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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteelSilvershield" data-source="post: 2011192" data-attributes="member: 17084">This review was originally published on 02/29/2004 at <a href="http://www.silven.com/adnd.asp" target="_blank">Silven Crossroads</a>."D&D Unearthed Arcana"Authors: Andy Collins, Jesse Decker, David Noonan, Rich RedmanPublisher: <a href="http://www.wizards.com" target="_blank">Wizards of the Coast</a>Official Product Page: <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/881560000" target="_blank">HERE</a>Reviewed by: Bradford FergusonReview date: 02/29/2004Reviewer's Bias: I gotta admit that I love options.  Eventhough options ultimately confound me with extra choices that I must make, it is fun to think through those choices and it is simply nice to have options.  The variant rules presented in Unearthed Arcana usually present tougher decisions than the decision between Brawny and Tuf paper towels.  I received a review copy of this book. This review is not as thorough as <a href="http://www.silven.com/adnd.asp?case=show&id=233" target="_blank">Lance Kepner's review</a>.From the Back Cover"This supplement presents an inexhaustible source of new rules to introduce into your Dungeons & Dragons game.  Inside are ideas, options, and alternatives to the standard D&D rules you can choose from to fit your campaign's style of play.  From variant classes, races, feats, and abilities to alternate spellcasting systems, combat and campaign options, Unearthed Arcana offers a tremendous array of material for you to explore."PresentationUnearthed Arcana is a 224-page hardcover book with a full-color interior.  The cover itself maintains the faux-book theme of the core D&D line of books, but it has a color illustration in the middle of the front cover - a nice touch.  You can visit the <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20040213a" target="_blank">Official Art Gallery</a> of Unearthed Arcana to get a feel for the internal art.  There are a ton of different interior artists that are used for this book, and without superior art direction, this would not have worked out.  The styles of the various artists do not vary significantly from one another and they mesh very well.  I have to admit that I am a little partial to purple, so I particularly liked two of Wayne England's pieces - one of a group of players around a gaming table, and another about a character losing his sanity.  The actual content of the book - tons of rules and charts and tables - felt a little constricting at times, but the layout person did a good job with interspersing art and using the alternating colors on rows of tables.  One thing that I did find a little suspicious is the use of the near black background for the cover which is nearly identical to the background color of the cover for Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed.IntroductionFor a book that is a huge mix of variant rules, Unearthed Arcana has excellent organization with the player-relevant options in the first three chapters of the book and the campaign-changing options for the DM in the last three chapters.  It also has a lengthy table of contents with the sidebars and tables listed separately and an index and a checklist are also handy.  The checklist is provided as a quick visual list of the optional rules that you can either use in campaign design or hand to your players to let them know what "house rules" you are using.  Though the book is delimited by player and DM-related rules, ultimately the choice of whether a rules variant is used is up to your DM.  Because there is so much material and so many options, for the purposes of this review I will talk about the highlights (as I see them) and try to figure out whether this book is mostly for DMs or for players as well.For the PlayerBloodlines are taken at character creation and essentially let the character take a template and pay for it over the course of their adventuring careers, though levels have to be sacrificed at specified intervals.  There are minor, intermediate, and major bloodlines.  A character must sacrifice one level for a minor bloodline, two levels for intermediate, and three levels for major bloodlines.  Minor bloodlines impart a trait every four levels, whereas intermediate's traits are gained every two levels and major's traits are gained every level.  The big drawback is the sacrificed levels where your character does not gain HP, skills, BAB or save progression, or class features.  There are 12 bloodlines that can be taken at as a major bloodline and bunches of others that can be taken up to intermediate or just simply minor.  PCs with templates... Hmmm... Interesting.Racial Paragons allow your character to exemplify their race even more so than a typical member of their race.  They allow you to take levels in your race like one of the old versions of Dungeons & Dragons.  Mechanically, the paragons really do focus on and enforce the strengths of a race.  For example, gnome paragons can cast mirror image as a spell-like ability once per day and they get a charisma abiltiy boost and bard spell progressions.  Humans are a very flexible race in fantasy games and they have adaptive learning which allows them to add a permanent skill to their class skill list and they get a bonus feat and an ability boost of their choice and the spells per day they gain are by their existing spellcasting class, instead of a specific one.  Unlike the bloodlines, the paragon abilities you get are at those levels and you still get a race-specific progression for HP, skill points, BAB, saves, etc.  