Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Starter Spells; Plus UA Returning To Monthly & Sage Advice Returning

Chaos Bolt is the first Sorcerer-only spell. Interesting.

What I've read so far looks really good. I like the idea of Ceremony quite a bit, but some of the effects (Investiture!) might be a little overpowered.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes, that short-rest/long-rest reset is essentially what I'm talking about. 5E is ostensibly designed around attrition instead of bursty challenges because of all the short-rest powers, but the unit of attrition is weird: eight hours of downtime will fix everything that's wrong with you, usually.

32 or 40 hrs or something like that to get the other half of your HD back, but yeah.

I'm not sure how it's a huge difference, though. Yes, it's a little less granular than tracking how long it takes you to memorize each spell and how many hps you get back for that day of rest while the cleric re-memorizes his spells after casting them all as heals. But, it's still a day or so and good to go.

If you stick to the 5E idiom, even the worst (and most amusing) curse that you'd get from opening the Mummy's Tomb would be fixable by a 3rd level Remove Curse spell, and a horrible disease is fixable in a single action by a paladin or a 2nd level spell from a cleric. That's pretty anticlimatic--

Just another case of simplification, I think. And the DM can always override it. This curse requires that you cast remove curse in the Temple of Whoever in the Land of Unreachable, otherwise remove curse fails automatically. Sorry, the stars are not right, check your ritual and dial again later.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Any villain intelligent to have a secret fortress would be intelligent enough to know that this spell exists, or at least know better than to have an actual map to your secret base. Seriously, if someone is stupid enough to have a map to their secret base, they deserve to be beat by a first level spell. I wouldn't even give my minions written directions to it without some code that only my minions know. Otherwise, it would be word-of-mouth or a guide.

Dude, you're missing the forest for the trees. Magic shouldn't be throwing those kind of secrets out at first level, which is "barely trained apprentice" level. That's why spells like Find the Path, Divination, Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore exist. It ruins an adventure staple simply because a writer seems to think the only thing that should separate an archmage from a few weeks of wizard school is the amount of d6's they roll for damage. Non-combat effects should also be gated by tiers, and "find any secret location if it's on a map, somewhere" is inappropriate for a first level spell.

Sure, I CAN fix their crappy design, but I shouldn't have to. Hell, even guiding someone to a known location for 8 hours strikes me as too much and stepping toes in the exploration pillar.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

32 or 40 hrs or something like that to get the other half of your HD back, but yeah.

I'm not sure how it's a huge difference, though. Yes, it's a little less granular than tracking how long it takes you to memorize each spell and how many hps you get back for that day of rest while the cleric re-memorizes his spells after casting them all as heals. But, it's still a day or so and good to go.

A day or so and good to go? That's not the AD&D I remember.

Lose all your HP? You're not just down for an hour like in 5E--you're unable to engage in combat or spellcasting for a whole week. (Essentially, you lose this adventure.) If you drop below -10 HP, you're dead, which means you might be down forever, and even if you manage to make your resurrection survival roll, you're down a point of Constitution permanently.

Meet a ghost? You're aged 10-40 years, permanently, and if you fail your system shock roll you might be dead--see above on consequences of death.

Cursed magic items could wreck your day in horrible ways. I don't remember how often plain old Remove Curse worked on them, but with so many other horrible permanent consequences in AD&D it wouldn't feel at all out of idiom to say "Remove Curse only removes the tentacle curse if you [XYZ] first," where XYZ could be "return the mummy's treasure to his tomb" or "perform a ritual purification in the temple of Enish'lugal".

Just another case of simplification, I think. And the DM can always override it. This curse requires that you cast remove curse in the Temple of Whoever in the Land of Unreachable, otherwise remove curse fails automatically. Sorry, the stars are not right, check your ritual and dial again later.

Yep. It feels horribly un-idiomatic in 5E because 5E generally doesn't impose horrible permanent consequences, but it might be that the easiest way forward is to just allow 5E PCs in an AD&D-style world where Green Slime converts you into more Green Slime regardless of your current HP total; and a Sphere of Annihilation doesn't just do measly 3d12 damage, it just straight-up annihilates you; and a mummy's curse gives you -4 to all rolls and no ability to rest until the next full moon; and wyvern poison is save-or-die (take 7d6 damage on success) instead of 7d6 poison damage save-for-half; and goblins come in villages of 100-400; and iron golems are immune to almost all spells and to most magical weapons; and running out of torches while exploring the Underdark is a horrible thing.

