What Unearthed Arcana variants have you used? What did you think of them?

[wingsandsword]

I love Unearthed Arcana, it's become my great DM's toolkit of useful and neat stuff. I'm using a lot of its variants in my current campaign.

Reducing Level Adjustments (working well, because those +x ECL races/templates are a lot weaker at high levels)
Bloodlines (working well, personally I prefer them to templates for adding "something special" to PC's)
Racial Paragon Classes (also working well, lets PC's focus on their character's racial heritage and makes humans even more flexible).
Specialist Wizard Variants (one variant Enchanter PC, working well since it's some small changes that are balanced and fit with the character concept).
Character Traits (I like these a lot, more balanced than a flaws system, but adds some more depth to characters that's supported by good rules).
Defense Bonus (I liked it in Star Wars, d20 Modern and Wheel of Time, and it fits just fine in with D&D too).
Armor as Damage Reduction (I like the concept, the only downside is having to adjudicate changes to stock NPC/Monster stats on the fly. PC's really like it because those few points of DR do a lot for a PC's perception of power and safety, even if they only rarely save you.)
Action Points (learned to love them in d20 Modern, the more powerful D&D points work just fine in a high powered, cinematic game).
Metamagic Components (not been used much, there for flavor and if PC's want to sink money into it, but it's not come up besides just talking about it in-game and debating to invest in them).
Incantations (great for plot rituals, and also good for explaining why dungeons have the monsters they do, or how NPC's can perform effects that seem way over their level, and a scroll for performing an Incantation is a nice way to give PC's access to a spell needed for plot without waiting for the game to be higher level.)
Reputation (class based, another one I learned in Star Wars & d20 Modern and it's been okay. Not stellar, but it is a nice yardstick of how notable the PC's are, and how likely it is that the PC's have heard of a given NPC)

 

[Laman Stahros]

Bloodlines (Meh, I'm not sure I like these)
Bardic Sage variant class (Interesting)
Fractional Base Bonues (I like this one, keeps the multiclassers from sucking)
Character Traits (real good way to prevent cookie cutter-ism)
Character Flaws (see above, will probably add the Dragon Mag ones)
Craft Points (seems to work so far)
Action Points (but from Eberron CS)
Item Familiars (Has my players twitching, Intelligent magic items, YES)

Next campaign I'll be using others/more, we'll see.

 

[Dark Psion]

I have used several of the above, but one item that has not been mentioned that I like is the Level-based skills.

1. It simplifies the skill system, if you are a 5th level Rogue, you have 5 ranks in all Rogue skills. This is especially helpful when making NPCs.

2. It makes Skill Modifiers matter. Spells, Items & Feats that grant skill bonuses stand out more. That Rogue with an 18 Dexterity and the Skill Focus feat IS noticibly better than other Rogues.

3. It prevents Min/Maxing and makes it a little tougher to get into some Prestige Classes, which prevents even more Min/Maxing.

 

[Acid_crash]

I am using Bloodlines in my world building to create variant humans. I think the write up in UA is one of the few real problems with the book. It doesn't make it clear if Bloodline levels are levels at all except that they apply to abilities that use class level as a numeric variable. I *think* the intent was that Bloodline levels would count as character levels, giving you the bonus feat and ability increase due at the appropriate level and giving you the Bloodline special abilities of that level.

For instance, a 7th level fighter with two Bloodline levels in a Major Bloodline is actually a 9th level character and receives the bonus feat for 9th level, the ability increase for 8th level and all the Bloodline special abilities for 1st through 9th level (I really wish they would have given an example character for this one, this is just my method). I think if you do it this way, it's a lot better balanced. The character is behind on HP, Base Saves, and BAB, but they have a lot more special abilities/feats/higher caster level to make up for it.

I'm also going to be using the Flaws too, but I think the Flaws in the last couple of Dragon Magazines have been a lot better than the ones in UA.

I really like how you described Bloodlines and I think your interpretation works better than mine, which was me being confused about how they work and how to work them into the game.

Thank you!

 

[shilsen]

Has anyone tried the "Players roll all the dice" option? I have it in mind, but have not given it a go yet...

I've actually done that in a non-UA manner. I have no dice superstitions and find it quite amusing that many players do, and at one time a couple of my players complained about a couple of rolls I made and said they should have been allowed to do so instead. So, to make a point, I didn't roll a single die for the next two sessions. I didn't bother using the UA system, but simply had other players roll for the NPC/monster when a PC was being attacked. It worked fine, esp. since the players were rolling well and soon foudn themselves in a whole lot more trouble than when I was rolling

Main reason I didn't continue with it is that it's a lot faster with me rolling what I need to.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

We've used:
- modified Action Points
- Weapon Proficiency Groups (great idea!)
- Character Flaws (another great idea that rewarded a character for disadvantaging himself by being illiterate)
- Metamagic Spell Components (wow, the cost adds up quick! Note that the table is missing a bunch of components, IIRC in the "B" range)

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the book.

 

[Klaus]

Bloodlines levels are basically an "acquired" level adjustment, right?

 

[Castellan]

Bloodlines levels are basically an "acquired" level adjustment, right?

Yes. You do not gain the benefit of extra hit dice, feats, skills, or ability increases (as someone mentioned above). The "level" is more of a "non-level" designed to bring you into parity with other players -- i.e. acquired ECL.

If I was running a game in which every character had bloodlines, I'd reduce or eliminate the XP penalty completely.

 

[spider_minion]

Has anyone tried the "Players roll all the dice" option? I have it in mind, but have not given it a go yet...

I gave this a shot for a few sessions. As the DM, I enjoyed it. It sped the game up because I never had to ask for ACs. Also, its impossible for the DM to fudge the dice. Suspicious players might like this, but it makes it rather tough for the DM to save the PCs from a TPK. This may or may not be a good thing (personally, I like the game to be dicey and deadly ).

However, my players didn't really care for it. One didn't like rolling so much, and in general the group wanted to do things the old way.

Also, it took a while for me to convince everyone that this varient didn't change the probablity of anything.

 

[spider_minion]

I use bloodlines in my game. I kinda think they're a little weak as written, so I give people a 1d8 hit die with each bloodline level. I also let it contribute towards total character level. I find bloodlines to be a great alternative to PC templates, since many of them are too unbalancing in my opinion (lotsa powerful abilities, and far too few hp).