3 Years of Unearthed Arcana

[RFisher]

I wonder if taking a page from the abacus could get around that problem.

Yeah. I was thinking about something along those lines. But does it then become just as difficult for the people who had trouble with tracking non-lethal damage in the first place?

 

[blargney the second]

Heh yeah.. it does sort of solve one problem by adding another.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I have to admit that I didn't find a single thing in UA that I wanted to use, which was rather disappointing

Me neither. I have an open policy at my table to allow any WotC hardcover into the campaign. This policy was originally put in place to accommodate some beta testing concerns we had some time ago. We were using the campaign to assist in working out those issues for us.

There was one exception to this blanket rule. After reading through Unearthed Arcana, I decided that I disliked it so much I would just ban the thing in its entirety from my game.

To paraphrase the old saying: I don't have to eat excrement to know I don't like it.

There were a few rules in there I might have allowed - but the crap so far outweighed the good, for clarity and ease of use, it was easier just to ban it outright.

 

[blargney the second]

Steel_Wind, you do realize that the material in UA is meant to apply to an entire campaign across the board, right? It's a collection of optional house rules that you can use to achieve different effects in your D&D game, rather than a pile of rules that players can pick and choose from at will.

If you use house rules in your games, it's no different than using UA.
-blarg

 

[Steel_Wind]

Steel_Wind, you do realize that the material in UA is meant to apply to an entire campaign across the board, right? It's a collection of optional house rules that you can use to achieve different effects in your D&D game, rather than a pile of rules that players can pick and choose from at will.

If you use house rules in your games, it's no different than using UA.
-blarg

Yes, I know.

The idea in my current campaign, however, is to run it totally RAW. It's something I have not done in at least 27 years (and probably, tbh, closer to 30 - which is to say, never). So I have not been using any house rules at all.

I'm not suggesting that this approach is not odd. On the contrary, it was very strange when we started with the idea. It has actually worked out much better than we ever thought it would.

In any event, UA just does not fit with the campaign concept we've been trying to play with. In order to make it clear for everyone, banning the book outright was the best approach.

That was also an easy choice to make - seeing as I really dislike the vast majority of the rule options in UA.

 

[Mark CMG]

Yes, I know.

The idea in my current campaign, however, is to run it totally RAW. It's something I have not done in at least 27 years (and probably, tbh, closer to 30 - which is to say, never). So I have not been using any house rules at all.

I'm not suggesting that this approach is not odd. On the contrary, it was very strange when we started with the idea. It has actually worked out much better than we ever thought it would.

In any event, UA just does not fit with the campaign concept we've been trying to play with. In order to make it clear for everyone, banning the book outright was the best approach.

That was also an easy choice to make - seeing as I really dislike the vast majority of the rule options in UA.

I think some of the parts of UA add-on to the Core rules while others offer alternatives. I think the former lend themselves to continuing to play by the RAW while the latter, by their very nature, require a departure.