Unearthed Arcana (Advanced Dungeons \u0026 Dragons 1st Edition, Stock #2017) by E. Gary Gygax

Unearthed Arcana (Advanced Dungeons \u0026 Dragons 1st Edition, Stock #2017) Reviews

• 
  Matthew Iden

  Unearthed Arcana is a supplemental rule book to the 1st edition rules of the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game (RPG). Since it was penned by Gary Gygax, the book had the full authority of D&D's creator behind it. The rule changes and enhancements dip in and out of nearly every aspect of the game, from new armor types to spells and magic items heretofore unseen.
  
  I've always had mixed feelings about Unearthed Arcana.
  
  On one hand, it seemed to open the floodgates of the endless tinkering, options, and exceptions that--to me--started to erode the foundation of the game from a rules perspective and gave a rationlization to the kind of repeated commercialization that earned TSR, the publisher of D&D, the moniker T$R. Q3 profits looking weak? Sling out a Fighter's Compendium with a bunch of specialized rule sets and sub-classes. Who cares if a generic fighter, role-played to the hilt (ahem), could do the trick just as well.
  
  On the other hand, 1st Ed. D&D always needed a facelift. There were inevitable loopholes and gaping inequities (demi-human level advancement comes to mind) that were in sore need of fixing. Not to mention, well...tinkering can be fun. When every dorky boy between 12 and 20 had memorized the complete list of magic items and the areas of effect for each spell in the Players Handbook, it was kind of nice to toss a curveball once in a while and watch the expressions on everyone's faces.
  
  I suppose, despite my grumbling, Unearthed Arcana added more to the canon of D&D than it took away. And I'm glad Gary Gygax was the one to start the tinkering, if for no other reason than I think he did it best...and showed everyone else how to do it right.
• 
  Love of Hopeless Causes

  Great cover art by Easley. 1985: so excited to see this on the shelves. And again on the 2009 re-acquisition. Why would a grown man pay $7 for a used book full of obscure tables? Cheap thrills and nostalgia!
  
  At the time, it was a much-needed injection of excitement into the D&D-verse. The price stung on a kid's budget, but the value was eventually squeezed out. I knew all the spells in this edition. This might have been the peak for me, play wise. After this, I moved on to other game systems.
  
  Comeliness only muddied the Charisma waters and was quickly ignored.
  Six elf types, three halfling types, three dwarf types--you can see how the later handbooks grew out of this, but it was a welcome clarification for our group.
  
  The best part was the new character classes, most of which stuck in some fashion: Cavalier, Barbarian, Thief-Acrobat (first sanctioned Ninja prototype? Unless you count assassin.)
  
  Polearms finally explained to everyone's satisfaction. Glave-guisarme anyone? Too bad you can only carry one!
• 
  Timothy Boyd

  Sometimes the run-of-the-mill knowledge that everyone has access to is not enough. So here we get some nice obscure spells and such to torture, oops I mean, entertain your players with. Nice well written game reference. Recommended
• 
  HBalikov

  Here I am out of the closet. I not only play D&D (that's Dungeons and Dragons) but I have been playing AD&D for over 30 years. In that time, I have played a number of characters of many races (Elf, half-elf, Hobbit, Dwarf and human) and many classes (mage, fighter, thief, cleric, druid) and enjoyed them all.
  
  What I haven't done is progressed the way TSR would like me (or the fellow members of our gang) intended. We still play Version 1. Versions 2, 3 and 4 (at least) have come and gone. Version 1 still makes us happy. It's not overly complex and allows plenty of leeway for role-playing. One reason for that is the book currently on the table, Unearthed Arcana. It is both an explanation of some ambiguities and a compendium of additional material. I am told most of it previously appeared in Dungeons magazine.
  
  It is a welcome supplement and, therefore, I give it a high rating. Now, I feel better for having said that, Marcus.
• 
  Justin

  Not a cover to cover read but moved through it page by page. I had scoot in my youth but hadn’t seen it in forever. A friend was downsizing and gave it to me as a gift. A compendium of rules, with a few new character classes, spells, and equipment. The pole arm pages aren’t as big as we joked but there’s still a lot.
• 
  Rob

  Many 'purists' at the time whined endlessly about this volume, but I thought it brought an added depth to the game. On the minus side, it paved the way for the ungodly array of supplements that have bedeviled the 2nd edition of the game, so I suppose it was something of a Pandora's box, after all.
• 
  Chad

  This is by far my favorite 1st edition book as it introduced my all time favourite character class the Cavalier. I continued to use this in 2nd edition as I did not care for the Cavalier kit in the Complete Fighters Handbook.
• 
  David Winston

  Used this book so much it fell apart on me.
• 
  Michael

  This was a supplemental rules volume for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game (first edition), and as such was the last authored by the game’s creator before he was effectively ousted by his partners from the company. It consists mainly of slightly revised versions of rules that had been previously published in Dragon magazine, and so to someone like me, who already had a subscription to Dragon, didn’t seem worth the money at the time. Thus, I read it for the first time recently, having begun a bit of old-school gaming with friends in recent years.
  
