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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 1932910" data-attributes="member: 1465">There are several little systems around to give a character one disadvantage in exchange to one advantage. Usually these systems (not that I have seen myself more than 3-4 actually...) scare some DM because they can be abused: if you can take the disadvantage in something you are already bad and wouldn't have used it anyway, you're not really worse than you already were.However, the UA Flaws system - with some attention - does NOT carry that risk. If you read the existing Flaws in UA, you notice that most of them have these 2 properties:(1) they carry a penalty which is larger than the bonus to the same thing given by a core feat(2) the penalty applies to something the character cannot choose not to useThese together are the key IMHO to make the system very good. Things like saving throws, hit points, initiative, spot & listen checks, are something that you cannot really avoid to use when you need, therefore it is very hard not to be hurt by a -4 to Fortitude saves for example.But, as I said, it needs some attention: already in UA there are some of the Flaws which are much more easy to exploit. For example, flaws that give penalties to melee/ranged attacks or to one ability by choice, or a few skills (other than Spot & Listen), can mean simply nothing to a character who would not use them anyway. E.g. a Wizard who doesn't use touch spells can afford a -8 Strength or a -100 on melee attacks with no consequences.In conclusion, my opinion is that UA Flaws work well as long as you only allow those that give a penalty to a generic enough thing (which are indeed quite few), which means not even all the UA ones. That also means it's quite impossible to invent new ones.(by contrast, UA Traits are much more easy for min-maxing, but at least the bonuses given are very minor)This is the most common reason why several people shuns UA, that they are afraid not to use too much of it  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I understand, but I also use a very minority of each other book I have after all. UA has a lot of player's material, but for some reason the book carries an aura of "DM's use only" which makes people think the UA players' stuff is different from the stuff from the Complete books. This is something I understand less: why should the new races from Races of X books be more "legal" than the variant races in UA? Why should the new PrCl from Complete Y be more "acceptable" than the variant classes in UA? If you think about it, UA character material is much more balanced than the average stuff from player's book, simply because it is less far from core classes/races.Anyway, I'd recommend the book much more if you're a DM of course, if you intend to play D&D for a long time, and if you run/play multiple campaigns at the same time (or after each other), because the point of the book is basically to change a few things at a time to achieve a distinctive different feel and strategy to different campaigns.Or if you want to know more, you can check out my review  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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