What should have been included in 1E's UA that wasn't in there?

[hong]

PS: What's a mountebank?

A reserve corps of Canadian police.

 

[Mark Hope]

A reserve corps of Canadian police.

I thought it was where they kept their money...

 

[Melan]

The book should never have been published in the form it was. Its positive effects on 1st edition AD&D are negligible, while the negative ones are quite numerous and severe. The idea, for example, that cavaliers and barbarians should be a separate class instead of a subset of fighters, not to mention the thief-acrobat, is a dilution of the class-based system. The new attribute generation method - why? Isn't 4d6, drop lowest generous enough? Apparently not! Social class tables? The very thing Gary fulminated about in the DMG and Dragon articles, and with good reason? All in all, a superfluous or downright harmful supplement, the equivalent of the power creep-inducing splatbooks in later editions! <ducks and runs>

 

[hong]

cavaliars

.

 

[Aaron L]

Why am I always the last one to know?

PS: What's a mountebank?

A snake oil salesman, that guy at old carnivals who would sell people "tonics and elixirs to cure any ailment."

His cape was in UA, and let people vanish in a puff of smoke, IIRC.

 

[Quasqueton]

What material in Unearthed Arcana was not created personally by Gygax? I think the demi-human gods were created by Roger Moore (was he credited?; I don’t remember right now), but was anything else in the book created by someone other than Gygax? Gygax’s name was the only one on the cover of the book.

Was the material by EGG updated, tweaked, revised in any way from the first appearance in Dragon magazine?

At the time of UA’s publication, I just took it as another rule book. My groups didn’t use a whole lot from it, but it was always “accepted” as part of AD&D. But a few years later, when I was past the emotion and excitement of a new AD&D book, I dismissed UA from my AD&D game.

What should have been included in UA? Truly updated rules and improved rules for the game – not just more rules for the game.

Quasqueton

 

[RFisher]

I'm gonna have to say, and I await the flames, but I don't think Gygax's second edition would have been very well received when looking at what he said he was going to do and what he did in later games he designed.

I don't think so either.

Beyond that, I think I've realized that I may not have liked Gary's 2e anymore than Zeb's. I have only been wishing that it had happen so that I could read it. I don't know that I would've played it any longer than I did the 2e that we got.

 

[RFisher]

Gygax always introduced his new stuff in Dragon magazine as “open for play testing”, but he didn’t actually adjust anything – it was just all republished as is.

I don't think that's true. I remember the Cavalier in particular because I played it. There were some significant differences between the Dragon Cavalier & the UA one. The "weapons of choice" replacing specialization, for instance.

I recall noting that there were changes in many of the other bits as well, but I don't remember the rest of them that well.

 

[dcas]

Barbarians are all about being the alpha male, that means the best of everything on thier terms..and being brutes about getting it, and getting others to see them as top dog. If a 1st level barbarian new a member of his group had a +3 ring, he'd attempt to take it for himself, not throw it away.

Well, I don't know any modern-day barbarians, and I'm not at all familiar with REH's Conan, but I don't think it's surprising that a character who is supposed to come from a primitive culture might distrust "civilized" magic. As the barbarian advances in levels, he becomes more "civilized." Till then, he relies on his own healing capabilities and perhaps a shaman (alluded to in the barbarian description IIRC).

The caviliers "fight to the end" import personality was also bizzare (what ever happened to letting players choose what they want to do).

A player can still choose what to do, but he would then be a fighter instead of a cavalier. If one can't abide by the restrictions of the class, then I would suggest not playing that class.

UA is awesome.

 

[Aaron L]

I liked UA and we used in in our games, because it was just part of the rules, to us. Chromatic Orb was the supreme offensive Illusionist spell in our group.

Cavalier Paladins still make me smile. And Rangers with Weapon Specialization. (of curse, 1E Rangers always make me smile.)


Hmm... now I'm kind of in the mood to play or run a 1E game.