  The first and most noticeable difference between this and earlier AD&D rules volumes is the lack of art. Most pages are text-only, and even when an illustration does appear it tends to be very small (less than 1/8 page) and incidental. This is particularly disappointing in cases of articles which had been nicely illustrated in Dragon, and probably reflects the difficulties that TSR was having with copyright and artists at the time. Most of the illustrations that do appear are unsigned, and the lack of work by Erol Otus, David Sutherland and David Trampier (Tramp) gives the volume a different feel from the earlier rules books. We do get Dragon luminaries like Jeff Easley, Jim Rostoff, James Holloway and Roger Raupp (alas no Tom Wham or Larry Elmore), so it does have a bit of nostalgia value for fans of Dragon.
  
  The text is divided into three sections, a Players Section, a Dungeon Masters Section, and several Appendices. The Players Section is the meatiest, and includes new character classes, new spells, a new ability (Comeliness), and several new weapons, as well as new rules on racial limitations, money, equipment, and armor, ad some minor adjustments to the class system. Probably the most useful parts are the new classes, which include the Barbarian, the Cavalier, and the Thief-Acrobat, and the new spells, which include the concept of Cantrips (now vastly expanded for newer editions) for the first time, and spells that allow magic users to armor themselves more effectively and clerics to, well, do more, with magic. The worst new addition was Comeliness, which simply muddied the waters of the least useful ability score, Charisma.
  
  The Dungeon Masters Section has about ten pages of rules clarifications, followed by the meat of the matter: new magic items. The most significant of the rules material involves acquisition of spells by magic users and illusionists and their spell books. These rules are useful, and if they had been accompanied by rules for generating spell books found in treasure troves (which really should be the number one way m-u’s gain new spells), they would have been great. The new magic items vary from silly (Murynd’s Spoon) to interesting (the various anything items) to valuable (oil of fiery burning) to powerful (the Ultimate Solution). Happily, anything truly game-destroying has been avoided this time around.
  
  The appendices are…a mixed bag. There are four of them. The first two give rules on weaponless and non-lethal combat which seem superfluous – simply adding a new set of complicated combat rules rather than adapting the existing system to a new circumstance. The third is a reprint of Roger Moore’s articles on the pantheons for the non-human PC races (dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and orcs – because 1st ed let you play half-orc characters). These are great, but vastly reduced in value by not reproducing any of the accompanying artwork or the “point of view” articles that gave so much excellent insight into the cultures of these creatures. And then there’s the fourth article. This is a bizarrely obsessive attempt at clarifying the different types of pole arms used in medieval Europe, written by Gary Gygax. One gets the impression that it was intended for some pseudo-scholarly journal for wargaming nerds, and was rejected, thus he had nowhere else to print it. It adds absolutely nothing to D&D play and actually seems to imply that the D&D combat rules are inadequate for these weapons, despite the fact that about half of them are listed in the AD&D Players Handbook. Gygax’s obsessiveness on the subject is at least shown here, and that probably explains their original inclusion, but really, it’s probably the silliest thing TSR ever printed.
  
  In all, I wouldn’t say my youthful games were missing that much for not purchasing this volume, but at least now I can find all of these articles in one place without having to dig through old issues of Dragon Magazine.
• 
  Joe B.

  This compiled many of the improvements and additions to the game that had been published gradually in Dragon magazine over the years. Some were very useful, but others, like comeliness, for example, ended up being overkill. Added some nice new subclasses and subraces, though. Cantrips were in Vogue for a little while, but then died off in popularity.
• 
  J.R. Handley

  I've read this several times through as I play a campaign with James M Ward over on the SciFi Writers Playing Old School D&D. It's the roadmap to one heck of a good time!
  
  
  https://www.twitch.tv/oldschooldnd
• 
  Michael

  Wonderful artifacts and magical items that would fill thousands of dungeons.
• 
  Juho Pohjalainen

  Double-specialization? Really?
• 
  EmmmettSaltsman

  Shows the little things you can do in D&D.
• 
  W.D. III

  This is my favorite rule supplement to AD&D. The new Elven races -- particularly the Drow -- are some of my favorite things in all the D&D universe. The Cavalier is my favorite class. The addition of specialization is a game changer. Highly recommended!
• 
  X-x!v''q

  This is almost vital for anyone wanting to play any edition.
  But I highly doubt you will find it!!! >XP
• 
  Ron

  One of the last of the 1st edition books.
• 
  Scott Wiener

  My friends and I played the hell out of this when we were younger.