Unearthed Arcana Variant Rules - Previews and Questions

[Olive]

The "Of course these don't sound playtested" should have been with the next paragraph, before "As a book of variants ...".

I assumed sarcasm myself...

 

[Stalker0]

Man, this is like the time when a person got an advance copy of 3.5 and started spilling.... its getting crazy

And it does look like the sorc is getting hosed by some of these variants.

 

[Truth Seeker]

There's no nonlawful unarmed combattant in UA.

Elf Paragon:

d8; med. base attack; good reflex save; spells/day: +1 lvl Wiz at lvl 2+3; skill points 2+Int mod; class skills: climb, craft, diplomacy, hide, jump, knowledge (all), listen, move silently, profession, spellcraft, spot, survival, swim; simple weapons, rapiers, longswords, shortbows, and longbows, light armor, no shields; at 1st lvl: racial bonus to spot/search increases to +4, low-light vision increases to x3, racial bonus vs. enchantment increases to +4; 2nd lvl: Weapon Focus on one weapon specifically mentioned above; 3rd lvl: +2 on Intelligence.

These paragons seem to be exactly the same as Monte's racial classes.

Yes they are...all of it. And may I ask, does it have for the other races also?

 

[Wormwood]

If you want to tie the aquisition of contacts to a mechanic, tie it to diplomacy checks.

A little bit of playtesting could have addressed that issue before people put money on it.

I could easily be mistaken, but the earliest implementation of 'contacts as class/level ability' was in Fading Suns d20 (2001) as a Noble class ability.

. . . and here it is again in Spycraft (2002) as a Faceman class ability ("Backup") . . .

. . . and in d20 Modern (2002) as an Investigator class ability.

You may not like the concept, but you can't say it hasn't been playtested.

 

[Vecna]

Gestalt:
A few caveats: shared class features accrue at the rate of the faster class, spells/day of two classes are kept serarately, no combining two prestige classes and you shouldn't use prestige classes that already are class combos.

So you can mix two base classes, one base class and one prestige class but not two prestige classes?

Another question:
The variant that allow a wizard to choose spells per day from his spellbook and cast them spontaneously is only for spell point based wizards?

 

[MiB]

Domain Wizard: Seriously broken

Hi all,

got the book yesterday and quickly browsed through the contents. I have mixed fealings about it, some of it sound great, some of it is of the "ouch, don't touch that" variant. But I guess that's what "optional" means.

What hit me is the domain wizard, and I am surprised that this hasn't come up here.

This guy gains: A list of domains spells (1 of each level, themed around a topic) and casts them at +1 levels, plus gets a bonus spell slot in each spell level that is usable only for domain spells. He also automatically aquires the domain spell when he gets the respective spell level).

Now guess what he pays for it: zip!
Well, he can't become a regular specialist as well, but that seems to be all. No loss of feats, prohibited schools, caster level...
People please tell me that I missed a line of text somewhere.
Or is this the death of the regular wizard?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Hi all,

got the book yesterday and quickly browsed through the contents. I have mixed fealings about it, some of it sound great, some of it is of the "ouch, don't touch that" variant. But I guess that's what "optional" means.

What hit me is the domain wizard, and I am surprised that this hasn't come up here.

This guy gains: A list of domains spells (1 of each level, themed around a topic) and casts them at +1 levels, plus gets a bonus spell slot in each spell level that is usable only for domain spells. He also automatically aquires the domain spell when he gets the respective spell level).

Now guess what he pays for it: zip!
Well, he can't become a regular specialist as well, but that seems to be all. No loss of feats, prohibited schools, caster level...
People please tell me that I missed a line of text somewhere.
Or is this the death of the regular wizard?

It seems pretty strange, yes. Is is possible to compose your domain-list yourself or are you bound to the cleric domains in PHD?

If you use a clerical domain I can see why there is no downside since those lists are pretty low powered anyway. (You could build a better repertoire as a regular wizard).

However; if you can make the list yourself at character creation then the class really seem to be busted.

 

[MiB]

Domain

No, it's neither of the two. Wizard domains and cleric domains are not the same and they are not-self made either. It's just a list of 9 (or was it 10?) spells themed around a topic such as "Warding" or "Travel".

The domain spells itself are not what I consider powerful (although it's nifty to get a free spell for your spellbook every other level), its especially the additional spell slot per level that you essentially get for free....

 

[Frostmarrow]

No, it's neither of the two. Wizard domains and cleric domains are not the same and they are not-self made either. It's just a list of 9 (or was it 10?) spells themed around a topic such as "Warding" or "Travel".

The domain spells itself are not what I consider powerful (although it's nifty to get a free spell for your spellbook every other level), its especially the additional spell slot per level that you essentially get for free....

So the balance lies in the pre-fabricated spell-lists then. So instead of getting two spells chosen freely you get to pick one spell freely and get the other one from the list?

The additional slot is also pre-selected so many days you won't get a good opportunity to cast your domain spell. (I might be deluded, I know).

 

[MiB]

Me again

No, that's not a balancing factor, because you still get to pick your two spell each level, without limitation (as a specialist has it). Also some of the domain list are set like "blast off monster X's a**" so that's not a balancing factor either...