Unearthed Arcana Your current use of Unearthed Arcana material

[FormerlyHemlock]

The Unearthed Arcana "sprint" is over, and the column is going to slow back down to about once a month, leaving us with quite a lot of material to try out... after adding the feats from the latest article to my tracking list of available 5e material, I did some counting and here are the numbers of various stuff. The totals include material from PHB, DMG, UA articles, SCAG, and adventure/campaign supplements.

Classes: 12 base, 3 variants, 1 prestige, 107 archetypes
Races: 29 base, 11 variants, 39 subraces
Backgrounds: 26 with 4 variants

Various features and options (only those that were expanded beyond core):
9 Fighting Styles
57 Warlock Invocations
5 Totem Warrior animals
13 Downtime activities

Feats: 95

Spells: 316 core, 74 extra

Rules modules (non-core):
Action Points
Aether-Powered Devices
BattleSystem
Custom Alignments
Encounter Building variant
Foils
Mass Combat
Modern Magic
Players Make All Rolls variant
Quick Characters variant
Traps Building variant
Vitality

...probably forgotten a few

Note that these are approximate totals, because of various reasons: some material was slightly (or more than slightly) revised, some is likely superseded by other stuff, and "modern" options are bundled together as a single module.

We know that UA material isn't official, but much of it is actually usable.

I am interested in knowing what is your current choice of allowed material in your campaigns. I'll add a poll for a general check, but I am interested in the detailed list as well! Naturally, you might be running more than one campaign with different stuff available, in which case for the purpose of the poll just consider all your campaigns together.

Secondarily, I am interested in which options have been actually used in your game. If you write a checklist of what is allowed, you can mark with asterisks what stuff has been eventually already chosen by the PC or used by the DM.

Edit: I am not considering homebrew or 3rd-party material here, only WotC to keep it simple, but if you modified materials from WotC then feel free to count it in.

I picked "many options: 20-80% core", because I basically ignore UA but will allow anything from SCAG/EE/Volo's. Probably closer to 20% than 80%.

I'd allow most of the UA racial feats though--that's the first UA I'd seriously consider including in my game. I think it fills a needed gap for dragonborns, half-orcs, dwarves, etc.

 

[Inchoroi]

I allow UA on a case-by-case basis, with a few exceptions, namely the last Ranger rewrite, which is just better in every way.

 

[CapnZapp]

The Unearthed Arcana "sprint" is over, and the column is going to slow back down to about once a month, leaving us with quite a lot of material to try out... after adding the feats from the latest article to my tracking list of available 5e material, I did some counting and here are the numbers of various stuff. The totals include material from PHB, DMG, UA articles, SCAG, and adventure/campaign supplements.

Classes: 12 base, 3 variants, 1 prestige, 107 archetypes
Races: 29 base, 11 variants, 39 subraces
Backgrounds: 26 with 4 variants

Various features and options (only those that were expanded beyond core):
9 Fighting Styles
57 Warlock Invocations
5 Totem Warrior animals
13 Downtime activities

Feats: 95

Spells: 316 core, 74 extra

Rules modules (non-core):
Action Points
Aether-Powered Devices
BattleSystem
Custom Alignments
Encounter Building variant
Foils
Mass Combat
Modern Magic
Players Make All Rolls variant
Quick Characters variant
Traps Building variant
Vitality

...probably forgotten a few

Note that these are approximate totals, because of various reasons: some material was slightly (or more than slightly) revised, some is likely superseded by other stuff, and "modern" options are bundled together as a single module.

We know that UA material isn't official, but much of it is actually usable.

I am interested in knowing what is your current choice of allowed material in your campaigns. I'll add a poll for a general check, but I am interested in the detailed list as well! Naturally, you might be running more than one campaign with different stuff available, in which case for the purpose of the poll just consider all your campaigns together.

Secondarily, I am interested in which options have been actually used in your game. If you write a checklist of what is allowed, you can mark with asterisks what stuff has been eventually already chosen by the PC or used by the DM.

Edit: I am not considering homebrew or 3rd-party material here, only WotC to keep it simple, but if you modified materials from WotC then feel free to count it in.

Nothing.

Except, just possibly the revised Ranger, and only then as a gift for an inexperienced player that would feel sad if told "no" but with little risk of abuse.

The rest? Nope

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

We use UA to get an idea of where they're going with design, and reflect on our design decisions accordingly. Really helps to keep things in check and of course, inspires!

 

[dco]

Zero. Only the PHB without feats or multiclassing and with a pair of houserules. Each player has 12 classes to choose with subclasses, they are balanced and the game is fun, enough for our D&D experience and time.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Currently nothing, but nobody has asked in any of the campaigns being run.

The only UA material I'd consider bringing into my campaign would be the Downtime Activities. The prices on magic items need adjustment, and the skill checks on some activities are randomly restrictive, but overall it's great.

 

[Patrick McGill]

The only thing ever used from the UA in a past campaign was the Swashbuckler before it got printed in SCAG. It went fine.

I'd probably allow anything just to get a chance to test it.

Any DM material in the UA, for instance, I'll use when I get a chance. So why not allow the players to do the same.

 

[Ketser]

I allow PHB, EEPC, SCAG, Volo and have a list of stuff allowed from UA and DM's Guild. Outside the list, well i'm open to some ideas and additions, like i haven't added Mercer's Blood Hunter class to the list or the latest UA Mystic, but i would allow them if somebody would be interested. On the other thing a few other things from the books and other stuff are banned.

As how much non-PHB stuff there is currently on game? A lot. We have a a Swashbuckler and a Bladesinger, from UA stuuf, the UA Beastmaster Ranger and a Grave cleric (only with the alteration of getting martial weapon proficiency instead of heavy armor).

 

[Ath-kethin]

You don't have an option in the poll for me; I don't even allow everything in the Player's Handbook in my games. I voted "Mostly Everything" because it says 80%+ non core and doesn't specify that all core material is allowed.

Like others, my players seem to have no idea what's in the Unearthed Arcana articles unless I bring it to their attention. Nobody has expressed any interest in any of it yet.

As far as other supplements, go, WotC has produced very little I find useful in my campaign. We use quite a bit of 3rd party stuff though.

 

[redrick]

I don't think we outright disallow anything at this point, but we assume that only player material from PHB is being used. So, in that regard, we don't "allow" anything from outside the PHB. If somebody asked, I'd probably look at it and say yes if it didn't strike me as absurd. I'm pretty meh about the massively expanded class lists, and we haven't gotten to a place where I think anybody feels like they have run out of options yet.