Arcana Unearthed: Pro's and Con's

[Iron_Chef]

Just got my Arcana Unearthed in the mail today and must say I'm terribly unimpressed by the mediocre production values.

CON'S
1. Cover art is uninspired and fails to excite any emotion except "what were they thinking? it looks like GURPS!"

2. Interior art is poor to mediocre at best; the item, weapon and armor illo's are particularly bad rip-offs of the ones in the PHB.

3. Layout is poor. No alternating shaded bars separate listings in tables, making tables hard to read. The book is so unappealing that it becomes a chore just to crack open and read. I get bored just looking at it, and only one font was used, making it harder to find any information. The interior was all black and white, and color would have helped immensely. The paper stock was nice, but not as nice as the WoTC books. If this were just another low-rent pdf, I wouldn't complain, but this is a $30 hardcover from a major RPG publisher. I expect top-notch production values!

4. Monte's ideas for his Diamond Throne world are hackneyed and cliche. Dragon Men? Lion men? Dog men? Faeries? Giants? Hardly original. In fact, I absolutely HATED practically every idea he had for his DT campaign setting. Really amateur stuff anyone could have dreamt up after watching an episode of HE-MAN or THUNDERCATS. Really, really bad, as in the only reason it would ever see the light of day is because of Monte's name recognition bad. YMMV, IMO, and all the standard disclaimers apply. But I think it stinks. Did I mention it was bad? LOL. This has nothing to do wth Monte's ability as a game rules designer, but on his ability (or rather lack thereof) to create a FRESH and EXCITING setting.

5. Too much reprinting of material from the PHB, supposedly so the book could be self-contained, but it just feels like cheap filler to pad out the page count, and thus keep the price high.

PRO'S
On the positive side, there are:

1. Some cool new feats

2. Some cool new spells and spell templates

3. Some cool new classes and the racial class concept (borrowed from Savage Species)

4. Some nice revisions of existing spells (such as raise dead).

5. No restrictive, artificial alignment system!

6. It implements the alternate magic item creation rules from GR's Plot & Poison. You know, the rules that actually make sense, LOL.

As to the variant magic system, I haven't really poured over it with a fine tooth comb yet. Some ideas I like, but I wonder how much trouble it will be to implement.

I know I will not be buying anything else in this series as a result of my disappointment in AU, and will never order anything sight unseen on good faith from Monte again. The book is simply too poorly layed out and illustrated to make for a good read, let alone a quick reference tool. It elicits yawns just from flipping through it; it is a painfully boring book to try and sit down and read.

FINAL ANALYSIS
All in all, AU was overhyped and underwhelming for its price and format; it felt (and looked) like a glorified pdf, not a major hardcover release. It had some good ideas, but ultimately the poor presentation killed it.

 

[Stormrunner]

While I did find AU not quite up to the hype, I wasn't as unimpressed as you were, Iron_Chef.
Production values:
Art varies. The pieces by MacBin and Wood were quite good, but one of the others (David Hendee, though no sig appears on the pics) seems to feel that scratchy lines and big globs of solid black make up for lack of detail and proper proportion. Unfortunately Hendee seems to have been popular with the designers, or at least more prolific than the others.
Readability is fair to poor. While legible, the font is just a bit too small - despite the lined background, the text of the PH is more readable than that of AU. And while I don't consider the lack of alternating "greenbar" in the tables a major failing, it would have been nice.
And yes, the cover looks like GURPS Third Edition, first printing. I don't consider this a major flaw, though. I like GURPS.

Races: Could have done with more background/culture/description. The litorians (lion-men) have some potential, it was nice to see a Thomas Covenant-style race of civilized giants for once, and the fey races showed at least some creativity. On the other hand, the sibeccai (dog-men) seemed both bland and stereotypical, and neither the draconian mojh nor the elf-like verrik excited me. All, however, were little more than sketched in - presumably the flavor bits are being saved for The Diamond Throne, a marketing ploy that always annoys me.

Classes: Probably the most interesting part of the book, for me. In particular the unfettered, warmain, oathbound, and witch seemed particularly useful, but YMMV. I'd conside this the most original section.

Feats and skills: Note that AU is not fully 3.5 compatible as written. Also, Monte seems fond of "Sneak checks", an average of the character's Hide and Move Silently skills. I didn't think the benefit, if any, was worth the extra calculation. Some nice feats, a few which seem potentially overpowered (such as Modify Combat Style). The idea of "Ceremonial feats" is interesting, though game-wise the main effect is that PCs without a truename can't take them (but are more resistant to certain spells).

Spells: I really like the idea of most spells having three power levels, e.g. a nominally 2nd-level spell also has a weaker (1rst-level) and a stronger (3rd-level) version. Treating all three as a single spell rather than three seperate spells makes sense to me. OTOH, having all classes draw from one huge spell list results in a little less unique flavor for each class. And the school of a spell is given only in the desc, not in the short list, making life harder for specialists.

The concept of AU as an "alternate Player's Handbook" results in a LOT of stuff being duplicated from the PH. It probably would have been better to consider AU a "supplemental PH" (which I suspect is how 95% of buyers will use it - after all, how many people will buy the MM and DMG, but forego the PH and buy AU instead?) and use the space for additional crunchy bits.

