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.

 

[Fralex]

I always wondered what would happen if alignment were replaced by the Myers-Briggs personality types. Instead of Lawful or Chaotic, you'd have things like Rational, Realist, or Idealist. I remember taking a test once (I got INFP), and it was uncannily accurate.
Or maybe something more period appropriate, like the Four Temperments.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Never been a fan of the "players make all the rolls" thing - Dm's are players too! It needlessly bogs down the game to solve a problem that I've never seen exist (a player so OCD they cannot accept an outcome unless they touch the dice). Hell, I'd roll for all but one of my players as it stands since they are so slow. Why it takes otherwise smart people so long to add up an attack roll is beyond me.

Vitality is a half assed nod to the sim crowd who is never satisfied and doesnt realize they should friggin play Rolemaster or GURPS already. This is not the wound system you are looking for...

Alignments - My opinion of them hasn't changed in almost 30 years, so I'll just smile and nod for those that do like it.

 

[Sage Genesis]

They messed up the math for saving throws under the "players make all the rolls" section.

Take a level 1 Wizard with 16 Int, casting a spell on a creature with a +2 bonus. Under the normal system this is a DC 13 vs. a +2 bonus. A roll of 10 or less means the monster is affected. In other words, a 50% chance of affecting the monster.

But under their proposed system it becomes a +5 roll vs. a DC 13. A roll of 8 or higher means the monster is affected. In other words, a 65% chance of affecting the monster.

I know the standard disclaimer for UA is that it's all work in progress, but... seriously, come on now.

 

[Kramodlog]

UE usually comes out the first monday of the month. I was wondering if it got shelved or not. Seems he just needed a bit more time to put something together.

Looks like there is a good chance Convention season is going to be a hurdle for this column.

 

[The Human Target]

Never been a fan of the "players make all the rolls" thing - Dm's are players too! It needlessly bogs down the game to solve a problem that I've never seen exist (a player so OCD they cannot accept an outcome unless they touch the dice). Hell, I'd roll for all but one of my players as it stands since they are so slow. Why it takes otherwise smart people so long to add up an attack roll is beyond me.

Vitality is a half assed nod to the sim crowd who is never satisfied and doesnt realize they should friggin play Rolemaster or GURPS already. This is not the wound system you are looking for...

Alignments - My opinion of them hasn't changed in almost 30 years, so I'll just smile and nod for those that do like it.

To be fair, the idea is more that players rolling all the dice keeps them more engaged on their off turns and also frees the DM up to focus less on math/rolling and more on other stuff. Especially since DMs roll so much more dice than players.

 

[Remathilis]

Color me underwhelmed. I'm not a fan of PMATDR systems, and I *hate* vitality with the burning passion of a thousand suns, so that leaves me with a "make up your own alignment" option, which would have been nice if they had GIVEN AN ALTERNATE ALIGNMENT SYSTEM as an example.

This isn't even playtest level; this is "crap, we need a UA for June. Lets take some old 3.x rules and reword them for 5e".

C'mon July...

 

[Leatherhead]

Instead I like the idea of tying it to exhaustion levels. So basically whenever your vitality drops (whenever you take more than 10 damage from a single source) you must roll a Constitution save (DC = 10 + the amount of vitality you've lost compared to your normal max). If you fail you gain an exhaustion level. Everything else would be the same (your HP drops to 0 when your vitality drops to 0 etc...).

I've been toying with exhaustion levels as damage too. My line of thinking is to add an exhaustion level whenever the character gets healed.

 

[Minigiant]

so that leaves me with a "make up your own alignment" option, which would have been nice if they had GIVEN AN ALTERNATE ALIGNMENT SYSTEM as an example.

C'mon July...

They kinda did.

Life vs Death. Preservation vs Destruction. It was a weak Dark Sun defiler nod.

I do wish it was more. They gave some ideas but it was a bit too light. Informative but light.

What they should have added was an "Alignment matters" variant. Where certain spells work better vs certain alignments. Or going heavy in an alignment add strengths and weaknesses.

For example in my game, if you get elemental powers when you align yourself to an element in mind and spirit. Align fully and you transform into a genasi.

 

[turkeygiant]

The "player only rolls" rules just feel clunky to me, yes they would cut down on the rolling the DM has to do and boost the players involvement, but it just adds too many steps to mathematically resolving attacks and defenses. This seems like a mechanic that would be totally viable, but only if it was hard baked into the monster stat blocks right from the beginning. At the very least I would probably need a chart on my DM screen to attempt use this rule.

The "vitality" rules really appeal to me, I would characterize attacks that just deal HP to be ones that don't actually hurt your character but put them on the defensive, the attacks that deal HP and Vitality would be the ones that actually connect and inflict an injury. I think I will try this mechanic out in the next D&D campaign I run.

I don't have any problems with the "alignment" suggestions, they don't do any harm, but I also don't think they really add anything to the game. Most of the hypothetical "alignments" they describe would probably be better represented in your characters traits, ideals, and flaws, or even by what faction they belong to in that world. What I would really like to see are sliding alignments where your characters choices and actions can incrementally bump them along a good/evil, lawful/chaotic alignment track.

 

[Jester David]

Okay, some actual feedback.

Players Roll Everything
There's a LOT of other games that go this direction, so it's probably a good inclusion. It increases player agency for Inspiration and rerolls, and they can choose what to avoid. It speeds up play since there's less math communication back and forth. And there's no chance of DM fudging, so it seems more fair. Plus the DM can focus on the story and everything else.

Surprised they didn't include a "roll to hit instead of saves" variant. Or is that already in the DMG?

Vitality
Some people really like separate pools for health and luck/energy/skill. I have some on my website.
This is interesting as it doesn't go down separately but with hp. But it has the standard effect of weakening character after a length of adventuring potentially making boss fights harder.
The math involved is also tricky. Effectively, for every 20 hit points of damage a character takes, their maximum hit points are reduced by 1/level. But this is less intuitive.

Custom Alignments
This is mostly advice, but is easily the best part of the article. Some good advice here.

While this article is so-so I like that Mearls is doing other things in Unearthed Arcana than just providing new player crunch. This is what I hoped the series would be. Still, it's a bit short and they probably could have easily included some more variants and house rules. Maybe some advice on how vitality might affect the game.