Hey there adventurers. Listen, I know all my articles here are tagged “comedy” so it’s hard to take me seriously. But hear me out: I’d really like to hop on board this whole “Unearthed Arcana” thing and reinstate things that essentially ruin the game.
“But Dan,” you might say, “I am playing this game for enjoyment, not punishment!”
To this I say two things:
1) Have you never played a Dark Souls game? Well, I have, and according to the people who make those games, fun is supposed to hurt sometimes. I’m just following their lead, man.
2) Please never take anything you read on the internet literally.
Now, that said, here are some horrible things that are law again, in the name of Unearthed Arcana!
True Encumbrance
Players have not been taking enough advantage of the handy rule of encumbrance, a rule designed to make you do a lengthy and valuable form of pretend math while everyone else is waiting to go kill something. Who looks smart now? Not you murderers, no, the guy counting how much all of bat guano weighs is the cool guy!
In order to hold the group accountable, you must also exercise to maintain your encumbrance maximum in a realistic fashion. Meaning you must lift weights and do cardio approximately 6 hours a day.
Bonus encumbrance can be awarded to any creature who joins a local gym for 300 gp a month, but then these creatures cannot leave the immediate area and go on a vacation or “adventure” or they will lose their bonus. Because nobody actually uses hotel gyms when they’re travelling. Gross.
Everyone Gets Web
Also, web is always a cantrip.
It’s just too fun to use, and we were holding you back.
Don’t forget to set it on fire after you cast it on something.
Two Hair Options For Characters: Mullets Or Perms
We collected data on every type of haircut in all of our original illustrations over the years, and the only conclusion was clear. These are the only haircuts a hero could want.
Either your character has some kind of fantasy hair spray holding up an insane pile of hair, or they’ve got business in the front and a party in the back.
There are only two exceptions.
Werewolves can have one of these two types of haircut on top of their head and the other type elsewhere on their body.
Also if you succeed on a DC 76 Charisma check, you can get a He-Man pageboy haircut from a barber, if your Dungeon Master allows there to be a barber.
All Warforged Look Like The Weird Robots From Expedition To Barrier Peaks
You know, like shop vacs with dangly tube arms. You’ll get used to it.
Aboleths Look Like Dustbusters Again
Speaking of vacuum cleaners, remember when an aboleth looked a lot less like terrifying beings from the Far Realm and more like a shovel?
Well, one time one of us (the author of this piece) woke up in the middle of the night and when he went to the bathroom he saw a dustbuster in the middle of the kitchen floor and it looked like an aboleth that he saw in a book, and so he screamed and ran into the front yard at 2AM.
Pretty scary, right?
We agree. Look at that illustration of the fifth edition aboleth. Too cute!
So aboleths once again look the way they were always meant to look, like a sturgeon with pipe cleaners stuck to it. You’re welcome.
THAC0 Is Back, Baby
We’re not telling you how it works. You have to go buy a copy of the Second Edition Player's Handbook and figure it out yourself. Sorry. Them’s the brakes, kid.
Barbarians Can’t Wear Shirts, Only Leather Straps
Have you seen the old art of these guys? No shirts, just chunks of leather that sort of look functional but would actually just be really itchy. If you’re feeling modest that’s okay, remember what we said about not taking this literally! Just wear 300 pounds of leather straps so no skin is showing. Also you are encumbered now.
Also, once a day you have to bathe and have use a short rest to take the straps off because they got gross. It’s leather, you have to take care of it.
This should also balance the player-created tradition of never letting druids wear shirts. According to a formal poll we conducted at a few parties, nobody has let a druid wear a shirt since 1997.
You Need Diamond Dust To Have A Long Rest
To be more specific, you need 500 gp worth of diamond dust. This is meant to counterbalance long rests, an over-powered mechanic that players have been abusing for a long time.
Paladins Can’t Smite Anymore
We decided it was a bad idea.
All Coins Are Replaced With Diamonds
We’ve been playtesting and it turns out we nerfed long rests too hard.
So all cp, sp, gp, and pp are now replaced with fist-sized diamonds.
We don’t exactly have time to playtest this new balance but we feel pretty good about this one, because diamonds are nice to look at.
Look at the coins in the accompanying illustration.
Are they even coins? Too many shapes!
Diamonds will bring characters together, and force them to learn to mend clothes when the sharp edges of them shred all of their purses.
You First Have To Be Level 20 In Three Other Classes To Be A Bard
First Edition made it very clear that learning to become a singer-songwriter should be the most arduous, difficult, and unpleasant character choice a player could make.
