Which Unearthed Arcana variant rules do you use?

[The Baron]

Hi all. First time poster, long time reader.

I just picked up Unearthed Arcana and am blown away by the amount of cool stuff in it. What rules have you used that worked out well? Or, if you prefer, what rules have you used that fell flat?

I'm about to start a new campaign in a world without alignments (no devils, angels, alignment based abilities/spells). Pretty standard DandD besides that. Anything in particular that might come in handy?

Thanks!

 

[Davelozzi]

The only thing I've used it for so far is the dwarven paragon and variant barbarian (dragon totem). Both are used for the same character (one of my player's), who was recently rolled up but has not yet seen action.

I contemplated the players roll variant, but my players didn't want to change over.

If I was starting a new game, I might consider the spell points system, though we have a psionicist in the party already and it's kind of nice to have it working a little differently than magic does.

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

So far I'm using the armor as DR and Defense Bonus for characters in tandem. Been working pretty well so far. hmm...that's about it. I like a lot of it and it gave me some ideas, but nothing that else that I've used yet.

BTW, I'm hoping to use the Battle Sorcerer soon love that class.

 

[Perun]

I gave green light for the class variants, except for the Urban Ranger and the Wilderness Rogue (that's what standard Rogue and Ranger do, respectively). So far, there hasn't been much demand for them (only one player showed interest in the rage variant, bu he since decided to play a psion).

I'm not certain about other variants. I might go with the spellpoint system for the sorcerer, but I'm keeping fire-and-forget for wizards, definitely.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Depends on the campaign.

For a more "core D&D" campaign, I pretty much just use Reputation, Contacts, and the alternate-Alignment paladins (CG, LE, & CE). May use Traits & Flaws as well.

For a couple of other games, I use the Generic Classes from UA. One campaign's based in Lankhmar, so there's a lot more use of optional rules to capture the feel (as well as non-D&D/UA rules, like d20 Modern Alliegiances).

A campaign in development will mainly use the Generic Classes as well, along with alternative versions of common PC races (like dwarves & elves). Then again, there'll be more custom content/modifications in this setting than in the other 2.

As for the campaign idea, I'd really recommend using the Generic classes--it'll allow players to build their classes more toward the world you propose; also, there'd be less of a chance of a character being penalized for wanting to play a core class like Paladins (which have a fair number of AL-based/focused abilities).

 

[The Baron]

So far...

Thanks for the ideas!

I love the reputation and contact system, especially since I want the setting to be pretty political. I'm also thinking about taint, but I don't think I want such a concrete idea of "bad" or "evil" in the game.

I also really like the idea of bloodlines but am unsure how to incorporate them. It would be an incredible coincidence if all the characters have bloodlines, but if only one or two do, then wouldn't the other characters feel cheated?

A big thumbs up to all the class variants. Love the monk fighting styles and the variant specialty wizards. These little changes can add a lot of flavor to my campaign, which will hopefully have a good number of different nations/cultures.

Also, has anyone used the Gestalt option? I think there will only be 3 PCs for the summer, and it seemed like a pretty fun option. My only fear is that I will then have to fiddle with all the encounters to make things balanced.

Are there some other major goodies I'm overlooking?

 

[Pbartender]

I'm planning on using the Gestalt rules in a low/rare magic setting. The extra class features will help to make up for the reduction in magic items.

I'm also adding in the Spell Point system with the "Vitalizing" variant, and Complex Skill Checks. Since the world is low-magic, Incantations will probably make a few appearances.

 

[Fauxargent]

We're about to kick off a new campaign using the Spell Point magic system (when we've worked out how to keep the Sorcerer viable), weapon groups, Armour as DR, Reputation, Traits and maybe Action Points and Flaws.

We'll also probably use the Paragon racial levels if players want to take them .

 

[Li Shenron]

I am not using any yet, but I look forward to use at least the following before the end of the year:

RACES
Reducing Level Adjustment
Bloodlines
One or two environmental or elemental racial variants

CLASSES
Variant Character Classes (ALL, alongside the core PHB classes, with some tweaking to Domain Wizards)
Specialist Wizard Variants
Spontaneous Divine Casters
Class Feature Variants (actually more than the ones in UA, and some of these may be tweaked)
Prestigious Character Classes (coexistently with core Bard, Paladin and Ranger).

CHARACTERS
Character Traits
Spelltouched Feats (requirements increased to strongly tie to the PC's history)

MAGIC
Summon Monster variants


All of the above will be used for NPCs or will be given available by default to players as PC alternatives. Then it's up to each of the player to use it or not.

The ones below instead change the mechanics of the game, so each of them must be agreed by everyone, and will affect moslty everyone. Therefore, I will try them but maybe not to soon, depending on how the players feel about them:

CHARACTERS
Weapon Group feats

MAGIC
Magic Rating (tweaked)
Metamagic Component (tweaked)
Recharge Magic (campaign-based)
Incantations

I'll let you know how they work in the meantime, check my first (and only ) review on ENWorld of Unearthed Arcana.

 

[GamerMan12]

We are using the spell points system. This makes the Wizard much better than the Sorcerer, with the only advantage the Sorcerer has is slightly more spell points, but he has fewer spells and gets spells a level later. I think this is better than standard D&D, as the Sorcerer under those rules is just so much more flexible and powerful than a Wizard.

GM12