and shifts some of the Warlock class’ story. Warlocks now are people who learn to cast spells that tap into the Wyrd power source, who need a patron to keep those energies from warping and twisting them. That feels like it detracts from the feeling of a Warlock being someone willing to bargain for unearned power, and it also means that if you introduce the full range of patrons that have appeared in D&D before, you’ll have genies and angels granting Wyrd power because that’s what the Warlock uses.

I like the split between Ritual spells and other spells, and letting classes track known Ritual separately. I like the feel of Rituals being a separate, long term style of magic, which fits a lot of fictional narratives. The downside is that there aren’t enough Rituals to make that Ritual spell list feel robust. There are a few new rituals to fill out some of the power sources, and I know we’re never going to have as many Rituals as we have standard spells, but on the ground, as a brand new rule, it feels like a great idea that could use more support. 

With four power sources, it will be tricky to determine what kind of spells should go on what list and how to keep all of them feeling distinct. While this can be tricky with Arcane, Divine, and Primordial, it gets even trickier with Wyrd. I can see Primordial as having some overlap as a little bit of Arcane and a little bit of Divine, but Wyrd feels like Arcane, and maybe some stuff that lets you reach out to entities you shouldn’t. I almost feel we need distinct Wyrd spells that do what other spells do, with their own quirks, rather than matching existing spells.

One change to spells illustrates what I mean in the above example. The Arcane power source has Create Familiar, a spell where you’re pulling together magical forces to create a unique creature bound to you. But the Wyrd power source still has Find Familiar because they are calling some entity to come and work for them.

Most of the spells don’t change much in this source from the 5e SRD, but there are a few new ones from other Kobold Press sources, like Gear Barrage. There are also some interesting reframings in some spells, like changing Fire Shield to Elemental Shield and adding additional damage types. While this shouldn’t throw people off too much, it does mean that some spells that could have used some tweaks or clarification, like Tiny Hut or Heroes Feast, don’t get any changes. Goodberry does get a slight change in that it can only sustain people every other day, meaning you can’t infinitely feed a small group of people with spellcasting. As with the Druid’s Wild Shape ability, creatures with the Animal tag may now be subject to some spells used only to affect the Beast type. This is basically the “fix” for using spells that affect animals and also affect hybrids like hippogryphs or owlbears.

Appendix

The appendix has a variety of information, including the gods of the Labyrinth, Kobold Press’s new “meta-setting” for the game, which holds every other campaign world you can think of. The gods included cover Dreams, War, Deception, Crafting, the Moon, and the Sun, and leave me wanting a little more in terms of covering standard pantheon roles.

There are also lists of Egyptian, Greek, and Norse gods. These gods are listed with Domains that go beyond the three presented in this book, with a disclaimer that future products will have more. That makes me wonder if Kobold Press will do books like Xanathar’s or Tasha’s for this line or like their own Tome of Heroes. Without a “core” setting-neutral book providing these options, they may not get as many people invested in setting up books and adventures to get more options.

Some stat blocks for different creatures may come up, either through purchase or class abilities. There are some changes to the stat block, which I’m not going to go into here because I’m going to dive into the Monster Vault all on its own. 

It’s Not in the Book, But . . . 

When looking for clarification on the Enforcer’s capstone ability, I wanted to see if there was any explanation. On the Kobold Press Discord, it appears that the Rogue’s Sneak Attack was meant to trigger only once per turn on their turn, which would align with some of the earlier playtest documents for the 2024 D&D rules. The indication was that it would be addressed in an errata. I hope they don’t do this. I don’t think the Rogue is overpowered with this ability, and it actually feels like a Sneak Attack to be able to get that damage when they can make attacks on other turns. It also makes the Rogue a little stickier, and dangerous to retreat from without using a full Withdrawal action. I don’t think the Rogue needs to be nerfed in this way.

Valiant Tales

 Many of the rules in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide do what it says on the tin, staying closer to the pre-2024 iteration of D&D, with some tweaks here and there to make things work better and to curtail noted problems 

Many of the rules in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide do what it says on the tin, staying closer to the pre-2024 iteration of D&D, with some tweaks here and there to make things work better and to curtail noted problems. Lineage and Heritage are a great change. Luck is an excellent replacement for Inspiration, and I like creating currencies for Downtime activities that can be used while adventuring. It’s appealing to give secondary uses and traits to weapons, and building ways for them to work that don’t cause them to be triggered and adjudicated constantly is a plus. I love the descriptions and examples of the tools. Magic item pricing that isn’t overly broad is greatly appreciated. I like the logic behind splitting Rituals out from other spells. 

Lost in the Labyrinth

There may be more changes to expected gameplay by grouping sources of magic than is immediately apparent, and the Bard, especially, feels like a very similar frame that will have a different role in the party. I hope the change talked about for the Rogue doesn’t get made in future printings. I think their Sneak Attack is fine, and once it’s in print, it will take a lot of people by (unpleasant) surprise. I don’t know how I feel about the Warlock and just gaining a spellcasting progression, and I don’t like how the power sources change the “story” of the class. I didn’t want drastically reimagined spells, but a few more problem children getting some fixes would have been appreciated. Rituals are a good idea that feels a little thin. 

Qualified Recommendation–A product with lots of positive aspects, but buyers may want to understand the context of the product and what it contains before moving it ahead of other purchases.

If you want a version of the 5e SRD rules that just cleans up the 2014 rules and addresses some issues with the system, and the 2024 D&D rules don’t do exactly what you want them to do, this system will get you most of the way there. I would say using some of the classes with their ToV changes but with their original class spell list is an upgrade in many cases. The Ranger exemplifies this. However, if you do that, you cannot use your 2014 subclasses without modifications, which will be a sticking point for many people. Its strange that more of Kobold Press’ library of subclasses will work better with 2024 D&D than with Tales of the Valiant.

Cutting off full compatibility with the 2014 SRD material means that this line will need to provide a lot of variety quickly to feel as robust as the other option. Some of the most needed content will be subclasses and rituals. I’m still waiting to get a feel for how changing spell lists and significant changes like the Warlock’s redesign will affect expectations. But there is enough in here that isn’t an open question, and I appreciate everything Kobold Press has done here.