Unearthed Arcana

Unearthed Arcana opens with these words and no phrase has ever been more appropriate. This is not a standard core rule book, where the DM can just say yay or nay on whether or not they're using the material. Unearthed Arcana is not even trying to be that kind of book. Unearthed Arcana is a collection of dozens (hundreds, if you count like a marketer) optional rules, many of which conflict with one another. This book has something for everybody and everything for nobody. If you buy this book thinking your getting another normal core rule book, you're probably not going to like it. If you buy this book hoping to find individual rules to liven your campaign, you'll probably like it very much. Chapter 1 contains racial rules. These rules are the most niche oriented of the book. For instance, the first section involves environmental racial variants (like desert elves). Honestly, I don't think I'll ever use these unless I do an extremely theme oriented campaign (like a home grown Dark Sun). This is followed by elemental variants, which are even more niche-like (air elves). Then come bloodlines, which are fairly interesting, if you allow this sort of thing. Bloodlines allow you to introduce racial traits without saying a character is half something. If great great grandmama had strange thing for minotaurs or demons, these rules can help your character reflect that (and give the family something not to talk about). Finally, this chapter finishes with what most will think is its most useful section, the racial paragons. These are three-level prestige classes which grant bonuses that emulate the most stereotypical traits of a race (Stonecutting and constitution for dwarves, for example). Chapter 2 is all about the classes. This starts with variant classes, which are your base classes, tweaked somewhat. For instance, the cloistered cleric is a variant class that drops some of the cleric abilities (it lowers the hit die, for instance) to grant such abilities as Lore and the Knowledge domain. These are actually quite interesting. This is followed by an extensive section on variant specialist wizards and then rules for spontaneous divine casters then variant rules for various class abilities, such as turning undead and the barbarian's rage. Next is the prestige class section, but in this section, they take three base classes (Bard, Paladin and Ranger) and they present them as prestige classes. This will be particularly handy for games where, for instance, a person must petition to a holy order to become a paladin. Next come Gestalt characters, which are essentially characters that have two classes at once (as opposed to multi-classing) for games where there aren't enough players to cover all the class bases (are you starting to see why no one can use all these rules at once?). Finally come the generic classes, which are a way to step away from all the class complexity and get down to four very basic choices. Wow. Seems like a lot doe

Ok, its time to start a new campaign and I've played everything there is to play (aside from the myriad of prestige classes that don't interest me). What am I going to play you ask yourself for hours. If you have ever had this problem, like me, probably because you've been playing D & D for far too long, this book is your savior, plain and simple. Back in second edition there was a game called Player's Option, if you recall, and it gave you a good deal of freedom to customize your character. This book goes well beyond that. Its actually quite interesting. There are little tweaks for all sorts of races due to climate or elementally based races. Follow this up with a lot of variants for classes which are basically swapping a few things in and out in most cases, sometimes losing a trait from one class and gaining another, while some are new. In my opinion, this adds a lot more depth to the game because if you do want to play one of the 10,000 prestige classes, it gives you more than one avenue to get to them. If you do not like prestige classes, then this gives you more options than the dozen or so base classes that currently exist. I would particularly recommend this if you're fond of playing Specialist Wizards (in which case this is a MUST), Barbarians, Monks, or have ever wanted to see a quality representation of an "Anti-paladin." This may be the section of the book you most commonly use, and that would be mostly at character creation. There are some feats, which are so-so on the usefulness scale but are just so very interesting and characterful. Then, traits to make your character more attuned to how you envision his personality, and flaws to give him special vulnerabilities (and of course there is a benefit to them as well). Its an interesting section to say the least but after that you get into some very wild and, indeed, very fun options, including a variant on weapon proficiency based on weapon groups, variants on armor systems, D & D without levels, and even D & D without hit-points. All I can say is, despite how crazy that sounds, someone obviously put a good deal of thought into it since it is at least mostly viable. Basically, if you're bored with D & D sometimes, this book is curry powder. It would DEFINITELY spice things up again.

This book is excellent for all spellcasters, whether its druids, wizards, clerics or sorcerers its a great book for all. Don't listen to the people who say its useless, this is an awesome book with all sorts of variants, tips for character building, and prestiege classes. There are many tips for specialized wizards. For you DM's out there, there's rules about insanity, drug addiction, and mental disorders for when you get pissed off at your players. There's also some interesting variants for running campaigns if you don't like some of the things in the DM's guide. Personally I liked the "Recharge Magic" section. It is a cure for the wizard not being able to cast spontaneously , while still keeping his wide selection of spells. For those bored with the common races there are plenty of different races, such as desert elf and paragon dwarf. With 9 pages of nothing but metamagic components(for more powerful spell abillities)its hard to ignore I think this book is a must have for all spellcasters and DMs alike.With so many variants its hard not to love the book.

Let me start out by saying: this was a great book. I'm really glad WotC decided to publish it.The book cut up into 6 main parts:Races. This section was pretty well done. It offeres subraces for most of the standard PHB races for different environments and even some examples of planar-bases races (such as the Fire elf or the Water halfling). They also introduce a system that essentially lets you play creatures with a LA from ECL 1 on. There are a fair number of Bloodlines in this chapter, covering everything from the Doppleganger to the Dragons. What I think is particulary nice about the bloodlines is that there are varrying strengths (so a character with a celestial for a grandfather and another with a celestial for a great great great great grandfather arn't necesarily gonna have the same signs).Classes. Variants galore. There is so much awesome stuff packed in this (relatively short) chapter that I just couldn't do it justice here. Every core class is covered, and many posible class feature changes are printed as well. And yes, there *are* Prestige Class versions of the Bard, Ranger, and Paladin (as well as a Chaotic Good paladin!). But really, you'd have to read this yourself to get the whole picture.Characters. The [Spelltouched] feat is introduced (essentially, you can take a feat to gain powers related to a spell that has been cast on you at some point), as are different skill systems (and an entierly new system for Craft). Traits (little feat-like abilities that are taken primarily at 1st level and offer a roughly equal positive and negative bonuses) and Flaws (major negatives that you can take in exchange for an extra feat at first level) are in this chapter, and a new system for weapon proficiancy (weapon groups) is also here. At the end of it are a bunch of tables that you can roll for inspiration about your character's background.Adventuring. There are a boatload of varient rules here, some about armor (one system has Armor provide less AC in exchange for some DR; another has armor convert lethal damage into nonlethal; and yet another provides a system of a level-based Defense bonus, reminiscent of d20 Modern, as is much of this charpter. Example: Action Points). There are roughly 4 Alternate Hit Point systems, some better fitted for low magic campaigns than standard DnD. There's even a section about Combat Facing, although personally I think that's much more complicated than necessary.Magic. Like the Classes chapter, this section is so good that it's probably wisest just to see it for yourself. Spell Points (See: Psionics), Legendary Weapons, Summon Mosnter variants, Item Familiars, a long list of components for spells that you can use to give them metamagics without increaseing their spell slot level, and even Incantations can be found in this chapter.Campaigns. This section is probably most interesting to DMs since the majority of it is a major component to add to a campaign. Short list: Reputation, Honor Point