Monte Cook posted the <a href="http://www.montecook.com/arch_stuff48.html" target="_blank">racial paragons for the standard races</a> on his website, though a team from WOTC created them.  Monte Cook put racial progressions for each unique race in his Arcana Unearthed.  Also, though the link above have all the standard races, Unearthed Arcana - confusing, ain't it? - has racial paragons for drow, half-dragons, orcs, and tieflings which are not included in the sample.I am a fan of the idea of Spontaneous Domain Casting which appears in the sidebar of page 64.  Imagine if clerics had to choose the Healing domain in order to spontaneously cast healing spells?  More interestingly, a cleric could choose two non-healing domains and be able to spontaneously cast those spells in lieu of the normally prepared spells.  Also under this optional rule, clerics do not prepare a domain spell each day, but they have a little more flexibility in the ability to cast two different spells for each spell level instead of "just" being able to heal.  This option is a little bit more for DMs than players because it really has the potential to add flavor to your game world where clerics of the god of strength and good embody those aspects and clerics of a god with the access to the healing domain are known more for their healing and being good samaritans.  Besides, I know I'm tired of being the cleric and being commanded to, "Heal me now!"  No, dammit.The class variants presented a real hodge-podge of classes and most of them did not restate the full progression of the classes.  For example, the wilderness rogue has different class skills and adds Woodland Stride, Camouflage, and Hide in Plain Sight to its list of class abilities it can take - everything else is the same.  What really caught my eye where the Paladin Variants.  Whereas the paladin presented in the Player's Handbook (PHB) is a "paladin of honor" with a Lawful Good alignment, the Paladin of Freedom is Chaotic Good, the Paladin of Slaughter is Chaotic Evil, and the Paladin of Tyranny is Lawful Evil.  These represent the divergent "spokes" on the alignment wheel and remind me, in concept, of the champions in Arcana Unearthed though the abilities of these paladin variants are structured very similar to the base paladin.I was particularly intrigued by the Specialist Wizard Variants because each school's variant could forsake typical wizard abilities to gain abilities that are more closely tied to the strengths of the specialist schools.  There are abilities for each wizard to replace: the ability to obtain a familiar, the ability to gain wizardly bonus feats, and the ability of gaining additional spells per day for being a specialist wizard.  As a player, the abilities that you have to give did not really thrill me.  Having a familiar always seemed like a "cute" thing to me but not very useful.  I could use the familiar to cast spells through but I didn't want to get the familiar too close as to be put into harms way, so those things cancelled eachother out.  Anyhow, the abjurer gains a resistance to energy at first level and an aura of protection at 5th level and spontaneous dispelling at 5th level where they can burn prepared spells to spontaneously cast dispel magic or greater dispel magic.  Imagine a campaign where there are no generalist wizards and all specialist wizards have to use the specialist wizard variant from Unearthed Arcana.  That would make wizards very different from eachother and potentially add a lot of flavor to a campaign, except for the familiar-o-phile who loves his rat familiar. *squeak*Gestalt Characters are a great option for small role-playing groups of where there are one to three players.  Instead of forcing the DM to scale down every fight, gestalt characters allow the DM to keep encounters centered around the character level of the group.  Gestalt allows characters to have the best of two classes at the same time without multiclassing - though they do not double the BAB, saves, or HP, or provides two targets to their enemies, so it is not a simple doubling of the power level of the character.Character Traits are great little codified adjustments that you can make to characters a little more quirky mechanically without giving them an outright drawback.  An example is Farsighted which gives a +1 to Spot but a -2 to Search.  Another is Polite which gives a +1 to Diplomacy but a -2 to Intimidate.  These simple little things help me envision the character a little better.Character Flaws allow you to give your character a drawback so that you can gain a feat.  The flaws are pretty harsh because players can try and take the one that has the least impact upon their character while using the feat gained to have the most impact.  Flaws can be used to enhance a character concept.  Maybe for once you could play a character that is less than ideal, but for a reason.  Or you can take the Feeble flaw to enhance the scholarly feel of your bookish wizard.Weapon Groups make me harken back to the Fighter's class book of 2nd edition D&D where they had weapon groups and fighting styles.  I think that Weapon Groups don't really add to the power level of a character but they make sense and they allow the character to do more with a weapon proficiency feat.  A Weapon Proficiency feat is so limiting, so Weapon Groups make them a little more desirable and more useful.  How many prior characters have you seen with Weapon Proficiency of something that is not an exotic weapon?Craft Points and Non-Magical Item Creation Feats provide useful options to players who like to have craftsmen characters who make useful items.  It always hurts the suspension of disbelief when you are in the middle of adventuring and suddenly have enough XP or gold to create a helpful magic item but you would need to spend several days in town to make the item before setting back out to adventure.  