More Arcana Unearthed Info

[Monte At Home]

I put out a new installment of my design diary for Arcana Unearthed last Friday:

http://www.montecook.com/diary.html

I also posted info about most of the Malhavoc Press upcoming releases for 2003 and reflected on 2002:

http://www.montecook.com/lineos.html

And reviewed Atlas' Seven Strongholds (a great product):

http://www.montecook.com/review.html

 

[Neo]

A decent system for pricing magic items !!! oh you tease!!

 

[thomden]

psionics?

Hey! You promised to write something about psionics as well as magic in this one. Did I miss something?

 

[thundershot]

The only thing I'm concerned about is being able to ADD this book to our campaign, not replace what has already gone. Unless, of course, only the "new" classes spells work like that, while the Bard, Sorcerer, etc. still work the same.

Just a concern...


Chris

 

[JoeGKushner]

The only thing I'm worried about is how Monte is viewing D&D now as opposed to how it's going to be ala 3.5. Some of his points are very valid, there are broken feats, spells, etc..., but 3.5 is supposed to fix some of this isn't it?

 

[Monte At Home]

Re: psionics?

Hey! You promised to write something about psionics as well as magic in this one. Did I miss something?

Oops. You're right. Next week.

The only thing I'm concerned about is being able to ADD this book to our campaign, not replace what has already gone. Unless, of course, only the "new" classes spells work like that, while the Bard, Sorcerer, etc. still work the same.

You'll be able to use these classes alongside the PH bard, sorcerer, etc. The new classes will just have different spells (like a different spell list) and a slightly different way of determining how many/often/etc. they can cast. You'll also be able to easily make an AU spell usable for a D&D character or vice versa.

The only thing I'm worried about is how Monte is viewing D&D now as opposed to how it's going to be ala 3.5.

Well, first off, this isn't my version of a new edition of the game. AU isn't an "if I could do it all over" kind of thing. I'm changing all the pieces--3.5 is keeping all the same pieces. They may "fix" the bard class, but AU doesn't have a bard class. It has something new. Unless 3.5 drastically changes the core of the system, Arcana Unearthed should be just as compatible with 3.5 as it is with 3.0.

That said, I am "fixing" a few things. I've changed the way Intimidate and Alchemy work, for example. I suspect that we'll be "fixing" a few things in similar ways. And other things in completely different ways. But in the end, where that happens, you'll just end up with the opportunity to choose which version of a given bit you like best.

 

[tleilaxu]

monte sez: So what I came up with is a single spell list. No division between arcane and divine (those concepts are not used in Arcana Unearthed), and no separate spell lists for the different classes. A spell is a spell is a spell. Of course, that approach has its own drawbacks. If everyone casts the same spells, that's not as interesting. What did I do to deal with that?

*bells go off in tleilaxu's mind* .... *we have a winner folks!*

Consider this as the sole reason that convinced me to buy this book

 

[thundershot]

Re: Re: psionics?

You'll be able to use these classes alongside the PH bard, sorcerer, etc. The new classes will just have different spells (like a different spell list) and a slightly different way of determining how many/often/etc. they can cast. You'll also be able to easily make an AU spell usable for a D&D character or vice versa.

You have a habit of telling me what I want to hear, Monte.

Thanks!
Chris

 

[Monte At Home]

Well, in fact, I was thinking about it last night and your question made me realize that a cool free web enhancement for AU might be to take some of the existing PH characters and "Arcana Unearthed-ize" them. That is to say, take an example character, like a sorcerer or a bard, and make the changes to them so that they would cast spells the AU way (there are a couple of other little tweaks that would need to be made as well). It'd be really easy, because the changes wouldn't be at all extensive.

 

[Cergorach]

As a matter of fact you could do that with a lot of OGL stuff, pick and choose what 'might' be appropriate for UA, and make that into a web enhancement...

I'm getting more interested into the whole UA setting, sure there are other great D20 fantasy settings out there, but very little that actually try to get away from the stereotyped D&D settings. Also, i'm really happy that a developer is actually taking the time to rebalance the D20 rules. We're currently 18th level (been playing since Eric's site went online), we're a creative lot (meant in a bad way) and are stumbling across all sorts of different rules ballence issues (harm being the least of my concerns). We have long discussions on our campaign site where we try to figure out what to change and what not, to what extend, and how. And of course take a look at what for consequences those changes have...
I'll most certainly buy UA (and if i like it enough buy it for my players)...

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ps. any indication what the book is going to cost?
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