Unearthed Arcana: A Hero’s First Steps

One complaint false claim levied at 4th Edition “back in the day” was that you could not start out as, say, “a farmer that picked up a sword to fight orcs”. Mind you nothing stopped you from stating that this was in your character’s history, and in 3rd Edition this could only be done if you used a NPC class (though I do recall optional rules for 0-level characters Unearthed Arcana). Anyway for those of you itching to play a stripped down character while at the same time waiting for validation, well…WotC will meet you half way with an Unearthed Arcana article.

Like normal characters you start out with a character background, and aside from choosing a race in step 3 you do not get a whole lot; you get one at-will and skill based on a power source, you choose from two sets of ability scores instead of point buy, the only feats you get have to come from your race, and you get a smattering of gear with the option of picking one extra thing that costs 5 gp or less. Since you do not get a class, each at-will has a role kicker that you can activate by spending an “experience token”, which you get after completing an encounter, making them similar to power points if you could stack them up between encounters.

This is an interesting set of optional rules that some people looking to try out characters that are less powerful than the norm, though “officially” they level up after a single adventure. It could be particularly fun for new players or groups that want to try and play out the pre-game events. If you are not sure, there is also an adventure centered on using these rules.

Unearthed Arcana: Fight or Flight

For the less blood-thirsty groups, this article provides some basic advice on how to resolve encounters using methods other than thorough decimation. It starts out by adding an extra step to the turn sequence, allowing each side to determine if it wants to keep fighting, negotiate, run, or give up. There’s no rules or checks involved, with the Dungeon Master just making a choice based on factors such as the opponents, location, and condition of everyone involved. Really, a lot of it is just common sense that most capable DMs are privvy to: cowardly monsters tend to run when blatantly outmatched, undead and constructs tend to fight to the death, and animals probably flee when bloodied–or retreat if they manage to snag a meal.

Honestly, I’m kind of glad that there isn’t a hard morale system. I’ve had annoying players try to abuse Intimidate in the past (and Diplomacy in 3rd Edition), and while my group wouldn’t necessarily try to exploit the rules, I’m sure there are groups with one or more players that would. That’s not to say that there isn’t any crunch. There’s a pair of skill challenges that help determine if a party successfully retreats from an encounter, and if they can shake pursuing opponents should they fail. The first relies on whatever skill you think is appropriate (and your DM agrees on), with the DC based on how close you are to a monster when you try to book it.  The second has each player make Acrobatics, Athletics, or Endurance checks, with DCs based on opposed Speed.

I really like the skill challenges, and will probably even use the “Encounter Status Check” in some capacity or other. Normally I play monster morale by ear, with cowardly monsters–and even those with some sense–legging it when it’s obvious that they’re losing. Non-intelligent monsters like undead or constructs, as well as those being compelled or particularly fanatic (such as angels or trained animals), usually fight until they’re slain. Since I still give players full XP for monsters that flee this has the added benefits of rewarding the heroes for their mercy not wasting time chasing every last straggler down, as well as ending fights that the heroes have obviously won.

Not a bad article, especially for players/groups that have become jaded to mindlessly slaughtering their foes because their hit points are the path of least resistance.

Unearthed Arcana: Strongholds

I own a copy of Stronghold Builders Guide, a book with a very narrow focus of helping you price and construct castles, keeps, towers, etc. The book is also very meticulous about materials, using magic to speed up the process, location (for materials), and magical capabilities, if any (such as flying or resistances). Admittedly, and also surprisingly, I had a chance during the longest 3rd Edition campaign I played to use it. To build a house. Well, to be fair, it was a two-story house with a basement.

After a few hours of planning and drawing, I submitted the blueprints and cost to the group. At only 3k, they were pleased with the idea of having an actual home, complete with alchemy lab, office, and basement-vault to hold our excess treasure (something that the doppelganger rogue insisted on). We kept playing that campaign for quite a while, doing the adventuring thing while it was being built. By the time we returned from one adventure involving a sunken ship guarded by a morkoth, it had been completed. Then we were chased out of town, and quit playing altogether soon after that.

Truly, DM giveth and DM taketh away.

Where Stronghold Builder’s Guide likes to focus on the tiniest details, this Unearthed Arcana article sets a price, some space restrictions, and lets you have at it. As it stands, the default stronghold is a generic building, which can be a castle, cathedral, monastery, tower, or whatever the players want within reason. Regardless, they all cost 25,000 gp, same as any level 15 magic item (or nightmare steed, as the author points out). This means that its an appropriate award as soon as 11th-level, fitting for a group of characters just making the paragon tier.

