What do you all think of Arcana Unleased?

I got the physical version at my local game store

Art is alright
Neat alt cover, with the texture and everything
Fun to read
Dueling Ground is a cool spell, its good its a Ritual one. Only improvement options would be A. making the amount of creatures equal to your Spellcasting Mod, B. Having the damage be like Custard damage from TWBTW, but only for the creatures inside (still apply resistance, vulnerability, and immunity as well as other effects), and C. Making it so the spell doesn't end when someone else goes into the Sphere, but they don't deal the Custard damage equivalent.
Vestige Patron for Warlock is a neat concept
Boon of Magic School Mastery is like Magic Initiate, but for schools of magic. Also, REPEATABLE BOON!!!
Boon of the Iron Mind kind of removes the purpose of some class features, but its still great! Maybe a bit too powerful.

I thought Venger was supposed to be super-duper powerful, but he's only CR 17. His Fiendish Restoration is probably the only reason he lives.
Detonate is just a worse Meteor Swarm, only useful if the first target is bad at Con saves but good at Dex saves, if you need it to be in a smaller area, or if you are a Warlock.
Arcane Warrior fighting style seems a bit underpowered, considering there are some Fighting Styles that increase AC, lower enemy damage, and more, combined with the fact that if you want to cast spells as a Fighter, you can just select Arcane Warrior.

I went into Arcana Unleashed with very low expectations--the most anticipated crunch, the subclasses, are just revamps of 5.0e. But I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the book, especially the flavor elements. Overall, I'd call it a mixed bag: solid on atmosphere, underwhelming on mechanical innovation.

My advice? Wait for the price to drop unless you have a player who's desperate for those revised wizard subclasses. Otherwise, you might want to borrow first and see if the flavor alone justifies the cost.

PS The typo in the thread title had me thinking that there was magic available to rent.

There was a typo?

Anyways, I already have the book

the second after I said this I realized you give advice to others

They might need to cram some more intrusive ads onto their site--I could almost read the content!

Magic Connoisseur & the ______ Adept feats are prolly going to be popular with the Sorc & 2 half-casters in my group (Magic Initiate has been a popular Origin Feat choice.)

Too bad the evolving magic items are so under-baked--I've largely been unimpressed w/ pretty much all of them, except the Dragon's Hoard Weapons & Vessel...

I love it. The only thing I was really looking forward to were the subclasses, but the backgrounds and feats exceeded my expectations, especially the X Adept and all the Familiar stuff.

Speaking of which, the standout spell for me was Battle Familiar, but there's a number of other goodies in that space too, especially the new druid summons.

I like it and my players are already using it. It is a good addition.

The Way of the Mystic Arts seems kind of broken but I'm soon going to find out how much so because the Monk in the party instantly subclassed into it. They just hit level three in the campaign when I picked up the book.

Potion of Tirelessness is going to be my next WMD as an Alchemist. I think I figured out a way to use it for chemical warfare but it is going to be a WMD and not  something that can target just one person. So, it will be good for breaking a city during a siege and stuff like that but not in a boss fight.

The leveling enchanted weapons are what I enjoy the most. The fighter in my campaign named their Greatsword when they made their character and now I have a way to level it up so it remains useful and important to them as "their sword" since they went through the effort of naming it and all that. It is a cool addition.

The Familiar stuff is cool too. Not as broken as I thought it would be either but totally useful.

I think WotC is doing a fantastic job of splitting a full book into two half-books so people can pay double what they ought to.

I like the Seer Apprentice background, when I pair that background with a cleric character who has the Apocalypse domain, I get a "doom and gloom" style of character. 

Quote from Trekari >>

I think WotC is doing a fantastic job of splitting a full book into two half-books so people can pay double what they ought to.

 That’s only true if you buy both halves. Some of us have no interest in a campaign, so it’s a money saver not having to pay for parts of a book we won’t use.

I think there is a lot of power creep in the book, the feats, sub classes some of the spells(though the level 9 detonate spell is laughably bad).  Though some of it is fine, and really cool like that soul lamp spell that i don't remember the name of, might be a bit underpowered even but its really cool. I will be taking my time determining what i let into my games. 

Quote from c1arla11 >>

They might need to cram some more intrusive ads onto their site--I could almost read the content!

 

 
What ads?

Whether using my account with a sub or my test account that has no sub, no matter what device (laptop, pc, phone, tablet, xbox one), no matter what browser (firefox, chrome, edge, opera gx), no matter what vpns (including none), and with no browser extensions...

And I have never once seen an ad on here, other than the notification banner on occasion, in the several years I've been coming to this site (near daily). 

---

As for the book I quite enjoyed it. The undead familiar of Necromancers, the oomph given to Conjuror summons, the Familiar feats, and the Vestige warlock really stand out. Speaking of Necromancers, I love the whole idea of using you zombie horde as bombs - very interesting and could be fun. 

Definitely worth the money, in my opinion. And I say that as somebody who had to save for months due to very limited income. 

I don't really like the Adept feats. Evocation Adept especially powercreeps and homogenizes the game by giving cheap access to some of the strongest spells on the wizard spell list. I'm planning on banning that one at my table.

Battle Familiar is probably also overtuned as a non-concentration summon spell.

I think that feedback is going to be muddied again by the usual accusations of power creep, resulting in the most recent UAs:Great species, a good path, but functional-to-crappy subclasses seemingly designed to curb loud vociferous power creep complaints...using "balance" as a pretext.

Quote from deathpacito01 >>

I don't really like the Adept feats. Evocation Adept especially powercreeps and homogenizes the game by giving cheap access to some of the strongest spells on the wizard spell list. I'm planning on banning that one at my table.

Battle Familiar is probably also overtuned as a non-concentration summon spell.

Agreed on the adept feats and they sometimes come with a solid extra, enchantment spells not requiring any components is really good if you are going that route. 

yeah battle familiar is basically identical to summon beast but without concentration. Cast it as a 4th level spell and you get 2 free attacks doing 1d8+7 on a flyby so it rarely gets hit. It is so over the top I wonder if not having concentration is a misprint or something. And on a conjurer from the same book who can have two summons. But even on other casters you are likely looking with another summon spell 4 attacks a round at 1d8+7 plus the casters cantrip or whatever other spell they want to blast with. i think martials will get outpaced fast with that. 

In another thread someone said its not great for a warlock with pact of the chain, but pact of the chain requires bonus actions and or attacks to get the familiar to attack. Freeing that up while still having pact of the blade or eldritch blast going is pretty insane. Now I would not want to drop another spell on another summon in that case outside a boss fight as you only get 2 spells for a long time as a warlock, but no concentration for an hour long combat summon is just absurd. And with the new vestige warlock you will be getting a lot of attacks. 

And it will just be a pain in the ass when people start having multiple summons on the field. Isn't that why they changed the conjure spells. 

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

I think that feedback is going to be muddied again by the usual accusations of power creep, resulting in the most recent UAs:Great species, a good path, but functional-to-crappy subclasses seemingly designed to curb loud vociferous power creep complaints...using "balance" as a pretext.

There is power creep and a lot of it. You may like or want power creep but I don't think its good for feedback to pretend its not there. 

Spellcasting power creep seems to be a theme in 5.5: circle casting in the Forgotten Realms book, dragonmarks in the Eberron one, and now this.

Also, loss of class identity is a concern when every spellcaster can access some of the best spells in the game. Incidentally (or intentionally), Mike Mearls recently posted a video about how he regrets not making the spell lists more distinct in 5e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmRv4XvDF6M