But perhaps more importantly, the writer of this piece lives in Los Angeles, California and has seen his share of reality TV programming. And let the writer of this piece tell you, people should be putting a lot more time into this craft!
So unless you slay Vecna, The King Who Crawls, Tiamat, that formless evil thing from the first arc of The Adventure Zone, and maybe a living moon with a big halberd the size of a mountain or something, you don’t have enough experience points to become a bard. The way your parents did it. Wait, why are you saying “Okay boomer” in the comments?
Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcast, a stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.
well, no way i'd be playing a game with this shit, honestly only good one of these in my opinion is making web a cantrip
I think what you're describing here is 3rd degree fun:
Sounds like a form of masochism, but instead of leaving visible scars these people love to torture themselves mentally
Understanding the THAC0 matrix and Armor Class (from AC -10 up to AC 10) were most basic of skills that noob players had to be capable of, in order to take a seat at the table.
And may the sweet baby Jesus help you if you were a DM who was incapable of calculating THAC0 on the fly.
Man, I just don't think these posts are funny at all. It's the type of jokes I would come up with when I was in 6th grade. I wish I could somehow block them from showing up on my dndbeyond homepage... literally 30% of the front page are these "comedy" posts every time I visit the site. :(
At this point I think that the people that don’t like these posts are just so bursting with joy and humor that they have no need for Dan. I, fortunately, am not one of those people
THAC0 is back woohoo finally
Okay boomer
Having played with that system, it broke *everyone's* brain.
Still prefer it (THAC0) to this one (5th), this one has almost no progression. But that's the problem with fifth, it's too simplified.
oh, yeah? while wait until you see my first article, "how fifth edition ruined everything by making the game fun"!
OK boomer
Horsepoop.
Thac0 (not THAC0), was a single table that had FAR less progression than 5e for anyone who wasn't on the 1/level table. Even Clerics 2/3 levels was only average, because they couldn't use swords! A Magic-User/Mage at level 8 got a whopping 18 for their Thac0 while a Fighter was on 13.
Hooray, what a lucky Fighter getting progression while the Magic User gets NOTHING to advance themselves. Oh, and since abilities also said the Fighter could have an exceptional strength we could be looking at +3/+6 for an 18/00 meaning they are equivalent to Thac0 10.. while the Mage, who EASILY ran out of spells, was facing a 6 point deficit.
5e is not simplified, it's balanced.
Really? Balanced? Well yeah if you call bland progression balanced sure. I played 2nd for ages and if you wanted to go melee with a single class mage it was your funeral. Mages where not meant to go toe to toe. But it seems people want everything to be the same. Bland as in priests all have the same spheres, well they don't exist anymore so they get some speciality powers same like in 2nd. 5th is a good game for new players and people who seam to have a Rick and Morty obsession.
Can you show me on the Paralyze/Poison/Death Magic Saving Throw Chart where the bad THACØ hurt you?
I loved the drop of OK BOOMER, and I 100 percent agree. Also, what do you have against paladins?
Now if you want to gripe about 2e systems that made no sense, the save chart should be a high priority.
Paladins Can’t Smite Anymore
We decided it was a bad idea.
this reallycaught me off guard, i nearly choked, holy shiz
I am a 1st edition player, and have DMed two campaigns: One in 1st edition, one in 5th edition.
THAC0? Been there. Just imagine what happened when I introduced the characters to an ant colony, and rolled that they faced 36 ants. Then imagine when the players charmed the ants and they suddenly joined them in fighting a trio of ankegs. Yeah. And I had to deal with THAC0. Most of the ants were one-hit kills, but one ant survived a blow, and finished off two of the three ankegs, and somehow didn't die. The legend we are speaking of is known as Ant 28, and will go down in history as one of the greatest warriors of all time. That session will also go down in history as why my players started leaving the table as soon as I said "combat table".
As for Bards, I'm going to guess there was nobody who ever actually went through that tedious process. Second Edition didn't change much, but they did do bards better.
The 20 level in other classes references 1st edition. You can find the article at the following link by going to page 118:
https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons%20&%20Dragons/1st%20Edition%20(ODD,%20D&D%20Basic,%20AD&D)/1st%20Edition/Core/Player%27s%20Handbook%20(Idol%20Cover).pdf.
By the way, the cover of the 1st Edition Player's Handbook is referenced in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes several times during the bestiary. In the 5th Edition DM's guide, the dedicated player will find a dungeon in the maps section identical to a 1st edition DM's guide map.