1E Unearthed Arcana: Yea or Nay?

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The new ability roll system is horrid, basically "this class gets an 18 in strength, even if you have to roll 11d6 to get it".

YMMV

It was 9d6 in your main stat, then decreasing a die down to 3d6 (using the Comliness stat as a seventh stat) and was supposed to be used for humans only. Back then there was little appeal in playing a human, so this optional stat method was given as incentive to play the most populous race (in most campaigns).

I voted Yea. We used every inch of that book. As DM I allowed use of everything and as a player I loved playing the Barbarian. I don't believe the classes were as unbalanced as people are saying. It took the Barb 6,001 XP to hit second level! Compare that to the Thief who I believe needed 1,251?

The variance from the standard power curve was not enough to cause a large enough imbalance IMO.

 

[Riley]

Yay!

When I was 14 or so, it was exactly what I wanted: oodles of powerful, broken goodness.

 

[Crothian]

Yes. I look back now and see the power issues but then it never bothered us or prevented people from still using PHB weaker classes.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Like so many others said: yesterday's yeah is today's nay!

I tried it once for a Temple of Elemental Evil game - which was thankfully short-lived. We really had a half-orc barbarian with a negative comeliness. Due to our house rule*, the player had to think of a single item for each point below 10. This character was ugly beyond means.

* The house rule had been created before the introduction of Comeliness to better picture what the Charisma actually meant. For a Charisma higher than 10 you had to give a reason for each point. For Charisma you could think of something representing your personality, your looks or whatever. For Comeliness you only had looks ...

 

[Obryn]

When I was a kid, it got more use than any other book on our D&D shelf, and I loved it.

Looking through it with an eye to running 1e soon... Well, most of it gets a blanket veto. Some of it - like actually allowing elven druids - is pretty good.

* The races are really, really broken. ("My gnome is going to summon an elemental!") Even for the more normal subraces, it's just a way to squeeze a few more levels or two out of your main class.

* Cavalier and Barbarian ... no. I kinda don't like the Thief-Acrobat, either, to be honest... While it's undeniably neat, a lot of their abilities are dependent on the crazy DMG unarmed combat, and some of their other abilities are things I think anyone should have a shot at. (It's similar to the complaint OD&D grognards have about the Thief class in general.)

* Spells are a mixed bag. Some, like chromatic orb, are insanely broken. I also hate Otiluke's Resilient Sphere with a burning passion. Others - like Evard's Black Tentacles - I kind of thought were a part of the game from the get-go. Still, I can control access to them pretty easily.

* Cantrips are neat, but I prefer my Cantrips house-rule.

* Thank goodness there's more Unarmed Combat systems.

* The magic items are fine - after all, I decide what goes where.

So really, I think I'll be using way under half the book, which qualifies as a Nay.

-O

 

[Mallus]

I say a hearty 'yea!', broken bits (and inexplicable digression into pole-arm nomenclature) and all. Since when has D&D ever been about balance? (oh wait, since 4e, and look how that's going over with the community...).

 

[amethal]

It also had some heavy errata, unusual back then when you never saw more than a single sheet of corrections included with later printings. I recall that Dragon published the errata such that you could cut it out and tape it over the relevant sections in the book, and my brother's copy was filled with those cutouts.

Wasn't that the one with the Quiver of Ehlonna, which enabled you to reach in and pull out whichever item you wanted without fumbling around for it?

The errata specified that you had to have put the object in there first; no spontaneous generation of +5 arrows of dragon slaying. I guess we really were young enough and foolish enough to need that kind of thing spelled out!

 

[Team-Preston]

I loved UA. I never had any binding issues at all (still have my UA from ages ago.)
Granted some bits were a bit wonky (already covered)...even though, I loved it.

 

[soulcatcher78]

Definitely worth picking things out of. Some of the ideas floated in UA were out of control but that's any book IMO

 

[T. Foster]

There's a lot of stuff in UA I like, but a few things that I very much dislike, so while I do tend to use somewhere between a third and a half of the book, if the choice came down to using all of it as-is or none of it, I'd definitely choose "none."