I'd hesitate to still call that "playing 5E" because you've discarded so much of 5E at that point, but it is one way forward.

 

[Lanliss]

Dude, you're missing the forest for the trees. Magic shouldn't be throwing those kind of secrets out at first level, which is "barely trained apprentice" level. That's why spells like Find the Path, Divination, Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore exist. It ruins an adventure staple simply because a writer seems to think the only thing that should separate an archmage from a few weeks of wizard school is the amount of d6's they roll for damage. Non-combat effects should also be gated by tiers, and "find any secret location if it's on a map, somewhere" is inappropriate for a first level spell.

Sure, I CAN fix their crappy design, but I shouldn't have to. Hell, even guiding someone to a known location for 8 hours strikes me as too much and stepping toes in the exploration pillar.

I will admit that the effect is odd, since it essentially requires scanning every map in existence, then following it. I would probably make it so that it is connected to a magical map that learns as you explore, or make it so that you can "tag" various maps, and use their collective knowledge as a guide. So I can agree that the particular way the spell works is odd.

My point is simply that "Invalidates secrets" is an odd complaint, since those secrets shouldn't be accessible by this spell unless the person keeping the secret screwed up. Besides, per the requirements, it requires the name of the secret base. Knowing that, another viable deflection strategy would be to Name your Secret base one thing (or not name it all, since the PC then cannot name it), and spread rumors of a different name. Possibly a name that I attach to a very real, and totally-is-my-secret-base, death trap fortress. Then I place that fortress on a basic map of the Continent, just to make sure anyone looking for my base will find it. I would probably wake up every morning and chuckle at the map, knowing that it probably claimed yet another foolish adventuring party.

I might be a super villain...

 

[Mad_Jack]

Does anyone else besides me find it extremely funny that in D&D-land, apparently the primary benefit of marriage is a temporary +2 bonus to your AC and saving throws? At least in 5E.

What a messed-up world that implies.

Well, it actually sort of makes sense - the original purpose of the bridesmaids was to protect the bride from harm... Apparently the spell provides the +2 AC bonus by summoning a horde of bridesmaids to provide partial cover to the happy couple.

Ceremony does seem to be mainly a fluff spell although Investiture definitely has it's uses (despite the one hour casting time). Overall, I rather like the whole list, although certain ones like the attack cantrips are definite favorites.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A day or so and good to go? That's not the AD&D I remember.

While you're managing your resources adequately, sure.

The main resource was always spells, until very high level, they took less than a day to refresh. That was the pacing of AD&D. 'Bout the same as 5e, 5e's just a bit less baroque about it.

Lose all your HP? You're not just down for an hour like in 5E--you're unable to engage in combat or spellcasting for a whole week.

I wasn't sure if you remembered that one, a lot of folks seem to have conveniently forgotten it.

That is the worst-case scenario for recovering hps.

Generally, though, recovering hps was a matter of casting spells, resting hours, and casting spells, all done in two days or so. Because letting it get to the point that you needed that week was something you avoided. Even if one guy was down for a week, everyone else probably would be healed up in a day or two. Heck, the guy that down would be healed up, he'd just be 'recovering' for the balance of the week anyway.

In 4e & 5e, because of heal-from-0, you have support types waiting until you drop to heal you, which is a little off, IMHO, but it's not a big impact on pacing.

eet a ghost? You're aged 10-40 years, permanently, and if you fail your system shock roll you might be dead--see above on consequences of death.
Cursed magic items could wreck your day in horrible ways....
Yep. It feels horribly un-idiomatic in 5E because 5E generally doesn't impose horrible permanent consequences

OK, that doesn't sound like a pacing issue, anymore.

I'd hesitate to still call that "playing 5E" because you've discarded so much of 5E at that point, but it is one way forward.

I wouldn't hesitate. So the monsters, curses, traps, and items are deadlier, you can still use the neater mechanics and more sophisticated player options of 5e. You only need to create each 'special' danger as it comes up. Seems like a solid option, to me - especially compared to fixing up AD&D mechanics.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The ship has most definitely not sailed (at least, not in the sense that ceremony is a done deal). It's a playtest article, so we decide whether or not any spell in here becomes a part of the game by our responses to the survey.

