Unearthed Arcana = D&D Viagra!

[Unseelie]

Its a good book. But the ideas in it are far from orginal. I can see where they took stuff from other RPG's.

I should hope so, considering that they give credit for many of the items they borrowed.

 

[Breakdaddy]

I'd vote for Draconomicon, myself. I also just picked up GR's Book of Fiends today, and so far, I think it's better than the lot of them, though. We've got your Vile Darkness right here, indeed!

Havent picked up that one yet, maybe Ill give it a try though. Heard lots of good things about it.

 

[Desdichado]

Havent picked up that one yet, maybe Ill give it a try though. Heard lots of good things about it.

Check out the other thread I mentioned above!

 

[Psion]

Whats the other one? Complete Warrior? If so I wholeheartedly agree.

I guess we are destined not to wholeheartedly agree.

For my money, it's Draconomicon.

(I take it you missed "how much I rue the CW Samurai" discussion. )

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'm not sure that's fair, Joshua. Not the glue-sniffing;

Oh, so you're calling me a druggie, are you?!

I refer to claiming that UA "uber-feats" are balanced by flaws. Taking a flaw grants a bonus feat allowable in the game, not a feat from some special list. And which feats in UA seemed "uber" to you?

Actually I was making a gross generalization in the absence of anything but a quick flip-through of UA at the store. I should've said something like, "taking flaws to balance out EXTRA feats" - not necessarily UBER feats.

No argument about the BoED feats, though. None at all.

Weirdly, despite my repeated pimping of the awesomeness of BoED to my players, no-one wants to use anything from it. It's like they're scared to be that Good! But I digress...

I do think we are seeing WotC take off the kid gloves when it comes to power-level within D&D. We know they aren't playtesting as thoroughly as they did for the core 3e revision, and it seems like now the attitude is, "Screw it - we'll balance this (feat / PrC / new core class) out with role-playing considerations or something else." As long as people keep buying books, it'll work... but do they risk a Skillz'n'Powerz-style backlash?

Of course, it is also inevitable that as you add more and more stuff to an already complex system, min-max'ers will be able to find some broken combinations. That's part of the fun!

 

[Breakdaddy]

I guess we are destined not to wholeheartedly agree.

For my money, it's Draconomicon.

(I take it you missed "how much I rue the CW Samurai" discussion. )

Fair 'nuff. I agree about the samurai, I pretend those pages in the CW don't exist. Im going to check out Joshua's reference above and see about this Draconomicon business.

 

[MerricB]

it seems like now the attitude is, "Screw it - we'll balance this (feat / PrC / new core class) out with role-playing considerations or something else." As long as people keep buying books, it'll work... but do they risk a Skillz'n'Powerz-style backlash?

I'm sorry, apart from UA (which is a book which is intentionally pushing the boundaries) and the BoED (a book where role-playing must be important, otherwise what's the point?), where are they not paying attention to game balance?

The MHb and the CW seem nicely balanced, IMO. Certainly there are one or two places where they may have missed something, but on the whole they seem excellent additions to the D&D line.

We'll have even more of a handle on it when Complete Divine comes out, of course.

The thought of thoroughly playtesting UA is, in my opinion, ludicrous. The number of options and, more importantly, combinations of options makes such an effort nigh impossible. UA is not for the baseline D&D campaign - it's to give you ideas that can move you away from the baseline, and even more importantly, to present rules in a form that other publishers can take advantage of.

Of course new products aren't as thorougly playtested as the core 3E rules were! However, it's not like WotC don't playtest their products. Indeed, their process involves a design team, a developer team and playtesters.

Cheers!

 

[Ranger REG]

The MHb and the CW seem nicely balanced, IMO. Certainly there are one or two places where they may have missed something, but on the whole they seem excellent additions to the D&D line.

I wouldn't use the adjective, "excellent." While they may be balanced but honestly calling a two-weapon fighting specialist a Samurai only shows they did not thoroughly do their homework. That's what I call "misleading the haoles."

We'll have even more of a handle on it when Complete Divine comes out, of course.

That assumes they are taking our criticism seriously.

The thought of thoroughly playtesting UA is, in my opinion, ludicrous. The number of options and, more importantly, combinations of options makes such an effort nigh impossible. UA is not for the baseline D&D campaign - it's to give you ideas that can move you away from the baseline, and even more importantly, to present rules in a form that other publishers can take advantage of.

I don't think it is ludicrous at all. By playtesting it, they can recommend what work best so we customers don't have to go through the hassle of fitting the new mechanics into D&D game ourselves. It is like driving a big, square peg through a tiny hole. Eventually, we're going to have to modify the peg before it can make a perfect fit.

Of course new products aren't as thorougly playtested as the core 3E rules were! However, it's not like WotC don't playtest their products. Indeed, their process involves a design team, a developer team and playtesters.

Either they don't playtest it enough -- which is about to become as worse as their constant editing performance -- or they changed their process of playtesting to a lower standard.

 

[MerricB]

I wouldn't use the adjective, "excellent." While they may be balanced but honestly calling a two-weapon fighting specialist a Samurai only shows they did not thoroughly do their homework.

Or perhaps that they looked at this concept of a noble warrior with ki skills, diplomatic and intimidatory skills using two weapon and thought "that's close to a samurai!" In hindsight, the name may be a mistake, but I know I have no problem in linking the two concepts.

That assumes they are taking our criticism seriously.

Huh? Who is this "our"?

"we're not going to cater to the specific and unique needs of a minority if doing so will cause hardship to the majority" - Ryan Dancey

I don't think it is ludicrous at all. By playtesting it...

There's a big difference between playtesting and thorough playtesting. Playtest the VP/WP system for D&D. Ok. Now thoroughly playtest it. I'll get back to you next decade...

'better, faster, cheaper: choose two"

Cheers!

 

[Psion]

The MHb and the CW seem nicely balanced, IMO. Certainly there are one or two places where they may have missed something, but on the whole they seem excellent additions to the D&D line.

We've already discussed the specifics, but just let me interject that many of us do not share your adoration for these books.