Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Variant Rules

Not the most useful of articles for me... I won't use any of it. Nothing wrong with it, but I've tried all the ideas in prior editions and determined they were not my cup of tea. I see nothing in 5E that would make the player rolling, Vitality or their version of alignment an improvement for my games.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think ticking up is good for some things, especially for a slow burn. Like, we probably shouldn't count XP down from 355,000. Sanity also works well ticking up, because you get things added to your character as you get higher (I am my normal character, PLUS a madness). An injury system that ticked up I would expect to come with penalties at certain points. Like, "At 30 wounds, roll on the Injury table and gain a level of exhaustion" or something. Most of this stuff works better if there's not a lot of variance between characters, too - 8 damage means something different to someone with 50 hp than it does to someone with 12.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's nice to see the 'players make all rolls' variant. But, it's funny to see it phrased like:

When a character forces an opponent to make a saving throw, that player instead makes a saving throw check.

Really can't bring yourself to say "attack?"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Really can't bring yourself to say "attack?"

If you called that an attack roll, it might get weird with other things that modify attack rolls or saving throws. Having the attacker "make a saving throw check" is less weird than having two types of attacks that had different modifiers. It would be really weird if someone gave you a bonus to "attack rolls that were originally saving throws".

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you called that an attack roll, it might get weird with other things that modify attack rolls or saving throws. Having the attacker "make a saving throw check" is less weird than having two types of attacks that had different modifiers.

There's already a 'spell attack.' Besides, all the "you have advantage on DEX saves and enemies attacking you have disadvantage" rigamarole goes away at that point. It's a big net savings in complexity and confusion.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There's already a 'spell attack.' Besides, all the "you have advantage on DEX saves and enemies attacking you have disadvantage" rigamarole goes away at that point. It's a big net savings in complexity and confusion.

I see how it could have saved in complexity, if they'd accounted for it since the beginning. Once you look at something like Bless, though, you have to distinguish that you gain +1d4 to attacks and spell attacks but not saving throw attacks (or whatever you end up calling it).

 

[Klaus]

I think ticking up is good for some things, especially for a slow burn. Like, we probably shouldn't count XP down from 355,000. Sanity also works well ticking up, because you get things added to your character as you get higher (I am my normal character, PLUS a madness). An injury system that ticked up I would expect to come with penalties at certain points. Like, "At 30 wounds, roll on the Injury table and gain a level of exhaustion" or something. Most of this stuff works better if there's not a lot of variance between characters, too - 8 damage means something different to someone with 50 hp than it does to someone with 12.

But CON changes very little throughout 20 levels. Perhaps accumulating Wounds until it hits your CON, then you're dead. I dunno, just random babbling.