Unearthed Arcana New Year Unearthed Arcana Brings Back Those Old 2E Kits

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MechaTarrasque

Hero

• Jan 4, 2016

• #1

The first Unearthed Arcana of the year is now up. By Mike Mearls, this instalment is entitled Kits of Old. "If you played AD&D second edition back in the 1990s, you probably remember kits—the character options first introduced in The Complete Fighter’s Handbook. This month, Unearthed Arcana converts a few of the more popular kits from that era to new class options for the bard and fighter—and wants to know what other classic kits you’d like to see converted to fifth edition." Included is the College of Swords, College of Satire (both for bards), and the Cavalier and the Scout (both for fighters).

Find it right here.

Mike Mearls describes the process thusly:

This month's Unearthed Arcana is up! The highly scientific process of picking which feats to convert took four steps.
Step 1: Walk over to our library of D&D books.
Step 2: Flip through the Complete books until I found a few kits I wanted to update.
Step 3: Design the damn things.
Step 4: Email them to an editor for the actual, hard work of making this stuff (in other words, make it coherent and useful).

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[Note --- if you're viewing this on the news page, there's a bug which means the first 20-ish comments are not showing. You can read them by heading here, though.]

 

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Sacrosanct

Legend

• Jan 4, 2016

• #3

I had a blade bard back in 2e, and it was one of my favorite PCs. Time to do a conversion....

 

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koga305

First Post

• Jan 4, 2016

• #4

Al2O3 said:

The bard colleges seem nice, but "Tumble" might have a bit too many benefits compared to Rogue Cunning Action.

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Yeah, the climbing part in particular is insane. Pretty close to the Monk ability to run up walls, but at level 3!

 

Sacrosanct

Legend

• Jan 4, 2016

• #5

koga305 said:

Yeah, the climbing part in particular is insane. Pretty close to the Monk ability to run up walls, but at level 3!

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Yeah, but you have to play a jester! There's a good chance your own party will kill you a few hours into the adventure just out of annoyance It's basically kender as a class.

 

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ryan92084

Explorer

• Jan 4, 2016

• #6

Sacrosanct said:

Yeah, but you have to play a jester! There's a good chance your own party will kill you a few hours into the adventure just out of annoyance It's basically kender as a class.

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I feel half the people i play with are already jesters.

 

TheLoneRanger1979

First Post

• Jan 4, 2016

• #7

I lke the scout myself too. If my DM allows it, i might convert my current battle master into one. I planned on MC-ing into a ranger anyways. Maybe it's a good idea to see if they release any more kits though.

 

Zaran

Adventurer

• Jan 4, 2016

• #8

So I don't get it. These aren't kits. They are subclasses. Am I wrong? I've always thought kits were premade modules of existing mechanics that new players can choose to simplify character creation. Whatever they are called it's nice to have them.

 

Ath-kethin

Elder Thing

• Jan 4, 2016

• #9

Zaran said:

So I don't get it. These aren't kits. They are subclasses. Am I wrong? I've always thought kits were premade modules of existing mechanics that new players can choose to simplify character creation. Whatever they are called it's nice to have them.

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Kits were like Pathfinder archetypes - they slid on over the existing character classes ans provided (generally minor) alterations to class abilities and function. Typically, they were more for flavor than anything else, though a few - such as the Bladesinger, which has already been converted in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - provided pretty massive power boosts.

Rather than introduce a new system or mechanic, the designers seem to be working on converting 2e kits to 5e subclasses. This makes sense enough, except in cases where the kit was essentially a complete rewrite of how a class functioned (such as the Sha'ir from Al-Qadim, and, really, most of the kits from the Complete Sha'ir's Handbook).

I'm not really sure how I'd go about converting ideas like the Sha'ir to 5e, honestly. It would almost require a completely new class.

 

Sacrosanct

Legend

• Jan 4, 2016

• #10

Zaran said:

So I don't get it. These aren't kits. They are subclasses. Am I wrong? I've always thought kits were premade modules of existing mechanics that new players can choose to simplify character creation. Whatever they are called it's nice to have them.

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Kits, when they came out in 2e, were specialized archetypes that fit under a main class theme, granting additional mechanical benefits that the class didn't normally grant. These are the exact same thing in practice--a specialized archetype that grants additional mechanical bonuses not covered by the main class. Kit or subclass, they are basically the same thing.

For example, the 2e blade bard kit gave you benefits to increase your AC or inflict damage on an attacker by your whirling blades skill. 5e version does similar things, just by using the superiority dice mechanic.