Unearthed Arcana

[emirikol]

Am I the only guy who feels that the stuff in UA looks a lot like material from a certain game that some of us may or may not have playtested? Is WotC allowed to steal all of those game concepts wholesale from other companies and stick them in their book? Anyways...

Speaking of, has anybody tried the GESTALT character concept for the Conan RPG classes yet?

jh

 

[VincentDarlage]

Me and my players noticed how much the content from Unearthed Arcana looked like content from Conan. It rather bothered me a bit, though I am not sure why. Conan the Role-Playing Game still has the best magic system on the planet, though.

 

[emirikol]

Ah ha! I knew I wasn't the only one!

Jay Hafner

 

[Anonymous]

Does it really come as a surprise?

When they reviewed the Psionic Handbook, they stated that it was based both on feedback from players AND (more importantly) on what other companies had published on the subject.

When Kenzer & Co (Kingdoms of Kalamar) was ready to publish its Arms & Equipment guide, the guys at WotC delayed it long enough for their own guide to be published first.

And so on... :roll:

I bet some people at WotC must be chewing their keyboard whenever they think of OGL and the d20 license :twisted:

 

[Shonuff]

I just recently picked up UA and was wondering what specifically you are referring to. In other words, what do you see in there that you think is very similar to Conan?

Just curious.

 

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind many of the material there was actually used in the Star Wars revised d20 rulebook, (which IMO is the best representation of the d20 system. The game is just nbeautiful); including stuff like armor providing damage reduction, the vp/wp system, etc etc.

 

[argo]

Point 1: many of the concepts in Conan (armor as DR, class bonuses to Defence) are not exactly new. :roll: Though I'll gladly admit that Mongoose has implemented those concepts better than anyone previous.

Point 2: hey man, thats the beauty of the OGL! :lol: Why shouldn't WotC benefit from it just as much as Mongoose, Kenzer, or AEG does? As far as I'm concerned it can only make my game better. The OGL is a wonderful thing. 8)

 

[urdinaran]

Even the Midnight Campaign setting (Fantasy Flight Games), toned down magic in the world and upped combat a bit. It also has a Mana/spell point system, which IMHO is the way to go. The problem with that kind of system is breaking the old timers of their habits. Probably gonna need counselors for all those Wizard/Sorcerer players.... Huh? no magic missile??? (wimper)

 

[Zak Arntson]

I haven't read the UA rules, but didn't Unearthed Arcana come out way before Conan?

Also, as far as settings go, UA seems pretty different. Or are you thinking of system as opposed to setting?

 

[Shonuff]

There is Arcana Unearthed which is a setting and Unearthed Arcana which is a rules book. It can get confusing.

The first question hinted that the rules in Unearthed Arcana took from Conan (I am assuming the concepts of class defense bonus, armor as DR instead of adding to AC, etc.). However, as Argo and Xex pointed out, these concepts have been out for years now and were printed in Star Wars, Spycraft, and other games. Unearthed Arcana (as opposed to Arcana Unearthed - the setting), simply put all of these ideas together in one book for players to pick and choose from if they wanted more rules options in their games.

As for Conan doing these rules better than any other system to date, well . . . I have not personally reached that conclusion yet. I'm interested to see what the revised book has to say regarding Defense Values and some other issues. However the combat maneuvers, new feats, etc. are nice indeed. Conan has so many good things going for it.

 

[Golem2176]

There is Arcana Unearthed which is a setting and Unearthed Arcana which is a rules book. It can get confusing.

And there is also Urban Arcana, the D20 Modern Campaign book.

 

[Shonuff]

Very true - Urban Arcana. All these U's and Arcana's can confuse a guy

I've actually got that one as well as Unearthed Arcana. I do not own Arcana Unearthed.

Anyway - I think the setting Arcana Unearthed (written by M. Cook I think) came out just before the release of DnD 3.5. I believe Arcana Unearthed still uses rules 3.0.

Unearthed Arcana the rules book came out just a while ago, but some of its content has been out for years.

 

[Golem2176]

I've got all three.

 

[Golem2176]

Arcana Unearthed was released a little before 3.5, but because Monte is (was ?) an employee of WotC he had the inside info to make Arcana Unearthed 3.5 compliant.

 

[Golem2176]

On another note, what happens if another third party company publishes a supplement know as Unknown Arcana? Boy, it sure would make things really confusing!

 

[Anonymous]

lol golem.

But hey, conan has many original stuff. For instance, the spell system is way better than dnd. I still dislike the level requirements for some spells...blood would have been the way to go. For instance, even a lvl 1 scholar should be able to summon a demon lord, but to do so he would have to sacrifice his daughter, wife, among others to make up for his lack of mental experiance/power/training.

But on the whole the magik sys in conan is great, the spells are very flavorful. As well, a pure sorceror in conan can still kick butt in melee combat. And while he can't take hits that well, (no armor), that fine, since the massive damage rules kind of bring that into line for all classes.

Oh and by the way, someone mentioned midnight. Is the spell system in it spell point based? Really? Thats interesting. Could you tell me more?

 

[Yokiboy]

Just to be a pain in the rear, I'm a huge fan of Unknown Armies, which I always think people are discussing when I see the "UA" abbrevation now associated with Unearthed Arcana.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming,

Yokiboy