D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

New free content from WotC - the latest 4-page Unearthed Arcana introduces six new races: astral elf, autognome, giff, hadozee, plasmoid, and thri-kreen.

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dnd.wizards.com

Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[overgeeked]

At like level 4 or 6 that might be good, but it's something literally all Druids can do better than you, because they can turn into a mouse, which can fit through a 1/2" hole or a 1/4" crack, and take all their gear,and they can do it from level 2 (iirc).

I don’t care.

By 14 you're going to have an awful lot of alternatives for getting one PC through something like that. So unless you have to keep going through tiny holes with one PC, fighting, then going through another one and so on, it's an ability outperformed by very low-level stuff.

The game isn’t only about “performance”.

Don't get me wrong, love everything about Plasmoids except their name, this doesn't seem particularly great.

I happen to like it. Thanks for crapping on the concept.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don’t care.

The game isn’t only about “performance”.

I happen to like it. Thanks for crapping on the concept.

So pointing out that a specific race-class-subclass at level 14 combo is literally worse at that thing than a general class at level 2 is "crapping on it" now? Seriously?

 

[overgeeked]

So pointing out that a specific race-class-subclass at level 14 combo is literally worse at that thing than a general class at level 2 is "crapping on it" now? Seriously?

Not everyone is a power gamer. Some of us play for the fun concepts. Pointing out that some other option gives better mechanical return isn’t always welcome.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A lot of people have been wondering if it would be a rewrite of Star Frontiers... and after listening to a video on it, I can't say that it sounds like a bad idea. Quite a bit of fun 80's alien action.

Star Frontiers could be cool but it has some pretty specific races associated with it, none of them in this UA. So that would be a strange choice I think.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not everyone is a power gamer. Some of us play for the fun concepts. Pointing out that some other option gives better mechanical return isn’t always welcome.

Sure and normally I wouldn't bother, because most of that stuff is minimal gain, but difference between specific race-class-subclass at level 14 and general class at level 2 seemed dramatic enough to be worth mentioning. As someone who has DMed for 32 years at this point I've seen a fair few times where a player had an idea like that and was deeply disappointed when, in-game it turned out that this thing they worked hard for was weak compared to something another PC could casually do, sometimes before their PC even had access to it. My experience is that mentioning that possibility in chargen goes one of two ways, either it inoculates them against disappointment or they redesign because they realise it won't be the big deal they hoped. YMMV.

 

[overgeeked]

Sure and normally I wouldn't bother, because most of that stuff is minimal gain, but...

No thank you. Not everyone is a power gamer. Some of us play for the fun concepts. Pointing out that some other option gives better mechanical return isn’t always welcome.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No thank you. Not everyone is a power gamer. Some of us play for the fun concepts. Pointing out that some other option gives better mechanical return isn’t always welcome.

Be nice if you read my post before responding next time lol.

 

[Mort]

No thank you. Not everyone is a power gamer. Some of us play for the fun concepts. Pointing out that some other option gives better mechanical return isn’t always welcome.

I care A LOT about balance within the party. As such, it's good to know when 2 ways to approach the same thing are widely separated in effectiveness/power level. If two people in the group pick supposedly similar concepts but one way is significantly superior, the person with the mechanically inferior build is likely to feel overshadowed by virtue of that alone.

At the very least, the person deserves to know it's mechanically inferior going in so there's no surprise and/or the mechanical inferiority can be compensated/allowed for in the fiction (or not if the player doesn't want it to be - but eyes should be open).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I care A LOT about balance within the party. As such, it's good to know when 2 ways to approach the same thing are widely separated in effectiveness/power level. If two people in the group pick supposedly similar concepts but one way is significantly superior, the person with the mechanically inferior build is likely to feel overshadowed by virtue of that alone.

At the very least, the person deserves to know it's mechanically inferior going in so there's no surprise and/or the mechanical inferiority can be compensated/allowed for in the fiction (or not if the player doesn't want it to be - but eyes should be open).

Yup. If they know they will either decide to not care or will make changes. I've seen it many times. But when you're partway through a campaign and it's become obvious that this cool thing your PC can do is just an inferior version of a thing another PC can do and doesn't really "stack" with it (in the broadest possible sense), it can be a lot more disappointing.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Think there's any chance of getting better Thri-kreen art? The "guy in a bug suit" version of recent vogue makes me sad.