Unearthed Arcana = D&D Viagra!

[Desdichado]

I'm glad to hear it's lived up to the hype.
I've flipped through it and, ooooooo, me wantee.

I'm not sure how well it lives up to the hype. Although I like a lot of stuff here and there in it, there's a lot of stuff I don't like. It really bounces around a lot. And, a lot of the stuff I do really like I've already seen, often in other WotC d20 games (Cthulhu, Star Wars, Modern and WoT). Now that the honeymoon's over, so to speak, I'm thinking that the book wasn't really all that it's cracked up to be.

Still, it has some nice ideas in it, though.

 

[Piratecat]

I disagree with Joshua. I've found lots of superb ideas and variants in it; even better, it reinvigorated my imagination. For me, it's a thumbs up.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I disagree with Joshua. I've found lots of superb ideas and variants in it; even better, it reinvigorated my imagination. For me, it's a thumbs up.

Wouldn't that be "Pointy Hook" up ?

 

[Gnarlo]

Wouldn't that be "Pointy Hook" up ?

Which brings up back to Viagra again...

It's my favorite WOTC book in quite a while as well. Lots of goodness within to think about and examine how to and whether to fit into my campaign.

And I agree with what's been said before; yes, I'm sure a lot of it has appeared in other d20 products, but those of us who don't collect the gamut of d20 are happy to have it all in one place.

 

[Psion]

I'm not sure how well it lives up to the hype. Although I like a lot of stuff here and there in it, there's a lot of stuff I don't like. It really bounces around a lot. And, a lot of the stuff I do really like I've already seen, often in other WotC d20 games (Cthulhu, Star Wars, Modern and WoT).

I'll second that.

There are a lot of nice, workable mechanics in there. I think a lot of people stand to get a lot out of this book. So don't get me wrong when I say this, but...

...it seems to me that:
- there is a lot of rehashing of what has already been done (admittedly, where third party publishers have done it, it just gets it to a wider audience, which is good for said wider audience, not so good for many ENWorlders.)
- lots of rehashing BAD ideas (I just about clawed my eyes out when I saw the traits and flaws. See this post for more on why I am not impressed on them.)
- a few things that had me saying "huh - why would anyone use that?"
- lots of catering to little voices (which I guess is good if your particular nit got addressed, not so good otherwise.)

So yeah, lots of useful stuff, but I imagine lots of DMs will only be pulling out a small fraction of the stuff therein. i.e., I think it's good, but perhaps not as great as some have hyped it.

 

[jasamcarl]

I'll second that.

There are a lot of nice, workable mechanics in there. I think a lot of people stand to get a lot out of this book. So don't get me wrong when I say this, but...

...it seems to me that:
- there is a lot of rehashing of what has already been done (admittedly, where third party publishers have done it, it just gets it to a wider audience, which is good for said wider audience, not so good for many ENWorlders.)
- lots of rehashing BAD ideas (I just about clawed my eyes out when I saw the traits and flaws. See this post for more on why I am not impressed on them.)
- a few things that had me saying "huh - why would anyone use that?"
- lots of catering to little voices (which I guess is good if your particular nit got addressed, not so good otherwise.)

So yeah, lots of useful stuff, but I imagine lots of DMs will only be pulling out a small fraction of the stuff therein. i.e., I think it's good, but perhaps not as great as some have hyped it.

Three out of four of those points seem to miss the point of the book. It is stated up front that these are options and by definition most aren't going to use them all in a single sitting. I'm planning to run two seperate campaigns using different varients; the book works for those who like variety and move often from game to game. I suspect this is quite common given how short most campaigns actually are.

And many people who purchase this book aren't the type of hardcore enworlders with a lot of disposable income who purchase every d20 suppliment they can find; this is basically a better bang for the buck if you want options.

I'm in agreement on the basic weaknesses of a traits and flaws system. Though most of the ones I've seen in UA are actually ok. The system you seem favor doesn't really do what UA traits do, i.e. tweak characters at a given level into a certain specialization, though i'll grant you its less prone to the 'freebie' syndrome.

 

[Beard in the Sky]

It really bounces around a lot.

Isn't this what its supposed to do? We just sort of went through it and picked out what we could use, said other things would be great for when we run Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, or whatever. I rather liked the potpourri feel to the book.

 

[Psion]

Three out of four of those points seem to miss the point of the book. It is stated up front that these are options and by definition most aren't going to use them all in a single sitting.

I don't think I said anything that contradicted that.

 

[DaveMage]

Yeah, UA is a great book IMO.

I read through it last night.

No, I won't use everything in there - in fact, for PCs, I'll probably use extremely little. But, for example, I love the "trait" ideas - these were new to me as presented - and they'll be useful to develop NPCs. I also like how they cleaned up the concept of the flaw. Rather than make the flaws useless, they explain that they must have an impact on the PC in game terms (not role-playing) to be acceptable to warrant a feat.

From a quick read-through, I give it 5 stars. I like having all the variants in one place.

WotC has produced a gem, IMO.

Now where's the Monster Manual III?

 

[Aristotle]

I got the book this weekend and, while I was already happy with D&D, I thought this book was an excellent product.

I don't want to use everything in the book. My current campaign is only going to be using a very small number of things actually. But it was interesting to see the various mechanics and ideas, and I like having access to a book filled with alternate rules just in case I need something later on.

I love that WotC did a product like this, and I hope to see more in the future. I don't want to see alternate rulebooks coming out every-other month, but I could stand a compilation like this every couple of years or so.