Unearthed Arcana Has any one played a Unearthed Arcana subclass?

[CapnZapp]

See Poll.

My answer is "no because UA content isn't ready for my table", but I had to vote curry.



Lovely lemon curry.

 

[Waterbizkit]

My players haven't opted to try any UA material yet, but I'd allow it if they were so inclined. They put the stuff out there for us to look over and hopefully play-test and provide feedback, so why not?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I've not played them, but my players have.

Because I, as a DM, have no trouble getting my players to accept that something about their character may change if the material isn't hitting the mark, so there is literally no reason for me to shut down a player's desire to give something a try-out.

Plus, I want my feedback on the surveys to be as complete and accurate as it can be, which means actually seeing stuff in play is necessary.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Possibly, but I would have to be the exception, having come up in the 1e/2e era. For my part, it comes from the enormous amount of poorly-vetted options of 3e and 4e that were out there, and getting burned one too many times with broken combinations. Sure, I can probably counteract any overpowered character, but after a certain point I’d just be singling them out, and that’s not fun for anyone.

Back in the day, we did use material from Dragon magazine, but mostly just monsters and magic items. Unless it was something simple, I don't think the players wanted to have to always reference a certain issue every time they played.

I'm wondering what the mentality is behind this?

I read that there is a divide between the 1/2e era and 3/4e era DMs and players. This isn't a universal, but-

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DEFCON 1]

In my two Curse of Strahd campaigns I have one player playing a Mystic, one player playing a Shadow origin Sorcerer, and one player playing a Blood Hunter (the Matt Mercer-designed class, not a UA obviously.)

All of them have been having fun and I haven't seen any issues thus far.

 

[pukunui]

I've used a few bits and pieces for some of my NPCs, and I made a College of Swords bard as a pregen for a one-shot game, but none of my players have wanted to use any of the Unearthed Arcana stuff. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure many of them are even fully aware of the UA options.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think you're quite right - it very much has to do with the player-DM dynamic, and what everyone wants out of their game.

And yeah, escalating DM vs. player(s) antagonism is a sure way to torch a campaign and possibly the gaming group. When one side is seriously out to beat or compete with the other, fun is often the first casualty.

Huh.

I think a lot of it comes down to viewpoint. For example, if I was playing a character, and due to some quirk in the rules it became evident that my character was "broken," then I would discuss with the DM how to fix it ("nerf") the character- and I'd be okay with that. And I expect that when I DM, players using 3PP (UA, other materials) do the same.

I do not think that it is, or should be, the DMs job to "compensate" for broken characters by throwing stuff at them. IMO, that just compounds the problem, and becomes an escalating power war. But every table is different, I guess.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Undying light Warlock.

Two issues-

First, great concept as sketched out. But it really needs more ... fully developed thoughts. There are some on-line resources (which you can look up) that do that by changing out some of the spells, etc., but it's a great idea that needed a bit more work.

Second, you can't have both an Undying Light and an Undying Warlock. I mean, c'mon. There's a lot of words in the English language.

this.

I've seen the UA ranger, and a few others. Undying Warlock got cannibalized to build a necromancer hunter, and that worked out well.