I meant in terms of the cleric and paladin base classes getting this as a class ability.

Though I will admit, I had not considered optional, supplement rules for holy rituals as an alternative.

Frankly though, one of the things I love most about some of these spells are the ideas I had never considered before that these spells are inspiring in me. Best possible thing to get from any set of rules is new inspirations.

For example, just a few hours ago I started wondering what kind of effects would happen if a cleric used Ceremony for a marriage, but invoked a god other than the one they worshipped. What if a cult snuck in a priest of Cyric to marry the King and Queen in the name of Sune, could perhaps horrible things begin to happen. Could we have a potential plot as the party tries to figure out ways to under the marriage ceremony and set things right.

And that’s in addition to all of the “what happens if I upcast this” rituals I’ve been thinking of.

But for the Str 16 vs. Str 15 guy, you're likely to feel kind of awkward if you rule that there is no check

This seems rather obvious to me but…

In that case have them roll.

Personally, I would call arm wrestling an Athletics check. If the PC has a strength of 18 and is level 11, they have a +7. The drunk farmer with strength of 10 has a +0. I’d just have the PC automatically win.

PC goes bragging about town, and the drunkard grabs his Goliath buddy who works in the mines. This guy has a strength of 16 (and I think Goliath’s racial get athletics) making it a +6 vs +7. This is a roll off, maybe one with multiple success and challenges if the party is into it.


The original point is that when the disaparity gets big enough, the guy whose jacking up strength doesn’t want to lose to the skinny guy just because he rolled poorly. He just shouldn’t lose with that big of an advantage, but invariably the dice gods will laugh and the burly fighter rolls a 2 vs the farmer’s 20 and gets embarrassed in front of everyone when narratively it makes no sense.





As for Guiding Hand. I think I will only allow it to find Cities, major natural landmarks (rivers, Mountains, Swamps) major historical sites like battlefields. Something big.

The Lost City of El Dorado? Sure, why not.

The Tower of the Lich King? No, its too small.


Essentially, it provides less information than going to a sage and getting an old map, but allows you to switch directions in the middle of a long adventure if you find out that the McGuffin isn’t in the Lost Mountains of Celdora, but instead was taken to the Legendary City of Bae. As long as a map to the place still exists that is.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

5E is also very married to uniform distributions and d20 rolls as a resolution mechanism to the point where it feels pretty non-idiomatic to do something as simple as say, "The stronger guy wins the arm-wrestling match." (What, no opposed d20 checks?!)

I haven't seen it in 5E, but in 3E, the edition that invented the d20 system, the rules explicitly stated that the stronger guy won the arm-wrestling match: there's no roll when it's a pure measure of ability with no uncertainty involved. With 3E as my introduction to the game, I certainly don't find "strongest guy wins" rulings non-idiomatic -- although at a narrative level I try to avoid circumstances where they're important precisely because there's no uncertainty and therefore no excitement in the foregone conclusion.

As for the distribution shape, a lot of the difference between normal and uniform distribution in these systems is illusory, because you're not trying to roll a particular number: you're trying to roll a particular number or higher (or lower, for GURPS). You've got a 25% chance of rolling a 16 or higher on a d20; you've got a 25ish% chance of rolling a 13 or higher (or 8 or lower) on 3d6. Two different expressions of the same probability. Doesn't really matter which one you use. Yeah, the shape of the curve starts to matter again when you're varying the modifier, because large changes matter more on a normal distribution curve. But it's still not something I'm inclined to lose sleep over.

 

[Thac0 the Barbarian]

Because "the family that slays together, stays together", right? At least for 24 hours!

Things like talking, reading, raising children, going out on dates, cooking a nice meal, earning a living--those are all so passe. The only thing that matters in THIS universe is fightin', sleepin', and then more fightin'.

What a sad, sad, sad, sad world.

It's a remnant of the past ages of the world, when your spouse's house cat could spell doom!


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[Thac0 the Barbarian]

It's a remnant of the past ages of the world, when your spouse's house cat could spell doom!


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Sorry for the return to the beginning of the thread, that's the risk when one reads from the beginning towards the end in a single go and don't realize they're currently on page 2.


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