Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana on the horizon... recollections and suggestions?

[MerricB]

In a couple of weeks, Unearthed Arcana for AD&D will be rereleased, in a form that (hopefully) excludes the detachable cover of the original printings. It's probably too much to hope for the errata to be included, as TSR never included it in a printed version of the book.

However, this brings my 44-session AD&D campaign into an interesting place, where several of the players are using the recent reprints of the AD&D books as their reference tomes. Will they leap upon the new release and clamour for its introduction into the game?

It must be said that Unearthed Arcana is something of a mixed bag: it introduces the Cavalier and Barbarian, gives alternative advancement options for the Druid and Thief (Acrobat), gives weapon specialisation, raises level limits and allows a bunch of new subraces. All of which show rather less thought than any class since the 1E Monk. I thought it was great when it first came out, showing what my teenage-self knew of game design, but 28 years on it's rather a different story.

However, I'm tempted to let it be used as-is, in all its broken glory. Let's face it: I'm running a campaign where one character has a vorpal sword!

The one rule I'll definitely *not* implement is that of Comeliness. (It wasn't bad as-written in the World of Greyhawk. In UA, they decided to add all these references to the "Fascinate" spell, which made it utterly broken).

Any thoughts on the upcoming release? Anything I should absolutely ban or allow?

Cheers!

 

[Alphastream]

Winter Fantasy judges were able to pick up this book, and it is (like all the premium reprints) really beautiful. The cover embossing is really nice, and the content is faithful (and does not seem to include errata... I think the reprints do that on purpose to be a faithful reproduction).

It is interesting to look back on how we initially saw this book. It was like a bag of cool stuff. Fiddly bits to add to your game, and in some ways pre-saging how 3E/4E/PF books now try to cater to both players and DMs with 'candy' for both. I recall drooling over the new classes as a player, while as a DM I liked things like subraces and changing level limits (to fit a longer campaign), but also the new magic items and rules such as fighting in darkness. In retrospect, this book has some of the issues of modern tomes: easy to forget that this book updates a particular rule and that the old rule should be ignored. And, it is full of poorly-balanced mechanics. But, hey... it has the awesome power of nostalgia! (And an appendix on all the types of pole arms). (And you can be three of the classes featured in the old D&D cartoon! What more could you possibly want?)

 

[Stormonu]

*If* I were to rerun a 1E game, I wouldn't run it without Unearthed Arcana. Of course, I'd only been playing AD&D a couple of months before it came out (all B/X games before that). Broken or not, I really liked a lot of what that book brought to the game.

 

[DM_Wannabe]

According to WoTC it includes the errata.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/1Eunearthedarcana

"This book includes errata published in Dragon magazine."

 

[Herobizkit]

Drow cavaliers. Drow thief-acrobats. And Barbarians were about as broken as a class could be (other than the 2e Elven Bladesinger kit, and that's saying something).

Cantrips were hella fun though. Gave the 1e wizard something to do other than magic missile/sleep.

 

[JeffB]

Like FF & MM2, it was only interesting to me as a compilation of things introduced in modules. I ignored everything but some of the spells in the players section, and everything but items, and non human deities in the GM section. I found it pretty useless otherwise. The DM adventure log had pics of the polearms I was unsure of long before the reprint of The Dragon article in UA.

I will still pick it up though,for reference in my OD&D/S&W game.

 

[Kraydak]

Drow cavaliers. Drow thief-acrobats. And Barbarians were about as broken as a class could be (other than the 2e Elven Bladesinger kit, and that's saying something).

Cantrips were hella fun though. Gave the 1e wizard something to do other than magic missile/sleep.

Barbarians were broken..... broken weak (and broken-disfunctional in a party). They didn't get specialization, and their advancement was SO slow that their HP, Thac0 and saves mostly sucked. The interaction-with-magic restrictions just added to the celebrations.

Cavaliers, well, were mostly meh. They did eventually get decent DPR boosts, but it took awhile (and they never really managed to match a high STR fighter/ranger, or one with a strength item).

There wasn't that much broken in the UA. I'm too lazy to go over the spell lists, and there have to be some howlers in there, but otherwise it was mostly a very good step towards class balance (in that fighters NEEDED weapon spec).

 

[MerricB]

Cavaliers, well, were mostly meh. They did eventually get decent DPR boosts, but it took awhile (and they never really managed to match a high STR fighter/ranger, or one with a strength item).

Erm - cavaliers gain exceptional strength bonuses the same as fighters. And their strength increases as they level as well, which is not the case with fighters. Their drawback is a slightly slower XP progression, but they have 10 maximum hit dice compared to 9, d12 hit dice, and gain additional attacks per round BEFORE fighters do.

Heck, even their XP progression isn't that much slower. They reach 5th level at 18,500 XP compared to the fighter's 18,000 XP. Level nine? They reach it at 220,000 XP compared to the fighter's 250,000 Xp. Wow... it actually speeds up! The later levels (10+) are significantly slower, but they have most of their power by then.

Their chief problem is an inability to use weapon specialisation... except that they have their own version.

There wasn't that much broken in the UA. I'm too lazy to go over the spell lists, and there have to be some howlers in there, but otherwise it was mostly a very good step towards class balance (in that fighters NEEDED weapon spec).

Fighters needed weapon spec... at high levels. Not double specialisation at level one.

 

[Nikosandros]

d12 hit dice

That's actually a typo. Cavaliers have a d10 hit die.

 

[Riley]

I would avoid the 9d6, 8d6, 7d6, 6d6, 5d6, 4d6 alternate ability score generation system. Unless you're already using the 3d6x6x6 ability score generation system from the DMG.