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.

 

[Queer Venger]

Nice that these variants illustrate the flexibility of 5e, even if I won't use these particular ones.

 

[Evenglare]

This is really underwhelming and feels phoned in... for lack of a better phrase. I don't think there's anything in here that I haven't seen several times before in other versions of d20 games.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Nice that these variants illustrate the flexibility of 5e, even if I won't use these particular ones.

I agree that its great to see some variant rules, reminding folks that 5e is flexible and meant to be hacked to suit your table. Personally i wont use these rules: i prefer to roll as DM, i like the injury rules better than vitality (or gaining an exhaustion level), and i dont use alignment at all. We do use factions for roleplaying purposes however, sorta like 13th Age but without the dice.

 

[Von Ether]

As a DM for over 20 years, I've always been a fan of "Players make all roles". It really helps put all the agency in the players hands. It is also a great option when doing things like changing the proficiency bonus to a proficiency die (per the option found in the DMG) and also when changing the d20 to something else (like 2d10 or 3d6, etc.).

However, the way they are presented in the UA article is just strange. Why bother with telling people


That seems awkward and clunky, wouldn't something like

Your defense is equal to 1d20 + your AC bonus

be a better statement?

Likewise the article states


Wouldn't it be better to say it without the subtraction?

5e commonly has the whole number, like Leather 12 AC, instead of just a bonus like Leather +2 AC.

 

[Von Ether]

These were rules I was interested in playing with back in 3.X, so it was cute to see them in 5e officially.

 

[psiconauta_retro]

I seen several posts mentioning how disappointed some people are with this article but I disagree. Ok, I agree that I wont be using any of those ideas in my game soon but some are things that I had never thought about before and maybe some day I will give them a try, so I do feel the article provides some valuable and interest in it. I don't feel disappointed with it at all.

 

[kolya]

I was basically going to do the all players' rolls thing already, I have enough to think about when dming.

 

[Dire Bare]

This free is not enough free! It is not the free I wanted, where is the free I want? I paid a lot of money for those core rule books and I've been a fan for longer than some of you have been alive, I am entitled to the free I want! Why does WotC not see this? Idiots.

These rules displease me, so I will make sure to make my displeasure KNOWN TO ALL in the most serious and histrionic condemnation possible! I will not offer constructive criticism or alternatives, but will point out what everyone already knows, WotC is run by fools who couldn't design their way out of a wet paper bag of holding! Why do they waste my valuable time is this manner, when they could have been designing something interesting and useful to ME!

Hmmm, I think my "quotes" are a bit exaggerated, but not all that much. There's been a (tiny) bit of good discussion in this thread of the most recent Unearthed Arcana . . . but so much more needless negativity and complaints.

Not every article will be to your liking, either in topic, length, or perceived quality. Who cares? Move on to something you DO find interesting and useful and go discuss that! Or, offer honest criticism and discussion if you have it in you. But posting just to say, "this sucks" in overwrought language just destroys the mood of the party, IMO.

 

[psiconauta_retro]

Quick question (not offtopic as it is related to Unearthed Arcana but also not specifically about this article):

The name of the file of this article shows "UA5" which means it is the 5th in the new series (the WotC site shows that there was a previous Unearthed Arcana column but which was ended and then it stated again for 5e) so please confirm if these are the 5 articles published so far:

1. Battlesystem
2. Eberron
3. Class Design Variants
4. Waternborne (the file says v3, are there several versions? what changed in them?)
5. Variant Rules

 

[Dire Bare]

To put my money where my mouth is . . . .

As was stated in the articles introduction, none of these are new variants to D&D, all have appeared before in one for or another in previous editions. The article is just taking some popular variants and tweaking them to fit 5E. Which, to me, isn't all that different from taking a monster or some other crunchy bit from classic D&D and updating it to the current edition. It's a useful article that, like everything, won't be to everyone's tastes. D&D isn't (nor should be) designed for YOU (the individual) but rather US (the collective) . . . so who really cares if this article isn't tasty for you?

I've messed around with the "Players Make All the Roles" variant in the past, and like the idea . . . but when I was DMing (3E) and giving this one a spin, my player's didn't really care for it. They were game to try it, and intellectually bought into the idea, but it didn't "feel right" to them . . . I think it was just to different from convention for my group who just wanted to relax on the weekends and play their favorite game that had been a huge part of their lives (on and off) for so many years. It's funny, the few times we messed around with games that had this sort of idea baked in, nobody seemed to have a problem with it! D&D was our comfort food, and if you seasoned it only slightly different, it felt "wrong". Probably won't try it again for that reason, but I'm glad it's been added to the 5E canon of variant rules.

The "Vitality" variant is another one I like in concept and played around with in the past, but didn't end up sticking with. I played around with the 3E version of this variant, and I seem to remember first seeing it in BECMI D&D . . . if I'm remembering that properly. It reminds me of another BECMI variant I liked in theory but became too much additional work, the "Armor Value" variant (see footnote). Both rules variants address areas of the game many players have a hard time abstracting, but don't really make the game more realistic and add more bookwork. But I like the basic ideas well enough I'll probably experiment with these two rules variants again, maybe.

The "Custom Alignments" variant is pretty simple, but well written and a good reminder (or revelation) to those stuck on classic D&D alignments. It reminded a previous poster of Dark Sun, it reminded me of BECMI D&D (again) and Mystara! Classic BECMI D&D did not have the "good vs. evil" alignment duality, but did have "law vs. chaos" duality. Later as the "core" BECMI setting, Mystara, was developed, "law vs. chaos" was conflated with "integration vs. entropy", which is basically the life/death, preservation/destruction axis in slightly different terms. I've been toying around with my own Mystara 5E conversion, and if I ever get serious about it I might just use this variant.

*Footnote: Armor Value Variant -- the idea of "armor value" from one of the BECMI D&D supplements (one of the gazetteers, don't remember which one), basically splits the concept of Armor Class into two separate scores. Armor Class becomes how difficult you are to HIT, whilst Armor Value is how difficult you are to DAMAGE. So, you lose armor bonuses to your AC, thus becoming easier to hit. You gain AV based on the armor you wear (or your naturally tough hide), which acts like DR (damage reduction), therefore making you harder to hurt. Combats tended to take longer, and not just because of the additional record keeping, as hit points decreased (for both monsters and PCs) at a slower rate, despite the higher rate of "hits".