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lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
Ugh.
Okay, so here's the thing. Unearthed Arcana, to the extent you viewed it as a selection of Dragon Magazine articles, was ... fine. Kind of like the old "Best of Dragon Magazine" anthologies.* (Hey, look, there's the Anti-Paladin and Samurai!). Pick and choose an idea, change it up a little as needed, and go to town. Most importantly, don't try more than one thing at a time.
But viewed as an expansion or as rules supplement ... oh no.
The percentile abilities? But for cavaliers (and paladins) only? Because, reasons?
The increase in massively powerful classes, but gatekeeping them even more by making them really hard to get into by making the gatekeeping be really high ability scores? (Which makes as much sense as, "In order to be eligible for the million dollar prize, you must have a million dollar already.)
Oh, but wait, the continuation of another terrible idea for gatekeeping. I know, just like we made sure no one would play a Paladin with the whole, "Can't adventure unless in an good party thing (HA!), we will make sure no one will play a Barbarian with an inane restriction on magic that no one will follow."
Oh, but then realizing that this would just make everyone cheat, so helpfully including the infamous Method V? (I didn't cheat, I swear, I just used Method V!).
Or how about taking the racial limits and completely bollixing them (Hey guys, I'm a drow cavalier, so ... yeah, no limits for me! Because, you know, it's not like drow, or cavalier, is overpowered.) Don't get me wrong- racial level limits were always questionable, but at least there was an inkling of a reason behind them; now, it's just, whatever man.
Seeing as how the original prestige class, the bard, worked so well (IT DIDN'T), why not have another one (Thief Acrobat) that sucks even harder? It's almost comical- hey, let's add a bunch of super heroes, like Barbarian and Cavalier with all sorts of crazy abilities that make no sense compared to the regular game, and then throw in a woeful class that makes no sense and no one will want to play, because WHEN WILL YOU TIGHTROPE WALK?
....comeliness......
Also, the binding. Seriously ... the worst binding of any book ever made for D&D, ever, any edition. They should have just released it in loose leaf form. Then I could burn it more easily.
It was a grab-bag of half-baked ideas (and half-baked is putting it nicely). Yes, some of it continued on in later editions (cantrips, for example, and drow ... although you can guess my opinion on that ). But for the most part, this was a terrible, terrible supplement, and 1e (and later editions) would have been so much better served by a coherent expansion.
Heck, since we are doing alternate histories, that would be the one change I would make.**
I wish I could go back in time and remove the first UA from D&D history, and see what happens afterwards.
IMO.
*Mostly because, um, it was. With no playtesting.
**Okay, second. And no, no brownie points for guessing the first.
What if the actual 5ed have been release in place of the 4ed?
4ed produce a clash, but was it necessary to produce the 5ed?
What if the actual 5ed have been release in place of the 4ed?
4ed produce a clash, but was it necessary to produce the 5ed?
We used to joke that BECMI was EGG's Bachelor's Degree, AD&D was his Master's, and DJ was his Doctorate in game design (i.e. in levels of complexity that is).
Such an edition would not have caused an edition war
HA HA
HA HA HA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I had players who liked the Thief-Acrobat because they weren't that excited by picking pockets or doing locks and traps (thief stuff) but liked the second-story elements of the T-A. Obviously not an overpowered class, but jumping from building to building is about as cool, or maybe even cooler, than disarming poison needle traps!Seeing as how the original prestige class, the bard, worked so well (IT DIDN'T), why not have another one (Thief Acrobat) that sucks even harder? It's almost comical- hey, let's add a bunch of super heroes, like Barbarian and Cavalier with all sorts of crazy abilities that make no sense compared to the regular game, and then throw in a woeful class that makes no sense and no one will want to play, because WHEN WILL YOU TIGHTROPE WALK?
This is true.Also, the binding. Seriously ... the worst binding of any book ever made for D&D, ever, any edition.