Craft Points allow you to rush an item with the explanation that you've been working on the item during intermitant periods of downtime and that you need just a little time to finish the time.  Craft points are gained at level up and when your character gains various creation feats.  I like the non-magical item creation feats because they require craftsmen to do a little extra to master their craft and so that not all craftsmen can make masterwork items unless they have the relevant feat.While tasty, I don't think that these options would make me go out and buy the book if I was a player, unless one of the options was a cornerstone to the way I play the game, or wanted to play the game.  Ultimately, I think this makes the book primarily for DMs.  You could argue that I didn't mention this or that that is presented in the first three chapters, but I discussed the stuff that I liked and that I think other people could get into.  I thought the environmental variant races was just OK along with most of the variant classes.  I could live without it, or read something like it in Dragon Magazine or whatnot.For the Dungeon Master!Appearing in Chapter 3, Character Backgrounds are more for DM than player because they are tables that suggests feats and skills for various career paths and functions.  This is a great NPC creation tool that DMs can use to quickly individualize NPCs without needing to bog themselves down as much in d20 mechanics.  Let's say that I wanted a mayor who was formerly a sailor.  First, I'd go to the Maritime Background Activities and scan down to "Deckhand" which suggests: Class= Fighter or Rogue; Feats= Dodge and Weapon Focus; Skills= Swim, Use Rope, Profession (Sailor), Climb, Jump; Gear= Weapon; Contacts= Information; and a recognition check to check for promotion after each level.  The gear entry suggests that if he has a magical or special item, that it be a weapon for when the character used to board other ships or defend his ship against boarding attempts.  The background tables are also a good tool to get ideas when you've got Adventure Designer's Block.The next three things I'm going to highlight are all mechanics that change the feel of your game.  Armor as Damage Reduction gives characters an advantage at lower levels but a disadvantage at higher levels because it protects them against damage, but armor under the optional rule makes characters in heavier armor easier to hit compared to the normal rules.  It also enforces the notion that armor actually absorbs some of the force of the blows.  Vitality & Wound Points make combat more deadly at higher levels because critical hits affect wound points which represent "how much true physical damage a character can withstand."  Wound Points are equal to the character's constitution.  This sounds vicious but a character cannot drop below 0 wound points and at 0 wound points, the character does not automatically die, but makes rolls to see whether he or she becomes disabled or starts dying. Finally, Action Points add a cinematic flair to the game where you can add a d6 to the result of a d20 die roll (you have to state you are using the action point beforehand).  APs encourage PCs to be a little more foolhardy and to try and leap down and do the parallel bars on a flag pole before cushioning their fall on the shop's awning.I never really thought of combat this way, but some players may feel like the DM is picking on them or that they didn't do anything when their character is taking damage in combat.  Call it the "Hey, what'd I do to deserve getting whacked three times for 17 damage?" factor.  One part of the Players Roll All the Dice variant allows players to roll a defense check against an attack factor instead of the DM rolling to hit a certain AC.  Overall, this has a couple of benefits and a couple of drawbacks.  Benefits: players will stay on their toes more in large battles because they gotta roll defense even when their character is not acting, and it also empowers players to feel like they have more control.  Drawbacks: the DM can no longer fudge rolls if he or she rolls behind the screen, and the players - learning what scores they need to beat to succeed in defense rolls or magic check rolls - learn the creature's bonus to attack or bonus to its saving throw.  Also, some players need coaching to simply roll the right dice for their own characters, so having them roll more dice might be a disaster.Metamagic Components allow characters to create, find, or purchase components that add a specific metamagic affect to a specific spell.  The components are costly on their own and limited by the fact that it is for the single casting of a spell, but they are powerful in that their use does not require the character to have the relevant metamagic feat.  In some respects, it can give a game a more macabre feel as the heroes harvest blue dragon scales so they can cast a widened Lightning Bolt, but it also adds to questing and gets the characters to explore and research more as they look for that meteorite that can power a maximized Meteor Swarm.  Other affects is that it changes how characters view equipment and it places a greater importance on skills like Taxidermy and makes metamagic feats less valuable.  It could also create sources of conflict in the world as peoples fight over resources like a vein of fire opal crystals (power widened Fireball) or situations where creatures such as the alibno stag are hunted for their magically valuable horns.  Note: Dragon Magazine #317 had an article called "Using Power Components" which are used to avoid XP or GP costs for spells.  