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224 Pages $34.99
Unearthed Arcana is a book filled with variants. Much like the Player’s Option supplements for the 2nd Edition D&D game, this book offers different ways of doing things. Even basic things like Armor Class and Race are re-visited, some in good ways, others… not so good.
The first chapter, Races, is by far the longest and one of the least impressive. It offers “Environmental Racial Variants” i.e Jungle Gnome, Jungle Elf, Desert Gnome, Desert Elf, Water Gnome, Water Elf, etc. and gives modifiers for each. There is nothing overly interesting or imaginative here. The chapter also details “Paragon” classes, classes designed to help exemplify a race in the old tradition of D&D when races were classes. The Elf Paragon, for example is a bow-using fighter/mage. The classes are only three levels deep, and are meant to help the PCs get back to his racial roots. Where the variant goes too far is in offering Paragon classes for Drow, Half-Dragon, Tiefling, etc. The balance is on the high side, too. Taking three levels in a Paragon class is vastly superior to taking three levels in, say, rogue. Many Paragon levels give magical abilities or AC bonuses, and most grant a +2 attribute bonus at 3rd. The shining star in the Races chapter is Bloodlines. These are in some ways the same as Paragon classes: The character can choose a minor, intermediate, or major bloodline from any one of a number of possible bloodlines from dragons and doppelgangers to vampires and titans. Depending on the depth of the bloodline, one must end up spending levels on the throughout the character’s career. A minor bloodline requires the character spend one level on “bloodline” sometime before 12th. Intermediate requires one level in bloodline before 6th and another before 12th, and Major requires 3rd, 6th and 12th. In return, a minor bloodline returns special bonuses at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th. Intermediate returns bonuses on every even level, and Major grants a bonus every level. Like everything in Unearthed Arcana, balance is on the high side… and I’m sure it would not take long before it became obvious which bloodlines gave the greatest advantages.
Chapter 2 is Classes and includes variants of all of the PH classes, as well as prestige class versions of most of them. Not a lot new here, or at least not much that sparks the imagination. One notable addition to this Chapter is Gestalt characters. These are characters that take two classes each level, taking the best HD, skill-progression, saves and all the class-abilities from both classes. The balancing disadvantage? “Obviously, this variant results in characters who are significantly more powerful than the D&D standard.” Yep. That’s it.
Chapter 3 includes some bizarre skill-check variants, and rules for Traits and Advantages/Disadvantages. Traits are basically quirks that give minor bonuses and penalties. The Advantage/Disadvantage system is one that is common in many RPGs, but this one is fit into the Feats subsystem. Basically, each disadvantage (called a Flaw) grants a feat. The Flaws are pretty hefty, but as they warn in the book, its pretty easy to find Flaws that will not impact you too much. This chapter also has Spelltouched Feats, which are basically feats that require that you have been affected by a certain kind of spell. You then gain certain power over some aspect of the spell that hit you. Stoneskin might give you the power to harden your skin, or lightning may give you the power to harmlessly conduct electricity. They are by far one of the most imaginative parts of the book, although they tried to hard to give them bonuses and obvious benefit, instead of flavor.
Chapter 4 has some of the best ideas in the book. One of my favorites, Defense, is in here. Although they don’t quite do it as I would have, it does mean that Defense has now joined the official ranks of the Open Gaming License, something it hadn’t before. The chapter also includes rules for converting armor to a AC bonus/Damage Soak system, which I like a lot. They weren’t very imaginative with it, though. Chain mail, for example, I would expect to give a high AC bonus, but terrible Soak, where as Platemail I would think, would not make it much harder to get hit… but would Soak most damage. They prefer equal breaks (i.e. Platemail is +4/4: +4 to AC and 4 points of damage reduction). This chapter also has the Wounds/Vitality system seen in other WotC games like Star Wars, but my final take on that system is that it is fantastically complex, and totally not worth it. Rules for facing and for hex-based (instead of square based) mapping are also here.
The Magic Chapter has pages and pages of spell foci that will help give your spells that special oomph. It also includes a spell-points system much like the one in the old Player’s Option series. Although it may be exciting to some, I have seen much better spell-point systems done. The chapter does have some wonderful suggestions for alternate spell-casting systems, from spells that recharge themselves depending on their level, to a system that exhausts the caster as he goes through his repertoire (one of my favorites… gives the old Raistlin feel). There is then the mandatory section on magic items that are better than all the old +5 vorpal sword pieces of crap. This section also has details on Item Familiars (its not a black cat… it’s a dagger!) and rules for Spell Incantations… minor spells that anyone can learn, but that have negative drawbacks if cast incorrectly.
Finally, the Campaign chapter has many of the social-based rules that have been in other WotC games like Wheel of Time. Reputation, Honor, Contacts, and a number of other ideas are in here, although they feel stiff. Reputation and Honor are both represented as bonuses that are inherent with level, an idea that seems overly rules-bound to me. Both are then, thankfully, given variants that allow them to be given out by the DM, but even then, the rules are pretty strict as far as hoe much and what can be given. This section also has an alternate alignment system (collecting Taint instead of having an alignment), Sanity loss, insanity types, and some alternate methods for giving out XP (none of which seem to address the issue of story-based games instead of killing-stuff based games).
SO…
All in all, Unearthed Arcana is a power-gamer’s wet dream. Its balance is on the high side for every one of the sub-systems that can be added into a game, even though it does a good job of keeping balance neutral in most of its replacement sub-systems (ones that would take the place of something else, instead of being something that could be added in to already existing games). Although no one sub-system would be egregiously over-powered, adding in two or more of these variants would quickly make for some ridiculously powerful characters.
The book also seems to lack soul. Much like some of the latter “Complete Whatever” books from TSR, it seems to have lots of suggested rules, but nothing tasty. I really wanted to look this over and thing “How Cool!”. I found little I wanted to steal, or build off of (bloodlines and spelltouched feats were by far the highest cool factor), and all in all it felt very flat.
On the other hand, there is a LOT in here. It is jam packed with tight pages of variants, ideas and suggestions, and the plethora of “Behind the Curtain” explanations of rules and rules suggestions was great. It gave me insight, at least into what they were thinking about when they put this book together.
As an afterthought... the art is terrible. It looks cartoony and has little of the flavor or strength found in the art of so many other WotC products. Layout and presentation are otherwise up to Wizards' high, full-color standards.
Ratings: Style: 2 (bad art and soulless feel) Substance: 4 (jam packed with rules, but without thought to balance)