As for acquisition, the article proposes a few ways to “gain” a stronghold, generally through legitimate purchase, building your own, or killing the current owner and taking their stuff. If there are no easily dispatched villains around, and characters aren’t up for putting the adventure on hold for 1d10+5 years (assuming its not in an outrageous location), a ritual is provided to help the building process along so long as the necessary materials are available within a mile or so: Bigby’s construction crew is dependable, fast, and cost effective seeing as the cost for buying and using the ritual once totals 25,000 gp.

Personally, I’d have considered flipping it since it lets the character keep building castles at a fifth the cost…oh well.

I like that the appearance is handled in a very loose way. You’re given 300 squares of space to work with, along with rough guidelines and recommendations for room and hall sizing. There’s also an assortment of special rooms that you can add on for an extra cost that do specify sizes and benefits. An auditorium costs 520gp and 24 squares of space, but gives you a +1 to Bluff and Diplomacy. On the other hand, chapels and magical laboratories eat up a smaller amount of space (9 and 4 squares respectively) and grant scaling bonuses to Religion and Arcana. I find it funny that guards are listed as a “special room”. They cost as much as a magic item of whatever level you want, and make the stronghold immune to attacks by creatures of their level or lower.

Speaking of guards, the only mention of staff is that you get them along with the stronghold, and that their upkeep cost is factored into the stronghold cost. I’m not sure how much I like that, though it does help avoid bookkeeping. I would change this rule depending on how central to the campaign the stronghold is. I’ve liked the idea of doing a campaign where the players are in charge of a region of the land (like, the old kingdom of Nerath), and in that situation I might better develop NPCs and add in some more micromanaging…for the Heroic tier, at least. Otherwise, at best I’d probably just chalk off money each month to keep it simple.

Finally, if players want they can add traps to their stronghold, and cites wondrous lair items out of Adventure Vault 2 as being actually useful outside of nigh-unlootable treasure. Again, only really useful if the stronghold is going to be an adventure arc or campaign focus. The article follows with a level 20 ritual that lets you teleport your stronghold to wherever you are, even across planes, and a level 23 ritual that lets your stronghold fly. Forever. Finally, things wrap up with some advice on how to handle a stronghold as the players increase in level and invariably start to deal with threats that could arguably demolish their stronghold singlehandedly, regardless of the level of their guards.

I really like the abstractions here, even when it makes me write guards in italics. Its a simple, fast system for allowing players to focus on the look and feel of their stronghold without having to worry about micromanaging the cost of materials, their availability, the work crew, and so on and so forth. Sure, I had fun with it five or so years ago, but I can’t imagine anyone at my table wanting to put that kind of work into something that may or may not see much use (if at all). Even so, owning a stronghold isn’t for every party, and certainly not for every plot. At best, I see most strongholds falling into neglect once the players are on their way through paragon tier.

That being said, my current character is a tiefling cavalier with eyes set on founding a new kingdom for tieflings, so this will be a handy resource in the weeks to come.

The Awakened Psion

To my recollection, this is the second Unearthed Arcana article that’s been posted, which is a way for Dragon writers to pitch various houserules. Despite being in the magazine, they aren’t “official”, and as such cannot be used in RPGA events, nor will they be included in Character Builder. If you want to use them, you’re instructed to take it up with your DM.

This time we get psychic support, giving psionic characters the option to “delve” into a target’s mind as they make an attack. Delving can only be used with disciplines that target Will, and you must declare that you are doing so before the roll. If you hit, the discipline has all the normal effects, but also gives you an additional benefit that you can change each time. They range from being able to see what the target can, to the most likely actions that the target is going to take, to getting bits of information for the targets mind. You can also opt to perform “dangerous delving”, which nets you better benefits–gaining bonus damage, imposing an attack penalty, or preventing shifting–but at greater risk.

Since delving doesn’t cost a feat or power selection, it comes at a cost. When you delve and roll a natural 1 or 20, or get an odd number on a dangerous delve, you suffer from mental contamination and have to roll on a table of consequences. You might just be slightly dizzy and suffer no other ill effects, or be dazed and allow the target to see through your eyes, or (in the worst case scenario) have some of your own memories overwritten by the target’s in addition to briefly sharing the target’s goals, forfeiting control of your character to the DM for a turn (but the overwritten memories are permanent).

These acquired memories and personality traits lead to what is called dissonance, which causes you to take an assload of psychic damage whenever you act in accordance to a memory that you lost or against a personality trait that you’ve gained. To make matters worse they are cumulative, so if you end up acting against two or more memories and/or traits you’d take twice as much damage. This leads to the likely outcome that delve-abusers explode at some point when pause to consider menu items.

It’s good for players that like psionic characters and gambling their character’s sanity, but not so mkuch for players that get attached to characters or groups that constantly have long-term campaigns.