It is similar in that characters would harvest these components from defeated creatures and that it could help drive quests, but they are used for a different purpose.The Spell Points System provides an additional flexibility to spellcasters where their spells prepared or spells cast are not tied to their level.  Spells at a certain level and cast at a certain level have a specific value and spellcasters get spell points by level where they can decide what to memorize.  For example, a 7th level wizard with an 18 INTelligence could choose to prepare 7 fourth-level spells, OR 9 third-level spells, OR 16 second-level spells, OR some kind of mixture.  But note that unless the wizard spends more spell points per spell (and she has a limited allotment), those 9 third-level spells are cast as a 5th level caster, and those 16 second-level spells are cast as a 3rd level caster.Legendary Weapons are from the Game Mechanic's Artifacts of the Ancients and essentially they allow a specific prestige class to have a weapon that gives them more and more abilities as the character gains more and more levels.  But if the character loses that weapon, then they lose those abilities.  I like the idea of this because of the fighter that wields his grandfather's sword that slayed the foul orc king in the Great War.  If he finds a sword that has more powers than his grandfather's sword, frequently a player will have his character sell off the family heirloom for the more useful sword, otherwise the character is at a disadvantage compared to other characters at a similar level.  The mechanics for legendary weapons and their associated prestige classes encourage players to keep these heirlooms and preserve their rich history and character background.  Translation: mechanics that enforce better role-playing.The Contacts & Reputation mechanics help codify these two important story aspects.  Depending on the character's class, they gain a certain number of contacts throughout their adventuring career.  If the hero gets themselves into a pickle and needs a contact to bail them out, the player can simply state, "I have Benny the Cobbler as a contact and he can ask a favor from Bart the Constable so that he goes easy on me."  Or maybe the adventurer is researching an ancient relic and has come to a dead end in their investigation, they could use a contact and say, "Back when I learned to become a wizard, I got my big break under the tutelage of Sniffles the Hedge Wizard who once had dealings with Kain Deathdealer who once possessed the relic."  In either case, the DM would then give the character a small breakthrough that would help push the story along.  Everyone wins!  Hurray!  Oh, the reputation write-up has a cool chart that lists 100 adventure ideas and a reputation value for each (I'm not sure whether the adventure ideas are copied from the DMG though)The Honor system is a replacement for any codified alignment system that you may or may not be using.  It is great for an alignment-free system such as Arcana Unearthed where characters make oaths and are expected to follow up their words with action.  Honor is also a great fit for Oriental Adventures because of the importance of honor in society, especially family honor.  One cool thing is that the book gives examples of different "ranks" of honor and explains them in terms of how a character acts and thinks, which is similar to how the PHB describes different alignments.Rules for the Taint are excellent for games where evil places, creatures, and items literally corrupt the world around them.  The taint is good for adding a level of horror to the game without using the "slippery slope" sanity rules from Call of Cthulhu.  Speaking of the Sanity rules, these are included almost word for word from d20 Call of Cthulhu.  The nice thing that Unearthed Arcana included were some guidelines that a DM can use lower the susceptibility of characters to gain insanity.  This way, you can make horror a part of the game without dooming the adventurers to ending their careers in the loony bin.Finally, I think that Test-Based Prerequisites are a great alternative to the set-in-stone prerequisites for prestige classes (PrC).  Like the author says, instead of players thinking they need 8 ranks in something and some feats to become a duelist, they will need to pass the "Crossed Swords at Noon" test in order to become a duelist - a test that the player actually plays out in a solo session with the DM (so that the other players aren't bored while the player passes the test).  What better test to become a duelist than a public duel in front of a crowd?  Tests are listed for all the prestige classes in the DMG and hints are given for creating new tests.  I like this idea so much that I may start out my new campaign by solo-ing each PC through a PrC test.ConclusionAs you can see, I think Unearthed Arcana is much more for Dungeon Masters to alter the feel of their campaigns.  It is not a great tool for players though there are some options for players - should their DM approve the options.  The variants presented are an excellent tool that can be used to tailor the game mechanically to the feel the DM is trying to create.  Additionally, the variants provide ideas or a change of pace for groups that have digested standard D&D and are looking for a twist.  In this respect, Unearthed Arcana is similar to Arcana Unearthed in appealing to gamers that want a change.  I would recommend Unearthed Arcana to any DM looking to add some pizazz to their game.For expanded scores and the latest reviews, check out the D&D/d20 Section at <a href="http://www.silven.com/adnd.asp" target="_blank">Silven Crossroads</a>.</blockquote>

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