Arcana Unearthed would it unbalance D&D

[warlord]

I really wanna buy Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed but I don't know if I plop it down into a standard D&D game will it become unbalanced? Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[Crothian]

I've mixed the two with pretty good results. THe Spell casters of AU are a bit weaker then th e standard ones but at higher levels are still better then the non casters. THe non casters I actually find more interesting and may be more powerful then their standard class equivlents. There are some things like spells and magic that work differently.

 

[Turanil]

Someone on these forums once said it mixed perfectly well, as long as a characters uses either full rules from one book and don't mix with the other. I would add to restrict some classes to certain races, not make everything available to everybody. For example Magister only for elves, Warmain only for dwarves and humans, paladins only for humans, but champions for all races, etc.

 

[Berandor]

I mix them at least with NPCs, but I agree that you should have each character only use either AU or standard D&D rules, not both.

 

[Mallus]

I'm experimenting with a pretty free mixture of both right now. Mainly because I like so many of the AU design decisions.

So I've got a samurai/monk who'll take Unfettered next level, who just took the AU feat version of Evasion.

And a homemade Alchemist who uses the AU magic system with selected 3.5 D&D spells.

So far its fine, but its a work in progress. The players are cool about checking everything with me as the level...

 

[Cam Banks]

My wife plays an akashic in my Dragonlance campaign, with good results. That's about all I've done so far, though. The more I read the book, the more I'm keen to run a campaign using just the AU rules. But then, I get that feeling about a lot of other stuff, too, so that should be read as a statement of interest rather than a statement of intent!

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Wombat]

It's very easy to add the non-spellcasting classes from AU to a standard D20/D&D game.

Adding in the spellcasting classes requires a bit more work; the best way I have seen to run this situation is to have the AU spellcasters to use the AU spells and rules, while the D&D spellcasters use the D&D spells and rules -- two different approaches to magic working parallel in a world (which is kinda fun!).

The classes are very close in power. I know some people balk over the differences in the XP charts. The easy way to solve that is to have all the classes (AU & D&D) use the standard XP chart -- that will not cause any hiccups.

 

[Monte At Home]

Although I'm obviously a biased source, I'm currently running a mixed game and have had little problem. Like others have said, the AU casters use AU spells and magic rules and the D&D wizard uses those spells and rules, but that just adds more flavor to the game (different approaches to magic). I went ahead and gave all the players the AU starting ceremonial feat as well, and that didn't cause any problems. I use the AU division for exotic weapons, and the AU version of skills (Sneak rather than Hide and Move Silently).

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I am currently playing a magister in a party full of core D&D characters. My PC has spells from AU and the Complete Book of Eldritch Might only. There have been no problems and some quite good roleplaying moments with the party's sorceror.

In my Lands of Intrigue game, one of the PCs is an Unfettered/Rogue. No problems there either.

Hope this helps


Richard

 

[warlord]

Thanks for the help guys it seems like I could easily mix the two since the magic system is the only problem and I already have a homebrew spell piont system in use so I geuss I'll buy it.