Overall, while portions were disappointing, I felt it was an average-to-decent buy. It WASN'T the "ultimate be-all-and-end-all of Player's Handbooks" that some of the hype seemed to imply, and like ALL the hardcover d20 books I winced at rhe price, but I will definitely make use of substantial portions of the book.

 

[pogre]

A refreshing point of view, even if I disagree. I really appreciate it when someone states they do not like something and says why.

 

[Bagpuss]

I have to agree with Iron Chef for a change. The art work and layout in AU was total uninspiring. The equipment section was dire (and I don't mean it had additional spikey bits).

While I can understand that full colour is not an option for smaller print runs they should have perhaps included some colour plates, or made the layout a bit more interesting, that the plain two columns.

I didn't have as much a problem with the classes I like the faen and giants although I thought the furrys were a bit silly.

I did however like the classes and the feat and the magic system, and there is more new material in it than 3.5 PHB so overall its better value IMHO.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The concept of AU as an "alternate Player's Handbook" results in a LOT of stuff being duplicated from the PH. It probably would have been better to consider AU a "supplemental PH" (which I suspect is how 95% of buyers will use it - after all, how many people will buy the MM and DMG, but forego the PH and buy AU instead?) and use the space for additional crunchy bits.

I think this is one of those things that simply wasn't going to make everyone happy. There are lots of changes in AU. It isn't 3.5 but it isn't 3.0 either. Having everything in one book means that I don't have to carry AU and the PHB to a game. Adding in the "old" material is more of an editing/design consideration than a development one, so I don't think you would have seen 50 more pages of stuff.

But, yeah, I was also a little surprised by this. Overall, though I'm for it. While I'm an PRG junkie there are one or two people in my group who I'm pretty sure don't own a PHB (or at least they've never brought one to the game) so the reprinted stuff would be of use to them.

 

[Staffan]

If this were just another low-rent pdf, I wouldn't complain, but this is a $30 hardcover from a major RPG publisher. I expect top-notch production values!

A $30 hardcover is pretty cheap these days. WOTC can make the core books in full color and stuff for $30 due to economies of scale - most publishers can't.

Originally posted by Stormrunner
Also, Monte seems fond of "Sneak checks", an average of the character's Hide and Move Silently skills. I didn't think the benefit, if any, was worth the extra calculation.

Sneak is not the average of Hide and Move Silently. It's a new skill that replaces both those skills.

And the school of a spell is given only in the desc, not in the short list, making life harder for specialists.

Given that the AU spell list is meant for use with AU classes, I don't see why there should be any more need for a school-sorted list for AU than there is for clerics or druids.

 

[Mucknuggle]

3. Some cool new classes and the racial class concept (borrowed from Savage Species)

Monte actually came up with this idea many months before Savage Species was released (before they announced racial levels).

 

[TiQuinn]

I agree that the art and the layout leave quite a bit to be desired, but from a content perspective I got exactly what I was expecting and am looking forward to playing it soon. I definitely think the spell system, spell templates, feats, and classes far outweigh the negatives that you mention so I guess we just have different weightings on what counts in a game book.

 

[drnuncheon]

Hm. Gotta disagree with most of these points.

1) Cover is a welcome change from the creaky and overused "looks like a tome" motif.

2) Macbin and Sam Wood pieces are nice. I agree on the sketchy/blotchy guy though. I wouldn't mind if his stuff vanished in future releases. Not my style at all. Still, WOTC's had some stinkers in the past (*cough* ELH and the Lippazaner-riding paladin...Magic of Faerun and the bald bondage elf)

3) Layout is clean and easy to read. Paper and binding quality is equal or superior to other similarly priced hardbacks from non-WOTC companies.

4) Elves and dwarves and hobb, er, halflings are so original, why would we need any other races? </sarcasm> I liked the Covenant books, so seeing the wise, protecting Giants instead of lumbering brutes was nice. The mojh fascinate me - why would a human give up his humanity to become one? What kind of person would it take to do that? Also, consider that the races are in there precisely because they are not "all new" - they are archetypes of fantasy much like elves, dwarves, etc are, but they haven't been available for D&D players before now.

5) Much of the stuff that's reprinted from the PHB has changes in it (making it a nice reference for someone who wants to run combat with a less miniatures-heavy bent.)

J

 

[mmu1]

4) Elves and dwarves and hobb, er, halflings are so original, why would we need any other races? </sarcasm> I liked the Covenant books, so seeing the wise, protecting Giants instead of lumbering brutes was nice. The mojh fascinate me - why would a human give up his humanity to become one? What kind of person would it take to do that? Also, consider that the races are in there precisely because they are not "all new" - they are archetypes of fantasy much like elves, dwarves, etc are, but they haven't been available for D&D players before now.

Exactly... You can make fantasy races only so "interesting" before they get too strange to relate to - and I'd really like to know just what's being used as a point of comparison when the AU races are being called cliched.
Anyway, the strong point of the AU races is the way the various racial abilities and levels are implemented, letting you play characters of wildly varying sizes, with strong innate magical abilities, natural weapons, scent, flight, and so on.